Research issues in implementing remote presence in teleoperator control

The concept of remote presence in telemanipulation is presented. A conceptual design of a prototype teleoperator system incorporating remote presence is described. The design is presented in functional terms, sensor, display, and control subsystem. An intermediate environment, in which the human operator is made to feel present, is explicated. The intermediate environment differs from the task environment due to the quantity and type of information presented to an operator and due to scaling factors protecting the operator from the hazards of the task environment. Potential benefits of remote presence systems, both for manipulation and for the study of human cognition and preception are discussed

Ovarian and cervical cancer awareness: development of two validated measurement tools.

The aim of the study was to develop and validate measures of awareness of symptoms and risk factors for ovarian and cervical cancer (Ovarian and Cervical Cancer Awareness Measures)

Design of a cooperative problem-solving system for enroute flight planning: An empirical study of its use by airline dispatchers

In a previous report, an empirical study of 30 pilots using the Flight Planning Testbed was reported. An identical experiment using the Flight Planning Testbed (FPT), except that 27 airline dispatchers were studied, is described. Five general questions were addressed in this study: (1) under what circumstances do the introduction of computer-generated suggestions (flight plans) influence the planning behavior of dispatchers (either in a beneficial or adverse manner); (2) what is the nature of such influences (i.e., how are the person's cognitive processes changed); (3) how beneficial are the general design concepts underlying FPT (use of a graphical interface, embedding graphics in a spreadsheet, etc.); (4) how effective are the specific implementation decisions made in realizing these general design concepts; and (5) how effectively do dispatchers evaluate situations requiring replanning, and how effectively do they identify appropriate solutions to these situations

Examining HIV and Tuberculosis Using a Decision Support Systems Computer Simulation Model: The Case of the Russian Federation

The aim of this paper is to describe the development and use of a computer simulation model that can be used as a Decision Support System (DSS) to tackle the critical public health issues of the chronic diseases, HIV and HIV related Tuberculosis in the Russian Federation. The model was developed to enable health officials and decision makers to determine the impact of policies to control the chronic diseases spread in an area of Russia. This area, like many others in Russia and elsewhere, have recently witnessed an explosion of HIV infections and a worrying spread of the Multi Drug Resistant form of Tuberculosis (MDRTB). The conclusions drawn is that a high population coverage with Highly Active Anti Retroviral Treatment (HAART) (75% or higher), allied with high MDRTB cure rates, reduces cumulative deaths by 60%, with limited impact below this level. The contributions that this research offers are the development of a simulation model that can be applied as a DSS by public health officials and managers in order to inform policy making. By doing so, ways of best controlling the spread of HIV and MDRTB and reduce the mortality rate from these serious public health threats is provided

Additive manufacturing technology and its implementation in construction as an eco-innovative solution

Additive manufacturing (AM) of construction materials has been one of the emerging advanced technologies that aim to minimise the supply chain in the construction industry through autonomous production of building components directly from digital models without human intervention and complicated formworks. However, technical challenges needs to be addressed for the industrial implementation of AM, e.g. materials formulation standardization, and interfacial bonding quality between the deposited layers amongst others. AM as one of the most highlighted key enabling technologies has the potential to create disruptive solutions, the key for its successful implementation is multidisciplinary effort in synergy involving materials science, architecture/design, computation, and robotics. There are crucial links between the material design formulations and the printing system for the manufacturing of the complex 3D geometries. Understanding and optimising the mix design for fresh rheology of materials and sufficient adhesion/cohesion of interface can allow the incorporation of complexity in the geometry

Assessing mobile phone use by pregnant women in Nigeria: a capability perspective

This paper explores the use of mobile phones to access maternal health care in sub‐Saharan Africa and whether it enhances capability and human development. Analysing focus groups and interviews on mobile phone uses by pregnant women in Nigeria based on the Technology Augmented Capability Approach, we show that the mobile phone as a technical object facilitates three broad capabilities for pregnant women, namely, (a) enhances their voice and choice to push for health care quality, (b) enhances their access to emergency services while maintaining entrepreneurial activities, and (c) enhances their health literacy and social connectedness. However, personal, social, and environmental factors influence the conversion of the use of the mobile phone into capabilities by the pregnant women

The Behaviour Change Technique Ontology: Transforming the Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy v1 [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]

BACKGROUND: The Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy v1 (BCTTv1) specifies the potentially active content of behaviour change interventions. Evaluation of BCTTv1 showed the need to extend it into a formal ontology, improve its labels and definitions, add BCTs and subdivide existing BCTs. We aimed to develop a Behaviour Change Technique Ontology (BCTO) that would meet these needs. METHODS: The BCTO was developed by: (1) collating and synthesising feedback from multiple sources; (2) extracting information from published studies and classification systems; (3) multiple iterations of reviewing and refining entities, and their labels, definitions and relationships; (4) refining the ontology via expert stakeholder review of its comprehensiveness and clarity; (5) testing whether researchers could reliably apply the ontology to identify BCTs in intervention reports; and (6) making it available online and creating a machine-readable version. RESULTS: Initially there were 282 proposed changes to BCTTv1. Following first-round review, 19 BCTs were split into two or more BCTs, 27 new BCTs were added and 26 BCTs were moved into a different group, giving 161 BCTs hierarchically organised into 12 logically defined higher-level groups in up to five hierarchical levels. Following expert stakeholder review, the refined ontology had 247 BCTs hierarchically organised into 20 higher-level groups. Independent annotations of intervention evaluation reports by researchers familiar and unfamiliar with the ontology resulted in good levels of inter-rater reliability (0.82 and 0.79, respectively). Following revision informed by this exercise, 34 BCTs were added, resulting in a final version of the BCTO containing 281 BCTs organised into 20 higher-level groups over five hierarchical levels. DISCUSSION: The BCT Ontology provides a standard terminology and comprehensive classification system for the content of behaviour change interventions that can be reliably used to describe interventions

Moral wrongs, disadvantages, and disability: a critique of critical disability studies

Critical disability studies (CDS) has emerged as an approach to the study of disability over the last decade or so and has sought to present a challenge to the predominantly materialist line found in the more conventional disability studies approaches. In much the same way that the original development of the social model resulted in a necessary correction to the overly individualized accounts of disability that prevailed in much of the interpretive accounts which then dominated medical sociology, so too has CDS challenged the materialist line of disability studies. In this paper we review the ideas behind this development and analyse and critique some of its key ideas. The paper starts with a brief overview of the main theorists and approaches contained within CDS and then moves on to normative issues; namely, to the ethical and political applicability of CDS