Co-designing an Embodied e-Coach With Older Adults: The Tangible Coach Journey

This article describes a tangible interface for an e-coach, co-designed in four countries to meet older adults' needs and expectations. The aim of this device is to coach the user by giving recommendations, personalized tasks and to build empathy through vocal, visual, and physical interaction. Through our co-design process, we collected insights that helped identifying requirements for the physical design, the interaction design and the privacy and data control. In the first phase, we collected users' needs and expectations through several workshops. Requirements were then transformed into three design concepts that were rated and commented by our target users. The final design was implemented and tested in three countries. We discussed the results and the open challenges for the design of physical e-coaches for older adults. To encourage further developments in this field, we released the research outputs of this design process in an open-source repository

Analisi dell’attività quinquennale del Servizio di Pronta Reperibilità Endoscopica dell’Azienda Policlinico “Umberto I” dell’Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”

Gli Autori hanno ritenuto utile rivedere l’esperienza operativa degli anni dal 2001 al 2005. La formulazione della diagnosi e la scelta terapeutica adeguata hanno consentito di ridurre i tempi e di conseguenza i costi di degenza del paziente. Le emergenze endoscopiche sono rappresentate, nella maggior parte dei casi, da sanguinamenti del tratto digestivo superiore e inferiore, seguite da ingestione di corpi estranei o di caustici. Il Servizio di Pronta Reperibilità Endoscopica ha consentito di risolvere l’emergenza emorragica in un arco temporale di circa due-quattro ore dall’accettazione e la rimozione in sedazione di corpi estranei, raggiungendo così il gold standard nell’approccio e nella risoluzione di tali patologie. Si è potuto constatare che in un numero discreto di casi (116 esofagogastroduodenoscopie su un totale di 873, per una percentuale del 13%, e 21 pancolonscopie su un totale di 70, per una percentuale del 28%) l’esame endoscopico richiesto non trovava giusta indicazione. Resta, pertanto, assai utile rivedere con l’é- quipe medica di Pronto Soccorso le indicazioni appropriate ad un esame endoscopico in urgenza

Il Breath Test come indagine non invasiva di scelta per lo screening iniziale della dispepsia non ulcerosa

In considerazione dell’importanza del ruolo dell’Helicobacter Pylori (HP) nella patogenesi delle più comuni patologie gastro-ente - riche, gli Autori hanno ritenuto opportuno testare la validità di una delle tecniche diagnostiche non invasive per il riconoscimento della presenza dell’HP nella mucosa gastrica. Alla fine dell’esperienza si può concludere, in accordo con la maggior parte degli Autori, che il Breath Test va considerato assai valido sia per sensibilità che per specificità

Digital human modelling method for the evaluation of the ultrasound system and transducer design adherence to the SDMS industry standards

The problem of work related musculoskeletal disorder (WRMSD) among sonographers is of great importance. The term WRMSD is used to describe conditions that are caused or aggravated by workplace activities. The updated Industry Standards for the Prevention of Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders in Sonography, published recently by the Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonography (SDMS), recommends a set of points concerning the ergonomics, design and workflow characteristics, which Diagnostic Ultrasound (US) system manufacturers must follow in terms of design and development of the US system console and scanner body, control panel, monitor and transducers. The present work describes an innovative design methodology utilizing Digital Human Modelling (DHM) to simulate the degree of adherence to the SDMS updated Industry Standards for the Prevention of WRMSDs in Sonography of an US system, monitor and transducer design at the Computer aided Design (CAD) level

The Shape of Drugs: a matter of Human-Centred Design

The importance of drugs in our daily activities is evident. And yet design thinking suffers from relative inertia about viewing medications as objects of use and consumption. Conventionally intended as industrial pharmaceutical products obtained based on scientific principles, drugs are both medicinal forms saturated with meaning and technical objects—for the latter, we mean the product’s tangible characteristics with which the user has to cope. Therefore, it can be assumed that any medication’s efficacy depends on its scientific principles as well as on the sophisticated, hyper-technological or—conversely—prosaic techniques of intake or delivery. An approach to drugs from a human-centred design perspective may thus be aimed at verifying possible correlations between medication shapes and the inefficiency that, as a designed artefact, the medication may produce in terms of identity, understanding, and usability

Design Culture Within the B2B Needs Roadmap

The aim of the present paper is to support the reshaping and spreading of the role of the design culture within the B2B environment. The main target of the work is related to companies characterized by operating in fast-changing markets (in terms of needs, trends and tendencies change) while having to develop complex and long-time for completion products. Such characteristics force companies to a structured long-term forecasting approach where design culture adoption can fit mainly considering the purchase process multiple actors (user, customer, procurement office, technical-engineering department) involved within the product design activity since the early beginning. Design culture would, therefore, influence and surround several departments involved in product design and production, as well as concerning after sales product activities, becoming an innovative approach which can pass from being “at the end” of the process, to one of the major core company backbones

PROTECTION AND TRANSPORT DEVICE

A protection, transport and parking device (10) for a vehicle (40) with two or more wheels comprises front mudguard means (11) to cover at least partially the front wheel (41a) of the two-wheel vehicle (40), rear mudguard means (12) to cover at least partially the rear wheel (41b) of the two-wheel vehicle (40), connecting means (13a, 13b, 13c, 13d) to connect the mudguard means (11,12) to a structure of said two-wheel vehicle (40); the protection and transport device (10) further includes rolling means (14a, 14b, 14c) provided on the mudguard means (11,12); the mudguard means (11,12) and the connecting means (13a, 13b, 13c, 13d) are configured so as to provide two different use configurations (P,T) of the protection and transport device (10). The two different use configurations include a protection position (P) in which the mudguard means (11,12) is arranged so as to protect the user from splashes and/or debris coming from the wheels of the vehicle (40), and a transport position (T) in which the mudguard means ( 11, 12) is arranged so as to permit the transport of the two-wheel vehicle (40) along a surface like a floor via said rolling means (14a, 14b, 14c) so as to prevent the wheels (41a, 41b) of the vehicle (40) coming into contact with, and dirtying, the floor