Pervasive, Intelligent Materiality for Smart Interactivity

The advance of R&D allows products to be “smart”, meaning capable of understanding how to react to users’ behaviour and their context of use. While this can contribute to engineer materials firmly centered on their performances, it also poses greater demands on understanding the behaviours and intentions pursued by human agents, so as to allow the degree of intelligence and interactions that materials can be equipped with. This paper investigates how pervasive, intelligent materiality can be deployed to make people interact with products in a more immediate and effective way, with the aim to design for Smart Interactivity. Based on a review of applied cases of Smart Materials (SMs), this paper proposes a stimulus-action system that bridges the users action possibilities with smart materials attributes.El desarrollo de R&D ha permitido que sus productos puedan ser “inteligentes”, esto significa que son capaces de entender cómo reaccionar al comportamiento de los usuarios y en el contexto que los usen. Además de contribuir a su rendimiento basado en la estructura firme de estos materiales, también posee grandes exigencias relativas al entendimiento de su comportamiento y las intenciones deseadas por los agentes humanos y permitir el grado de inteligencia y las interacciones con los materiales que están equipados. Este artículo investiga como de penetrante, la inteligencia del material puede ser usada para hacer que las interactividades de las personas con los productos sean muchas más efectivas, con el fin de desinar las Interactividad Inteligentes. Basándonos en una revisión de las aplicaciones de Materiales Inteligentes, este artículo propone una acción-estímulo en el sistema mediante los puentes de las acciones de los posibles usuarios con las propiedades de los materiales inteligentes.O desenvolvimento de P & D permitiu que seus produtos fossem "inteligentes", o que significa que eles são capazes de entender como reagir ao comportamento dos usuários e no contexto em que os utilizam. Além de contribuir para o seu desempenho com base na estrutura firme desses materiais, possui também grandes demandas relacionadas à compreensão de seu comportamento e às intenções desejadas pelos agentes humanos e permitem o grau de inteligência e interação com os materiais que são equipados. Este artigo investiga quão penetrante, a inteligência do material pode ser usada para tornar as interatividades das pessoas com os produtos muito mais eficazes, a fim de definir a Interatividade Inteligente. Com base em uma revisão das aplicações de Materiais Inteligentes, este artigo propõe uma ação-estímulo no sistema, unindo as ações de potenciais usuários com as propriedades de materiais inteligentes

Unmet clinical needs for COVID-19 tests in UK health and social care settings

There is an urgent requirement to identify which clinical settings are in most need of COVID-19 tests and the priority role(s) for tests in these settings to accelerate the development of tests fit for purpose in health and social care across the UK. This study sought to identify and prioritize unmet clinical needs for COVID-19 tests across different settings within the UK health and social care sector via an online survey of health and social care professionals and policymakers. Four hundred and forty-seven responses were received between 22nd May and 15th June 2020. Hospitals and care homes were recognized as the settings with the greatest unmet clinical need for COVID-19 diagnostics, despite reporting more access to laboratory molecular testing than other settings. Hospital staff identified a need for diagnostic tests for symptomatic workers and patients. In contrast, care home staff expressed an urgency for screening at the front door to protect high-risk residents and limit transmission. The length of time to test result was considered a widespread problem with current testing across all settings. Rapid tests for staff were regarded as an area of need across general practice and dental settings alongside tests to limit antibiotics use

Is point-of-care testing feasible and safe in care homes in England? An exploratory usability and accuracy evaluation of a point-of-care polymerase chain reaction test for SARS-CoV-2

Introduction: Reliable rapid testing for COVID-19 is needed in care homes to reduce the risk of outbreaks and enable timely care. This study aimed to examine the usability and test performance of a point of care polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for detection of SARS-COV2 (POCKITTM Central) in care homes.Methods: POCKITTM Central was evaluated in a purposeful sample of four UK care homes. Test agreement with laboratory real-time PCR and usability and use errors were assessed.Results: No significant usability-related hazards emerged, and the sources of error identified were found to be amendable with minor changes in training or test workflow. POCKITTM Central has acceptable sensitivity and specificity based on RT-PCR as the reference standard, especially for symptomatic cases.Asymptomatic specimens showed 83.3% (95% CI: 35.9%-99.6%) positive agreement and 98.7% negative agreement (95% CI: 96.2%-99.7%), with overall prevalence and bias-adjusted kappa (PABAK) of 0.965 (95% CI: 0.932– 0.999). Symptomatic specimens showed 100% (95% CI: 2.5%-100%) positive agreement and 100% negative agreement (95% CI: 85.8%-100%), with overall PABAK of 1.Recommendations are provided to mitigate the frequency of occurrence of the residual use errors observed. Integration pathways were discussed to identify opportunities and limitations of adopting POCKIT™ Central for screening and diagnostic testing purposes.Conclusion: Point-of-care PCR testing in care homes can be considered with appropriate preparatory steps and safeguards. Further diagnostic accuracy evaluations and in-service evaluation studies should be conducted, if the test is to be implemented more widely, to build greater certainty on this initial exploratory analysis

Point of care testing using rapid automated antigen testing for SARS-COV-2 in care homes – an exploratory safety, usability and diagnostic agreement evaluation

Introduction Successful adoption of POCTs (Point-of-Care tests) for COVID-19 in care homes requires the identification of ideal use cases and a full understanding of the contextual and usability factors that affect test results and minimise biosafety risks. This paper presents a scoping-usability and test performance study of a microfluidic immunofluorescence assay for COVID-19 in care homes. Methods A mixed-methods evaluation was conducted in four UK care homes to scope usability and to assess the agreement with qRT-PCR. A dry run with luminescent dye was conducted to explore biosafety issues. Results The agreement analysis was conducted on 227 asymptomatic participants (159 staff and 68 residents) and 14 symptomatic participants (5 staff and 9 residents). Asymptomatic specimens showed 50% (95% CI:1.3%−98.7%) positive agreement and 96% (95% CI: 92.5%−98.1%) negative agreement with overall prevalence and bias-adjusted Kappa (PABAK) of 0.911 (95% CI: 0.857−0.965). Symptomatic specimens showed 83.3% (95% CI: 35.9%−99.6%) positive agreement and 100% (95% CI: 63.1%−100%) negative agreement with overall prevalence and bias-adjusted Kappa (PABAK) of 0.857 (95% CI: 0.549−1). The dry run highlighted four main sources of contamination that led to the modification of the standard operating procedures. Simulation post-modification showed no further evidence of contamination. Conclusion Careful consideration of biosafety issues and contextual factors associated with care home are mandatory for safe use the POCT. Whilst POCT may have some utility for ruling out COVID-19, further diagnostic accuracy evaluations are needed to promote effective adoption

Multicenter Diagnostic Evaluation of OnSite COVID-19 Rapid Test (CTK Biotech) among Symptomatic Individuals in Brazil and the United Kingdom

Evaluating rapid diagnostic tests in diverse populations is essential to improving diagnostic responses as it gives an indication of the accuracy in real-world scenarios. In the case of rapid diagnostic testing within this pandemic, lateral flow tests that meet the minimum requirements for sensitivity and specificity can play a key role in increasing testing capacity, allowing timely clinical management of those infected, and protecting health care systems

Smart materials and metaphors to enhance technology adoption

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonTechnological innovation is increasingly contributing to the development of smart objects, meant as semi-autonomous devices augmented by sensing, processing and network capabilities that facilitate older adults being independent and in control of a healthy lifestyle. Given the lessened familiarity that the ageing population has with internet-based technologies, a ‘digital divide’ among generations is often observed. This research is premised on the basis that design interventions can develop intuitive and understandable smart objects minimising age-related differences and promote a greater technology adoption. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how the understandability of smart objects for the ageing population could be supported through the application, at the product design level, of Smart Materials (SMs), a category of engineered materials whose properties can be designed to both stimulate human sensorial abilities and to develop engaging experiences. In line with such research enquiry, SMs are adopted in this thesis for their ability to embody ‘analogies’ and ‘metaphors’ into product designs and systematically stimulate the prior knowledge and memories of older adults to facilitate their understanding of new concepts, following the principle of ‘familiarity’. Analogies and metaphors, powerful learning tools for written, verbal and visual communication, have been recently investigated as ‘non-linguistic’ tools, when physically embedded into product designs, to facilitate the users’ understanding how technology works. How non-linguistic metaphors help to cope with age-related differences is still incomplete. In order to demonstrate that embodied SMs can minimise differences in the understandability of technologies across generations, a qualitative and exploratory study was conducted; empirical evidence was collected through four techniques to accomplish the following objectives: 1. identify critical areas that affect older adults’ everyday life and that smart objects should cope with; 2. define a set of embodied Smart Materials to be included into the prototype of a Smart Radio, a novel communicative device specifically design for the ageing population; 3. evaluate the prototype of the Smart Radio, where age-related similarities and differences in the interpretation are made explicit. 62 participants (n=31 under-60-year-old and n=31 over-60-year-old participants) evaluated the developed Smart Radio, the main evaluation study conducted in this thesis, using four different families of SMs. Findings reveal that embodied SMs considerably help mitigate age-related differences in the understanding of smart objects; this in return may increase the chance of technology adoption among ageing users. The embodiment of Smart Materials that enable metaphorical processing shows promising improvements on the older adult’s ability to reaffirm their own subjective awareness, hence control, of the world around them along with opportunities for a human-centred technology development.L.T.M. Light Touch Matters (NMP.2012.4.0-1

Pervasive, Intelligent Materiality for Smart Interactivity

The advance of R&D allows products to be “smart”, meaning capable of understanding how to react to users’ behaviour and their context of use. While this can contribute to engineer materials firmly centered on their performances, it also poses greater demands on understanding the behaviours and intentions pursued by human agents, so as to allow the degree of intelligence and interactions that materials can be equipped with. This paper investigates how pervasive, intelligent materiality can be deployed to make people interact with products in a more immediate and effective way, with the aim to design for Smart Interactivity. Based on a review of applied cases of Smart Materials (SMs), this paper proposes a stimulus-action system that bridges the users action possibilities with smart materials attributes.O desenvolvimento de P & D permitiu que seus produtos fossem "inteligentes", o que significa que eles são capazes de entender como reagir ao comportamento dos usuários e no contexto em que os utilizam. Além de contribuir para o seu desempenho com base na estrutura firme desses materiais, possui também grandes demandas relacionadas à com-preensão de seu comportamento e às intenções desejadas pelos agentes humanos e per-mitem o grau de inteligência e interação com os materiais que são equipados. Este artigo investiga quão penetrante, a inteligência do material pode ser usada para tornar as intera-tividades das pessoas com os produtos muito mais eficazes, a fim de definir a Interatividade Inteligente. Com base em uma revisão das aplicações de Materiais Inteligentes, este artigo propõe uma ação-estímulo no sistema, unindo as ações de potenciais usuários com as pro-priedades de materiais inteligentes.El desarrollo de R&D ha permitido que sus productos puedan ser “inteligentes”, esto significa que son capaces de entender cómo reaccionar al comportamiento de los usuarios y en el contexto que los usen. Además de contribuir a su rendimiento basado en la estructura firme de estos materiales, también posee grandes exigencias relativas al entendimiento de su comportamiento y las intenciones deseadas por los agentes humanos y permitir el grado de inteligencia y las interacciones con los materiales que están equipados. Este artículo investiga como de penetrante, la inteligencia del material puede ser usada para hacer que las interactividades de las personas con los productos sean muchas más efectivas, con el fin de desinar las Interactividad Inteligentes. Basándonos en una revisión de las aplicaciones de Materiales Inteligentes, este artículo propone una acción-estímulo en el sistema mediante los puentes de las acciones de los posibles usuarios con las propiedades de los materiales inteligentes

Behaviours

In a world that is ageing fast technology can really make a difference to keep people independent, healthy and socially connected. While the physical and sensorial signs of ageing have to some extent been considered in the design of technology for older people, much work is still needed to understand the impact of cognitive and emotional changes in the adoption, deferral or rejection of technology devices. Understanding the behavioural strategies of older people when dealing with technology-based products can help designers as well as marketers to reconsider product attributes and market communication, respectively. A set of smart computational materials suggests novel application opportunities for the design of more immediate and intuitive technology products