A digitally-augmented ground space with timed visual cues for facilitating forearm crutches’ mobility

Persuasive technologies for physical rehabilitation have been pro posed in a number of different health interventions such as post-stroke gait rehabilitation. We propose a new persuasive system, called Augmented Crut ches, aimed at helping people to walk with crutches. People with injuries, or with any sort of mobility problem typically use assistive devices such as crut ches, walkers or canes in order to be able to walk more independently. However, walking with crutches is a learning skill that needs continuous repetition and constant attention to detail in order to walk correctly with them and without suffering negative consequences, such as falls or injuries. In close collaboration with therapists, we identify the main issues that patients face when walking with crutches. These vary from person to person, but the most common and hardest challenges are the position and coordination of the crutches. Augmented Crut ches studies human behavior aspects in these situations and augments the ground space around the user with digital visual cues where timing is the most important factor, without the need for a constant therapist providing manual help. This is performed through a mini-projector connected to a smartphone, worn by the user in a portable, lightweight manner. Our system helps people to learn how to walk using crutches with increased self-confidence and motivation. Additionally, our work identifies timing, controllability and awareness as the key design dimensions for the successful creation of persuasive, interactive experiences for learning how to walk with crutches.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Dietary phytochemicals, HDAC inhibition, and DNA damage/repair defects in cancer cells

Genomic instability is a common feature of cancer etiology. This provides an avenue for therapeutic intervention, since cancer cells are more susceptible than normal cells to DNA damaging agents. However, there is growing evidence that the epigenetic mechanisms that impact DNA methylation and histone status also contribute to genomic instability. The DNA damage response, for example, is modulated by the acetylation status of histone and non-histone proteins, and by the opposing activities of histone acetyltransferase and histone deacetylase (HDAC) enzymes. Many HDACs overexpressed in cancer cells have been implicated in protecting such cells from genotoxic insults. Thus, HDAC inhibitors, in addition to unsilencing tumor suppressor genes, also can silence DNA repair pathways, inactivate non-histone proteins that are required for DNA stability, and induce reactive oxygen species and DNA double-strand breaks. This review summarizes how dietary phytochemicals that affect the epigenome also can trigger DNA damage and repair mechanisms. Where such data is available, examples are cited from studies in vitro and in vivo of polyphenols, organosulfur/organoselenium compounds, indoles, sesquiterpene lactones, and miscellaneous agents such as anacardic acid. Finally, by virtue of their genetic and epigenetic mechanisms, cancer chemopreventive agents are being redefined as chemo- or radio-sensitizers. A sustained DNA damage response coupled with insufficient repair may be a pivotal mechanism for apoptosis induction in cancer cells exposed to dietary phytochemicals. Future research, including appropriate clinical investigation, should clarify these emerging concepts in the context of both genetic and epigenetic mechanisms dysregulated in cancer, and the pros and cons of specific dietary intervention strategies

Traffic-Sim: Investigating the effect of attending intelligent virtual instructor on the efficacy of learning traffic rules

Background and Objectives: Virtual Reality (VR) technology is an effective tool to teach various well-known skills and concepts. Teaching and integrating the traffic culture by using modern approaches is an essential fact to control and decrease the damages and costs caused by driving problems.  In the past few years, the element of virtual instructor has been added to the intelligent tutoring system to increase the interactivity and learning effectiveness of  the learners. Teaching via an instructor or the so-called ‘video modeling’ which is part of multimedia teaching content is referred to as the teaching samples in which an instructor explains how to do something. Examining the effects of using an intelligent virtual instructor in educational multimedia content is one of the special fields of research in education and learning to which enough attention has not been paid . On the other hand, in recent years, using technology and modern approaches in the field of traffic educating has become very popular and various countries have made considerable  investments  in this area. Based on this issue,  in this paper, with the development and testing of a simulator game of teaching traffic rules (traffic-sim)  the effect of the presence of an intelligent virtual instructor on the improvement of the users’ learning efficiency as well as enhancing their sense of presence were studied. The goal of this study is determining the effect of the presence of the intelligent virtual instructors in teaching the traffic rules  to the learners. We also aim to investigate to what extent the presence of the intelligent virtual instructors can enhance learning ability and the sense of presence in the learning scenarios. Methods: For this aim, to provide the educational content in a game, the ‘traffic-sim’ simulator was designed and implemented in two versions including with a virtual intelligent instructor (instructor-based) and without a virtual intelligent instructor (visual-text).Using a comprehensive user study, we evaluated and compared the sense of presence and performance of players in the instructor-based mode and without the virtual instructor mode. In order to test the objective variables, the statistical population of 20 students from Tabriz Islamic Art University was selected and assigned randomly to either control or experimental groups. The experimental and the control group were respectively trained using the instructor-based simulator and the visual-text-based simulator. Participants were asked to play the simulator while learning the traffic rules.  To analyze the effect of the presence of virtual instructor on two variables, namely learning and sense of presence, the data regarding the number of the rules violated during playing the game and the results of the sense of presence questionnaire were used both for the experimental and the control groups, respectively.  Findings:The analyses in two levels of descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent t-test) confirm that the use of intelligent virtual instructor improves the users’ learning (M=5.00, SD=3.00, t(18) =0.043, p < 0.05) and enhances the sense of the presence in the participants (M=114, SD=6.00, t(18) =0.023, p < 0.05). Conclusion: In the present study, ‘traffic-sim’ simulator was designed and developed to teach the traffic rules. as a serious game to train individuals by scenarios related to the real-world traffic rules. We tested the impacts of intelligent virtual instructor attendance on enhancing users’ learning and their sense of presence. The results of data analysis showed that the presence of the virtual instructor can enhance the participants’ sense of presence while enhancing the efficiency of the process of learning traffic rules. Our findings reveal that the learners would try to choose safer strategies  and improve their performance after they have made a mistake . Moreover, the presence of the virtual instructor would lead to social interactions between the user and the virtual instructor that can result in increasing the learners’ sense of presence. Based on the findings of the previous researchers and the present study, it can be concluded that the intervention of a virtual teaching factor can have a positive effect on learning as well as the sense of the learners’ presence in the process of driving traffic simulation. Therefore, virtual instructors can be used to improve the learning process in educational subjects.  ===================================================================================== COPYRIGHTS  ©2021 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.  ====================================================================================