Perception and Interpretation: Points of Focus in Design Sketches

During the design of a product, designers may show a potential customer or other stakeholder a drawing of a design concept in order to elicit feedback that can be used to inform further development of the design. Designers may desire feedback on specific aspects of a concept, such as its shape or size, but viewers may in fact focus on other elements of the drawing itself, such as color or surface texture. Viewers translate their visual perception of these representations into perceived understanding, but how can we know whether their interpretations are consistent with the designer’s intention? This paper evaluates the translation of four different product sketches by 163 participants. This study also considers how aesthetic preference and concrete information might influence a viewer’s opinion of an object. Results suggest that viewers were likely to recall physical aspects from a sketch of a product (material, shape) as well as its function. Findings also suggest that individuals preferred images that were overall more informative rather than aesthetically pleasing. Additionally, our research suggests that individuals were more likely to recall the texture, material or perceived efficiency of an object than recall the name of the object, its function, or its shape.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award CMMI-0830134)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award CMMI- 1130791

An Analysis of Sketching Skill and Its Role in Early Stage Engineering Design

Previous studies have demonstrated the importance of sketching in design cognition, particularly in the early stages of engineering design. The goal of this preliminary study is to consider the role of a designer's sketching ability and to examine the potential link between sketching skill and measures of engineering design performance. Sketching ability was evaluated on three distinct aspects relevant to engineering design: visual recall, rendering, and novel visualization. These evaluations were correlated with each other and with measures for sketch fluency, reviewer ranking, and design project outcome. The results of this study suggest that sketching skill is not comprehensive nor is it solely task based. Rather, a designer's sketching ability lies between these two poles. Positive correlations were found between the quantity of sketches produced and two of the sketching skills that emphasize drawing facility, but a negative correlation was found between sketch quantity and a skill related to mechanism visualization. No conclusive correlations were found between the sketching skills and design outcome and reviewer ranking. This study's findings suggest an important interplay between a designer's ability to sketch and their ability to visualize in their heads or through prototypes. Results also suggest that designers who are given sketch instruction tended to draw more overall

A Comparison of Formal Methods for Evaluating the Language of Preference in Engineering Design

In design, as with many fields, the bases of decisions are generally not formally modeled but only talked or written about. The research problem addressed in this paper revolves around the problem of modeling the direct evaluation of design alternatives and their attributes as they are realized in linguistic communication. The question is what types of linguistic data provide the most reliable linguistic displays of preference and utility. The paper compares two formal methods for assessing a design team’s preferences for alternatives based on the team’s discussion: APPRAISAL and Preferential Probabilities from Transcripts (PPT). Results suggest that the two methods are comparable in their assessment of preferences. This paper also examines the nature of consistency in the way design teams consider the attributes of a design. Findings suggest that assessment of an attribute can change substantially over time.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award CMMI- 0900255)Australian Research Council (Discovery Projects funding scheme (project number DP1095601)

Controlled Whole-body Vibration Training Reduces Risk of Falls in People with Multiple Sclerosis

Despite the prevalence of falls among people with multiple sclerosis (MS), there are very limited evidence-based treatment approaches for fall prevention among this population. Controlled whole-body vibration (CWBV) training has recently emerged as a new modality to train older adults to reduce their risk of falls primarily because it is portable, safe, easy to use, and cost-effective; and requires less intensive physical activity than traditional exercise-based methods. Nevertheless, there is a lack of evidence about the impact of CWBV training on reducing falls in people with MS. The primary purpose of this study was to examine if an 8-week CWBV training protocol can reduce risk of falls in people with MS. Twenty-two individuals with MS (mean ± standard deviation age: 52.0 ± 13.7 y/o; body height: 166.0 ± 9.3 cm; body mass: 79.5 ± 24.4 kg; disease duration: 15.5 ± 11.1 y; Patient Determined Disability Step: 3.7 ± 1.9; 15 females) underwent the vibration training 3 times per week for 8 weeks while standing on a side alternating vibration platform with knees slightly bent. Each training session consisted of 5 repetitions of 1-min vibration exposure followed by a 1-min rest. The vibration frequency and amplitude were 20 Hz and 3.6 mm, respectively. Their risk of falls was quantified by the isometric knee extensor muscle strength capacity (normalized to the body mass), the EquiScale body balance scale, and the functional mobility measured by the Timed-Up-and-Go (TUG) test. All risk factors were evaluated prior to (pre-training) and after (post-training) the 8-week training. Paired t-tests were used to examine if the training improves these risk factors. Our results revealed that the knee extensor strength capacity on the weak side increased significantly form 0.88 ± 0.45 Nm/kg for the pre-training test to 1.02 ± 0.50 Nm/kg for the post-training test (p \u3c 0.001). Compared to pre-training values, there was a significant improvement at post-training for both body balance (11.1 ± 4.0 vs. 12.7 ± 3.2, p \u3c 0.001) and TUG (14.8 ± 6.6 vs. 13.0 ± 5.5 sec, p \u3c 0.01). The finding of this study suggested that an 8-week CWBV training program can be well accepted by people with MS. Our results supported that CWBV intervention could reduce the risk of falls among individuals with MS by strengthening their lower limb muscles, improving the body balance, and enhancing the functional mobility. The clinical application of CWBV may reduce falls for individuals with MS; however, more systematic studies based on large sample sizes are needed to investigate the longitudinal effects of vibration training to prevent real-life falls among persons living with MS

Effects of Vibration Training on Disability Status among Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a progressive neurological disease affecting more than 570,000 Americans, and is among the most common causes of neurological disability in young adults. Controlled whole-body vibration (CWBV) training has been recently used to improve functional mobility among older adults and individuals with movement disorders, principally due to its attractive features, such as the safety, portability, and ease to operate, etc. However, it remains undetermined if and to what degree CWBV training can affect the disability level among individuals living with MS. The primary aim of this presented study was to examine the effects of an 8-week vibration training program on reducing the disability level of people with MS. Twenty-two adults diagnosed with MS (mean ± SD age: 52.0 ± 13.7 y/o; body height: 166.0 ± 9.3 cm; body mass: 79.5 ± 24.4 kg; disease duration: 15.5 ± 11.1 y; 15 females) participated in the 8-week vibration training course on a side­alternating vibration platform. They received the training 3 times a week for 8 weeks, leading to 24 training sessions in total. Each training session included 5 cycles of 1­min vibration exposure followed by a 1­min rest. The vibration frequency and amplitude were respectively set at 20 Hz and 3.6 mm. The level of disability was assessed before (or pre-training) and after (post-training) the 8­week training using the MS Functional Composite (MSFC) z­score and the Patient Determined Disability Step (PDDS) score. The higher (or smaller) the MSFC z-score (or PDDS score), the lower the disability level. Paired t­tests were used to compare both scores between pre­ and post­training assessments in order to determine the possible training­induced changes in the disability level. Our results indicated that participants’ MSFC z­score increased significantly following the vibration training (pre-training: 0.00 ± 0.61 vs. post-training: 0.31 ± 0.70; p \u3c 0.01). Similarly, the PDDS score reduced significantly from 3.66 ± 1.88 at the pre­training assessment to 3.05 ± 1.99 at the post­training assessment (p = 0.023). The results displayed that the 8­week CWBV training course could reduce the disability level in individuals with MS by improving their MSFC and PDDS scores. CWBV training appears to be a promising alterative treatment for reducing the level of disability among people affected by MS, and may have implications for improving the quality of life and delaying the progression of the disease. Furthermore, the 8-week CWBV training program was well accepted by individuals living with MS. However, further studies based on a randomized controlled design are needed to systematically determine the effect of CWBV training on reducing disability level among people with MS. Additionally, the retention effect of CWBV training and the determination of the optimal vibration training dosage for this population warrant more investigation

Facilitating Design-by-Analogy: Development of a Complete Functional Vocabulary and Functional Vector Approach to Analogical Search

Design-by-analogy is an effective approach to innovative concept generation, but can be elusive at times due to the fact that few methods and tools exist to assist designers in systematically seeking and identifying analogies from general data sources, databases, or repositories, such as patent databases. A new method for extracting analogies from data sources has been developed to provide this capability. Building on past research, we utilize a functional vector space model to quantify analogous similarity between a design problem and the data source of potential analogies. We quantitatively evaluate the functional similarity between represented design problems and, in this case, patent descriptions of products. We develop a complete functional vocabulary to map the patent database to applicable functionally critical terms, using document parsing algorithms to reduce text descriptions of the data sources down to the key functions, and applying Zipf’s law on word count order reduction to reduce the words within the documents. The reduction of a document (in this case a patent) into functional analogous words enables the matching to novel ideas that are functionally similar, which can be customized in various ways. This approach thereby provides relevant sources of design-by-analogy inspiration. Although our implementation of the technique focuses on functional descriptions of patents and the mapping of these functions to those of the design problem, resulting in a set of analogies, we believe that this technique is applicable to other analogy data sources as well. As a verification of the approach, an original design problem for an automated window washer illustrates the distance range of analogical solutions that can be extracted, extending from very near-field, literal solutions to far-field cross-domain analogies. Finally, a comparison with a current patent search tool is performed to draw a contrast to the status quo and evaluate the effectiveness of this work.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant number CMMI-0855510)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant number CMMI-0855326)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant number CMMI-0855293)SUTD-MIT International Design Centre (IDC

Using Mendelian Randomisation to Prioritise Candidate Maternal Metabolic Traits Influencing Offspring Birthweight

Marked physiological changes in pregnancy are essential to support foetal growth; however, evidence on the role of specific maternal metabolic traits from human studies is limited. We integrated Mendelian randomisation (MR) and metabolomics data to probe the effect of 46 maternal metabolic traits on offspring birthweight (N = 210,267). We implemented univariable two-sample MR (UVMR) to identify candidate metabolic traits affecting offspring birthweight. We then applied two-sample multivariable MR (MVMR) to jointly estimate the potential direct causal effect for each candidate maternal metabolic trait. In the main analyses, UVMR indicated that higher maternal glucose was related to higher offspring birthweight (0.328 SD difference in mean birthweight per 1 SD difference in glucose (95% CI: 0.104, 0.414)), as were maternal glutamine (0.089 (95% CI: 0.033, 0.144)) and alanine (0.137 (95% CI: 0.036, 0.239)). In additional analyses, UVMR estimates were broadly consistent when selecting instruments from an independent data source, albeit imprecise for glutamine and alanine, and were attenuated for alanine when using other UVMR methods. MVMR results supported independent effects of these metabolites, with effect estimates consistent with those seen with the UVMR results. Among the remaining 43 metabolic traits, UVMR estimates indicated a null effect for most lipid-related traits and a high degree of uncertainty for other amino acids and ketone bodies. Our findings suggest that maternal gestational glucose and glutamine are causally related to offspring birthweight

Factors That Influence Radioactive Iodine Use for Thyroid Cancer

Background: There is variation in the use of radioactive iodine (RAI) as treatment for well-differentiated thyroid cancer. The factors involved in physician decision-making for RAI remain unknown. Methods: We surveyed physicians involved in postsurgical management of patients with thyroid cancer from 251 hospitals. Respondents were asked to rate the factors important in influencing whether a thyroid cancer patient receives RAI. Multivariable analyses controlling for physician age, gender, specialty, case volume, and whether they personally administer RAI, were performed to determine correlates of importance placed on patients' and physicians' worry about death from cancer and differences between low? versus higher?case-volume physicians. Results: The survey response rate was 63% (534/853). Extent of disease, adequacy of surgical resection, patients' willingness to receive RAI, and patients' age were the factors physicians were most likely to report as quite or very important in influencing recommendations for RAI to patients with thyroid cancer. Interestingly, both physicians' and patients' worry about death from thyroid cancer were also important in determining RAI use. Physicians with less thyroid cancer cases per year were more likely than higher-volume physicians to report patients' (p<0.001) and physicians' worry about death (p=0.016) as quite or very important in decision-making. Other factors more likely to be of greater importance in determining RAI use for physicians with lower thyroid cancer patient volume versus higher include the accepted standard at the affiliated hospital (p=0.020), beliefs about RAI expressed by colleagues comanaging patients (p=0.003), and patient distance from the nearest facility administering RAI (p=0.012). Conclusion: In addition to the extent of disease and adequacy of surgical resection, physicians place importance on physician and patient worry about death from thyroid cancer when deciding whether to treat a patient with RAI. The factors important to physician decision-making differ based on physician thyroid-cancer case-volume, with worry about death being more influential for low?case-volume physicians. As the mortality from thyroid cancer is low, the importance placed on death in decision making may be unwarranted.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140258/1/thy.2012.0380.pd