Projeto de um elemento protésico segundo uma abordagem centrada no utilizador

Tese de Doutoramento em Design apresentada na Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Doutor

A platform toy for children with special educational needs

In childhood, play is critical to the successful development of children, and it can be regarded as the most important activity in their daily life, allowing interaction and discovery of the world around them. Consequently, it is important to ensure that this birthright is protected and accessible to every child, including those with special needs. Professionals, such as therapists, are often in a position where they can take advantage of the inclusion of toys in their therapies with children. Although, toys are not alike, and they must be carefully thought to be able to fulfil the child’s needs. This paper presents a proposal and the first validation of an inclusive toy, entitled “HugMe”, developed and designed with special attention for children who have cognitive and motor impairments and continue to be appealing to all children.Peer Reviewe

Advanced design of a mechatronic system for human blood typing

The possibility of human error in the blood typing analysis in emergency situations is due to the need for rapid implementation of procedures in a stressful situation and subjectivity of the analysis inherent to the health technician. Currently, the process of the blood group analysis, in these situations, occurs manually through the plate test procedure. It consists of blood collection and mixing with specific reagents, in order to determine the blood agglutination. The results are checked macroscopically. In this paper, the main objective is to present the conceptual design of a mechatronic system for human blood typing in emergency situations. The study and development of this system is performed by taking into account important aspects such as compactness, portability, reduce weight and cost. Blood typing is achieved through image processing algorithms, without human intervention. All the mentioned features are essential in developing a device that can be implemented in the market and successfully sold, avoiding human errors with the consequent increment of human safety.(undefined

Technology and special educational needs: let's play “Doing Good Deeds!”

“Doing Good Deeds!” is a game directed to children with special needs, in pre and elementary school age that aims to promote the development of social skills in diferente contexts. Structurally, this game has available a set of Avatars that players can choose to represent them. To adapt the game to each child, an administration module was developed, corresponding to the back office of the game, which allows the educator to create or change contexts, difficulty levels and sequences. This module includes also the visualization of the user performance, in particular the duration of each game, the number of attempts with and without success, allowing the educator to analyze the progress of each player.The authors would like to express their acknowledgments to COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013 for the support. The authors are also grateful to the Portuguese Foundation for the Science and Technology (FCT) through the financial support, Pest-OE/CED/UI1661/2014 projects, FEDER funds through the Competitivity Factors Operational Program – COMPETE.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A review on commercially available anthropomorphic myoelectric prosthetic hands, pattern-recognition-based microcontrollers and sEMG sensors used for prosthetic control

It has been reported that over 3 million individuals live with upper limb amputation worldwide. Losing a hand drastically reduces the individual's quality of life. Fortunately, there are several prosthetic solutions available in the market that try to restore some of the missing hand's functions and characteristics. This paper presents a review on three of the main components of a typical transradial myoelectric prosthesis that can be found in the market. The goal was to provide the reader with an overview of commercially available anthropomorphic myoelectric prosthetic hands with high degrees of freedom, pattern-recognition-based microcontrollers and sEMG sensors used for prosthetic control.This work has been supported by FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019

"HugMe" development of an inclusive toy: first insights

In childhood, play is critical to the successful development of children and it can be regarded as the most important activity in their daily life, allowing interaction and discovery of the world around them. As a consequence, it is important to ensure that this birthright is protected and accessible to every child, including those with special needs. Professionals, such as therapists, are often in a position where they can take advantage of the inclusion of toy in their therapies with children, with habilitation and rehabilitation in mind. Although, toys are not all alike and they must be carefully thought in order to be able to fulfill the child's needs. This paper presents a proposal for an inclusive toy, entitled "HugMe", especially designed for children with special needs, but that could be also used by other general developing children.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-010145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – “Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia” within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Platform Toy for Children with Special Educational Needs

In childhood, play is critical to the successful development of children, and it can be regarded as the most important activity in their daily life, allowing interaction and discovery of the world around them. Consequently, it is important to ensure that this birthright is protected and accessible to every child, including those with special needs. Professionals, such as therapists, are often in a position where they can take advantage of the inclusion of toys in their therapies with children. Although, toys are not alike, and they must be carefully thought to be able to fulfil the child’s needs. This paper presents a proposal and the first validation of an inclusive toy, entitled “HugMe”, developed and designed with special attention for children who have cognitive and motor impairments and continue to be appealing to all children

“HugMe”: validation of a prototype of an inclusive toy for children

Toys should be firstly approached according to each child’s interest. Regarding children with special needs, it is indispensable to analyse the way they physically reach the toy, their interaction and difficulties/limitations. So, a toy that is specifically designed for children with special needs is a fundamental piece in their development and quality of life, also being an auxiliary tool for therapists to use in therapy sessions. Based on that, this article presents a proposal of an inclusive toy, named “HugMe”, which was especially designed for children with special needs. The results from the first tests are presented which allow to infer its application in game activities with children with special needs and to identify possible improvements of the toy.We would like to thank the children, the therapists and assistants of children with special needs for their collaboration with the research team. This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – para a Ciência e Tecnologia” within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Serious games development as a tool to prevent repetitive strain injuries in hands: first steps

This paper is focused on the problem of repetitive strain injuries in hands. These injuries are mostly related to professional activities where people are subjected to a high rate of work and the performed tasks often lead to repetitive actions. The objective of this paper is to develop a serious game to prevent strain injuries in hands. The game scenarios promote warm-up and stretching off hand exercises that should be executed before and after the working period. The game is developed in Unity software, associated with a 3D sensor, Intel RealSense 3D Camera F200 for hand and movements detection. With the activity implementation in companies and establishments the employees will be able to exercise their hands, thus reducing the risk of being affected by strain injuries.The authors would like to express their acknowledgments to COMPETE: POCI-01- 0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Virtual application for preventing repetitive strain injuries on hands: first insights

This paper is focused on the problem of repetitive strain injuries in hands. These injuries are mostly related to professional activities, especially in people that work at high levels of industrialization, patchwork or in use of advanced technology in productive process, as they are subject to a high rate of work where the performed tasks often lead to repetitive actions. The objective of this paper is the development of an application for hands detection and their movements to develop a game for preventing strain injuries. The activity will be developed in the software Unity, where it will be associated a 3D sensor, Intel RealSense 3D Camera F200. During the activity, the user will execute several prevention/relaxation exercises. With the activity implementation in companies and establishments, the employees will be able to exercise their hands, thus reducing the risk of being affected by strain injuries, contributing to the decrease or even elimination of the subsequent related costs with these injuries.The authors would like to express their acknowledgments to COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013