A Co-creation Centre for Accessible Rehabilitation Technology

Background: The prevalence of disabling conditions is increasing globally. Rehabilitation improves function and quality of life across many conditions, particularly when applied intensively. The limited workforce, however, cannot deliver evidence-based intensive rehabilitation. By providing individuals with the tools for self- rehabilitation, technology helps bridge the gap between evidence and practise. Few people, however, can access rehabilitation technology. Barriers such as cost, training, education, portability and poor design stand in the way of equitable access. Our group of engineers and researchers have established a centre dedicated to developing accessible technology through close, frequent engagement with users and industry.Methods: The centre employs a co-creation model, coupling engineering and science with user experience and industrial partnerships to develop accessible technology and associated processes. Due to the complexity and size of the challenge the initial focus is stroke. Recruited through a medical charity, participants, with a wide range of disabilities, use prototype and commercial technology during an 8-week rehabilitation programme with supervision from health professionals. The centre includes de-weighting systems, neurostimulation, virtual reality, treadmills, bespoke rehab games, communication apps, powered exercise equipment and gamified resistance equipment. Standard outcome measures (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) are recorded before, during, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention and used in combination with an interview to design the initial rehabilitation programme, which is reviewed fortnightly. Qualitative methods (surveys and interviews) are used to capture personal experiences of the programme and individual technology and an advisory group of stroke survivors help interpret outcomes to feed into the technology design process. Ethical approval has been granted for a pilot cohort study with stroke survivors, which is currently underway (01/09/2021–31/12/2021) investigating acceptability and feasibility, due to report findings in 2022.Discussion: Through partnerships, research collaborations and a co-creation model a new centre dedicated to the development of accessible rehabilitation technology has been launched and currently undergoing acceptability and feasibility testing with stroke survivors. The centre, through its close engagement with users and industry, has the potential to transform the way rehabilitation technology is developed and help revolutionise the way rehabilitation is delivered.

Coronavirus Pedagogy in the Zoomoscape

The COVID-19 pandemic emptied universities, colleges, and schools across the United States in March 2020, forcing instructors into an unavoidable culture in which a networked commercial technology mediated teaching and learning. In the tradition of critical pedagogy, this article argues that students and instructors alike engaged through the artificial lenses and screens of Zoom. The “pinhole intimacy” of the Zoomscape is assessed using conscientization, the concept offered by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, to describe most pedagogy as an oppressive apparatus that can be overcome with direct engagement between students and instructors. In such an opticentric context, the Zoomosphere’s intimacy is used to explore how the emancipation proposed by conscientization might be applied to the culture of pedagogy in a college with a diverse student population, including pedagogical interventions to address the challenges associated with teaching Division I athletes. The context of a large communication department at Boston College provides the empirical foundation for the exploration of coronavirus pedagogy.

Service Robots: Trends and Technology

The 2021 sales volume in the market of service robots is attractive. Expert reports from the International Federation of Robotics confirm 27 billion USD in total market share. Moreover, the number of new startups with the denomination of service robots nowadays constitutes 29% of the total amount of robotic companies recorded in the United States. Those data, among other similar figures, remark the need for formal development in the service robots area, including knowledge transfer and literature reviews. Furthermore, the COVID-19 spread accelerated business units and some research groups to invest time and effort into the field of service robotics. Therefore, this research work intends to contribute to the formalization of service robots as an area of robotics, presenting a systematic review of scientific literature. First, a definition of service robots according to fundamental ontology is provided, followed by a detailed review covering technological applications; state-of-the-art, commercial technology; and application cases indexed on the consulted databases.

New Technology and the US MIC

This article considers what could be a fundamental development in the defence industrial base (DIB) in the US, namely the increased involvement of commercial technology companies in military-related business. After an outline of the dynamics and longer-term post-Cold War developments in the international arms industry, it investigates recent changes in the Pentagon's attitudes and policies to gain access to new technologies from the commercial and academic sectors. It also considers the military, technological and political drivers that have led to these technologies being sought from commercial companies for military use. It then considers the recent engagement of the major commercial technology companies in activities for the military sector and what is driving them to take up military contracts. Finally, it considers what these developments imply for the dynamics of the arms industry and the relationships within the DIB and the military industrial complex (MIC).

An E-band Variable Gain Amplifier with 24 dB-control range and 80 to 100 GHz 1 dB bandwidth in SiGe BiCMOS technology

Analysis, design, and characterization of an E-band Variable Gain Amplifier (VGA) in SiGe BiCMOS commercial technology is presented. VGA topologies are compared in terms of their capability to contribute to receiver linearity and dynamic range. The proposed VGA is based on a Gilbert multiplier cell exploiting current cancellation to enhance control range and linearity. A 1 dB bandwidth ranging from 80 to 100 GHz, a 24 dB gain control range and a −11.5 dBm input 1 dB compression point have been measured.

Ending Innovation Tourism: Rethinking the U.S. Military’s Approach to Emerging Technology Adoption

As dual-use technologies transform the national security landscape, the U.S. Department of Defense has established a variety of offices and programs dedicated to bringing private sector innovation into the military. However, these efforts have largely failed to drive cutting-edge commercial technology into major military platforms and systems. This report examines the shortcomings of the DOD’s current approach to defense innovation and offers recommendations for a more effective strategy.

Ethical Issues Concerning the Use of Data from Commercially Available Wearable Sensors in Children

Wearable and mobile technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in the last decade with technological advances creating a role from enhancing healthy living to monitoring and treating disease. However, the discussion about the ethical use of such commercial technology in the community, especially in minors, is lacking behind. In this paper, we first summarize the major ethical concerns that arise from the usage of commercially available wearable technology in children, with a focus on smart watches, highlighting issues around the consent process, mitigation of risk and potential confidentiality and privacy issues, as well as the potential for therapeutic misconceptions when used without medical advice. Then through a relevant thought experiment we move on to outline some further ethical concerns that are connected to the use of wearables by minors, to wit the issue of informed consent in the case of minors, forcing them to live in the spotlight, and compromising their right to an open future. We conclude with the view that mitigating potential pitfalls and enhancing the benefits of wearable technology especially for minors requires brave and comprehensive moral debates.

Pulse Electric Field Technology for Wastewater and Biomass Residues’ Improved Valorization

Development and adoption of more efficient and robust technologies for reuse of wastewater embedded resources, in particular materials and energy, is becoming an unavoidable necessity. Among many emerging technologies in the sector of wastewater treatment residuals valorization, Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) processes have shown interesting potential, although they have not yet entered the sector’s mainstream as a consolidated commercial technology, as in other industrial applications, such as the food, medical, and bio-based industries. PEF is a non-thermal technology suitable to biological applications, involving gentle cell disintegration and enhanced cell membrane permeability and as such applicable to disinfection, sterilization, and to those processes that benefit from an enhanced extraction of organic compounds from biological matter, such as anaerobic digestion, biological processes for recovery of nutrients, and biorefinery of cell-embedded compounds. PEF technology applications in wastewater/biomass residues management are reported and advantages, drawbacks, and barriers of the technology are discussed in this paper.

New Management Approaches in Digitized Work as the Cure for Inequality?

Due to the increasing importance of digitization, ICT and engineering sectors are also growing. In these sectors, there are a lot of high-qualified and well-paid jobs. However, despite the growing importance and popularity of digital solutions, one fact (at least) is, unfortunately, still very stable within the ICT and engineering sectors: When it comes to employees, there are still huge differences with respect to gender and gender stereotypes. (Commercial) technology development can be regarded as having masculine connotations both structurally and culturally. Therefore, we address these connotations, especially the roles of androcentric bureaucracy, which could be described as hierarchical, technocentric, and very controlling-oriented, and (the structural possibilities of) self-efficacy. We discuss, conceptually and empirically with a focus on software development, whether new management approaches like agile frameworks and new management roles like Feel-good Managers and Scrum Master could be seen as a cure for inequality or if there are new stereotypical gender-related ascriptions for specific activities or processes.

The gas evolution of a modified cellulose mixture used for gating systems in the no-bake mould process

This paper shows the results of a study of gas evolution from a patented modified cellulose mix used in the production of no-bake casting moulds. The modified cellulose mixture was used for investigation with additives such as expanded perlite, expanded vermiculite and microspheres. The binder was an inorganic resin based on commercial technology, called Geopol. Samples were tested in different compositions in order to show the influence of all the additives mentioned. Two different methods were used—one was based on TG–TDG–MS investigation and the other was based on pyrolysis combined with a gas composition analyser. Investigations of both methods were carried out at temperatures up to 900 °C. The results showed that the gas emissions during thermal degradation of all the modified mixtures did not constitute substances that are hazardous or dangerous to health. Therefore, the material proposed can be used as a solution that is more environmentally friendly when compared to formulas which exist on the market and are abundant in harmful compounds.