Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Conference Proceeding (52)
- Part of a Book (17)
- Book (15)
- Article (12)
- Other (5)
- Report (1)
Institute
- Forschungszentrum Human Centred Technologies (102) (remove)
Language
- German (65)
- English (35)
- Multiple languages (2)
Keywords
- +KDC 122 (6)
- Design : Theorie, Reflexion (6)
- mHealth (4)
- AAL (3)
- Peripheral arterial disease (3)
- +INC 310 (2)
- +INC 320 (2)
- 3D modeling (2)
- Ambient Assisted Living (2)
- Assistenztechnologien (2)
As the boundary between real and virtual life is becoming increasingly blurred, researchers and practitioners are looking for ways to integrate the two intending to improve human lives in a plethora of domains. A cutting-edge concept is the design of Digital Twins (DT), having a broad range of implications and applications, spanning from education, training, as well as safety and productivity in the workplace. An emergent approach for implementing DTs is the usage of mixed reality (MR) and augmented reality (AR), which are well aligned with merging real and virtual objects to enhance the human’s ability to interact with and manage DTs. Yet, this is still a novel area of research and, as such, a grounded understanding of the current state, challenges, and open questions is still lacking. Towards this, we conducted a PRISMA-based literature review of scientific articles and book chapters dealing with the use of MR and AR for digital twins. After a thorough screening phase and eligibility check, 25 papers were analyzed, sorted and compared by different categories like research topic (e.g., visualization, guidance), domain (e.g., manufacturing, education), paper type (e.g., design study, evaluation), evaluation type (user study, case study or none), used hardware (e.g., Microsoft HoloLens, mobile devices) as well as the different outcomes (result type and topic, problems, outlook). The major finding of this research survey is the predominant focus of the reviewed papers on the technology itself and the neglect of factors regarding the users. We, therefore, encourage researchers in this area to keep the importance of ease and joy of use in mind and include users in multiple stages of their work.
During two studies the influence of technologies on sleep were analyzed. The first one is about the effect of light on the circadian rhythm and as a consequence on sleep quality of persons in a vegetative state. The second one, which is still running, surveys the influence of several technologies on the sleep of elderly people living in a nursing home.
Tap or swipe
(2023)
Background: Mobile health interventions are intended to support complex health care needs in chronic diseases digitally, but they are mainly targeted at general health improvement and neglect disease-specific requirements. Therefore, we designed TrackPAD, a smartphone app to support supervised exercise training in patients with peripheral arterial disease.
Objective: This pilot study aimed to evaluate changes in the 6-minute walking distance (meters) as a primary outcome measure. The secondary outcome measures included changes in physical activity and assessing the patients’ peripheral arterial disease–related quality of life.
Methods: This was a pilot two-arm, single-blinded, randomized controlled trial. Patients with symptomatic PAD (Fontaine stage IIa/b) and access to smartphones were eligible. Eligible participants were randomly assigned to the study, with the control group stratified by the distance covered in the 6-minute walking test using the TENALEA software. Participants randomized to the intervention group received usual care and the mobile intervention (TrackPAD) for the follow-up period of 3 months, whereas participants randomized to the control group received routine care only. TrackPAD records the frequency and duration of training sessions and pain levels using manual user input. Clinical outcome data were collected at the baseline and after 3 months via validated tools (the 6-minute walk test and self-reported quality of life). The usability and quality of the app were determined using the Mobile Application Rating Scale user version.
Results: The intervention group (n=19) increased their mean 6-minute walking distance (83 meters, SD 72.2), while the control group (n=20) decreased their mean distance after 3 months of follow-up (–38.8 meters, SD 53.7; P=.01). The peripheral arterial disease–related quality of life increased significantly in terms of “symptom perception” and “limitations in physical functioning.” Users’ feedback showed increased motivation and a changed attitude toward performing supervised exercise training.
Conclusions: Besides the rating providing a valuable support tool for the user group, the mobile intervention TrackPAD was linked to a change in prognosis-relevant outcome measures combined with enhanced coping with the disease. The influence of mobile interventions on long-term prognosis must be evaluated in the future.
Der Einsatz von Robotik im Pflegekontext wird kontrovers diskutiert und löst unterschiedliche Assoziationen aus. In diesem Beitrag stellen wir Ergebnisse aus einer schriftlichen Befragung bei Pflegekräften aus Deutschland vor. Es wird aufgezeigt, für welche Funktionen und Aufgaben sich Pflegekräfte den Einsatz von Roboter vorstellen können und wo gegensätzliche Einstellungen gegenüber Robotern bestehen. Ein Fallbeispiel illustriert ein mögliches Anwendungsfeld. Mit den reflexiven Fragen laden wir die:den Lesenden ein, sich selbst mit der Idee Roboter als Alltagshelfer für ältere Menschen auseinanderzusetzen.
When it comes to improving the health of the general population, mHealth technologies with self-monitoring and intervention components hold a lot of promise. We argue, however, that due to various factors such as access, targeting, personal resources or incentives, self-monitoring applications run the risk of increasing health inequalities, thereby creating a problem of social justice. We review empirical evidence for “intervention-generated” inequalities, present arguments that self-monitoring applications are still morally acceptable, and develop approaches to avoid the promotion of health inequalities through self-monitoring applications.
Trotz der Relevanz von Partizipationsprozessen in Unternehmen und deren belegte Auswirkungen zeigt sich ein deutliches Ungleichgewicht zwischen der aufgezeigten Bedeutung von Beteiligungsprozessen und dem gleichzeitig geringen Umsetzungsstand in Betrieben. Deshalb soll geprüft werden, inwiefern sich die Erwartungen jüngerer Mitarbeiter:innen mit ihrer erlebten Arbeitsrealität decken. Dazu wurden 459 Personen (59,5% Frauen) im Alter zwischen 16 und 35 Jahren zu allgemeinen Partizipationsmöglichkeiten und zu flexiblen Arbeitsbedingungen befragt. Es zeigen sich signifikante Unterschiede in beiden Teilbereichen der Partizipation zwischen den Erwartungen der Arbeitnehmer:innen und deren erlebter Realität in den Unternehmen. Über Angleichung der betrieblichen Realitäten der Partizipation könnten Unternehmen und Mitarbeiter:innen auf verschiedenen Ebenen gewinnen.
Open tracing tools
(2023)
Background: Coping with the rapid growing complexity in contemporary software architecture, tracing has become an increasingly critical practice and been adopted widely by software engineers. By adopting tracing tools, practitioners are able to monitor, debug, and optimize distributed software architectures easily. However, with excessive number of valid candidates, researchers and practitioners have a hard time finding and selecting the suitable tracing tools by systematically considering their features and advantages. Objective: To such a purpose, this paper aims to provide an overview of popular Open tracing tools via comparison. Methods: Herein, we first identified 30 tools in an objective, systematic, and reproducible manner adopting the Systematic Multivocal Literature Review protocol. Then, we characterized each tool looking at the 1) measured features, 2) popularity both in peer-reviewed literature and online media, and 3) benefits and issues. We used topic modeling and sentiment analysis to extract and summarize the benefits and issues. Specially, we adopted ChatGPT to support the topic interpretation. Results: As a result, this paper presents a systematic comparison amongst the selected tracing tools in terms of their features, popularity, benefits and issues. Conclusion: The result mainly shows that each tracing tool provides a unique combination of features with also different pros and cons. The contribution of this paper is to provide the practitioners better understanding of the tracing tools facilitating their adoption.
Background: The development of mobile interventions for noncommunicable diseases has increased in recent years. However, there is a dearth of apps for patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD), who frequently have an impaired ability to walk.
Objective: Using a patient-centered approach for the development of mobile interventions, we aim to describe the needs and requirements of patients with PAD regarding the overall care situation and the use of mobile interventions to perform supervised exercise therapy (SET).
Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted in addition to a clinical examination at the vascular outpatient clinic of the West-German Heart and Vascular Center of the University Clinic Essen in Germany. Patients with diagnosed PAD were asked to answer questions on sociodemographic characteristics, PAD-related need for support, satisfaction with their health care situation, smartphone and app use, and requirements for the design of mobile interventions to support SET.
Results: Overall, a need for better support of patients with diagnosed PAD was identified. In total, 59.2% (n=180) expressed their desire for more support for their disease. Patients (n=304) had a mean age of 67 years and half of them (n=157, 51.6%) were smartphone users. We noted an interest in smartphone-supported SET, even for people who did not currently use a smartphone. “Information,” “feedback,” “choosing goals,” and “interaction with physicians and therapists” were rated the most relevant components of a potential app.
Conclusions: A need for the support of patients with PAD was determined. This was particularly evident with regard to disease literacy and the performance of SET. Based on a detailed description of patient characteristics, proposals for the design of mobile interventions adapted to the needs and requirements of patients can be derived.
Coupling is one of the most frequently mentioned metric in software systems. However, to measure logical coupling between microservices, runtime information is needed or the availability of service-log files to analyze the calls between services is required. This work presents our emerging results, in which we propose a metric to statically calculate logical coupling between microservices based on commits to versioning systems. We performed an initial validation of the proposed metric with a dataset containing 145 open-source microservices projects. The results illustrate how logical coupling affects every system and increases overtime. However, we did not find a correlation between the number of commits or the number of developers and the introduction of logical coupling. In future, we investigate why, how, and when logical coupling is introduced in a system.