Challenges in mobile multi-device ecosystems

BACKGROUND Coordinated multi-display environments from the desktop, second-screen to gigapixel display walls are increasingly common. Personal and intimate mobile and wearable devices such as head-mounted displays, smartwatches, smartphones and tablets are rarely part of such multi-device ecosystems. METHODS We conducted a literature research and an expert survey to identify challenges in mobile multi-device ecosystems. RESULTS We present grounded challenges relevant for the design, development and use of mobile multi-device environments as well as opportunities for future research. While our surveys indicated that a large number of challenges have been identified, there seems to be little agreement among experts on the importance of individual challenges. CONCLUSION By presenting the identified challenges, we contribute to a better understanding about factors that impede the creation and use of mobile multi-device ecosystems and hope to contribute to shaping the research agenda on interacting with those systems.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Robust Flexible Capacitive Surface Sensor for Structural Health Monitoring Applications

Early detection of possible defects in civil infrastructure is vital to ensuring timely maintenance and extending structure life expectancy. The authors recently proposed a novel method for structural health monitoring based on soft capacitors. The sensor consisted of an off-the-shelf flexible capacitor that could be easily deployed over large surfaces, the main advantages being cost-effectiveness, easy installation, and allowing simple signal processing. In this paper, a capacitive sensor with tailored mechanical and electrical properties is presented, resulting in greatly improved robustness while retaining measurement sensitivity. The sensor is fabricated from a thermoplastic elastomer mixed with titanium dioxide and sandwiched between conductive composite electrodes. Experimental verifications conducted on wood and concrete specimens demonstrate the improved robustness, as well as the ability of the sensing method to diagnose and locate strain

Large-scale surface strain gauge for health monitoring of civil structures

Health monitoring of civil structures is a process that aims at diagnosing and localizing structural damages. It is typically conducted by visual inspections, therefore relying vastly on the monitoring frequency and individual judgement of the inspectors. The automation of the monitoring process would be greatly beneficial by increasing life expectancy of civil structures via timely maintenance, thus improving their sustainability. In this paper, we present a sensing method for automatically localizing strain over large surfaces. The sensor consists of several soft capacitors arranged in a matrix form, which can be applied over large areas. Local strains are converted into changes in capacitance among a soft capacitors matrix, permitting damage localization. The proposed sensing method has the fundamental advantage of being inexpensive to apply over large-scale surfaces. which allows local monitoring over large regions, analogous to a biological skin. In addition, its installation is simple, necessitating only limited surface preparation and deployable utilizing off-the-shelf epoxy. Here, we demonstrate the performance of the sensor at measuring static and dynamic strain, and discuss preliminary results from an application on a bridge located in Ames, IA. Results show that the proposed sensor is a promising health monitoring method for diagnosing and localizing strain on a large-scale surface

Born Too Soon: Care during pregnancy and childbirth to reduce preterm deliveries and improve health outcomes of the preterm baby

Pregnancy and childbirth represent a critical time period when a woman can be reached through a variety of mechanisms with interventions aimed at reducing her risk of a preterm birth and improving her health and the health of her unborn baby. These mechanisms include the range of services delivered during antenatal care for all pregnant women and women at high risk of preterm birth, services provided to manage preterm labour, and workplace, professional and other supportive policies that promote safe motherhood and universal access to care before, during and after pregnancy. The aim of this paper is to present the latest information about available interventions that can be delivered during pregnancy to reduce preterm birth rates and improve the health outcomes of the premature baby, and to identify data gaps. The paper also focuses on promising avenues of research on the pregnancy period that will contribute to a better understanding of the causes of preterm birth and ability to design interventions at the policy, health care system and community levels. At minimum, countries need to ensure equitable access to comprehensive antenatal care, quality childbirth services and emergency obstetric care. Antenatal care services should include screening for and management of women at high risk of preterm birth, screening for and treatment of infections, and nutritional support and counselling. Health workers need to be trained and equipped to provide effective and timely clinical management of women in preterm labour to improve the survival chances of the preterm baby. Implementation strategies must be developed to increase the uptake by providers of proven interventions such as antenatal corticosteroids and to reduce harmful practices such as non-medically indicated inductions of labour and caesarean births before 39 weeks of gestation. Behavioural and community-based interventions that can lead to reductions in smoking and violence against women need to be implemented in conjunction with antenatal care models that promote women's empowerment as a strategy for reducing preterm delivery. The global community needs to support more discovery research on normal and abnormal pregnancies to facilitate the development of preventive interventions for universal application. As new evidence is generated, resources need to be allocated to its translation into new and better screening and diagnostic tools, and other interventions aimed at saving maternal and newborn lives that can be brought to scale in all countries

Mitigating the impact of air pollution on dementia and brain health: Setting the policy agenda

Background Emerging research suggests exposure to high levels of air pollution at critical points in the life-course is detrimental to brain health, including cognitive decline and dementia. Social determinants play a significant role, including socio-economic deprivation, environmental factors and heightened health and social inequalities. Policies have been proposed more generally, but their benefits for brain health have yet to be fully explored. Objective and methods Over the course of two years, we worked as a consortium of 20+ academics in a participatory and consensus method to develop the first policy agenda for mitigating air pollution's impact on brain health and dementia, including an umbrella review and engaging 11 stakeholder organisations. Results We identified three policy domains and 14 priority areas. Research and Funding included: (1) embracing a complexities of place approach that (2) highlights vulnerable populations; (3) details the impact of ambient PM2.5 on brain health, including current and historical high-resolution exposure models; (4) emphasises the importance of indoor air pollution; (5) catalogues the multiple pathways to disease for brain health and dementia, including those most at risk; (6) embraces a life course perspective; and (7) radically rethinks funding. Education and Awareness included: (8) making this unrecognised public health issue known; (9) developing educational products; (10) attaching air pollution and brain health to existing strategies and campaigns; and (11) providing publicly available monitoring, assessment and screening tools. Policy Evaluation included: (12) conducting complex systems evaluation; (13) engaging in co-production; and (14) evaluating air quality policies for their brain health benefits. Conclusion Given the pressing issues of brain health, dementia and air pollution, setting a policy agenda is crucial. Policy needs to be matched by scientific evidence and appropriate guidelines, including bespoke strategies to optimise impact and mitigate unintended consequences. The agenda provided here is the first step toward such a plan

Retrieval of optical and microphysical properties of transported Saharan dust over Athens and Granada based on multi-wavelength Raman lidar measurements: Study of the mixing processes

In this paper we extract the aerosol microphysical properties for a collection of mineral dust cases measured by multi-wavelength depolarization Raman lidar systems located at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA, Athens, Greece) and the Andalusian Institute for Earth System Research (IISTA-CEAMA, Granada, Spain). The lidar-based retrievals were carried out with the Spheroidal Inversion eXperiments software tool (SphInX) developed at the University of Potsdam (Germany). The software uses regularized inversion of a two-dimensional enhancement of the Mie model based on the spheroid-particle approximation with the aspect ratio determining the particle shape. The selection of the cases was based on the transport time from the source regions to the measuring sites. The aerosol optical depth as measured by AERONET ranged from 0.27 to 0.54 (at 500 nm) depending on the intensity of each event. Our analysis showed the hourly mean particle linear depolarization ratio and particle lidar ratio values at 532 nm ranging from 11 to 34% and from 42 to 79 sr respectively, depending on the mixing status, the corresponding air mass pathways and their transport time. Cases with shorter transport time showed good agreement in terms of the optical and SphInX-retrieved microphysical properties between Athens and Granada providing a complex refractive index value equal to 1.4 + 0.004i. On the other hand, the results for cases with higher transport time deviated from the aforementioned ones as well as from each other, providing, in particular, an imaginary part of the refractive index ranging from 0.002 to 0.005. Reconstructions of two-dimensional shape-size distributions for each selected layer showed that the dominant effective particle shape was prolate with diverse spherical contributions. The retrieved volume concentrations reflect overall the intensity of the episodes.Spanish Ministry of Sciences, Innovation and Universities through project CGL2016-81092,Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports through grant FPU14/0368

Philippi Enrici Wider

Medium: engraving with etchingprints"Philippi Enrici Wider" [1996.2074.000.000], Sommer, Matthais VanArtist and Role: Sommer, Matthais Van, EngraverExtent: sheet 14.8 x 10.