Planning for implementation scale-up of a medication for opioid use disorder program across rural Colorado: Ensuring fit to context.

To obtain better value estimation in reinforcement learning, we propose a novel algorithm based on the double actor-critic framework with temporal difference error-driven regularization, abbreviated as TDDR. TDDR employs double actors, with each actor paired with a critic, thereby fully leveraging the advantages of double critics. Additionally, TDDR introduces an innovative critic regularization architecture. Compared to classical deterministic policy gradient-based algorithms that lack a double actor-critic structure, TDDR provides superior estimation. Moreover, unlike existing algorithms with double actor-critic frameworks, TDDR does not introduce any additional hyperparameters, significantly simplifying the design and implementation process. The convergence of the proposed TDDR to the optimal value is analyzed under random updating and simultaneous updating patterns. Extensive experiments on various tasks, including MuJoCo and Box2D, demonstrate that TDDR performs competitively against 13 algorithms, including both benchmarks and state-of-the-art methods. It also achieves statistically significant performance gains across several environments.

User Interface (UI) design and User Experience (UX) play a crucial role in the success of digital applications, particularly mobile-based e-commerce platforms. Good and effective design is characterized by constrasting yet harmonious color choices, intuitive navigation, visual consistency, and a comprehensive range of features tailored to user needs. This research aims to design the UI/UX of an e-commerce application for the Roda Mas workshop using a User-Centered Design (UCD) approach, which places the user at the center of the design process. The prototype was designed using Figma and validated through Maze testing to obtain metrics such as task success rate, time on task, and error rate. Additionally, a System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire was administered to measure user perceptions of the resulting design. The results of this research are expected to produce a design prototypr that is not only functional and aesthetic, but also easy to use, meets costumer needs, and can serve as a basis for developing more effective digital applications in the future.

Animation captivates viewers with its visual storytelling, fostering creativity, delivering entertainment, and imparting knowledge. It influences culture, media and education, shaping our perception of the world. Animation films are popular for their engaging narratives, well-developed characters and cultural significance. Character design in animated films can embody a brand’s essence, transcend cultural boundaries and influence behavior. The rising prominence of animation in global media significantly impacts children’s learning and creativity. Japanese anime, in particular, has gained a strong foothold in various markets, including India, shaping the animation landscape. This study explores anime’s growing influence on character design among Indian animation students, assessing their character design process and awareness of Indian animation. Surveys and interviews with students, faculty and industry professionals reveal anime’s impact on students’ creative projects and the limited awareness of Indian animation. The study emphasizes the need for further research to understand anime’s influence on students’ artistic styles.

The Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) Project will demonstrate a new microreactor concept intended for installation and demonstration in the Idaho National Laboratory Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Materials and Fuels Complex. This paper describes the unique challenges with the MARVEL authorization process in the following key areas: (1) identification of the applicable regulatory framework for a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) microreactor where none currently exists, (2) developing the overall strategy for integration of safety into the MARVEL design process, and (3) developing the safety analysis approach and plan that complies with 10 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 830, “Nuclear Safety Management,” for protection of the public, worker, and the environment, while implementing a qualitative risk-informed, performance-based approach (RIPB) for a DOE microreactor. Overcoming these unique challenges described in this paper resulted in a unique strategy that may be pursued by other reactor developers, including President Trump’s plan to have multiple demonstrations critical by July 4, 2026.

ABSTRACT With the increasing ageing population, many older adults still live in the generally designed housing stock, which could be ‘unsuitable’ for them. One effective way to enhance their quality of life and independence is to renovate existing housing. The development of innovative technologies (e.g. virtual reality) and design approaches (e.g. co-design) can provide new strategies for housing renovation practices. However, the knowledge of synergising these technologies with design approaches remains limited, with the potential value yet to be fully recognised. This study explores and validates a method that synergises co-design, empathic design, and virtual reality within a senior social housing renovation project in the Netherlands, which focuses on three phases: a) translating the design ideas, empathic elements, and requirements of senior residents into digital models, b) developing virtual scenarios to illustrate design variations, and c) evaluating and modifying the design variations with stakeholders using virtual reality devices. Through data analysis of the semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, co-designed sketches, and communication transcriptions, the results reveal that customised renovation design enhances stakeholder engagement and improves the effectiveness of the design process, especially for the residents. This study provides a reference for future design research involving the use of VR with older adults.

Abstract In this study, the role of extraction barriers in transport layer (TL) optimization, a longterm misunderstanding has been clarified. It is generally believed that high extraction barriers (>0.026 eV) result in low power conversion efficiency (PCE). However, present research revealed that efficient charge separation could be achievable even with barriers as high as 0.3 eV. Then a comprehensive computational analysis of over 10,000 simulated solar cells was conducted, and a universal design principle: minimizing the voltage drop across the TL is the key for maintaining high PCE, regardless of the extraction barrier was identified. Experimental validation of this principle was followed in perovskite solar cells, and exceptional efficiency was achieved for 0.3 eV barrier, which was widely considered impossible before. To make these results practical, an evaluation factor (θ) was developed, which integrates various TL parameters including extraction barrier, thickness, carrier mobility, and dielectric constant into a single, easyto-calculate metric. This tool enables rapid and overall assessment of TL effectiveness, significantly accelerating the design and optimization process.

In conflict-affected regions of Cameroon, access to malaria care is severely hindered by displacement, insecurity, and disrupted health systems. In response, we conducted an operational research aimed at breaking barriers to malaria services in conflict-affected communities of Cameroon. In 2021, a participatory co-creation workshop was held on the 21st and 22nd of October 2021, bringing together stakeholders from government health services, community leaders, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and community health workers (CHWs)to collaboratively design interventions aimed at addressing barriers to accessing malaria treatment. The workshop built on prior formative research conducted in 80 conflict-affected communities across the South West and Littoral regions of Cameroon, which identified context-specific challenges to malaria care. The design process included plenary sessions, group discussions, and facilitated brainstorming, and employed participatory methods to ensure that community voices shaped the development of the interventions. Three community-based innovations were co-created through this process. Community Health Participatory Approach (CoHPA) was designed to replace the traditional top-down community dialogue structure with a participatory, inclusive model. The Health Voucher System was designed to address financial and geographical barriers, a voucher-based system was introduced to enable access to subsidized malaria services. Vouchers covered malaria testing, treatment, and transport to health facilities. The Supportive Supervision Model was developed to enhance the capacity and motivation of CHWs, who play a crucial role in delivering malaria services in hard-to-reach areas. The co-creation process was key to developing contextually relevant and community-owned malaria interventions. It led to three innovations: the CoHPA model, which introduced internal community-led accountability mechanisms; a Health Voucher System that addressed both financial and transport barriers to care; and a supportive supervision model that aimed to improve CHW performance through bi-directional feedback and recognition. While each intervention introduced novel, context-sensitive elements, concerns remain about their scalability, sustainability, and integration into existing health systems without continued support and investment. The co-creation process produced three community-driven interventions with potential to break key barriers in access to malaria case management in conflict-affected communities of Cameroon. Pilot implementation and community buy-in for integration into national health systems are essential next steps.

Data driven shoe design improves running economy beyond state-of-the-art Advanced Footwear Technology running shoes.

Purpose This study investigates how design-led processes can cultivate teachers' spatial literacy and agency, enabling more pedagogically attuned school environments. It addresses the limited integration of teachers' lived spatial experience and professional identity in architectural design processes for education. The study is guided by the following research questions: (1) How can a design-led medium be conceived and developed to help teachers understand and articulate the relationship between pedagogy and physical space? (2) How can the application of this design-led medium engage teachers in developing spatial literacy and cultivating agency over their learning environments? Design/methodology/approach Employing a design-based research framework, this study introduces The Teacher's Rider, a three-phase participatory workshop that begins with teachers' pedagogical identity, guides them through a speculative, utopian learning landscape and concludes with visualizing spatial “must-haves” aligned with their educational values. The method uses intuitive, visual tools – such as a poster and guided reflection – to translate teachers' tacit pedagogical insights into spatial design language. Findings The results show that teachers can meaningfully articulate spatial affordances and constraints when supported through design-led reflection. The method helps surface spatial intuitions, stimulate reflective awareness and foster a shared design vocabulary between teachers and architects. Practical implications The method offers architects a replicable framework for eliciting tacit user needs and pedagogically grounded insights, strengthening participatory design processes and creating more contextually responsive and inclusive school environments. Originality/value By bridging the cultural and cognitive gap between education and architecture, The Teacher's Rider repositions teachers as interpretive agents in and co-authors of school design.

This article examines the experiences of Makerere University faculty members in Uganda, specifically their involvement in the co-design of blended courses and how these experiences influenced their adoption of technology-enhanced learning. Through a phenomenological approach and in-depth interviews with 12 faculty members across diverse disciplines, this article explains how faculty members brokered collaborative course design processes, navigated institutional pressures, and facilitated pedagogical transformation in a resource-constrained setting. The study reveals that peer mentorship, interdisciplinarity, and observable student interaction were among the key drivers of faculty commitment, whereas limited time, a lack of recognition, and entrenched hierarchies can deter long-term commitment. Faculty resilience and adaptive strategies were found to be key drivers of innovation, despite these challenges. The study recommends an institutional policy that is sensitive to academic agency, recognises blended learning as a component of formal workload allocation, and encourages the relational aspects of digital pedagogy. These are concerned with the creation of sustainable, locally enacted blended learning environments within the architecture of higher education within the Global South.

The involution of modern society has fostered intense competition in various domains, burdening residents with negative psychological stresses. Therefore, exploring theories related to healing design (HD) has an increasingly urgent significance. This research follows the PRISMA guidelines to conduct a systematic review. This review has identified four intervention strategies widely applied in health design with significant healing effects. They can be summarized as: (1) Proximity to natural elements combined with recreational activities; (2) Community memories and cultural familiarity driving emotional resonance; (3) Promoting emotional healing through (static and dynamic) behaviours; and (4) Playful and immersive healing experiences brought by emerging technologies. Furthermore, this review clarifies the scientific process for HD and evaluation. These findings could help future researchers clarify the design focus of healing interventions and how to verify healing touchpoints, thereby fostering a more emotionally resilient society to combat increasing severe psychological problems and future public health crises.

The advancement of nanophotonic devices is significantly dependent on achieving high-precision inverse design capabilities, which are critical for identifying optimal structural configurations that enable enhanced and multifunctional performances. The process of inverse design confronts a one-to-many relationship due to the complex mapping between optical performance and structure. Though several approaches, including tandem networks, mixture density networks (MDN), and conditional generative adversarial networks, have shown promising outcomes, they still face accuracy limitations when confronted with structures with higher degrees of freedom. Here, we propose a sampling-enhanced MDN called a mixture probability sampling network (MPSN), that outputs mixture Gaussian distributions (MGDs) of structural parameters through an end-to-end framework. The results of multiple samples drawn from the MGDs are fed into a pre-trained network, and the sample that minimizes the error relative to the real data is selected for network training. We benchmark the high performance in nanophotonics through the structural color design, achieving a high precision of up to 99.9% and a mean absolute error of less than 0.002. This work paves the way for resolving intricate inverse design problems in nanophotonics.

Abstract This study aimed to design, develop, and evaluate prototype hands-free stethoscope chest piece holders to facilitate manual blood pressure (BP) measurement by freeing one of the operator's hands. The objective was to assess whether these prototypes could maintain measurement accuracy while improving usability and ergonomics. An iterative design process was employed, guided by Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to identify user requirements. Two prototype devices were fabricated using Material Extrusion (MEX) Additive Manufacturing (AM) with polylactic acid (PLA) material. The prototypes were tested with 19 examinees and 11 operators. BP measurements obtained using the prototypes were compared to the standard auscultatory method. Statistical analysis (ANOVA) was performed to assess accuracy, and user feedback was collected through questionnaires and qualitative analysis. Both prototypes demonstrated comparable accuracy to the standard auscultatory method, with ANOVA showing no statistically significant differences in systolic or diastolic BP measurements. User feedback indicated positive perceptions of comfort and usability, though improvements in adjustability, cushioning, and ease of use were recommended. Almost all participants recognised the potential advantages of the devices for clinical and educational applications.

Physical activity (PA) is one of the core components of healthy ageing. For older adults with intellectual disabilities (ID), PA is even more important because they often have a more sedentary and inactive lifestyle and more health problems than do older adults without ID. To promote PA, we explored personal and contextual barriers and facilitators to PA for this group. We used a research-through-design approach with six older adults with ID in a specific care home facility. By applying co-design methods, older adults with ID, caregivers and other stakeholders were involved from the beginning in (1) listing barriers and facilitators, (2) exploring PA-promoting interventions and (3) adapting co-design methods to the target group. Our work resulted in a list of barriers and facilitators for the participants to perform PA, related to the personal characteristics of the participants, the provided PAs and the physical and social context. Further, a PA-stimulating intervention prototype and lessons learned regarding co-design with older adults with ID were developed. It became clear that a modular, adaptive intervention is necessary to accommodate the individual needs and wishes of older adults with ID. The same adaptive approach was required to meaningfully involve them in the research and design process. Older adults with ID cannot be regarded as a homogeneous group, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution for promoting their PA. Basic components for an intervention can be provided, yet they always require adaptations to personal and contextual circumstances. The identified barriers and facilitators, intervention prototype and co-design lessons can provide guidance for creating tailored interventions.

This article aims to investigate the neural network (NN) nonsingular fixed-time adaptive consensus control issue for nonlinear multiagent systems (MASs) with parameter uncertainties. By introducing a generalized intermediate-variable-based disturbance observer (IVBDO), a novel distributed fixed-time NN adaptive controller is constructed based on the quartic Lyapunov function method. Under this protocol, the mismatched external disturbances of each agent are real-time online estimated; meanwhile, the singularity phenomenon during the fixed-time design process can be effectively eliminated. The presented control algorithm not only guarantees that the controlled system is semi-globally uniformly ultimately bounded (SGUUB) but also that the distributed output tracking errors converge to an adjustable compact set of the origin within a fixed-time interval. Simulation results are displayed to check the effectiveness of the suggested approach.

The construction of the new power system has made power operation and maintenance increasingly complex. The traditional operation methods can no longer meet the requirements of high efficiency and high safety. Based on the operation scenarios of the frontline power operation, this paper studies and designs a portable operation terminal based on human-computer interaction logic. After in-depth analysis of the operation behaviors and cognitive psychology of the operation personnel, a system framework consisting of hardware human engineering, graphic interface visual communication, and multimodal interaction feedback is obtained. During the product design process, the grip stability of the terminal in extreme environments, the comfort of wearing, and the touch and voice interaction strategies under complex electromagnetic interference were mainly studied. Through the research, it is known that the improved interaction design can effectively reduce the cognitive burden of the operation personnel, reduce the risk of misoperation, and enhance the accuracy of power fault diagnosis and data collection. The research in this paper provides rigorous theoretical basis and design practice references for the intelligent and humanized transformation of special portable equipment in the power industry.

Analog circuits play a vital role in electronic design and are key in connecting digital circuits with the physical environment. Ensuring the accuracy and reliability of analog circuit simulation tools (i.e., Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE)) is crucial; any errors in analog circuit simulation tools may lead to defects in analog circuit design, which may cause major problems and losses in the design and production process. Due to the lack of complete and unified specifications for analog circuit design, existing simulation tool testing works face the challenge of how to generate more effective analog circuits and improve test efficiency. To overcome these challenges, we propose a new fuzz testing method called SpiceFuzz, which is the first to use training-free LLMs to generate effective and diverse SPICE netlists to test SPICE simulators. First, SpiceFuzz combines carefully constructed mutation prompts with a flow with feedback to automatically generate effective analog circuits. Then, SpiceFuzz guides mutation selection by memorizing the historical selections and their results, thereby selecting mutations that are more likely to trigger bugs for the specific analog circuits. Finally, the differential testing component compares the simulation results of generated SPICE netlists to find potential bugs in the simulators. Experimental results show that SpiceFuzz outperforms the state-of-the-art methods, in terms of the number and simulation success rate of SPICE netlists generated. Meanwhile, in one month, SpiceFuzz reports 12 discovered bugs in NgSPICE and LtSPICE, 7 of which are confirmed by the developers.

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the problem of optimized fuzzy prescribed performance control for nonlinear strict‐feedback systems under denial‐of‐service (DoS) attacks. DoS attacks disrupt communication channels, leading to the output signal and states of the system unavailable. A switched fuzzy observer is adopted to reconstruct unmeasurable states under DoS attacks. Simultaneously, a simpler prescribed performance error transformation is constructed to constrain the tracking error within a prescribed boundary, which can improve the transient and steady‐state performance of the control system. To achieve optimized fuzzy prescribed performance control under DoS attacks, an event‐based secure optimal control strategy is proposed. Specifically, the controller at each backstepping layer is designed as the optimal solution for the corresponding subsystem, such that the entire backstepping control process is optimized. Due to the difficulty in directly solving optimal solutions, a reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm with an actor‐critic architecture is incorporated into the control design process to obtain approximate optimal controllers. In addition, a dynamic event‐triggering mechanism (DETM) is proposed to improve the utilization rate of the communication resource. Through Lyapunov stability analysis, it is proved that the tracking error always evolves within the performance envelope, and the consumed control resources are minimized. Meanwhile, the Zeno behavior can be effectively eliminated. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed strategy is verified via a simulation example.

ABSTRACT Technological advances in the study of the human genome have led to increased understanding of the complexity of genetic variation and the role of genes and the environment in shaping human phenotypes. Accurate interpretation of modern genetic data will require increased support for science teachers to update their curriculum to teach more complex genetics. In this paper, we analyze the co-design process of one middle school science teacher working with museum educators to develop professional learning activities for science teachers to update their curriculum to include more complex genetics. This representative case study describes the science teacher’s organizational sensemaking as she engaged in the co-design process with limited understanding of genetic complexity. We identified the sources of pedagogical and conceptual ambiguity the teacher surfaced and the available resources she leveraged to work through that ambiguity. Sources of ambiguity included a lack of empirically based examples of complex traits to hook students’ interest, word choice in the activity, order of activities to support conceptual development, and relationship between genes and the environment in determining phenotype. The teacher leveraged her understanding of how children learn science, the social network of the museum educators, and observations of other teachers engaged in the activity to develop and iterate on her activity design. These findings suggest that co-design teams should surface both pedagogical and conceptual ambiguity related to the teaching of new science content throughout the design process and include opportunities for sensemaking with scientists and other science teachers.