Everyday Environments Research Articles

Designing Interfaces of Information System 'smart Household' Using the Persona Method

The article is dedicated to analyzing the processes of developing interfaces for the ‘Smart Home’ information system using the persona method. The integration of ‘smart’ technologies into the everyday environment of modern society plays a crucial role. However, the successful implementation of the information technology concept of ‘Smart Home’ significantly depends on the efficiency and convenience of interfaces that facilitate interaction between the comprehensive information system and various user groups. The authors present a methodology for developing a set of interfaces for the ‘Smart Home’ information system using the persona method, which enables the creation of interfaces that best meet the needs and expectations of different user groups. The paper examines the processes of analyzing the target audience, determining their needs, and systematically integrating data at all stages of developing relevant interfaces. This article can serve as a valuable source of original experience and new knowledge for IT professionals, interface designers, and developers of various ‘smart’ systems aiming to create efficient and personalized interfaces tailored to the specific needs, requests, and preferences of individuals for their convenient daily use.

Moving Beyond Clinical Imaginaries: Technogeographies of the Everyday Urban.

In this paper, we analyse the intersections between care and place in mundane spaces not explicitly designed for the provision of care, and where digital technologies are used to mediate ecologies of distress in the city. We locate our analysis alongside studies of how digital technologies impact the experience of care within non-clinical spaces, whilst noting that much research on the use of technologies for care remains haunted by clinical imaginaries. Bringing together ideas of multi-sited therapeutic assemblages, technogeographies of care, and how places-by-proxy can act as conduits for care, we explore an example of an online app being used in public space to manage experiences of anxiety in an everyday urban environment. We reflect on this illustrative example to trace the movement of care as it is mediated through digital technologies-out of the clinic, beyond the home, and into the ordinary spaces of the city. We conclude that the entanglements of digital technologies and ordinary urban places prompt us to entirely reconsider questions of the where of care.

Flexible circuit-based spatially aware modular optical brain imaging system for high-density measurements in natural settings.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) presents an opportunity to study human brains in everyday activities and environments. However, achieving robust measurements under such dynamic conditions remains a significant challenge. The modular optical brain imaging (MOBI) system is designed to enhance optode-to-scalp coupling and provide a real-time probe three-dimensional (3D) shape estimation to improve the use of fNIRS in everyday conditions. The MOBI system utilizes a bendable and lightweight modular circuit-board design to enhance probe conformity to head surfaces and comfort for long-term wearability. Combined with automatic module connection recognition, the built-in orientation sensors on each module can be used to estimate optode 3D positions in real time to enable advanced tomographic data analysis and motion tracking. Optical characterization of the MOBI detector reports a noise equivalence power of 8.9 and at 735 and 850nm, respectively, with a dynamic range of 88dB. The 3D optode shape acquisition yields an average error of 4.2mm across 25 optodes in a phantom test compared with positions acquired from a digitizer. Results for initial in vivo validations, including a cuff occlusion and a finger-tapping test, are also provided. To the best of our knowledge, the MOBI system is the first modular fNIRS system featuring fully flexible circuit boards. The self-organizing module sensor network and automatic 3D optode position acquisition, combined with lightweight modules ( ) and ergonomic designs, would greatly aid emerging explorations of brain function in naturalistic settings.

Wearable Voice Dosimetry System

The objective quantification of voice acoustic parameters is used for the diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of voice disorders. Such assessments are carried out with specialised equipment within the doctor’s office. The controlled conditions employed are usually not those of the real environment of the patient. The results, although very informative, are specific to those measurement conditions and to the time when they were performed. A wearable voice monitoring system, based on an accelerometer to ensure the message, can overcome these limitations. We present a miniaturised, low-power, and low-cost wearable system to estimate and record voice fundamental frequency (F0), intensity and phonation time for long intervals in the everyday environment of the patient. It was tested on two subjects for up to two weeks of recording time. It was possible to identify distinct periods in vocal activity, such as normal, professional, demanding or hyperfunctional. It provided information on the workload that the vocal cords needed to cope with over time and when and to what extent that workload was concentrated. The proposed voice dosimetry system enables the extraction and recording of voice parameters for long periods of time in the everyday environment of the patient, allowing the objectification of vocal risk situations and personalised treatment and monitoring.

Anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity of microwave solvolysis lignin from woody biomass

The global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has had profoundly detrimental effects on our society. To combat this highly pathogenic virus, we turned our attention to an abundant renewable natural aromatic polymer found in wood. Through a chemical modification of Eucalyptus and Japanese cedar wood via acidic microwave solvolysis in equivolume mixture of 2 % (w/w) aqueous H2SO4, ethylene glycol, and toluene at 190 °C. Subsequently, we separated the resulting solvolysis products through extractions with toluene, ethyl acetate, and ethanol. Among these products, the ethyl acetate extract from Eucalyptus wood (eEAE) demonstrated the highest inhibition effects against the novel SARS-CoV-2. We further divided eEAE into four fractions, and a hexane extract from the ethanol-soluble portion, termed eEAE3, exhibited the most substantial inhibitory rate at 93.0 % when tested at a concentration of 0.5 mg/mL. Analyzing eEAE3 using pyrolysis gas chromatography–mass spectrometry revealed that its primary components are derived from lignin. Additionally, 1H–13C edited-heteronuclear single quantum coherence nuclear magnetic resonance analysis showed that the solvolysis process cleaved major lignin interunit linkages. Considering the abundance and renewability of lignin, the lignin-derived anti-SARS-CoV-2 agent presents a promising potential for application in suppressing infections within our everyday environment.

How Learners Perceive Inter-Disciplinary Dialogic Science Related Learning Experiences: A Mixed-Method Study

Well-designed, dialogic, and interdisciplinary learning opportunities in science related disciplines can promote many educational goals. The difficulty lies in providing these opportunities in schools. Can out-of-school focus days fill the void? Here, we performed a mixed methods study to discover how middle school learners perceive focus days that included dialogic, interdisciplinary activities in mathematics, science, and philosophy, all around socio-scientific dilemmas. We also sought to understand the experiences’ impact on learners’ self-perceived dialogic engagement in the school classroom. We focused on (1) learners’ perceptions and recollections of the dialogic climate during the focus days; (2) the perceived contribution of the three disciplines (mathematics, science and philosophy) to the interdisciplinary focus days; and (3) the focus days’ effects on the dialogic climate in the everyday school environment. Our findings suggest that (1) learners generally considered the focus days as enjoyable and different than their everyday school experience; (2) students did not consider each discipline equally relevant to the focus days’ main topics; and (3) the effects of the focus days were localized, that is, no impact was found on the dialogic climate at school. We discuss implications for promoting interdisciplinary, dialogic science related learning in secondary schools.

Critical role of model organism selection in assessing weak urban electromagnetic field effects: Implications for human health

The impact of electromagnetic fields on human health has been investigated in recent years using various model organisms, yet the findings remain unclear. In our work, we examined the effect of less-explored, weak electromagnetic fields commonly found in the urban environments we inhabit. We studied different impacts of electromagnetic fields with a frequency of 50 Hz and a combination of 50 Hz and 150 Hz, on both yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and human macrophages. We determined growth, survival, and protein composition (SDS-PAGE) (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and morphology of macrophages (human monocytic cell line). In yeast, the sole observed change after 24 h of exposure was the extension of the exponential growth phase by 17 h. Conversely, macrophages exhibited morphological transformations from the anti-inflammatory to the pro-inflammatory type within just 2 h of exposure to the electromagnetic field.Our results suggest that effects of electromagnetic field largely depend on the model organism. The selection of an appropriate model organism proves essential for the study of the specific impacts of electromagnetic fields. The potential risk associated with the presence of pro-inflammatory M1 macrophages in everyday urban environments primarily arises from the continual promotion of inflammatory reactions within a healthy organism and deserves further investigation.

The Impact of the Madrasati Platform Experience on Acquiring Mathematical Concepts and Improving Learning Motivation from the Point of View of Mathematics Teachers

Abstract The objective of this research is to examine the impact of the Madrasati platform experience on acquiring mathematical concepts, and improving learning motivation from the point of view of mathematics teachers. To achieve the objective of the research, the researchers relied on the descriptive approach in its survey style. The sample of the study consisted of 613 mathematics teachers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the study tool (questionnaire) was distributed to them. These data were processed through the use of quantitative methods and measures, such as the statistical packages program SPSS. The main results were as follows. First, there was a moderate level of agreement among participants regarding the impact of the experience of using the Madrasati platform. Second, there was a much stronger level of agreement regarding the degree to which using the Madrasati platform enabled students to acquire mathematical concepts. Third, there was almost universal agreement among participants that using the platform enhanced students’ motivation to learn. Fourthly, the participants perceived there to be an extremely strong relationship between enhanced motivation to learn and the acquisition of mathematical concepts. The researchers recommend that students and mathematics teachers should continue to use the Madrasati platform in the everyday school environment.

A one-man bilingual cocktail party: linguistic and non-linguistic effects on bilinguals’ speech recognition in Mandarin and English

Multilingual speakers can find speech recognition in everyday environments like restaurants and open-plan offices particularly challenging. In a world where speaking multiple languages is increasingly common, effective clinical and educational interventions will require a better understanding of how factors like multilingual contexts and listeners’ language proficiency interact with adverse listening environments. For example, word and phrase recognition is facilitated when competing voices speak different languages. Is this due to a “release from masking” from lower-level acoustic differences between languages and talkers, or higher-level cognitive and linguistic factors? To address this question, we created a “one-man bilingual cocktail party” selective attention task using English and Mandarin speech from one bilingual talker to reduce low-level acoustic cues. In Experiment 1, 58 listeners more accurately recognized English targets when distracting speech was Mandarin compared to English. Bilingual Mandarin–English listeners experienced significantly more interference and intrusions from the Mandarin distractor than did English listeners, exacerbated by challenging target-to-masker ratios. In Experiment 2, 29 Mandarin–English bilingual listeners exhibited linguistic release from masking in both languages. Bilinguals experienced greater release from masking when attending to English, confirming an influence of linguistic knowledge on the “cocktail party” paradigm that is separate from primarily energetic masking effects. Effects of higher-order language processing and expertise emerge only in the most demanding target-to-masker contexts. The “one-man bilingual cocktail party” establishes a useful tool for future investigations and characterization of communication challenges in the large and growing worldwide community of Mandarin–English bilinguals.

Spectral degradation and carrier sentences increase age-related temporal processing deficits in a cue-specific manner.

Advancing age is associated with decreased sensitivity to temporal cues in word segments, particularly when target words follow non-informative carrier sentences or are spectrally degraded (e.g., vocoded to simulate cochlear-implant stimulation). This study investigated whether age, carrier sentences, and spectral degradation interacted to cause undue difficulty in processing speech temporal cues. Younger and older adults with normal hearing performed phonemic categorization tasks on two continua: a Buy/Pie contrast with voice onset time changes for the word-initial stop and a Dish/Ditch contrast with silent interval changes preceding the word-final fricative. Target words were presented in isolation or after non-informative carrier sentences, and were unprocessed or degraded via sinewave vocoding (2, 4, and 8 channels). Older listeners exhibited reduced sensitivity to both temporal cues compared to younger listeners. For the Buy/Pie contrast, age, carrier sentence, and spectral degradation interacted such that the largest age effects were seen for unprocessed words in the carrier sentence condition. This pattern differed from the Dish/Ditch contrast, where reducing spectral resolution exaggerated age effects, but introducing carrier sentences largely left the patterns unchanged. These results suggest that certain temporal cues are particularly susceptible to aging when placed in sentences, likely contributing to the difficulties of older cochlear-implant users in everyday environments.

Children's exposure to halogenated flame retardants and organophosphate esters through dermal absorption and hand-to-mouth ingestion in Swedish preschools

Children are exposed to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) through inhalation and ingestion, as well as through dermal contact in their everyday indoor environments. The dermal loadings of EDCs may contribute significantly to children's total EDC exposure due to dermal absorption as well as hand-to-mouth behaviors. The aim of this study was to measure potential EDCs, specifically halogenated flame retardants (HFRs) and organophosphate esters (OPEs), on children's hands during preschool attendance and to assess possible determinants of exposure in preschool indoor environments in Sweden. For this, 115 handwipe samples were collected in winter and spring from 60 participating children (arithmetic mean age 4.5 years, standard deviation 1.0) and analyzed for 50 compounds. Out of these, 31 compounds were identified in the majority of samples. Levels were generally several orders of magnitude higher for OPEs than HFRs, and 2-ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate (EHDPP) and tris(2-butoxyethyl) phosphate (TBOEP) were detected in the highest median masses, 61 and 56 ng/wipe, respectively. Of the HFRs, bis(2-ethyl-1-hexyl)-2,3,4,5-tetrabromobenzoate (BEH-TEBP) and 2,2′,3,3′,4,4′,5,5′,6,6′-decabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-209) were detected in the highest median masses, 2.8 and 1.8 ng/wipe, respectively.HFR and/or OPE levels were found to be affected by the number of plastic toys, and electrical and electronic devices, season, municipality, as well as building and/or renovation before/after 2004. Yet, the calculated health risks for single compounds were below available reference dose values for exposure through dermal uptake as well as for ingestion using mean hand-to-mouth contact rate. However, assuming a high hand-to-mouth contact rate, at the 95th percentile, the calculated hazard quotient was above 1 for the maximum handwipe mass of TBOEP found in this study, suggesting a risk of negative health effects. Furthermore, considering additive effects from similar compounds, the results of this study indicate potential concern if additional exposure from other routes is as high.

Flexible-circuit-based 3-D aware modular optical brain imaging system for high-density measurements in natural settings.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) presents an opportunity to study human brains in everyday activities and environments. However, achieving robust measurements under such dynamic condition remains a significant challenge. The modular optical brain imaging (MOBI) system is designed to enhance optode-to-scalp coupling and provide real-time probe 3-D shape estimation to improve the use of fNIRS in everyday conditions. The MOBI system utilizes a bendable and lightweight modular circuit-board design to enhance probe conformity to head surfaces and comfort for long-term wearability. Combined with automatic module connection recognition, the built-in orientation sensors on each module can be used to estimate optode 3-D positions in real-time to enable advanced tomographic data analysis and motion tracking. Optical characterization of the MOBI detector reports a noise equivalence power (NEP) of 8.9 and 7.3 at 735 nm and 850 nm, respectively, with a dynamic range of 88 dB. The 3-D optode shape acquisition yields an average error of 4.2 mm across 25 optodes in a phantom test compared to positions acquired from a digitizer. Results for initial in vivo validations, including a cuff occlusion and a finger-tapping test, are also provided. To the best of our knowledge, the MOBI system is the first modular fNIRS system featuring fully flexible circuit boards. The self-organizing module sensor network and automatic 3-D optode position acquisition, combined with lightweight modules (18 g/module) and ergonomic designs, would greatly aid emerging explorations of brain function in naturalistic settings.

Math Talk to Infants During Everyday Home Activities: Contextual Cues to Words About Number, Space, and Magnitude

ABSTRACT Infants begin to produce abstract “math” words – such as numbers (e.g., “two”), spatial terms (e.g., “down”), and magnitude words (e.g., “more”) – during their second postnatal year. Math words, as all words, are likely learned in the home setting during interactions with caregivers. However, everyday early exposure to math talk is understudied. What referents and social cues accompany caregivers’ math-related speech to infants? We examined U.S. infants’ (25 girls, 25 boys; ages 13 to 23 months; 60% white non-Latine) exposure to math words at home during everyday activities with their mothers. We documented three types of math words/phrases (i.e., number, spatial, and magnitude words), their referents (e.g., images in books), and the social cues that accompanied math talk (e.g., gestures). Math words appeared in 15% of mothers’ utterances (13,000+ math utterances in aggregate), increased with child age, mostly specified spatial concepts (e.g., location and direction), and tended to refer to objects and actions in the environment that were relevant to the child, such as toys, books, and the child’s body and behaviors. Social cues accompanied mothers’ math talk about half the time. Notably, certain types of referents and social cues aligned with specific types of math talk (e.g., manual gestures such as points accompanied talk about spatial features such as shapes). In the everyday home environment, infants experience frequent and varied math words, across a variety of activities, in the presence of salient social and contextual cues.

Teaching Robots to "Get It Right"

We are interested in building and deploying service mobile robots to assist with arbitrary end-user tasks in everyday environments. In such open-world settings, how can we ensure that robots 1) are robust to environmental changes; 2) navigate the world in ways consistent with social and other unwritten norms; and 3) correctly complete the tasks expected of them? In this work, we survey these technical challenges and present several promising directions to address them. To "get it right", robots will have to reason about unexpected sources of failures in the real world and learn to overcome them; glean appropriate contextual information from perception to understand how to navigate in the world; and infer what correct task execution actually entails.

Trust as a sensory mode of engaging culturally diverse communities in net zero futures

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of trust – as a sensory mode of knowing and engaging in everyday environments – in generating community-based routes toward sustainable futures in a culturally diverse situation. To do this we outline a theory of trust and apply trust as a conceptual frame for understanding international students’ relationships to their everyday environments. We focus on how trust can participate in carving new pathways to net zero carbon emissions, in processes whereby decolonization and decarbonization become interwoven trajectories. In doing so, we draw on ethnographic research undertaken with culturally diverse local and international students and staff on a university campus committed to working toward net zero emissions. Treating such sites as living labs for investigating how net zero comes about simultaneously demonstrates and surfaces the role of sensory and embodied modes of trust and engagement in this process. Thus, we argue that trust and the sensory knowing it entails offer a conceptual and practical prism with applications across community initiatives.

Evaporation-induced self-assembled ultrathin AgNW networks for highly conformable wearable electronics

The flexibility and stability of transparent electrodes play a crucial role in the growing popularity of flexible devices, especially in potential wearable electronics. To date, various solution-coating techniques have been developed for fabricating silver nanowire (AgNW) flexible bioelectronics. However, achieving the orderly distributed patterns of AgNW without undesirable aggregations still poses a grand challenge. Here, an approach to realize regular patterned ultrathin AgNW networks on a freestanding electrospun PVDF-TrFE frame by evaporation-induced self-assembly is proposed. The patterning mechanism of evaporating AgNW colloidal suspension is investigated from experimental and theoretical analysis. The influence of evaporation-induced flow inside colloidal freestanding membranes on forming regular square hole-shaped arrays, selective deposition of AgNW, and aligning them along the artificial pinning array are addressed. Owing to the orderly arrangement of AgNW networks, the resultant flexible electrode achieves ultrathin thickness (about 5 μm), high optical transmittance (87.8%), and low sheet resistance (8.4 Ω·sq−1) with a relatively low dosage of AgNW (9 μg·cm−2). The electrode exhibits excellent durability during cyclic bending (50,000 times) and stretching (50% strain). The resistance remains virtually unchanged during 200 days in everyday environments. Furthermore, the excellent conformability and breathability of the flexible transparent electrode attached to the human skin demonstrates its potential application as an e-skin sensor. Our findings reliably urge a simple approach to underscore better outcomes with effective patterns by self-assembly of AgNW for highly conformal wearable electronics.

Between-ness

In this paper, a theoretical framework developed in a doctoral program of research concerned with connecting philosophies of between-ness with design practice is described. The theory of ‘spatial excess’ as defined by Elizabeth Grosz is shown to be particularly useful in reconceptualising design practice. Central to this is an understanding of spatial excess in relation to anti-deterministic space, the search for different spatial inhabitations, and ephemeral people-space relations; dimensions developed further in the doctoral program through two spatial practices that exist outside conventional architecture and design – site specific installation art and experimental making. These are outlined in the paper together with findings that suggest that practices of spatial excess might be most potent in sites that are conceptually and physically interior, and that these practices should happen in everyday contexts and environments where they can be initiated by their occupants.

Holistic Approach in Strengthening of Primary Health Care Service

Holistic Approach in Strengthening of Primary Health Care Service

성인학습자의 무형식학습 프로세스에 영향을 미치는 요인들에 대한 연구

The purpose of this study is to identify the meaning of informal learning for adult learners in lifelong learning by reviewing discourses in pedagogy related to informal learning and introducing heuristic model for practical research on informal learning. To this end, after reviewing the main perspectives on the meaning of informal learning, which has been conventionally discussed in educational research, in detail, the trends in informal learning research in three areas primarily observed in lifelong learning (informal learning in the workplace, multicultural informal learning, and community informal learning) were examined. Adult learners’ informal learning occurs through interactions between society, culture, media, or members in the everyday learning environment based on sociocultural context to which they belong, such as society, community, and workplace. Based on this, a heuristic model of informal learning was introduced that takes into account the social conditions of learners that can produce continuous informal learning as well as individual learner aspect. In the end, as a comprehensive perspective to understand human learning in the further research, the research direction for informal learning research and the expectation for the analytical foundation of practical research to support adult learners' informal learning was suggested.

"I Want to Do Something" - Exploring What Makes Activities Meaningful for Community-Dwelling People Living With Dementia: A Focused Ethnographic Study.

Supporting ageing in place, quality of life, and activity engagement are public health priorities for people with dementia. The importance of maintaining opportunities for meaningful activities has been widely acknowledged for those with dementia in long-term care, but little is known about what makes activities meaningful for, and how they are experienced by, people with different types of dementia in their own homes. This study used focussed ethnographic methods to explore the motivations and meanings of everyday activity engagement within the homes of 10 people with memory-led Alzheimer's disease and 10 people with posterior cortical atrophy. While participants' interactions with their everyday environments were challenged by their diagnoses, they were all finding ways to continue meaning-making via various activities. The main findings are encapsulated in three themes: (1) The fun and the function of activities; (2) Reciprocities of care, and (3) The constitution and continuity of (a changing) self. Ongoing engagement with both fun and functional activities offered participants living with different dementias opportunities to connect with others, to offer care and support (as well as receive it), and to maintain a sense of self and identity. Implications are discussed regarding the development and delivery of tailored interventions and support to enable continued engagement in meaningful activities for people with different types of dementia living in the community.