Final Artifact Research Articles

Co-designing of a prototype mobile application for fetal radiation dose monitoring among pregnant radiographers using a design thinking approach.

This study aimed to develop a prototype mobile application to enhance fetal dosimetry among pregnant radiographers in #### through a design thinking approach. Eleven participants were recruited to engage in a participatory design workshop, which encompassed five stages: Empathise, Ideate, Define, Prototype and Test. The participants were divided into two teams. Qualitative datasets from the workshop included field notes and FIGMA screens. The data were analysed through thematic analysis, from which three major themes emerged: (1) Unsafe working environments for pregnant radiographers, (2) The need for enhanced fetal radiation dose monitoring by pregnant radiographers as an occupational health and safety requirement, and (3) Co-designing of the prototype mobile application, PregiDose. The participants contributed towards a prototype mobile application which addressed challenges experienced in the real-life setting. Hence, the prototype can be used as an effective framework by which to guide the development of the final artefact.

Designing Virtual Coaching Solutions

Especially older persons are prone to disabilities and chronic diseases. These chronic conditions pose a worldwide challenge, leading to deteriorating health, economic strain, loss of life, and a decline in the quality of life (QoL). Therefore, healthcare institutions seek to enhance their strategies for disease prevention and management to uphold the well-being of the community. This leads to the need to regain independence and improve QoL to properly rehabilitate the patients. Virtual Coaches (VCs) in the form of Embodied Conversational Agents are seen as a relevant digital intervention to support the continuity of care. The paper at hand reports on a Design Science Research project about implementing a VC solution to support older patients' home rehabilitation. The study underpins four pivotal design principles: Adaptivity, Coaching Strategy, Multi-user Interface, and Sustainable Infrastructure. The final artifact was tested with 80 patients which were supported in continuing their inpatient rehabilitation at home by using a VC. The evaluation shows both positive results for usability and acceptance of the intervention for four different use cases and a positive impact on the QoL. Given the comprehensive clinical evaluation, the system represents a safe and appealing solution for ensuring the continuity of medical rehabilitation care and the access to personalized cognitive and motor function treatments.

A new frontier in dashboard design: Evaluating an innovative meta‐modelling approach through expert insights

AbstractContextData visualizations and dashboards are essential in disseminating information to broad audiences. However, designing these instruments is complex due to the multitude of involved factors. Theoretical frameworks are therefore critical to guide the design and implementation of data visualizations.ObjectiveThis article presents the approach used to pinpoint key features that impact the creation of information visualizations, organize these features using meta‐modelling, and validate the final artefact through expert judgement.MethodMeta‐modelling facilitates the distillation of characteristics and functionalities critical for the development of information systems. Utilizing this method, a dashboard meta‐model was constructed in preceding research, yielding a framework of abstract components and connections to delineate specific products. This meta‐model serves as a robust tool for the automated generation of information visualizations and dashboards. Nonetheless, to confirm its quality and efficacy, it underwent a thorough quality assessment and expert evaluation to identify and address potential shortcomings.ResultsThe validation process resulted in positive ratings and constructive feedback to enhance the meta‐model's present iteration. Experts mainly highlighted the meta‐model's complexity and the clarity of certain entities, noting potential confusion for non‐experts.ConclusionsWhile the meta‐model is confirmed to be a coherent and pertinent tool, it requires additional clarifications to simplify its complexity. Addressing this, graphical interfaces have been developed to enable users to interact with the dashboard meta‐model—and to create dashboard instances—through straightforward interactions.

Using Work System Theory to Achieve a Collaborative Health Information System in Social Care Environments

This paper describes how work system theory (WST) was used to achieve the goal of creating an information system artifact that allows for both static and dynamic views of the work systems used in social care environments, in particular those of addiction peer support. In so doing, the internal environment, strategies, and infrastructure created the foundation upon which the Collaborative Health Information for Peer Support Specialists (CHIPSS) was implemented. Doing so was part of an organizational and state-sponsored strategy to streamline social care practices and enhance client care. Scenario-based requirements gathering was instrumental in ensuring that the work of the peer support specialist, rather than the information system, was the focus of the artifact. This study reports on the alignment of initial requirements to the final artifact. Results of a post-implementation survey suggest that the resulting requirements were well aligned with the initial requirements elucidated from the scenarios.

Context-Based Support to Enhance Developers’ Learning of Software Security

Software security is an ongoing problem, largely due to a lack of security knowledge among software developers from diverse backgrounds. To counter this, security experts are attempting to offer a broad range of knowledge resources to enlighten developers about increasing cybersecurity threats. Unfortunately, the abundance of knowledge resources does not seem to have much of an impact on reducing the issue of software security. The ineffective teaching and learning approaches for software security have created difficulties for developers in learning security knowledge. This research employs a four-cycle of Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM) to integrate necessary elements in the development of a context-based learning system for security education and learning. The final artifact is an ontology-based web application that facilitates a contextualized learning process by providing security knowledge through contextual software cases. Through evaluation in pedagogical and software development environments, it is proven to contribute a viable solution to the problem domain. While these results are positive, the innovative context-based artifact benefits not only the domain of software engineering but also other educational fields, such as information security and computer security.

Mind and muscle: Deconstructing the uniform of masculinity in the time of AIDS

Perceptions of the boundaries of masculinity have often been questioned in menswear, with the masculine ideal continually reimagined to create a balance between itself and its counterpart, femininity. During the 1980s AIDS crisis, this adopted uniform of masculinity was subverted within queer society leading to a new male identity that contested tacit knowledge of menswear design. The focus of this article is to showcase this shift in male image and to explore how gay semiotics was associated with the development of the modern gay male stance through clothing and social empowerment, opposing the negativity that surrounded the AIDS virus. This research is personally motivated by the primary author, where he seeks to delve further into the under-researched area of queer masculinity utilizing a practical, experimental methodology. Representation of what is seen as queer masculinity is often shown as biased within society, characterizing the gay man. This project presents, through the practices of menswear design, how this characterization has developed within the context of the male body. It aims to contest the boundaries of traditional men’s tailoring, its formality and the masculine ideal that it represents, by juxtaposing it with the homoerotic art of the time and the craft of AIDS sufferers of the 1980s period. Using object-study and practical methods of deconstruction and repair of case study (bespoke and non-bespoke) men’s tailored jackets, the research manifests in physical experimentation and aesthetic visualization, which is recorded in a creative process journal. The acts of physical deconstruction and the practice of repair are then analysed through the process of design development (drawing, sourcing and sampling). The synthesized findings draw parallels with deconstructed tailoring found in vintage photographs of men at work, which are further triangulated with homoerotic photographic art of the 1980s and the act of repair found in the stitch therapy of AIDS sufferers. These are embedded in the construction of the final artefact through the practice of garment design (drawing, pattern-cutting, toiling and making) and craftsmanship (stitching by hand). The processes employed and final artefact produced document and present how ideals of masculinity in the time of AIDS can be both physically and metaphorically deconstructed, then reconstructed as a garment-based outcome (men’s tailored jacket) in practice-led research. The final artefact showcases delicacy in design through the act of stitching by hand and the repair of the deconstructed robust exteriors found in tailoring and associated with the masculine ideal.

Identifying computational thinking in students through project-based problem-solving activities

PurposeThis paper aims to identify computational thinking (CT) in 4th to 6th grade students in the context of project-based problem-solving while engaged in an after-school program.Design/methodology/approachThis case study approach was selected due to its suitability for answering “how” or “why” questions about real-world phenomena within a set context (Creswell and Poth, 2018; Yin, 2018). This was an appropriate fit given the context of an after-school program and the research question asked how to identify learners’ demonstrated CT through project-based learning hands-on activities and problem-solving in a naturalistic environment.FindingsResults show that heuristics, algorithms and conditional logic were observed more than other components of CT such as data collection, simulations and modeling. Descriptions of common activities in a naturalistic learning environment are presented to illustrate how the students practiced CT over time, which could help readers develop an understanding of CT in conjunction with hands-on problem-solving activities in elementary students. Identifying and classifying CT in this study focused on students’ learning process.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the challenging field of evaluating CT while focusing on observable behaviors and problem-solving activities with various degrees of teacher’s facilitation instead of final artifacts. Implications for researchers and educators interested in integrating CT in K-12 learning and its assessment are discussed.

Pre-Service Primary Teachers Develop Teaching Artifacts on Contemporary Socioscientific Issues

ABSTRACT Recently, there has been an increased interest in how science and society interrelation is presented and discussed in science courses. Socioscientific issues (SSI) approach is one way of promoting teaching and learning of science through social contexts. In the present study, we focus on the artifacts 12 pre-service primary teachers (PPTs) developed as teaching material for the negotiation of contemporary SSIs during a 12-week university course. Data was collected through the final artifacts, audiotapes of all the class sessions and a final semi-structured interview. The analysis was oriented to the social aspects of science as described by the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Framework, which is a novel European Union policy aiming at bridging the gap between science and society. The findings reveal that PPTs focus on the scientific content and the ethical aspects of the contemporary topics they were engaged with. Risk-benefit and ethical analysis were the dominant teaching practices employed by PPTs. Insights into PPTs difficulties concerning the scientific content and the social aspects of science are also discussed.

Reconstructing the Past, Enhancing the Traces from Frescos

Abstract Architectures are always subject to transformation in time. When a historical building is seen by a tourist or by an occasional visitor, it appears like a complete and final artefact, showing its main characteristics like a clear example of a style or of an artistic phase. This interpretation may turn out to be mostly a simplification, while the building is often the result of a large set of interventions in time. It is the case of a large number of main and secondary architectures, changed according to the mutation of needs and tastes. In Fabriano, in central-eastern Italy, the St. Venanzio Church (later Cathedral) was subject to a significant transformation of the apse interiors during the XVII century, with the demolition of the original chapels’ asset and their replacement by a larger unitarian space behind the main altar. This intervention has afflicted all the frescos that were the decoration of those chapels, they were partially deleted by the new masonry works, covered by paint, or walled in the new shape of the church. Since its early discovery, this patrimony has received various restorations. The research for a virtual reconstruction was based on a detailed digital survey of the building.

HyMap: Eliciting hypotheses in early-stage software startups using cognitive mapping

Context: Software startups develop innovative, software-intensive products. Given the uncertainty associated with such an innovative context, experimentation is a valuable approach for these companies, especially in the early stages of the development, when implementing unnecessary features represents a higher risk for companies' survival. Nevertheless, researchers have argued that the lack of clearly defined practices led to limited adoption of experimentation. In this regard, the first step is to define the hypotheses based on which teams will create experiments. Objective: We aim to develop a systematic technique to identify hypotheses for early-stage software startups. Methods: We followed a Design Science approach consisted of three cycles in the construction phase, that involved seven startups in total, and an evaluation of the final artifact within three startups. Results: We developed the HyMap, a hypotheses elicitation technique based on cognitive mapping. It consists of a visual language to depict a cognitive map representing the founder's understanding of the product, and a process to elicit this map consisted of a series of questions the founder must answer. Our evaluation showed that the artifacts are clear, easy to use, and useful leading to hypotheses and facilitating founders to visualize their idea. Conclusion: Our study contributes to both descriptive and prescriptive bodies of knowledge. Regarding the first, it provides a better understanding of the guidance founders use to develop their startups and, for the latter, a technique to identify hypotheses in early-stage software startups.

Perceived changes of identity construction through digital storytelling:

Study abroad (SA) is considered one of the best ways to learn a foreign (FL) or second language (L2) while developing open-mindedness and intercultural awareness. Yet, less attention has been placed on students’ perception on identity development. Thus, this study explores study abroad (SA) students’ perceptions on identity construction through the incorporation of multiliteracies and multimodal texts (digital stories), by six participants in a second-year foundational Spanish course and an Advanced Spanish Grammar course in a Study Abroad (SA) program. Analyses of surveys, DSs, and final artifacts were grounded in Rogers’ notion of self-concept and Activity Theory (Leontiev, 1978). Results suggest that the digital and multimodal nature of DS creation facilitated greater opportunities for students to document their self-perceived gains in identity.

A Cross-Sectional Study Investigating Primary School Children’s Coding Practices and Computational Thinking Using ScratchJr

There are increasing calls to introduce computational thinking in schools; the arguments in favor call upon research suggesting that even kindergarten children can successfully engage in coding. This contribution presents a cross-sectional study examining the coding practices and computational thinking of fifty-one primary school children using the ScratchJr software; children were organized in two cohorts (Cohort 1: 6–9 years old; Cohort 2: 10–12 years old). Each cohort participated in a six-hour intervention, as part of a four-day summer club. During the intervention children were introduced to ScratchJr and were asked to collaboratively design a digital story about environmental waste management actions, thus adopting a disciplinary perspective to computational thinking. Data analyses examined children’s final artifacts, in terms of coding practices and the level of computational thinking demonstrated by each cohort. Furthermore, analysis of selected groups’ storyboard interviews was used to shed light on differences between the two cohorts. Results are presented and contrasted across the two age cohorts via a developmental perspective. The findings of this study can be useful in considering the instructional support that is necessary to scaffold the development of primary school children’s coding practices and computational thinking.

The set Up of an Experimental Testing Rig to Measure Time and Space Temperature Profiles in Laser Sintering of Polymeric Powders

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) is the most common type of Additive Manufacturing (AM) process using granular materials which has the potential to revolutionize the manufacturing industry. However, in the layer-wise build-up of the three-dimensional specimen, the complex laser-material interactions and the poor selection of associated process parameters can give rise to an increase to a number of defects of the artifacts. In fact, the temperature distribution along the surface and in depth at the laser spot, which are strongly affected by the thermal conductivity of the powder bed, do affect the hatch distance and the thickness of the powder layer, as well as on the quality of the final artifact. In this study, a laser sintering experimental set-up, equipped with an Infra-red thermographic camera and a K-type thermocouple, is built to measure the temperature distribution at the surface and 1mm below the surface in a special Polyamide 12 (PA12) powder bed. A one-watt stationary diode laser is used as heat source on samples characterized by various particle size distributions (PSD). Using the set-up, an accurate in-situ thermal characterization of the powder bed along with heat distribution study can be performed. Preliminary tests were conducted and the pixelwise temperature profile along the surface and temperature at the depth of 1mm below the surface of the powder bed has been reported. On the basis of the results, it is possible to provide good estimates of the global energy balances on the system, which are essential in evaluating the energy required to optimize the sintering and melting process of the polymeric powders.

A metal artifact reduction scheme in CT by a Poisson fusion sinogram based postprocessing method.

To reduce secondary artifactes generated by the current interpolation-based metal artifact reduction (MAR) methods, this study proposes and tests a new Poisson fusion sinogram based metal artifact reduction (FS-MAR) method. The proposed FS-MAR method consists of (1) generating the prior image, (2) forward projecting this prior image and applying the Poisson blending technique to seamlessly replace the metal-affected sinogram of the original projection in the metal projection region (MPR) by the prior image projection to get the corrected metal-free sinogram, and (3) performing the filtered back projection (FBP) on the corrected sinogram and filling the metal image back to the metal-free corrected image to get the final artifact reduced image. Simulated images are calculated by taking clinical metal-free CT images as phantoms and inserting metals during the simulated projection process to get the corresponding metal-affected images by the FBP. After the simulated images are processed by the proposed MAR method, two metrics structural similarity index (SSIM) and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) are used to evaluate image quality. Finally, visual evaluation is also performed using several real clinical metal-affected images obtained from the Revision Radiology group. In two testing samples, using FS-MAR method yields the highest SSIM and PSNR of 0.8912 and 30.6693, respectively. Visual evaluation results on both simulated and clinical images also show that using FS-MAR method generates less image artifacts than using the interpolation-based algorithm. This study demonstrated that with the same prior image, applying the proposed Poisson FS-MAR method can achieve the higher image quality than using the interpolation-based algorithm.

Mining Design Heuristics for Additive Manufacturing Via Eye-Tracking Methods and Hidden Markov Modeling

Abstract In this research, we collected eye-tracking data from nine engineering graduate students as they redesigned a traditionally manufactured part for additive manufacturing (AM). Final artifacts were assessed for manufacturability and quality of final design, and design behaviors were captured via the eye-tracking data. Statistical analysis of design behavior duration shows that participants with more than 3 years of industry experience spend significantly less time removing material and revising than those with less experience. Hidden Markov modeling (HMM) analysis of the design behaviors gives insight to the transitions between behaviors through which designers proceed. Findings show that high-performing designers proceeded through four behavioral states, smoothly transitioning between states. In contrast, low-performing designers roughly transitioned between states, with moderate transition probabilities back and forth between multiple states.

Experiential Knowledge as Capital and Resistance among Families from Mexican Immigrant Backgrounds

ABSTRACT This qualitative case study examined the creation process and final artifacts of two biliteracy family projects that children and families from Mexican immigrant backgrounds collaboratively created as part of classroom instruction. Data were collected during five months in a first grade bilingual classroom with 22 students and centered on six focal families. The theoretical lenses of critical race theory and community cultural wealth served to analyze how biliteracy family projects facilitate the integration of children and families’ experiential knowledge in a bilingual classroom and how such experiential knowledge emerges as forms of capital in the final products and during the creation process. Findings highlight how children’s experiential knowledge and culturally simultaneous identities appeared through a collaborative process, and how parents facilitated and negotiated their children’s cultural simultaneity as forms of capital. This facilitation included parental strategies that engaged multiples forms of community cultural wealth to avoid cultural loss and enact resistance. This article argues for an integrated and culturally sustaining classroom-based approach to merge classroom instruction with experiential knowledge while fostering meaningful family collaboration that illuminates the multiple forms of community cultural wealth in their experiences and lives outside of school.

Provincial Inca metallurgy in northern Chile: New data for the Viña del Cerro smelting site

Metal artifacts were one of the most relevant wealth finance items for the political economy of the Inca empire. Inca provincial expansion in the Collasuyu has largely been explained by the need to intensify mining to satisfy their metallurgical demand. Despite the evidence for many mines and metallurgical activities during the Late Horizon in the southern Andes, it is still not clear how their production was organized and articulated.By studying one of the most important metallurgical centers in northern Chile, Viña del Cerro, we determined the following: first, the metal obtained was unalloyed copper; and second, there is no relevant evidence for the manufacturing of final artifacts in the site, or at any of the major Inca settlements in the Copiapó valley. We argue that tin bronze artifacts in Copiapó were likely imported from abroad and that the local copper production was likely taken elsewhere for processing and final manufacture.New radiocarbon dates indicate that Inca metallurgical activities in Copiapó valley co-opted a previous local site and technology. However, the Incas did not establish an intense occupation there. This case evidences the logistics and challenges of developing a political economy based on wealth finance in the far corners of the Inca Empire, where decentralizing the chaîne opératoire seemed to be the chosen strategy for economic control.

Compromiso emocional con los materiales: observación del diálogo material entre el ceramista y la arcilla

This article examines the role that designers have in the process of designing materials and how, through their direct manipulation and transformation, they can convey emotions and cultural values in the final artifact. It also analyzes the process clay goes through as it becomes an object and the emotions that are elicited in the encounter between human beings, materials, and the context in which they operate. Considering the increase in the use of new materials and the consequent depletion of natural resources, this approach aims to offer new ways to understand and rediscover traditional materials such as ceramic. Moreover, a new vision of the role of materials as a vehicle of emotions is investigated, both during their processing and in their final use when they are embedded in artifacts. The incorporation of craft practices into the design process enables new ways of conceiving traditional materials like ceramic. Designers also need to develop manual skills, as they are a way of thinking and a source for emotional involvement with materials and artifacts.

Exchanging Expertise across Cultures and Time: Participatory Design Approaches for Creating Community Museums

This paper presents a case study where participatory design practices were used to design a cultural museum and inaugural exhibition with designers from an Australian university and the Kelabit community in the Highlands of Borneo. We draw on experiences from fieldtrips, across a five-year period, investigating the exchange of expertise between participants. The findings show a shift in roles when sharing expertise throughout our participatory design process. Participants experienced a lack of clarity and a sense of discomfort while participating in the design of the museum resulting in the need to continually negotiate leadership of the project. The designers discovered their role was to facilitate intangible conversations into tangible outcomes, where participatory design tools reshaped conversations rather than designed final artefacts. We argue that when exchanging expertise across cultures in participatory design, participant roles become organic and ambiguous.

Modeling and experimental validation of an immersed thermo-mechanical part-scale analysis for laser powder bed fusion processes

The capability of correctly predicting part deflections after support removal is important to assess the quality of a final artifact produced by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) technology. The finite element method is usually employed to perform part-scale thermo-mechanical analysis to estimate the final distortion of 3D printed parts. Due to the high flexibility of LPBF additive manufacturing, most of the components produced by means of such a technology have an optimized shape and complex geometrical features. Consequently, the process of generating an analysis suitable mesh starting from the original 3D virtual model turns out to be a non-trivial task. Immersed boundary methods represent a possible solution to perform accurate process simulation without the meshing burden. In this work, an immersed numerical framework to perform thermo-mechanical part-scale analysis is experimentally validated by means of part deflection measurements obtained for a single-cantilever structure after support removal. The comparison between simulation and experiment shows that the proposed numerical framework is able to deliver results with an almost perfect correlation to the measured data and a maximum relative error below 5%.