Technical Concerns Research Articles

Perceptions of Home Telemonitoring Use Among Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Qualitative Study.

BackgroundChronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major health problem and an economic burden globally. There is growing interest in how electronic health (eHealth) can be used to provide efficient health care. Telemonitoring, where the patient’s health-related data is transmitted to a health care provider, can be used to detect early signs of exacerbations. A successful implementation of telemonitoring systems into clinical practice requires in-depth knowledge of the users’ preferences.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to explore perceptions of the use of a home telemonitoring system among patients with COPD.MethodsSemistructured individual interviews were carried out with 8 women and 5 men who were participants in a project aimed at developing and evaluating a telemonitoring system. The web-based telemonitoring system measured pulmonary function, subjective symptoms, and oxygen saturation. Participants were interviewed after having used the system for 2-4 months. Interview transcripts were analyzed with qualitative content analysis.ResultsThe analysis resulted in the theme A transition toward increased control and security and four categories: using with (in)security, affecting technical concern or confidence, providing easy access to health care, and increasing control over the disease. The participants reported various perceptions of using the telemonitoring system. They expressed initial feelings of insecurity, both in terms of operating the system and in terms of their disease. However, the practical management of the telemonitoring system became easier with time; the participants gradually gained confidence and improved their self-management. New technology was perceived as an important complement to existing health care, but the importance of maintaining a human contact in real life or through the telemonitoring system was emphasized.ConclusionsThis study captured a transition among the participants from being insecure and experiencing technical concerns to acquiring technical confidence and improving disease management. Telemonitoring can be a valuable complement to health care, leading to increased self-knowledge, a sense of security, and improved self-management. Suggestions to improve the further development and implementation of telemonitoring systems include better patient education and the involvement of end users in the technical development process. Additional research is needed, particularly in the design of user-friendly systems, as well as in developing tools to predict which patients are most likely to find the equipment useful, as this may result in increased empowerment, improved quality of life, reduced costs, and a contribution to equity in health.

Algorithmic Decision-Making in AVs: Understanding Ethical and Technical Concerns for Smart Cities

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are increasingly embraced around the world to advance smart mobility and more broadly, smart, and sustainable cities. Algorithms form the basis of decision-making in AVs, allowing them to perform driving tasks autonomously, efficiently, and more safely than human drivers and offering various economic, social, and environmental benefits. However, algorithmic decision-making in AVs can also introduce new issues that create new safety risks and perpetuate discrimination. We identify bias, ethics, and perverse incentives as key ethical issues in the AV algorithms’ decision-making that can create new safety risks and discriminatory outcomes. Technical issues in the AVs’ perception, decision-making and control algorithms, limitations of existing AV testing and verification methods, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities can also undermine the performance of the AV system. This article investigates the ethical and technical concerns surrounding algorithmic decision-making in AVs by exploring how driving decisions can perpetuate discrimination and create new safety risks for the public. We discuss steps taken to address these issues, highlight the existing research gaps and the need to mitigate these issues through the design of AV’s algorithms and of policies and regulations to fully realise AVs’ benefits for smart and sustainable cities.

Posterior Vertebral Column Resection for Pediatric Congenital Kyphosis: A Case Report and Technical Concerns

Posterior Vertebral Column Resection for Pediatric Congenital Kyphosis: A Case Report and Technical Concerns

Technical Concerns of Near-Far Effect in GNSS Space Service Volume (SSV)

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is not only widely used in terrestrial positioning, navigation and timing, more attentions have been casted on space utilities, especially in orbit determination of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) spacecraft. However, because of Near-Far Effect and many other technical concerns, GNSS has seldom been used in high precision spacecraft orbit determination at Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) and High Earth Orbit (HEO). In order to analyze and solve the Near-Far Effect that might encounter in GNSS space applications, this work studies the influence factors of Near-Far Effect, such as free space propagation loss, orbital altitude, ionosphere and troposphere Effect, the concept of Strong-to-Weak signal ratio is proposed and analyzed carefully, some results are given as well. Three Near-Far Effect mitigation technical approaches are proposed, namely positive adjustment method, FDMA proposal, and interference cancellation approach. However, more deep research is in need to do comparisons and assess the performance of these methods in future work.

Preschool assessment: principles and practices

A Framework for Preschool Assessment. A Multifactor Ecocultural Model of Assessment and the Assessment Process. Technical Concerns. Observation of the Child. Observation of Environments. Screening Practices and Procedures: A Focus on Developmental Screening. Assessment of Early Academic Learning. Family Assessment. Assessment of Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Preschoolers: Increasing Culturally Sensitive Practices. Assessment of Language Development. Cognitive Assessment, Susan Vig and Michelle Sanders. Assessment of Mental Retardation, Susan Vig and Michelle Sanders. Assessment of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Assessment of Emotional Development and Behavior Problems.

Technical Concerns on International Cooperation for Improved Food Production

Technical Concerns on International Cooperation for Improved Food Production

Providing Access to Students With Disabilities in Online Distance Education: Legal and Technical Concerns for Higher Education

Students with disabilities who enroll in online courses continue to experience barriers to participation. Although no single U.S. law or court decision requires educators to provide online courses in a format that is accessible to all students, a patchwork of federal and state laws apply to online education in various ways.

The Internet and Social Change: Key Themes and Issues

In the prevailing atmosphere of cynicism generated by the relentless cyber bole, one can be forgiven for underestimating the revolutionary nature of the Internet. There is no doubting the intensity of the sense of betrayal especially by investors and businessmen who, until recently, were unabashedly afflicted with dot.com fever. As most commentators — with the benefit of proverbial hindsight — repeatedly point out, highly successful and innova tive though it may be, the virtual bookshop amazon.com is still waiting for its promised profits. The anticipated social consequences of the Internet are, of course, not at all limited to the business world even though it is this aspect that has received publicity. In sectors of the globe that are wired, there is hardly any social sphere that is not affected by this new technology. Areas that are not yet wired are also affected, precisely because the gulf between them and the wired sectors threatens to grow larger than ever. Most technocrats and planners expect the digital divide to disappear in the near future. To focus on the social consequences of the Internet is, of course, not to buy into a form of technological determinism that has been questioned — if not completely discredited — by sociologists and his torians of science and technology (Smith and Marx, 1994; Bijker, Hughes and Pinch, 1989). No narrative of the development of the Internet can ignore the social and political factors that were constitutive elements of what appear to be purely technical factors in the construction of the open architecture of this technology (Abbatte, 1999). It is clear that Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn and their associates specifically chose a particular architecture from a range of possibilities, and that this choice was not driven by purely technical con cerns. However, fundamental though the social constructivist perspective has been in generating new research agendas for the sociologists of science and technology, problems arising from a fundamentalist constructivist per spective have begun to surface. Coming from quite a different academic agenda than the vicious axe-grinding soldiers of the 'science wars' such as Gross and Levitt (1994), a number of 'science and technology studiers' have raised doubts about a social constructivist fundamentalism that threat ens to reduce all technologies to effects of social and political forces. An exemplar of this strain of critique is Langdon Winner (1993) whose impor tant paper Social Constructivism: On Opening the Black-Box and Finding

TIMSS Primary and Middle School Data: Some Technical Concerns

Student scores from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) have been employed as a benchmark to measure school effectiveness in many districts across the United States. Bracey (2000) discussed the TIMSS results at the high school level. This article focuses on an in-depth examination of student performance from the TIMSS primary and middle school studies. The data analyses show substantial uncertainty of the country rankings from the released TIMSS reports. Other technical issues hinge on the instrument construction, curricular inequivalency, and statistical outliers. These analyses raise concerns about the use of the TIMSS benchmark for school reforms in the U.S. Taken together, these concerns have important implications for the interpretation and use of the TIMSS results.

Combining an expert system with simulation to enhance planning for banking networks

This application paper shows how bankers who are planning to operate a local electronic funds transfer (EFT) network can use simulation and an expert system to improve their EFT decisions. The key to making good EFT decisions is understanding the tradeoffs between the costs and performance of different network possibilities. Being able to explore network choices in light of a bank's service and profit goals, prior to the actual commitment of resources, is essential to that understanding. However, there are no published EFT studies which attempt to combine both technical and economic con cerns, particularly the representation of intangible benefits and costs, in a single methodology. The simulation process de scribed here illustrates a computer model that approximates the performance and economics of alternative local EFT designs. Expert system technology is incorporated to give bankers the convenience of interacting with the model in a natural language format. It should be noted that the work described here is based on the author's current research and ongoing model development for client banks. Every attempt is made to be as informative as possible without breaching confidentiality.

Merit Pay and Motivation in the Public Workforce: Beyond Technical Concerns To More Basic Considerations

This article examines the influence of workplace participation and job enrichment in promoting employee motivation. Using data gathered from a panel survey of public employees in Washington state, the authors found workplace participation and job enrichment to be more salient determinants of public employee motivation than merit pay. They also suggest that the adoption of a participative performance appraisal system may even improve employee attitudes toward compensation.

The Weta Teletext Field Trial: Some Technical Concerns

In contrast to operational Teletext systems in Europe, little is known about the applications for Broadcast Teletext in the U.S. and the requirements for implementation.