Curved-crease origami face shields for infection control

The COVID-19 pandemic has created enormous global demand for personal protective equipment (PPE). Face shields are an important component of PPE for front-line workers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing protection of the face from splashes and sprays of virus-containing fluids. Existing face shield designs and manufacturing procedures may not allow for production and distribution of face shields in sufficient volume to meet global demand, particularly in Low and Middle-Income countries. This paper presents a simple, fast, and cost-effective curved-crease origami technique for transforming flat sheets of flexible plastic material into face shields for infection control. It is further shown that the design could be produced using a variety of manufacturing methods, ranging from manual techniques to high-volume die-cutting and creasing. This demonstrates the potential for the design to be applied in a variety of contexts depending on available materials, manufacturing capabilities and labour. An easily implemented and flexible physical-digital parametric design methodology for rapidly exploring and refining variations on the design is presented, potentially allowing others to adapt the design to accommodate a wide range of ergonomic and protection requirements.

When ‘The difference that makes a difference’ makes a difference: A bottom‐up approach to the study of information

The concept of information is foundational to many disciplines yet also problematic and contested. This article contributes to the understanding of information through discussion of the findings of the interdisciplinary Difference That Makes a Difference (DTMD) project. DTMD used international conferences and workshops to bring together individuals from a wide range of disciplines to share how their field understands information, to engage in interdisciplinary conversa-tions, and to contribute to edited publications. A simple answer to the question ‘what is infor-mation?’ is not forthcoming, but, it is argued, should no more be expected than would be an answer to ‘what is matter?’. Nevertheless, through exploration of the areas of consensus that emerged from the bottom‐up process of interdisciplinary dialogue, this paper offers ten assertions about the nature of information narratives for further debate. The assertions range from ‘information requires a body’, through ‘information always has meaning’ and ‘information cannot be stored or communi-cated’ to ‘information is always shaped by power, authority and hierarchy’. This article finishes by illustrating and testing the assertions against an information case study of a team of medical experts disseminating information to the general public about the COVID‐19 virus. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.