A Flexible PDMS-Based Optical Biosensor for Stretch Monitoring in Cardiac Tissue Samples.

Cardiotoxicity, characterized by adverse impacts on normal heart function due to drug exposure, is a significant concern due to the potentially serious side effects associated with various pharmaceuticals. It is essential to detect the cardiotoxicity of a drug as early as possible in the testing phase of a medical composite. Therefore, there is a pressing need for more reliable in vitro models that accurately mimic the in vivo conditions of cardiac biopsies. In a functional beating heart, cardiac muscle cells are under the effect of static and cyclic stretches. It has been demonstrated that cultured cardiac biopsies can benefit from external mechanical loads that resemble the in vivo condition, increasing the probability of cardiotoxicity detection in the early testing stages. In this work, a biosensor is designed and fabricated to allow for stretch monitoring in biopsies and tissue cultures using an innovative sensing mechanism. The detection setup is based on a biocompatible, thin, flexible membrane-where the samples are attached-which is used as an optical waveguide to detect pressure-caused shape changes and stretches. Various prototypes have been fabricated with a cost-effective process, and different measurements have been carried out to experimentally validate the proposed measurement technique. From these evaluations, stretches of up to 1.5% have been measured, but the performed simulations point towards the possibility of expanding the considered technique up to 10-30% stretches.

Cognitive Accessibility and Support in Special Education.

This work describes an assistive technology development for cognitive support and training to be used by children of special education schools in Spain. Design is based on and guided by cognitive support findings coming from a long-term collaboration of a team of engineers (University of Zaragoza) and special education teachers (Alborada Special Education School, Zaragoza). The description starts by providing a structure of such findings in five cognitive-social areas (interface usability, virtual representations understanding, time orientation, self-awareness, and social interaction). Design requirements are extracted by applying those findings to four support services (home control, time orientation, behavior contention, and context anticipation). Technological system description follows, together with the degree of implementation and testing for each service. A major result is the benefit of using a services interface with the same structure and appearance as the alternative and augmentative communication system that children are already acquainted with. Based on regulatory conditions, the needed flexibility, and reduced available budgets, this support platform is built on mainstream technology and low-cost single-board computers with standard databases and free software packages. Results show evidence of benefit in children's cognitive and social performance, in addition to offering a technological tool for deeper educational research.

Time Orientation Technologies in Special Education.

A device to train children in time orientation has been designed, developed and evaluated. It is framed within a long-term cooperation action between university and special education school. It uses a specific cognitive accessible time display: Time left in the day is represented by a row of luminous elements initially on. Time passing is represented by turning off sequentially and gradually each luminous element every 15 min. Agenda is displayed relating time to tasks with standard pictograms for further accessibility. Notifications of tasks-to-come both for management support and anticipation to changes uses visual and auditory information. Agenda can be described in an Alternative and Augmentative Communication pictogram language already used by children, supporting individual and class activities on agenda. Validation has been performed with 16 children in 12 classrooms of four special education schools. Methodology for evaluation compares both prior and posterior assessments which are based in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) from the World Health Organization (WHO), together with observation registers. Results show consistent improvement in performances related with time orientation.

A multi-collaborative ambient assisted living service description tool.

Collaboration among different stakeholders is a key factor in the design of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) environments and services. Throughout several AAL projects we have found repeated difficulties in this collaboration and have learned lessons by the experience of solving real situations. This paper highlights identified critical items for collaboration among technicians, users, company and institutional stakeholders and proposes as a communication tool for a project steering committee a service description tool which includes information from the different fields in comprehensible format for the others. It was first generated in the MonAMI project to promote understanding among different workgroups, proven useful there, and further tested later in some other smaller AAL projects. The concept of scalable service description has proven useful for understanding of different disciplines and for participatory decision making throughout the projects to adapt to singularities and partial successes or faults of each action. This paper introduces such tool, relates with existing methodologies in cooperation in AAL and describes it with a example to offer to AAL community. Further work on this tool will significantly improve results in user-centered design of sustainable services in AAL.

AmI and deployment considerations in AAL services provision for elderly independent living: the MonAMI project.

The MonAMI project aims to investigate the feasibility of the deployment of open platforms for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) services provision based on Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and to test user acceptance and the usability of the services. Services were designed to provide support in the areas of environmental control, security, well-being and leisure. These services were installed and evaluated in a Spanish geriatric residence. The participants included elderly persons with disabilities, nursing home care givers and informal carers. The concept of the open platform proved to be satisfactory for the provision of the services in a context aware framework. Furthermore, the usability of the technology was viewed positively and the overall results indicate that this system has the potential to prolong independent living at home for elderly people with disabilities. Deployment was proven successful and awareness of open-platform AAL service delivery was raised in local communities throughout Europe.