Reliability and Feasibility Considerations in the Assessment of a Malodor Adaptation Technique: A Pilot Study.

Research often links barriers to optimal human performance of a complex medical task to malodor exposure. Olfactory adaptation, or desensitization to an odorant, may ameliorate performance degradation. Olfactory adaptation is traditionally measured by detection threshold and perceived intensity. Nontraditional measures including stress, confusion, and escape behavior may better reflect impacts on performance but face validity concerns. This article describes a pilot study undertaken to determine what measurements and techniques are best suited and logistically feasible to explore olfactory adaptation with respect to performance of a relevant task. Results of the pilot study confirmed validity of selecting an experimental adaption period a length of time between two previously published results. The study also validated traditional detection threshold and perceived intensity measures and data collection techniques. Electrodermal activity data, a nontraditional measure of stress, proved more promising than inconsistent heart rate or blood pressure. Nontraditional measures of confusion/bewilderment also produced inconsistent outcomes. Perceived workload data were collected for timing purposes; a more homogeneous population may produce more significant results. While preliminary results indicate adaptation may contribute to better complex task performance, follow-on research may proceed using traditional and newly validated measures with the number of subjects necessary to provide statistical confidence.

Effectiveness, usability, and acceptability of haptic-enabled virtual reality and mannequin modality simulators for surgical cricothyroidotomy.

This research assesses the effectiveness, usability, and acceptability of mannequin and haptic-enabled virtual reality (VR) modality simulators by Army medics in a surgical cricothyroidotomy procedure. Research methods investigate through experimentation surgical task performance, technology acceptance, user recommendation, comparative analysis, and select cognitive task load results. Results indicate that the HapMed mannequin and CricSim VR simulators proved effective by meeting training task performance evaluation requirements. Both systems meet 95% user technology acceptance and 85% user recommendation levels. In conclusion, at those levels, either system may complement, reduce, or replace the use of some alternative training methods such as animals or cadavers. To raise recommendation rates, future research needs to reduce barriers to blending visualization with mannequin modalities and make further refinements within the modalities. One research pathway identified blends a mannequin with stereoscopic visualization and motion parallax, providing correlated, partially transparent visual layers of anatomy and of various medical procedures in virtual overlay with the mannequin. Future research also needs to clarify acceptable degrees of freedom levels by task for haptics VR in light of real-world degrees of freedom requirements. Finally, artificial skin may need research to achieve better replication of human skin on mannequins.

A computational study of dsDNA pairs and vibrational resonance in separating water.

This article investigates the relationship between molecular sequence and dependent interacting behavior of molecular segment pairs and secondly, sequence dependent, vibrational resonance in surrounding normal saline, protein-free water. The development of a molecular model to explore these systems phenomena, the results of several nanoscale molecular dynamics simulations, and analysis of behavior of interacting ΦX174 double-stranded DNA segment pair models in various configurations are presented. Fourier analysis revealed intriguing vibration frequencies within the solvent plane between the segments, while subsequent frequency domain transformation of the time domain waveforms revealed statistically significant resonating harmonic signals in the THz range.