Recent Advances in Flexible Piezoresistive Arrays: Materials, Design, and Applications.

Spatial distribution perception has become an important trend for flexible pressure sensors, which endows wearable health devices, bionic robots, and human-machine interactive interfaces (HMI) with more precise tactile perception capabilities. Flexible pressure sensor arrays can monitor and extract abundant health information to assist in medical detection and diagnosis. Bionic robots and HMI with higher tactile perception abilities will maximize the freedom of human hands. Flexible arrays based on piezoresistive mechanisms have been extensively researched due to the high performance of pressure-sensing properties and simple readout principles. This review summarizes multiple considerations in the design of flexible piezoresistive arrays and recent advances in their development. First, frequently used piezoresistive materials and microstructures are introduced in which various strategies to improve sensor performance are presented. Second, pressure sensor arrays with spatial distribution perception capability are discussed emphatically. Crosstalk is a particular concern for sensor arrays, where mechanical and electrical sources of crosstalk issues and the corresponding solutions are highlighted. Third, several processing methods are also introduced, classified as printing, field-assisted and laser-assisted fabrication. Next, the representative application works of flexible piezoresistive arrays are provided, including human-interactive systems, healthcare devices, and some other scenarios. Finally, outlooks on the development of piezoresistive arrays are given.

Using Real-Time, Partially Automated Interactive System to Interpret Patient's Data; Helping The Patient To Achieve Diabetic Self-Management: A Rapid Literature Review.

BACKGROUND: Diabetes is an endocrine chronic condition with a high prevalence rate among the population that needs a complex management process. However, many advanced health care technologies were evolving to help patients achieve their centered care and self-management using real-time proactive techniques through interactive systems to detect early complications and prevent them. The purpose of the current review is to assess the findings of literature reviews of the main interventions that used a real-time partially automated interactive systems to interpret patient's data including biological information, exercise, and dietary content calculated from a message sent by the patient and respond with actionable findings, helping patients to achieve diabetes self-management. METHODS: PubMed\ MEDLINE, CINAHL, Google Scholar, and Research Gate were used to search the literature for studies published between the periods 2015 to 2021. RESULTS: Eleven articles were included in the literature review. The retrieved studies approved the significant effect of achieving diabetic self-management by utilizing Information Technology (IT) with the Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods by sending a real-time, partially automated interactive system to interpret patient's biological information, physical activity, and dietary content calculated using a message sent by patients to achieve their self-management. CONCLUSION: Improved blood glucose levels, glycemic control, better readings of blood pressure, and lifestyle improvement including dietary intake and physical activity were offered using continuous real-time messages to improve their health outcomes.

The Economic Value of Water Ecology in Sponge City Construction Based on a Ternary Interactive System.

Ecological water resources occupy a vital position in the national economy; without sufficient ecological water resources, the construction and economic development of sponge cities would be seriously restricted. Appropriately, the Chinese government proposed that sponge city planning should be carried out in accordance with the number of available ecological water resources. The government therefore put forward the method of conservation and intensification to solve the problem of water shortage. This paper highlights the interactions between ecological water resources, sponge cities, and economic development in northern China, starting with the interaction and mechanism of action that concerns ecological water resource utilization, sponge cities, and economic development. In the empirical test, the dynamic changes of the three indicators were analyzed empirically using the panel data vector autoregression method, and the dynamic relationship of each factor was measured using generalized moment estimation. It was found that ecological water resources are a key factor in promoting regional economic development, and the relationship between ecological water resources and sponge cities is both supportive and constraining; therefore, the constraints that ecological water resources place on sponge cities also indirectly affects economic development. To disconnect the use of water and ecological resources from economic development, it is necessary to note the following: the feedback effect of economic development and the resolution of the contradiction between sponge cities, water, and ecological resource use.

Flexible Thin-Film Speaker Integrated with an Array of Quantum-Dot Light-Emitting Diodes for the Interactive Audiovisual Display of Multi-functional Sensor Signals.

One of the core technologies for wearable electronics is the use of an interactive display device that is attached to the body or clothes to transmit various bio-signals and environmental stimuli to the user. In this study, we report a flexible audiovisual display device consisting of a polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) thin-film speaker stacked on an 8 × 8 array of quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QD-LEDs) and a multi-functional sensor consisting of temperature and ultraviolet (UV) sensors connected to a pressure sensor, allowing the body temperature and UV exposure to be displayed both visually and acoustically. Polydimethylsiloxane is employed as an insulator between the carbon nanotube (CNT)/polyaniline temperature sensor and the ZnO/CNT UV sensor to form a capacitor-type pressure sensor. With the use of a stretchable polymer substrate, liquid metal Galinstan interconnections, and the flexible Au-grid electrodes, both the PVDF speaker and the QD-LED array are stable under repeated cycles of bending deformation with a bending radius of 7.5 mm. By connecting the audiovisual display device to the skin-attached multi-functional sensor, changes in the body temperature and UV exposure are displayed as LED patterns with accompanying acoustic alarms. This study demonstrates the significant potential of our proposed audiovisual monitoring device and multi-functional sensor for use in health-monitoring applications, especially for the elderly and infants requiring prompt care.

CourseQ: the impact of visual and interactive course recommendation in university environments.

The abundance of courses available in a university often overwhelms students as they must select courses that are relevant to their academic interests and satisfy their requirements. A large number of existing studies in course recommendation systems focus on the accuracy of prediction to show students the most relevant courses with little consideration on interactivity and user perception. However, recent work has highlighted the importance of user-perceived aspects of recommendation systems, such as transparency, controllability, and user satisfaction. This paper introduces CourseQ, an interactive course recommendation system that allows students to explore courses by using a novel visual interface so as to improve transparency and user satisfaction of course recommendations. We describe the design concepts, interactions, and algorithm of the proposed system. A within-subject user study (N=32) was conducted to evaluate our system compared to a baseline interface without the proposed interactive visualization. The evaluation results show that our system improves many user-centric metrics including user acceptance and understanding of the recommendation results. Furthermore, our analysis of user interaction behaviors in the system indicates that CourseQ could help different users with their course-seeking tasks. Our results and discussions highlight the impact of visual and interactive features in course recommendation systems and inform the design of future recommendation systems for higher education.

Learner question's correctness assessment and a guided correction method: enhancing the user experience in an interactive online learning system.

In an interactive online learning system (OLS), it is crucial for the learners to form the questions correctly in order to be provided or recommended appropriate learning materials. The incorrect question formation may lead the OLS to be confused, resulting in providing or recommending inappropriate study materials, which, in turn, affects the learning quality and experience and learner satisfaction. In this paper, we propose a novel method to assess the correctness of the learner's question in terms of syntax and semantics. Assessing the learner's query precisely will improve the performance of the recommendation. A tri-gram language model is built, and trained and tested on corpora of 2,533 and 634 questions on Java, respectively, collected from books, blogs, websites, and university exam papers. The proposed method has exhibited 92% accuracy in identifying a question as correct or incorrect. Furthermore, in case the learner's input question is not correct, we propose an additional framework to guide the learner leading to a correct question that closely matches her intended question. For recommending correct questions, soft cosine based similarity is used. The proposed framework is tested on a group of learners' real-time questions and observed to accomplish 85% accuracy.

A Kinect-Based Interactive System for Home-Assisted Active Aging.

Virtually every country in the world is facing an unprecedented challenge: society is aging. Assistive technologies are expected to play a key role in promoting healthy lifestyles in the elderly. This paper presents a Kinect-based interactive system for home-assisted healthy aging, which guides, supervises, and corrects older users when they perform scheduled physical exercises. Interactions take place in gamified environments with augmented reality. Many graphical user interface elements and workflows have been designed considering the sensory, physical and technological shortcomings of the elderly, adapting accordingly the interaction methods, graphics, exercises, tolerance margins, physical goals, and scoring criteria. Experiments involved 57 participants aged between 65 and 80 who performed the same physical routine six times during 15 days. After each session, participants completed a usability survey. Results provided significant evidence that support (1) the effectiveness of the system in assisting older users of different age ranges, (2) the accuracy of the system in measuring progress in physical achievement of the elderly, and (3) a progressive acceptance of the system as it was used. As a main conclusion, the experiments verified that despite their poor technological skills, older people can adapt positively to the use of an interactive assistance tool for active aging if they experience clear benefits.

AI-Assisted Design Concept Exploration Through Character Space Construction.

We propose an AI-assisted design concept exploration tool, the "Character Space Construction" ("CSC"). Concept designers explore and articulate the target product aesthetics and semantics in language, which is expressed using "Design Concept Phrases" ("DCPs"), that is, compound adjective phrases, and contrasting terms that convey what are not their target design concepts. Designers often utilize this dichotomy technique to communicate the nature of their aesthetic and semantic design concepts with stakeholders, especially in an early design development phase. The CSC assists this designers' cognitive activity by constructing a "Character Space" ("CS"), which is a semantic quadrant system, in a structured manner. A CS created by designers with the assistance of the CSC enables them to discern and explain their design concepts in contrast with opposing terms. These terms in a CS are retrieved and combined in the CSC by using a knowledge graph. The CSC presents terms and phrases as lists of candidates to users from which users will choose in order to define the target design concept, which is then visualized in a CS. The participants in our experiment, who were in the "arts and design" profession, were given two conditions under which to create DCPs and explain them. One group created and explained the DCPs with the assistance of the proposed CSC, and the other did the same task without this assistance, given the freedom to use any publicly available web search tools instead. The result showed that the group assisted by the CSC indicated their tasks were supported significantly better, especially in exploration, as measured by the Creativity Support Index (CSI).

Synchronous Display and Whiteboard-Like Freehand Writing App as Teaching Tool for Virtual Classroom amidst the Pandemic.

Purpose: The research evaluates if teachers can achieve better teaching outcomes by using a proposed mobile interactive system (MIS) developed for this study as an additional approach to enhancing teachers' proficiency in Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) in the virtual classroom.   Background: According to previous studies, teachers' self-assessment on TPACK might be affected by their egos because they have autonomy over the students in the classroom. Some studies suggest that utilisation of an interactive whiteboard (IWB) promotes creativity in teaching and learning but that it is unsuitable for a virtual environment due to its large size and the high maintenance costs associated with owning one in a teacher's residence. Besides, some studies also reveal that allowing the students to assess their teachers through TPACK  is able to reduce potential errors which might result from the TPACK self-assessment done by teachers.   Methods: Pre- and post- experiments were conducted with the developed MIS integrated into teaching process. Synchronous display (SD) and whiteboard-like freehand writing (WFW) were features of the MIS integrated into the experimental group. Questionnaires were distributed to the students, and a reflective measurement model was formed using SmartPLS and IBM SPSS Statistics.   Findings: Based on our findings, teachers' Technological Content Knowledge had a significant positive effect on TPACK with the inclusion of MIS in online teaching. Predictive relevance was also evaluated through a Q 2 value to predict the endogenous construct of the constructed model. The Q 2 value was greater than zero, indicating that the model possesses a predictive relevance.   Conclusion: The integration of the developed MIS in the virtual classroom has a significant positive impact on the students' academic performance relating to concept learning and knowledge acquisition of subject matter.

Implementation and experiments for interactive lyrics transcreation system.

The evolution of the Internet has enabled us to enjoy the music created in various countries. But still, it is often difficult to understand the lyrics written in foreign languages. Professional translators have published many international songs with lyrics that fit the melody so that the ordinary people can enjoy the lyrics of such international songs. This paper discusses lyrics transcreation into the Japanese language. Also, the paper presents an interactive visual lyrics transcreation system and describes the details of its implementation. This system allows users to select temporary lyrics from a set of tentative translations and then freely modify the lyrics with a real-time visualization mechanism. We also propose a lyrics translation algorithm that solves an essential problem of lyrics translation into Japanese. In this study, we interviewed two experts regarding problems with lyrics translation and received reviews of our presented system. We also conducted preliminary experiments with 19 participants to determine the best combination of user interface components for our system. We performed additional user experiments inviting 12 participants to compare lyrics transcreation using the presented system to manual lyrics transcreation. Lyrics transcreation by the presented system brought better results against those of manual transcreation.

Interactive numerals.

Although Arabic numerals (like '2016' and '3.14') are ubiquitous, we show that in interactive computer applications they are often misleading and surprisingly unreliable. We introduce interactive numerals as a new concept and show, like Roman numerals and Arabic numerals, interactive numerals introduce another way of using and thinking about numbers. Properly understanding interactive numerals is essential for all computer applications that involve numerical data entered by users, including finance, medicine, aviation and science.

Teaching practice of CPC in PCMC pathology experiment course / 中华医学教育探索杂志

Objective To investigate the teaching effect of the PCMC-type (problem-originated clinical medical curriculum) pathology experiment course and clinical pathological conference (CPC) by using microscope digital system.Methods 384 undergraduates of second grade in clinical medicine major and imaging diagnosis major were chosen for the teaching reform project,all of whom were divided into experimental group (192) and control group (192),randomly,and they were taught by PCMC pathological experiment teaching and the traditional pathological experiment teaching separately.After the curriculum,statistic analysis of test score was used to analyze the teaching effect.SPSS 13.0 software diagram method was used to perform Levene variance analysis and t test to the achievement of two groups of students and the students' ability of self evaluation was investigated through questionnaire.Results The average score of the students in the experimental group (86.16 ± 3.28) in the theory exam was significantly higher than that of control group (75.63 ± 2.24) (P=0.000).And the average score of the students in the experimental group in experiment (27.10 ± 0.61) was significantly higher than that in control group (19.87 ± 0.25) (P=0.000).The questionnaire showed that compared with control group,the comprehensive ability of the students in the experimental group was obviously enhanced.Conclusion The PCMC pathology teaching is beneficial to improving the students' ability of linking theory with practice and enhancing their ability to analyze and solve problems,and obviously stimulate their interest in learning.It is worth promoting.

3D dynamic tongue visualization based on DirectX / 国际生物医学工程杂志

Objective Tongue shape and motion is one of the important references for tongue diagnosis.However, current tongue image objectification of tongue diagnosis cannot express the characteristics of tongue.Methods In order to increase shape and dynamic information about the tongue, the methods of key frame selection and linear interpolation were used to tongue 3D dynamic visualization reconstruction model on the basis of 3D static visual model.For the convenient use of the tongue 3D dynamic visualization model, this paper put forward a model of 3D dynamic visualization interaction system which was realized based on DirectX.Results The 3D dynamic visualization model not only had a static visual model of texture and depth information, but also could intuitively describe the tongue motion.Conclusions It provides a method for the auxiliary tongue diagnosis of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

Application of microscopic digital interactive system in bone marrow cell morphology practice teaching / 中华医学教育探索杂志

Bone marrow cell morphology is an important part of clinical hematology and laboratory and is the key and difficult part of teaching.Microscopic digital interactive system consisting of image processing and analyzing software,voice response software and computer teaching software can realize the picture resources sharing,effective teacher-student interaction and change of evaluation mechanism.The application of this system changed the traditional modes of teaching; motivated students' enthusiasm and greatly improved the quality of practice teaching.

Application of thinking on experimental teaching of microscopic interactive network system in the medical morphological / 中华医学教育探索杂志

Micro Network interactive system introduced the whole process of medical morphology laboratory which creates a new teaching mode and significantly improve the teaching quality and efficiency for medical Morphology Experimental teaching, by full realization of a clear vivid images, language interaction and the sharing of information resources and diluting the discipline lines. At the same time, It put forward new demands about knowledge and ability of network knowledge, techniques, image data sources, the development and application of function to teachers.