1,720,979 research outputs found
Post-pandemic medicines: towards a new normality
No full textThe Covid-19 Pandemic has caused two types of phenomena: on one hand, it has profoundly changed people's lives, calling into question even the most normal behaviours, such as being able to walk out of the house; on the other, it has accelerated the consolidation of new habits, not necessarily appropriate. This is the case of behaviours linked to the dimension of care, of self-diagnosis and the consequent self-care are approaches amplified by the ongoing pandemic, bringing to light the lack of an overall vision of the Italian care system and in particular of the medicine management.
This paper explores this issue, firstly offering an overview of the problems and the changes taking place, and then offering some potential openings on project ideas. These openings would rethink the future processes of homecare and the entire drug supply chain, from production to distribution, up to post-sale tracking and consumption, to disposal
The Shape of Drugs: a matter of Human-Centred Design
No full textThe importance of drugs in our daily activities is evident. And yet design thinking suffers from relative inertia about viewing medications as objects of use and consumption.
Conventionally intended as industrial pharmaceutical products obtained based on scientific principles, drugs are both medicinal forms saturated with meaning and technical objects—for the latter, we mean the product’s tangible characteristics with which the user has to cope.
Therefore, it can be assumed that any medication’s efficacy depends on its scientific principles as well as on the sophisticated, hyper-technological or—conversely—prosaic techniques of intake or delivery. An approach to drugs from a human-centred design perspective may thus be aimed at verifying possible correlations between medication shapes and the inefficiency that, as a designed artefact, the medication may produce in terms of identity, understanding, and usability
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Proactive Analysis of Complex Systems Through DHM: Paradigmatic Application of an Innovative Ergonomic Cumulative Index to Large Retail Stores
No full textThis paper describes a specific methodological approach focused on workplace ergonomics, by considering the most actual scientific knowledge and integrating in a coherent and complementary way both the validation of the binding regulatory and technical standards, and the testing of novel methodologies applied to the shops, logistics and production sites present in large scale retail companies. Nowadays, this working condition represents a common situation in which are carried out not only simple and separated assignments, but mixed tasks and shifts defining in a very complex scenario. Thus, a comprehensive approach is needed. This study integrated ethnographic observations, task analysis and wearable technologies, within the definition of a novel Ergonomic Cumulative Index (ECI), which was designed to assess the risk exposure to musculoskeletal disorders by considering three different factors, namely kinematics/posture, muscular fatigue and joints overload. A specific multi-body digital human model was implemented for this purpose. Main findings of this work highlighted the need for an integrated and multi-parametric perspective addressing workers’ activities, tasks management and environment organization. ECI specifically provided useful information in order to define the working day and to assess risk exposure by focusing on a holistic approach, which considers the body as a whole, but can highlight the contribution of each joint and muscle
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Automatic Classification of Working Activities for Risk Assessment in Large-Scale Retail Distribution by Using Wearable Sensors: A Preliminary Analysis
No full textProviding reliable information on human activities and behaviors is an extremely important goal in various application areas such as healthcare, entertainment, and security. Within the working environment, a correct identification of the actual performed tasks can provide an effective support in the assessment of the risk associated to the execution of the task itself, and thus preventing the development of work-related musculoskeletal diseases. In this perspective, wearable-based Human Activity Recognition systems have been representing a prominent application. This study aimed to compare three different classification approaches appointed from supervised learning techniques, namely k-Nearest Neighbors, Support Vector Machine and Decision Tree. Motion data, related to several working activities realized in the large-scale retail distribution, were collected by using a full-body system based on 17 Inertial Measurement Units (MVN Analyze, XSens). Reliable features in both time- and frequency-domain were first extracted from raw 3D accelerations and angular rates data, and further processed by Principal Component Analysis, with 95% threshold. The classification models were validated via 10-fold cross-validation on a defined training dataset. k-Nearest Neighbors classifier, which provide the best results on the training session, was eventually tested for generalization on additional data acquired on few specific tasks. As a result, considering 5 main macro activities, k-Nearest Neighbors provided a classification accuracy of 80.1% and a computational time of 1865.5 s. To test the whole assessment process, the activities labelled by the classification model as handling of low loads at high frequency were automatically evaluated for risk exposure via OCRA Checklist method
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Ergonomic Design Process of the Shape of a Diagnostic Ultrasound Probe
No full textThis study presents a design process for the ergonomic design of a hockey stick ultrasound probe, based on clinical applications needs, competitors benchmarking and analysis of feedback about a commercially available probe. The design is performed in two phases: (1) design of the product and initial evaluation of subjective satisfaction of expert users; (2) the subsequent review of the project and the selection of the preferred probe grip design. This approach involves several successive stages allowing for progressively better results in terms of acceptability and comfort of the new product
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