scholarly journals The next step: intelligent digital assistance for clinical operating rooms

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 159-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana Miehle ◽  
Daniel Ostler ◽  
Nadine Gerstenlauer ◽  
Wolfgang Minker

AbstractWith the emergence of new technologies, the surgical working environment becomes increasingly complex and comprises many medical devices that have to be taken cared of. However, the goal is to reduce the workload of the surgical team to allow them to fully focus on the actual surgical procedure. Therefore, new strategies are needed to keep the working environment manageable. Existing research projects in the field of intelligent medical environments mostly concentrate on workflow modeling or single smart features rather than building up a complete intelligent environment. In this article, we present the concept of intelligent digital assistance for clinical operating rooms (IDACO), providing the surgeon assistance in many different situations before and during an ongoing procedure using natural spoken language. The speech interface enables the surgeon to concentrate on the surgery and control the technical environment at the same time, without taking care of how to interact with the system. Furthermore, the system observes the context of the surgery and controls several devices autonomously at the appropriate time during the procedure.

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-50
Author(s):  
Silvia Doria

The world of working is changing and the technological transformations are playing a relevant role in this change. In particular, new technologies are making the physical boundaries of traditional offices increasingly permeable, allowing the diffusion of New Ways of Working (Demerouti et al., 2014; Koops and Helms, 2014), such as smart working. This paper, based on a qualitative research and discursive interviews, intends to reflect on the introduction and top-down management of smart working within a banking institution. At the same time, it aims to grasp the role attributed to and played by technology in its implementation. Starting from the two reconstructed stories, I shall show if and how the innovations introduced whereby technologies enable us to work remotely, are changing existing power relations and what control dynamics emerge from the field.


1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 647-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Deutsch

A large body of literature documents that increased worker participation leads to improvements in the working environment. This article identifies the Swedish and Norwegian sources of some of this research and notes the link with social policy, namely, legislative reform in those countries. In contrast, the United States has resisted legislative solutions, but that may be changing. New strategies to democratize the workplace are a result of global economic competition, desire to reduce job stress and compensation costs, and more successful application of new technologies at work. These are examined and some conclusions are drawn about next stages in the reform efforts.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 734
Author(s):  
Răzvan Bogdan ◽  
Alin Tatu ◽  
Mihaela Marcella Crisan-Vida ◽  
Mircea Popa ◽  
Lăcrămioara Stoicu-Tivadar

Smart offices are dynamically evolving spaces meant to enhance employees’ efficiency, but also to create a healthy and proactive working environment. In a competitive business world, the challenge of providing a balance between the efficiency and wellbeing of employees may be supported with new technologies. This paper presents the work undertaken to build the architecture needed to integrate voice assistants into smart offices in order to support employees in their daily activities, like ambient control, attendance system and reporting, but also interacting with project management services used for planning, issue tracking, and reporting. Our research tries to understand what are the most accepted tasks to be performed with the help of voice assistants in a smart office environment, by analyzing the system based on task completion and sentiment analysis. For the experimental setup, different test cases were developed in order to interact with the office environment formed by specific devices, as well as with the project management tool tasks. The obtained results demonstrated that the interaction with the voice assistant is reasonable, especially for easy and moderate utterances.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendall A. Johnson ◽  
Clive H. Bock ◽  
Phillip M. Brannen

Abstract Background Phony peach disease (PPD) is caused by the plant pathogenic bacterium Xylella fastidiosa subsp. multiplex (Xfm). Historically, the disease has caused severe yield loss in Georgia and elsewhere in the southeastern United States, with millions of PPD trees being removed from peach orchards over the last century. The disease remains a production constraint, and management options are few. Limited research has been conducted on PPD since the 1980s, but the advent of new technologies offers the opportunity for new, foundational research to form a basis for informed management of PPD in the U.S. Furthermore, considering the global threat of Xylella to many plant species, preventing import of Xfm to other regions, particularly where peach is grown, should be considered an important phytosanitary endeavor. Main topics We review PPD, its history and impact on peach production, and the eradication efforts that were conducted for 42 years. Additionally, we review the current knowledge of the pathogen, Xfm, and how that knowledge relates to our understanding of the peach—Xylella pathosystem, including the epidemiology of the disease and consideration of the vectors. Methods used to detect the pathogen in peach are discussed, and ramifications of detection in relation to management and control of PPD are considered. Control options for PPD are limited. Our current knowledge of the pathogen diversity and disease epidemiology are described, and based on this, some potential areas for future research are also considered. Conclusion There is a lack of recent foundational research on PPD and the associated strain of Xfm. More research is needed to reduce the impact of this pathogen on peach production in the southeastern U.S., and, should it spread internationally, wherever peaches are grown.


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1208
Author(s):  
Francisco Alonso ◽  
Mireia Faus ◽  
Cristina Esteban ◽  
Sergio A. Useche

Technological devices are becoming more and more integrated in the management and control of traffic in big cities. The population perceives the benefits provided by these systems, and, therefore, citizens usually have a favorable opinion of them. However, emerging countries, which have fewer available infrastructures, could present a certain lack of trust. The objective of this work is to detect the level of knowledge and predisposition towards the use of new technologies in the transportation field of the Dominican Republic. For this study, the National Survey on Mobility was administered to a sample of Dominican citizens, proportional to the ONE census and to sex, age and province. The knowledge of ITS topics, as well as the use of mobile applications for mobility, are scarce; however, there was a significant increase that can be observed in only one year. Moreover, technology is, in general, positively assessed for what concerns the improvement of the traffic field, even though there is a lack of predisposition to provide one’s personal data, which is necessary for these devices. The process of technological development in the country must be backed up by laws that protect the citizens’ privacy. Thus, technologies that can improve road safety, mobility and sustainability can be implemented in the country.


World ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-190
Author(s):  
Diosey Ramon Lugo-Morin

The world is currently experiencing a pandemic: a virus in the family Coronaviridae is causing serious respiratory infections in humans. The outbreak of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic by the WHO on 11 March 2020. The outbreak began in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and has since spread throughout the world. Despite measures taken by governments throughout the world to contain and control the spread, economic disruption at the global level is imminent and will affect all economic sectors, particularly the food sector. In a post-pandemic scenario, the use of new technologies will be decisive in a new model of food commercialization. The production and distribution of food will be configured to make supply chains optimal and safe systems. Against this background, the present study aims to explore and analyze the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for global food security.


Electronics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 1092 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunddararaj ◽  
Rangarajan ◽  
Gopalan

The utilization of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) has started to garner more attention worldwide considering the environmental and economic benefits. This has led to the invention of new technologies and motifs associated with batteries, bidirectional converters and inverters for Electric Vehicle applications. In this paper, a novel design and control of chopper circuit is proposed and configured with the series and parallel connection of the power electronic based switches for two-way operation of the converter. The bidirectional action of the proposed converter makes it suitable for plug-in electric vehicle applications as the grid is becoming smarter. The DC–DC converter is further interfaced with the designed multilevel inverter (MLI). The reduced switches associated with the novel design of MLI have overcome the cons associated with the conventional inverters in terms of enhanced performance in the proposed design. Further, novel control strategies have been proposed for the DC–DC converter based on Proportional Integral (PI) and Fuzzy based control logic. For the first time, the performance of the entire system is evaluated based on the comparison of proposed PI, fuzzy, and hybrid controllers. New rules have been formulated for the Fuzzy based controllers that are associated with the Converter design. This has further facilitated the interface of bidirectional DC–DC converter with the proposed MLI for an enhanced output voltage. The results indicate that the proposed hybrid controller provides better performance in terms of voltage gain, ripple, efficiency and overall aspects of power quality that forms the crux for PEV applications. The novelty of the design and control of the overall topology has been manifested based on simulation using MATLAB/SIMULINK.


1992 ◽  
Vol 2 (10) ◽  
pp. 287-304
Author(s):  
Ian Leigh

The broadcasting world is currently undergoing a revolution. The new technologies of cable and, more importantly, satellite broadcasting have brought within reach an enormous potential expansion and diversity in broadcasting. The Broadcasting Act 1990 is the government's response to the challenge, creating a mostly new regulatory framework. Alongside technological advance there has been a growing concern with regulating programme quality, as the creation of the Broadcasting Standards Commission (placed by Pt. V of the Act on a statutory footing) bears witness. A minor, but not insignificant, place in these cross-currents of ferment is occupied by religious broadcasting. This article seeks to place the controls and duties relating to religious broadcasting under the new regime within the context of its history in the UK and to consider the extent to which the new legal and administrative controls achieve an acceptable balance between religious expression and control of standards.


Author(s):  
David T. Williamson ◽  
Timothy P. Barry

This paper discusses the design, implementation, and evaluation of a prototype speech recognition interface to the Theater Air Planning (TAP) module of Theater Battle Management Core Systems (TBMCS). This effort was in support of a Kenney Battlelab Initiative proposal submitted to the Command and Control Battlelab at Hurlburt Field, FL to assess the operational benefits of speech recognition for data entry applications in a Joint Air Operations Center environment. Several factors contributing to the design of the “TAPTalk” speech interface included interviews with subject matter experts, speech system selection, grammar development, and integration into TAP, which required only minor modification of existing software. Results from the two week operational assessment with sixteen subjects from the Command and Control Training and Innovation Group, numbered Air Forces, Navy, and Marine Corp indicated that the Theater Air Planning process could be accomplished significantly faster with no increase in error rates. Subjectively, the sixteen planners unanimously agreed that the TAPTalk speech interface was a valuable addition to TAP and would recommend its inclusion in a future upgrade. Recommendations for further improving the TAPTalk system are discussed.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document