Development of Cloud-Based Co-Parenting Strengthening System

Co-parenting emphasizes how couple manage their relationship in the parenting domains and carry out their role as parents. Based on research conducted by Feinberg and colleagues (2012), there are four overlapping domains of co-parenting: (1) child rearing agreement; (2) support/undermining partner’s parenting; (3) joint family management; and (4) division of labor. The interference of mobile-based technology is needed on the co-parenting relationship between the couple with reference to the four domains of co-parenting. The method used was the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) model. It was divided into six stages of the process: requirement analysis, system design, implementation, system testing, system deployment, and system maintenance. In implementation, the system at an early stage has four main features: (1) child’s activity scheduling and reminder; (2) co-parenting’s education contents; (3) partner’s feedback; and (4) co-parenting’s assessment. The results that are proven by experts, agreed that educational content in the application is very necessary for more knowledge for parents, UI/UX design that is friendly and easy to understand by users, as well as the use of the latest reliable and flexible technology.

Emergence of flexible technology in developing advanced systems for post-stroke rehabilitation: a comprehensive review

Objective. Stroke is one of the most common neural disorders, which causes physical disabilities and motor impairments among its survivors. Several technologies have been developed for providing stroke rehabilitation and to assist the survivors in performing their daily life activities. Currently, the use of flexible technology (FT) for stroke rehabilitation systems is on a rise that allows the development of more compact and lightweight wearable systems, which stroke survivors can easily use for long-term activities. Approach. For stroke applications, FT mainly includes the “flexible/stretchable electronics”, “e-textile (electronic textile)” and “soft robotics”. Thus, a thorough literature review has been performed to report the practical implementation of FT for post-stroke application. Main results. In this review, the highlights of the advancement of FT in stroke rehabilitation systems are dealt with. Such systems mainly involve the “biosignal acquisition unit”, “rehabilitation devices” and “assistive systems”. In terms of biosignals acquisition, electroencephalography (EEG) and electromyography (EMG) are comprehensively described. For rehabilitation/assistive systems, the application of functional electrical stimulation (FES) and robotics units (exoskeleton, orthosis, etc.) have been explained. Significance. This is the first review article that compiles the different studies regarding flexible technology based post-stroke systems. Furthermore, the technological advantages, limitations, and possible future implications are also discussed to help improve and advance the flexible systems for the betterment of the stroke community.

An assessment of operational economic benefits of renewable energy communities in Belgium

Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) are anticipated as key means to restructure the energy system in the European Union. However, there are still many open questions regarding the needed conditions that would allow their extensive roll-out. Here we propose a techno-economic model to assess the conditions needed by RECs to operate in an economic beneficial way in the Belgian context. The results indicate that while user type, user consumption and electricity tariff design are important, they are not as important as the amount of installed flexible technology, e.g. heat pumps or electric vehicles, to reduce operational costs. In scenarios with high penetration of flexible technologies the annual operational costs of the REC can be up to 17 % lower than the operational costs of the business-as-usual situation.

Elastic organic crystals with ultralong phosphorescence for flexible anti-counterfeiting

Ultralong organic phosphorescence (UOP) crystals have attracted increased attention due to the distinct photophysical property of a long-lived lifetime. However, organic crystals are generally brittle, leading to a serious problem for their application in flexible technology. Herein, we report three types of elastic organic crystals (EOCs) with ultralong phosphorescence via introducing halogen atoms (Cl, Br, I) into π-conjugated phosphorescent molecules. Especially, the crystal containing iodine atoms displayed both excellent elasticity (ε = 3.01%) and high phosphorescent efficiency (ΦPh = 19.1%) owing to the strong halogen bonds. Taking advantage of its highly efficient UOP and excellent elasticity, we successfully used a DCz4I crystal for anti-counterfeiting application. These findings may provide guidance for the development of elastic crystals with afterglow and expand the scope of potential applications on flexible materials.

A Postphenomenological Framework for Studying User Experience of Immersive Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) is a remarkably flexible technology for interventions as it allows the construction of virtual worlds with ontologies radically different from the real world. By embodying users in avatars situated in these virtual environments, researchers can effectively intervene and instill positive change in the form of therapy or education, as well as affect a variety of cognitive changes. Due to the capabilities of VR to mediate both the environments in which we are immersed, as well as our embodied, situated relation toward those environments, VR has become a powerful technology for “changing the self.” As the virtually mediated experience is what renders these interventions effective, frameworks are needed for describing and analyzing the mediations brought by various virtual world designs. As a step toward a broader understanding of how VR mediates experience, we propose a post-phenomenological framework for describing VR mediation. Postphenomenology is a philosophy of technology concerned with empirical data that understand technologies as mediators of human-world relationships. By addressing how mediations occur within VR as a user-environment relation and outside VR as a human-world relation, the framework addresses the various constituents of the virtually mediated experience. We demonstrate the framework's capability for describing VR mediations by presenting the results of an analysis of a selected variety of studies that use various user-environment relations to mediate various human-world relations.

Use of gamification tools in foreign language training

The article is devoted to the problem of creating an effective model of gamification in teaching foreign languages. The article provides brief history of the issue; explains the reasons for rising popularity of gamification nowadays; describes the main principles and ways of its implementation; gives examples of educational games. The main principles and ways of practical application of gamification in teaching foreign languages in higher school have been considered in the article. This technology integrates in a whole a content, a game and pedagogical technologies in order to increase students’ motivation. Based on this conception the authors describe gamification as an innovative pedagogical technology which can be successfully applied to teaching students of different ages, at different stages of educational process and various forms of work. The article describes different variants of applying gamification in teaching foreign languages, from a simple computer game to a specialized web quest. The authors underline that a set of pedagogical conditions should be observed for a successful implementation of gamification; they suggest a model of its effective use in teaching foreign languages. The proposed model represents in a generalized manner a set of factors increasing the effectiveness of the educational process. It describes not only the key didactic principles but also some specific principles, means and forms of teaching foreign languages. Gamification in teaching foreign languages is considered by the authors primarily as a technology allowing to realize principles of active and interactive learning in the framework of a competence-based approach. The authors describe in detail the advantages of gamification as a rather flexible technology that can be adapted to particular educational aims and purposes, age peculiarities and professional interests of students.

High-Efficiency Fabrication of Geometric Phase Elements by Femtosecond-Laser Direct Writing

The nanoresolution of geometric phase elements for visible wavelengths calls for a flexible technology with high throughout and free from vacuum. In this article, we propose a high-efficiency and simple manufacturing method for the fabrication of geometric phase elements with femtosecond–laser direct writing (FsLDW) and thermal annealing by combining the advantages of high-efficiency processing and thermal smoothing effect. By using a femtosecond laser at a wavelength of 343 nm and a circular polarization, free-form nanogratings with a period of 300 nm and 170-nm-wide grooves were obtained in 50 s by laser direct ablation at a speed of 5 mm/s in a non-vacuum environment. After fine-tuning through a hot-annealing process, the surface morphology of the geometric phase element was clearly improved. With this technology, we fabricated blazed gratings, metasurface lens, vortex Q-plates and “M” holograms and confirmed the design performance by analyzing their phases at the wavelength of 808 nm. The efficiency and capabilities of our proposed method can pave the possible way to fabricate geometric phase elements with essentially low loss, high-temperature resistance, high phase gradients and novel polarization functionality for potentially wide applications.