Eyelid gestures for people with motor impairments

Although eye-based interactions can be beneficial for people with motor impairments, they often rely on clunky or specialized equipment (e.g., stationary eye-trackers) and focus primarily on gaze and blinks. However, two eyelids can open and close in different orders and for different duration to form rich eyelid gestures. We take a first step to design, detect, and evaluate a set of eyelid gestures for people with motor impairments on mobile devices. We present an algorithm to detect nine eyelid gestures on smartphones in real time and evaluate it with 12 able-bodied people and 4 people with severe motor impairments in two studies. The results of the study with people with motor-impairments show that the algorithm can detect the gestures with .76 and .69 overall accuracy in user-dependent and user-independent evaluations. Furthermore, we design and evaluate a gesture mapping scheme for people with motor impairments to navigate mobile applications only using eyelid gestures. Finally, we discuss considerations for designing and using eyelid gestures for people with motor impairments.

Evaluation of the mechanical resistance of rheophores of the means of initiation for explosive’s materials, on the basis of the resistance to abrasion determined with the OPVA 10 specialized equipment

The scientific paper presents the synthesis of research results undertaken to develop the technical and methodological infrastructure for assessing the safety of means of initiating explosives, on the abrasion resistance of rheophores of electric detonators, in order to increase the safety of their use. The state-of-the-art OPVA 10 equipment is used to test the ability of rheophores insulation to withstand the abrasion forces that may occur during normal use. This equipment with a programmable automatic ensures the testing of the rheophores of the electric detonating staples to determine the abrasion resistance under the operating conditions provided by the harmonized European standard EN 13763-4 and the technical specification of the manufacturer, the operating temperature of this equipment being between 10 ÷ 30 °C ensuring at the highest level the fulfillment of the technical requirements imposed by the European and international regulations in the field.

Development And Validation of An Eco-Friendly and High-Throughput HPLC Method To Quantify Pyrethroid and Pyriproxyfen in Long-Lasting Insecticide-Treated Nets

Long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs) are essential to preventing malaria transmission. The LLINs should last for at least three years, even after repeated washings. Currently, tracking insecticides in LLINs is cumbersome, costly, and requires specialized equipment and hazardous solvents. We therefore developed a low-resource, high-throughput method for detecting insecticides in LLINs. In order to extract insecticides from polyethylene, LLIN samples were heated for 45 minutes at 85oC in 1-propanol-heptane containing dicyclohexylphthalate as an internal standard. Sample size was reduced to ~0.2 g for reduced extraction volume, which is 10% less than what was recommended. We optimized HPLC chromatographic conditions to assess pyrethroid and pyriproxyfen content in polyethylene-based LLINs. The method is capable of quantifying levels ≥ 0.0015% permethrin, 0.00045% alpha-cypermethrin and 0.00025% pyriproxyfen (w/w) in polyethylene, allowing tracking the insecticides before and after LLINs use. A variety of LLINs can be evaluated with this method, including those with 1% pyriproxyfen (pyriproxyfen-LLIN) or 2% permethrin (Olyset® Net), 1% pyriproxyfen and 2% permethrin (Olyset® Duo), or 0.55% pyriproxyfen combined with 0.55% alpha-cypermethrin (Royal Gaurd®). Analysis of 120 samples (40 nets) per run can be done with high precision and accuracy, reducing labour time and costs whilst reducing the environmental impact of organic solvents.

Bringing Home Baby Euclid: Testing Infants’ Basic Shape Discrimination Online

Online developmental psychology studies are still in their infancy, but their role is newly urgent in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the suspension of in-person research. Are online studies with infants a suitable stand-in for laboratory-based studies? Across two unmonitored online experiments using a change-detection looking-time paradigm with 96 7-month-old infants, we found that infants did not exhibit measurable sensitivities to the basic shape information that distinguishes between 2D geometric forms, as had been observed in previous laboratory experiments. Moreover, while infants were distracted in our online experiments, such distraction was nevertheless not a reliable predictor of their ability to discriminate shape information. Our findings suggest that the change-detection paradigm may not elicit infants’ shape discrimination abilities when stimuli are presented on small, personal computer screens because infants may not perceive two discrete events with only one event displaying uniquely changing information that draws their attention. Some developmental paradigms used with infants, even those that seem well-suited to the constraints and goals of online data collection, may thus not yield results consistent with the laboratory results that rely on highly controlled settings and specialized equipment, such as large screens. As developmental researchers continue to adapt laboratory-based methods to online contexts, testing those methods online is a necessary first step in creating robust tools and expanding the space of inquiry for developmental science conducted online.

Design and Fabrication of Low-Cost Microfluidic Chips and Microfluidic Routing System for Reconfigurable Multi-(Organ-on-a-Chip) Assembly

A low-cost, versatile, and reconfigurable fluidic routing system and chip assembly have been fabricated and tested. The platform and its accessories were fabricated in-house without the need for costly and specialized equipment nor specific expertise. An agarose-based artificial membrane was integrated into the chips and employed to test the chip-to-chip communication in various configurations. Various chip assemblies were constructed and tested which demonstrate the versatile utility of the fluidic routing system that enables the custom design of the chip-to-chip communication and the possibility of fitting a variety of (organ-on-a-chip)-based biological models with multicell architectures. The reconfigurable chip assembly would enable selective linking/isolating the desired chip/compartment, hence allowing the study of the contribution of specific cell/tissue within the in vitro models.

A Possible Role for Arterial Duplex and Hand Acceleration Time in Diagnosing and Managing Shock

Shock represents a state when arterial perfusion is inadequate to supply the needs of cellular respiration, leading to anerobic metabolism, acidosis, and cell death. Although typically described in terms of blood pressure and heart rate, these measures can both lead to delayed recognition of shock and under appreciation of the severity of end-organ malperfusion. Recently, there has been increased interest in monitoring peripheral perfusion both to detect early shock and monitor the response to treatment. However, current methods are variable and, in some cases, require specialized equipment. We present a case in which duplex ultrasound assessment of peripheral palmar acceleration time identified a post-hemorrhagic shock state before it was clinically apparent. Bedside arterial duplex and hand acceleration time may provide a simple tool to assess the degree of shock and response to intervention.

Classifying Autism from Crowdsourced Semi-Structured Speech Recordings: A Machine Learning System (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder which results in altered behavior, social development, and communication patterns. In past years, autism prevalence has tripled, with 1 in 54 children now affected. Given that traditional diagnosis is a lengthy, labor-intensive process which requires the work of trained physicians, significant attention has been given to developing systems that automatically diagnose and screen for autism. OBJECTIVE Prosody abnormalities are among the most clear signs of autism, with affected children displaying speech idiosyncrasies (including echolalia, monotonous intonation, atypical pitch, and irregular linguistic stress patterns). In this work, we present a suite of machine learning approaches to detect autism in self-recorded speech audio captured from autistic and neurotypical (NT) children in home environments. METHODS We consider three methods to detect autism in child speech: first, Random Forests trained on extracted audio features (including Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients); second, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained on spectrograms; and third, fine-tuned wav2vec 2.0—a state-of-the-art Transformer-based speech recognition model. We train our classifiers on our novel dataset of cellphone-recorded child speech audio curated from Stanford’s Guess What? mobile game, an app designed to crowdsource videos of autistic and neurotypical children in a natural home environment. RESULTS The Random Forest classifier achieves 70% accuracy, the fine-tuned wav2vec 2.0 model achieves 77% accuracy, and the CNN achieves 79% accuracy when classifying children’s audio as either ASD or NT. We use five-fold cross-validation to evaluate model performance. CONCLUSIONS Our models were able to predict autism status when training on a varied selection of home audio clips with inconsistent recording qualities, which may be more generalizable to real world conditions. The results demonstrate that machine learning methods offer promise in detecting autism automatically from speech without specialized equipment.

Analysis of the state of creation of robotic complexes for humanitarian demining

The object of research is robotic military complexes used in the system of humanitarian demining. This work aims to study the requirements for robotic military complexes (including manipulators that are sucked into them) and to develop proposals for their use in humanitarian demining. The research is based on the application of a functional approach to the construction of models for the formation of requirements for robotic military complexes (RMC), which are sucked into the system of humanitarian demining. It is established that the creation of RMC requires a significant study of the core of the most important technologies that are needed to create the entire range of promising RMC. Thus the standard sample RMC can be presented in the form of set of functionally connected elements: the basic carrier, the mobile platform, the specialized hinged/built-in equipment in the form of a set of removable modules of useful (target) purpose, means of maintenance and service used at preparation for application and technical operation robot. The composition of specialized equipment is set based on the functional purpose of the RMC. The classification of RMC is given, which provides for their division into three categories: the first generation – controlled devices, the second generation – semi-autonomous devices and the third generation – autonomous devices. The analysis of modern RMC which are developed in Ukraine and the advanced countries of the world and the analysis of structure of components of system of humanitarian demining is carried out. It is established that the organization of the humanitarian demining system with the use of RMC should include of explosive objects (EO) reconnaissance, search, marking, their identification and direct demining. Unmasking signs of EO, as well as modern methods and detectors of EO detection are considered. One of the new promising methods of mine detection is parametric. However, in real application, the most promising is the use of a combination of electromagnetic, optical and mechanical methods. The application of the proposed approaches will increase the efficiency of humanitarian demining and reduce human losses in its implementation.

Generation of mutant pigs by lipofection-mediated genome editing in embryos

The specificity and efficiency of CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing systems are determined by several factors, including the mode of delivery, when applied to mammalian embryos. Given the limited time window for delivery, faster and more reliable methods to introduce Cas9-gRNA ribonucleoprotein complexes (RNPs) into target embryos are needed. In pigs, somatic cell nuclear transfer using gene-modified somatic cells and the direct introduction of gene editors into the cytoplasm of zygotes/embryos by microinjection or electroporation have been used to generate gene-edited embryos; however, these strategies require expensive equipment and sophisticated techniques. In this study, we developed a novel lipofection-mediated RNP transfection technique that does not require specialized equipment for the generation of gene-edited pigs and produced no detectable off-target events. In particular, we determined the concentration of lipofection reagent for efficient RNP delivery into embryos and successfully generated MSTN gene-edited pigs (with mutations in 7 of 9 piglets) after blastocyst transfer to a recipient gilt. This newly established lipofection-based technique is still in its early stages and requires improvements, particularly in terms of editing efficiency. Nonetheless, this practical method for rapid and large-scale lipofection-mediated gene editing in pigs has important agricultural and biomedical applications.