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To evaluate whether there are differences among orthodontists in the clinical management of facemask treatment for early treatment of Class III malocclusion, a survey consisting of 16 questions was conducted among members of the Italian Society of Orthodontics (SIDO). Sixty percent of the respondents were Specialists in Orthodontics (S) whereas 40% were General Dentists practicing Orthodontics (GD). Descriptive statistics were calculated to summarize the collected data. Differences in answers between S and GD were assessed with the Fisher's exact test for dichotomous variables, chi-square test for qualitative variables, and Mann–Whitney test for ordinal variables. A total of 151 clinicians participated in this survey. As for treatment timing, about 80% of the participants reported treating Class III patients with RPE and facemask between 5 and 8 years of age. Most of the participants requested the patients to wear the facemask in the afternoon and at night for a period of 9 or 12 months with recommended forces of 500 g per side. Comparisons between S and GD showed that S preferred the Petit facemask whereas GD favored the Delaire's type facemask (Fisher's Exact test, p = 0.0005). S and GD also differed significantly in their judgment of the most critical time of treatment, which for the majority of GD was the initial period but for the S was the final period (Chi-square test p = 0.0188). This survey showed that the facemask is not well received by the patients who, along with their parents, express concerns regarding its tolerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ICOM (International Council of Museums) envisions a role for the museum as an accessible and inclusive institution open to the public, which operates professionally and with the participation of communities. This vision requires research and practice to be fully implemented. The paper illustrates the participatory ideation and evaluation of new museum services that are inclusive and accessible for people who cannot visit the museum due to disability and age-related impairments. It illustrates the co-design process carried out within the EU project BeauCoup, which aims to make the cultural heritage accessible beyond the museum’s walls. This objective implies that the museum must play a key role in promoting inter-institutional partnerships between the cultural and the social sectors to engage marginalised communities. The paper describes the approach and the outcomes of the co-design process which involved various stakeholders and institutions, offering a reflection on the benefits and shortcomings of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve fit and comfort, a maxillary protraction facemask customized to the patient's anatomy was produced by means of 3D face scanning, digital design and additive manufacturing. An 8-year-old patient in need of early treatment for the Class III malocclusion received a rapid palatal expander and a Petit-type facemask, whose components were digitally designed on a 3D scan of the patient's face. For face scanning, the iPad Pro 2018 tablet (Apple, Cupertino, CA, USA) with the Bellus3D DentalPro application (Bellus3D, Campbell, CA, USA) was used. Facemask components were modelled with 3D Blender software. The rests were 3D printed in BioMed Clear biocompatible resin (Formlabs, Somerville, MA, USA), and the bar in stainless steel. For greater comfort, the internal surface of the rests was lined with a polymer gel pad (Silipos, Niagara Falls, NY, USA). The manufacturing procedure of the customized facemask is patented. The patient wore the facemask at night for a period of 9 months. The patient's experience was evaluated with a questionnaire at 1 week, 3, 6, and 10 months of treatment. The customized facemask was well accepted by the patient and obtained the expected treatment outcome. Furthermore, 3D face scanning, 3D modelling and 3D printing allow for the manufacturing of customized facemasks with improved fit and comfort, favoring patient compliance and treatment success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an experiment in which participants had to discriminate three mid-air haptic shapes (circle, square, point) by reporting whether the haptic stimulus (e.g. circle on the palm of the hand) was compatible with an image (e.g. a circle) or a word (e.g. 'circle') displayed on a screen. Results indicate that only the 'point' stimulus was appreciably recognised and discriminated in terms of accuracy and time needed for the identification. Accuracy increased with repetition, and response time decreased, suggesting a learning effect. The comparison between visual and textual labels shows that for the haptic point stimulus there is no significant difference but a tendency to have greater accuracy with images than with texts, while the opposite result is found for the circle stimulus. This outcome suggests the need for new experiments focussed of the effect of visual/textual labels to make the recognition/discrimination tasks of haptic stimuli easier. Practitioner Summary: Three haptic shapes were presented with images or texts, matching or not the stimuli. The point was easy to recognise, while the circle and the square were difficult to discriminate against each other. Visual/textual labels bring contradictory results for different shapes. Abbreviations: 1D: one-dimensional; 2D: two-dimensional; 3D: three-dimensional; API: application programming interface; cm: centimeter; GLMM: generalised linear mixed-effect model; HCI: human-computer interaction; Hz: hertz; LMM: linear mixed-effect model; MCC: Matthews' correlation coefficient; mm: millimeter; ms: millisecond; QQ-plot: Quantile-Quantile plot; SD: standard deviation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the design case of an accessible handweaving loom that allows people with different disabilities, including cognitive and sensorial disabilities, to weave independently, promoting self-expression and stimulating creativity. The project developed through an intense phase of prototyping activities, resulting in the re-design of a handweaving loom enhanced and transformed through rapid prototyping using digital fabrication technology. People with various types of disabilities, their caregivers and weaving experts were engaged in a series of participatory design workshops focused on eliciting requirements and desires and inspiring the design process. Throughout the project and in the attempt to integrate some automation in the weaving process, a number of issues emerged regarding how to balance flexibility and guidance to support the creative process without constraining it. The discussion of the design case offers a contribution on design for accessibility and a concrete case to reflect on the importance of supporting and stimulating self-expression and creativity in people with special needs. The paper concludes with design recommendations to accommodate needs of people with disabilities which range from functional and instrumental needs, to experiential needs including aesthetics, self-expression and creativity which are usually overlooked in accessibility guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overall trend toward globalization in design, greatly enhanced by digital technologies, has raised issues and challenges on how to preserve the cultural differences and values of different societies. There is a tendency to lose touch with local cultural values when designing artefacts for global use, and social nuances and traditions risk to be flattened or stereotyped in the pursuit of developing new technologies and products for the global society. Attempts to reduce the tension between the global and the local in design can be seen in the development of standards and guidelines for cross-cultural design, that are mostly focused on (online) user interface design. However, when moving from preferences, metaphors, appearance, and navigation toward cultural models of interaction and physical design, new methodologies and tools for cross-cultural design are needed. This paper describes a poetry-inspired design method for cross-cultural sharing within the design process. The approach uses poetry to sensitize the designer to the subtleties and diversity of a (new or known) culture so that the design can be given new aesthetic and cultural significance. The methodology is exemplified by actual design cases developed within the course "Cultural Sensitivity" of the Master's Degree Program in Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology, where poetry was used for uncovering underlying or implicit assumptions, intercultural differences and similarities, as well as for general sensitization of young designers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This multi-perspective study focuses on how a service robot for the elderly should behave when interacting with potential users. An existing service robot and a scenario were used as a concrete case, which was discussed and analyzed during focus group sessions with older adults (n = 38), informal caregivers (n = 24), and professional caregivers (n = 35) in the Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom. A total of seven topics—privacy, task execution, environment, appearance, behavior, visitors, and communication—were explored. The results showed that some of the characteristics mentioned were unique to a user group, but several were cross-cutting. Overall, potential users expected the service robot to be customizable in order to match the users' needs and preferences. Also, high expectations concerning its functioning and behavior were expressed, which sometimes could even be compared to the qualities of a human being. This emphasizes the complexity of service robot development for older adults, and highlights the need for a personalized and flexible solution. One size does not fit all, and specific attention should be paid to the development of the robot's social behavior and skills beyond a mere functional support for the person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The phenomenon of cyberbullying is on the rise among adolescents and in schools. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the relationship between personality characteristics such as empathy, the tendency to implement cognitive mechanisms aimed at moral disengagement, and the use of social media. PARTICIPANTS: Italian students from first to fifth year in high school classes (n = 264). METHODS: A questionnaire was used to gather information on the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants, their use of social media, their level of empathy (Basic Empathy Scale, BES), and mechanisms of moral disengagement (Moral Disengagement Scale MDS). Two questions were included to determine whether each participant had ever been a victim of or witness to cyberbullying. RESULTS: Results suggest that offensive behaviors are related to mechanisms of moral disengagement and to interaction using forms of communication that allow anonymity. In addition, offensive behavior appears to be related to forms of Internet addiction, while prosocial behavior is linked with cognitive empathy. CONCLUSION: In order to promote the establishment of prosocial behavior, it would seem necessary for the various players involved – schools, parents, social network developers – to make an effort to implement educational environments and virtual social networks based on a hypothesis of "design for reflection", educating young people about the need to take the time to understand their feelings and relationships expressed via social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The potential of service robots for seniors is given increasing attention as the ageing population in Western countries will continue to grow as well as the demand for home care. In order to capture the experience of living with a robot at home, a multi-perspective evaluation was conducted. Methods: Older adults (n = 10) were invited to execute an actual interaction scenario with the Care-O-bot® robot in a home-like environment and were questioned about their experiences. Additionally, interviews were conducted with the elderly participants, informal carers (n = 7) and professional caregivers (n = 11). Results: Seniors showed to be more keen to accept the robot than their caregivers and relatives. However, the robot in its current form was found to be too limited and participants wished the robot could perform more complex tasks. In order to be acceptable a future robot should execute these complex tasks based on the personal preferences of the user which would require the robot to be flexible and extremely smart, comparable to the care that is delivered by a human carer. Conclusions: Developing the functional features to perform activities is not the only challenge in robot development that deserves the attention of robot developers. The development of social behaviour and skills should be addressed as well. This is possible adopting a person-centred design approach, which relies on validation activities with actual users in realistic environments, similar to those described in this paper. Implications for rehabilitation: Attitude of older adults towards service robots Potential of service robotsfor older adults [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A set of prominent designers embarked on a research journey to explore aesthetics in movement-based design. Here we unpack one of the design sensitivities unique to our practice: a strong first person perspective--where the movements, somatics and aesthetic sensibilities of the designer, design researcher and user are at the forefront. We present an annotated portfolio of design exemplars and a brief introduction to some of the design methods and theory we use, together substantiating and explaining the first-person perspective. At the same time, we show how this felt dimension, despite its subjective nature, is what provides rigor and structure to our design research. Our aim is to assist researchers in soma-based design and designers wanting to consider the multiple facets when designing for the aesthetics of movement. The applications span a large field of designs, including slow introspective, contemplative interactions, arts, dance, health applications, games, work applications and many others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) - based applications and services are no more a remote possibility but an economic and social opportunity. Apart from the legislative changes needed to make urban drone-based applications feasible, it is essential to ensure the efficient and safe operation of UAV fleets within a restrictive and complex operating area. All in all, the compiled articles show the evolution of some hot topics in nowadays research related to drones and drone-enabled systems. [Extracted from the article]

BACKGROUND: Play is essential for children's development. Children with severe physical disabilities often experience problems engaging in play. In rehabilitation and special education for children with physical disabilities play-like activities and play for play's sake are important. OBJECTIVE: The current study aimed at examining the possibilities of using the IROMEC robot in rehabilitation and special education for children with severe physical disabilities. METHODS: A mixed methods approach, using individual interviews, two rounds of focus group interviews, a questionnaire and a final session to reach consensus, was used to examine the match between the goals in therapy and special education and the IROMEC robot. RESULTS: The existing play scenarios of IROMEC have the potential to support play for children with severe physical disabilities, especially in the domains of movement functions, learning and applying knowledge, communication/interpersonal interactions and relationships, and play. CONCLUSIONS: The current study helped to build a body of evidence to the possibilities of the IROMEC robot. The results of this study can be used to further develop meaningful robotic play interventions for children with severe physical disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the user experience evaluation of Squeeze Me, an interactive cover for tablet and smartphone that enables continuous and expressive interaction with electronic devices. The cover has been used to implement 'Squeeze to zoom', a mobile application to zoom in and out while taking a photograph from a tablet. The experience of use was evaluated in the short and medium term, comparing the Squeeze Me interaction modality with classic modalities for zooming in and out commonly available on tablets and smartphones. The evaluation process was conducted using AttrakDiff [3] a questionnaire that measures hedonic stimulation and identity, as well as pragmatic qualities and attractiveness of software products. Participants were asked to try out different interaction modalities for comparison in the short-term (67 people) and over 4 weeks (8 people). Results obtained in the short-term evaluation reveal that 'Squeeze to zoom' was awarded higher values than the classic 'Slide to zoom' in the hedonic quality-stimulation and attractiveness dimensions, whilst it obtained lower values in the pragmatic quality and hedonic quality-identity. However, the experience of use changed over time. During the longitudinal study, the usability of 'Squeeze to zoom' improved whilst the attractiveness of 'Slide to zoom' decreases significantly. Furthermore results reveal that 'Squeeze to zoom' is significantly more appreciated for its hedonic qualities and the effect is maintained over time. This study highlights the importance of evaluating the experience of use over time, a practice that is almost ignored in the literature on Experience Design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smartness in contemporary society implies the use of massive data to improve the experience of people with connected services and products. The use of big data to collect information about people’s behaviours opens a new concept of “user-centred design” where users are remotely monitored, observed and profiled. In this paradigm, users are considered as sources of information and their participation in the design process is limited to a role of data generators. There is a need to identify methodologies that actively involve people and communities at the core of ecosystems of interconnected products and services. Our contribution to designing for social innovation in ecosystems relies on developing new methods and approaches to transform data-driven design using a participatory and co-creative data-enabled design approach. To this end, we present one of the methods we have developed to design “smart” systems called Experiential Design Landscapes (EDL), and two sample projects, Social Stairs and [Y]our Perspective. Social Stairs faces the topic of behaviour change mediated by sensing technologies. [Y]our Perspective is a social platform to sustain processes of deliberative democracy. Both projects exemplify our approach to data-enabled design as a social proactive participatory design approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of the periodical presents selected highlights from ECCE 2021, the 32nd European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics. It mentions that the conference is the annual event of the European Association of Cognitive Ergonomics (EACE), a leading conference on human-media interaction that provides an opportunity for researchers and practitioners to exchange new ideas and practical experiences for a variety of domains.

The article discusses the common physical, behavioural, and cognitive characteristics of robots that resemble human beings. Information on the existence of design of pet-like robots that have been documented in the human-robot interaction is offered. Discussion of how robot designers adopt mimicry as a universal principle of designing robots to stimulate imagination and experience of such technologies is provided.

We describe an exploratory case study about the applicability of different robotic platforms in an educational context with a child with Down syndrome. The robotic platforms tested are the humanoid robot KASPAR and the mobile robotic platform IROMEC. During the study we observed the effects KASPAR and IROMEC had in helping the child with the development and improvement of her social skills while playing different interactive games with the robots. Conceptually similar play scenarios were performed with both robots and the behaviour of the child was monitored during her interactions with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a novel set of ten play scenarios for robot-assisted play for children with special needs. This set of scenarios is one of the key outcomes of the IROMEC project that investigated how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging children with special needs to discover a range of play styles, from solitary to collaborative play (with peers, carers/teachers, parents etc.). The target user groups in the project were children with Mild Mental Retardation,1 children with Severe Motor Impairment and children with Autism. The play scenarios were developed against specific educational and therapeutic objectives that were discussed with panels of experts (teachers therapists parents) in various countries, during several user panel meetings for each of the above mentioned target user groups. These objectives were classified with reference to the ICF-CY, the International Classification of Functioning – version for Children and Youth. The article presents a detailed description of the play scenarios, each with its relevant educational and therapeutic objectives in five key developmental areas (i.e. sensory development, communication and interaction, Cognitive development, motor development and social and emotional development). While the play scenarios described in this paper originally were developed for and tested with the above user groups and with the IROMEC robot, the play scenarios can potentially be applied to other user groups and to a wide range of other applications involving human-robot interaction using different robotic toys. Keywords: human-robot interaction; assistive technology; play scenarios; autism; mild mental retardation; sever motor impairment; assisted play [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author provides viewpoint on the consequences of using robot companions or caretakers for children on learning and education. He says that tools such as robot is neither good or bad but it is wise to make necessary steps before using it because it can lead to ethical and sustainable consequences. It is also the author's view that construction of robots need a collaborative endeavor of several concerns including teachers, parents, and designers.

This paper outlines the use of modular robotics to encourage and facilitate nonverbal communication during therapeutic intervention in dementia care. A set of new socially interactive modular robotic devices called rolling pins (RPs) has been designed and developed to assist the therapist in interacting with dementia-affected patients. The RPs are semitransparent plastic tubes that are capable of measuring their orientation and the speed of their rotation; at a local level, they have three types of feedback: red, green, and blue light, sound, and vibration. The peculiarity of the RPs is that they are able to communicate with each other or with other devices equipped with the same radio communication technology. The RPs are usually used in pairs, as the local feedback of an RP can be set depending not only on its own speed and orientation but also on the speed and the orientation of the peer RP. The system is not used as a therapeutic tool per se but as a facilitator and a mediator of social dynamics during normal therapy to counteract social isolation that can result in dementia through the loss of social skills. An experiment is reported that shows that by using the RPs, the patients participated in the activity by coordinating their behavior with the therapist and imitating the same interaction patterns generated by the therapist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a nuanced perspective on the topic of user-centred design (UCD) in the human–computer interaction (HCI) field. After a brief outline of its emergence, we describe some of the central tenets of the approach, using the process model of Gulliksen et al. ( Behav Inf Technol 22(6):397–409, ) as a well-documented exemplar. We then examine in more detail some of the difficulties one can encounter in performing user-centred design (UCD), illuminating these issues through vignettes from specific projects in which we have been involved. In this paper, we focus on issues that can arise in working with children and with people of differing mental abilities. Our argument is that, while a user-centred perspective is required at all times in the design team, the forms of participation of users in the design process needs to fit the context and can vary significantly from that presented as the prototypical UCD approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a design approach for manipulative technologies that consider “user diversity” as a main lever for design. Different dimensions of “diversity” are considered, e.g., the users' age, abilities, culture, cultural background, and alphabetization. These dimensions drive the development of a user-centered design process for manipulative technologies for learning and play environments. In particular, we explore the possibility of allowing young children to develop and interact with virtual/physical worlds by manipulating physical objects in different contexts, like the classroom, the hospital, or the playground. In our scenarios, we consider children with different abilities (fully able, physically impaired, or with cognitive delays), in different cultures (Denmark, Tanzania, and Italy), and with a different level of alphabetization. The needs and expectations of such heterogeneous user-groups are taken into account through a user-centered design process to define a concept of tangible media for collaborative and distributed edutainment environments. The concept is implemented as a set of building blocks called I-Blocks with individual processing and communication power. Using the I-Blocks system, children can do “programming by building,” and thereby construct interacting artefacts in an intuitive manner without the need to learn and use traditional programming languages. Here, we describe in detail the technology of I-Blocks and discuss lessons learned from “designing for diversity.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I-BLOCKS are an innovative concept of building blocks allowing users to manipulate conceptual structures and compose atomic actions while building physical constructions. They represent an example of enabling technologies for tangible interfaces since they emphasise physicality of interaction through the use of spatial and kinaesthetic knowledge. The technology presented in this paper is integrated in physical building blocks augmented with embedded and invisible microprocessors. Connectivity and behaviour of such structures are defined by the physical connectivity between the blocks. These are general purpose, constructive, tangible user interface devices that can have a variety of applications. Unlike other approaches, I-BLOCKS do not only specify a computation that is performed by the target system but perform at the same time the computation and the associated action/functionality. Manipulating I-BLOCKS does not only mean constructing physical or conceptual structures but also composing atomic actions into complex behaviours. To illustrate this concept, the paper presents different scenarios in which the technology has been applied: storytelling performed through the construction of physical characters exhibiting emotional states, and learning activities for speech therapy in cases of dyslexia and aphasia. The scenarios are presented; discussing both the features of the technology used and the related interaction design issues. The paper concludes by reporting about informal trials that have been conducted with children. It should be noted that, even if both trials represent application scenarios for children, the I-BLOCKS technology is in principle open to different kinds of applications and target users like, for example, games for adults or brainstorming activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many people are currently working in call centres and much more are expected to work in them in the near future. Call centres are, in a sense, 'modern factories' where services are delivered through information and communication technologies. The human activity within the dynamic and articulated reality of such work settings offers new challenges for cognitive ergonomics. Indeed, work in call centres has to be conceptualized in terms of distributed knowledge. This means that only part of the knowledge needed to carry out any transaction is (or rather has to be) in the mind of the operator; relevant knowledge may be distributed among colleagues in the organization, available and accessible cognitive artefacts in the work environment, and clients. This paper discusses the potential contribution that human factors and cognitive ergonomics can provide in tackling the new and old problems that emerge in organizations where knowledge is an asset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]