Studies in health technology and informatics最新文献

This research provides insights into childbirth as a sensitive experience, from the perspective of its user, "woman in labour," as well as from the perspective of the event itself, "the childbirth," and the birth space, with its spatial and ambiantal configurations. By adopting an in-situ approach, we conducted a spatial and ambiantal characterization of two childbirth different contexts; Tunis and Grenoble. Along this work, we used various methods such as ethnographic observation and semistructured interviews with mothers and midwives, when following visits to the birth spaces in Grenoble. Our experimental protocol was refined by introducing the capture of emotions, notably through the analysis of electrodermal activity variation, for the case of the Maternity and Neonatology Center in Tunis. In correlation with observations and interviews, the analysis of electrodermal activity reveals the mother's emotional state. Subsequently, we undertook a transposition and synthesis of significant ambiantal situations encountered in the birth space in Grenoble and Tunis, during labour phase of childbirth. Six ambiantal situations-types are identified and distributed across two dimensions: luminous and kinesthetic. The results of this research are extremely useful to guide the choices in design of birth space while at the same time considering the well-being of woman in labour. We will end with an ambiantal project that proposes interventions on spatial quality by introducing an ambiantal dimension to the birth space.

In professional interactive practices, space, time, human bodies, and material objects as well as written and oral language are dynamically implicated in a multimodal co-construction of meaning. A healthcare space - an operating room - is a typical example of such a social-semiotic, multimodal arrangement of communication modes which impacts the practices that are played out therein. Therefore, in designing healthcare spaces, it is important to allow for proactive inclusion and engagement of the categories of professionals who carry out their daily work in these spaces. Today, such involvement can be facilitated through mediation tools and simulation in Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE). However, how collaboration unfolds and manifests at the micro-level of collaborative design interaction remains under-researched. The aim of this discussion paper is to introduce a social-semiotic approach to the analysis of multimodal collaborative design. We show how combinations of modes can trigger transformational shifts in levels of interaction.

In Europe, most countries are facing common healthcare challenges that lead to a need for innovation, effectiveness and efficiency in the healthcare systems. This is often addressed through actions and intentions including enhanced primary and integrated care. However, these developments seem to be progressing slowly and non-uniformly, nor is there knowledge exchange, and the full implications of these changes on healthcare design are still unfolding. The research presented investigates what are the current trends in healthcare systems and the effects on design transformations, focusing on the Swedish experience. In Sweden, a reform known as "Nära Vård" [Close Care], aims to "reconstruct" the core of the healthcare service around primary care. It strives to bring care "closer" to people and communities concerning access to both care and the facilities where it is delivered. The objective of this paper is to understand what can be learnt from the Swedish experience; the research presented aims at investigating the effects of the Close Care reform on primary care facilities design. The study was conducted from April to July 2023, and it consisted of: i) desk research and literature review; ii) data collection through 12 interviews with experts; iii) data analysis through qualitative content analysis; iv) study visits to local care facilities. From the interviews, 10 factors for change and 9 challenges emerged. Moreover, it appears that the organisational structure of the Swedish healthcare system caters for regional and individual projects' interpretations of how to bring care "closer" to the patients; this variation allows for a broader understanding of the advantages and drawbacks of each organisational model and design, and it reinforces the idea that there is no "one-size-fits-all" for close care. This diversity points to a need for a project evaluation program of the ongoing experiences, aimed at assessing the performance and effectiveness of each approach.

Dementia is a globally growing problem, which is putting pressure on public services, including those in Nordic countries, to offer care to everyone in need. Contemporary approaches to dementia care are evolving from institutional and medical solutions to more human-centred, community-based, and emotion-oriented, which positively impacts the well-being of persons with dementia. Principles of ageing-in-place and the benefits of living at home are strongly emphasised in research. Although cognitive health and memories are associated with the physical environment and architecture and design can play a powerful role in supporting independent living, public system in Finland remains traditional, focused on providing institutional care. Architecture drives the care system and acts as a barrier to delivering ageing-in-place rather than a resource. The architectural and service models for serving seniors with dementia require transformation. This article proposes applying the emerging concept of service architecture to the design of environments for ageing-in-place and transforming care systems with a user-centred systemic approach to spaces, community, and service design. It explores opportunities for co-creation with users with dementia and other stakeholders and describes a new system of services linked with new spatial programming. The architectural solution is a network of spaces, including those for living, care, and connection. Its elements and their design were defined through case studies conducted in Finnish municipalities involved in research. New spatial and service programming, designed with the service architecture concept, has the potential to change the paradigm, transform systems of care, and enable seniors experiencing memory decline to remain in their homes.

This article deals with representation of the human body in architecture. The human body as a statically balanced symmetrical figure is an antique, time-bound representation of the body and it is important to challenge that image in a modern and more nuanced understanding of being human. To identify some of architecture's reproductions of the human body, we make some historical cuts and exemplify representations of the body in architectural theory. First, we briefly describe the origin of Homo Bene Figuratus (Vitruvius introducing the doctrine of the well-formed body) and the image of the body characterised by geometric proportioning. We then exemplify similar renderings of Reference Man which followed the Vitruvian Man right up to the present. Le Corbusier's "Le Modulor" follows the same path, in a modernist worldview, helped along by Ernst Neufertt's ideas on theory of proportion, first stated in 1936, which standardisation have remained unchanged as essential reference. As a critical response to bodily reductive perceptions in architectural theory, we go beyond Reference Man and seek a broader in-sight into the understanding of human diversity and varieties of bodily abilities. Seen through a Universal Design perspective, a view of the human body as absolute geometric figure inscribed in fixed coordinates has difficulty representing ideas of human beings as a diverse group of bodies. This view also has difficulty representing the idea of the human body as changing through a lifetime. A fixed standard can overlook the human being as diverse in bodies and abilities and even come to leave out significant aspects of design such as health, social wellbeing, and sensory qualities of architecture. In our discussion, we go into more detail about the significance of representations of the ideal human body for the design of architecture and suggest what consequences it may have for architectural practice.

The growing interest regarding the role of the living environment in healthy ageing highlights the need to investigate place-related urban features contributing to health and socio-emotional wellbeing. This study aimed to use a participatory methodology to explore the determinants of an age-friendly neighbourhood built environment that promotes or limits healthy ageing in place among seniors residing in a low-income urban community in Singapore. The study utilised photovoice and semi-structured interviews with 25 community-dwelling seniors aged 65 and above, residing in government-built public housing. Analysis of the photographs and interviews was guided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Age-friendly Cities Framework to assess the age-friendliness of places. Our findings generally corresponded to the WHO framework, and our analysis identified a total of 8 facilitators and 4 barriers affecting the neighbourhood age-friendliness. A safe and pleasant outdoor environment that is connected to essential services, amenities and transport to key destinations encourages higher activity in seniors and enables them to fulfil their daily living needs. However, the lack of wheelchair accessible features in some areas deterred the mobility of seniors in the neighbourhood. Interestingly, there was also a high level of civic participation in the form of senior volunteerism observed among the participants as they took ownership to continuously improve the liveability of their neighbourhood. Additionally, there is a sufficient range of aged care services in their neighbourhood available to support seniors to age in their homes and community. The determinants that emerged from our findings are important for guiding future national policies and initiatives to improve the living environment that supports healthy ageing in place.

The article aims to study the concepts, themes, and ideas behind the new typology of modern Finnish psychiatric hospitals by analyzing two recently built cases. Several new psychiatric hospitals were built in different regions of Finland in the last decade. They are built on the campuses of somatic central hospitals, they combine outpatient, inpatient, and day wards for many different age groups. They have public functions that serve the whole campus or the surrounding area. The vast gardens of previous facilities were replaced by balconies, enclosed yards, and roof terraces. In the absence of national guidelines on design, the new typology was formed, shaped by cooperation between the hospital administration, hospital staff, and the architects. The article analyzes the design briefs of two similar through inductive content analysis to derive the main themes mentioned in these documents. Then, it is analyzed how the themes were reflected in the final design of the buildings, highlighting the commonalities and differences of the two projects. Some of the most common themes were safety, functionality, centralization, cooperation, proximity, flexibility, renewing psychiatric care, isolation, changing patient demographics, family, privacy, stigma, therapeutic spaces, outdoor spaces, and working environment. They are reflected in the building design being more concerned with security, in more dense and compact floorplans, and in design solutions that make it possible to quickly adapt in crisis situations. The Case B, designed just few years later than Case A, is noticeably more focused on the security aspect. The article also provides an insight into how the typology of hospitals was influenced by societal and legislative changes as well as changes in psychiatric care.

Image segmentation is an important topic in medical image processing. Multicellular tumour spheroids (MTS) are currently one of the most widely employed in vitro model for pre-clinical drug screening in cancer research. Assessing their growing requires the segmentation of images acquired at several time points. This paper presents the preliminary results of an approach for the automatic segmentation of multicellular tumour spheroids. The obtained segmentation accuracy is reasonable demonstrating that the approach proved adequate.

A dynamic study of ceramide concentrations and their association with recurrent event risk could enhance our understanding of cardiovascular complications. To assess the prognostic value of ceramide concentrations (Cer(d18:1/16:0), Cer(d18:1/18:0), Cer(d18:1/24:1), Cer(d18:1/24:0)) and their dynamics in combination with standard clinical and laboratory parameters and therapeutic interventions in ACS patients. Among 110 ACS patients, triple blood sampling was performed for targeted lipidomic analysis using high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. All ceramide concentrations peaked at admission and decreased by the 3rd day of hospitalization and at the 3-month follow-up. The difference between Cer(d18:1/18:0) concentration 3 months after hospital discharge and its baseline value on admission was strongly associated with recurrent events, independent of prior statin treatment. The association of the Cer(d18:1/18:0) change from 3rd day of hospitalization and its baseline concentration on admission with prognosis varied depending on the glycemic profile.

Due to a lack of systematisation and unbiased information, finding the optimal combination of software products for health information systems is a challenging endeavour. We present a novel approach to visually explore the domain of application systems and software products for health care along the paths of the Health IT ontology (HITO). We present an algorithm and implementation in a web application that is freely available at the HITO website and licensed under the open source MIT licence. In comparison to other approaches of path-based exploration of knowledge graphs, the novelty of our approach is the use of path finding on the ontology level and combining this both with the instances of the classes along the chosen path as well as search filters to limit the search space. Our approach can be adapted to other domains where users with complex information needs interact with ontologies and knowledge graphs and can be supported by generative artificial intelligence in the future.