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Reforms in the health-care system may impact how health-care professionals perceive and enact their roles. This study aims to examine the way in which occupational therapists experience and describe their roles in municipalities after the implementation of a health reform (the Coordination Act) in Norway.

This qualitative study was designed within the perspectives of social constructivism. Data was collected through focus group interviews with 10 community-working occupational therapists. A thematic framework analysis was used to examine the participants’ experiences.

The following four themes emerged: external factors that framed and shaped the occupational therapists’ roles in municipalities; the strengths and dilemmas of the generalist; the problematic generic position and the strengths; and dilemmas of the specialist.

The study suggests that occupational therapy practitioners should identify new opportunities and adapt to health reform changes. They also need to renegotiate their roles as the health reforms require more specialized competences. Greater emphasis must be placed on the core knowledge and competences of occupational therapists to strengthen their professional identity in the municipalities.

Student satisfaction is an important indicator of educational quality in higher education institutions. Learning environment factors are assumed to play a role in determining student satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to examine the intrinsic relationships between five learning environment scales embedded within one measure; and examine the associations between each of these scales and an overall measure of education program satisfaction.

In this cross-sectional study, 175 first-year occupational therapy students in Norway completed sociodemographic information and the Course Experience Questionnaire. The data were analyzed with Pearson’s correlation coefficient r and with linear regression.

All intrinsic associations between the learning environment scales were positive. In the adjusted analysis, higher education program satisfaction was significantly associated with higher scores on “clear goals and standards,” “emphasis on independence” and “good teaching.” The final model accounted for 45.0% of the outcome variance, of which the scores on the learning environment scales contributed 41.8%.

The learning environment is vital for student satisfaction. More specifically, efforts to improve student satisfaction may include strengthening student-focused teaching, strengthening the autonomy of the students, and ensuring that the goals and standards of courses are clear and easy to understand.

Wearable technologies are a near future concept and cyborgs are in fact reality. The authors’ proposition is how cyborgisation could and will occur. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The approach used by this paper is a general review.

The authors explain how the line between humans and technology is becoming more and more blurred as this trends paper explores the concepts of singularity and cyborgs as a future state highlighting the world's first cyborg games.

The paper contributes to our understanding that science fiction is fiction to some but reality to others depending on a person's cognition and insight.

There are over 40 million amputees globally with more than 185,000 Americans losing their limbs every year. For most of the world, prosthetic devices remain too expensive and uncomfortable. This paper aims to outline advancements made by a multidisciplinary research group, interested in advancing the restoration of human motion through accessible lower limb prostheses.

Customization, comfort and functionality are the most important metrics reported by prosthetists and patients. The work of this paper presents the design and manufacturing of a custom made, cost-effective and functional three-dimensional (3D) printed transtibial prosthesis monocoque design. The design of the prosthesis integrates 3D imaging, modelling and optimization techniques coupled with additive manufacturing.

The successful fabrication of a functional monocoque prosthesis through 3D printing indicates the workflow may be a solution to the worldwide accessibility crisis. The digital workflow developed in this work offers great potential for providing prosthetic devices to rural communities, which lack access to skilled prosthetic physicians. The authors found that using the workflow together with 3D printing, this study can create custom monocoque prostheses (Figure 16). These prostheses are comfortable, functional and properly aligned. In comparison with traditional prosthetic devices, the authors slowered the average cost, weight and time of production by 95%, 55% and 95%, respectively.

This novel digital design and manufacturing workflow has the potential to democratize and globally proliferate access to prosthetic devices, which restore the patient’s mobility, quality of life and health. LIMBER’s toolbox can reach places where proper prosthetic and orthotic care is not available. The digital workflow reduces the cost of making custom devices by an order of magnitude, enabling broader reach, faster access and improved comfort. This is particularly important for children who grow quickly and need new devices every few months or years, timely access is both physically and psychologically important.

In this manuscript, the authors show the application of digital design techniques for fabricating prosthetic devices. The proposed workflow implements several advantageous changes and, most importantly, digitally blends the three components of a transtibial prosthesis into a single, 3D printable monocoque device. The development of a novel unibody transtibial device that is properly aligned and adjusted digitally, greatly reduces the number of visits an amputee must make to a clinic to have a certified prosthetist adjust and modify their prosthesis. The authors believe this novel workflow has the potential to ease the worldwide accessibility crisis for prostheses.

We illustrate the potential of diaries for advancing scholarship on organization studies and grand challenges. Writing personal diaries is a time-honored and culturally sanctioned way of animating innermost thoughts and feelings, and embodying experiences through self-talk with famous examples, such as the diaries written by Anne Frank, Andy Warhol, or Thomas Mann. However, the use of diaries has long been neglected in organization studies, despite their historical and societal importance. We illustrate how different forms of analyzing diaries enable a “deep analysis of individuals’ internal processes and practices” (Radcliffe, 2018) which cannot be gleaned from other sources of data such as interviews and observations. Diaries exist in different forms, such as “unsolicited diaries” and “solicited diaries” and have different purposes. We evaluate how analyzing diaries can be a valuable source to illuminate the innermost thoughts and feelings of people at the forefront of grand challenges. To exemplify our arguments, we draw on diaries written by medical professionals working for Doctors Without Borders as part of our empirical research project conducted in extreme contexts. We show the value of unsolicited diaries in revealing people’s thought world that is not apprehensible from other modes of communication, and offer a set of practical guidelines on working with data from diaries. Diaries serve to enrich our methodological toolkit by capturing what people think and feel behind the scenes but may not express nor display in public.

This study examines the osteoconductive and healing capabilities of locally implanted synthetic hydroxyapatite (sHAp) derived from eggshells in the central incisor sockets of rats.

Toxicity experiments were conducted in vitro and in vivo, to testify the safety dosage of sHAp. Around 24 mature male Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats had their upper central incisors extracted. The rats were placed into three groups of eight rats each: Group 1: the sockets of extracted central incisors were left unfilled (control), Group 2: filled up with commercially available hydroxyapatite (HAp) and Group 3: implanted with sHAp locally retrieved from eggshells. After extraction, four rats from each group were sacrificed at 2nd and 4th weeks. Maxillary tissue sections were obtained and stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) and Masson’s trichome (MT) staining. Anti-osteocalcin (OCN) and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) were used primary antibodies for immunohistochemistry (IHC) special labeling.

The results showed that the locally implanted sHAp was non-toxic and safe in cell lines (human osteoblast and fibroblast) and animals. Histological analysis of H&E, MT and IHC showed that the sockets treated with locally implanted sHAp from eggshells were filled with new bone tissue of comparable thickness to other groups.

This unique technique uses locally implanted eggshell-derived sHAp with osteoconductive characteristics. In an in vivo model, sHAps increased OCN and PCNA expression to improve bone repair.

Currently on additive manufacturing, extensive research is directed toward mitigating the main challenges associated with multi-material in fused filament fabrication which has a weak bonding strength between dissimilar materials. Low interfacial bonding strength leads to defects, anisotropy and temperature gradient in materials which negatively impact the mechanical performance of the multi-material prints. The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of different interface geometry designs in terms of the mechanical properties of the specimens.

Tensile test specimens were printed using: mono-material without a boundary interface, mono-material with the interface geometries (Face-to-face; U-shape; T-shape; Dovetail; Encapsulation; Mechanical interlocking; and Overlap) and multi-material with the interface geometries. The materials chosen with high and low compatibility were Tough polylactic acid (PLA) and TPU.

The main results of this study indicate that the interface geometries with the mechanical constriction between materials provide better structural integrity to the specimens. Moreover, in the case of the mono-material parts, the most effective interface design was the mechanical interlocking for both Tough PLA and TPU. On the other hand, in the case of multi-material specimens, the encapsulation showed the highest ultimate tensile strength, whereas the overlap and T-shape presented more robust bonding.

This study examines the mechanical performance, particularly tensile strength, strain at break, Young’s modulus and yield strength of different interface designs which were not studied in the previous studies.

This paper aims that digital transformation (DT) is crucial for companies to stay competitive. While research on DT has quickly gained great popularity, the intersection of trade associations (TAs) and their role in the DT of their members is not yet researched.

In this paper, the authors conducted 20 interviews with Belgian TAs to investigate the role of a TAs in the DT of its members, and how they drive the DT of its members. In addition, the authors investigate the core tasks of TAs, the need of the different industries to digitalize, and the digital projects the different industries are working on.

The findings indicate that TAs can be in a prime position to steer the DT of their members, especially for industries comprised of smaller players. Their roles can range from informing roles to true leaders of DT by creating novel products, such as online platforms and driving the entire sector forwards.

These findings call for more research into TAs and how their role can be optimized for steering DT of their members.

This is the first study to extensively study the role of TAs on the DT of their members.

Is humanity heading to immortal living? If so, what areas of society are playing an active role in achieving this? In order to understand this, the study explores the relationship between immortality and the wellness and medical tourism industry to seek potential relationships between them and ultimately, asks difficult questions about the growth of these tourism sectors and the potential need for greater regulation of them.

Taking a pragmatic philosophical approach and through the examination of refined information from secondary sources and published material and reports, the study presents original theoretical knowledge and a model exploring tourism and human immortality.

This paper argues that continued growth in the wellness and medical markets today could lead to a world where transhumanists and cyborgs are present in our world, even taking over from Homo sapiens. The study presents a model highlighting the potential role of wellness and medical tourism markets, illustrating the potential for future consumer services that could further fuel the search for immortality. Thus, how such markets and consumer desires are (in)directly supporting humanities desire for (non-human) immortal existence.

Today, individuals are driven by wellness practices and medical and cosmetic desires and are willing to travel the globe in search of companies who are either capable of carrying out the desired procedures or seeking prices more affordable to them. This research offers novel insights into these complex relationships and maps the affiliation between wellness and medical practices and the concept of immortality.

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased demand for medical and protective equipment by frontline health workers, as well as the general community, causing the supply chain to stretch beyond capacity, an issue further heightened by geographical and political lockdowns. Various 3D printing technologies were quickly utilised by businesses, institutions and individuals to manufacture a range of products on-demand, close to where they were needed. This study gathered data about 91 3D printed projects initiated prior to April 1, 2020, as the virus spread globally. It found that 60% of products were for personal protective equipment, of which 62% were 3D printed face shields. Fused filament fabrication was the most common 3D print technology used, and websites were the most popular means of centralising project information. The project data provides objective, quantitative insight balanced with qualitative critical review of the broad trends, opportunities and challenges that could be used by governments, health and medical bodies, manufacturing organisations and the 3D printing community to streamline the current response, as well as plan for future crises using a distributed, flexible manufacturing approach.