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This paper aims to concentrate on recent innovations in flexible wearable sensor technology tailored for monitoring vital signals within the contexts of wearable sensors and systems developed specifically for monitoring health and fitness metrics.

In recent decades, wearable sensors for monitoring vital signals in sports and health have advanced greatly. Vital signals include electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram, electromyography, inertial data, body motions, cardiac rate and bodily fluids like blood and sweating, making them a good choice for sensing devices.

This report reviewed reputable journal articles on wearable sensors for vital signal monitoring, focusing on multimode and integrated multi-dimensional capabilities like structure, accuracy and nature of the devices, which may offer a more versatile and comprehensive solution.

The paper provides essential information on the present obstacles and challenges in this domain and provide a glimpse into the future directions of wearable sensors for the detection of these crucial signals. Importantly, it is evident that the integration of modern fabricating techniques, stretchable electronic devices, the Internet of Things and the application of artificial intelligence algorithms has significantly improved the capacity to efficiently monitor and leverage these signals for human health monitoring, including disease prediction.

The purpose of this paper is to focus upon some important prerequisites for a qualitative good life for people who are users of signalling devices, prerequisites that at the same time represent barriers for communication, mobility and partaking in ordinary activities. It is also to discuss usability and user satisfaction from a new angle by combining disability studies with STS‐perspectives (Science, Technology and Society) in order to grasp the connection between disability as a social phenomenon and technology as a social actor. The paper discusses reasons for abandonment of AT‐devices (assistive technology‐devices) and the shaping of action by technologies.

A qualitative approach is used by the way of semi‐structured interviews with users and public and private service providers in the Norwegian hearing aid market. A bottom‐up strategy is used for data collection. First, users of signaling devices were interviewed about their experiences on how to get and use devices. Then service providers were interviewed about important issues that users raised. A keyword analysis was used in order to highlight barriers for use in daily life. Users were recruited through their interest organization and at an AT exhibition. All the interviews were conducted at cafeterias or at work places.

The article points at lack of information at companies' websites, professional power, the construction of “end user”, routines of everyday life, as well as the matching of devices to age, gender and lifestyle along with attitudes of family, friends and neighbours as important barriers. The article shows how cultural norms and values about gender and disability are inscribed into the technologies. The end product, the polar bear, the watch or the wireless alert system, can be described as a “script” that is supposed to help the individual to perform actions, but as shown – can also limit actions or relations.

The design of AT‐devices as pointed at in this article not only deals with utility and functionality, but also with usability and human communication. More research on usability is needed, as well as on the user‐expert relationship and how devices function in society as identity markers. In sum, more research on AT is needed in order to develop more knowledge on how to reduce individual risks and societal costs related to abandonment or non‐use.

Although changes are taking place in AT services today, the article shows that issues of usability such as the aesthetical side of design, identity and user satisfaction are important but neglected issues by service providers and producers.

Despite the ongoing, but slow process from a patient‐oriented system to a more user‐ or customer‐oriented AT system still represents a challenge for services as well as for the welfare state.

The article combines STS‐perspectives, disability studies perspectives and Silverstone's integrative framework on how to get and integrate mainstream ICT‐objects in private households, in order to discuss reasons for abandonment of AT‐devices for people who are hard of hearing. The approach highlights what is special with the integration of AT devices into private homes, as compared to mainstream ICT‐objects, and important reasons for abandonment are discussed that emphasize professional power, aesthetics, identity, as well as attitudes of others.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the growing importance of design for assembly (DFA) and design for test (DFT) for compact medical electronics products.

The paper discusses compact products based on leading‐edge electronic components such as digital signal processors, radio frequency (RF) and mixed‐signal chips, advanced ball‐grid array, quad flat pack, chip scale package devices.

Advanced technologies like these create higher component and joint counts and increasing PCB densities. A higher probability of defects and faults is created, which lead to lower yields for a specific product line unless proper effective DFA and DFT are implemented.

The paper details DFA, high‐speed PCB design, mixed‐signal design, and DFT.

With increasing complexity in compact medical products, it is prudent to emphasize DFA and DFT for ultimate reliability during product development and production cycles.

QuikScan is an innovative text format that employs three prominent signaling devices – summaries, headings, and access cues – to make the reading of medium‐to‐long texts more productive. The experiments reported in this paper aim to examine the claim that QuikScan contributes to text recall.

In two consecutive experiments a QuikScanned text (experimental condition) was compared to a non‐QuickScanned text (control condition). In Experiment one, 41 university students read the text and then answered ten open recall questions. In Experiment two, 58 university students read the text and then wrote a summary and answered four recall questions.

In Experiment one, a statistically significant overall effect on text recall favoring QuikScan was found. Detailed analyses revealed that QuikScan mainly affected the readers' responses to higher‐order questions (d = 1.24). Experiment two showed that QuikScan led to significantly higher recall scores for the summaries. Just as in the first experiment, a strong effect on the higher‐order questions was found (d = 1.27).

Further studies of QuikScan should include studies in naturalistic settings and should address selective reading and information navigation as well as text recall. SARA, a recent comprehensive theory of signaling, makes it possible to identify the individual functions of QuikScan's signaling devices and conduct revealing studies of QuikScan.

QuikScan and other innovations that improve the reading experience can potentially increase the willingness of readers to read longer documents.

QuikScan provides a unique combination of signaling devices. It can facilitate access and enhance text comprehension.

The purpose of this paper is to design and develop a new robotic device for the rehabilitation of the upper limbs. The authors are focusing on a new symmetrical robot which can be used to rehabilitate the right upper limb and the left upper limb. The robotic arm can be automatically extended or reduced depending on the measurements of the patient's arm. The main idea is to integrate electrical stimulation into motor rehabilitation by robot. The goal is to provide automatic electrical stimulation based on muscle status during the rehabilitation process.

The developed robotic arm can be automatically extended or reduced depending on the measurements of the patient's arm. The system merges two rehabilitation strategies: motor rehabilitation and electrical stimulation. The goal is to take the advantages of both approaches. Electrical stimulation is often used for building muscle through endurance, resistance and strength exercises. However, in the proposed approach the electrical stimulation is used for recovery, relaxation and pain relief. In addition, the device includes an electromyography (EMG) muscle sensor that records muscle activity in real time. The control architecture provides the ability to automatically activate the appropriate stimulation mode based on the acquired EMG signal. The system software provides two modes for stimulation activation: the manual preset mode and the EMG driven mode. The program ensures traceability and provides the ability to issue a patient status monitoring report.

The developed robotic device is symmetrical and reconfigurable. The presented rehabilitation system includes a muscle stimulator associated with the robot to improve the quality of the rehabilitation process. The integration of neuromuscular electrical stimulation into the physical rehabilitation process offers effective rehabilitation sessions for neuromuscular recovery of the upper limb. A laboratory-made stimulator is developed to generate three modes of stimulation: pain relief, massage and relaxation. Through the control software interface, the physiotherapist can set the exercise movement parameters, define the stimulation mode and record the patient training in real time.

There are certain constraints when applying the proposed method, such as the sensitivity of the acquired EMG signals. This involves the use of professional equipment and mainly the implementation of sophisticated algorithms for signal extraction.

Functional electrical stimulation and robot-based motor rehabilitation are the most important technologies applied in post-stroke rehabilitation. The main objective of integrating robots into the rehabilitation process is to compensate for the functions lost in people with physical disabilities. The stimulation technique can be used for recovery, relaxation and drainage and pain relief. In this context, the idea is to integrate electrical stimulation into motor rehabilitation based on a robot to obtain the advantages of the two approaches to further improve the rehabilitation process. The introduction of this type of robot also makes it possible to develop new exciting assistance devices.

The proposed design is symmetrical, reconfigurable and light, covering all the joints of the upper limbs and their movements. In addition, the developed platform is inexpensive and a portable solution based on open source hardware platforms which opens the way to more extensions and developments. Electrical stimulation is often used to improve motor function and restore loss of function. However, the main objective behind the proposed stimulation in this paper is to recover after effort. The novelty of the proposed solution is to integrate the electrical stimulation powered by EMG in robotic rehabilitation.

A new lass of sensors for thermal imaging and detection in the infra‐red band is emerging which exploits the pyroelectric effect in ferroelectric materials. These sensors, which are fabricated in the form of large linear or two‐dimensional arrays of detectors interfaced to a silicon readout circuit, do not require cooling for their operation, in contrast to the photon detection based thermal imagers. They thus have the potential for low cost thermal detection and imaging. This paper examines the design of these arrays and the technologies employed in their fabrication, with particular attention to their specialised packaging requirements, by reference to a range of linear and two‐dimensional pyroelectric array devices that have been fabricated in this laboratory.

The aim of this paper is to compare the most common time‐ and frequency‐domain numerical techniques for the determination of the steady‐state solution in the physics‐based simulation of a semiconductor device driven by a time‐periodic generator.

The shooting and harmonic balance (HB) techniques are applied to the solution of the discretized drift‐diffusion device model coupled to the external circuit embedding the semiconductor device, thus providing a fully nonlinear mixed mode simulation.

The comparison highlights the strong and weak points of the two approaches, basically showing that the time‐domain solution is more robust with respect to the initial condition, while the HB solution provides a more rapid convergence once the initial datum is close enough to the solution itself.

The contribution compares two numerical techniques for the determination of the steady‐state solution of nonlinear dynamical systems, popular in the area of RF circuit analysis but rarely applied to device simulation. In particular, this is the first application of the shooting method to forced devices.

Purpose – Although some literature exists on how consumers may interpret firm-generated signals about the unobservable quality of their product, there has been little effort to examine whether and how managers deploy signals about unobservable quality to compete.Design/methodology/approach – In this chapter, we address this issue by examining whether managers consciously use signals to compete with other firms, and how they choose between the vast number of signals available to them. We develop a formal model that allows us to generate a set of predictions drawn from information economics and behavioral decision theory. The predictions specify a pattern of managerial behavior according to which signals belonging to some categories are relatively attractive (for economic as well as psychological reasons).Findings – We report on the results of a series of three experiments in which executives are given the opportunity to deploy signals to communicate unobservable quality to skeptical consumers in a competitive market.Value/originality – The results of the studies provide compelling evidence in support of the formal argument.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of advertising products with their reflections on some important brand outcomes such as brand purchase likelihood, brand trust and consumer willingness to pay for the advertised product.

This research uses four experiments to assess the effects of advertising products with (vs without) reflections on the focal brand outcomes.

Results evidence a robust negative effect of advertising products with their reflections on the investigated brand outcomes across multiple product categories. Following Signaling Theory, product reflections are found to act as negative signaling devices in brand advertising contexts given that these inverted, false object reproductions are processed with a sense of confusion, ambiguity and uncertainty. Further in line with Signaling Theory, increased product quality uncertainty is determined as the underlying process and brand confidence signaling is tested as a relevant moderator to the proposed effects.

This inquiry is the first to systemically investigate brand implications of advertising products with their reflections. Counter to marketers’ aesthetic intuitions, the current research finds that this common advertising practice can actually hurt critical brand outcomes such as brand trust.

The need for better performance, safety and comfort is the driving force behind the dramatic growth in car electronics. The key to success depends mainly on system reliability and cost which in turn are related to the choice of technological approach. The basic topics to be investigated are, on the one hand, system architecture and, on the other, the implementation techniques involved. Large scale integration of a consistent portion of the system will be necessary but other factors such as interconnections, packages and so on must also be taken into account. The variety of boards, components and assembly techniques currently available are just adequate for present needs, but for the 1990s the continuously increasing complexity of automotive electronic systems will probably necessitate better use of what is available and possibly new ideas.