A Comparative Analysis of Smartphone and Standard Tools for Touch Perception Assessment Across Multiple Body Sites.

Tactile perception plays an important role in activities of daily living, and it can be impaired in individuals with certain medical conditions. The most common tools used to assess tactile sensation, the Semmes-Weinstein monofilaments and the 128 Hz tuning fork, have poor repeatability and resolution. Long term, we aim to provide a repeatable, high-resolution testing platform that can be used to assess vibrotactile perception through smartphones without the need for an experimenter to be present to conduct the test. We present a smartphone-based vibration perception measurement platform and compare its performance to measurements from standard monofilament and tuning fork tests. We conducted a user study with 36 healthy adults in which we tested each tool on the hand, wrist, and foot, to assess how well our smartphone-based vibration perception thresholds (VPTs) detect known trends obtained from standard tests. The smartphone platform detected statistically significant changes in VPT between the index finger and foot and also between the feet of younger adults and older adults. Our smartphone-based VPT had a moderate correlation to tuning fork-based VPT. Our overarching objective is to develop an accessible smartphone-based platform that can eventually be used to measure disease progression and regression.

Design and Evaluation of a 3-DoF Haptic Device for Directional Shear Cues on the Forearm.

Wearable haptic devices on the forearm can relay information from virtual agents, robots, and other humans while leaving the hands free. We introduce and test a new wearable haptic device that uses soft actuators to provide normal and shear force to the skin of the forearm. A rigid housing and gear motor are used to control the direction of the shear force. A 6-axis force/torque sensor, distance sensor, and pressure sensors are integrated to quantify how the soft tactor interacts with the skin. When worn by participants, the device delivered consistent shear forces of up to 0.64 N and normal forces of up to 0.56 N over distances as large as 14.3 mm. To understand cue saliency, we conducted a user study asking participants to identify linear shear directional cues in a 4-direction task and an 8-direction task with different cue speeds, travel distances, and contact patterns. Participants identified cues with longer travel distances best, with an 85.1% accuracy in the 4-direction task, and a 43.5% accuracy in the 8-direction task. Participants had a directional bias, with a preferential response in the axis towards and away from the wrist bone.

The Relationship Between Public Interest and Surgical Demand During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

INTRODUCTION: Surgical databases are useful for examining outcomes and case volume to improve care, while public interest data has the potential to track the supply and demand of medical services in specific communities. However, the relationship between public interest data and case volume from surgical databases, specifically during disruptive instances like the coronavirus pandemic, is unknown. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine how public interest data is related to the case volume of coronavirus and other surgical procedures performed during the coronavirus pandemic. METHODS: This retrospective study included a review of appendectomy, total hip arthroplasty (THA), and total knee arthroplasty (TKA) cases from the National Surgery Quality Improvement Project and relative search volume (RSV) of hip replacement, knee replacement, appendicitis, and coronavirus from Google Trends from 2019 to 2020. T-tests were used to compare surgical caseload and RSV data before and after the COVID-19 surge in March 2020, while linear models were used to determine relationships between confirmed procedures and relative search volumes. RESULTS: The RSV for knee replacement (p < 0.001, Cohen's D [d] = -5.01, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -7.64 to -2.34) and hip replacement (p < 0.001, d = -7.22, 95% CI: -10.85 to -3.57) had a large dip during the coronavirus pandemic, while the RSV for appendicitis had a smaller dip (p = 0.003, d = -2.37, 95% CI: -3.93 to -0.74). Linear models showed very strong linear relationships between surgical RSV and surgical volume for TKA (R2 = 0.931) and THA (R2 = 0.940). CONCLUSIONS: There was a significant reduction in the number of elective surgeries, which correlated to drops in public interest during COVID-19. The strong correlations between RSV, surgical volume, and coronavirus cases indicate that public interest can be used to track and predict surgical case volume. Our findings allow for greater insight into the use of public interest data to gauge surgical demand.

Cognitive and Physical Activities Impair Perception of Smartphone Vibrations.

Vibration feedback is common in everyday devices, from virtual reality systems to smartphones. However, cognitive and physical activities may impede our ability to sense vibrations from devices. In this study, we develop and characterize a smartphone platform to investigate how a shape-memory task (cognitive activity) and walking (physical activity) impair human perception of smartphone vibrations. We measured how Apple's Core Haptics Framework parameters can be used for haptics research, namely how hapticIntensity modulates amplitudes of 230 Hz vibrations. A 23-person user study found that physical ( ) and cognitive ( p=0.012) activity increase vibration perception thresholds. Cognitive activity also increases vibration response time ( ). This work also introduces a smartphone platform that can be used for out-of-lab vibration perception testing. Researchers can use our smartphone platform and results to design better haptic devices for diverse, unique populations.

Evolutionary and functional analysis of the invariant SWIM domain in the conserved Shu2/SWS1 protein family from Saccharomyces cerevisiae to Homo sapiens.

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae Shu2 protein is an important regulator of Rad51, which promotes homologous recombination (HR). Shu2 functions in the Shu complex with Shu1 and the Rad51 paralogs Csm2 and Psy3. Shu2 belongs to the SWS1 protein family, which is characterized by its SWIM domain (CXC...Xn...CXH), a zinc-binding motif. In humans, SWS1 interacts with the Rad51 paralog SWSAP1. Using genetic and evolutionary analyses, we examined the role of the Shu complex in mitotic and meiotic processes across eukaryotic lineages. We provide evidence that the SWS1 protein family contains orthologous genes in early-branching eukaryote lineages (e.g., Giardia lamblia), as well as in multicellular eukaryotes including Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila melanogaster. Using sequence analysis, we expanded the SWIM domain to include an invariant alanine three residues after the terminal CXH motif (CXC…Xn…CXHXXA). We found that the SWIM domain is conserved in all eukaryotic orthologs, and accordingly, in vivo disruption of the invariant residues within the canonical SWIM domain inhibits DNA damage tolerance in yeast and protein-protein interactions in yeast and humans. Furthermore, using evolutionary analyses, we found that yeast and Drosophila Shu2 exhibit strong coevolutionary signatures with meiotic proteins, and in yeast, its disruption leads to decreased meiotic progeny. Together our data indicate that the SWS1 family is an ancient and highly conserved eukaryotic regulator of meiotic and mitotic HR.