As smart technology use is growing in residential environments, research on how such technologies can provide opportunities for safely and actively aging in place by integrating physical activity into daily routines and reducing sedentariness is scarce. This study investigated older adults’ intentions to use and attitudes toward currently available smart home technologies that could contribute to safe and active lives in and around home. The focus was on four representative technologies: smart lighting, smart door locks, smart fire prevention devices, and smart home systems/home automation. This paper presents the results of a sequential mixed-methods study comprised of online and in-person surveys ( n = 129), and a focus group of community-dwelling older adults, aged 50+ ( n = 15). Ordinal regression analyses indicated that perceived usefulness consistently predicts older adults’ attitudes and willingness to use smart home products. While smart fire prevention devices were viewed most favorably due to their potential safety benefits, perceived affordability significantly influenced older adults’ intentions to use them in their homes. The focus group findings underscore technology skepticism, privacy concerns and return on investment as significant determinants of attitudes toward the smart design products. The study has implications of designers and manufacturers by providing insights on how to prioritize smart home technology integrations to homes.
The dynamic responses of an ice-covered fluid to impulsive disturbances are analytically investigated for two-and three-dimensional cases. The initially quiescent fluid of infinite depth is assumed to be inviscid, incompressible and homogenous. The thin ice-cover is modelled as a homogenous elastic plate with negligible inertia. Four types of impulsive concentrated disturbances are considered, namely an instantaneous mass source immersed in the fluid, an instantaneously dynamic load on the plate, an initial impulse on the surface of the fluid, and an initial displacement of the ice plate. The linearized initial-boundary-value problem is formulated within the framework of potential flow. The solutions in integral form for the vertical deflexions at the ice-water interface are obtained by means of a joint Laplace-Fourier transform. The asymptotic representations of the wave motions for large time with a fixed distance-to-time ratio are derived by making use of the method of stationary phase. It is found that there exists a minimal group velocity and the wave system observed depends on the moving speed of the observer. For an observer moving with the speed larger than the minimal group velocity, there exist two trains of waves, namely the long gravity waves and the short flexural waves, the latter riding on the former. Moreover, the deflexions of the ice-plate for an observer moving with a speed near the minimal group velocity are expressed in terms of the Airy functions. The effects of the presence of an ice-cover on the resultant wave amplitudes, the wavelengths and periods are discussed in detail. The explicit expressions for the free-surface gravity waves can readily be recovered by the present results as the thickness of ice-plate tends to zero.
Background
The pattern of normal labor progression can help to define prolonged labor and dystocia. Several studies had tried to establish the process of normal labor in different races. Previous findings in Asian women were limited and often incomparable. Our aim was to examine labor patterns in Asian American women.
Study design
A total of 3079 women with singleton term gestation, vertex presentation, vaginal delivery, and a normal perinatal outcome were extracted from the Consortium on Safe Labor study. A repeated measure analysis and an interval‐censored regression were applied to depict the average labor curves and estimate the time interval of cervical dilation by 1 cm, respectively. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to assess the impact of oxytocin augmentation. The cumulative duration of the 1st stage of labor was calculated to draw a partograph.
Results
It took an average of 5.2 hours for nulliparous Asian women with spontaneous labor onset to complete the 1st stage of labor, and the 95th centile was 14.4 hours. Labor progressed at a similar rate between nulliparous and multiparous women before 6 cm. Afterward, multiparous women progressed noticeably faster than nulliparous women. The differences in labor duration between women with and without oxytocin augmentation were <0.5 hour for both nulliparous and multiparous women.
Conclusions
A new partograph that restricted the diagnosis of dystocia to the slowest 5% of nulliparous women with normal perinatal outcomes was proposed. The labor pattern in Asian American women was similar to that of the overall United States population.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.