Anticipation of the future use of innovative technologies and of their respective societal impact is at the core of technology assessment and responsible research and innovation. Stakeholder and user involvement is often thought to be important for broadening the design and specification of technology before its use; meanwhile, demand analysis is typically used to determine which type of already developed technology is best suited to adequately meet a particular societal demand. Thus, we ask whether the process of demand analysis can be used to enable stakeholders and users to envision and assess future technologies. This question will be answered regarding assistive technologies for people with dementia by focusing on the respective care-giving arrangement, an area where up to now no or only low-level technologies have been in use. The demands of these people for support are typically expressed in nontechnical terms. We find that the involvement of technology developers helped these participants to begin imagining more specific potential technical solutions and to assess them with respect to their future desirability. ARTICLE HISTORY

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is known to commonly induce a thrombotic diathesis, particularly in severely affected individuals. So far, this COVID-19-associated coagulopathy (CAC) has been partially explained by hyperactivated platelets as well as by the prothrombotic effects of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) released from neutrophils. However, precise insight into the bidirectional relationship between platelets and neutrophils in the pathophysiology of CAC still lags behind. Vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) is a rare autoimmune disorder caused by auto-antibody formation in response to immunization with adenoviral vector vaccines. VITT is associated with life-threatening thromboembolic events and thus, high fatality rates. Our concept of the thrombophilia observed in VITT is relatively new, hence a better understanding could help in the management of such patients with the potential to also prevent VITT. In this review we aim to summarize the current knowledge on platelet-neutrophil interplay in COVID-19 and VITT.

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Hightech statt Gehstock -(Wie) wollen wir altern? Ein Interview mit den Charakteren Martina Mareke, Ray de Grey und Friedrich Müller Erdacht von Karsten Bolz, Claudia Brändle, Johannes Hirsch und Martin Sand, Institut für Technikfolgenabschätzung und Systemanalyse (ITAS), Karlsruhe*

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