In a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of 32 beds, clinicians manage resources 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from a large-screen dashboard implemented in 2017. This resource management dashboard efficiently replaces the handwriting information displayed on a whiteboard, offering a synthetic view of the bed’s layout and specific information on staff and equipment at bedside. However, in 2020 when COVID-19 hit, the resource management dashboard showed several limitations. Mainly, its visualization offered to the clinicians limited situation awareness (SA) to perceive, understand and predict the impacts on resource management and decision-making of an unusual flow of patients affected by the most severe form of coronavirus. To identify the SA requirements during a pandemic, we conducted goal-oriented interviews with 11 clinicians working in ICUs. The result is the design of an SA-oriented dashboard with 22 key indicators (KIs): 1 on the admission capacity, 15 at bedside and 6 displayed as statistics in the central area. We conducted a usability evaluation of the SA-oriented dashboard compared to the resource management dashboard with 6 clinicians. The results showed five usability improvements of the SA-oriented dashboard and five limitations. Our work contributes to new knowledge on the clinicians’ SA requirements to support resource management and decision-making in ICUs in times of pandemics.
Preventive maintenance practices have been proven to reduce maintenance costs in many industries. In the mining industry, preventive maintenance is the main form of maintenance, especially for mobile equipment. With the increase of sensor data and the installation of wireless infrastructure within underground mines, predictive maintenance practices are beginning to be applied to the mining equipment maintenance process. However, for the transition from preventive to predictive maintenance to succeed, researchers must first understand the maintenance process implemented in mines. In this paper, we conducted interviews with 15 maintenance experts from 7 mining sites (6 gold, 1 diamond) across East-Canada to investigate the maintenance planning process currently implemented in Canadian mines. We documented experts’ feedback on the process, their expectations regarding the introduction of predictive maintenance in mining, and the usability of existing computerized maintenance management software (CMMS). From our results, we compiled a summary of actual maintenance practices and showed how they differ from theoretical practices. Finally, we list the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) relevant for maintenance planning and user requirements to improve the usability of CMMS.
While most traditional user experience (UX) evaluation methods (e.g., questionnaires) have made the transition to the "wild", physiological measurements still strongly rely upon controlled lab settings. As part of an ongoing research agenda, this paper presents a novel approach for UX research which contributes to this transition. The proposed method triangulates GPS and physiological data to create emotional maps, which outline geographical areas where users experienced specific emotional states in outdoor environments. The method is implemented as a small portable recording device, and a data visualization software. A field study was conducted in an amusement park to test the proposed approach. Emotional maps highlighting the areas where users experienced varying levels of arousal are presented. We also discuss insights uncovered, and how UX practitioners could use the approach to bring their own research into the wild.
A mathematical model for determining the optimum towing velocity of tabular icebergs is presented. The optimization problem is formulated in terms of a benefit function that takes into account the ice mass delivered and the total fuel consumption for the tow. Results indicate that the optimum towing velocity is mainly affected by the water-to-fuel cost ratio. It is shown that towing icebergs from Antarctica to South Africa is a profitable way of supplying fresh-water provided that the towing velocity is optimized with the proposed method.
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.