UW researchers bring first underwater messaging app to smartphones

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

 

IMAGE: A TEAM OF UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON RESEARCHERS DEVELOPED AQUAAPP, THE FIRST MOBILE APP FOR SENDING AND RECEIVING MESSAGES UNDERWATER THAT WORKS ON EXISTING SMARTPHONES — NO SPECIAL HARDWARE REQUIRED. THE APP OVERCOMES A NUMBER OF TECHNICAL CHALLENGES RELATED TO THE UNDERWATER ENVIRONMENT TO ENABLE TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKING WHILE ENGAGING IN UNDERWATER ACTIVITIES LIKE SNORKELING AND SCUBA DIVING. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

For millions of people who participate in activities such as snorkeling and scuba diving each year, hand signals are the only option for communicating safety and directional information underwater. While recreational divers may employ around 20 signals, professional divers’ vocabulary can exceed 200 signals on topics ranging from oxygen level, to the proximity of aquatic species, to the performance of cooperative tasks.

The visual nature of these hand signals limits their effectiveness at distance and in low visibility. Two-way text messaging is a potential alternative, but one that requires expensive custom hardware that is not widely available.

Researchers at the University of Washington show how to achieve underwater messaging on billions of existing smartphones and smartwatches using only software. The team developed AquaApp, the first mobile app for acoustic-based communication and networking underwater that can be used with existing devices such as smartphones and smartwatches.

The researchers presented their paper describing AquaApp Aug. 25 at SIGCOMM 2022.

"Smartphones rely on radio signals like WiFi and Bluetooth for wireless communication. Those don’t propagate well underwater, but acoustic signals do," said co-lead author Tuochao Chen, a UW doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. "With AquaApp, we demonstrate underwater messaging using the speaker and microphone widely available on smartphones and watches. Other than downloading an app to their phone, the only thing people will need is a waterproof phone case rated for the depth of their dive."

The AquaApp interface enables users to select from a list of 240 pre-set messages that correspond to hand signals employed by professional divers, with the 20 most common signals prominently displayed for easy access. Users can also filter messages according to eight categories, including directional indicators, environmental factors and equipment status.

In building the app, the team had to overcome a variety of technical challenges that they haven’t previously encountered on dry land.

"The underwater scenario surfaces new problems compared to applications over the air," said co-lead author Justin Chan, a doctoral student in the Allen School. "For example, fluctuations in signal strength are aggravated due to reflections from the surface, floor and coastline. Motion caused by nearby humans, waves and objects can interfere with data transmission. Further, microphones and speakers have different characteristics across smartphone models. We had to adapt in real time to these and other factors to ensure AquaApp would work under real-world conditions."

Other challenges included addressing the tendency for devices to rapidly shift position and proximity in the current, and the various noise profiles the app might encounter due to the presence of vessels, animals and even low-flying aircraft.

The team created an algorithm that allows AquaApp to optimize, in real time, the bitrate and acoustic frequencies of each transmission based on certain parameters, including distance, noise and variations in frequency response across devices.

Here's how it works: When one user wants to send a message to another device, their app first sends a quick note, called a preamble, to the other device. AquaApp on the second device runs the algorithm to determine the best conditions to receive the preamble. Then it tells the first device to use those same conditions to send the actual message.

The researchers developed a networking protocol to share access to the underwater network, akin to how WiFi networks referee internet traffic, to support messaging between multiple devices. AquaApp can accommodate up to 60 unique users on its local network at one time.

CAPTION

A team of University of Washington researchers developed AquaApp, the first mobile app for sending and receiving messages underwater that works on existing smartphones — no special hardware required. The app overcomes a number of technical challenges related to the underwater environment to enable two-way communication and networking while engaging in underwater activities like snorkeling and scuba diving.

CREDIT

University of Washington

The team tested the real-world utility of the AquaApp system in six locations offering a variety of water conditions and activity levels, including under a bridge in calm water, at a popular waterfront park with strong currents, next to the fishing dock of a busy lake and in a bay with strong waves. The researchers evaluated the app’s performance at distances of up to 113 meters and depths of up to 12 meters.

"Based on our experiments, up to 30 meters is the ideal range for sending and receiving messages underwater, and 100 meters for transmitting SoS beacons," Chen said. "These capabilities should be sufficient for most recreational and professional scenarios."

The researchers also measured AquaApp’s impact on battery life by continuously running the system on two Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones at maximum volume and with screens activated. The app reduced the devices’ battery power by just 32% over the course of four hours, which is within the maximum recommended dive time for recreational scuba diving.

"AquaApp brings underwater communication to the masses," said senior author Shyam Gollakota, a UW professor in the Allen School. "The state of underwater networking today is similar to ARPANET, the precursor of the internet, in the 1970s, where only a select few had access to the internet. AquaApp has the potential to change that status quo by democratizing underwater technology and making it as easy as downloading software on your smartphone."

The team’s data and open-source Android code are available on the AquaApp website.

The researchers are supported by the Moore Inventor Fellowship and the National Science Foundation.

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For more information, contact underwatermessaging@cs.washington.edu.

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DOI

10.1145/3544216.3544258 

ARTICLE TITLE

Underwater messaging using mobile devices

Researchers develop equations to prevent the collapse of our globe’s most imperiled ecosystems

Scientists can now predict and compare tipping points so that resources can be directed where they are most urgently needed

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: JIANXI GAO, RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE view more 

CREDIT: RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

TROY, N.Y. —  News headlines on extreme weather, melting ice caps, and threatened species are daily reminders of our changing environment. The profound scale and intensity of these challenges may leave one to wonder, “What should we do first?” Researchers recently developed formulas that help answer that question, effectively creating a method to triage declining ecosystems by measuring and comparing their distance to tipping points.

In research just published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, a team led by Jianxi Gao, assistant professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, developed equations that allow the comparison of distances to tipping points across various mutualistic systems. In other words, for the first time, diverse environments can be analyzed as to how close they are to becoming completely and, perhaps, irrevocably, changed, and they can be compared with others to determine which areas need intervention most urgently.

Previously, scientists could detect early warning signals that a system may be approaching its tipping point, but they were unable to ascribe an exact value to a system’s distance from its tipping point. The value could define the likelihood that a system would transfer to the undesired state from the desired state, or how easily a tipping point could be reached.

Gao’s team developed a general dimension reduction approach to simplify the data in complex systems, allowing accurate measurements of distances to tipping points in diverse ecosystems. The team also developed a scaling factor that positions the resilience of different systems on the same scale so they may be compared.

“With so many ecosystems struggling from the impacts of climate change, being able to convey how little time we have left to intervene before a tipping point is reached is critical,” said Curt Breneman, Dean of the Rensselaer School of Science. “Mobilization will not happen without a sense of urgency.”  

Gao’s team studied 54 different environments from all over the world and analyzed the many factors that control their resilience. Species loss, invasions, human activities, and environmental changes all cause “perturbations” in an ecosystem, but its likelihood of collapse is determined by the ecosystem’s structural properties. For example, if a few trees are cut down in a thick forest, the impact on the ecosystem will be minimal because new trees will grow and the system will recover back to its previous state. However, in an area where trees are lacking, the loss of a few may make a more profound impact and the system may transition to an undesired state from which it is difficult to recover. In mathematical terms, resilience is the distance to the boundary of the attraction basin.

“For example, if one piece of attraction is the forest and the other is the savannah, the system may or may not transfer to savannah because of many factors,” Gao said. “The base of attraction refers to the region of these factors inside high-dimensional space. Where is the region of forest where if you cross the boundary, it changes to savannah? If a system remains in the boundary, it will always recover. Only when it crosses some value will it change into another state and cannot recover.”

Gao’s team believes that the method cannot only be used to determine the resilience of ecological systems, but also biological, engineering, and social systems.

“The dimension reduction approach is very general and can be applied to different types of systems,” Gao said. “It’s universal.”

The team also measured the tipping point within a supply chain network.

On an optimistic note, the team’s research is not concluding with tipping points. They are also pursuing a restoration algorithm for when systems fail.

Gao was joined in research by Huixin Zhang and Weidong Zhang of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Qi “Ryan” Wang of Northeastern University, and Shlomo Havlin of Bar-Ilan University. Their work was supported by the NSF CAREER Award.

View a short video on the research here.

About Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Founded in 1824, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is America’s first technological research university. Rensselaer encompasses five schools, over 30 research centers, more than 140 academic programs including 25 new programs, and a dynamic community made up of over 6,800 students and 104,000 living alumni. Rensselaer faculty and alumni include upwards of 155 National Academy members, six members of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, six National Medal of Technology winners, five National Medal of Science winners, and a Nobel Prize winner in Physics. With nearly 200 years of experience advancing scientific and technological knowledge, Rensselaer remains focused on addressing global challenges with a spirit of ingenuity and collaboration. To learn more, please visit www.rpi.edu.

 

For general inquiries: newsmedia@rpi.edu

 

Visit the Rensselaer research and discovery blog: https://everydaymatters.rpi.edu/

 

Follow us on Twitter: @RPINews

 

JOURNAL

Nature Ecology & Evolution

DOI

10.1038/s41559-022-01850-8 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Estimating comparable distances to tipping points across mutualistic systems by scaled recovery rates

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Aug-2022

Disclaimer: AAAS a

Can we reverse the effects of age related memory loss? Experts say yes

BU professor Robert Reinhart explains how a 20-minute noninvasive treatment regimen can improve both short-term and long-term memory

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: A RESEARCHER ADMINISTERS THE STIMULATION TREATMENT VIA A CAP. view more 

CREDIT: COURTESY OF ROBERT REINHART

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, an estimated 6.5 million Americans aged 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s in 2022. That figure is predicted to nearly double by 2050.

Dr. Robert Reinhart, an assistant professor at Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Cognitive & Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory, recognizes the severity of this issue and is working to create treatments to help people with brain disorders.

In a recent study published in Nature Neuroscience, Reinhart and his team of researchers explain how their noninvasive treatment delivered through electrodes in a wearable cap can improve memory function in older adults and gets us one step closer to providing a more efficient treatment for memory loss.

Robert Reinhart explains his research, findings, and potential impact in the Q&A below.

What did your study find?

We delivered our noninvasive treatment to target memory function through scalp electrodes and found that electrical brain stimulation for 20 minutes on four consecutive days can improve working memory and long-term memory in individuals 65 years and older for at least one month.

Low-frequency electrode activity improved working memory on day three and day four and one month after intervention, on the other hand, high-frequency improved long-term memory on days two–four and one month after intervention. Our findings demonstrate that the plasticity of the aging brain can be selectively and sustainably altered using these two treatments.

How does this paper expand on your previous study with electrostimulation treatment for memory loss?

In this new study, we used multiple, consecutive days of stimulation for 20 minutes to cause long-lasting memory improvements that lasted one month. Previously, the effects lasted only 50 minutes.

Another important difference is that in this recent study we developed two brain stimulation protocols — one for selectively improving short-term memory via low-frequency parietal stimulation, and another protocol for selectively improving long-term memory via high-frequency prefrontal stimulation.

What are the real-world implications of these findings?

An increasingly older population leads to additional personal, social, healthcare and economic costs. A factor greatly contributing to these costs is the impairment in basic memory systems essential for activities of everyday life, such as making financial decisions or understanding language.

Memory decline varies in severity across individuals during aging, with a rapid decline potentially predicting Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

Existing therapeutic approaches for impaired cognition are limited by mixed treatment outcomes, slow improvement, and accompanying risks and side effects. For those reasons, there’s an urgent need to develop innovative therapeutic interventions that can provide rapid and sustainable improvements with minimal side effects.

Clinically, this is important because there are people with only short-term memory problems and others with only long-term memory problems. So, having tools in hand that can address each of these memory systems is of great value.

What’s next?

Further research is needed to determine whether these effects can last beyond one month and whether these specific methods can also enhance memory function in individuals with impaired cognition due to brain disorders and in those at risk for dementia.

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JOURNAL

Nature Neuroscience

DOI

10.1038/s41593-022-01132-3 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Long-lasting, dissociable improvements in working memory and long-term memory in older adults with repetitive neuromodulation

Music helps patients with dementia connect with loved ones

Novel music intervention sparks emotional connection between patients and caregivers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

• Patients sing and dance with their caregivers to songs from patients’ youth
• Music memories remain in brain after patients lose language and other memories
• Patients had less agitation, anxiety and depression

CHICAGO --- People with dementia often lose their ability to communicate verbally with loved ones in later stages of the disease. But a Northwestern Medicine study, in collaboration with Institute for Therapy through the Arts (ITA), shows how that gap can be bridged with a new music intervention. 

In the intervention — developed at ITA and called “Musical Bridges to Memory” — a live ensemble plays music from a patient’s youth such as songs from the musicals “Oklahoma” or “The Sound of Music.” This creates an emotional connection between a patient and their caregiver by allowing them to interact with the music together via singing, dancing and playing simple instruments, the study authors said. 

The program also enhanced patients’ social engagement and reduced neuropsychiatric symptoms such as agitation, anxiety and depression in both patients and caregivers.

More than 6 million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer’s disease. 

The study is unusual because it targeted patients with dementia and their caregivers, said lead study author Dr. Borna Bonakdarpour. Most prior studies using music for dementia patients have focused only on the patients. 

“Patients were able to connect with partners through music, a connection that was not available to them verbally,” said Bonakdarpour, an associate professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine neurologist. “The family and friends of people with dementia also are affected by it. It’s painful for them when they can’t connect with a loved one. When language is no longer possible, music gives them a bridge to each other.”

The study was published Aug. 25 in Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders.

Musical memory, processing not as affected by Alzheimer’s

Music memories often remain in the brain even as language and other memories disappear in dementia, Bonakdarpour said. This is because regions of the brain that are involved in musical memory and processing (e.g., the cerebellum) are not as affected by Alzheimer’s or dementia until much later in the disease course. Thus, patients can retain the ability to dance and sing long after their ability to talk has diminished. 

How the study worked

In the study, individuals with dementia — residents of Silverado Memory Care (in a suburb of Chicago) — and their care partners were recorded on video conversing and interacting for 10 minutes before and 10 minutes after the intervention. Before playing the music, each patient/caregiver pair had training on how to interact more effectively during the music. 

During the 45-minute musical intervention, an ensemble of chamber musicians and a singer performed songs that appealed to the patients from their younger days. The patients and their caregivers received simple instruments such as tambourines and shakers to accompany the music. Specially trained music therapists interacted with patients during performances, getting them to beat on drums, sing and dance. 

A group conversation followed the music. Patients were more socially engaged as evidenced by more eye contact, less distraction, less agitation and an elevated mood. In comparison, the control group, which did not receive the intervention and were exposed to usual daily care and programs, did not show such changes within the same time frame.

The program included 12 sessions over three months.  

‘All could relate to their loved one’

Before the intervention, some individuals would not communicate much with their partners. However, during the intervention, they started to play, sing and dance together, which was a significant change for the family. These changes generalized to their behavior outside the sessions as well.

“As the program progressed, caregivers invited multiple family members,” said Jeffrey Wolfe, a neurologic music therapist-fellow at ITA and leader of the Musical Bridges to Memory program. “It became a normalizing experience for the whole family. All could relate to their loved one despite their degree of dementia.”  

The next step in the research is to conduct the study on a larger group of patients. ITA and Northwestern have been funded by a three-year grant through the National Endowment for the Arts to expand this study. 

The study is called “Musical Bridges to Memory: A Pilot Dyadic Music Intervention to Improve Social Engagement in Dementia.”

Other Northwestern authors on the study include co-first author Rhiana Schafer. Co-first author Aimee Karstens, formerly at Northwestern, is now at Mayo Clinic, Rochester. 

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JOURNAL

Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders

ARTICLE TITLE

“Musical Bridges to Memory: A Pilot Dyadic Music Intervention to Improve Social Engagement in Dementia.”

PRISON NATION U$A

Research Brief: Study examines support programs for pregnant, postpartum people at state prisons

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA MEDICAL SCHOOL

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (08/29/2022) — Published in the Journal of Criminal Justice, researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School examined the variation of support programs for pregnant and postpartum people at six state prisons in the U.S. The study found the success of programs was largely dependent on collaboration between program facilitators and partnering prison sites.

"Put simply, prisons were built by men, for men, and there's been very little attention paid to the needs of women, especially those who are pregnant or postpartum in prison. This study is important because it examines unique support programs for pregnant and postpartum people,” said Rebecca Shlafer, PhD, MPH, an associate professor at the U of M Medical School. “When we have a better understanding of what these prisons are doing, these can serve as models for other states to improve the care and treatment of this population."

Researchers conducted interviews to collect information on historical context, conception and key aspects of the implementation of services offered at each site. The authors found each program has created or adapted its components to serve their specific populations and expressed needs. Services fell into five broad categories: group-based education and support, one-on-one support, labor and birth support, lactation facilitation and support, and other support services. Group-based education and support was the only program component offered by all six programs. Four of the six programs also offered one-on-one support, labor and birth support, and lactation support and facilitation.

Based on the first set of interviews with program facilitators, researchers outlined these specific recommendations for corrections and prison administrators:

• Assess the needs and fit of program components by directly consulting with pregnant and postpartum people who are incarcerated in a specific facility.
• Identify community-based partners, like nonprofit organizations, universities, or hospital systems, that bring diverse professional expertise and have an interest in building collaborative partnerships to provide these types of programs to people in prison.
• Identify leaders and champions within the prison and at the Department of Corrections level who will support this type of programming

Researchers say it’s important for sites to share information and resources to help future programs get off the ground. They suggest future research may benefit from assessing the perspectives of other individuals involved with these programs, such as program staff, leadership, and especially program participants, and understanding how these services change over time, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes.

Funding provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (R01HD103634).

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About the University of Minnesota Medical School
The University of Minnesota Medical School is at the forefront of learning and discovery, transforming medical care and educating the next generation of physicians. Our graduates and faculty produce high-impact biomedical research and advance the practice of medicine. We acknowledge that the U of M Medical School, both the Twin Cities campus and Duluth campus, is located on traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of the Dakota and the Ojibwe, and scores of other Indigenous people, and we affirm our commitment to tribal communities and their sovereignty as we seek to improve and strengthen our relations with tribal nations. For more information about the U of M Medical School, please visit med.umn.edu. 

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JOURNAL

Journal of Criminal Justice

DOI

10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2022.101965 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Systematic review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Enhanced perinatal programs for people in prisons: A summary of six states' programs

Costlier Medicare Advantage plans do not always offer better quality

Better metrics needed to help consumers make quality-focused choices

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RAND CORPORATION

Enrolling in a highercost Medicare Advantage plan may not always get seniors better quality health care, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Examining 15 different measures of quality among large representative samples of people enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans during 2016 and 2017, researchers found that plans that charged a higher monthly premium provided on average only slightly better care as compared to plans with no monthly premium.

Quality varied substantially within each premium cost tier studied, with high-quality care being observed among a number of plans in each of the cost tiers. More than 700 Medicare Advantage plans were part of the analysis.

The findings are published in the latest edition of JAMA Health Forum.

“Paying higher premiums is not necessary to receive high quality care from a Medicare Advantage plan,” said study lead author Amelia M. Haviland, a professor of statistics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and an adjunct statistician at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “Seniors should look at metrics other than premium costs alone when looking for a Medicare Advantage plan that offers a high-quality of care, including direct measures of quality, such as Star Ratings.”

Health care costs are a concern for both consumers and policymakers. People enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans report that price measures such as premium costs and co-pays are their primary consideration when selecting a plan.

To examine the link between premium cost and quality, RAND researchers analyzed information about the care delivered to people enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans. About 40% of the enrollees were in plans with no monthly premium, while 6% were in plans with a monthly premium of more than $120.

Medicare Advantage plans provide coverage for hospital and physician services like traditional Medicare fee-for-service, but typically also offer additional services such as coverage for dental care and eyeglasses. In exchange for additional services and lower co-pays, members are restricted to in-network providers. More than one-third of Medicare enrollees choose Medicare Advantage plans.

The information used to measure the quality of care from Medicare Advantage plans included clinical quality measures based on administrative information such as medical charts involving more than 2 million enrollees. Those quality measures included items such as whether patients received recommended cancer screenings, whether high blood pressure was controlled and whether diabetes was treated adequately.

The analysis also examined surveys of more than 168,000 randomly sampled plan participants who were asked about their experiences with health care, prescription drug coverage and their plan. Those measures included the ability to get care, the ability to get care quickly and getting needed drugs.

Across most measures, people enrolled in the two higher-premium plan tiers reported similar or slightly better experiences on average than enrollees in the lower-premium categories. For example, people enrolled in the highest premium tiers were more likely to receive annual flu shots.  

However, on one measure, lower-cost plans offered better care. People enrolled in lower-tiered plans received better care on average for osteoporosis than their peers enrolled in higher-premium plans.

Given that many high- and low-quality plans were found in each of the premium tiers we studied, the premium cost is a poor proxy for assessing the quality of a Medicare Advantage plan,” Haviland said. “Making plan quality information more accessible and salient to consumers is a key to reducing consumers’ costs while improving quality.”

Support for the study was provided by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.  Other authors of the study are Sai Ma of Humana, and David J. Klein, Nathan Orr and Marc N. Elliott, all of RAND.

RAND Health Care promotes healthier societies by improving health care systems in the United States and other countries. 

 

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JOURNAL

JAMA Health Forum

DOI

10.1001/jamahealthforum.2022.2826 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Association of Medicare Advantage Premiums With Measures of Quality and Patient Experience

Prosthetics design integrating 3D printing takes third place in international challenge

RIT student’s flexible limb socket design is recognized for improved performance and cost effectiveness

Grant and Award Announcement

ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: JADE MYERS, AN ENGINEERING DOCTORAL CANDIDATE AND MEMBER OF RIT’S LIVEABILITY LAB, RECENTLY PLACED THIRD IN THE INTERNATIONAL NTOPOLOGY-EOS RESPONSIBLE PART CHALLENGE. SHE WAS RECOGNIZED FOR HER IMPROVED PROSTHETIC DEVICE DESIGNED WITH LATTICE STRUCTURES. view more 

CREDIT: A. SUE WEISLER/RIT

Jade Myers’ experience in Haiti several years ago helping refugees after a devastating earthquake left an impression that is inspiring her work today as a researcher in prosthetics and accessibility.

Myers, who uses 3D print technology to develop upper and lower limb prostheses for amputees, was a top three winner of the nTopology-EOS 2022 Responsible Part Challenge, an international design competition. Her project, improving prosthetic sockets with density-graded lattice, was recognized for its innovation and potential impact the new design could have.

Myers was one of the students from 28 colleges and universities across 16 countries who participated in the annual event featuring designs in light-weighting, thermal management, sustainable energy, architected materials, and industrial design categories.

The technology gets Myers one step closer to a distinctive type of prosthesis that is more functional than traditional designs. She created a variable-density lattice structure to improve the connection where the body meets the prosthetic device.

“Light-weighting is super important for people with limited muscle and bone structure, and this is one of the areas where 3D printing, in our experience, has been very positive. The devices are much lighter than those traditionally manufactured,” said Myers, a Ph.D. candidate in RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering. She also teaches courses in the engineering college and participates in interdisciplinary projects taking place at the LiveAbility Lab, an initiative based in the university’s Partnership for Effective Access Technology Research and Development.

There are several types of prosthetic sockets designed to interface with residual limbs. A more recent style developed is called a compression-release-stabilized (CRS) socket. Compression on either side of the humerus bone, for example, helps stabilize the prosthesis, and release areas ensure the soft tissue has a place to emerge.

“That is where this lattice structure comes in,” she said. “There are better ways to precisely control compression by changing the density of the lattice structure.”

Picking up items with a prosthesis means weight is added causing uneven pressure, or weight-load, concentrated on the far end of the bone. Adjusting pressure along the length of the bone and device can increase utility and range of motion, plus ease pain on the compressed tissue.

Inspiration for her new socket design came from running shoes.

“I knew they were using lattice structures at Adidas for running shoes to adjust pressure in different areas of the foot based on sensor readings,” she said. “Where individuals were putting the most pressure on their feet, that is where they put the dense lattice to make it firmer. I thought, why can’t we do that with prosthetic sockets?”

Myers re-worked the idea to form a padded socket with varied areas of density in RIT’s AMPrint Center, a campus laboratory and research facility focusing on additive manufacturing and 3D print advances. After compression, pressure, fatigue, and new materials testing, she will begin prototyping 3D printed models.

“We want it to have both form and function,” she said.

When Myers first began work in prosthetics, she was part of a nonprofit health organization associated with RIT and was instrumental in helping clinicians in Haiti understand how 3D-printed prostheses could be added to their practice.

While there, she met Danie, a young woman who lost her arm during the earthquake in 2010. Myers was touched by her plight, but also saw her as someone with a will to live despite hardships and socio-cultural stigma encountered in her community because of her amputation.

“Danie inspired me. In Haiti it is very hard for a person to not only afford a prosthesis, but to get to a clinic. Some people are spending the night outside of the clinic waiting for them to create this device that takes several days for them to make,” said Myers. “Being able to manufacture the devices faster is one of the things we want to do. We want to be able to provide things people can afford, and that work well for them. The faster it happens, the sooner people like Danie can have the opportunity to wear these. It not only impacts them—it can have a ripple effect on families and their opportunities, too. It gives me greater drive, practically a desperation to do better faster because I have had the opportunity to see with my own eyes what a real difference it has potential to make for people. I can never imagine doing anything else with my life.”

Myers and Danie have remained in contact since meeting, now co-designing devices together. The two have become good friends, and Myers has visited Haiti on several occasions seeing her friend re-building her life. Myers expects to graduate with her doctoral degree in 2023.

Awareness, not mandatory GMO labels, shifts consumer preference

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. – Six years ago, the state of Vermont passed what turned out to be a short-lived law mandating disclosure of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, on all food products. That law’s effect? A collective shrug of the shoulders.

That doesn’t mean people don’t care about whether GMO ingredients are in their food, according to new Cornell research. Although the mandatory labeling law didn’t change consumer purchasing patterns, the researchers found that the increased consumer awareness caused by the legislation, coupled with existing non-GMO labeling, actually did shift preferences.

“For the consumers who care about this non-GMO attribute, they already have a relevant information signal available in the form of the non-GMO label,” said Jura Liaukonyte, the Dake Family Associate Professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management.

“That’s when the switching happens,” Liaukonyte said, “and this switching is triggered by a heightened awareness through these legislative conversations.”

“GMO and non-GMO Labeling Effects: Evidence From a Quasi-Natural Experiment,” published Aug. 29 in Marketing Science. Liaukonyte’s co-authors were Aaron Adalja, assistant professor of food and beverage management in the Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration; Emily Wang of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Xinrong Zhu, of Imperial College Business School. Both Dyson and the Nolan School are in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

The group’s key finding: An increase in consumer awareness around GMO-related topics – even in states that didn’t ultimately pass GMO labeling laws – is linked to an increase in demand for non-GMO products. And that difference can be quantified: They found that 36% of new non-GMO product adoption can be explained by differences in consumer awareness tied to legislative activity.

“What’s really interesting is the way legislative activity essentially generates consumer awareness,” Adalja said. “In the paper, we differentiate between this ‘indirect awareness effect’ and the direct effect of labeling, and we show that indirect awareness – in this case, the labeling legislation being discussed in the media – is really the primary mechanism by which we find consumer preferences are shifting.”

Over the last three decades, GMO labeling has become an increasingly important topic of public and political debate. The paper cites a 2016 National Academy of Sciences report finding no scientific evidence that GMO foods are less healthy or safe than non-GMO products; however, on Jan. 1, 2022, the United States mandated disclosure labels on all foods that contain GMOs.

The controversy over GMOs sparked several state-level labeling initiatives over the years, but Vermont was the only state to successfully pass and implement a labeling law. The law took effect July 1, 2016, but was quickly preempted by the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 29, 2016.

For their study, the researchers analyzed GMO labeling in three steps. They first examined the relationship between the adoption rate of newly introduced non-GMO products and consumer awareness at the time of introduction. These products are identified by the “Non-GMO Project Verified” label, a certification from the third-party nonprofit Non-GMO Project, which has been used since 2010.

Then they analyzed the natural experiment condition created in the run-up to Vermont adopting its GMO labeling law in 2016, to gauge the relationship between product demand and the information available via on-the-ground efforts related to the legislation. The increase in demand tied to increased awareness was significant, the authors found.

And finally, the authors looked into whether actual adoption of the Vermont law – GMO labels appearing on store shelves – resulted in any additional demand for non-GMO or GMO products. It did not.

Previous studies, conducted via questionnaires or in laboratory settings, indicated that GMO labeling would result in big swings in consumer preference, but the Cornell researchers’ study in the field found a more subtle change.

“It’s difficult to approximate in the lab the complexity of the actual marketplace with its many co-existing information signals,” Liaukonyte said.

Adalja said the role of legislative discussion around GMO labeling – even in states that didn’t ultimately adopt labeling laws – was compelling.

“That has some important implications,” he said. “It’s another mechanism lawmakers need to consider when designing and debating policies that aim to change preferences of consumers.”

They also suggest that voluntary non-GMO labels – increasingly common over the last dozen years – may have provided a sufficient disclosure mechanism even without mandatory GMO labeling.

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

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JOURNAL

Marketing Science

DOI

10.1287/mksc.2022.1375 

ARTICLE TITLE

GMO and Non-GMO Labeling Effects: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Aug-2022