No abstract

Echolocation enables people with impaired or no vision to comprehend the surrounding spatial information through the reflected sound. However, this technique often requires substantial training, and the accuracy of echolocation is subject to various conditions. Furthermore, the individuals who practice this sensing method must simultaneously generate the sound and process the received audio information. This paper proposes and evaluates a proof-of-concept light detection and ranging (LIDAR) assist spatial sensing (LASS) system, which intends to overcome these restrictions by obtaining the spatial information of the user's surroundings through a LIDAR sensor and translating the spatial information into the stereo sound of various pitches. The stereo sound of relative pitch represents the information regarding objects' angular orientation and horizontal distance, respectively, thus granting visually impaired users an enhanced spatial perception of his or her surrounding areas and potential obstacles. This paper is divided into two phases: Phase I is to engineer the hardware and software of the LASS system and Phase II focuses on the system efficacy study. The study, approved by the Penn State Institutional Review Board, included 18 student volunteers, who were recruited through the Penn State Department of Psychology Subject Pool. This paper demonstrates that the blindfolded individuals equipped with the LASS system are able to quantitatively identify the surrounding obstacles, differentiate their relative distance, and distinguish the angular location of multiple objects with minimal training.

Vascularized composite allotransplantation addresses injuries to complex anatomical structures such as the face, hand, and abdominal wall. Prolonged static cold storage of vascularized composite allografts (VCA) incurs damage and imposes transportation limits to their viability and availability. Tissue ischemia, the major clinical indication, is strongly correlated with negative transplantation outcomes. Machine perfusion and normothermia can extend preservation times. This perspective introduces multiplexed multi-electrode bioimpedance spectroscopy (MMBIS), an established bioanalytical method to quantify the interaction of the electrical current with tissue components, capable of measuring tissue edema, as a quantitative, noninvasive, real-time, continuous monitoring technique to provide crucially needed assessment of graft preservation efficacy and viability. MMBIS must be developed, and appropriate models explored to address the highly complex multi-tissue structures and time-temperature changes of VCA. Combined with artificial intelligence (AI), MMBIS can serve to stratify allografts for improvement in transplantation outcomes.

Echolocation can enable people with vision impairment to comprehend the surrounding spatial information. However, this technique often requires long term training, and the accuracy of echolocation is subject to varying conditions. Furthermore, people often has generate the sound and process the received information simultaneously. This work presents a proof of concept LIDAR Assist Spatial Sensing (LASS) system focuses on overcoming these restrictions by detecting the location of surrounding obstacles of the user through a LIDAR and translating this spatial information into stereo sound at different pitch. Both the stereo sound and the pitch informs the user of the obstacles' orientation and distance, thus granting visually impaired users with enhanced perception of spatial areas and obstacles. The work is divided into two phases. Phase I involves hardware and software engineering. Phase II focuses on system efficacy study. 18 blindfolded human participants equipped with the LASS system were studied, which was cleared by the Penn State IRB. Our study demonstrates that with minimal training, blindfolded individuals equipped with the LASS system, were able to identify the number of obstacles, rank their distance, and perceive obstacles' relative location.