The treatment of gait disorders and impairments are major challenges in physical therapy. The broad and fast development in low-cost, miniaturized, and wireless sensing technologies supports the development of embedded and unobtrusive systems for robust gait-related data acquisition and analysis. Next to their applications as portable and lowcost diagnostic tools, such systems are also capable of use as feedback devices for retraining gait. The approach described within this article applies movement-based sonification of gait to foster motor learning. This article aims at presenting and evaluating a prototype of a pair of instrumented insoles for real-time sonification of gait (SONIGait) and to assess its immediate effects on spatio-temporal gait parameters. For this purpose, a convenience sample of six healthy males (age 35 ± 5 years, height 178 ± 4 cm, mass 78 ± 12 kg) and six healthy females (age 38 ± 7 years, height 166 ± 5 cm, mass: 63±8 kg) was recruited. They walked at a self-selected walking speed across a force distribution measurement system (FDM) to quantify spatio-temporal gait parameters during walking without and with five different types of sonification. The primary results from this pilot study revealed that participants exhibited decreased cadence (p < 0.01) and differences Results suggest that sonification has an effect on gait parameters, however further investigation and development is needed to understand its role as a tool for gait rehabilitation.

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Maintaining healthy relationships and companionship are major challenges to prevent potentially harmful effects of loneliness and social isolation in older age. Therefore, to foster participation and user engagement of elderly people in online communication and entertainment the user experience of devices and services need to be improved substantially. This paper discusses a participatory design approach to design and implement a TV and tablet-based communications and entertainment platform called BRELOMATE. The results of a field study with 30 elderly people over five months shows that each users was online for 37.0 h and played the card game service for 23.3 h on average over the course of 8 weeks.

There have been papers that analyze the relationship between bit design and a bit’s vibrational characteristics. These papers typically are based on the analysis of three-axis near-bit down-hole vibration sensors. In this paper, the authors take a simpler approach. Using a standard microphone literally pointed at the bit, they record the noise of the bit/rock interaction while drilling and analyze the resulting noise for these but vibrational characteristics. The data were gathered at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. The noise of a PDC core, roller cone, and diamond core bits were recorded under various weight and rotary speeds using a microphone and a vertically mounted uniaxial geophone (used for confirming the data recorded on the microphones). Using a Fast Fourier Transform, the frequency spectra were extracted from the recorded data and analyzed. The data was normalized for rotational speed. The results of the frequency analysis of the roller cone, the PDC, and the natural diamond bits are presented in this paper. The major differences in the three bit frequency characteristics could be detected and furthermore, for drag bits, the frequency characteristics could be related to the bit’s design. The frequency spectra of the roller cone bit can best be described with a general high amplitude level that is relatively evenly distributed over the whole frequency spectrum. The drag bit data showed a strong relationship between the number and arrangement of cutting elements and frequency peaks on a plot of amplitude vs. cycles per revolution. Frequency peaks were observed at multiples of the number of cutting elements. In general this relationship was strongly visible on the PDC bit data but not as strongly visible on the diamond bit data. The conclusion is that bit characteristics can be determined using only the noise of a bit. Potential applications of this research include detecting and diagnosing bit problems (e.g. broken teeth, bit balling) in real time using simple microphone based acoustic data.