Designing an app for alternative access assessments: Using interviews to uncover and define user needs.

To support effective alternative access assessment and service delivery for people with motor impairments, we are developing an app called Access Navigator. This paper describes the first stage of the project: the interviews we conducted as part of a discovery process to improve our understanding of user needs. We individually interviewed 8 assistive technology practitioners and 3 clients who use alternative access methods, to learn what practitioners were currently doing in their access assessments, identify opportunities for improving current practice, and understand what the assessment process was like for clients.

Update Reference Charts: Fetal Biometry between the 15th and 42nd Week of Gestation.

Objectives: This study was designed to establish new reference charts for BPD (biparietal diameter), OFD (occipitofrontal diameter), HC (head circumference), CM (cisterna magna), TCD (transverse cerebellar diameter), PCV (posterior cerebral ventricle), AC (abdominal circumference), FL (femur length), and HL (humerus length) and extend known charts to 42 weeks of gestation. These new charts were compared to studies carried out by Snijders and Nicolaides, the INTERGROWTH 21st Project, and the WHO Fetal Growth Charts.

Methods: In this retrospective cross-sectional single-center study of 12,972 low-risk pregnancies, biometric data between the 15th and 42nd weeks of gestation were evaluated.

Multi-modal access method (eye-tracking + switch-scanning) for individuals with severe motor impairment: A preliminary investigation.

Individuals with severe motor impairments often require alternative means to access computers and communication technology. A range of alternative access devices exist; however, most rely on use of a single access modality. While this approach works for some individuals, it can be limiting for others.

Epimorphic regeneration of the mouse digit tip is finite.

Background: Structural regeneration of amputated appendages by blastema-mediated, epimorphic regeneration is a process whose mechanisms are beginning to be employed for inducing regeneration. While epimorphic regeneration is classically studied in non-amniote vertebrates such as salamanders, mammals also possess a limited ability for epimorphic regeneration, best exemplified by the regeneration of the distal mouse digit tip. A fundamental, but still unresolved question is whether epimorphic regeneration and blastema formation is exhaustible, similar to the finite limits of stem-cell mediated tissue regeneration.