I/UCRC: UTSA Planning Grant: I/UCRC for Site Addition to the iPerform Center for Assistive Technologies to Enhance Human Performance

今天，存在着对便携式和可移动的辅助技术的大量消费者需求和强烈的工业需求，这种辅助技术将提高健康人以及患有慢性健康和行动困难的人的工作表现。目前，I/UCRC iPerform中心的辅助技术，以提高人类的表现，最低限度地针对这个迫切需要的重点领域AT。拟议中的德克萨斯大学圣安东尼奥分校（UTSA）与德克萨斯大学健康科学中心SA （UTHSCSA）建立了长期合作关系，得到了军事健康研究所和圣安东尼奥蓬勃发展的创业基地的支持，旨在为现有中心增加重要价值。新中心设在UTSA并与UTHSCSA合作，将汇集来自计算机科学、工程和卫生领域的独特专业知识，更好地为新一代移动辅助技术的开发和测试提供信息，这些技术是由对人类健康和用户需求的全面了解驱动的，并由技术限制和可能性提供信息。UTSA中心将促进工业、卫生设施、研究中心和学术界的AT研究基础设施的发展。它将解决现实世界的问题，创造新型的工作、产品和服务。它将影响人类有潜力改进的所有领域。该中心还将在培训科学家和工程师以及卫生专业人员方面发挥重要作用，促进向私营和政府部门转让技术，并解决提高工业和个人生产力、改善人类健康、降低成本以及跨越其成员的研究和外联需求的迫切现实问题。将努力增加中心的多样性。UTSA是一所少数民族服务机构，拥有大量少数民族学生（57%为西班牙裔）。UTSA在让代表性不足的群体参与研究工作方面有着悠久的历史。pi致力于吸引和指导女性和代表性不足的少数民族学生参与跨学科项目、荣誉论文研究以及在健康科学和技术领域的实习。PI Simmonds是女教员。此外，PI Quarles和PI Simmonds都有明显的缺陷，这使他们对这一研究领域和最终用户的需求有了独特的看法。该项目通过汇集来自不同机构和学科的教师、研究人员、临床医生和学生，增加了学习视角的多样性。它提供了新的机会，让具有文化多样性的科学家共同努力，将教与学注入到一个引人注目的应用中。这一规划赠款的主要目标是吸引并汇集可能受益于移动AT的潜在工业伙伴、研究中心和服务组织，加入现有I/UCRC iPerform中心拟议的UTSA站点，特别强调在圣安东尼奥有大量存在的军事卫生部门。在会议上，将讨论与现有中心政策的整合、所有参与者的角色、吸引新成员的计划。在规划阶段，UTSA（牵头机构）和UTHSCSA（分包机构）将共同组织一次会议，包括所有表示有兴趣加入为成员的实体，以及团队没有时间联系但与ATs打交道的其他公司。具体而言，iPerform中心的UTSA站点旨在(a)吸引对移动AT产品商业化的支持，(b)促进由人类健康需求驱动并具有工业可扩展性的学术界创新。在工作环境中，该网站提出的技术旨在通过模拟提高工作效率，识别安全风险，减少学习曲线，改善工人培训，特别是卫生专业培训的成果，并改善资源分配，创造力和沟通。在医疗保健环境中，该站点将开发可增强感觉、运动和认知能力的移动工具，改进培训，实现远程监控和管理，预测慢性健康问题患者（例如独居老人）的风险，监测睡眠和活动障碍，创建新型机器人助手，实现对患者数据的实时分析，以及开发和测试新型增强和虚拟现实疗法。

Today there exists a mass consumer demand and a strong industrial need for Assistive Technology (AT) that is portable and mobile and that will enhance human performance for healthy people as well as those with chronic health and mobility difficulties. The current I/UCRC iPerform Center for Assistive Technologies to Enhance Human Performance has minimally targeted this much needed focus area in AT. The proposed University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) site with its long established collaboration with UT Health Science Center SA (UTHSCSA), the support of the Military Health Institute and San Antonio's burgeoning entrepreneurial base aims to add significant value to the existing center. The new center based at UTSA and partnered with UTHSCSA will bring together unique expertise from computer science, engineering and health fields that better inform the development and testing of a new generation of mobile assistive technologies driven by a comprehensive understanding of human health and user needs and informed by technological constraints as well as possibilities.The UTSA center site will promote the development of AT research infrastructure in industry, health facilities, research centers and academia. It will address real-world problems, generate new types of jobs, products and services. It will impact all areas where a human has the potential to improve. The center site will also play an important role in training of scientists and engineers, and health professionals facilitating transfer of technology to the private and government sectors and address compelling real world problems that increase industry and individual productivity, improve human health, lower costs and span both the research and outreach needs of its members.Efforts will be made to increase diversity in the center. UTSA is a minority-serving institution with a large population of minority (57% Hispanic) students. UTSA has a strong history of involving the participation of underrepresented groups in research efforts. The PIs are devoted to attracting and mentoring female and underrepresented minority students in interdisciplinary projects, honors thesis research, and internships at the interface of health sciences and technology. PI Simmonds is female faculty. Moreover, both PI Quarles and PI Simmonds have significant disabilities that give them unique perspectives on this research area and the needs of the end users. The project increases the diversity of learning perspectives by bringing together faculty, researchers, clinicians, and students from different institutions and disciplines. It offers new opportunities to engage scientists with cultural diversity in joint efforts that infuse teaching and learning in a compelling application.The primary objective of this planning grant is to attract and bring together potential industrial partners, research centers and service organizations that could benefit from mobile AT to join the proposed UTSA site of the existing I/UCRC iPerform center with a special emphasis on the military health sector, which has a large presence in San Antonio. At the meeting, the team will discuss the integration with current center policies, roles of all participants, and plans to attract new members. During the planning phase, UTSA (lead institution) and UTHSCSA (subcontracted institution) will collectively organize a meeting that includes all entities that expressed interest in joining as members, as well as additional companies that the team did not have time to contact about the center but deal with ATs.Specifically, the UTSA site of the iPerform center aims to (a) attract support towards the commercialization of mobile AT products and (b) promote innovation in academia that is driven by human health needs and has industrial scalability. In work environments, the site's proposed technology aims to improve work efficiency, identify safety risks, reduce the learning curve and improve the outcomes of worker training, especially health professional training, through simulations and improve resource allocation, creativity and communication. In healthcare environments, the site will develop mobile tools that can enhance sensory, motor and cognitive capabilities, improve training, enable remote monitoring, and management, predict risk for those with chronic health problems (e.g., the elderly who live alone), monitor sleep and activity disorders, create novel robotic assistants, enable real-time analysis of patient data, and develop and test novel augmented and virtual reality therapies.