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

今天，人们对便携和移动的辅助技术(AT)有大量的消费需求和强烈的工业需求，这将提高健康人以及有慢性健康和行动困难的人的表现。目前的I/UCRC iPerform辅助技术中心以增强人类表现为目标，最小限度地瞄准了AT迫切需要的这一重点领域。拟建的德克萨斯大学圣安东尼奥分校(UTSA)选址与德克萨斯大学健康科学中心SA(UTHSCSA)长期合作，得到军事卫生研究所的支持，以及圣安东尼奥蓬勃发展的创业基础，旨在为现有中心增加显著价值。新的中心位于UTSA，并与UTHSCSA合作，将汇集来自计算机科学、工程和健康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，该技术以全面了解人类健康和用户需求为驱动，并受技术限制和可能性的影响。UTSA中心网站将促进工业、卫生设施、研究中心和学术界AT研究基础设施的发展。它将解决现实世界的问题，创造新类型的就业机会、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促进向私营和政府部门转让技术的卫生专业人员方面发挥重要作用，并解决迫切的现实问题，这些问题可以提高工业和个人生产率，改善人类健康，降低成本，并满足其成员的研究和推广需求。中心将努力增加中心的多样性。UTSA是一家为少数族裔服务的机构，拥有大量少数族裔(57%是西班牙裔)学生。UTSA在让代表性不足的群体参与研究工作方面有着很强的历史。PIs致力于在跨学科项目、荣誉论文研究和卫生科学与技术领域的实习中吸引和指导女性和代表性较低的少数族裔学生。皮西蒙兹是一名女教员。此外，皮夸尔斯和皮西蒙兹都有严重的残疾，这使他们在这一研究领域和最终用户的需求方面有了独特的视角。该项目通过将来自不同机构和学科的教师、研究人员、临床医生和学生聚集在一起，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参与到共同努力中，将教和学注入引人注目的应用中。这项规划拨款的主要目标是吸引和聚集潜在的产业合作伙伴、研究中心和服务组织，这些合作伙伴、研究中心和服务组织可以受益于移动AT，加入现有I/UCRC iPerform中心的拟议UTSA地点，特别强调军事卫生部门，该部门在圣安东尼奥有大量存在。在会议上，团队将讨论与当前中心政策的整合，所有参与者的角色，以及吸引新成员的计划。在规划阶段，UTSA(牵头机构)和UTHSCSA(转包机构)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，以及团队没有时间就该中心的事宜联系但与AT打交道的其他公司。具体地说，iPerform中心的UTSA网站旨在：(A)吸引对移动AT产品商业化的支持；(B)促进学术界由人类健康需求驱动并具有行业可扩展性的创新。在工作环境中，该网站拟议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，特别是健康专业培训的结果，并改善资源分配、创造力和沟通。在医疗保健环境中，该网站将开发移动工具，这些工具可以增强感觉、运动和认知能力，改进培训，启用远程监测和管理，预测有慢性健康问题的人(例如，独居老年人)的风险，监测睡眠和活动障碍，创造新型机器人助手，实现对患者数据的实时分析，并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.