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3D printing technology can produce complex objects directly from computer aided digital designs. The technology has traditionally been used by large companies to produce fit and form concept prototypes ('rapid prototyping') before production. In recent years however there has been a move to adopt the technology as full-scale manufacturing solution. The advent of low-cost, desktop 3D printers such as the RepRap and Fab@Home has meant a wider user base are now able to have access to desktop manufacturing platforms enabling them to produce highly customised products for personal use and sale. This uptake in usage has been coupled with a demand for printing technology and materials able to print functional elements such as electronic sensors. Here we present formulation of a simple conductive thermoplastic composite we term 'carbomorph' and demonstrate how it can be used in an unmodified low-cost 3D printer to print electronic sensors able to sense mechanical flexing and capacitance changes. We show how this capability can be used to produce custom sensing devices and user interface devices along with printed objects with embedded sensing capability. This advance in low-cost 3D printing with offer a new paradigm in the 3D printing field with printed sensors and electronics embedded inside 3D printed objects in a single build process without requiring complex or expensive materials incorporating additives such as carbon nanotubes.

\"The first major crossover of the Rebirth era starring the biggest heroes and villains in comics, this action-packed epic JUSTICE LEAGUE VS. SUICIDE SQUAD features an all-star creative team, including writers Joshua Williamson, Tim Seeley, Rob Williams and Si Spurrier, with superstar artists Jason Fabok, Tony S. Daniel, Jesus Merino, Fernando Pasarin, Robson Rocha, Howard Porter, Scot Eaton, Riley Rossmo, Christian Duce, Giuseppe Cafaro and more! The members of the Justice League are Earth's most powerful and famous superheroes ... but they aren't the only team in town. The Suicide Squad strikes from the shadows and does the jobs too dirty for superheroes to handle. Under the iron fist of Director Amanda Waller, these monsters and maniacs have operated in total secrecy ... until now. Batman is on their trail and the Squad's existence isn't something he or the Justice League can tolerate. It must be shut down. But while the heroes and antiheroes are distracted fighting each other, twisted mastermind Maxwell Lord assembles a nightmarish army of DC's deadliest villains to take out both teams!\"-- Provided by publisher.

Background: The System Usability Scale (SUS) is a widely used scale that has been used to quantify the usability of many software and hardware products. However, the SUS was not specifically designed to evaluate mobile apps, or in particular digital health apps (DHAs). Objective: The aim of this study was to examine whether the widely used SUS distribution for benchmarking (mean 68, SD 12.5) can be used to reliably assess the usability of DHAs. Methods: A search of the literature was performed using the ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, CORE, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases to identify SUS scores related to the usability of DHAs for meta-analysis. This study included papers that published the SUS scores of the evaluated DHAs from 2011 to 2021 to get a 10-year representation. In total, 117 SUS scores for 114 DHAs were identified. R Studio and the R programming language were used to model the DHA SUS distribution, with a 1-sample, 2-tailed t test used to compare this distribution with the standard SUS distribution. Results: The mean SUS score when all the collected apps were included was 76.64 (SD 15.12); however, this distribution exhibited asymmetrical skewness (–0.52) and was not normally distributed according to Shapiro-Wilk test (P=.002). The mean SUS score for “physical activity” apps was 83.28 (SD 12.39) and drove the skewness. Hence, the mean SUS score for all collected apps excluding “physical activity” apps was 68.05 (SD 14.05). A 1-sample, 2-tailed t test indicated that this health app SUS distribution was not statistically significantly different from the standard SUS distribution (P=.98). Conclusions: This study concludes that the SUS and the widely accepted benchmark of a mean SUS score of 68 (SD 12.5) are suitable for evaluating the usability of DHAs. We speculate as to why physical activity apps received higher SUS scores than expected. A template for reporting mean SUS scores to facilitate meta-analysis is proposed, together with future work that could be done to further examine the SUS benchmark scores for DHAs.

Despite the increasing availability of mobile health services, clinical engagement remains minimal. This study aims to identify and weight barriers to and drivers of health app use among health care professionals (HCPs) from the United Kingdom. A discrete choice experiment was conducted with 222 HCPs using a web-based survey between March 2019 and June 2019. Participants were recruited to take part via social media and asked to choose their preferred option of 2 hypothetical health apps to prescribe to a hypothetical patient or to prescribe neither. Choices were characterized by differing levels of patient age, cost, published evidence bases, whether they had a National Health Service (NHS) stamp of approval, personal familiarity with the technology, and whether they were recommended by a fellow HCP. The results were analyzed using a mixed logit model, with subgroup analyses to account for heterogeneity. We received 230 responses, a total of 96.5% (n=222/230) of respondents understood the survey task and passed the test of rationality. The median age was between 36 and 45 years, and 62.6% (n=139/222) of the health care providers responding to the survey had previously recommended the use of health apps to patients. Health apps were most likely to be prescribed to patients if they had an NHS stamp of approval or if they were recommended by another HCP (both P<.001). Published studies detailing clinical effectiveness were important (P<.001), but it would take five published studies to have the same impact on prescribing behavior as an NHS stamp of approval and two studies to be as convincing as having used the technology personally. Increasing patient age and costs resulted in significant reductions in digital health prescribing (P<.001), none more so than among allied health professionals. Willingness-to-pay for health apps increased by £124.61 (US $151.14) if an NHS stamp of approval was present and by £29.20 (US $35.42) for each published study. Overall, 8.1% (n=18/222) of respondents were reluctant to use health apps, always choosing the I would prescribe neither option, particularly among older HCPs, nurses, and those who do not use health apps personally. Subgroup analyses revealed significant differences in preferences among HCPs of differing ages and clinical backgrounds. An NHS stamp of approval, published studies, and recommendations from fellow HCPs are significant facilitators of digital prescribing, whereas increasing costs and patient age are significant barriers to engagement. These findings suggest that demonstrating assurances of health apps and supporting both the dissemination and peer-to-peer recommendation of evidence-based technologies are critical if the NHS is to achieve its long-term digital transformation ambitions.

The selection of printing parameters for 3D printing can dramatically affect the dynamic performance of components such as polymer spur gears. In this paper, the performance of 3D printed gears has been optimised using a machine learning process. A genetic algorithm (GA)–based artificial neural network (ANN) multi-parameter regression model was created. There were four print parameters considered in 3D printing process, i.e. printing temperature, printing speed, printing bed temperature and infill percentage. The parameter setting was generated by the Sobol sequence. Moreover, sensitivity analysis was carried out in this paper, and leave-one cross validation was applied to the genetic algorithm-based ANN which showed a relatively accurate performance in predictions and performance optimisation of 3D printed gears. Wear performance of 3D printed gears increased by 3 times after optimised parameter setting was applied during their manufacture.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2196/58616.].

Background The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated barriers to accessing face-to-face care. Consequently, the potential for digital health technologies (DHTs) to address unmet needs has gained traction. DHTs may circumvent several barriers to healthy independent living, resulting in both socioeconomic and clinical benefits. However, previous studies have demonstrated these benefits may be disproportionately realised among younger populations while excluding older people. Methods We performed a prospective survey using the One Poll market research platform among 2000 adults from the United Kingdom. To mitigate against self-selection bias, participants were not informed of the topic of the survey until they had completed recruitment. We compared willingness to use and historical use of health-apps, in addition to recommendations to use health-apps from healthcare professionals; comparing outcomes across all age groups, including a reference group ( n  = 222) of those aged 18-24. Outcomes were analysed using multivariate logistic regression and reported as odds ratios (OR) with respondent age, ethnicity, gender, and location as covariates. Results Willingness to use health-apps decreased significantly with age, reaching a minimum (OR = 0.39) among those aged 65 and over compared to the reference group of 18-24 year olds. Despite this, more than 52% of those aged 65 and over were willing to use health-apps. Functions and features most cited as useful by older populations included symptom self-monitoring and surgery recovery assistance. The likelihood of never having used a health-app also increased consistently with age, reaching a maximum among those aged 65 and over (OR = 18.3). Finally, the likelihood of being recommended health-apps by a healthcare professional decreased significantly with age, (OR = 0.09) for those aged 65 and over. In absolute terms, 33.8% of those aged 18-24, and 3.9% of those aged 65 and over were recommended health-apps by their healthcare professionals. Conclusion Although absolute utilisation of health-apps decreases with age, the findings of this study suggest that the gap between those willing to use health-apps, and those being recommended health-apps by healthcare professionals increases with age. Given the increasing availability of evidence-based health-apps designed for older populations, this may result in entirely avoidable unmet needs, suggesting that more should be done by healthcare professionals to recommend health-apps to older persons who are generally positive about their use. This may result in considerable improvements in healthy and independent ageing.

People living with type 1 diabetes must adhere to an intense self-care regimen, which may impact their psychological well-being and contribute to poor self-management behaviors. Despite their potential, most mobile health and web-based apps for diabetes management prioritize glycemic control and often overlook psychological well-being. As a result, evidence on the effectiveness of these interventions in improving psychological well-being remains limited, and there is still uncertainty about which functions and features are the most effective. The objective of this review was to assess changes in the psychological well-being of people with type 1 diabetes and identify the functions and features of mobile and web-based interventions that may enhance their psychological well-being. Relevant studies were identified through PubMed, Web of Knowledge, Embase, Scopus, APA PsycInfo, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, with the search conducted at the end of November 2024. Studies were included if they quantitatively assessed the impact of mobile health or web-based apps on psychological well-being in people with type 1 diabetes using validated screening tools. A conventional content analysis approach was used to categorize the functions and features of the included interventions. In total, 8 of the 2142 articles identified met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Six categories of functions were identified, each incorporating different sets of features: (1) therapy, (2) education, (3) self-management, (4) peer support, (5) health care professional-patient support, and (6) parental support. Only 2 of the 8 studies reported improved psychological well-being. One of these 2 studies included therapy-based interventions, while the other combined self-management, education, and peer support functions. However, the limited number of studies and variability in study design and participant characteristics limited the ability to attribute the effectiveness in improving psychological well-being to specific functions and features or their combinations. This review highlights the limited effectiveness of currently available mobile health and web-based interventions in improving the psychological well-being of people living with type 1 diabetes. While some interventions showed promise, the findings highlight the need for targeted, theory-based approaches; stakeholder involvement in intervention design and development; and combination of functions and features to improve support and long-term outcomes.

ObjectivesTo explore if consumer interest in digital health products (DHPs), changed following the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown measures that ensued.DesignRetrospective time-series analysis of web-based internet searches for DHPs in the UK, split over two periods, pre-COVID-19 lockdown (January 2019–23 March 2020) and post-COVID-19 lockdown (24 March 2020–31 December 2020).SettingThe UK.ParticipantsMembers of the UK general population using health-app libraries provided by the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Applications.Primary and secondary outcome measuresThe primary outcome was volume of searches for DHPs. Secondary outcomes considered search volumes for 25 different therapeutic areas. Outcomes were assessed for significance using a two-stage Poisson test.ResultsThere were 126 640 searches for DHPs over the study period. Searches for DHPs increased by 343% from 2446 per month prior to COVID-19 lockdown measures being introduced to 8996 per month in the period following the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK. In total, 23/25 (92%) of condition areas experienced a significant increase in searches for DHPs, with the greatest increases occurring in the first 2 months following lockdown. Musculoskeletal conditions (2,036%), allergy (1,253%) and healthy living DHPs (1,051%) experienced the greatest increases in searches compared with pre-lockdown. Increased search volumes for DHPs were sustained in the 9 months following the introduction of lockdown measures, with 21/25 (84%) of condition areas experiencing monthly search volumes at least 50% greater than pre-lockdown levels.ConclusionsThe COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly disrupted the routine delivery of healthcare, making face-to-face interaction difficult, and contributing to unmet clinical needs. This study has demonstrated significant increases in internet searches for DHPs by members of the UK population since COVID-19, signifying an increased interest in this potential therapeutic medium. Future research should clarify whether this increased interest has resulted in increased acceptance and utilisation of these technologies also.