Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften Kempten

Given its promising role in public health to address hard to reach population groups, game-based interventions (i.e., Games for Health, G4H) have experienced growing interest in recent years. Therefore, it is surprising that they have played only a minor role during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, the aim of this paper is to reflect the opportunities and challenges of G4H especially during the pandemic but also with regard to future health crises. As commercial video games (i.e., those that primarily aim to entertain its users) were often used to deal with the containment measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, we call for greater cooperation with commercial game makers to distribute health-related messages via entertainment games. With regard to G4H we see a need to (i) strengthen the intervention theory underlying game-based applications, (ii) to enhance the appeal of games in order to maintain the interest of users in the long term, and (iii) to improve the evidence base using appropriate study designs. Finally, we argue for (iv) greater user involvement, both in terms of developing game-based approaches and as co-researchers in solving complex health problems.

Der Beitrag adressiert die strukturellen Herausforderungen der ambulanten Wohnungsnotfallhilfe am Beispiel Bayern. In den Blick genommen werden das Schnittstellenmanagement im Zusammenhang mit der ordnungsrechtlichen Unterbringung und die Auswirkungen der unterschiedlichen und ungeklärten Zuständigkeiten für wohnungslose Menschen.

Highly Automated Driving (HAD) systems implement new features to improve the performance, safety and comfort of partially or fully automated vehicles. The identification of safety parameters by means of complex systems and the driving environment is a fundamental aspect that require great attention. Therefore, much research has been conducted in the field of collision detection in the development of automated vehicles. However, the development of HAD systems faces the challenge of ensuring zero accidents. For this reason, collision detection in the safety-related concept phase as hazard identification is one of the key research points in HAD system. In this paper, a systematic approach to detect potential collisions for scenario-based hazard analysis of HAD systems is presented by using Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) as a Machine Learning (ML) technique. Moreover, the proposed approach assists in reducing the number of observed scenarios for hazard analysis and risk assessment. Additionally, two simulation-based scenario datasets are examined in the ML model to identify potential hazard scenarios. The results of this study show that MLP can support to detect the collision at safety-related concept phase. Furthermore, this paper contributes to providing arguments and evidence for ML techniques in HAD systems safety by selecting relevant use cases.

Objective The objective of this study was to deliver an intervention to improve health awareness for infection prevention, hygiene, and sanitation to assess its impact. Furthermore, it aimed to identify the risk of multimorbidity in women of reproductive years from low socio-economic background. Methods A randomized control trial was conducted in Pakistan among women aged 15–45 years. Overall, 820 women participated in the baseline survey; 388 women were part of the control group and 360 of the intervention group. A digital health literacy intervention was delivered by 91 trained community health workers. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regression. Results About 35.9% of women suffered from multimorbidity. The intervention group showed higher odds of confidence in managing health with respect to skill and technique acquisition (AOR = 2.21; 95% CI 1.01–4.84), self-monitoring and insight (AOR = 2.97; 95% CI 1.29–6.80) as well as sanitation and hygiene (AOR = 1.42; 95% CI 1.07–1.93). Two primary outcomes related to hand hygiene and protective behavior against infection did not show any significant improvement. The secondary outcomes of the study related to impact on overall health-related quality of life, social integration and support, and emotional well-being also did not show any significant improvement. Conclusions Digital health literacy interventions and multimorbidity management for women of reproductive years at the primary level are a way forward to alleviate communicable and non-communicable disease burden in developing countries like Pakistan. These efforts are also critical to improve maternal and child health in developing regions.

Background Oral diseases are one of the major public health problems worldwide and affect the population of all age groups. This qualitative study aimed to explore the perceptions and practices of caregivers at care centres and boarding religious schools responsible for managing children’s oral health. Methods A qualitative ethnomethodological approach was used to collect data from the caregivers at the children’s religious schools and foster care centres. A purposive sampling technique was used to conduct focus group discussions comprising 4–7 caregivers from five foster care centres and religious schools located in Lahore, Pakistan. An interview guide was developed based on results from previous studies. An inductive approach was used to analyse data on broader oral health concepts to generate themes in this qualitative research. A three-step thematic analysis was applied to develop codes that were merged to generate categories and to conclude into themes from the transcribed data. Five focus group discussions were conducted at two foster care centres (FG1 & FG2) and three religious schools (FG3, FG4 & FG5). Foster care centres had children of both gender within the same premises; however, religious schools had segregated settings. Results The following four themes emerged from the thematic analysis: development of the desired living environment and responsibilities of the caregivers, preexisting traditional personal knowledge of the caregivers determine children’s oral health, use of religio-cultural driven and convenience-based oral hygiene practices, and ethnomedicine, spiritual healing, and self-medication. Development and the existing living environment of the foster care centres and religious schools appeared important to manage the matters of the boarding children. Conclusions This qualitative study concludes that the oral health of the children at foster care centres and at religious schools depends upon the personal reasoning and pre-existing religio-cultural knowledge of the caregivers rather than on specialized oral health-oriented approaches. The foster care centres are more involved in supervising the children to maintain oral hygiene and oral health compared to religious schools.

Background Delirium is a common condition in elderly inpatients. Health care professionals play a crucial role in recognizing delirium, initiating preventive measures and implementing a multicomponent treatment strategy. Yet, delirium often goes unrecognized in clinical routine. Nurses take an important role in preventing and managing delirium. This study assesses clinical reasoning of nurses using case vignettes to explore their competences in recognizing, preventing and managing delirium. Methods The study was conducted as an online survey. The questionnaire was based on five case vignettes presenting cases of acutely ill older patients with different subtypes of delirium or diseases with overlapping symptoms. In a first step, case vignettes were developed and validated through a multidisciplinary expert panel. Scoring of response options were summed up to a Geriatric Delirium Competence Questionnaire (GDCQ) score including recognition and management tasks The questionnaire was made available online. Descriptive analyses and group comparisons explores differences between nurses from different settings. Factors explaining variance in participants’ score were evaluated using correlations and linear regression models. Results The questionnaire demonstrated good content validity and high reliability (kappa = 0.79). The final sample consisted of 115 nurses. Five hundred seventy-five case vignettes with an accuracy of 0.71 for the correct recognition of delirium presence or absence were solved. Nurses recognized delirium best in cases describing hyperactive delirium (79%) while hypoactive delirium was recognized least (44%). Nurses from geriatric and internal medicine departments had significantly higher GDCQ-score than the other subgroups. Management tasks were correctly identified by most participants. Conclusions Overall, nurses’ competence regarding hypoactive delirium should be strengthened. The online questionnaire might facilitate targeting training opportunities to nurses’ competence.

During the development of state-of-the-art driver assistance systems and highly autonomous driving functions, there is a demand for reliable research vehicle platforms that can be used in a variety of applications. Especially for data-driven machine learning approaches, a large amount of measurement data obtained from multimodal sensors is needed. This paper presents a Robot Operating System (ROS) based prototype vehicle that is built on a Porsche Cayenne, which provides a dedicated test environment for autonomous research. To bridge the gap between pure research and actual production vehicles, the platform features near-series placement of sensors and the use of the built-in camera and actuators. Open-source packages and a containerized software architecture make the system reusable and easy to extend in terms of hardware and algorithms. Furthermore, we describe our approach for data recording and long-term persistence.

The lack of suitable techniques for joining Si3N4 ceramics with metals has limited the usage of this otherwise outstanding material for composite applications. In this study, aluminum AlMgSi0.5 (EN AW-6060) was coated onto silicon nitride Si3N4 ceramic substrates using friction surfacing technology. Experimental work revealed that the harmful effects of thermal shock (e.g., substrate cracking, coating delamination) observed with other material combinations can be avoided by selecting materials with a low coefficient of thermal expansion, low Young's modulus and high thermal conductivity. Design of experiments derived models for coating thickness and bonding strength fit the data well (i.e., the regression model accounts for most of the variation in the response variable). Whereas the coating thickness is predominately dependent on the rotational speed used, the bonding strength is also affected by the traverse speed. Coating thicknesses upto 2.03 mm and bonding strengths of 42.5 MPa were achieved. Deposition rates exceed those of physical vapor deposition by a magnitude of x1000 and bonding strength is on-par with thin-film metallization. Scanning transmission electron microscope analysis revealed formation of a glassy phase at the interface. Using energy-dis-persive X-ray spectroscopy analysis high silicon and oxygen content with smaller percentages of aluminum and nitrogen were detected. High-resolution transmission electron microscope imaging revealed no distinct lattice structure leading to the assumption that the composition is predominantly amorphous and consists of SiAlON.

This paper contains results from a feasibility study. The optimization of manufacturing processes is an elementary part of economic thinking and acting. In many cases, complex processes have unknown analytical and mathematical methods. If mathematical functions for the behaviour of a process are missing, one often tries to optimize the process according to the trial-and-error principle in combination with expertise. However, this method requires a lot of time, computational resources, and trained personnel to validate the results. The method developed below can significantly reduce these cost factors by mathematically optimizing the unknown functions of a complex system in an automatic process. This is accomplished with discrete performance and behaviour measurements. For this purpose, an approximate prediction function is modelled using a multi-layer perceptron (MLP). The resulting continuous function can now be analysed with mathematical optimization methods. After formulating the learned prediction function, it is examined for minima using Newton’s method. It is not necessary to know the exact mathematical and physical context of the system that needs improving. Calculating a precise interpolation also results in further optimization and visualization options for the production plant.

The amount of deployed battery energy storage systems (BESS) has been increasing steadily in recent years. For newly commissioned systems, lithium-ion batteries have emerged as the most frequently used technology due to their decreasing cost, high efficiency, and high cycle life. As a result of a multitude of cell internal aging mechanisms, lithium-ion batteries are subject to degradation. The effects of degradation, in particular decreasing capacity, increasing resistance, and safety implications, can have significant impact on the economics of a BESS. Influenced by aging stress factors such as the state of charge, charge–discharge rate, cycle count, and temperature, the extent of degradation is directly affected by the operating conditions. Significant amount of literature can be found that focuses on aging aware operation of BESSs. In this review, we provide an overview of relevant aging mechanisms as well as degradation modeling approaches, and deduce the key aspects from the state of the art in those topics for BESS operation. Following that, we review and categorize methods that aim to increase BESS lifetime by accounting for battery degradation effects in the operation strategy. The literature shows that using empirical or semi-empirical degradation models as well as the exact solution approach of mixed integer linear programming are particularly common for that purpose, as is the method of defining aging costs for the objective function. Furthermore, through a simulation case study, we identify the most relevant stress factors that influence degradation for the key applications of self consumption increase, peak shaving, and frequency containment reserve.

Home health applications have evolved over the last few decades. Assistive systems such as a data platform in connection with health devices can allow for health-related data to be automatically transmitted to a database. However, there remain significant challenges concerning intermodular communication. Central among them is the challenge of achieving interoperability, the ability of devices to communicate and share data with each other. A major goal of this project was to extend an existing data platform (COMES®) and establish working interoperability by connecting assistive devices with differing approaches. We describe this process for a sleep monitoring and a physical exercise device. Furthermore, we aimed to test this setup and the implementation with a data platform in both a laboratory and an in-home setting with 11 elderly participants. The platform modification was realized, and the relevant changes were made so that the incoming data could be processed by the data platform, as well as visually displayed in real-time. Data was recorded by the respective device and transmitted into the data server with minor disruptions. Our observations affirmed that difficulties and data loss are far more likely to occur with increasing technical complexity, in the event of instable internet connection, or when the device setup requires (elderly) subjects to take specific steps for proper functioning. We emphasize the importance for tests and evaluations of home health technologies in real-life circumstances.

Kapitel 8 behandelt ausgewählte Aspekte der Entgeltgestaltung in Non-Profit-Organisationen. Hier sind einige Besonderheiten zu beachten. So unterscheidet zunächst die Gewährung einer Bezahlung die angestellten Mitarbeiter von den freiwillig Engagierten. Dies führt zur bereits beschriebenen Personalstruktur von Non-Profit-Organisationen. Das Kapitel stellt zunächst die grundlegende Systematik der Entgeltfindung dar. Das sozialwirtschaftliche Dreieck wird als Rahmenbedingung der Entgeltgestaltung vorgestellt, die Rechte der Mitarbeitervertretungen werden dargestellt und die Bedeutung von Tarifverträgen wird diskutiert. Zudem wird auf die Möglichkeit einer Anreizgestaltung durch eine leistungsorientierte Vergütung eingegangen. Die Bedeutung des Mindestlohngesetzes für Non-Profit-Organisationen wird als abschließender Punkt dieses Kapitels aufgegriffen.

Kapitel 1 gibt eine Einführung zum Thema Non-Profit-Organisationen im Allgemeinen und beschreibt die Tätigkeitsbereiche und die Vielfalt von Non-Profit-Organisationen in Deutschland. Es findet zunächst eine kurze Abgrenzung des Non-Profit-Sektors zum Profit- und Public-Sektor statt. Die gesellschaftliche Relevanz von Non-Profit-Organisationen wird dargestellt und die Bedeutung von Non-Profit-Organisationen als Arbeitgeber und als Empfänger von freiwilligem Engagement wird verdeutlicht. Der Stellenwert des Faktors Personal und des Personalmanagements wird herausgearbeitet. Das Kapitel beinhaltet einen ersten Überblick über Besonderheiten des Personalmanagements in Non-Profit-Organisationen und einen Einblick in aktuelle Herausforderungen, die sich an Non-Profit-Organisationen hinsichtlich des Personalmanagements stellen.

Kapitel 4 beschreibt zunächst die Grundlagen der Personalbedarfsplanung. Es werden die Zielsetzungen der Personalplanung und die Besonderheiten von Non-Profit-Organisationen in Bezug auf die Personalplanung beschrieben. Mögliche Mitspracherechte der Mitarbeitervertretungen werden differenziert dargestellt. Anhand von ausgewählten Anwendungsbereichen werden die Spezifika von Non-Profit-Organisationen hinsichtlich der quantitativen und qualitativen Komponente der Personalplanung erläutert. Dabei müssen auch rechtliche Vorgaben eine Beachtung finden.

Den Ausgangspunkt von Kapitel 5 bildet eine Darstellung des Fachkräftemangels, von dem zahlreiche Non-Profit-Organisationen betroffen sind. Die Risiken dieses Fachkräftemangels werden beschrieben und verdeutlichen die Notwendigkeit einer Positionierung als attraktiver Arbeitgeber auf dem Arbeitsmarkt. Employer Branding und Personalmarketing sowie Instrumente der Personalauswahl werden vorgestellt. Das Kapitel geht auf die arbeitsrechtlichen Besonderheiten für Non-Profit-Organisationen ein. Zudem wird auf den Aspekt der Gewinnung und Bindung von freiwillig Engagierten eingegangen.