Stories
UW Researchers Developing App to Easily Assess Home for Accessibility Improvements
Wisconsin Institute for Discovery researcher Kevin Ponto was featured on Channel3000 to discuss the development of an app designed to easily assess homes for accessibility improvements. Along with Professor Jung-Hye Shin, chair of UW’s Design Studies Department, they developed the Augmented Reality Home Assessment Tool, or ARHAT. The app aims to make it easier to identify accessibility enhancements using mobile devices.
App under development at UW could make it easier, more affordable to ‘age in place’
Researchers are using augmented reality to help make homes safer for older adults through a tool called ARHAT—the Augmented Reality Home Assessment Tool. ARHAT guides users through a process to measure key features of a living space and suggests accessibility improvements. By streamlining what can be a clunky and expensive process, the tool supports a more affordable, community-based approach to home safety. The project is led by Jung-hye Shin and Kevin Ponto from the Department of Design Studies and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, alongside occupational therapist and kinesiology professor Beth Fields.
Science is Global: Building Bridges with Dr. Kris Saha
Speaking to the Global Health Institute at UW–Madison, Saha notes, "Both locally and abroad, my sense is there are unknown questions we’re asking, and there’s a mutual interest in being able to solve them for advancing healthcare. The role of a public university is to try to answer those questions for public benefit and, yes, to help make a company that can produce it in a sustainable and safe way – to get that impact and employ people in the process."
Co-Zorbing: The New Frontier in Bacterial Cooperation
In a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers discovered that biofilms made of a specific type of bacterium, Flavobacterium johnsoniae, can form 3-D structures called Zorbs that are capable of moving. Not only do these structures move, but researcher, Shruthi Magesh, from the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery have also found that they can transport other species of bacteria by forming tri-zorbs.
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