A decade of research and development in disability, virtual reality and associated technologies: review of ICDVRAT 1996−2006

The International Conference (series) on Disability, Virtual Reality and Associated Technologies (ICDVRAT) this year held its sixth biennial conference, celebrating ten years of research and development in this field. A total of 220 papers have been presented at the first six conferences, addressing potential, development, exploration and examination of how these technologies can be applied in disabilities research and practice. The research community is broad and multi-disciplined, comprising a variety of scientific and medical researchers, rehabilitation therapists, educators and practitioners. Likewise, technologies, their applications and target user populations are also broad, ranging from sensors positioned on real world objects to fully immersive interactive simulated environments. A common factor is the desire to identify what the technologies have to offer and how they can provide added value to existing methods of assessment, rehabilitation and support for individuals with disabilities. This paper presents a brief review of the first decade of research and development in the ICDVRAT community, defining technologies, applications and target user populations served.

Obesity and diabetes, the built environment, and the ‘local’ food economy in the United States, 2007

Obesity and diabetes are increasingly attributed to environmental factors, however, little attention has been paid to the influence of the ‘local’ food economy. This paper examines the association of measures relating to the built environment and ‘local’ agriculture with U.S. county-level prevalence of obesity and diabetes. Key indicators of the ‘local’ food economy include the density of farmers’ markets and the presence of farms with direct sales. This paper employs a robust regression estimator to account for non-normality of the data and to accommodate outliers. Overall, the built environment is associated with the prevalence of obesity and diabetes and a strong local’ food economy may play an important role in prevention. Results imply considerable scope for community-level interventions.