Biblio

Stress-related disorders are increasing because of work load, forces in teamwork, surroundings pressures and health related conditions. Thus, to avoid people living under heavy stress and develop more severe stress-related disorders, different internet and applications of stress management interventions are offered. Mobile applications with self-assessed health, burnout-scores and well-being are commonly used as outcome measures. Few studies have used sickleave to compare effects of stress interventions. A new approach is to use nature and garden in a multimodal stress management context. This study aimed to explore the effects of immersive and non-immersive games application by using nature theme virtual stress therapy in reducing stress level. Two weeks’ of experiments had involved 18 participants. Nine (9) of them were invited to join the first experiment which focused on immersive virtual reality (VR) experience. Their Blood Volume Pulse with Heart Rate (BVP+HR) and Skin Conductance (SC) were recorded using BioGraph Infiniti Biofeedback System that comes with three (3) sensors attached to the fingers. The second experiment were joined by another nine (9) participants. This experiment was testing on non-immersive desktop control experience. The same protocol measurements were taken which are BVP+HR and SC. Participants were given the experience to feel and get carried into the virtual nature as a therapy so that they will reduce stress. The result of this study points to whether immersive or non-immersive VR display using nature theme virtual therapy would reduce individuals stress level. After conducted series of experiments, results showed that both immersive and non-immersive VR display reduced stress level. However, participants were satisfied of using the immersive version as it provided a 360 degree of viewing, immersed experiences and feeling engaged. Thus, this showed and proved that applications developed with nature theme affect successfully reduce stress level no matter it is put in immersive or non-immersive display.

Purpose: Smart apps and wearables devices are an increasingly used way in healthcare to monitor a range of functions associated with certain health conditions. Even if in the present there are some devices and applications developed, there is no sufficient evidence of the use of such wearables devices in the detection of some disorders such as depression. Thus, through this paper, we want to address this need and present a quantitative research to determine the user requirements for developing a smart device that can detect depression. Material and Methods: To determine the user requirements for developing a system to detect depression we developed a questionnaire which was applied to 205 participants. Results and conclusions: Such a system addressed to detect depression is of interest among the respondents. The most essential parameters to be monitored refer to sleep quality, level of stress, circadian rhythm, and heart rate. Also, the developed system should prioritize reliability, privacy, security, and ease of use.

This paper investigates the effects of real time visual biofeedback for improving sports performance using a large scale immersive mixed reality system in which users are able to play a simulated game of curling. The users slide custom curling stones across the floor onto a projected target whose size is dictated by the user’s stress-related physiological measure; heart rate (HR). The higher HR the player has, the smaller the target will be, and vice-versa. In the experiment participants were asked to compete in three different conditions: baseline, with and without the proposed biofeedback. The results show that when providing a visual representation of the player’s HR or "choking" in competition, it helped the player understand their condition and improve competition performance (P-value of 0.0391).

The occurrences of accidents in mining industries owing to the fragile health conditions of mine workers are reportedly increasing. Health conditions measured as heart rate or pulse, glycemic index, and blood pressure are often crucial parameters that lead to failure in proper reasoning when not within acceptable ranges. These parameters, such as heartbeat rate can be measured continuously using sensors. The data can be monitored remotely and, when found to be of concern, can send necessary alarms to the mine manager. The early alarm notification enables the mine manager with better preparedness for managing the reach of first aid to the accident spot and thereby reduce mine fatalities drastically. This paper presents a framework for deterring accidents in mines with the help of the Grey Wolf Optimization approach.

Trust is an important topic in medical human-robot interaction, since patients may be more fragile than other groups of people. This paper investigates the issue of users' trust when interacting with a rehabilitation robot. In the study, we investigate participants' heart rate and perception of safety in a scenario when their arm is led by the rehabilitation robot in two types of exercises at three different velocities. The participants' heart rate are measured during each exercise and the participants are asked how safe they feel after each exercise. The results showed that velocity and type of exercise has no significant influence on the participants' heart rate, but they do have significant influence on how safe they feel. We found that increasing velocity and longer exercises negatively influence participants' perception of safety.

Typical techniques for tracking vital signs require body contact and most of these techniques are intrusive in nature. Body-contact methods might irritate the patient's skin and he/she might feel uncomfortable while sensors are touching his/her body. In this study, we present a new wireless (non-contact) method for monitoring human vital signs (breathing and heartbeat). We have demonstrated for the first time1 that vitals signs can be measured wirelessly through visible light signal reflected from a human subject, also referred to as visible light sensing (VLS). In this method, the breathing and heartbeat rates are measured without any body-contact device, using only a simple photodetector and a light source (e.g., LED). The light signal reflected from human subject is modulated by the physical motions during breathing and heartbeats. Signal processing tools such as filtering and Fourier transform are used to convert these small variations in the received light signal power to vitals data.We implemented the VLS-based non-contact vital signs monitoring system by using an off-the-shelf light source, a photodetector and a signal acquisition and processing unit. We observed more than 94% of accuracy as compared to a contact-based FDA (The Food and Drug Administration) approved devices. Additional evaluations are planned to assess the performance of the developed vitals monitoring system, e.g., different subjects, environments, etc. Non-contact vitals monitoring system can be used in various areas and scenarios such as medical facilities, residential homes, security and human-computer-interaction (HCI) applications.

Over the past few years, virtual and mixed reality systems have evolved significantly yielding high immersive experiences. Most of the metaphors used for interaction with the virtual environment do not provide the same meaningful feedback, to which the users are used to in the real world. This paper proposes a cyber-glove to improve the immersive sensation and the degree of embodiment in virtual and mixed reality interaction tasks. In particular, we are proposing a cyber-glove system that tracks wrist movements, hand orientation and finger movements. It provides a decoupled position of the wrist and hand, which can contribute to a better embodiment in interaction and manipulation tasks. Additionally, the detection of the curvature of the fingers aims to improve the proprioceptive perception of the grasping/releasing gestures more consistent to visual feedback. The cyber-glove system is being developed for VR applications related to real estate promotion, where users have to go through divisions of the house and interact with objects and furniture. This work aims to assess if glove-based systems can contribute to a higher sense of immersion, embodiment and usability when compared to standard VR hand controller devices (typically button-based). Twenty-two participants tested the cyber-glove system against the HTC Vive controller in a 3D manipulation task, specifically the opening of a virtual door. Metric results showed that 83% of the users performed faster door pushes, and described shorter paths with their hands wearing the cyber-glove. Subjective results showed that all participants rated the cyber-glove based interactions as equally or more natural, and 90% of users experienced an equal or a significant increase in the sense of embodiment.

The indoor air quality in industrial workplace buildings, e.g. air temperature, humidity and levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), play a critical role in the perceived levels of workers' comfort and in reported medical health. CO2 can act as an oxygen displacer, and in confined spaces humans can have, for example, reactions of dizziness, increased heart rate and blood pressure, headaches, and in more serious cases loss of consciousness. Specialized organizations can be brought in to monitor the work environment for limited periods. However, new low cost wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies offer potential for more continuous and autonomous assessment of industrial workplace air quality. Central to effective decision making is the data analytics approach and visualization of what is potentially, big data (BD) in monitoring the air quality in industrial workplaces. This paper presents a case study that monitors air quality that is collected with WSN technologies. We discuss the potential BD problems. The case trials are from two workshops that are part of a large on-shore logistics base a regional shipping industry in Norway. This small case study demonstrates a monitoring and visualization approach for facilitating BD in decision making for health and safety in the shipping industry. We also identify other potential applications of WSN technologies and visualization of BD in the workplace environments; for example, for monitoring of other substances for worker safety in high risk industries and for quality of goods in supply chain management.

With the advancement of sensor electronic devices, wireless sensor networks have attracted more and more attention. Range query has become a significant part of sensor networks due to its availability and convenience. However, It is challenging to process range query while still protecting sensitive data from disclosure. Existing work mainly focuses on privacy- preserving range query, but neglects the damage of collusion attacks, probability attacks and differential attacks. In this paper, we propose a privacy- preserving, energy-efficient and multi-dimensional range query protocol called PERQ, which not only achieves data privacy, but also considers collusion attacks, probability attacks and differential attacks. Generalized distance-based and modular arithmetic range query mechanism are used. In addition, a novel cyclic modular verification scheme is proposed to verify the data integrity. Extensive theoretical analysis and experimental results confirm the high performance of PERQ in terms of energy efficiency, security and accountability requirements.

Wearables, such as Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Microsoft Band, with their rich collection of sensors, facilitate the tracking of healthcare- and wellness-related metrics. However, the assessment of the physiological metrics collected by these devices could also be useful in identifying the user of the wearable, e.g., to detect unauthorized use or to correctly associate the data to a user if wearables are shared among multiple users. Further, researchers and healthcare providers often rely on these smart wearables to monitor research subjects and patients in their natural environments over extended periods of time. Here, it is important to associate the sensed data with the corresponding user and to detect if a device is being used by an unauthorized individual, to ensure study compliance. Existing one-time authentication approaches using credentials (e.g., passwords, certificates) or trait-based biometrics (e.g., face, fingerprints, iris, voice) might fail, since such credentials can easily be shared among users. In this paper, we present a continuous and reliable wearable-user authentication mechanism using coarse-grain minute-level physical activity (step counts) and physiological data (heart rate, calorie burn, and metabolic equivalent of task). From our analysis of 421 Fitbit users from a two-year long health study, we are able to statistically distinguish nearly 100% of the subject-pairs and to identify subjects with an average accuracy of 92.97%.

Wearable devices are being more popular in our daily life. Especially, smart wristbands are booming in the market recently, which can be used to monitor health status, track fitness data, or even do medical tests, etc. For this reason, smart wristbands can obtain a lot of personal data. Hence, users and manufacturers should pay more attention to the security aspects of smart wristbands. However, we have found that some Bluetooth Low Energy based smart wristbands have very weak or even no security protection mechanism, therefore, they are vulnerable to replay attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, brute-force attacks, Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, etc. We have investigated four different popular smart wristbands and a smart watch. Among them, only the smart watch is protected by some security mechanisms while the other four smart wristbands are not protected. In our experiments, we have also figured out all the message formats of the controlling commands of these smart wristbands and developed an Android software application as a testing tool. Powered by the resolved command formats, this tool can directly control these wristbands, and any other wristbands of these four models, without using the official supporting applications.