Feedback Control of Human Stress with Music Modulation

Mental stress has known detrimental effects on human health, however few algorithmic methods of reducing mental stress have been widely explored. While the act of listening to music has been shown to have beneficial effects for stress reduction, and furthermore, audio players have been designed to selectively choose music and other inputs with the intent of stress reduction, limited work has been conducted for real-time stress reduction with feedback control using physiological input signals such as heart rate or Heart Rate Variability (HRV). This thesis proposes a feedback controller that uses HRV signals from wearable sensors to perform real-time (< 1 second) modulations to music through tempo changes with the goal to regulate and reduce stress levels. A standardized, stress inducing test based on the popular Stroop test is also introduced, which has been shown to induce acute stress in subjects and can be used as a testing benchmark for controller design. Ultimately, a controller is presented that when used is not only able to maintain stress levels during stress-inducing inputs to a human but even provides de-stressing effects beyond baseline performance.No embargoAcademic Major: Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Character Recognition

Character recognition is one of the pattern recognition technologies that are most widely used in practical applications. This book presents recent advances that are relevant to character recognition, from technical topics such as image processing, feature extraction or classification, to new applications including human-computer interfaces. The goal of this book is to provide a reference source for academic research and for professionals working in the character recognition field

EN-BIRTH Data Collector Training - Handbook and Manual

The EN-BIRTH study aims to validate selected newborn and maternal indicators for routine facility-based tracking of coverage and quality of care for use at district, national and global levels. The item contains the EN-BIRTH_Trainer's Manual (14 June 2017) and EN-BIRTH_Training Handbook (23 May 2017)

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 204

This bibliography lists 140 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in February 1980

Physiological sensor.

For the purpose of medical diagnosis and research, various physiological signals, such as Photoplethysmograph (PPG), Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) and Skin Temperature (SKT), are measured by different types of medical sensor equipment. However, the sensors are intrusive and the patients must endure some discomfort when encountering these types of medical sensor equipment. These bio sensors also fail to be implemented outside of lab or clinical settings. Recently the development in sensor technology and wireless communication technology have significantly improved the integration of wearable systems, so that we could find new ways to minimize the wearable circuits module, design layers of fabric for wearable system. This thesis documents the successful development of a novel, unobtrusive, low-cost, wrist-worn integrated sensors (PPG, GSR, SKT) system using wireless wearable technology capable of measuring real-time data collection, and monitoring which is important when dealing with treatment and management of many chronic illnesses, neurological disorders, and mental health issues. Examples can include: epileptic seizures, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), depression, drug addiction, and anxiety disorders

Measurement and computational analysis of skin conductance under repetitive stimuli and in different age groups

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Science.In this work skin conductance measurement was used to investigate a number of aspects of response to repetitive audiovisual stimuli and at different age group subjects. Stimuli were induced with a range of film clips generating emotions and an audiovisual computer generated segment to investigate repetitive stimulation and resultant response. Past skin conductance experimental measurements indicate that a number of specific factors can influence the results. These factors include: electrode type and placement, sensitivity, resolution of the equipment, areas covered by the electrodes, skin temperature and experimental environmental conditions to name just a few. The electrode placement and recording site used in this work is based on the understanding that maximum neural innervations occur where the ring finger is innervated with both ulnar and median nerves. This was critically important when measured and calculated parameters of skin conductance such as latency, amplitude, response rate and duration of multiple stimulus sequence responses were investigated. An advanced portable skin conductance device was developed for biomedical application. An audiovisual computer program was prepared for optimisation of the biomedical application and the verification of the results. Repetitive multiple stimuli were introduced sequentially within this video clip that utilised a crashing glass sound to generate excitation. Results were plotted for 21 subjects in two separate experiments using this multiple stimuli. After measuring the skin conductance data, amplitude (intensity), latency (response time, delay), reaction rates (gradient of the rise), and the response length were calculated and statistical analysis carried out. The results showed that during three repetitive multiple stimulus, after a non action period if a crashing sound was introduced, a decrease in the amplitude of the skin conductance was observed, in contrast the latency or delay in reaction time was increased with each repetitious stimuli, and the reaction rate for each stimuli was very close for each of the three consecutive crashes. For the analysis of continuous stimulation, five film segments were used and measured skin conductance parameters were again analysed. A detailed statistical analysis was carried out for one of the film segments and analysis was applied to 59 subjects that were grouped according to their age distribution and grouping. The results showed a good correlation of the groupings and it was determined that with increased age, skin conductance is reduced. This verification results showed that a reliable audiovisual stimulation may assist with subjects maintaining focus. The results also showed that attention may act as a filter for the response minimizing spontaneous sudomotor reflexes that enable the study of repetitive stimulus of oddball paradigm. The results validate the effectiveness of the developed device and indicate that under controlled conditions, multiple sequential stimuli might initiate brain-to-skin conductance path might be crucial in controlling responsive psychological stimuli and possibly its clinical applications such as control of epileptic seizure and its use as early seizure warning device. To understand the brain pathways and the reaction mechanisms of the emotional stimuli, future work utilising this device, with functional magnetic resonance imaging and other classic medical monitoring equipment such as the EEG is recommended