Methods and techniques for analyzing human factors facets on drivers

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorWith millions of cars moving daily, driving is the most performed activity worldwide. Unfortunately, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), every year, around 1.35 million people worldwide die from road traffic accidents and, in addition, between 20 and 50 million people are injured, placing road traffic accidents as the second leading cause of death among people between the ages of 5 and 29. According to WHO, human errors, such as speeding, driving under the influence of drugs, fatigue, or distractions at the wheel, are the underlying cause of most road accidents. Global reports on road safety such as "Road safety in the European Union. Trends, statistics, and main challenges" prepared by the European Commission in 2018 presented a statistical analysis that related road accident mortality rates and periods segmented by hours and days of the week. This report revealed that the highest incidence of mortality occurs regularly in the afternoons during working days, coinciding with the period when the volume of traffic increases and when any human error is much more likely to cause a traffic accident. Accordingly, mitigating human errors in driving is a challenge, and there is currently a growing trend in the proposal for technological solutions intended to integrate driver information into advanced driving systems to improve driver performance and ergonomics. The study of human factors in the field of driving is a multidisciplinary field in which several areas of knowledge converge, among which stand out psychology, physiology, instrumentation, signal treatment, machine learning, the integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs), and the design of human-machine communication interfaces. The main objective of this thesis is to exploit knowledge related to the different facets of human factors in the field of driving. Specific objectives include identifying tasks related to driving, the detection of unfavorable cognitive states in the driver, such as stress, and, transversely, the proposal for an architecture for the integration and coordination of driver monitoring systems with other active safety systems. It should be noted that the specific objectives address the critical aspects in each of the issues to be addressed. Identifying driving-related tasks is one of the primary aspects of the conceptual framework of driver modeling. Identifying maneuvers that a driver performs requires training beforehand a model with examples of each maneuver to be identified. To this end, a methodology was established to form a data set in which a relationship is established between the handling of the driving controls (steering wheel, pedals, gear lever, and turn indicators) and a series of adequately identified maneuvers. This methodology consisted of designing different driving scenarios in a realistic driving simulator for each type of maneuver, including stop, overtaking, turns, and specific maneuvers such as U-turn and three-point turn. From the perspective of detecting unfavorable cognitive states in the driver, stress can damage cognitive faculties, causing failures in the decision-making process. Physiological signals such as measurements derived from the heart rhythm or the change of electrical properties of the skin are reliable indicators when assessing whether a person is going through an episode of acute stress. However, the detection of stress patterns is still an open problem. Despite advances in sensor design for the non-invasive collection of physiological signals, certain factors prevent reaching models capable of detecting stress patterns in any subject. This thesis addresses two aspects of stress detection: the collection of physiological values during stress elicitation through laboratory techniques such as the Stroop effect and driving tests; and the detection of stress by designing a process flow based on unsupervised learning techniques, delving into the problems associated with the variability of intra- and inter-individual physiological measures that prevent the achievement of generalist models. Finally, in addition to developing models that address the different aspects of monitoring, the orchestration of monitoring systems and active safety systems is a transversal and essential aspect in improving safety, ergonomics, and driving experience. Both from the perspective of integration into test platforms and integration into final systems, the problem of deploying multiple active safety systems lies in the adoption of monolithic models where the system-specific functionality is run in isolation, without considering aspects such as cooperation and interoperability with other safety systems. This thesis addresses the problem of the development of more complex systems where monitoring systems condition the operability of multiple active safety systems. To this end, a mediation architecture is proposed to coordinate the reception and delivery of data flows generated by the various systems involved, including external sensors (lasers, external cameras), cabin sensors (cameras, smartwatches), detection models, deliberative models, delivery systems and machine-human communication interfaces. Ontology-based data modeling plays a crucial role in structuring all this information and consolidating the semantic representation of the driving scene, thus allowing the development of models based on data fusion.I would like to thank the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for granting me the predoctoral fellowship BES-2016-078143 corresponding to the project TRA2015-63708-R, which provided me the opportunity of conducting all my Ph. D activities, including completing an international internship.Programa de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología Informática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: José María Armingol Moreno.- Secretario: Felipe Jiménez Alonso.- Vocal: Luis Mart

A multimodal approach to persuasion in oral presentations : the case of conference presentations, research dissemination talks and product pitches

Esta tesis presenta un estudio multimodal y etnográfico del uso de estrategias persuasivas en tres géneros orales: presentaciones en conferencias, charlas de divulgación científica, y presentaciones de productos. Estos géneros comparten un importante componente persuasivo: los tres se dirigen a una audiencia tratando de convencerles del valor de un producto, servicio, o investigación. Sin embargo, se usan en dos contextos profesionales diferentes: el académico y el económico, por lo que cabe esperar que consigan su propósito comunicativo de forma diferente. Por otra parte, recientes estudios muestran como distintos discursos, tienden a adoptar cada vez más rasgos promocionales (promocionalización del discurso). En vista de ello, es factible establecer como hipótesis que los tres géneros están relacionados interdiscursivamente, y un estudio multimodal y etnográfico del uso de la persuasión en dichos géneros puede ayudar a clarificar las relaciones existentes entre ellos, así como sus diferencias.This thesis is a multimodal and ethnographic study of the use of persuasive strategies in three oral genres conference presentations, research dissemination talks and product pitches. These presentations share a strong persuasive component in their communicative purpose: the three of them address an audience to convince them of the value of a product, a service or a piece of research. However, they are used in business and academia by different discourse communities in different contexts, and therefore they can be expected to achieve their communicative goals in different ways. In addition, research suggests that there is a trend towards promotionalization of different discourses, among which academic discourse is included. In view of this, I hypothesize that these three genres are intertextually and interdiscursively related, and that a multimodal and ethnographic study of the use of persuasion in them can help to shed some light on these relationships and differences

Oral application of L-menthol in the heat: From pleasure to performance

When menthol is applied to the oral cavity it presents with a familiar refreshing sensation and cooling mint flavour. This may be deemed hedonic in some individuals, but may cause irritation in others. This variation in response is likely dependent upon trigeminal sensitivity toward cold stimuli, suggesting a need for a menthol solution that can be easily personalised. Menthol’s characteristics can also be enhanced by matching colour to qualitative outcomes; a factor which can easily be manipulated by practitioners working in athletic or occupational settings to potentially enhance intervention efficacy. This presentation will outline the efficacy of oral menthol application for improving time trial performance to date, either via swilling or via co-ingestion with other cooling strategies, with an emphasis upon how menthol can be applied in ecologically valid scenarios. Situations in which performance is not expected to be enhanced will also be discussed. An updated model by which menthol may prove hedonic, satiate thirst and affect ventilation will also be presented, with the potential performance implications of these findings discussed and modelled. Qualitative reflections from athletes that have implemented menthol mouth swilling in competition, training and maximal exercise will also be included

URSS Event Program Booklet 2017

This event program booklet contains a schedule of the event, list of awards, and student abstracts

Pattern Recognition

Pattern recognition is a very wide research field. It involves factors as diverse as sensors, feature extraction, pattern classification, decision fusion, applications and others. The signals processed are commonly one, two or three dimensional, the processing is done in real- time or takes hours and days, some systems look for one narrow object class, others search huge databases for entries with at least a small amount of similarity. No single person can claim expertise across the whole field, which develops rapidly, updates its paradigms and comprehends several philosophical approaches. This book reflects this diversity by presenting a selection of recent developments within the area of pattern recognition and related fields. It covers theoretical advances in classification and feature extraction as well as application-oriented works. Authors of these 25 works present and advocate recent achievements of their research related to the field of pattern recognition

Modulación del TLR4 : estudios de reconocimiento molecular y diseño de fármacos por modelado molecular

Tesis de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Farmacia, Departamento de Química Orgánica y Farmacéutica, leída el 04/05/2018The heterodimeric complex, formed by Toll-Like Receptor 4 (TLR4) and its accessory protein Myeloid Differentiation factor 2 (MD-2) is responsible of activating the innate immune system when sensing the presence of particular pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) from bacteria. The outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria is primarily populated by lipopolysaccharides (LPS) which are essential for their growth and survival. These LPSs are specifically recognized by the TLR4/MD-2 complex as follows: an LPS binds to MD-2 inside a deep molecular hydrophobic pocket causing molecular rearrangements of the receptorial complex resulting in the dimerization of another TLR4/MD-2 unit. TLR4 ectodomains dimerization event brings together the TLR4 intercellular domains initiating the activation of innate immune system signaling pathways. Interestingly, this activation is not only modulated by naturally occurring LPSs from many different Gram-negative bacteria but also by non-naturally occurring glycolipids and other non-LPS like molecules...El complejo heterodimérico, formado por el receptor Toll-like 4 (Toll-like receptor 4, TLR4) y su proteína accesoria, el Myeloid Differentiation factor 2 (MD-2), es responsable de activar la respuesta del sistema inmune innato cuando detecta la presencia de patrones moleculares asociados a patógenos (pathogen associated molecular patterns, PAMPs), que provienen de bacterias y virus. En concreto, la membrana externa de bacterias Gram-negativas está poblada principalmente por lipopolisacáridos (lipopolisaccharides, LPS), compuestos que son esenciales para su crecimiento y supervivencia. Estos LPS son reconocidos de forma específica por el complejo TLR4/MD-2 de la siguiente manera: una molécula de LPS se une a la proteína MD-2 dentro de un profundo bolsillo hidrofóbico dando lugar al reordenamiento molecular del complejo resultando en la dimerización de otra unidad de TLR4/MD-2. El evento de dimerización de los ectodominios del TLR4 hace que se acercan los dominios intracelulares que inician la activación de las vías de señalización del sistema inmune innato. Curiosamente, esta activación no sólo está modulada por LPS naturales de muchas bacterias Gram-negativas distintas, sino también por glicolípidos no naturales y otras moléculas de estructura química diferente a los LPS...Fac. de FarmaciaTRUEunpu

Mental and sensorimotor extrapolation fare better than motion extrapolation in the offset condition

Evidence for motion extrapolation at motion offset is scarce. In contrast, there is abundant evidence that subjects mentally extrapolate the future trajectory of weak motion signals at motion offset. Further, pointing movements overshoot at motion offset. We believe that mental and sensorimotor extrapolation is sufficient to solve the problem of perceptual latencies. Both present the advantage of being much more flexible than motion extrapolatio