An Empirical Study Comparing Unobtrusive Physiological Sensors for Stress Detection in Computer Work.

Several unobtrusive sensors have been tested in studies to capture physiological reactions to stress in workplace settings. Lab studies tend to focus on assessing sensors during a specific computer task, while in situ studies tend to offer a generalized view of sensors' efficacy for workplace stress monitoring, without discriminating different tasks. Given the variation in workplace computer activities, this study investigates the efficacy of unobtrusive sensors for stress measurement across a variety of tasks. We present a comparison of five physiological measurements obtained in a lab experiment, where participants completed six different computer tasks, while we measured their stress levels using a chest-band (ECG, respiration), a wristband (PPG and EDA), and an emerging thermal imaging method (perinasal perspiration). We found that thermal imaging can detect increased stress for most participants across all tasks, while wrist and chest sensors were less generalizable across tasks and participants. We summarize the costs and benefits of each sensor stream, and show how some computer use scenarios present usability and reliability challenges for stress monitoring with certain physiological sensors. We provide recommendations for researchers and system builders for measuring stress with physiological sensors during workplace computer use

Stress and productivity patterns of interrupted, synergistic, and antagonistic office activities.

We describe a controlled experiment, aiming to study productivity and stress effects of email interruptions and activity interactions in the modern office. The measurement set includes multimodal data for n = 63 knowledge workers who volunteered for this experiment and were randomly assigned into four groups: (G1/G2) Batch email interruptions with/without exogenous stress. (G3/G4) Continual email interruptions with/without exogenous stress. To provide context, the experiment's email treatments were surrounded by typical office tasks. The captured variables include physiological indicators of stress, measures of report writing quality and keystroke dynamics, as well as psychometric scores and biographic information detailing participants' profiles. Investigations powered by this dataset are expected to lead to personalized recommendations for handling email interruptions and a deeper understanding of synergistic and antagonistic office activities. Given the centrality of email in the modern office, and the importance of office work to people's lives and the economy, the present data have a valuable role to play

A study illustrating the risk factors, clinical presentation and management of ectopic pregnancy in a secondary hospital in Bahrain

Background: Assess the risk factors, clinical presentation and type of intervention indicated in ectopic pregnancies at American mission hospital in Bahrain. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study conducted from August 2021 to April 2022 at American mission hospital in Bahrain. All patients (n=205) who attended the hospital from January 2017 to June 2021 with a presentation suggestive of ectopic pregnancy were extracted from the electronic medical record database and reviewed. Data was recorded on Microsoft Excel version 16.61.1 and numerical data was extrapolated into graphs and tables via IBM SPSS Statistics version 28.0.0.0 (190). Data was subjected to descriptive and stratification analysis. Results: The leading risk factor for ectopic pregnancy was previous pelvic surgery (40.4%). The most reported symptom was amenorrhea (65.9%). Risk of rupture was tripled when serum B-hCG level was elevated, rendering it the strongest predictor of rupture according to our data (95% CI=1.25, 7.19; p-value 0.0139). Majority of patients (56.4%) were treated with methotrexate with a success rate of 88.7% and 8.5% of cases were managed expectantly. Those who failed medical management or presented with rupture were treated surgically.Conclusions: Our study found B-hCG levels to be the most sensitive predictor of rupture and need for surgical intervention. Therefore, management was largely, but not exclusively, based on B-hCG levels. Majority of cases were treated medically and patients undergoing expectant management experienced no complications.

Stress and Human-Computer Interaction at the Workplace: Unobtrusive Tracking With Wearable Sensors and Computer Logs

The relationship between workplace stress and computer use has mostly been investigated with self-reports or in controlled environments. However, self-report methods are prone to memory and emotion expression biases, and can be interruptive to employees when implemented for continuous stress tracking in real workplace environments. Researchers have explored the use of wearable sensors for unobtrusive and continuous stress tracking, but mostly in controlled laboratory settings, which limit the understanding of factors influencing stress in real-workplace environments, and the extent to which passive sensing can reveal information about stress during uncontrolled computer interactions.This dissertation presents novel findings on computer use and stress at the workplace by employing computational methods leveraging computer activity logging and wearable devices that unobtrusively and continuously measured physiological stress through heart-rate variability in two real-world workplace settings: information work and medical work. In the first part of the dissertation, fifty office employees were tracked for three to four weeks. Time spent on the work computer during and outside workhours, email work strategy, window switching, and computer activity types explained 14\% of the variance in the daily stress duration. Individual differences (personality and work-life balance) moderate the relationship between workplace computer use factors and stress. A novel measure of variability in daily computer work was associated with perceived job demands, effort and overcommitment and arousal. Employees’ perspectives on technology-supported stress tracking at the workplace indicated trust in algorithmic output, confirmation bias, and challenges balancing unobtrusiveness and engagement. The second part of the dissertation analyzed how physicians use Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems and measured their physiological stress throughout the workday. One month of EHR logs of 1275 physicians were analyzed to characterize EHR use. Temporal patterns of EHR inbox use were found to be different from other EHR functions in their distribution throughout the day. Factors associated with high EHR inbox use were identified. Physiological stress data were collected for 47 physicians for a week and paired with their EHR logs. Among three patterns of EHR inbox work identified, the pattern characterized by working mostly outside of workhours had the longest average stress duration. Inbox work duration, the rate of EHR window switching, working outside of workhours and batching inbox work were associated with physicians’ daily stress duration.By evaluating a range of computer use factors and their association with daily physiological stress, the dissertation extends previous work that often focused on specific computer tasks or used self-reports. I provide recommendations and design implications for supporting different personal and organizational technology-supported stress tracking goals, and suggest future areas of work

A Heuristic Approach to Improve Task Scheduling in Cloud Computing using Blockchain technology

In Cloud Data Centers (CDCs), energy cost is the major expense and many researchers aim to reduce it at different levels. Reducing the energy cost and improving its efficiency can be done at the DC level and at the server level where task scheduling takes place. Task scheduling not only focuses on improving the energy efficiency but also to allocate the resources efficiently in a timely manner by optimizing energy consumption. With the rise of new technologies in this era, one of the technologies is Blockchain. Blockchain technology has been used with the cloud in terms of security and storage. This paper proposes a heuristic approach to task scheduling in the cloud using blockchain. The work is carried out to improve the parameters such as wait time, execution time, and Service Level Agreement (SLA) that will eventually help to reduce the energy consumption and its cost. The aim of this research is to identify the benefits of blockchain in the cloud to schedule the tasks and explore its feasibility

What affects students’ acceptance and use of technology?

<p>Students’ acceptance and use of technologies introduced in their academic environments is an important factor in determining the success of these technologies. This research project used the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), a prominent technology acceptance and use model, as a theoretical basis to conduct empirical research testing the factors that influence students’ acceptance and use of technology in their academic environment.</p> <p>Although several studies applied UTAUT in various organizational and cultural contexts, very few implement the full model and examine all of its constructs. By focusing on students in higher-education and technology that is new to them, and by using the full UTAUT model with no changes or elimination of constructs, this study places itself in the area where there are no exhaustive studies. Also, this research addresses the question of whether UTAUT is applicable in an academic environment for educational technologies introduced to the students.</p> <p>The study found a mixed support for UTAUT. Performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions and attitude towards using technology were significant determinants of technology acceptance. All moderating variables had a significant moderating influence except for experience, which was surprisingly not significant. The UTAUT model is found to be applicable to some extent in the educational setting, but might need a few modifications to fit the context.</p> <p>The study provides recommendations to help prepare the appropriate environment and training before a new technology is introduced for students. It also provides recommendation for further research examining students’ acceptance and use of technology.</p

Secretome-based acellular therapy of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells in degenerative and immunological disorders: A narrative review

The bone marrow (BM) plays a pivotal role in homeostasis by supporting hematopoiesis and immune cells' activation, maturation, interaction, and deployment. “BMSC-derived secretome” refers to the complete repertoire of secreted molecules, including nucleic acids, chemokines, growth factors, cytokines, and lipids from BM-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs). BMSC-derived secretomes are the current molecular platform for acellular therapy. Secretomes are highly manipulable and can be synthesised in vast quantities using commercially accessible cell lines in the laboratory. Secretomes are less likely to elicit an immunological response because they contain fewer surface proteins. Moreover, the delivery of BMSC-derived secretomes has been shown in numerous studies to be an effective, cell-free therapy method for alleviating the symptoms of inflammatory and degenerative diseases. As a result, secretome delivery from BMSCs has the same therapeutic effects as BMSCs transplantation but may have fewer adverse effects. Additionally, BMSCs’ secretome has therapeutic promise for organoids and parabiosis studies. This review focuses on recent advances in secretome-based cell-free therapy, including its manipulation, isolation, characterisation, and delivery systems. The diverse bioactive molecules of secretomes that successfully treat inflammatory and degenerative diseases of the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, nervous, respiratory, reproductive, gastrointestinal, and anti-ageing systems were also examined in this review. However, secretome-based therapy has some unfavourable side effects that may restrict its uses. Some of the adverse effects of this modal therapy were briefly mentioned in this review