A new methodology to evaluate Human Workload State Inference

Electronics and automation are increasingly part of our daily lives, and led to the introduction of systems and intelligent machines to which the human work is delegated and that collaborate and support the user in the conduct of mancritical operations. The University of Modena and Reggio Emilia is partner of the european project “Designing Dynamic Distributed Cooperative Human-Machine Systems” (D3CoS, www.d3cos.eu), that aim is the definition of affordable methods, techniques and tools which go beyond assistance systems and consequently address the specification, development and evaluation of cooperative systems from a multi-agent perspective where human and machine agents are in charge of common tasks, assigned to the system as a whole. The key on which to base the cooperation between the machine and the human is the amount of workload of the human operator. So we were involved into investigate aspects of the functional state of human operators interacting with the demonstrator in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and maritime domains. We analyzed and correlated objective psycho-physiological measures: eye blinks, respiration rate and amplitude, electro dermal activity, heart rate variability, blood pressure; with subjective self-assessed measure evaluated with two questionnaires: NASA-TLX and Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME); with the aim to realize a mathematical regression model for classifying the mental operators workload. Keywords— Workload, psycho-physiological measures, statistical analysis, cooperative systems

Large critical current density improvement in Bi-2212 wires through groove-rolling process

Recently the interest about Bi-2212 round wire superconductor for high magnetic field use has been enhancing despite the fact that an increase of the critical current is still needed to boost its successful use in such applications. Recent studies have demonstrated that the main obstacle to current flow, especially in long wires, is the residual porosity inside these Powder-In-Tube processed conductors which develops in bubbles-agglomeration when the Bi-2212 melts. Through this work we tried to overcome this issue acting on the wire densification by changing the deformation process. Here we show the effects of groove-rolling versus drawing process on the critical current density JC and on the microstructure. In particular, groove-rolled multifilamentary wires show a JC increased by a factor of about 3 with respect to drawn wires prepared with the same Bi-2212 powder and architecture. We think that this approach in the deformation process is able to produce the required improvements both because the superconducting properties are enhanced and because it makes the fabrication process faster and cheaper

High-power Magnetotherapy: A New Weapon in Urinary Incontinence?

Objective: Urinary incontinence (UI) is one of the most common urinary system diseases that mostly affects women but also men. We evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of functional magnetic stimulation (FMS) as potential UI treatment with improvements in the pelvic floor musculature, urodynamic tests and quality of life. Methods: A total of 20 UI patients (10 females and 10 men, mean age 64, 14 years), including 10 with stress UI, four with urgency UI and six with mixed UI, were treated with FMS (20 min/session) twice a week for 3 weeks. The patients\u2019 impressions, records in urinary diaries, and scores of three life stress questionnaires (overactive bladder symptom questionnaire [OAB-q], urogenital distress inventory questionnaire-short form [UDI-6], incontinence impact questionnaire-short form [IIQ-7]) were performed pre- and post-treatment. Results: Significant reductions (P < 0.01) of micturition number and nocturia after magnetic treatment were evi- denced. The urodynamic tests recorded a significant increase in cystometric capacity (147 \ub1 51.3%), in maximum urethral closure pressure (110 \ub1 34%), in urethral functional length (99.8 \ub1 51.8%), and in pressure transmission ratio (147 \ub1 51.3%) values compared with the baseline values. Conclusions: These preliminary findings suggest that FMS with Magneto STYM (twice weekly for 3 weeks) improves the UI and may be an effective treatment for this urogenital disease

Towards a method for the objective assessment of cognitive workload: A pilot study in vessel traffic service (VTS) of maritime domain

The complexity of traffic control systems, as well as the growing volume of traffic, interconnected missions types and mission demands on the operators, indicates that critical attention should still be paid to the problem of operator's cognitive workload (WL). On the other hand, the development of traffic control towards on-line measurement of cooperative aspects between humans and machines, is part of the more general need to measure the human agents “situation awareness” in industrial environment. The University of Modena and Reggio Emilia was partner of the European Artemis project “Designing Dynamic Distributed Cooperative Human-Machine Systems” (D3CoS 2011–2014) [1] to define affordable methods, techniques and tools addressing the specification, development and evaluation of cooperative systems where human and machine agents are in charge of common tasks, assigned to the system as a whole. One of the basic keys to reach an optimal human-machine cooperation is the measure of the human operator workload. In order to setup a possible method for the objective evaluation of cognitive workload we had to investigate aspects of the functional status of human operators interacting with a simulator in maritime domains. We recorded objective psycho-physiological measures: eye blinks, respiration rate and amplitude, electrodermal activity, heart rate variability, and blood pressure. They were analyzed and correlated with subjective self-assessed responses from two questionnaires: NASA-TLX and Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME), with the aim to realize a mathematical model for classifying the operators' mental workload. The purpose of this paper is to present the methods, applied on a pilot study, that we carried out to discriminate the WL intensity, based on psycho-physiological signals alone

Groove-rolling as an alternative process to fabricate Bi-2212 wires for practical applications

Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x (Bi-2212) superconducting long-length wires are mainly limited in obtaining high critical currents densities (JC) by the internal gas pressure generated during the heat treatment, which expands the wire diameter and dedensifies the superconducting filaments. Several ways have been developed to increase the density of the superconducting filaments and therefore decreasing the bubble density: much higher critical currents have been reached always acting on the final as-drawn wires. We here try to pursue the same goal of having a denser wire by acting on the deformation technique, through a partial use of the groove-rolling at different wire processing stages. Such technique has a larger powders compaction power, is straightforwardly adaptable to long length samples, and allows the fabrication of samples with round, square or rectangular shape depending on the application requirements. In this paper we demonstrate the capability of this technique to increase the density in Bi-2212 wires which leads to a three-fold increase in Jc with respect to drawn wires, making this approach very promising for fabricating Bi-2212 wires for high magnetic field magnets, i.e. above 25 T

DISTRIBUTION OF HEAT STABILIZERS IN PLASTICIZED PVC-BASED BIOMEDICAL DEVICES: TEMPERATURE AND TIME EFFECTS

Thermoplastic polymers can be viewed as a dynamic framework in which additives allocation is strongly dependent on the system' chemistry. Considering the complexity of the distribution phenomena that may occur in plastics obtained by blending polymeric resins with different additives, this work constitutes an attempt to the description of the behavior of PVC heat stabilizers (calcium and zinc carboxylates), as regard temperature and time. Thanks to the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, it is possible to observe a first decreasing trend of the additives related IR-bands as a function of the increasing temperature and the higher the temperature the faster the decrease of the heat stabilizers intensities bands is, with respect to time. Additives distribution in not sterilized, sterilized, aged not sterilized and aged sterilized materials have been investigated to determine their behavior with respect to temperature, from 30 to 120°C, and time. A simulated supplementary aging process equivalent to 9 months aging was carried out on aged not sterilized and aged sterilized materials to gain more data on the transport/reaction phenomena these additives in the plastic material. Experimental evidences allow hypothesizing that reaction and redistribution phenomena probably concur to determine the additives allocation in PVC as a function of temperature and time

Construct validation of a Frailty Index, an HIV Index and a Protective Index from a clinical HIV database

Standard care for HIV clinical practice has started focusing on age-related problems, but despite this recent change physicians involved in HIV care do not often screen HIV patients for frailty. Our aim was to construct three indexes from an HIV clinical database (i.e. Frailty Index, (FI), HIV Index, (HIVI), and Protective Index (PI)) and to assess levels of frailty, HIV severity and demographic and protective lifestyle factors among HIV patients. Methods and findings We included data from 1612 patients who attended an Italian HIV clinic between September 2016 and December2017 (mean\ub1SD age: 53.1\ub18 years, 73.9% men).We used 92 routine variables collected by physicians and other health care professionals to construct three indexes: A 72-item FI (biometric, psychiatric, blood test, daily life activities, geriatric syndromes and nutrition data), a 10-item HIVI (immunological, viral and therapeutics) and a 10-item PI (income, education, social engagement, and lifestyle habits data)(the lower the FI and HIVI scores, and the higher the PI scores, the lower the risk for participants).The FI, HIVI and PI scores were 0.19\ub10.08, 0.48\ub10.17 and 0.62\ub10.13, respectively. Men had higher FI (0.19\ub10.08 vs 0.18\ub10.08; p = 0.010) and lower HIVI (0.47\ub10.18 vs 0.50\ub10.15; p = 0.038) scores than women. FI and HIVI scores both increased 1.9% per year of age (p < 0.001), whereas the PI decreased 0.2% per year (p<0.050). In addition, the FI score increased 1.6% and the PI score decreased 0.5% per year of HIV infection (p < 0.001). Conclusion It is feasible to assess levels of frailty, HIV severity and protective lifestyle factors in HIV patients using data from a clinical database. Frailty levels are high among HIV patients and even higher among older patients and those with a long duration of HIV. Future studies need to examine the ability of the three indices to predict adverse health outcomes such as hospitalization and mortality