The Case for Public Interventions during a Pandemic

Funding Information: This work has been supported by Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions ITN AffecTech (ERC H2020 Project 1059 ID: 722022). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.Within the field of movement sensing and sound interaction research, multi-user systems have gradually gained interest as a means to facilitate an expressive non-verbal dialogue. When tied with studies grounded in psychology and choreographic theory, we consider the qualities of interaction that foster an elevated sense of social connectedness, non-contingent to occupying one’s personal space. Upon reflection of the newly adopted social distancing concept, we orchestrate a technological intervention, starting with interpersonal distance and sound at the core of interaction. Materialised as a set of sensory face-masks, a novel wearable system was developed and tested in the context of a live public performance from which we obtain the user’s individual perspectives and correlate this with patterns identified in the recorded data. We identify and discuss traits of the user’s behaviour that were accredited to the system’s influence and construct four fundamental design considerations for physically distanced sound interaction. The study concludes with essential technical reflections, accompanied by an adaptation for a pervasive sensory intervention that is finally deployed in an open public space.publishersversionpublishe

Ring-Topology Echo State Networks for ICU Sepsis Classification

Sepsis is a life threatening condition that can be treated if detected early. This paper presents a study of the application of a Ring Topology Echo State Network (ESN) algorithm to a sepsis prediction task based on ICU records. The implemented algorithm is compared with commonly used classifiers and a combination of both approaches. Finally, we address how different causal strategies on filling missing record values affected the final classification performances. Having a dataset with a limited number of time entries per patient, the utility score U = 0.188 obtained (team 51: PLUX) suggests that further research is needed in order for the ESN to capture the temporal dynamics of the problem at hand

Ecg biometrics using deep learning and relative score threshold classification

PD/BDE/130216/2017The field of biometrics is a pattern recognition problem, where the individual traits are coded, registered, and compared with other database records. Due to the difficulties in reproducing Electrocardiograms (ECG), their usage has been emerging in the biometric field for more secure applications. Inspired by the high performance shown by Deep Neural Networks (DNN) and to mitigate the intra-variability challenges displayed by the ECG of each individual, this work proposes two architectures to improve current results in both identification (finding the registered person from a sample) and authentication (prove that the person is whom it claims) processes: Temporal Convolutional Neural Network (TCNN) and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). Each architecture produces a similarity score, based on the prediction error of the former and the logits given by the last, and fed to the same classifier, the Relative Score Threshold Classifier (RSTC).The robustness and applicability of these architectures were trained and tested on public databases used by literature in this context: Fantasia, MIT-BIH, and CYBHi databases. Results show that overall the TCNN outperforms the RNN achieving almost 100%, 96%, and 90% accuracy, respectively, for identification and 0.0%, 0.1%, and 2.2% equal error rate (EER) for authentication processes. When comparing to previous work, both architectures reached results beyond the state-of-the-art. Nevertheless, the improvement of these techniques, such as enriching training with extra varied data and transfer learning, may provide more robust systems with a reduced time required for validation.publishersversionpublishe

Automatic cognitive fatigue detection using wearable fNIRS and machine learning

Wearable sensors have increasingly been applied in healthcare to generate data and monitor patients unobtrusively. Their application for Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCI) allows for unobtru sively monitoring one’s cognitive state over time. A particular state relevant in multiple domains is cognitive fatigue, which may impact performance and attention, among other capabilities. The monitoring of this state will be applied in real learning settings to detect and advise on effective break periods. In this study, two functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) wearable devices were employed to build a BCI to automatically detect the state of cognitive fatigue using machine learning algorithms. An experimental procedure was developed to effectively induce cognitive fatigue that included a close-to-real digital lesson and two standard cognitive tasks: Corsi-Block task and a concentration task. Machine learning models were user-tuned to account for the individual dynamics of each participant, reaching classification accuracy scores of around 70.91 ± 13.67%. We concluded that, although effective for some subjects, the methodology needs to be individually validated before being applied. Moreover, time on task was not a particularly determining factor for classification, i.e., to induce cognitive fatigue. Further research will include other physiological signals and human–computer interaction variables.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Experiencing discomfort: designing for affect from first-person perspective

In this paper, we describe how by embracing a first-person design perspective we engaged with the uncomfortable to successfully gain insight into the design of affective technologies. Firstly, we experience estrangement that highlights and grounds our bodies as desired in the targeted technology interaction. Secondly, we understand design preconceptions, risks and limitations of the design artifacts

Cambios electrocardiográficos asociados a hemorragia aguda de tubo digestivo alto.

Se describen observaciones clínicas electrocardiográficas en casos de hemorragia de tubo digestivo alto.Introducción: La hemorragia de tubo digestivo alto es una causa común de ingreso hospitalario, alcanzando una mortalidad en México del 8,5%, por lo que nos interesa conocer su asociación con la presencia de trastornos de la conducción cardiaca y otras variables clínicas. Material y métodos: Revisamos los electrocardiogramas y expedientes de pacientes que ingresaron al servicio de Medicina Interna por hemorragia aguda de tubo digestivo alto y que además contaron con un electrocardiograma previo normal. Excluimos aquellos con hemorragia severa, esto es, que presentaran hipotensión y hubieran necesitado tratamiento con líquidos intravenosos y/o aminas vasoactivas. El análisis estadístico fue con el programa SPSS 10. Resultados y conclusiones: Se incluyeron 56 pacientes, 34 mujeres y 22 hombres; el 60,7% de los pacientes tenían más de 70 años. Encontramos probable asociación entre hemorragia de tubo digestivo alto y cambios electrocardiográficos, principalmente bloqueo de rama derecha en 30,35% de los casos

SSTS: A syntactic tool for pattern search on time series

We would like to acknowledge the financial support obtained from North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), Portugal 2020 and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) from European Union through the project Symbiotic technology for societal efficiency gains: Deus ex Machina (DEM), NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000026. We would like to acknowledge as well the projects AHA CMUP-ERI/HCI/0046 and INSIDE CMUP-ERI/HCI/051/2013 both financed by Fundcao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT).Nowadays, data scientists are capable of manipulating and extracting complex information from time series data, given the current diversity of tools at their disposal. However, the plethora of tools that target data exploration and pattern search may require an extensive amount of time to develop methods that correspond to the data scientist's reasoning, in order to solve their queries. The development of new methods, tightly related with the reasoning and visual analysis of time series data, is of great relevance to improving complexity and productivity of pattern and query search tasks. In this work, we propose a novel tool, capable of exploring time series data for pattern and query search tasks in a set of 3 symbolic steps: Pre-Processing, Symbolic Connotation and Search. The framework is called SSTS (Symbolic Search in Time Series) and uses regular expression queries to search the desired patterns in a symbolic representation of the signal. By adopting a set of symbolic methods, this approach has the purpose of increasing the expressiveness in solving standard pattern and query tasks, enabling the creation of queries more closely related to the reasoning and visual analysis of the signal. We demonstrate the tool's effectiveness by presenting 9 examples with several types of queries on time series. The SSTS queries were compared with standard code developed in Python, in terms of cognitive effort, vocabulary required, code length, volume, interpretation and difficulty metrics based on the Halstead complexity measures. The results demonstrate that this methodology is a valid approach and delivers a new abstraction layer on data analysis of time series.publishersversionpublishe

Deciding the status of controversial phonemes using frequency distributions; An application to semiconsonants in Spanish

Exploiting the fact that natural languages are complex systems, the present exploratory article proposes a direct method based on frequency distributions that may be useful when making a decision on the status of problematic phonemes, an open problem in linguistics. The main notion is that natural languages, which can be considered from a complex outlook as information processing machines, and which somehow manage to set appropriate levels of redundancy, already ‘‘made the choice’’ whether a linguistic unit is a phoneme or not, and this would be reflected in a greater smoothness in a frequency versus rank graph. For the particular case we chose to study, we conclude that it is reasonable to consider the Spanish semiconsonant /w/ as a separate phoneme from its vowel counterpart /u/, on the one hand, and possibly also the semiconsonant /j/ as a separate phoneme from its vowel counterpart /i/, on the other. As language has been so central a topic in the study of complexity, this discussion grants us, in addition, an opportunity to gain insight into emerging properties in the broader complex systems debate.Universidad de Costa Rica/[805-B8-185]/UCR/Costa RicaUCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Básicas::Centro de Investigaciones Geofísicas (CIGEFI)UCR::Vicerrectoría de Docencia::Ciencias Básicas::Facultad de Ciencias::Escuela de Físic

High Definition Liposuction: A Challenge for a Perfect Body Contouring

During the last decades, the plastic surgery field has made important advances in terms of clinical results and developing new surgical techniques, minimizing complications and reducing the mortality rates. An innovative and new technique is called High Definition LipoSculture. This is an advanced sculpting technique that creates an athletic and sculpted appearance. The aim of this chapter is to review the principal concepts that involve this technique and describe its clinical application. An electronic literature review was conducted in order to find the most recent medical literature published in this field. Keywords used were plastic surgery, liposuction, body contouring, aesthetic medicine, and surgical procedure. High definition liposuction procedures should be considered revolutionary in the plastic surgery field