BLA (Bipolar Laddering) Applied to YouTube. Performing Postmodern Psychology Paradigms in User Experience Field

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A Machine-Learning Model for Lung Age Forecasting by Analyzing Exhalations

Spirometers are important devices for following up patients with respiratory diseases. These are mainly located only at hospitals, with all the disadvantages that this can entail. This limits their use and consequently, the supervision of patients. Research efforts focus on providing digital alternatives to spirometers. Although less accurate, the authors claim they are cheaper and usable by many more people worldwide at any given time and place. In order to further popularize the use of spirometers even more, we are interested in also providing user-friendly lung-capacity metrics instead of the traditional-spirometry ones. The main objective, which is also the main contribution of this research, is to obtain a person’s lung age by analyzing the properties of their exhalation by means of a machine-learning method. To perform this study, 188 samples of blowing sounds were used. These were taken from 91 males (48.4%) and 97 females (51.6%) aged between 17 and 67. A total of 42 spirometer and frequency-like features, including gender, were used. Traditional machine-learning algorithms used in voice recognition applied to the most significant features were used. We found that the best classification algorithm was the Quadratic Linear Discriminant algorithm when no distinction was made between gender. By splitting the corpus into age groups of 5 consecutive years, accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of, respectively, 94.69%, 94.45% and 99.45% were found. Features in the audio of users’ expiration that allowed them to be classified by their corresponding lung age group of 5 years were successfully detected. Our methodology can become a reliable tool for use with mobile devices to detect lung abnormalities or diseases.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under contract PID2020-113614RB-C22

A Free App for Diagnosing Burnout (BurnOut App): Development Study

Background: Health specialists take care of us, but who takes care of them? These professionals are the most vulnerable to the increasingly common syndrome known as burnout. Burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as a result of chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. Objective: This study aims to develop a useful app providing burnout self-diagnosis and tracking of burnout through a simple, intuitive, and user-friendly interface. Methods: We present the BurnOut app, an Android app developed using the Xamarin and MVVMCross platforms, which allows users to detect critical cases of psychological discomfort by implementing the Goldberg and Copenhagen Burnout Inventory tests. Results: The BurnOut app is robust, user-friendly, and efficient. The good performance of the app was demonstrated by comparing its features with those of similar apps in the literature. Conclusions: The BurnOut app is very useful for health specialists or users, in general, to detect burnout early and track its evolution.This work was supported by project PID2020-113614RB-C22, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. JV is a Serra Húnter fello

The Greenstream: Geological hazards to a submarine pipeline

Treball final presentat per en Marc Pascual Pifarré pel Màster de Recursos Minerals i Riscos Geològics Especialitat: Riscos Geològics de la Universitat de Barcelona (UB) i la Universistat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), realitzat sota la direcció del Dr. Roger Urgeles Esclasans de l'Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC).-- 24 pages, 28 figures, 3 tables[EN] Submarine geologic hazards are a natural phenomenon that is part of the evolutionary process of our planet. Although they do not cause as many casualties per year as other natural disasters, such as landslides or floods, they may generate catastrophic events with a high number of casualties and enormous economic loses both at short and long term. Therefore, they have to be taken into account due to the human expansion, which is larger day after day, occupying territories exposed to submarine hazards. With the aim of bringing gas from Libya to Sicily, the Italian company ENI built a submarine pipeline: the Greenstream, located in the Sicily channel in the central Mediterranean. The intense tectonics has produced a series of structures that, if reactivated, may pose a threat to the stability of the pipeline or any other underwater structure made within this context. This justifies the development of a hazard analysis of all elements that could create a hazard for such construction. For this reason an initial study has been done both in a qualitative and quantitative ways. The first consisted in developing a map based on the interpretation of geomorphological structures from the seafloor bathymetry and a hill shade map. For the second analysis geotechnical data from reports written prior to the construction of the pipeline were added, allowing the making of a map with the safety factor along the pipeline route. These two evaluations, qualitative and quantitative, contribute to a first approach to hazard assessment along the Greenstream pipeline[CAT] Els perills geològics submarins són un fenomen natural que és part del procés d'evolució del nostre planeta. Tot i que no causen tants danys per any com altres desastres naturals com esllavissades o inundacions, poden generar esdeveniments catastròfics amb un elevat nombre de víctimes i enormes pèrdues econòmiques. Per tant, han de ser presos en compte a causa de l'expansió humana, que és més gran dia rere dia, ocupant territoris exposats a perills submarins. Amb la finalitat de fer arribar gas a Sicília des de Líbia, la empresa italiana ENI va construir l’anomenada Greenstream pipeline, un gasoducte que s’emplaça al canal de Sicília, a la zona central del Mediterrani. Aquesta àrea s’ha vist afectada forta tectònica ha desencadenat una sèrie d’estructures que poden suposar un perill per a l’estabilitat del gasoducte o de qualsevol altre construcció submarina realitzada dins d’aquest context. Aquest fet, justifica l’elaboració d’un anàlisis del perillositat de tots els elements que poden crear una problemàtica per aquesta construcció. Per aquets motiu, s’ha realitzat un primer estudi, el qual s’ha dut a terme en dos vies diferents. El primer, a consistit en l’elaboració d’un mapa basat en la interpretació geomorfològica de les estructures de fons marí a partir de la batimetria i d’un mapa d’ombres. Per al segon anàlisis, s’hi han afegit dades de geotècnia extretes dels informes previs a la construcció del gasoducte, elaborant mapes amb el factor de seguretat al llarg del recorregut d’aquest. Aquests dos anàlisis, qualitatiu i quantitatiu, contribueixen a una primera aproximació del perill al que es pot veure sotmès el gasoducte GreenstreamPeer Reviewe

Bipolar laddering (BLA): a participatory subjective exploration method on user experience

Normally, the paradigm used to study user experience is based on the hypothetic-deductive method but this paradigm can present disadvantages like low results reliability or difficulties to carry out field studies. In this article, a method based on the Socratic paradigm is suggested for analyzing the user-product psychological relationship. Nowadays the Socratic paradigm is only used in some post-modern psychology schools, which applies Socratic techniques for psychological exploration and treatment. Based on this principle an expert-to-expert conversation is established between psychologist and patient. The user can be an expert in the usage of a product whilst the interviewer is an expert in UX studies. Thus, much more reliable information of the user-product relationship can be obtained. Applying this paradigm as a constructive and systematic event allows for increasing the reliability in qualitative user experience studies

Bipolar laddering (BLA):a participatory subjective exploration method on user experience

\u3cp\u3eNormally, the paradigm used to study user experience is based on the hypothetic-deductive method but this paradigm can present disadvantages like low results reliability or difficulties to carry out field studies. In this article, a method based on the Socratic paradigm is suggested for analyzing the user-product psychological relationship. Nowadays the Socratic paradigm is only used in some post-modern psychology schools, which applies Socratic techniques for psychological exploration and treatment. Based on this principle an expert-to-expert conversation is established between psychologist and patient. The user can be an expert in the usage of a product whilst the interviewer is an expert in UX studies. Thus, much more reliable information of the user-product relationship can be obtained. Applying this paradigm as a constructive and systematic event allows for increasing the reliability in qualitative user experience studies.\u3c/p\u3

Relación entre calidad percibida y afinidad emocional de imágenes arquitectónicas en función del dispositivo de visualización. Recomendaciones para su uso docente

En la educación universitaria en general y especialmente la relacionada con la arquitectura, el uso de imágenes digitales está generalizado. No obstante, dicho uso dista de estar optimizado ya que tanto alumnos como profesores ignoran sistemáticamente conceptos clave como las características del medio de visualizado o el usuario final. La tendencia general es la creación de imágenes con elevadas resoluciones, aspecto que conlleva ficheros de elevado tamaño que generan elevados tiempos de carga, edición o transmisión. El presente trabajo analiza cómo afecta el nivel de calidad percibida de la imagen en función de las características de esta y del dispositivo en el que se visualiza, y su relación con la respuesta emocional del usuario. La novedad de la metodología empírica empleada radica en la evaluación de usuarios en el ámbito universitario con técnicas propias de la sociología y la psicología, desde un enfoque propio de los estudios de comunicación audiovisual

Missing Diagnoses During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Year in Review

The COVID-19 pandemic has had major impacts on population health not only through COVID-positive cases, but also via the disruption of healthcare services, which in turn has impacted the diagnosis and treatment of all other diseases during this time. We study changes in all new registered diagnoses in ICD-10 groups during 2020 with respect to a 2019 baseline. We compare new diagnoses in 2019 and 2020 based on administrative records of the public primary health system in Central Catalonia, Spain, which cover over 400,000 patients and 3 million patient visits. We study the ratio of new diagnoses between 2019 and 2020 and find an average decline of 31.1% in new diagnoses, with substantial drops in April (61.1%), May (55.6%), and November (52%). Neoplasms experience the largest decline (49.7%), with heterogeneity in the magnitudes of the declines across different types of cancer diagnoses. While we find evidence of temporal variation in new diagnoses, reductions in diagnoses early in the year are not recouped by the year end. The observed decline in new diagnoses across all diagnosis groups suggest a large number of untreated and undetected cases across conditions. Our findings provide a year-end summary of the impact of the pandemic on healthcare activities and can help guide health authorities to design evidencebased plans to target under-diagnosed conditions in 2021