scholarly journals Spirometry Has Added Value Over Electrodermal Activity as a Physiological Marker of Mental Load.

Author(s):  
Tobias Neukirchen ◽  
Moritz Stork ◽  
Matthias Hoppe ◽  
Christian Vorstius

Abstract The objective distinction of different types of mental demands as well as their intensity is relevant for research and practical application but poses a challenge for established physiological methods. We investigated whether respiratory gases (oxygen uptake and carbon dioxide output) are suitable to distinguish between emotional and cognitive demands. To this end, we compared the application of spirometry with an established procedure, namely electrodermal activity (EDA). Our results indicate that electrodermal activity shows a strong responsivity to emotional stress induction, which was highly correlated with its responsivity to cognitive load. Respiratory gases were both sensitive and specific to cognitive load and had the advantage of being predictive for cognitive performance as well as self-reported emotional state. These results support the notion that respiratory gases are a valuable complement to common physiological procedures in the detection and discrimination of different mental demands.

2020 ◽  
Vol 319 (3) ◽  
pp. R366-R375
Author(s):  
Hugo F. Posada-Quintero ◽  
Youngsun Kong ◽  
Kimberly Nguyen ◽  
Cara Tran ◽  
Luke Beardslee ◽  
...  

We have tested the feasibility of thermal grills, a harmless method to induce pain. The thermal grills consist of interlaced tubes that are set at cool or warm temperatures, creating a painful “illusion” (no tissue injury is caused) in the brain when the cool and warm stimuli are presented collectively. Advancement in objective pain assessment research is limited because the gold standard, the self-reporting pain scale, is highly subjective and only works for alert and cooperative patients. However, the main difficulty for pain studies is the potential harm caused to participants. We have recruited 23 subjects in whom we induced electric pulses and thermal grill (TG) stimulation. The TG effectively induced three different levels of pain, as evidenced by the visual analog scale (VAS) provided by the subjects after each stimulus. Furthermore, objective physiological measurements based on electrodermal activity showed a significant increase in levels as stimulation level increased. We found that VAS was highly correlated with the TG stimulation level. The TG stimulation safely elicited pain levels up to 9 out of 10. The TG stimulation allows for extending studies of pain to ranges of pain in which other stimuli are harmful.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Vegas Cañas ◽  
J. Fidel González Rouco ◽  
Jorge Navarro Montesinos ◽  
Elena García Bustamante ◽  
Etor E. Lucio Eceiza ◽  
...  

<p>This work provides a first assessment of temperature variability from interannual to multidecadal timescales in Sierra de Guadarrama, located in central Spain, from observations and regional climate model (RCM) simulations. Observational data are provided by the Guadarrama Monitoring Network (GuMNet; www.ucm.es/gumnet) at higher altitudes, up to 2225 masl, and by the Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMet) at lower sites. An experiment at high horizontal resolution of 1 km using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) RCM, feeding from ERA Interim inputs, is used. Through model-data comparison, it is shown that the simulations are annually and seasonally highly representative of the observations, although there is a tendency in the model to underestimate observational temperatures, mostly at high altitudes. Results show that WRF provides an added value in relation to the reanalysis, with improved correlation and error metrics relative to observations.</p><p>The analysis of temperature trends shows a warming in the area during the last 20 years, very significant in autumn. When spanning the analysis to the whole observational period, back to the beginning of the 20th century at some sites, significant annual and seasonal temperature increases of 1℃/decade develop, most of them happening during de 1970s, although not as intense as during the last 20 years.</p><p>The temporal variability of temperature anomalies in the Sierra de Guadarrama is highly correlated with the temperatures in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula. This relationship can be extended broadly over south-western Europe.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Fitzgerald Ehrich ◽  
Steven J. Howard ◽  
Sahar Bokosmaty ◽  
Stuart Woodcock

The accurate measurement of the cognitive load a learner encounters in a given task is critical to the understanding and application of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT). However, as a covert psychological construct, cognitive load represents a challenging measurement issue. To date, this challenge has been met mostly by subjective self-reports of cognitive load experienced in a learning situation. In this paper, we find that a valid and reliable index of cognitive load can be obtained through item response modeling of student performance. Specifically, estimates derived from item response modeling of relative difficulty (i.e., the difference between item difficulty and person ability locations) can function as a linear measure that combines the key components of cognitive load (i.e., mental load, mental effort, and performance). This index of cognitive load (relative difficulty) was tested for criterion (concurrent) validity in Year 2 learners (N = 91) performance on standardized educational numeracy and literacy assessments. Learners’ working memory (WM) capacity significantly predicted our proposed cognitive load (relative difficulty) index across both numeracy and literacy domains. That is, higher levels of WM were related to lower levels of cognitive load (relative difficulty), in line with fundamental predictions of CLT. These results illustrate the validity, utility and potential of this objective item response modeling approach to capturing individual differences in cognitive load across discrete learning tasks.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shan Zhang ◽  
Ying Wu ◽  
Ziyuan Fu ◽  
Yating Lu ◽  
Qingyu Wang ◽  
...  

Rheumatology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catharina C Moor ◽  
Sander I van Leuven ◽  
Marlies S Wijsenbeek ◽  
Madelon C Vonk

Abstract Objectives Frequent monitoring of forced vital capacity at home may be of added value in patients with SSc-associated interstitial lung disease (SSc-ILD) to monitor disease progression and guide treatment decisions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and optimal frequency of online home spirometry using a home monitoring application in patients with SSc-ILD. Methods This was a prospective, observational study in patients with SSc-ILD. Patients evaluated for 3 months the online home monitoring application ILD-online integrated with a Bluetooth-connected spirometer. Patients performed daily home spirometry for 6 weeks and weekly home spirometry for 6 weeks. In addition, patients completed an evaluation questionnaire after 3 months and online patient-reported outcomes at baseline and 3 months. Results Ten consecutive patients participated. Mean adherence to home spirometry was 98.8% (s.d. 1.5). Home and hospital spirometry were highly correlated. The mean coefficient of variation was lower for weekly [2.45% (s.d. 1.19)] than daily [3.86% (s.d. 1.45)] forced vital capacity measurements (P = 0.005). All patients considered the home monitoring application and spirometer easy to use and no patients considered home spirometry burdensome. All patients would recommend home monitoring to other patients with SSc. Conclusions Home spirometry using an online home monitoring application is feasible in patients with SSc-ILD, with high adherence and patient satisfaction. Larger long-term studies are needed to assess whether home spirometry can detect the progression of ILD in patients with SSc.


Author(s):  
Mikolaj Buchwald ◽  
Szymo Kupinski ◽  
Adam Bykowski ◽  
Joanna Marcinkowska ◽  
Dawid Ratajczyk ◽  
...  

2007 ◽  
Vol 2007 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tian Lan ◽  
Deniz Erdogmus ◽  
Andre Adami ◽  
Santosh Mathan ◽  
Misha Pavel

We present an ambulatory cognitive state classification system to assess the subject's mental load based on EEG measurements. The ambulatory cognitive state estimator is utilized in the context of a real-time augmented cognition (AugCog) system that aims to enhance the cognitive performance of a human user through computer-mediated assistance based on assessments of cognitive states using physiological signals including, but not limited to, EEG. This paper focuses particularly on the offline channel selection and feature projection phases of the design and aims to present mutual-information-based techniques that use a simple sample estimator for this quantity. Analyses conducted on data collected from 3 subjects performing 2 tasks (n-back/Larson) at 2 difficulty levels (low/high) demonstrate that the proposed mutual-information-based dimensionality reduction scheme can achieve up to 94% cognitive load estimation accuracy.


Author(s):  
Jiaxu Zhou ◽  
Xiaohu Jia ◽  
Guoqiang Xu ◽  
Junhan Jia ◽  
Rihan Hai ◽  
...  

Due to differences in cognitive ability and physiological development, the evacuation characteristics of children are different from those of adults. This study proposes a novel method of using wearable sensors to collect data (e.g., electrodermal activity, EDA; heart rate variability, HRV) on children’s physiological responses, and to continuously and quantitatively evaluate the effects of different types of alarm sounds during the evacuation of children. In order to determine the optimum alarm for children, an on-site experiment was conducted in a kindergarten to collect physiological data for responses to different types of alarm sounds during the evacuation of 42 children of different ages. The results showed that: (1) The alarm sounds led to changes in physiological indicators of children aged 3–6 years, and the effects of different types of alarm sounds on EDA and HRV activities were significantly different (p < 0.05). Skin conductance (SC), skin conductance tonic (SCT) and skin conductance level (SCL) can be used as the main indicators for analysing EDA of children in this experiment (p < 0.05), and the indicators of ultralow frequency (ULF) and very low frequency (VLF) for HRV were not affected by the type of alarm sounds (p > 0.05). (2) Unlike adults, kindergarten children were more susceptible to the warning siren. The combined voice and warning alarm had optimal effects in stimulating children to perceive risk. (3) For children aged 3–6 years, gender had a significant impact on children’s reception to evacuation sound signals (p < 0.05): Girls are more sensitive than boys in receiving evacuation sound signals, similar to findings of studies of risk perception of adult males and females. In addition, the higher the age, the greater the sensitivity to evacuation sound signals, which accords with results of previous studies on the evacuation dynamics of children.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 3301
Author(s):  
Sara M. Andrés-Vizán ◽  
Joaquín M. Villanueva-Balsera ◽  
J. Valeriano Álvarez-Cabal ◽  
Gemma M. Martínez-Huerta

In the process of converting pig iron into steel, some co-products are generated—among which, basic oxygen furnace (BOF) slag is highlighted due to the great amount generated (about 126 kg of BOF slag per ton of steel grade). Great efforts have been made throughout the years toward finding an application to minimize the environmental impact and to increase sustainability while generating added value. Finding BOF slag valorization is difficult due to its heterogeneity, strength, and overall swallowing, which prevents its use in civil engineering projects. This work is focused on trying to resolve the heterogeneity issue. If many different types of steel are manufactured, then different types of slag could also be generated, and for each type of BOF slag, there is an adequate valorization option. Not all of the slag can be valorized, but it can be a tool for reducing the amount that must go to landfill and to minimize the environmental impact. An analysis by means of data mining techniques allows a classification of BOF slag to be obtained, and each one of these types has a better adjustment to certain valorization alternatives. In the plant used as an example of the application of these studies, eight different slag clusters were obtained, which were then linked to their different potential applications with the aim of increasing the amount valorized.


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