Browse Topic: Medical, health, and wellness
A study of mental workload and the resultant cognitive-motor behavior is essential to understanding the intrinsic limitations of the human information processing system, the results of which have impact on the design of safety-critical systems. While the effects of increased task demand on mental workload and the quality of cognitive-motor performance has been previously investigated, it remains unclear how system controllability (i.e., expected handling qualities) impacts perceptual workload and performance. Furthermore, traditional EEG spectral metrics lack the temporal specificity to capture dynamic workload. Consequently, the purpose of this experiment was to examine objective brain dynamics, task performance, and subjective ratings during piloting tracking tasks of varying complexity while also challenging participants with different expected levels of handling qualities. Our results revealed a trend suggestive of increasing mental workload related to increased task complexity and varying levels of expected handling qualities. To examine dynamic operator workload with increased temporal fidelity, we introduce a time-resolved cross-correlation based approach to assess synchronous dynamics between cortical activity and behavioral performance. The findings herein highlight the practical significance of including analyses of the time domain in workload assessment, in addition to the functional utility of a combination of metrics in the study of the temporally linked cognitive-motor output associated with increased mental workload.
This paper investigates the use of multi-modal cueing through full-body haptic feedback to enhance pilot-vehicle system (PVS) performance, reduce mental workload (MWL), and increase situational awareness (SA) in both good and degraded visual environments (GVE/DVE). Piloted simulations were conducted using an H-60-like flight dynamics model in a virtual reality (VR) motion-based simulator, evaluating two ADS-33-like mission task elements (MTEs) – precision hover and slalom – under visual-only and combined visual and haptic feedback conditions in both GVE and DVE. The H-60 flight dynamics were augmented with a dynamic inversion (DI)- based stability augmentation system (SAS), implementing rate-command/attitude hold (RCAH) response type on the roll, pitch, and yaw axes and altitude hold response type on the vertical axis. The SAS was designed to achieve Level 1 handling qualities per ADS-33 standards. The full-body haptic cueing strategy leveraged an outer-loop DI control law, which provided vibrotactile feedback to cue desired roll, pitch, and yaw attitudes to the pilot. Roll cues were delivered via tactors mounted on the upper arms, pitch cues via tactors on the chest and back, and yaw cues via tactors on the calves. Eight test subjects participated in the piloted simulations, including three U.S. Navy test pilots and five subjects with different flying experiences. Results indicated that haptic feedback significantly improved hover performance, reducing MWL and enhancing SA, particularly in DVE. However, in the slalom task, predefined haptic guidance misaligned with pilots’ individual control strategies, leading to performance degradation. This finding highlights the need for pilot-specific adaptive haptic feedback to mitigate inconsistencies in dynamic maneuvering tasks.
ABSTRACT Imagine Soldiers reacting to an unpredictable, dynamic, stressful situation on the battlefield. How those Soldiers think about the information presented to them by the system or other Soldiers during this situation – and how well they translate that into thinking into effective behaviors – is critical to how well they perform. Importantly, those thought processes (i.e., cognition) interact with both external (e.g., the size of the enemy force, weather) and internal (e.g., ability to communicate, personality, fatigue level) factors. The complicated nature of these interactions can have dramatic and unexpected consequences, as is seen in the analysis of military and industrial disasters, such as the shooting down of Iran Air flight 655, or the partial core meltdown on Three Mile Island. In both cases, decision makers needed to interact with equipment and personnel in a stressful, dynamic, and uncertain environment. Similarly, the complex and dynamic nature of the contemporary operating environment faced by the United States Army makes it clear that mission performance depends on systems that are engineered to ensure that the complex systems of people and technology (i.e., sociotechnical systems) can sustain high levels of cognitive performance needed for succeed. This session overview highlights cognitive engineering and illustrates how modeling and simulation can address different aspects of this important field.
Abstract Occupant packaging is one of the key tasks involved in the early architectural phase of a vehicle. Accommodation, as a convention, is generally considered related to a car’s interior. Typical roominess metrics of the occupant like hip room, shoulder room, and elbow room are defined with the door in its closed condition. Several other roominess metrics like knee room, leg room, head room, and the like are also specified. While all the guidelines are defined with doors in their closed condition, it is also important to consider the dynamics that exist while the occupant is entering the vehicle. This article expands the traditional understanding of occupant accommodation beyond conventionally considering the vehicle interior’s ability to accommodate anthropometry. It broadens the scope to include dynamic conditions, such as when doors are opened, providing a more realistic and practical perspective. As a luxury car manufacturer, it is important to ensure the best overall customer experience at each touch point of the vehicle. When the customer enters the vehicle, there should be sufficient space provided by the door opening angle for a comfortable entry. The larger the opening angle, the better is the “entry accommodation” and vice versa. However, a wide-open door also necessitates the customer to bend more, after being seated, to reach its handle and close it. Thus, it becomes a compromise between what is possible as accommodation while the customer is entering the vehicle and how easy it is to close the door after being seated. The same logic holds good while the customer opens the door and exits the vehicle. This article aims to develop a customer loss function (CLF) between the two conflicting criteria by considering relevant anthropometric distribution of customers. This study focuses on driver compartment and the methodology developed is also pertinent to rear compartment with minor adaptations. Since driver’s seating position is heavily dependent on anthropometry, finer details of occupant seating position are also considered in this study. CLF developed in this article will help the designer and packaging engineers in making informed decisions on the door opening angle, by being conscious of the customer loss/gain for defined performance metrics.
Prior to 1950, use of the helicopter for evacuation was extremely limited, as military top brass often considered it a worthless contraption; thus, rescue was uncertain at best for downed pilots and wounded soldiers stranded behind enemy lines. However, this all changed in Korea, where twelve U.S. Army helicopters from three detachments, working in tandem with seven, newly created Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) units, would fundamentally change the Army's medical-evacuation doctrine forever. Using several models of the Bell H-13, the Hiller H-23, and the Sikorsky H-5 and H-19, this small band of courageous pilots pushed themselves and their aircraft to their limits, transporting 21,212 critically wounded soldiers for life-saving surgery to various MASH units, cutting the fatality rate from World War II in half. Adopting the 3rd Air Rescue Squadron's motto, "That Others May Live," these pilots and their helicopters were affectionately known to the wounded as "Angels of Mercy."
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This slash document collects general reference material related to gaseous oxygen system flow requirements and sizing calculations. This document will assist oxygen system equipment designers and operators to establish systems and equipment requirements. The document consists of charts, tables, system schematics, system requirements, and sample calculations for system sizing.
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This SAE Information Report provides definitions and discussions of key terms concerning driver drowsiness and fatigue, and basic information on measuring drowsiness and fatigue. It also includes information and concepts for driver drowsiness as they relate to the safe operation of a vehicle. The key driver drowsiness and fatigue causal factors include the following: (1) sleep quality and quantity, (2) time of day, (3) time awake, (4) time on task (modulated by characteristics of the driving task), (5) task-related fatigue (variations of arousal levels related to task underload and overload), and (6) combinations of these factors. Medical conditions, medication, alcohol, or drugs exacerbate drowsiness; however, the discussion in this report is limited to fatigue concepts. This report has two primary outputs: (1) definitions and discussions of key terms concerning driver drowsiness and fatigue, and (2) basic information on measuring drowsiness and fatigue and its effects on the safe operation of a vehicle. These include the physiological and cognitive effects of driver drowsiness and fatigue on driving safety. Examples of effect of driver drowsiness and fatigue on driving safety include those related to vehicle control, operator vigilance (sustained attention), reaction times (object and event detection and response), situational awareness, physiological indicators, subjective assessments, and combinations thereof. For definitions of driving performance measures, refer to SAE J2944. This report applies to all worldwide motor vehicle passenger cars and light trucks, as well as heavy trucks, buses, motorcycles, and mopeds. The intended users of the document are practitioners and researchers in the automotive industry, academia, and other organizations with interest in driver drowsiness and fatigue, driving and driver performance assessment, and road safety.
This study is a part of an ongoing series of studies examining cueing modalities to circumvent the in-flight effects of degraded visual environments (DVEs) in a rotary wing aircraft. The suite of cueing modalities investigated include visual cueing symbology, auditory cueing, and tactile cueing. This study compared the use of combinations of these cueing modalities to find which resulted in the best performance and the least amount of workload required of the pilot. This specific paper focuses on the analysis of pupillometric data collected through video-based eye-tracking to measure cognitive workload. Results are discussed.
Researchers have developed biomaterial-based inks that respond to and quantify chemicals released from the body (e.g., in sweat and potentially other biofluids) or in the surrounding environment by changing color. The inks can be screen printed onto textiles such as clothes, shoes, or even face masks in complex patterns and at high resolution, providing a detailed map of human response or exposure.
A deep-learning powered single-strained electronic skin sensor can capture human motion from a distance. The single strain sensor placed on the wrist decodes complex five-finger motions in real time with a virtual 3D hand that mirrors the original motions. The deep neural network boosted by rapid situation learning (RSL) ensures stable operation regardless of its position on the surface of the skin.
Researchers have constructed a paper-based device as a model of wearables that can collect, transport, and analyze sweat in next-generation wearable technology. Using a process known as capillary action, akin to water transport in plants, the device uses evaporation to wick fluid that mimics the features of human sweat to a sensor for up to 10 days or longer.
Rice University neuroengineers have created a tiny surgical implant that can electrically stimulate the brain and nervous system without using a battery or wired power supply.
The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has created uncertainty and delays in procedures, but hospitals and surgeons still need a steady supply of product, meaning that the orthopedics industry must keep innovating. One thing is certain, 2020 will be a turbulent year for procedure demand. Early on, analysts predicted that because many orthopedic procedures are elective, they would be postponed to help free up space for critically ill patients. While the recovery of orthopedic procedures has begun more quickly than analysts initially expected, it seems likely it will take longer than expected to reach full recovery as we look into 2021. June ordering patterns were already much higher than May, but the quicker recovery may indicate a second decline (W-shaped) versus a sharp decline followed by a quick recovery (V-shaped).
Today’s medical device manufacturers are facing changing and more challenging requirements for their products. Users are demanding less-invasive devices, and in some cases, wearable devices that are robust and long lasting. Regulations are becoming ever more stringent and costly, especially in terms of biodegradability. Yet at the same time, device manufacturers want to meet user demands by including the latest technologies, while keeping their costs under control.
We are living in a digitally integrated and connected world. Evidenced by the use of smartphones, smartwatches, and other smart devices, there is no ending this trend. This holds true across many industries and applications, but is especially prevalent within medtech devices — a market that’s predicted to reach $432.6 billion by 2025.1
A device that monitors health conditions in the body using a person's sweat has been developed by Penn State and Xiangtan University researchers, according to Huanyu “Larry” Cheng, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics, Penn State.
Over the years, technological innovation has allowed the medical equipment sector to become a mission-critical part of the healthcare industry, delivering such benefits as lower operating costs and improved patient outcomes. But competitive pressures are driving the need for device developers to provide a richer experience for users, incorporating broader capabilities and features and more options.
The security of connected health technology is often assumed to exist when it does not, or considered to be prohibitively expensive or complex, or, worst of all, relegated to an afterthought. This is dangerous thinking, especially as the industry increasingly moves to a smartphone-based command-and-control model for these safety-critical applications.
EPFL researchers have developed electronic fibers that, when embedded in textiles, can collect a wealth of information about our bodies by measuring subtle and complex fabric deformations. Their technology relies on transmission line theory and offers a host of applications, such as in healthcare and robotics.
Conventional melanoma therapies, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, suffer from the toxicity and side effects of repeated treatments due to the aggressive and recurrent nature of melanoma cells.
Washington State University researchers have developed a technology that is more than 30 times more sensitive than current lab-based tests in finding early stage cancer biomarkers in blood.
A novel stretchable material, when used in light-emitting capacitor devices, enables highly visible illumination at low operating voltages, and it is also resilient to damage due to its self-healing properties.
Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have designed a new face mask that they believe could stop viral particles as effectively as N95 masks. Unlike N95 masks, the new masks were designed to be easily sterilized and used many times.
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