bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Inclusion of young people with disabilities in the future of work: forecasting workplace, labour market and community-based strategies through an online and accessible Delphi survey protocol
Authors: Jetha Arif , Nasir Kay , Van Eerd Dwayne , Gignac Monique A M , Martin Ginis Kathleen A , Tompa Emile
Published: July 2022

Introduction

The future of work is expected to transform the nature of work, create unique employment barriers for young people living with disabilities and disrupt pathways to better health. We present a Delphi survey protocol through which we aim to obtain future-oriented strategies that can improve the accessibility and inclusion of young people with disabilities in the future of work.

Methods and analysis

The Delphi survey will be conducted primarily online, over two rounds and in a format that is accessible to people living with disabilities. A diverse sample of subject matter experts (eg, policy makers, employment service providers, labour market experts) and participants with lived experience of a disability will be recruited using a purposive sampling strategy. All participants will be asked to complete both rounds of the Delphi survey. In the first round, open-ended questions will be asked about workplace, community-based or policy supports that can foster the inclusion of young people with disabilities in the labour market and that can also address specific future of work trends which span sociopolitical, economic, environmental and technological domains. In the second round of the survey, we will aim to build consensus; participants will be provided with a summary of specific strategies that correspond to the different future of work trends emerging from round one and will be asked to rank-order strategies according to their importance. Following the completion of the second round, consensus-based and future-focused recommendations will be generated that can support young people with disabilities in the world of work over the coming decades.

Ethics and dissemination

The study protocol has been cleared by the University of Toronto’s research ethics board (#40727). The study will identify future-focused support strategies that will be shared with people living with disabilities, policy makers and disability employment service providers through an integrated knowledge transfer and exchange approach.
Impact of a nurse-led teleconsultation strategy for cardiovascular disease management during COVID-19 pandemic in India: a pyramid model feasibility study
Authors: Mohan Bishav , Singh Bhupinder , Singh Kavita , Naik Nitish , Roy Ambuj , Goyal Abhishek , SIngh Gurbhej , Aggarwal Shivaansh , Saini Aftabh , Tandon Rohit , Chhabra Shibba Takkar , Aslam Naved , Wander Gurpreet Singh , Prabhakaran Dorairaj
Published: July 2022

Objective

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the use of telemedicine to maintain continuity of care for patients with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). This study aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing a nurse-led teleconsultation strategy for CVD management during the COVID-19 pandemic in India and evaluated the impact of nurse-led teleconsultations on patient treatment satisfaction.

Design, setting and participants

We developed a two-stage teleconsultation strategy and tested the feasibility of implementing a nurse-led teleconsultation strategy to manage CVD in a northern state (Punjab) in India. A multidisciplinary team of experts developed the treatment protocol used for teleconsultations to manage CVD. Nurses were trained to provide teleconsultation, triaging of patients and referrals to the physicians. Patients with CVD who had an outpatient visit or hospitalisation between September 2019 and March 2020 at the Dayanand Medical College Hospital, Ludhiana, India, were contacted by phone and offered teleconsultations. Telemedicine strategy comprised: stage 1 nurse-led teleconsultations and stage 2 physician-led teleconsultations. Descriptive analysis was performed to report the proportion of patients triaged by the two-stage telemedicine strategy, and patient’s clinical characteristics, and treatment satisfaction between the nurse-led versus physician-led teleconsultations.

Results

Overall, nurse-led stage 1 teleconsultations were provided to 12 042 patients with CVD. The mean (SD) age of the participants was 58.9 years (12.8), and men were 65.4%. A relatively small proportion of patients (6.3%) were referred for the stage-2 physician-led teleconsultations and of these only 8.4% required hospitalisations. During stage 1 nurse-led teleconsultations, patients were referred to the physicians due to uncontrolled diabetes (24.9%), uncontrolled hypertension (18.7%) and congestive heart failure (16.2%). The patient’s treatment satisfaction was similar between the nurse-led versus physician-led teleconsultations (p=0.07).

Conclusion

This study showed that a nurse-led telemedicine strategy is feasible to implement in a resource-constraint setting for triaging patients with CVD and reduces physician’s burden.
Mobile application adjunct to the WHO basic emergency care course: a mixed methods study
Authors: Tenner Andrea G , Greenberg Anya L , Nicholaus Paulina , Rose Christian C , Addo Newton , Shari Catherine Reuben , Friedman Alexandra , George Upendo N , Losak Michael J , Mfinanga Juma A , Sawe Hendry R
Published: July 2022

Objectives

The WHO developed a 5-day basic emergency care (BEC) course using the traditional lecture format. However, adult learning theory suggests that lecture-based courses alone may not promote long-term knowledge retention. We assessed whether a mobile application adjunct (BEC app) can have positive impact on knowledge acquisition and retention compared with the BEC course alone and evaluated perceptions, acceptability and barriers to adoption of such a tool.

Design

Mixed-methods prospective cohort study.

Participants

Adult healthcare workers in six health facilities in Tanzania who enrolled in the BEC course and were divided into the control arm (BEC course) or the intervention arm (BEC course plus BEC app).

Main outcome measures

Changes in knowledge assessment scores, self-efficacy and perceptions of BEC app.

Results

92 enrolees, 46 (50%) in each arm, completed the BEC course. 71 (77%) returned for the 4-month follow-up. Mean test scores were not different between the two arms at any time period. Both arms had significantly improved test scores from enrolment (prior to distribution of materials) to day 1 of the BEC course and from day 1 of BEC course to immediately after BEC course completion. The drop-off in mean scores from immediately after BEC course completion to 4 months after course completion was not significant for either arm. No differences were observed between the two arms for any self-efficacy question at any time point. Focus groups revealed five major themes related to BEC app adoption: educational utility, clinical utility, user experience, barriers to access and barriers to use.

Conclusion

The BEC app was well received, but no differences in knowledge retention and self-efficacy were observed between the two arms and only a very small number of participants reported using the app. Technologic-based, linguistic-based and content-based barriers likely limited its impact.
Cardiac cycle: an observational/interventional study protocol to characterise cardiopulmonary function and evaluate a home-based cycling program in children and adolescents born extremely preterm
Authors: Clarke Melanie M , Willis Claire E , Cheong Jeanie L Y , Cheung Michael M H , Mynard Jonathan P
Published: July 2022

Introduction

Extremely preterm (EP)/extremely low birthweight (ELBW) individuals may have an increased risk for adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Compared with term-born controls, these individuals have poorer lung function and reduced exercise capacity. Exercise interventions play an important role in reducing cardiopulmonary risk, however their use in EP/ELBW cohorts is unknown. This study, cardiac cycle, aims to characterise the cardiopulmonary system of children and adolescents who were born EP compared with those born at term, following acute and chronic exercise bouts.

Methods and analysis

The single-centre study comprises a home-based exercise intervention, with physiological characterisation at baseline and after completion of the intervention. Fifty-eight children and adolescents aged 10–18 years who were born EP and/or with ELBW will be recruited. Cardiopulmonary function assessed via measures of blood pressure, arterial stiffness, capillary density, peak oxygen consumption, lung clearance indexes and ventricular structure/function, will be compared with 58 age-matched and sex-matched term-born controls at baseline and post intervention. The intervention will consist of a 10-week stationary cycling programme, utilising Zwift technology.

Ethics and dissemination

The study is approved by the Ethics Committee of the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne under HREC2019.053. Results will be disseminated via peer-reviewed journal regardless of outcome.

Trial registration number

12619000539134, ANZCTR
Cohort profile: Health in Central Denmark (HICD) cohort - a register-based questionnaire survey on diabetes and related complications in the Central Denmark Region
Authors: Bjerg Lasse , Dalsgaard Else-Marie , Norman Kasper , Isaksen Anders Aasted , Sandbæk Annelli
Published: July 2022

Purpose

The Health in Central Denmark (HICD) cohort is a newly established cohort built on extensive questionnaire data linked with laboratory data and Danish national health and administrative registries. The aim is to establish an extensive resource for (1) gaining knowledge on patient-related topics and experiences that are not measured objectively at clinical health examinations and (2) long-term follow-up studies of inequality in diabetes and diabetes-related complications.

Participants

A total of 1.3 million inhabitants reside in the Central Denmark Region. Using register data and a prespecified diabetes classification algorithm, we identified 45 507 persons aged 18–75 years with prevalent diabetes on 31 December 2018 and a group without diabetes of equal size matched by sex, age and municipality. A 90-item questionnaire was distributed to eligible members of this cohort on 18 November 2020 (estimated time required for completion: 15–20 min).

Findings to date

We invited 90 854 persons to take part in the survey, of whom 51 854 answered the questionnaire (57.1%). Among these respondents, 2,832 persons had type 1 diabetes (55.9%), 21,140 persons had type 2 diabetes (53.2%), while 27,892 persons were part of the matched group without diabetes (60.4%). In addition to questionnaire data, the cohort is linked to nationwide registries that provide extensive data on hospital diagnoses and procedures, medication use and socioeconomic status decades before enrolment while laboratory registries has provided repeated measures of biochemical markers, for example, lipids, albuminuria and glycated haemoglobin up to 10 years before enrolment.

Future plans

The HICD will serve as an extensive resource for studies on patient-related information and inequality in type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Follow-up is planned to continue for at least 10 years and detailed follow-up questionnaires, including new topics, are planned to be distributed during this period, while registry data are planned to be updated every second year.
Biological and psychosocial factors associated with the persistence of pruritus symptoms: protocol for a prospective, exploratory observational study in Germany (individual project of the Interdisciplinary SOMACROSS Research Unit [RU 5211])
Authors: Schneider Gudrun , Ständer Sonja , Kahnert Stefan , Pereira Manuel Pedro , Mess Christian , Huck Volker , Agelopoulos Konstantin , Frank Gina , Schneider Stefan W
Published: July 2022

Introduction

Chronic pruritus (CP) is a symptom of dermatologic, neurologic, systemic and psychosomatic diseases. CP has a prevalence of ~20% in the general population and is therefore a significant burden on society, but the transition from acute pruritus to CP is not well understood. It probably involves interactions between biological and psychosocial factors and pruritus-specific risk factors as well as mechanisms shared with other persistent somatic symptoms addressed in other projects of the SOMACROSS Research Unit (RU). Here we aim to identify psychosocial and biological factors and their interactions which might be associated with the persistence of CP with and without immunologic/inflammatory origin, that is, atopic dermatitis and pruritus on non-inflamed skin. We expect that psychosocial factors relevant to the persistence of symptoms such as fatigue and pain may also show associations to CP.

Methods and analysis

In this prospective, exploratory observational study situated in Germany, three cohorts of 40 patients each with acute exacerbation of atopic dermatitis and chronic atopic dermatitis and 40 CP patients with unaffected skin will be recruited for a comprehensive translational investigation including pruritus-specific and the shared psychosocial assessments of the RU SOMACROSS. Pruritus-specific measures will include questionnaires, quantitative sensory testing, cutaneous nerve fibre morphology, skin barrier morphology, epidermal metabolism and pruritogen blood levels. Within 1 year, patients and 80 age-matched and sex-matched healthy controls will be examined at three time points, allowing cross-sectional comparison and a longitudinal investigation of predictive outcome factors in patients under treatment according to existing guidelines.

Ethics and dissemination

The study has been approved by the ethics committees of Hamburg (2020-10200-BO-ff) and Münster (2020-676 f-S), Germany. All participants are required to provide written informed consent. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, scientific conferences and involvement of relevant stakeholders, patients and the lay public.

Trial registration number

DRKS00026646.
Meals, Education, and Gardens for In-School Adolescents (MEGA): study protocol for a cluster randomised trial of an integrated adolescent nutrition intervention in Dodoma, Tanzania
Authors: Wang Dongqing , Katalambula Leonard Kamanga , Modest Andrea R , Young Tara , Ismail Abbas , Mwanyika-Sando Mary , Tinkasimile Amani , Mosha Dominic , Malero Augustine , Vuai Said , Fawzi Wafaie W
Published: July 2022

Introduction

Secondary schools have the transformative potential to advance adolescent nutrition and provide a unique entry point for nutrition interventions to reach adolescents and their families and communities. Integrated school nutrition interventions offer promising pathways towards improving adolescent nutrition status, food security and building sustainable skill sets.

Methods and analysis

The Meals, Education, and Gardens for In-School Adolescents (MEGA) project aims to implement and evaluate an integrated, school-based nutrition intervention package among secondary schools in the Chamwino District of Dodoma, Tanzania. MEGA is a cluster-randomised controlled trial, including six public secondary schools assigned to three different arms. Two schools will receive the full intervention package, including school meals, school gardens, nutrition education and community workshops. Two schools will receive the partial intervention package, including the school garden, nutrition education and community workshops. Two schools will serve as the controls and will not receive any intervention. The intervention will be implemented for one academic year. Baseline and end-line quantitative data collection will include 750 adolescents and 750 parents. The domains of outcomes for adolescents will include haemoglobin concentrations, anthropometry, educational outcomes and knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding nutrition, agriculture and health. The domains of outcomes for parents will include knowledge, attitudes and practices of nutrition, agriculture and health. End-line focus group discussions will be conducted among selected adolescents, parents and teachers to assess the facilitators and barriers associated with the intervention.

Ethics and dissemination

This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (approval number: IRB20-1623), the Institutional Research Review Committee at the University of Dodoma (approval number: MA.84/261/02) and the Tanzania National Institute for Medical Research (approval number: NIMR/HO/R.8a/Vol. IX/3801). A manuscript with the research findings will be developed for publication. Local dissemination meetings will be held with key stakeholders.

Trial registration number

NCT04788303.; ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier.
Predictors and outcomes of patient safety culture: a cross-sectional comparative study
Authors: Mrayyan Majd T
Published: July 2022

Background

Developing a safety culture in hospitals improves patient safety-related initiatives. Limited recent knowledge about patient safety culture (PSC) exists in the healthcare context.

Aims

This study assessed nurses’ reporting on the predictors and outcomes of PSC and the differences between the patient safety grades and the number of events reported across the components of PSC.

Methods

A cross-sectional comparative research design was conducted. The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (https://www.strobe-statement.org/index.php?id=available-checklists) guided the study. The researcher recruited a convenience sample of 300 registered nurses using the hospital survey on patient safety culture, with a response rate of 75%.

Results

Nurses reported PSC to be ‘moderate’. Areas of strength in PSC were non-punitive responses to errors and teamwork within units. Areas that needed improvements were the supervisor’s/manager’s expectations and actions in promoting safety and communication openness. Some significant correlations were reported among PSC components. Significant differences in means were observed for patient safety grades in six out of the ten PSC components and one outcome item. Organisational learning/continuous improvement, hospital handoffs and transitions, years of experience in the current hospital, the supervisor’s/manager’s expectations and actions in promoting safety and gender predicted PSC. Of the outcomes, around half of the sample reported a ‘very good’ patient safety grade, and ‘no events’ or ‘one to two events’ only were reported, and nurses ‘agreed’ on the majority of items, which indicates a positive perception about the overall PSC in the hospitals. In addition, nurses ‘most of the time’ reported the events when they occurred. PSC components correlated significantly and moderately with PSC outcomes.

Conclusion and relevance to clinical practice

PSC was moderate with an overall positive nurses’ perceptions. PSC’s strengths should be maintained, and areas of improvement should be prioritised and immediately tackled. Assessing PSC is the first step in improving hospitals’ overall performance and quality of services, and improving patient safety practices is essential to improving PSC and clinical outcomes.
Lipid-loaded macrophages as new therapeutic target in cancer
Authors: Marelli Giulia , Morina Nicolò , Portale Federica , Pandini Marta , Iovino Marta , Di Conza Giusy , Ho Ping-Chih , Di Mitri Diletta
Published: July 2022

Macrophages are main players of the innate immune system. They show great heterogeneity and play diverse functions that include support to development, sustenance of tissue homeostasis and defense against infections. Dysfunctional macrophages have been described in multiple pathologies including cancer. Indeed tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are abundant in most tumors and sustain cancer growth, promote invasion and mediate immune evasion. Importantly, lipid metabolism influences macrophage activation and lipid accumulation confers pathogenic features on macrophages. Notably, a subset of lipid-loaded macrophages has been recently identified in many tumor types. Lipid-loaded TAMs support tumor growth and progression and exert immune-suppressive activities. In this review, we describe the role of lipid metabolism in macrophage activation in physiology and pathology and we discuss the impact of lipid accumulation in macrophages in the context of cancer.
Impact of apremilast on quality of life in Behçet’s syndrome: analysis of the phase 3 RELIEF study
Authors: Hatemi Gülen , Mahr Alfred , Takeno Mitsuhiro , Kim Doyoung , Melikoğlu Melike , Cheng Sue , McCue Shannon , Paris Maria , Chen Mindy , Yazici Yusuf
Published: July 2022

Objective

To assess apremilast’s impact on patient quality of life (QoL) in active Behçet’s syndrome and correlations between improvement in patients’ QoL and efficacy measures in the phase 3 RELIEF study.

Methods

QoL measures included Behçet’s Disease QoL (BDQoL), 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey V.2 (SF-36v2) Physical/Mental Component Summary (PCS/MCS) and eight subscale scores, focusing on Physical Functioning (PF). Pearson’s correlation coefficients assessed relationships between efficacy endpoints (oral ulcer count, oral ulcer pain, Behçet’s Syndrome Activity Scale (BSAS), Behçet’s Disease Current Activity Form (BDCAF)) and QoL endpoints for apremilast at Week 12.

Results

Apremilast (n=104) demonstrated significantly greater improvements versus placebo (n=103) in SF-36v2 PCS (3.1 vs 0.9), MCS (4.6 vs ─0.7) and PF (2.9 vs 0.14), respectively (all p<0.05). Mild correlations were observed in improvements of SF-36v2 measures (PCS, MCS, PF) with oral ulcer count (r=−0.11, PCS), and change in oral ulcer pain from baseline (r=−0.28, PCS; r=−0.10, PF) and BSAS (r=−0.38, PCS; r=−0.20, PF; r=−0.16, MCS). Correlations among BDCAF and SF-36v2 components and BDQoL were variable. BDQoL showed mild/moderate correlations with SF-36v2 components (r=−0.18, PCS; r=−0.13, PF; r=−0.45, MCS).

Conclusions

Apremilast was associated with significant improvements in QoL measures of SF-36v2 PCS, MCS and PF and BDQoL in patients with Behçet’s syndrome. Correlations of improvement among QoL endpoints support the beneficial clinical effects of apremilast in Behçet’s syndrome.

Trial registration number

NCT02307513.
Procedures for the content, conduct and format of EULAR/PReS paediatric musculoskeletal ultrasound courses
Authors: Magni-Manzoni Silvia , Muratore Valentina , Vojinović Jelena , Pires Marafon Denise , D'Agostino Maria Antonietta , Naredo Esperanza
Published: July 2022

Background

Despite the worldwide increasing request of education on paediatric musculoskeletal ultrasound (PedMSUS), content, conduct and format of PedMSUS courses have never been internationally agreed.

Objectives

To produce educational procedures for the conduct, content and format of EULAR/PReS PedMSUS courses.

Methods

After a systemic literature review and expert opinion collection, a panel of items for the development of procedures on PedMSUS courses was identified. Agreement on the items was assessed through Delphi surveys among a taskforce of 24 members, which included 18 experts in PedMSUS (8 rheumatologists, 1 radiologist, 9 paediatric rheumatologists), 1 methodologist and rheumatologist expert in MSUS, 2 patient research partners, 1 health professional in rheumatology and 2 EMEUNET/EMERGE members, from 8 different European countries. Each item was assessed through a 5-point Likert scale (0, full disagreement; 5, full agreement); agreement was reached for >75% of answers rating 4–5. All items with agreement were included in the preliminary core set of educational procedures, which underwent external assessment by a broader Consensus group (Faculty and Tutors of previous EULAR PedMSUS courses and PReS Imaging Working Party members), through Delphi survey.

Results

Two Delphi surveys produced the preliminary core set of procedures for basic, intermediate, advanced and teach-the-teachers (TTT) PedMSUS courses. A Delphi survey within the Consensus group produced agreement on the proposed procedures.

Conclusions

Shared EULAR/PReS procedures for the conduct, content and format of basic, intermediate, advanced and TTT PedMSUS courses were identified on international basis.
Development of a small-scale approach to assess sea ice change using weekly ice charts, with application to Anguniaqvia Niqiqyuam Marine Protected Area
Authors: Gully Kevin , Iacozza John , Dunmall Karen M.
Published: July 2022

Broad-scale changes in sea ice have been documented across the Arctic; however, less is known about sea ice decline at smaller scales, focused at high-priority areas such as marine protected areas (MPAs) or places identified as important by Indigenous Peoples. Here, we develop a small-scale application of assessing sea ice change using weekly sea ice charts and apply that to assess sea ice change in Anguniaqvia Niqiqyuam MPA (ANMPA) from 1980 to 2019. Over that 40-year period, sea ice coverage in ANMPA decreased and open water increased by approximately a month (31.6 days at 50% ice; 33.8 days at 20% ice remaining during break-up and 80% ice formed during freeze-up). Break-up has gone from occurring in mid- or late July to occurring in late June or early July. Freeze-up has changed from occurring in mid-October to occurring in early November. As sea ice decline may have dramatic impacts for the ecosystem and consequences for the people that rely on this important area, we highlight the need to better understand the impacts of sea ice decline in small-scale priority places and also contribute to the development of community-scale approaches to increase the accessibility of assessing change.
Evaluating the construct validity of text embeddings with application to survey questions
Authors: Fang Qixiang , Nguyen Dong , Oberski Daniel L.
Published: July 2022

Text embedding models from Natural Language Processing can map text data (e.g. words, sentences, documents) to meaningful numerical representations (a.k.a. text embeddings). While such models are increasingly applied in social science research, one important issue is often not addressed: the extent to which these embeddings are high-quality representations of the information needed to be encoded. We view this quality evaluation problem from a measurement validity perspective, and propose the use of the classic construct validity framework to evaluate the quality of text embeddings. First, we describe how this framework can be adapted to the opaque and high-dimensional nature of text embeddings. Second, we apply our adapted framework to an example where we compare the validity of survey question representation across text embedding models.
Acceleration-based Activity Recognition of Repetitive Works with Lightweight Ordered-work Segmentation Network
Authors: Yoshimura Naoya , Maekawa Takuya , Hara Takahiro , Wada Atsushi , Namioka Yasuo
Published: July 2022

This study presents a new neural network model for recognizing manual works using body-worn accelerometers in industrial settings, named Lightweight Ordered-work Segmentation Network (LOS-Net). In industrial domains, a human worker typically repetitively performs a set of predefined processes, with each process consisting of a sequence of activities in a predefined order. State-of-the-art activity recognition models, such as encoder-decoder models, have numerous trainable parameters, making their training difficult in industrial domains because of the consequent substantial cost for preparing a large amount of labeled data. In contrast, the LOS-Net is designed to be trained on a limited amount of training data. Specifically, the decoder in the LOS-Net has few trainable parameters and is designed to capture only the necessary information for precise recognition of ordered works. These are (i) the boundary information between consecutive activities, because a transition in the performed activities is generally associated with the trend change of the sensor data collected during the manual works and (ii) long-term context regarding the ordered works, e.g., information about the previous and next activity, which is useful for recognizing the current activity. This information is obtained by introducing a module that can collect it at distant time steps using few trainable parameters. Moreover, the LOS-Net can refine the activity estimation by the decoder by incorporating prior knowledge regarding the order of activities. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the LOS-Net using sensor data collected from workers in actual factories and a logistics center, and show that it can achieve state-of-the-art performance.
I Want to Know Your Hand
Authors: Jiokeng Kevin , Jakllari Gentian , Beylot André-Luc
Published: July 2022

We present HoldPass, the first system that can authenticate a user while they simply hold their phone. It uses the heart activity as biometric trait sensed via the hand vibrations in response to the cardiac cycle - a process known as ballistocardiography (BCG). While heart activity has been used for biometric authentication, sensing it through hand-based ballistocardiography (Hand-BCG) using standard sensors found on commodity mobile phones is an uncharted territory. Using a combination of in-depth qualitative analysis and large-scale quantitative analysis involving over 100 volunteers, we paint a detailed picture of opportunities and challenges. Authentication based on Hand-BCG is shown to be feasible but the signal is weak, uniquely prone to motion artifacts and does not land itself to the common approach of alignment-based authentication. HoldPass addresses these challenges by introducing a novel alignment-free authentication scheme that builds on asynchronous signal slicing and a data-driven algorithm for identifying a reduced set of features for characterizing a user. We implement HoldPass and evaluate it using a multi-modal approach: a large-case study involving 112 volunteers and targeted studies with a smaller set of volunteers over a period of several months. The data shows that HoldPass provides an authentication accuracy and user experience on par with or better than state-of-the-art systems with stronger requirements on hardware and/or user participation.
Leveraging Sound and Wrist Motion to Detect Activities of Daily Living with Commodity Smartwatches
Authors: Bhattacharya Sarnab , Adaimi Rebecca , Thomaz Edison
Published: July 2022

Automatically recognizing a broad spectrum of human activities is key to realizing many compelling applications in health, personal assistance, human-computer interaction and smart environments. However, in real-world settings, approaches to human action perception have been largely constrained to detecting mobility states, e.g., walking, running, standing. In this work, we explore the use of inertial-acoustic sensing provided by off-the-shelf commodity smartwatches for detecting activities of daily living (ADLs). We conduct a semi-naturalistic study with a diverse set of 15 participants in their own homes and show that acoustic and inertial sensor data can be combined to recognize 23 activities such as writing, cooking, and cleaning with high accuracy. We further conduct a completely in-the-wild study with 5 participants to better evaluate the feasibility of our system in practical unconstrained scenarios. We comprehensively studied various baseline machine learning and deep learning models with three different fusion strategies, demonstrating the benefit of combining inertial and acoustic data for ADL recognition. Our analysis underscores the feasibility of high-performing recognition of daily activities using inertial-acoustic data from practical off-the-shelf wrist-worn devices while also uncovering challenges faced in unconstrained settings. We encourage researchers to use our public dataset to further push the boundary of ADL recognition in-the-wild.
Auritus
Authors: Saha Swapnil Sayan , Sandha Sandeep Singh , Pei Siyou , Jain Vivek , Wang Ziqi , Li Yuchen , Sarker Ankur , Srivastava Mani
Published: July 2022

Smart ear-worn devices (called earables) are being equipped with various onboard sensors and algorithms, transforming earphones from simple audio transducers to multi-modal interfaces making rich inferences about human motion and vital signals. However, developing sensory applications using earables is currently quite cumbersome with several barriers in the way. First, time-series data from earable sensors incorporate information about physical phenomena in complex settings, requiring machine-learning (ML) models learned from large-scale labeled data. This is challenging in the context of earables because large-scale open-source datasets are missing. Secondly, the small size and compute constraints of earable devices make on-device integration of many existing algorithms for tasks such as human activity and head-pose estimation difficult. To address these challenges, we introduce Auritus, an extendable and open-source optimization toolkit designed to enhance and replicate earable applications. Auritus serves two primary functions. Firstly, Auritus handles data collection, pre-processing, and labeling tasks for creating customized earable datasets using graphical tools. The system includes an open-source dataset with 2.43 million inertial samples related to head and full-body movements, consisting of 34 head poses and 9 activities from 45 volunteers. Secondly, Auritus provides a tightly-integrated hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) optimizer and TinyML interface to develop lightweight and real-time machine-learning (ML) models for activity detection and filters for head-pose tracking. To validate the utlity of Auritus, we showcase three sample applications, namely fall detection, spatial audio rendering, and augmented reality (AR) interfacing. Auritus recognizes activities with 91% leave 1-out test accuracy (98% test accuracy) using real-time models as small as 6-13 kB. Our models are 98-740x smaller and 3-6% more accurate over the state-of-the-art. We also estimate head pose with absolute errors as low as 5 degrees using 20kB filters, achieving up to 1.6x precision improvement over existing techniques. We make the entire system open-source so that researchers and developers can contribute to any layer of the system or rapidly prototype their applications using our dataset and algorithms.
RFCam
Authors: Chen Hongkai , Munir Sirajum , Lin Shan
Published: July 2022

As cameras and Wi-Fi access points are widely deployed in public places, new mobile applications and services can be developed by connecting live video analytics to the mobile Wi-Fi-enabled devices of the relevant users. To achieve this, a critical challenge is to identify the person who carries a device in the video with the mobile device's network ID, e.g., MAC address. To address this issue, we propose RFCam, a system for human identification with a fusion of Wi-Fi and camera data. RFCam uses a multi-antenna Wi-Fi radio to collect CSI of Wi-Fi packets sent by mobile devices, and a camera to monitor users in the area. With low sampling rate CSI data, RFCam derives heterogeneous embedding features on location, motion, and user activity for each device over time, and fuses them with visual user features generated from video analytics to find the best matches. To mitigate the impacts of multi-user environments on wireless sensing, we develop video-assisted learning models for different features and quantify their uncertainties, and incorporate them with video analytics to rank moments and features for robust and efficient fusion. RFCam is implemented and tested in indoor environments for over 800 minutes with 25 volunteers, and extensive evaluation results demonstrate that RFCam achieves real-time identification average accuracy of 97.01% in all experiments with up to ten users, significantly outperforming existing solutions.
Wet-Ra
Authors: Xue Meng , Chen Yanjiao , Gong Xueluan , Zhang Jian , Fan Chunkai
Published: July 2022

Diaper wetness monitoring is essential in various situations (e.g., babies and patients) to guarantee hygiene and avoid embarrassment. Existing diaper wetness monitoring methods include indicator lines, special sensors, and RFID, which require modifications on every diaper piece and cannot be easily checked under visual occlusions (e.g., trousers). In this paper, we introduce Wet-Ra, a contactless, ubiquitous, and user-friendly diaper wetness monitoring system based on RF signals. To extract informative features for wetness detection from RF signals, we construct Continuous-Radio-Snapshot and build corresponding signal representations that capture the distinct patterns of diapers of different wetness levels. We refine the signal representation by eliminating multi-path interference from the environment and mitigating the smearing effect with wavelet multisynchrosqueezing transform. To expand the usability of Wet-Ra, we build a transferable model that yields robust detection results in diversified environments and for new users. We conduct extensive experiments to evaluate Wet-Ra with 47 volunteers in 7 different rooms with three off-the-shelf diaper brands. Experiment results confirm that Wet-Ra can accurately identify diaper wetness in the real environment.
Sensurfaces
Authors: Parilusyan Brice , Teyssier Marc , Martinez-Missir Valentin , Duhart Clément , Serrano Marcos
Published: July 2022

Ubiquitous touch sensing surfaces are largely influenced by touchscreens' look and feel and fail to express the physical richness of existing surrounding materials. We introduce Sensurfaces, a plug-and-play electronic module that allows to rapidly experiment with touch-sensitive surfaces while preserving the original appearance of materials. Sensurfaces is composed of plug-and-play modules that can be connected together to expand the size and number of materials composing a sensitive surface. The combination of Sensurfaces modules allows the creation of small or large multi-material sensitive surfaces that can detect multi-touch but also body proximity, pose, pass, or even human steps. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of Sensurfaces. We propose a design space describing the factors of Sensurfaces interfaces. Then, through a series of technical evaluations, we demonstrate the capabilities of our system. Finally, we report on two workshops validating the usability of our system.
Queer in AI
Authors: Jethwani Hetvi , Subramonian Arjun , Agnew William , Bleile MaryLena , Arora Sarthak , Ryskina Maria , Xiong Jeffrey
Published: July 2022

Queer in AI is an organization that aims to combat the harms faced by queer researchers within AI. Several inclusion initiatives are outlined, including those centered on policy and financial aid.
Machine learning fairness in big tech
Authors: Adjagbodjou Adinawa
Published: July 2022

Auriel Wright talks about her work on advancing fairness and equity in computer vision at Google.
Trending Topics in Software Engineering
Authors: Forti Stefano , Breitenbücher Uwe , Soldani Jacopo
Published: July 2022

Software Engineering (SE) is evolving to make the best out of the constantly changing technological trends, ranging from development to deployment to management and decommissioning of software systems. In this new column Trending Topics in Software Engineering, we aim at providing insights, reports, and outlooks on how researchers and practitioners around the world are working (or planning to work) on those trends. We intend to collect the challenges they are facing or foresee, and explore them in future issues. Our ultimate ambition is to stimulate fruitful discussion in our columns to contribute to identifying the next SE trends, while illustrating them to our audience.
A Systematic Analysis of the Capital One Data Breach: Critical Lessons Learned
Authors: Khan Shaharyar , Kabanov Ilya , Hua Yunke , Madnick Stuart
Published: July 2022

The 2019 Capital One data breach was one of the largest data breaches impacting the privacy and security of personal information of over a 100 million individuals. In most reports about a cyberattack, you will often hear that it succeeded because a single employee clicked on a link in a phishing email or forgot to patch some software, making it seem like an isolated, one-off, trivial problem involving maybe one person, committing a mistake or being negligent. But that is usually not the complete story. By ignoring the related managerial and organizational failures, you are leaving in place the conditions for the next breach. Using our Cybersafety analysis methodology, we identified control failures spanning control levels, going from rather technical issues up to top management, the Board of Directors, and Government regulators. In this analysis, we reconstruct the Capital One hierarchical cyber safety control structure, identify what parts failed and why, and provide recommendations for improvements. This work demonstrates how to discover the true causes of security failures in complex information systems and derive systematic cybersecurity improvements that likely apply to many other organizations. It also provides an approach that individuals can use to evaluate and better secure their organizations.
Trigger films to teach core competencies of ethics and professionalism to first-year medical and nursing students
Authors: Gangwani Nonita , Singh Satendra , Khaliq Farah
Published: July 2022

Teaching ethics is an important part of the medical curriculum, and since first-year students are not in direct contact with patients it is necessary to think of innovative methods that can be used to teach. We have done the pilot testing for the same, using trigger films among undergraduate medical and nursing students.
L.E.A.P. into Action! Four mnemonics for teaching action potentials and polarizing ions in the neuron to health professions students
Authors: Mahaffey Angela L.
Published: July 2022

Four mnemonics were implemented during a human physiology for health professions lecture on the nervous system, cell membrane, and action potentials. Student responses to the mnemonics survey indicated a positive rate ≥ 93% of effectiveness.
Kv Channel Ancillary Subunits: Where Do We Go from Here?
Authors: Abbott Geoffrey W.
Published: July 2022

Voltage-gated potassium (Kv) channels each comprise four pore-forming α-subunits that orchestrate essential duties such as voltage sensing and K+ selectivity and conductance. In vivo, however, Kv channels also incorporate regulatory subunits—some Kv channel specific, others more general modifiers of protein folding, trafficking, and function. Understanding all the above is essential for a complete picture of the role of Kv channels in physiology and disease.
Effects of UV Aging on Physical Properties and Physicochemical Properties of ASA Polymer-Modified Asphalt
Authors: Sun Xiaolong , Peng Qinyuan , Zhu Yongqiang , Chen Qian , Yuan Junshen , Zhu Yunchu
Published: July 2022

The purpose of this study was to characterize and evaluate the effects of UV radiation on the rheological and physicochemical properties of ASA polymer-modified asphalt. The conventional properties (penetration, softening point, ductility, and Brookfield viscosity) of ASA polymer-modified asphalt were tested. Based on rheology, the effect of different UV irradiation times on the high-temperature performance of ASA polymer-modified asphalt was systematically characterized, the thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) was used to analyze thermogravimetric properties of ASA polymer-modified asphalt, and the micromorphological characteristics of ASA-modified asphalt under different UV irradiation times were characterized by scanning electron microscope (FIB-SEM). The results show that the ASA polymer has a significant effect on the basic properties of asphalt. Compared with the base asphalt, the high-temperature stability of the modified asphalt was decreased, and the low-temperature ductility performance was improved. ASA polymer can effectively reduce the aging effect of ultraviolet radiation on the base asphalt and inhibit the generation of microcracks. ASA polymers improve the thermal stability of asphalt binders. During the aging process, the formation of carbonyl and sulfoxide groups was inhibited, indicating that ASA polymer can effectively delay the UV aging of asphalt.
Study on Heat Exchange Structure Design and Propulsion Performance of Solar Thermal Thruster
Authors: Zhang Haoran , Huang Minchao , Hu Xiaoping
Published: July 2022

This paper designed a platelet heat exchanger in the solar thermal thruster and analyzed the unsteady-state conjugate heat transfer characteristics between heat exchanger and propellant. The conjugate heat transfer (CHT) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of the 3D model of the platelet under steady-state conditions was carried out with different mass flow rates to find the empirical correlation between the average Nusselt number and the average Reynolds number. The unsteady-state 1D simplified model of the heat exchanger was established using a loose coupling algorithm based on quasi-steady flow domain and finally verified by experiments. The results show that the platelet structure could heat the working medium to more than 2380 K with the heat transfer efficiency of 87% and produce a peak thrust of 0.57 N and specific impulse of 2200 m/s; in steady state, the outlet temperature and heat transfer efficiency of the heat exchanger were stable at 1950 K and 69%. Moreover, 1D model could accurately reflect the real heat exchange situation to a certain extent, the simulation error was less than 5% compared with the 3D model, and the calculation time was greatly shortened, making it more convenient to adjust the heat exchange strategy. The experimental results were consistent with the simulation results at the initial stage of heat exchange, and the difference was mainly reflected in the steady-state stage, which might be caused by the lack of precision of the experimental equipment.
Financial Security Risk Detection in Colleges and Universities Relying on Big Data Clustering Center Scheduling Algorithm
Authors: Xia Chengjuan
Published: July 2022

In order to improve the monitoring effect of financial security risk in colleges and universities, this paper studies the financial security risk control of colleges and universities combined with the big data clustering center scheduling algorithm and inverts the multilevel sampling algorithm of quantum potential support. Moreover, this paper considers that the multilevel sampling algorithm is applied to the potential backscattering problem of the stationary Schrödinger equation to invert the support of the potential in the equation. In addition, this paper uses far-field data to invert the generalized linear sampling method of potential support and builds a college financial security risk monitoring model that relies on the big data clustering center scheduling algorithm. The experimental study shows that the financial security risk monitoring system for colleges and universities based on the big data clustering center scheduling algorithm proposed in this paper has good risk clustering and risk identification effects.