User Body Movements Research Articles

Development of an Embodied Avatar-Agent Communication System to Support Communication Education for Clinical Engineer Students

Currently, there are few opportunities to develop communication skills in clinical engineering training schools in Japan. Therefore, we developed a system to interact with an agent equipped with a rule-based chatbot, which was created with reference to the objective clinical competence examination (OSCE). In a previous study, a virtual hospital room system was developed for nursing students to interact with the rule-based chatbot agent. In this study, we added an avatar that reflects the user's embodied movements to the system. In the virtual space created, the agent playing the patient, equipped with a rule-based chatbot, responds to the user's voice, and the avatar uses a webcam to project the user's body movements in real time. This system allows for repetitive learning, which is difficult with face-to-face training. In addition, the avatar, which reflects the user's body movements, exists in the same space as the agent, allowing the user to view his or her own body movements objectively.

Accurate Respiration Monitoring for Mobile Users With Commercial RFID Devices

Vital signs (e.g., respiration rate or heartbeat rate) sensing is of great importance to implement pervasive in-home healthcare. Traditional vital signs monitoring approaches usually require users to wear some dedicated sensors. These approaches are intrusive and inconvenient to use, especially for elderly people. Some non-intrusive vital signs monitoring approaches based on wireless sensing have been proposed in recent years. However, these approaches require the target user to be in situ during the monitoring process, which greatly limits their utilization in practical scenarios where the target users usually move around. In this paper, we propose RF-RMM, an RFID-based approach to accurate and continuous respiration monitoring for mobile users. The major challenge in respiration monitoring for moving people is that the tiny body displacement caused by the user's respiration is overwhelmed by the user's entire body movement. To address this issue, we propose a novel approach that uses a pair of tags to eliminate the effect of the user's body movement. We fuse the data from the paired tags to cancel the effect of the user's entire body movement and retain only the displacement caused by the user's respiration. Another challenging issue in implementing RF-RMM is how to resolve the phase ambiguity problem when the target user moves around, which becomes more serious than in the static case. We propose a distance tracking algorithm to track the phase transition during the user's movement, according to which the phase ambiguity problem can be well handled. We implement RF-RMM on commercial RFID devices and conduct extensive real-world experiments to evaluate its performance. The results show that RF-RMM achieves accurate respiration rate monitoring with an average error of 0.54 BPM in estimating different users' respiration rate and an average relative error of less than 13% in estimating the user's individual breath length.

THE INFLUENCE OF HUMAN MOVEMENT ON THE FORMATION OF ADAPTIVE ARCHITECTURE

Adaptive architecture relates to buildings that are specially designed to adapt to their inhabitants and their environments and in order to design a biologically adaptive system, we can observe how living creatures in nature are constantly adapting to various external and internal stimuli can be a great source of inspiration. The issue is not just how to create a system capable of change but also how to look for quality change and determine the incentive to adapt. The research deals with the possibilities of transforming spaces by using the human body as an active tool, and the research aims to design and build an effective dynamic structural system that can be applied on an architectural scale and integrate them all into creating a new adaptive system that allows us to envision a new way to design, build and experiment with architecture in a dynamic way. The main objective was to address the possibility of a mutual transition between the user and the architectural component so that the architecture can adapt to the user, as the user adapts to the architecture. Motivation is the desire to engage with the psychological benefits of an environment that can respond and thus empathize with human emotions through its ability to adapt to the user. The adaptive affiliations of kinematic structures have been discussed in architectural research for more than a decade, and these issues have proven their effectiveness in the development of kinematic, responsive and adaptive structures and their contribution to an “intelligent architecture”. A wide range of strategies have also been used in building the mechanisms of complex kinematic and robotic systems to achieve convertibility and adaptability in engineering and architecture. One of the major contributions to this research is the exploration of how the physical environment can alter its shape to accommodate various spatial displays based on the user's body movement. The main focus is on the relationship among materials, shape and reactive control systems and the intent is to create a scenario where the user can move and the structure interacts without any physical contact. , the language of soft form transformation and interaction control technology will provide new possibilities for enriching human-environment interactions.

Clothing size recommender on real-time fitting simulation using skeleton tracking and rigging

Virtual fitting room (VFR) is a technology that replaces conventional fitting rooms. The VFR is not only available in shops, malls, and any shopping center but also in online stores, which makes VFR technology more and more developed, primarily to support online garment sales. VFR become a trending research interest since Microsoft has developed a Kinect tracking system. In this paper, we proposed the interactive 3D virtual fitting room using Microsoft's Kinect tracking and the rigging technique from 3D Modeling Blender and to implement the VFR. VFR manages the progress of virtual fitting that forms the three-dimensional simulations and visualization of garments on virtual counterparts of the real prospective buyer (user). Users can view the clothing animation on the various poses that are following the user body movements. The system can evaluate the user’s match, guiding them to choose the suitable size of the clothes using Euclidean distance.

Motion-Based Routing and Transmission Power Control in Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are characterized by large fluctuations in channel losses due to body shadowing. These fluctuations follow the patterns of the user's body movements. For example, in the case of walking and running, channel losses follow cyclical patterns. This paper presents an algorithm for transmission power control (TPC) and dynamic routing in WBANs when the user performs periodic body movements. The objective of the algorithm is to decrease the average power consumption to deliver packets to a common sink provided that a desired packet delivery rate (PDR) is guaranteed. This problem is important in WBANs given that replacing batteries is detrimental to several applications of WBANs, especially when sensors of the WBAN are implanted on the user's body. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed algorithm is the first to consider the joint problem of TPC and dynamic routing while not relying on non-local data (i.e., measurements of received power). This characteristic is important because traditional algorithms rely on data not local to transmitters, so these data have to be transmitted, consuming power unnecessarily. Traditional algorithms are also limited to the star topology only, so routing is not considered, which decreases network connectivity and transmission-power savings. The proposed algorithm is implemented on a WBAN of Shimmer wireless sensors. Experimental results show a reduction in power consumption of 23.4% to 50.4% when compared against transmissions at maximum power and a PDR within 5.6% of the desired value. The power consumption of the overhead of the proposed algorithm can be as small as 11% of that one of traditional algorithms. The algorithm's complexity is shown to be $O(N^{3})$ , where $N$ is the number of sensors. Finally, the algorithm is compared with traditional algorithms which reduce power consumption by 39.0% on average at most.

An Unobtrusive Stress Recognition System for the Smart Office.

This paper presents a novel approach to monitor office workers' behavioral patterns and heart rate variability. We integrated an EMFi sensor into a chair to measure the pressure changes caused by a user's body movements and heartbeat. Then, we employed machine learning methods to develop a classification model through which different work behaviors (body moving, typing, talking and browsing) could be recognized from the sensor data. Subsequently, we developed a BCG processing method to process the data recognized as `browsing' and further calculate heart rate variability. The results show that the developed model achieved classification accuracies of up to 91% and the HRV could be calculated effectively with an average error of 5.77ms. By combining these behavioral and physiological measures, the proposed approach portrays work-related stress in a more comprehensive manner and could contribute an unobtrusive early stress detection system for future smart offices.

Heart rate and oxygen demand of powered exoskeleton-assisted walking in persons with paraplegia.

Historically, persons with paralysis have limited options for overground ambulation. Recently, powered exoskeletons have become available, which are systems that translate the user's body movements to activate motors to move the lower limbs through a predetermined gait pattern. As part of an ongoing clinical study (NCT01454570), eight nonambulatory persons with paraplegia were trained to ambulate with a powered exoskeleton. Measurements of oxygen uptake (VO2) and heart rate (HR) were recorded for 6 min each during each maneuver while sitting, standing, and walking. The average value of VO2 during walking (11.2 +/- 1.7 mL/kg/min) was significantly higher than those for sitting and standing (3.5 +/- 0.4 and 4.3 +/- 0.9 mL/kg/min, respectively; p < 0.001). The HR response during walking was significantly greater than that of either sitting or standing (118 +/- 21vs 70 +/- 10 and 81 +/- 12 beats per minute, respectively: p < 0.001). Persons with paraplegia were able to ambulate efficiently using the powered exoskeleton for overground ambulation, providing potential for functional gain and improved fitness. ClinicalTrials.gov; NCT01454570; "The ReWalk Exoskeletal Walking System for Persons with Paraplegia (VA_ReWalk)"; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01454570.

Development of a VR-based Astronomy Learning Environment using Intuitive Manipulation and Switching of the View corresponding to User's Body Movement

Development of a VR-based Astronomy Learning Environment using Intuitive Manipulation and Switching of the View corresponding to User's Body Movement

Virtual reality as treatment for fear of flying: A review of recent research.

Virtual Reality (VR) has recently become an excellent means for conducting exposure therapy (Krijn, Emmelkamp, Olafsson, & Biemond, 2004). VR has been most extensively used and received the most empirical attention in the treatment of specific phobia: Fear of Flying, or flying phobia. Flying phobia is classified as the experience of an unreasonable and intense amount of anxiety when confronted with flying. As a result, flying is avoided or endured with intense anxiety such that it impedes on daily functioning, such as trips for business or visiting social contacts (Mogotsi, Kaminer, & Stein, 2000). Flying phobia is one of the more common forms of psychopathology with estimated prevalence rates falling from 10 to 40% for the population (Curtis, Magee, Eaton, Wittchen, & Kessler, 1998; Van Gerwen, Spinhoven, Diekstra, & Van Dyck, 2002). Of those with the disorder that are able to fly, approximately 20% are use substances such as alcohol or sedatives to endure the fear (Howard, Murphy, & Clarke, 1983). There are several excellent cognitive behavioral approaches that are frequently used to treat the fear of flying, many of which include exposure (Rothbaum et al., 2006). Exposure involves presenting the feared stimulus in such a manner that the client's fear will habituate. Habituation is a significant reduction in the amount anxiety that is experienced when confronting the feared stimulus. This is obtained through repeatedly presenting the stimulus for a prolonged period of time in a controlled manner (Foa & Kozak, 1986). In exposure therapy, the stimulus can be presented in a variety of forms, with the most common being the presentation of the actual stimulus, called in vivo exposure (Linden, 1981). Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy In vivo exposure is considered the gold standard in the treatment for specific phobias (Barlow, 2002). Despite its effectiveness, it is difficult to conduct in vivo exposure for the treatment of fear of flying because it is not always logistically possible to control, prolong, and repeat exposure to aspects of flying. This is especially true in recent times due to the increased security and financial requirements associated with flying. Therefore, clinicians must turn alternative methods of presenting the stimulus, which can include using virtual reality as in virtual reality exposure (VRE) (Choy, Fyer, & Lipsitz, 2007; Pull, 2005). VRE places the client in a virtual environment, a three dimensional computer generated representation of the feared stimulus that responds to the users actions. The virtual environment is most commonly presented through a HeadMounted-Display (HMD), a helmet with headphones and screens to provide a first person perspective. There are body tracking devices within the HMD such that the environment responds to the user's body movements in real time. An alternative method of presenting the virtual environment is through a computer automated virtual environment (CAVE). CAVE systems project the virtual environment on the floor and walls of a compartment instead of using a helmet. Similar body tracking technology is used to allow the environment to respond to the user. VRE has several advantages as a tool for exposure to flying. It allows the therapist to have greater control over the experience such that elements of the flight can be manipulated for maximum therapeutic gain that would otherwise be difficult (Rothbaum, Hodges, Kooper, & Opdyke, 1995). For example, take off can only occur twice during an exposure session to an actual flight and each take off has a finite duration. In contrast, the virtual environment permits the duration the take off to be extended until the client habituates to each stage of take off, and take off can be repeated. Another advantage of VRE is the privacy it provides to the client as treatment can be conducted within the therapist's office as opposed to a public location and risk public displays of anxiety (Riva, 2003). …