The Future of Stress Management: Integration of Smartwatches and HRV Technology

In the modern world, stress has become a pervasive concern that affects individuals' physical and mental well-being. To address this issue, many wearable devices have emerged as potential tools for stress detection and management by measuring heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and various metrics related to it. This literature review aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of existing research on HRV tracking and biofeedback using smartwatches pairing with reliable 3rd party mobile apps like Elite HRV, Welltory, and HRV4Training specifically designed for stress detection and management. We apply various algorithms and methodologies employed for HRV analysis and stress detection including time-domain, frequency-domain, and non-linear analysis techniques. Prominent smartwatches, such as Apple Watch, Garmin, Fitbit, Polar, and Samsung Galaxy Watch, are evaluated based on their HRV measurement accuracy, data quality, sensor technology, and integration with stress management features. We describe the efficacy of smartwatches in providing real-time stress feedback, personalized stress management interventions, and promoting overall well-being. To assist researchers, doctors, and developers with using smartwatch technology to address stress and promote holistic well-being, we discuss the data's advantages and limitations, future developments, and the significance of user-centered design and personalized interventions.

Development of an Empathy-Centric Counseling Chatbot System Capable of Sentimental Dialogue Analysis

College students encounter various types of stresses in school due to schoolwork, personal relationships, health issues, and future career concerns. Some students are susceptible to the strikes of failures and are inexperienced with or fearful of dealing with setbacks. When these negative emotions gradually accumulate without resolution, they can cause long-term negative effects on students’ physical and mental health. Some potential health problems include depression, anxiety, and disorders such as eating disorders. Universities commonly offer counseling services; however, the demand often exceeds the counseling capacities due to limited numbers of counsellors/psychologists. Thus, students may not receive immediate counseling or treatments. If students are not treated, some repercussions may lead to severe abnormal behavior and even suicide. In this study, combining immersive virtual reality (VR) technique with psychological knowledge base, we developed a VR empathy-centric counseling chatbot (VRECC) that can complementarily support troubled students when counsellors cannot provide immediate support. Through multi-turn (verbal or text) conversations with the chatbot, the system can demonstrate empathy and give therapist-like responses to the users. During the study, more than 120 students were required to complete a questionnaire and 34 subjects with an above-median stress level were randomly drawn for the VRECC experiment. We observed decreasing average stress level and psychological sensitivity scores among subjects after the experiment. Although the system did not yield improvement in life-impact scores (e.g., behavioral and physical impacts), the significant outcomes of lowering stress level and psychological sensitivity have given us a very positive outlook for continuing to integrate VR, AI sentimental natural language process, and counseling chatbot for advanced VRECC research in helping students improve their psychological well-being and life quality at schools.

Health Index Monitoring of Sports Injury Rehabilitation Training Based on Wearable Sensors

In order to design the perception system of the lower limb wearable rehabilitation robot, this study established the kinematics theoretical model of human lower limb and conducted the kinematics analysis of human body. By using the dynamic attitude analysis system, combined with the human body mark points, the position data of human body mark points in the process of standing up, sitting up, walking, stepping up, and squatting were collected. Combined with the movement mechanism of human lower limbs, the characteristics of human motion state transition are analyzed, and the perceptual algorithm for judging human motion intention is studied, so as to determine the wearer's current posture, standing intention while sitting, walking intention while standing, moving intention, and stopping intention during walking. The results show that the angle of the hip joint changes regularly between 0° and 37° and the angle of the knee joint changes regularly between 0° and 70°during the standing process, which is consistent with the angle change trajectory collected by the dynamic attitude analysis system. The angle trajectories of the hip and knee joints measured by the absolute angle sensor are the same as those obtained by the dynamic attitude analysis system. 1.5 rad and 0.3 rad were selected as reasonable and effective thresholds for determining sitting and standing states.

Safety perception and pedestrian dynamics: Experimental results towards affective agents modeling

The modeling of a new generation of agent-based simulation systems supporting pedestrian and crowd management taking into account affective states represents a new research frontier. Pedestrian behaviour involves human perception processes, based on subjective and psychological aspects. Following the concept of pedestrian environmental awareness, each walker adapts his/her crossing behaviour according to environmental conditions and his/her perception of safety. Different pedestrian behaviours can be related to subjective mobility and readiness to respond, and these factors are strongly dependent on the subjective interaction with the environment. Having additional inputs about pedestrian behaviour related to their perception processes could be useful in order to develop a more representative pedestrian dynamic model. In particular, the subjective perception of the safeness of crossing should be taken into consideration. In order to focus on the pedestrians’ perception of safe road crossing and walking, an experiment in an uncontrolled urban scenario has been carried out. Besides more conventional self-assessment questionnaires, physiological responses have been considered to evaluate the affective state of pedestrians during the interaction with the urban environment. Results from the analysis of the collected data show that physiological responses are reliable indicators of safety perception while road crossing and interacting with real urban environment, suggesting the design of agent-based models for pedestrian dynamics simulations taking in account the representation of affective states.