ABSTRACT
Users and operators of shared spaces must ensure safety in such areas to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Although each organization has operated a variety of safety-related systems, including contact tracing, congestion monitoring, and check-in services, it is unclear what elements, such as privacy protection level, benefits, and permission procedures, have promoted the usage of these systems. In this study, we created MOCHA, a platform for sharing and tracking room-level locations. This platform automatically detects visited places by scanning Bluetooth beacons in each room using smartphones and shares location data according to predefined user settings. The collected data is used for room-level contact tracing, congestion monitoring, and reservation services. According to >6,500 users' usage data for a year in a university, outlining the advantages of utilizing the app encouraged people to install the app, and reinforced connections in small private groups are encouraged to use the app continuously. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
Under the circumstance of the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, enhancing human’s awareness of self-protection is one practical method to slow down the epidemic. In this study, we utilize mobile sensing to track human activity and guide human’s epidemic prevention behavior by gamified feedback techniques by our developed application. Virtually, human’s self-protection awareness is affected by many factors and the measures to enhance people’s self-protection behavior against the epidemic COVID-19 has always been an unresolved issue. In order to search for factors that influence human’s self-protection behavior, we analyzed the relationships between various human activities and the percentage complete of human’s self-protection behavior and we have extracted some more general conclusions from the results. Based on our data analysis results, we also made some proposals to enhance self-protection behavior. Meanwhile, our study illustrates the effectiveness of the method that analyzes human self-protection behavior through mobile sensing. Our study also validates the effectiveness of persuasive technology on human’s self-protection behavior against the COVID-19 pandemic and therefore we advocate enhancing human’s self-protection awareness through external intervention and guidance by smart device. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Owing to lifestyle changes, urbanization, and the COVID-19 pandemic, many people spend more time indoors and tend to receive less direct sunlight than before. Although excessive or inadequate ultraviolet (UV) exposure can be harmful to our physical and mental health, moderate UV exposure is essential for vitamin D (VD) production in the body. In this study, we estimate the UV exposure using an off-the-shelf smartphone, and explore the relationship between the UV values and GPS signal strength (C/N0). The results demonstrate that a strong correlation (R2 = 0.73) between the UV values and carrier to noise density (C/N0) even if the smartphone and UV sensor are moved. Therefore, it is possible to estimate the UV exposure to some extent from a person's location, even while carrying a smartphone. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The spread of Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) has reaffirmed the importance of ventilation in enclosed public spaces. Studies on air quality in public spaces such as classrooms, hospitals, and trains have been conducted in the past. However, the interior of a taxi, where an extremely small space is shared with an unspecified number of people, has not been sufficiently studied. This is a unique environment where ventilation is important. This study compared ventilation methods focusing on the CO2 concentration in the cabin, and evaluated the frequency of ventilation in an actual taxi using sensing technology. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Background: Since veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VV-ECMO) is highly invasive and may be used over a long period of time, its introduction is usually carefully considered and planned. Here, we report the case of a life-saving procedure by introducing VV-ECMO in the emergency room. Case presentation: A 56 year-old man had fatigue for 3 days along with rapidly worsening dyspnea. On arrival at the emergency room, he presented with severe hypoxemia. Tracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation were immediately initiated;however, hypoxemia persisted. Therefore, VV-ECMO was introduced in the emergency room. The patient's respiratory condition gradually improved, and VV-ECMO was terminated on hospital day 6.
ABSTRACT
Contagious diseases like COVID-19 spread periodically and threaten our lives. Self-protection, such as washing hands, wearing a mask, and staying home, are simple and practical solutions to safeguard against these diseases. Most governments and health departments recommend that people maintain self-protection. Although continuous self-protection effectively prevents the spread of infection, only the intent to self-protect is unsustainable in the long term. In this study, we design, develop, and deploy an application to track users' daily activities semi-automatically and enhance self-protection behavior using mobile sensing and gamified feedback techniques. Currently, more than 324 people have installed the app via AppStore, and 52 users have shared their activity data to our research group. © 2020 Owner/Author.