From thermal comfort to heat mitigation action: A reproducible QGIS plugin for calculating the physiological equivalent temperature in Dutch cities for informed strategies for mitigating heat stress in public spaces, in a Rotterdam case study

In the summer of 2023, heatwaves became quite prominent in the south of Europe. Due to the extreme heat, the health of those citizens was affected. The Netherlands Meteorological Institute predicts an increase in heatwaves in the future for the Netherlands as well. The main research question is how to propose a strategy for a liveable...

Assessment of nasal airflow simulations: On the accuracy and usage of CFD simulations for healthy and NAO patients

Nasal airway obstruction (NAO) is one of the most common symptoms in the human respiratory system and causes a considerable financial burden to both individuals and society. Currently, NAO detection is troublesome to achieve, which can influence the accuracy and effectiveness of clinical surgery. Although several objective measurement techniques...

Heart Rate Estimation in Intense Exercise Videos using Temporal Superpixels

Estimation of physiological signals like heart rate using remote photoplethysmography (rPPG) provides non-contact health monitoring with important applications in remote healthcare, patient interaction, and sport related activities. Existing rPPG approaches can robustly measure heart rate from facial videos under some degree of motion through...

Rapid assessment tool to quantify the spatial influence of surfaces on heat stress: Estimating the Physical Equivalent Temperature in urban regions using dependence modelling

Climate change causes cities to deal with increased temperatures and more frequent weather extremes. Heat waves will occur more often, becoming a more prevalent issue in especially urban areas. The quantification of heat stress is a first step to define mitigation measures. For that purpose, a standardised method to assess the spatial influence...

Adaptive Real-Time PPG Signal Qualification and Pulse Segmentation

Ever since its invention in the 1930s, photoplethysmography (PPG) is a wide-spread technique used for health-monitoring. Via illumination of the human skin with a light source and capturing the light, an estimate of important physiological properties such as the heart rate can be made. This is commonly done with dedicated medical equipment, but...

Green facades for cooling urban hot spots: The cooling effectivity of green facades on spaces adjacent to and inside dwellings in Amsterdam

To limit increasing heat problems in cities, green areas are being implemented in the urban context. Since space is often scarce, an opportunity lies in the use of green facades. This research has investigated the cooling effect of natural green facades in the form of He¬dera helix. Both the effect on thermal comfort inside and outside buildings...

Making cultured meat in a Petri dish: Optimisation of the extracellular matrix for 3D skeletal muscle tissue engineering

Context. In times where human kind is facing serious challenges due to global warming, scarcity of natural resources and inequality, to continue producing food, especially meat, as it is now done, does not seem sustainable. For people that want to continue enjoying their delicious piece of steak, the manner in which meat is sourced will need to...

Monitoring selectively directed auditory attention using physiological synchrony in EEG, electrodermal activity and heart rate

Monitoring selectively directed auditory attention in groups can be helpful in a range of contexts, such as in education. In real-world settings, selectively directed attention cannot be monitored by relating physiological signals to known event markers. Determining the similarity of physiological responses across individuals in a group (i.e.,...

Catching Breath: A model-based approach to non-invasive respiratory effort estimation during sleep

Sleep is an immensely important biological function and dysregulated sleep can have severe detrimental effects on health and well-being. Over 80 sleep disorders have been classified and of those sleep apnoea is one of the most common, having a prevalence of at least 20 percent in the general population. Sleep apnoea belongs to a family of...

Adaptive Automation: Automatically (dis)engaging automation during visually distracted driving

Automated driving is becoming increasingly popular and is often proposed as a solution to commonly known human errors in driving. However, fully autonomous driving has not yet reached the point where it can be implemented in real world driving. Current automated driving systems are often designed in such a way that the role of the human operator...

The Contribution of Visual Feedback to Movement Control in a Visuomotor Tracking Task

The aim of this study was to determine if and how specific characteristics of visual information influence the motor control strategy adopted during a visuomotor tracking task. To this end, twenty healthy subjects and two stroke patients were measured. Changes in wrist joint admittance (i.e., wrist rotations due to external forces) due to...

Optimal Team Time Trial Strategy in Road Cycling: Optimisation of Changing Strategy using a Mathematical Performance model

During team time trials in road cycling changing schemes are used to spread the workload over the cyclists in the team. Models that provide predictions of race performance already exist for individual time trials. It is proposed that with a performance model for team time trials, the performance of different strategies can be compared and...