Conference Paper

30 Sensors to Mars: Toward Distributed Support Systems for Astronauts in Space Habitats

Authors:
  • Institute of Computer Science PAS
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract

In October 2017, an international crew participated in an emulated Mars colonization mission. For two weeks, they stayed confined in a special complex, a so-called analog habitat, where they were isolated from the outside world, including a lack of natural lighting and exterior noises, and lived on particularly adjusted Martian time. The mission followed a strict schedule, involving actual scientific work and activities envisioned as necessary for survival and exploration of the red planet. The main objective was to study the behavior and group dynamics of the crew in conditions recreating colonization of Mars, albeit under some unique circumstances compared to previous similar experiments. What was also special about the mission was the use of sociometric methods utilizing custom pervasive sensing solutions that we had built and deployed to complement classic methods based on self-reports and interviews. Based on that experiment, in this paper we contribute twofold. First, we share our deployment experiences to highlight the potential of pervasive distributed sensing systems in sociometric studies of habitat-based missions. The examples presented to this end include quantitative results that we obtained, among others, on social interactions between the astronauts, the impact of atypical situations on the crew, and the ergonomics of the habitat. Second, drawing from the experiences, in cooperation with the astronauts we attempt to highlight some unique challenges that space habitats pose for distributed support systems, such as ours. Among others, the challenges pertain to system deployment, autonomy, resilience, and flexibility. We believe that these challenges and, in general, space colonization constitute exciting research opportunities for the distributed systems community.

No full-text available

Request Full-text Paper PDF

To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.

... 5 Average volume of speech frames. 6 Average volume of all frames: noise level. 7 ...
... Ids from received IR beacons along with power level. Then, after one year we were invited to quantify interactions between so-called analog astronauts during emulated space colonisation missions -one to the moon (Lunares) and another to Mars (ICAres), which is reported in [6]and [2]. The general purpose of such missions is to test procedures, hardware and assumptions about human nature in safe conditions. ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Sociometry has been recently placed on the verge of a new era by first attempts to utilize Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in quantitative studies of social relationships. More and more results of traditional questionnaires and observations , which are prone to bias and human errors, are about to be verified with a supposedly reliable source: data collected by a wireless sensor network (WSN) monitoring individual and group behavior. It may be expected that the potential and availability of sensing devices will soon entirely redefine the practices of sociometry and alleviate its present limitations. However, this revolution requires much more effort than direct application of common IoT solutions. The collision of curious, yet careless human nature with typical sensing devices leads to unique challenges in WSNs. In this paper we share our experiences from deployments of our sociomet-ric system in two distinct environments. Initially, we studied behavior in software development companies, then we conducted a pioneering instrumentation of emulated space missions in a confined habitat. Despite having developed hardware-software platform dedicated to this end, our research group encountered a number of issues specific to the human nature. While some of them were predictable, but inevitable with a limited budget for the research, others were entirely unexpected and had serious consequences.
... Such highly controllable settings are indispensable especially for basic research at early, small-scale stages of protocol development. However, given the peculiarities of low-power wireless communication, experiments in more realistic conditions often reveal unpredicted protocol behaviors, like performance deteriorations [6,9] or, even more surprising, improvements [14]. For these reasons, from an industrial perspective, especially when dependability is a core requirement [11], a protocol considered for real-world deployments should first be evaluated in settings similar to the envisioned ones. ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Testbeds remain indispensable instruments for experimentally evaluating IoT-oriented low-power wireless networking solutions. With the evolution of the field, they are increasingly expected to match envisioned deployment conditions of such solutions, notably in terms of scale. However, large-scale testbeds are scarce, likely because they have been believed to be expensive. This paper argues that this belief need no longer be justified by presenting the architecture and basic properties of 1KT, our new smart-building IoT testbed for solutions utilizing IEEE 802.15.4 and Bluetooth Low Energy. It comprises 1000 experimental devices deployed directly in human spaces of 168 rooms on all 5 floors of a sizable building. At the same time, its cost is relatively low considering the scale. https://www.mimuw.edu.pl/~iwanicki/projects/heni/1kt.html
... Examples of using analog mission simulations inside LunAres Research Station for deep telemetry gathering are works of a research team from the University of Warsaw led by dr. Maciej Matraszek, including two papers: "30 Sensors to Mars: Toward Distributed Support Systems for Astronauts in Space Habitats" (Rub et al., 2019) and "Human Nature: The Subject and the Headache of IoT-Based Sociometric Studies" (Matraszek, Rub, Konorski, Batorski, & Iwanicki, 2020). ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Analog Habitat LunAres Research Station" started operations in 2017. Until March 2021 it hosted 11 two-week analog missions that varied in research angle and scope. Depending on the scientific objectives, the crew was selected by the LunAres management team or other institutions/researchers in case of a private mission. The requirements for participants were determined based on the mission objectives, however, there was a general criterion regarding the crew structure-diversity. In terms of background, age, nationality, gender and personality, the variety was pursued. It resulted in clear and indicated gender parity both in crew composition and crew leadership. Such trends were both seemingly obvious and natural and there was no surprise with both the Artemis project and ESA 2021 astronaut selection criteria focusing on greater female representation. And yet it was not a common practice even in analog mission scenarios observed in the last decade. In this paper, we will explain why such an occurrence happened in the Polish analog habitat. At the same time, ESA's Parastronaut selection was announced. LunAres Research Station's ICAres 1 mission from 2017 under the directory of Dr Aleksander Wasniowski was the world's first analog mission involving and focusing on movement impaired analog astronaut. The study had a noticeable impact in the extreme medicine stage. The study was featured two times as a keynote presentation during the Extreme Medicine Expo in 2018 and 2019. In this presentation, we would like to reiterate team findings and share project development since 2017. Analog research studies showed some examples of what the future might look like-it is imperative to share more of existing knowledge that is in line with current trends in astronaut selection criteria.
... Examples of such data are: the number of people watching a commercial on a display withing a specified time period, the gender of a person currently watching a shop exposition, shopping preferences of a person moving towards a display, etc. Such statistics may be based on data gathered from several sources: vision systems [1], [2], [3], indoor-positioning [4], [5] or mobile apps. The most interesting (and challenging) is the possibility of integrating data from multiple sources [6] to gather even more commercially valuable insight. ...
... The ultraviolet decontamination lamp from the original inventory was found to be expendable in the lunar environment. The total power demand of the group dynamics experiment Social Sensing System (SocSenSys) was established using the experiment description [29,30]. Domestic water heating parameters were also changed. ...
Article
Full-text available
The Moon’s environmental conditions present limited opportunities for waste heat dissipation, so internal heat gains (IHG) are a key component of thermal balance in a lunar building. Despite the significant development in energy saving and energy storage technologies of the last thirty years, the issue of IHG in lunar buildings has not been readdressed since the early 1990s. This study is based on an inspection of internal heat sources conducted aboard LUNARES, the first European extraterrestrial analogue habitat. The equipment absent on LUNARES, but indispensable for an actual lunar base, was identified and accounted for, along with additional laboratory and maintenance equipment. Three main groups of internal heat sources were identified and studied in detail. Waste heat generated by electric devices was accounted for, along with occupational heat loads adjusted for lunar partial gravity conditions. Assuming a photovoltaic power source for the studied building, two alternative energy storage systems (ESS) were analysed as another source of waste heat. Depending on the time of lunar day and applied ESS, the nominal IHG were between 73 and 133 W/m2. The most significant internal heat sources in a lunar base are life support systems and potentially, regenerative fuel cells; thus, lithium–ion batteries were recommended for ESS. Within assumed parameter range, parametric study exhibited differences in IHG between 41.5 and 163 W/m2.
Article
LunAres Research Station is an analog research station for crewed space mission simulation, located at the abandoned airport in Poland. The facility provides full isolation, allowing for complex research on the psychological and physiological impact of long-term extra-terrestrial human presence. The general objective of LunAres is to create a research platform to support scientific and technological development in human space exploration. A broad range of specialists is involved in the study from fields like extreme medicine, psychology, biotechnology, robotics and engineering, sociology, architecture. The possible observation and control of the indoor environment, as well as telemetry of the crew’s physical and psychological states, provide large quantities of data for complex studies This paper presents an overview of the LunAres Research Station activity since its establishment in 2017. The contribution to scientific research and technology development is included. Based on the presented experience of carried missions and crews’ feedback a roadmap regarding the station design advancement is determined. The decision-making process of development is presented finalized with the demonstration of the potential for future projects and studies regarding human missions and sustainability. The conclusions of upgraded functional plans and spaces were determined through research on existing references and the new strategy for LunAres. Detailed drawings regarding architectural and technical solutions as well as future steps will be introduced.
Article
Full-text available
By focusing on users' abilities rather than disabilities, designers can create interactive systems better matched to those abilities.
Article
Full-text available
The scientific study of teamwork in the context of spaceflight has uncovered a considerable amount of knowledge over the past 20 years. Although much is known about the underlying factors and processes of teamwork, much is left to be discovered for teams who will be operating in extreme isolation and confinement during a future Mars mission. Special considerations must be made to enhance teamwork and team well-being for multi-year missions during which the small team will live and work together. We discuss the unique challenges of effective teamwork in a Mars mission scenario, and the difficulties of studying teamwork using analogs of the space environment. We then describe the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's current practices and research on teamwork, which includes team selection and composition, teamwork training, countermeasures to mitigate risks to effective team performance, and the measurement and monitoring of team functioning. We end with a discussion of the teamwork research areas that are most critical for a successful journey to Mars.
Article
Full-text available
Objectives Wearable devices are currently at the heart of just about every discussion related to the Internet of Things. The requirement for self-health monitoring and preventive medicine is increasing due to the projected dramatic increase in the number of elderly people until 2020. Developed technologies are truly able to reduce the overall costs for prevention and monitoring. This is possible by constantly monitoring health indicators in various areas, and in particular, wearable devices are considered to carry this task out. These wearable devices and mobile apps now have been integrated with telemedicine and telehealth efficiently, to structure the medical Internet of Things. This paper reviews wearable health care devices both in scientific papers and commercial efforts. Methods MIoT is demonstrated through a defined architecture design, including hardware and software dealing with wearable devices, sensors, smart phones, medical application, and medical station analyzers for further diagnosis and data storage. Results Wearables, with the help of improved technology have been developed greatly and are considered reliable tools for long-term health monitoring systems. These are applied in the observation of a large variety of health monitoring indicators in the environment, vital signs, and fitness. Conclusions Wearable devices are now used for a wide range of healthcare observation. One of the most important elements essential in data collection is the sensor. During recent years with improvement in semiconductor technology, sensors have made investigation of a full range of parameters closer to realization.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
A common assumption in studies of interruptions is that one is focused in an activity and then distracted by other stimuli. We take the reverse perspective and examine whether one might first be in an attentional state that makes one susceptible to communications typically associated with distraction. We explore the confluence of multitasking and workplace communications from three temporal perspectives -- prior to an interaction, when tasks and communications are interleaved, and at the end of the day. Using logging techniques and experience sampling, we observed 32 employees in situ for five days. We found that certain attentional states lead people to be more susceptible to particular types of interaction. Rote work is followed by more Facebook or face-to-face interaction. Focused and aroused states are followed by more email. The more time in email and face-fo-face interaction, and the more total screen switches, the less productive people feel at the day's end. We present the notion of emotional homeostasis along with new directions for multitasking research.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
and 9 Smart Information Flow Technologies. HI-SEAS HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, www.hi-seas.org) is a habitat on an isolated Mars-like site on the Mauna Loa side of the saddle area on the Big Island of Hawaii at approximately 8200 feet above sea level. HI-SEAS is unique, in addition to its setting in a distinctive analog environment, as:-we select the crew to meet our research needs (in contrast, at serendipitous analogs, such as Antarctic stations, crew selection criteria are not controlled by researchers);-the conditions (habitat, mission, communications, etc.) are explicitly designed to be similar to those of a planetary exploration mission;-the site is accessible year round, allowing longer-duration isolated and confined environment studies than at other locations;-the Mars-like environment offers the potential for analog tasks, such as geological field work by human explorers and/or robots. The ability to select crew members to meet research needs and isolate them in a managed simulation performing under specific mission profiles makes HI-SEAS ideal for detailed studies in space-flight crew dynamics, behaviors, roles and performance, especially for long-duration missions. MISSIONS TO DATE As of February 2016, there have been three missions completed at HI-SEAS, two of four months in length, and one of eight months. The fourth mission, which is twelve months long, is currently under way, and will end in August 2016. UPCOMING MISSIONS The next cycle of missions will see the research focus at HI-SEAS shift from crew cohesion and performance to crew composition. We expect the first of three eight-month missions to start in late 2016. CURRENT RESEARCH The current research projects being carried out at HI-SEAS focus on crew cohesion, function and performance. Preliminary results from each of these projects are being presented in detail by the co-authors separately at this meeting. This presentation will provide an overview of the research conducted to date, and the plans for the future. OPPORTUNISTIC RESEARCH In order to maximize research return, and to provide HI-SEAS crews with a realistic workload, we welcome proposals for opportunistic research to be carried out during HI-SEAS missions. Proposed projects must a) advance human space exploration by addressing NASA's needs and requirements; b) require a long-duration analog for desired research outcomes; and c) not confound the primary research. If you are interested in submitting an opportunistic research proposal, please contact the first author.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Quantified crowd, a vision in which on-body sensors of nearby people collaborate to detect various phenomena within a crowd and produce feedback, is an emerging research area. One of the issues that impedes progress in this new area is a lack of a broadly applicable experimental platform, such as the platforms that enabled research on wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we aim to address this issue by presenting such an experimental hardware-software platform. Not only does the platform introduce custom badge-form low-power devices that feature a number of sensors relevant to quantified crowd, but it also ensures that these devices can interoperate with commercial off-the-shelf smartphones, wristbands, and other devices for self-quantification. In effect, it constitutes a powerful experimental instrument, as we show in a preliminary real-world evaluation.
Article
Full-text available
Quantitative analyses of human-generated data collected in various fields have uncovered many patterns of complex human behaviors. However, thus far the quantitative evaluation of the relationship between the physical behaviors of employees and their performance has been inadequate. Here, we present findings demonstrating the significant relationship between the physical behaviors of employees and their performance via experiments we conducted in inbound call centers while the employees wore sensor badges. There were two main findings. First, we found that face-to-face interaction among telecommunicators and the frequency of their bodily movements caused by the face-to-face interaction had a significant correlation with the entire call center performance, which we measured as “Calls per Hour.” Second, our trial to activate face-to-face interaction on the basis of data collected by the wearable sensor badges the employees wore significantly increased their performance. These results demonstrate quantitatively that human-human interaction in the physical world plays an important role in team performance.
Article
Full-text available
Although changes to visual acuity in spaceflight have been observed in some astronauts since the early days of the space program, the impact to the crew was considered minor. Since that time, missions to the International Space Station have extended the typical duration of time spent in microgravity from a few days or weeks to many months. This has been accompanied by the emergence of a variety of ophthalmic pathologies in a significant proportion of long-duration crewmembers, including globe flattening, choroidal folding, optic disc edema, and optic nerve kinking, among others. The clinical findings of affected astronauts are reminiscent of terrestrial pathologies such as idiopathic intracranial hypertension that are characterized by high intracranial pressure. As a result, NASA has placed an emphasis on determining the relevant factors and their interactions that are responsible for detrimental ophthalmic response to space. This article will describe the Visual Impairment and Intracranial Pressure syndrome, link it to key factors in physiological adaptation to the microgravity environment, particularly a cephalad shifting of bodily fluids, and discuss the implications for ocular biomechanics and physiological function in long-duration spaceflight.
Article
Full-text available
The layouts of the buildings we live in shape our everyday lives. In office environments, building spaces affect employees' communication, which is crucial for productivity and innovation. However, accurate measurement of how spatial layouts affect interactions is a major challenge and traditional techniques may not give an objective view. We measure the impact of building spaces on social interactions using wearable sensing devices. We study a single organization that moved between two different buildings, affording a unique opportunity to examine how space alone can affect interactions. The analysis is based on two large scale deployments of wireless sensing technologies: short-range, lightweight RFID tags capable of detecting face-to-face interactions. We analyze the traces to study the impact of the building change on social behavior, which represents a first example of using ubiquitous sensing technology to study how the physical design of two workplaces combines with organizational structure to shape contact patterns.
Article
Full-text available
The ability to understand social systems through the aid of computational tools is central to the emerging field of computational social systems. Such understanding can answer epistemological questions on human behavior in a data-driven manner, and provide prescriptive guidelines for persuading humans to undertake certain actions in real-world social scenarios. The growing number of works in this subfield has the potential to impact multiple walks of human life including health, wellness, productivity, mobility, transportation, education, shopping, and sustenance. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we provide a functional survey of recent advances in sensing, understanding, and shaping human behavior, focusing on real-world behavior of users as measured using passive sensors. Second, we present a case study on how trust, which is an important building block of computational social systems, can be quantified, sensed, and applied to shape human behavior. Our findings suggest that: 1) trust can be operationalized and predicted via computational methods (passive sensing and network analysis) and 2) trust has a significant impact on social persuasion; in fact, it was found to be significantly more effective than the closeness of ties in determining the amount of behavior change.
Article
Full-text available
For future interplanetary manned spaceflight, mental issues, as well as physiological problems, must inevitably be considered and solved. Mars500 is a high-fidelity ground simulation experiment that involved 520 days of confined isolation for six multinational crewmembers. This experiment provided a good opportunity to perform psycho-physiological and psycho-social researches on such missions. To investigate emotional responses and psychological adaptation over long-term confinement, the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS) was selected as the visual emotional stimuli in this study. Additional data collected and analyzed included the Profile of Mood States (POMS) questionnaire and the levels of four types of plasma hormones: cortisol, 5-hydroxy tryptamine, dopamine, and norepinephrine. The results demonstrated an obvious bias on valence rating for unpleasant stimuli with time (p<0.05), and the correlation between psychological and biochemical data was identified (p<0.05). Overall, we concluded that the confined crew tended to assign positive ratings to negative pictures with time, which might be driven by a defensive system. There was a stage-changing pattern of psychological adaptation of the Mars500 crew, which is similar to the third-quarter phenomenon.
Article
Full-text available
Behavioral health risks are among the most serious and difficult to mitigate risks of confinement in space craft during long-duration space exploration missions. We report on behavioral and psychological reactions of a multinational crew of 6 healthy males confined in a 550 m3 chamber for 520 days during the first Earth-based, high-fidelity simulated mission to Mars. Rest-activity of crewmembers was objectively measured throughout the mission with wrist-worn actigraphs. Once weekly throughout the mission crewmembers completed the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), Profile of Moods State short form (POMS), conflict questionnaire, the Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT-B), and series of visual analogue scales on stress and fatigue. We observed substantial inter-individual differences in the behavioral responses of crewmembers to the prolonged mission confinement and isolation. The crewmember with the highest average POMS total mood disturbance score throughout the mission also reported symptoms of depression in 93% of mission weeks, which reached mild-to-moderate levels in >10% of mission weeks. Conflicts with mission control were reported five times more often than conflicts among crewmembers. Two crewmembers who had the highest ratings of stress and physical exhaustion accounted for 85% of the perceived conflicts. One of them developed a persistent sleep onset insomnia with ratings of poor sleep quality, which resulted in chronic partial sleep deprivation, elevated ratings of daytime tiredness, and frequent deficits in behavioral alertness. Sleep-wake timing was altered in two other crewmembers, beginning in the first few months of the mission and persisting throughout. Two crewmembers showed neither behavioral disturbances nor reports of psychological distress during the 17-month period of mission confinement. These results highlight the importance of identifying behavioral, psychological, and biological markers of characteristics that predispose prospective crewmembers to both effective and ineffective behavioral reactions during the confinement of prolonged spaceflight, to inform crew selection, training, and individualized countermeasures.
Article
Full-text available
In many work environments, serendipitous interactions between members of different groups may lead to enhanced productivity, collaboration and knowledge dissemination. Two factors that may have an influence on such interactions are cultural differences between individuals in highly multicultural workplaces, and the layout and physical spaces of the workplace itself. In this work, we investigate how these two factors may facilitate or hinder inter-group interactions in the workplace. We analyze traces collected using wearable electronic badges to capture face-to-face interactions and mobility patterns of employees in a research laboratory in the UK. We observe that those who interact with people of different roles tend to come from collectivist cultures that value relationships and where people tend to be comfortable with social hierarchies, and that some locations in particular are more likely to host serendipitous interactions, knowledge that could be used by organizations to enhance communication and productivity.
Article
Full-text available
Contacts between patients, patients and health care workers (HCWs) and among HCWs represent one of the important routes of transmission of hospital-acquired infections (HAI). A detailed description and quantification of contacts in hospitals provides key information for HAIs epidemiology and for the design and validation of control measures. We used wearable sensors to detect close-range interactions ("contacts") between individuals in the geriatric unit of a university hospital. Contact events were measured with a spatial resolution of about 1.5 meters and a temporal resolution of 20 seconds. The study included 46 HCWs and 29 patients and lasted for 4 days and 4 nights. 14,037 contacts were recorded overall, 94.1% of which during daytime. The number and duration of contacts varied between mornings, afternoons and nights, and contact matrices describing the mixing patterns between HCW and patients were built for each time period. Contact patterns were qualitatively similar from one day to the next. 38% of the contacts occurred between pairs of HCWs and 6 HCWs accounted for 42% of all the contacts including at least one patient, suggesting a population of individuals who could potentially act as super-spreaders. Wearable sensors represent a novel tool for the measurement of contact patterns in hospitals. The collected data can provide information on important aspects that impact the spreading patterns of infectious diseases, such as the strong heterogeneity of contact numbers and durations across individuals, the variability in the number of contacts during a day, and the fraction of repeated contacts across days. This variability is however associated with a marked statistical stability of contact and mixing patterns across days. Our results highlight the need for such measurement efforts in order to correctly inform mathematical models of HAIs and use them to inform the design and evaluation of prevention strategies.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper presents the SocioMetric Badges Corpus, a new corpus for social interaction studies collected during a 6 weeks contiguous period in a research institution, monitoring the activity of 53 people. The design of the corpus was inspired by the need to provide researchers and practitioners with: a) raw digital trace data that could be used to directly address the task of investigating, reconstructing and predicting people's actual social behavior in complex organizations, b) information about participants' individual characteristics (e.g., personality traits), along with c) data concerning the general social context (e.g., participants' social networks) and the specific situations they find themselves in.
Article
Full-text available
Inspired by the research of Frank Andrews on the reliability and validity of survey questions, a large-scale research project was conducted in the Netherlands. The project was comprised of two different stages. For this project, more than 600 survey questions were included in different surveys according to a multitrait-multimethod design. The resulting data were analyzed in two steps. In the first step, estimates of validity and reliability were obtained for each question The second step was a meta-analysis of the variation in data quality found in the first step. This variation was related to question-specific characteristics, response scale characteristics, context characteristics, and design characteristics. The article describes how the results of this study can be of practical use. In addition, the authors compare them to results of similar studies in the United States, Austria, and other Western, Central, and Eastern European countries.
Article
Full-text available
Knowing the risks, costs, and complexities associated with human missions to Mars, analogue research can be a great (low-risk) tool for exploring the challenges associated with the preparation for living, operating, and undertaking research in interplanetary missions. Short-duration analogue studies, such as those being accomplished at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), offer the chance to study mission operations and human factors in a simulated environment, and therefore contribute to exploration of the Moon and Mars in planned future missions. This article is based upon previously published articles, abstracts, and presentations by a series of independent authors, human factor studies performed on mars analogue station by Crew 100B. The MDRS Crew 100B performed studies over 15 days providing a unique insight into human factor issues in simulated short-duration Mars mission. In this study, 15 human factors were evaluated and analyzed by subjective and objective means, and from the summary of results it was concluded that optimum health of an individual and the crew as a whole is a necessity in order to encourage and maintain high performance and the satisfaction of project goals.
Article
Full-text available
We have designed a highly versatile badge system to facilitate a variety of interaction at large professional or social events and serve as a platform for conducting research into human dynamics. The badges are equipped with a large LED display, wireless infrared and radio frequency networking, and a host of sensors to collect data that we have used to develop features and algorithms aimed at classifying and predicting individual and group behavior. This paper overviews our badge system, describes the interactions and capabilities that it enabled for the wearers, and presents data collected over several large deployments. This data is analyzed to track and socially classify the attendees, predict their interest in other people and demonstration installations, profile the restlessness of a crowd in an auditorium, and otherwise track the evolution and dynamics of the events at which the badges were run.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper presents a system for capturing human movement and tactile data and methods for analyzing this data. We cannot fully capture the essence of motion without tactile information, and sometimes the lack of such information causes critical problems. To achieve a better understanding of motion behavior, we developed a wearable motion capture suit with full-body tactile sensors. We also developed a motion sensor which can estimate its orientation with its inner CPU. We also built a tactile sensor module which can fit many kinds of body shapes. With this system, we can measure a user's movement and tactile information simultaneously. By integrating tactile data with motion data, we can achieve many kinds of meaningful insights. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this system with experiments. We captured two motions: stretching after sitting on a chair and laying down on a bed. By recognizing the contact point from the tactile data and fitting it into the environment, we were able to estimate the motion trajectories.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
We present the design, implementation, evaluation, and user experiences of the CenceMe application, which represents the first system that combines the inference of the pres- ence of individuals using off-the-shelf, sensor-enabled mobile phones with sharing of this information through social net- working applications such as Facebook and MySpace. We discuss the system challenges for the development of soft- ware on the Nokia N95 mobile phone. We present the de- sign and tradeoffs of split-level classification, whereby per- sonal sensing presence (e.g., walking, in conversation, at the gym) is derived from classifiers which execute in part on the phones and in part on the backend servers to achieve scal- able inference. We report performance measurements that characterize the computational requirements of the software and the energy consumption of the CenceMe phone client. We validate the system through a user study where twenty two people, including undergraduates, graduates and fac- ulty, used CenceMe continuously over a three week period in a campus town. From this user study we learn how the system performs in a production environment and what uses people find for a personal sensing system.
Article
Full-text available
Little quantitative information is available on the mixing patterns of children in school environments. Describing and understanding contacts between children at school would help quantify the transmission opportunities of respiratory infections and identify situations within schools where the risk of transmission is higher. We report on measurements carried out in a French school (6-12 years children), where we collected data on the time-resolved face-to-face proximity of children and teachers using a proximity-sensing infrastructure based on radio frequency identification devices. Data on face-to-face interactions were collected on Thursday, October 1(st) and Friday, October 2(nd) 2009. We recorded 77,602 contact events between 242 individuals (232 children and 10 teachers). In this setting, each child has on average 323 contacts per day with 47 other children, leading to an average daily interaction time of 176 minutes. Most contacts are brief, but long contacts are also observed. Contacts occur mostly within each class, and each child spends on average three times more time in contact with classmates than with children of other classes. We describe the temporal evolution of the contact network and the trajectories followed by the children in the school, which constrain the contact patterns. We determine an exposure matrix aimed at informing mathematical models. This matrix exhibits a class and age structure which is very different from the homogeneous mixing hypothesis. We report on important properties of the contact patterns between school children that are relevant for modeling the propagation of diseases and for evaluating control measures. We discuss public health implications related to the management of schools in case of epidemics and pandemics. Our results can help define a prioritization of control measures based on preventive measures, case isolation, classes and school closures, that could reduce the disruption to education during epidemics.
Article
Full-text available
Nosocomial infections place a substantial burden on health care systems and represent one of the major issues in current public health, requiring notable efforts for its prevention. Understanding the dynamics of infection transmission in a hospital setting is essential for tailoring interventions and predicting the spread among individuals. Mathematical models need to be informed with accurate data on contacts among individuals. We used wearable active Radio-Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) to detect face-to-face contacts among individuals with a spatial resolution of about 1.5 meters, and a time resolution of 20 seconds. The study was conducted in a general pediatrics hospital ward, during a one-week period, and included 119 participants, with 51 health care workers, 37 patients, and 31 caregivers. Nearly 16,000 contacts were recorded during the study period, with a median of approximately 20 contacts per participants per day. Overall, 25% of the contacts involved a ward assistant, 23% a nurse, 22% a patient, 22% a caregiver, and 8% a physician. The majority of contacts were of brief duration, but long and frequent contacts especially between patients and caregivers were also found. In the setting under study, caregivers do not represent a significant potential for infection spread to a large number of individuals, as their interactions mainly involve the corresponding patient. Nurses would deserve priority in prevention strategies due to their central role in the potential propagation paths of infections. Our study shows the feasibility of accurate and reproducible measures of the pattern of contacts in a hospital setting. The obtained results are particularly useful for the study of the spread of respiratory infections, for monitoring critical patterns, and for setting up tailored prevention strategies. Proximity-sensing technology should be considered as a valuable tool for measuring such patterns and evaluating nosocomial prevention strategies in specific settings.
Article
Full-text available
This study aimed to identify work-related and personal factors associated with occupational stress in submariners. Work and well-being questionnaires were distributed to 219 male submariners (mean age 34 years), as part of a larger cohort study involving a stratified sample of 4951 Royal Navy (RN) personnel. The stress rate in submariners was 40%; significantly higher than the stress rate in the general RN, although once demographic factors were controlled for in a matched control sample, this difference was no longer significant. A summary model accounted for 49% of the variance in submariner stress, with key differences emerging between the occupational factors associated with stress in submariners and in the general RN. The longitudinal nature of this study permits stress in submariners to be monitored over 5 years, which will provide valuable insights into the chronicity of stress in this specialised occupational group. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: This paper contributes to the current literature on the negative impact of working in isolated conditions. It is demonstrated that occupational stress in submarines can be partially explained using current theories of stress in the workplace. However, the constraints of a restricted environment introduce additional factors which can also be associated with occupational stress.
Article
Full-text available
A field is emerging that leverages the capacity to collect and analyze data at a scale that may reveal patterns of individual and group behaviors. Government Version of Record
Article
Full-text available
Polar expeditions include treks and stays at summer camps or year-round research stations. People on such expeditions generally undergo psychological changes resulting from exposure to long periods of isolation and confinement, and the extreme physical environment. Symptoms include disturbed sleep, impaired cognitive ability, negative affect, and interpersonal tension and conflict. Seasonal occurrence of these symptoms suggests the existence of three overlapping syndromes: the winter-over syndrome, the polar T3 syndrome, and subsyndromal seasonal affective disorder. About 5% of people on expeditions meet DSM-IV or ICD criteria for psychiatric disorders. However, they also experience positive or so-called salutogenic outcomes resulting from successfully coping with stress and enhanced self-sufficiency, improved health, and personal growth. Prevention of pathogenic psychological outcomes is best accomplished by psychological and psychiatric screening procedures to select out unsuitable candidates, and by providing access to psychological support, including telephone counselling. Promotion of salutogenic experiences is best accomplished by screening for suitable personality traits, and training participants in individual coping strategies, group interaction, and team leadership.
Article
THE CAMERAS IN our phones and tablets have turned us all into avid photographers, regularly using them to capture special moments and document our lives. One notable feature of camera phones is they are compact and fully automatic, enabling us to point and shoot without having to adjust any settings. However, when we need to capture photos of high aesthetic quality, we resort to more sophisticated DSLR cameras in which a variety of lenses and flashes can be used interchangeably. This flexibility is important for spanning the entire range of real-world imaging scenarios, while enabling us to be more creative. Many developers have sought to make these cameras even more flexible through both hardware and software. For example, Ricoh's GXR camera has interchangeable lens units, each with a different type of sensor.12 Some manufacturers make their cameras more flexible through application program interfaces (APIs) developers then use to control various camera parameters and create new image-processing tools. For example, Olympus's Open Platform Camera, released.
Chapter
Testing of hardware and training of astronauts in space analog environments have been performed since the beginning of the space age. In the frame of planetary exploration, the so called Analog Planetary Research (APR) can be defined as the study of flight hardware, operational constraints, procedures and planning strategies on Earth in an environment that resembles (partly or fully) the conditions of the targeted planetary body. The findings and lessons learned from APR missions can be analyzed regarding mission concept, risks and constraints and the overall mission efficiency prior to launching a real space mission. Here we want to demonstrate that APR is not only crucial for the scientific mission success or the reduction of mission costs, but also represents a key factor for the safety of robotic or crewed planetary surface exploration missions.
Article
Spaceflight is associated with immune dysregulation which is considered as risk factor for the performance of exploration-class missions. Among the consequences of confinement and other environmental factors of living in hostile environments, the role of different oxygen concentrations is of importance as either low (e.g. as considered for lunar or Martian habitats) or high (e.g. during extravehicular activities) can trigger immune dysfunction. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of increased oxygen availability -generated through hyperbaricity- on innate immune functions in the course of a 14 days NEEMO mission. 6 male subjects were included into a 14 day undersea deployment at the Aquarius station (Key Largo, FL, USA). The underwater habitat is located at an operating depth of 47ft. The 2.5 times higher atmospheric pressure in the habitat leads to hyperoxia. The collection of biological samples occurred 6 days before (L-6), at day 7 (MD7) and 11/13 (MD11/13) during the mission, and 90 days thereafter (R). Blood analyses included differential blood cell count, ex vivo innate immune activation status and inhibitory competences of granulocytes. The absolute leukocyte count showed an increase during deployment as well as the granulocyte and monocyte count. Lymphocyte count was decreased on MD7. The assessments of native adhesion molecules on granulocytes (CD11b, CD62L) indicated a highly significant cellular activation (L-6 vs. MD7/MD13) during mission. In contrast, granulocytes were more sensitive towards anti-inflammatory stimuli (adenosine) on MD13. Living in the NEEMO habitat for 14 days induced significant immune alterations as seen by an activation of adhesion molecules and vice versa higher sensitivity towards inhibition. This investigation under hyperbaric hyperoxia is important especially for Astronautś immune competence during extravehicular activities when exposed to similar conditions. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc.
Article
A sensor-based project management process, which uses continuous sensing data of face-to-face communication, was developed for integration into current project management processes. To establish a practical process, a sensing system was applied in two software-development projects involving 123 and 65 employees, respectively, to analyze the relation between work performance and behavioral patterns and investigate the use of sensor data. It was found that a factor defined as "communication richness," which refers to the amount of communication, correlates with employee performance (job evaluation) and was common in both projects, while other factors, such as "workload," were found in just one of the projects. Developers' quality of development (low bug occurrence) was also investigated in one of the projects and "communication richness" was found as a factor of high development quality. As a result of this analysis, we propose a four-step sensor-based project management process, which consists of analysis, monitoring, inspection, and action, and evaluated its effectiveness. Through monitoring, it was estimated that some "unplanned" events, such as changing specifications and problem solving during a project, could be systematically identified. Cohesion of a network was systematically increased using a recommendation of communication, called WorkX, which involves micro rotating of discussion members based on network topology.
Article
In Disasters and Accidents in Manned Spaceflight, David Shayler examines the challenges that face all crews as they prepare and execute their missions. The book covers all aspects that make up spaceflight by a human crew - training, launch to space, survival in space and return from space - followed by a series of case histories which tell of the major incidents in each of those categories over the past 40 years. The sixth section looks at the International Space Station and how it is planned, to try and prevent, as far as possible, major incidents occuring during the lifetime of the space station, and at the difficulties facing a settlement on the Moon or Mars during the next 40 years.
Article
Research shows that individuals in larger teams perform worse than individuals in smaller teams; however, very little field research examines why. The current study of 212 knowledge workers within 26 teams, ranging from 3 to 19 members in size, employs multi-level modeling to examine the underlying mechanisms. The current investigation expands upon Steiner’s (1972) model of individual performance in group contexts identifying one missing element of process loss, namely relational loss. Drawing from the literature on stress and coping, relational loss, a unique form of individual level process, loss occurs when an employee perceives that support is less available in the team as team size increases. In the current study, relational loss mediated the negative relationship between team size and individual performance even when controlling for extrinsic motivation and perceived coordination losses. This suggests that larger teams diminish perceptions of available support which would otherwise buffer stressful experiences and promote performance.
Article
This article reports the results of a questionnaire survey examining the effects of sound on office productivity and assessing the relationship between changes in office productivity and noise sources as well as five environmental and office design factors, namely temperature, air quality, office layout, sound and lighting. The convenience sample for the survey comprised 259 office workers in 38 air-conditioned offices in Hong Kong. The subjects were requested to complete the questionnaires themselves. The results show that among the five environmental and office design factors examined, sound and temperature were the principal factors affecting office productivity. A strong and significant correlation was also found between changes in office productivity and sound, temperature and office layout. Participants were separated into low- and high-productivity groups using the mean productivity score of all participants as the cut-point. The three most annoying noise sources, including conversation, ringing phones and machines, differed little in mean annoyance scores for the low- and high-productivity participants, indicating that they had a significant negative impact on all participants. The results also indicate that low-productivity participants were easily influenced by noises such as background noise, closing doors, and human activity, as well as those coming from both inside and outside the office. Practical applications: This study evaluates the effects of sound and other environmental and office design factors on office productivity. It suggests that sound is a principal factor affecting office productivity in modern air-conditioned offices.
Article
In this paper we present a two-phase study undertaken to experimentally study in a real world setting the effects of social group strength and how to increase the strength of groups in the workplace. In the first phase of our study we measured interactions between workers at the call center of a large bank based in the United States using Sociometric Badges. We confirmed our hypothesis that the strength of an individual’s social group was positively related to productivity (average call handle time) for the employees that we studied. In the second phase of our study we show that by giving employees breaks at the same time we increased the strength of an individual’s social groups, demonstrating that low-cost management decisions can be used to act on these results.
Article
A number of interpersonal issues relevant to manned space missions have been identified from the literature. These include crew tension, cohesion, leadership, language and cultural factors, and displacement. Ground-based studies by others and us have clarified some of the parameters of these issues and have indicated ways in which they could be studied during actual space missions. In this paper, we summarize some of our findings related to social and cultural issues from a NASA-funded study conducted during several Shuttle/Mir space missions. We used standardized mood and group climate measures that were completed on a weekly basis by American and Russian crew and mission control subjects who participated in these missions. Our results indicated that American subjects reported more dissatisfaction with their interpersonal environment than their Russian counterparts, especially American astronauts. Mission control personnel were more dysphoric than crewmembers, but both groups were signficantly less dysphoric than other work groups on Earth. Countermeasures based on our findings are discussed which can be applied to future multicultural space missions.
Article
This paper compares findings from two NASA-funded studies of international long-duration missions to the Mir space station (Shuttle/Mir) and to the International Space Station (ISS). American and Russian crewmembers and mission control personnel participated. Issues examined included changes in mood and group social climate over time, displacement of group tension to outside monitoring personnel, cultural differences, and leadership roles. Findings were based on the completion of a weekly questionnaire that included items from the Profile of Mood States, the Group Environment Scale, and the Work Environment Scale. An examination of issues investigated in both studies revealed much similarity in findings. There was little support for the presence of changes in levels of mood and group climate over time, and no evidence for a “3rd quarter phenomenon”. Both studies also provided evidence for the displacement of negative emotions to outside personnel in both crewmembers and mission control personnel. There were similar patterns of differences between Americans and Russians and between crewmembers and mission control personnel. Finally, in both studies, the support role of the leader was related to group cohesion among crewmembers, and both the task and support roles of the leader were related to cohesion among mission control personnel. Thus, in these four areas, the ISS study substantially replicated the findings from the earlier Shuttle/Mir study, suggesting that common psychosocial issues affect people engaged in on-orbit space missions.
Article
We introduce a system for sensing complex social systems with data collected from 100 mobile phones over the course of 9 months. We demonstrate the ability to use standard Bluetooth-enabled mobile telephones to measure information access and use in different contexts, recognize social patterns in daily user activity, infer relationships, identify socially significant locations, and model organizational rhythms.
Article
From the Earth to the Moon / Jules Verne Note: The University of Adelaide Library eBooks @ Adelaide.
Article
Before long-duration flights with international crews can be safely undertaken, potential interpersonal difficulties will need to be addressed. Crew performance breakdown has been recognized by the American Institute of Medicine, in scientific literature, and in popular culture. However, few studies of human interaction and performance in confined, isolated environments exist, and the data pertaining to those studies are mostly anecdotal. Many incidents involving crew interpersonal dynamics, those among flight crews, as well as between flight crews and ground controllers, are reported only in non-peer reviewed books and newspapers. Consequently, due to this lack of concrete knowledge, the selection of astronauts and cosmonauts has focused on individual rather than group selection. Additional selection criteria such as interpersonal and communication competence, along with intercultural training, will have a decisive impact on future mission success. Furthermore, industrial psychological research has demonstrated the ability to select a group based on compatibility. With all this in mind, it is essential to conduct further research on heterogeneous, multi-national crews including selection and training for long-duration space missions.
The millennial project: colonizing the galaxy- in 8 easy steps
  • savage
M. T. M. T. Savage, The millennial project : colonizing the galaxy-in 8 easy steps. Empyrean Pub, 1992.
N. Aeronautics, and S. A. L. research center
  • J Olson
  • D Craig
  • N Aeronautics
  • S A L Center
The Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation
  • F A Administration
F. A. Administration, "The Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation: 2018." [Online]. Available: https://www.faa.gov/about/ office org/headquarters offices/ast/media/2018 AST Compendium.pdf
Astronaut Requirements
  • collins
Wearable motion capture suit with full-body tactile sensors
  • Y Pujimori
  • Y Ohmura
  • T Harada
  • Y Kuniyoshi