This study investigates the potential of PCM and natural ventilation to strengthen the thermal comfort inside the lightweight relocatable building located in Kazakhstan during the summer period. The ...quantification of the impact of the PCM on the thermal comfort was accomplished using the concepts of maximum operative temperature reduction and discomfort index. A novel indicator of Total Discomfort Change (TDC) was introduced to select the optimum PCM. Thereafter, the behaviour of the optimised PCM was comprehensively evaluated through activation of PCM and PCM storage efficiency. In all cities, PCM 26 + NV showed the best performance achieving the TDC values of up to 1818 and its storage efficiency values were up to 39.1%. Then, the analysis of the effect of real PCMs on the thermal comfort conditions was provided. The investigation revealed that RT 26 + NV was the most efficient in all cities achieving the TDC values of up to 1977. Thereafter, the impact of climate change under RCP 8.5 emission scenario (2095) was assessed and RT 28 + NV and RT 26 + NV were found to be optimum combinations. Overall, the optimum configuration of PCM with natural ventilation can be used for improving the thermal comfort conditions during the summertime in all cities of Kazakhstan.
•Quantitatively evaluated thermal performance of PCM building in Kazakhstan.•Introduced novel concept to evaluate total discomfort change in PCM building.•PCM combined with natural ventilation showed more efficient performance.•For all cities, PCM26 + NV was found to be an optimum solution during summertime.•Findings useful for designing lightweight relocatable PCM building in Kazakhstan.
Post-thyroidectomy patients commonly experience voice changes, swallowing symptoms, and neck discomfort, a condition known as post-thyroidectomy syndrome. The Thyroidectomy-Related Voice and Symptom ...Questionnaire (TVSQ) is a validated tool showing strong correlations with established tools with a potential predictive value for post-thyroidectomy voice outcomes. Our study aims to translate and validate the TVSQ into Arabic.
This validation study was conducted at King Abdulaziz University Hospital and King Khalid University Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Forward and backward translations ensured the conceptual equivalence of the Arabic TVSQ (A-TVSQ) and were reviewed by an expert panel. A pilot test assessed the A-TVSQ’s face validity and clarity, leading to necessary cultural adjustments. The final A-TVSQ was pre- and post-operatively administered to thyroidectomy patients to evaluate its test-retest reliability.
Data were collected from 116 participants (53 cases 45.6% and 63 controls 54.3%). The internal consistency analysis showed strong inter-correlation among the A-TVSQ items, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (0.951) indicating excellent estimated internal consistency within both domains. Test-retest reliability showed a moderate level of reliability with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.696. A-TVSQ item discrimination analysis showed significant associations between the total and domain scores pre- and post-thyroidectomy. External validity analysis showed significant changes in A-TVSQ voice change (p < 0.010) and neck discomfort (p = 0.011) domains and total scores (p < 0.010) between before and two weeks after thyroidectomy. However, no significant changes were observed between two and four weeks after thyroidectomy.
The translated and validated A-TVSQ showed excellent internal consistency and moderate test-retest reliability, comparable to the original version. Voice change significantly worsened after thyroidectomy, highlighting the need for continued monitoring and management strategies for this complication.
Effective management of patients’ pain, anxiety, and discomfort during colonoscopy is crucial for successful completion of the procedure, patient adherence to follow-up examinations, and patient ...satisfaction. Virtual Reality (VR) interventions, as a nonpharmacological and innovative solution, have demonstrated promising results in managing these outcomes. Nevertheless, there is limited evidence on their effectiveness and implementation. This trial aimed to test clinical effectiveness and identify factors to facilitate the implementation of VR during colonoscopy.
A hybrid type 1 effectiveness-implementation, parallel randomized controlled, open-label trial was conducted. Fifty patients were randomized (1:1) to a VR or a control group. The effectiveness (pain, anxiety, discomfort, medication usage, and satisfaction) and implementation (reach, adoption, implementation, and maintenance) outcomes were assessed before, during, and after colonoscopy.
Patients in the VR group reported significantly lower pain (p=0.043) and discomfort (p<0.0001) during colonoscopy, had a higher number of completed colonoscopy without sedation (p=0.003), and showed higher satisfaction (p=0.032). The major barrier to the implementation and maintenance of the VR intervention was inadequate VR content design. Staff were most worried about altered patient communications, unclear responsibilities, increasing workload, and patient safety. Patients expressed willingness to reuse VR glasses and to suggest them to other patients.
VR can be used as a nonpharmacological method for pain management and for overcoming anxiety and discomfort during colonoscopy. VR can improve patients’ satisfaction and diminish the need for sedative medications; accordingly, it has the potential to promote cooperation and compliance among patients and increase screening colonoscopy rates. Clinicaltrials.gov NCT05723861.
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Objective
The goal of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and change in perception of physical discomfort, including musculoskeletal discomfort, during the COVID-19 pandemic and to determine ...associations of demographic factors, telework activity, and home office characteristics with the highest prevalence of discomfort.
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic forced a substantial increase in telework in many countries. The sudden change from a regular workplace to an improvised “home office” may have an impact on working conditions and physical symptoms of office workers. However, investigations in this area remain limited.
Method
A cross-sectional study design was used to compare self-reported complaints of physical discomfort perceived from before with those during the pandemic. Associations between complaints and home office characteristics were investigated from 150 faculty and 51 administrative staff of an academic institution with an age range of 41.16 ± 10.20 (59% female).
Results
A significant increase of physical discomfort was found during the pandemic period for head, eyes, hand, and upper back for both staff and faculty and neck, shoulders, elbows, and lower back for faculty only. Logistic regression analyses point to associations with the lack of a laptop stand, uncomfortable desk, poor lighting, and sitting time, among others.
Conclusion
A high prevalence of physical discomfort was reported by teleworkers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some home office characteristics were associated with these discomforts.
Application
Some telework characteristics seem to be risk factors for physical discomfort. Consideration should be given to teaching best practices for workstation setup and/or conducting other preventive interventions in the work environment.
This paper investigated the discomfort caused by vertical whole-body vibration (WBV) over 20 minutes using data recorded at the front, middle, and rear seats of the passenger cabin in civil aviation ...during a cruising flight. Twenty-four subjects experienced each stimulus at 0.5 ms
−2
r.m.s. and judged discomfort at various moments (i.e. 1/6, 5, 10, 15, and 20 min) using a category-ratio method. The difference in discomfort due to high-frequency vibration components vanished after 10 min. Based on Stevens' power law, a method is developed to estimate long-term vertical WBV discomfort by considering the static discomfort and an interaction coefficient between vibration and static discomfort as parameters. The proposed estimation method showed high accuracy with determination coefficients (R
2
) higher than 0.97 and good linearity with values of growth rates 0.95, 1, and 0.95 for the vertical WBV discomfort at the front, middle, and rear seat positions in the aircraft cabin.
Practitioner summary: An estimation method for the discomfort caused by vertical WBV considering the duration and static sitting discomfort is developed. This method can provide accurate discomfort estimating for long-term vibration exposure, e.g. in civil aviation during a cruising flight, by introducing an 'interaction term' between static and dynamic discomfort.
The Internet of Things (IoT) widely supports the smart healthcare field; combined with computer vision, machine, and deep learning techniques; it provides fast and accurate services for automated ...patient discomfort monitoring/detection systems. Traditional patient monitoring systems are commonly composed of wearable sensors and vision-based methods. In this article, an IoT-based noninvasive automated patient's discomfort monitoring/detection system is presented and implemented, using a deep-learning-based algorithm. The system is based on an IP camera device; the patient's body's movement and posture are detected without using any wearable devices. The Mask-RCNN method is employed for the extraction of different key points on the patient body. These detected key points are then transformed into six major body organs using association rules of data mining. Furthermore, for analyzing the patient's discomfort, detected key point coordinates information is measured. Finally, the distance and the temporal threshold are applied to classify movements as either associated with normal or discomfort conditions. These key points information is also used to determine the postures of the patient lying on the bed. The patient's body position and posture are continuously monitored, based on which comfort and discomfort level are discriminated. For experimental evaluation, different video sequences are recorded covering two patient's beds. The experimental results show the proposed system's worth by achieving a true-positive rate of 94% and a false-positive rate of 7%.
•Measuring methods from contact manner to non-contact manner were reviewed.•The development of Euler video magnification technology was retrospected.•Skeleton keypoints model was ...retrospected.•Non-contact measurements for personalized thermal comfort were discussed.•Non-contact measurements for demand oriented HVAC systems were discussed.
Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems have been adopted to create comfortable, healthy and safe indoor environments. In the control loop, the technical feature of the human demand-oriented supply can help operate HVAC effectively. Among many technical options, real time monitoring based on feedback signals from end users has been frequently reported as a critical technology to confirm optimizing building performance. Recent studies have incorporated human thermal physiology signals and thermal comfort/discomfort status as real-time feedback signals. A series of human subject experiments used to be conducted by primarily adopting subjective questionnaire surveys in a lab-setting study, which is limited in the application for reality. With the help of advanced technologies, physiological signals have been detected, measured and processed by using multiple technical formats, such as wearable sensors. Nevertheless, they mostly require physical contacts with the skin surface in spite of the small physical dimension and compatibility with other wearable accessories, such as goggles, and intelligent bracelets. Most recently, a low cost small infrared camera has been adopted for monitoring human facial images, which could detect the facial skin temperature and blood perfusion in a contactless way. Also, according to latest pilot studies, a conventional digital camera can generate infrared images with the help of new methods, such as the Euler video magnification technology. Human thermal comfort/discomfort poses can also be detected by video methods without contacting human bodies and be analyzed by the skeleton keypoints model. In this review, new sensing technologies were summarized, their cons and pros were discussed, and extended applications for the demand-oriented ventilation were also reviewed as potential development and applications.
The objectives of this study were to (1) compare laryngeal configuration patterns in occupational voice users with and without primary muscle tension dysphonia (pMTD), (2) characterize laryngeal ...configurations in relation to other clinical metrics (acoustic, perceptual), and (3) determine the effects of vocal demands (load) on these clinical parameters.
Thirty subjects (15 pMTD, 15 control) were recruited for the study. Laryngoscopic examinations and voice samples for sustained /i/ were obtained before and after a half hour vocal load task. Subjects rated their vocal effort and discomfort before and after the vocal load. Laryngeal configurations were analyzed subjectively with dichotomous and categorical rating scales and hyper function severity quantified (endolaryngeal area outlets). Overall dysphonia severity and vocal instability of each voice sample was rated on 100mm visual analog scales and cepstral peak prominence (CPP) extracted from each voice sample.
Laryngeal configurations between groups or vocal load condition were not distinguishable with any of the dichotomous, categorical, or quantitative laryngeal metrics. Vocal effort and discomfort ratings were significantly higher in the pMTD group compared to the control group. Vocal load also had significant effects across groups on vocal effort and vocal tract discomfort ratings. Although CPP values fell within the normal range in both groups, CPP was significantly lower in the pMTD group at both pre-load and post-load time points. Auditory-perceptual ratings were also significantly worse in the pMTD group. Vocal load did not have a significant effect on acoustic or auditory-perceptual measures.
Similar laryngeal configurations between groups at both pre- and post-vocal load suggests classic patterns of laryngeal "hyperadduction" may occur variably in occupational voice users and may not be indicative of pMTD pathophysiology. Greater vocal effort, discomfort, instability, and perturbation within the vocal system may better define pMTD than laryngeal configuration in occupational voice users with pMTD.
In home energy management, the occupants schedule the operating appliances to achieve lowest optimal energy cost with minimum discomfort. Smart home energy management turns out to be challenging due ...to the penetration of rooftop intermittent solar power generations. This article develops a multi-objective and real time smart residential load management and hence energy management topology considering variation in rooftop solar power generation with variation in price of distribution grid energy. Primarily, the optimization problem is established as a time average stochastic optimization formulation and then simplified to mixed integer linear programming (MILP) using Lyapunov optimization. The energy cost minimization objective is added with ocular and thermal discomfort minimization which also lowers the discomfort level for occupants due to actions caused by real time load management. The home loads are managed by an Internet-of-Things (IoT) based controller which also alerts the occupants for any incipient malfunction in the household loads. The proposed control technique is authenticated on a real-life smart residential data with simulations and experiments. The resultant controller can thus optimally control the smart residential loads in real time.
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