Cognitive control is the most fundamental psychological function that underlies the execution of many other psychological functions. A mobile game application could be a useful strategy to evaluate ...cognitive control in the groups of children and adolescents. Although a serious game that is based on gamification would be an optimal platform for the administration of behavioral and clinical assessments of children and adolescents, most studies on gamification have been conducted among adults and older adults than among children and adolescents. This study aimed to assess cognitive control using a mobile game that used gamification and compared the results to those from traditional neuropsychological tests for children and adolescents. In order to address this objective, this study used a serious game, namely, "CoCon," which was developed to assess cognitive control in children and adolescents. This study included 100 participants from a community sample (mean age = 11.75 years, ranged from 9 to 16 years, SD = 1.40 years; Male = 59(59%), Female = 41(41%)). The analyses interrogated the relationships among various game behaviors scores of CoCon, the standardized neuropsychological tests (K-WISC-IV, CTT, and Stroop), and self-reporting executive function difficulty questionnaire. As results, a mobile game application-based assessment proved to be a reliable and valid measure of the cognitive control in children and adolescents. The index scores from the CoCon were significantly related to various cognitive control functions and differentiated between the high and low cognitive control groups. Specifically, even though the participants completed the mobile game 'CoCon' in their natural habitats, the CoCon scores were comparable to the measures from standard neuropsychological tests. In conclusion, the present findings suggest that mobile games that use advanced technology and sophisticated psychological strategies can serve as a new and expanded platform for the administration of psychological assessments.
The heterogeneous presentation of inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive core symptoms in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) warrants further investigation into brain network connectivity ...as a basis for subtype divisions in this prevalent disorder. With diffusion and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from the Healthy Brain Network database, we analyzed both structural and functional network efficiency and structure-functional network (SC-FC) coupling at the default mode (DMN), executive control (ECN), and salience (SAN) intrinsic networks in 201 children diagnosed with the inattentive subtype (ADHD-I), the combined subtype (ADHD-C), and typically developing children (TDC) to characterize ADHD symptoms relative to TDC and to test differences between ADHD subtypes. Relative to TDC, children with ADHD had lower structural connectivity and network efficiency in the DMN, without significant group differences in functional networks. Children with ADHD-C had higher SC-FC coupling, a finding consistent with diminished cognitive flexibility, for all subnetworks compared to TDC. The ADHD-C group also demonstrated increased SC-FC coupling in the DMN compared to the ADHD-I group. The correlation between SC-FC coupling and hyperactivity scores was negative in the ADHD-I, but not in the ADHD-C group. The current study suggests that ADHD-C and ADHD-I may differ with respect to their underlying neuronal connectivity and that the added dimensionality of hyperactivity may not explain this distinction.
Effective inter-hospital coordination is crucial in improving the stroke treatment process and outcomes. The introduction of endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) further emphasized the importance of ...coordination. Although previous studies considered various clinical data besides stroke in terms of the network structure between hospitals, a majority of these studies performed only quantitative analyses instead of topological analyses. This study proposes a new framework (PatientFlow) for constructing a network based on stroke patient transfer data and performing exploratory analysis. The proposed framework can visualize the network structure among hospitals at the national level and analyze the detailed structure through dynamic queries. The hub-and-spoke structure for each cluster derived through community detection can be compared visually and analyzed quantitatively using network measures. Further, the relationship between regions can be analyzed by aggregating the transfer of patients by province. PatientFlow allows medical researchers to perform an exploratory analysis to understand the network at the national, provincial, and community levels with multiple coordinated views.
We present an interactive visual analytics framework, GazeDx (abbr. of GazeDiagnosis), for the comparative analysis of gaze data from multiple readers examining volumetric images while integrating ...important contextual information with the gaze data. Gaze pattern comparison is essential to understanding how radiologists examine medical images, and to identifying factors influencing the examination. Most prior work depended upon comparisons with manually juxtaposed static images of gaze tracking results. Comparative gaze analysis with volumetric images is more challenging due to the additional cognitive load on 3D perception. A recent study proposed a visualization design based on direct volume rendering (DVR) for visualizing gaze patterns in volumetric images; however, effective and comprehensive gaze pattern comparison is still challenging due to a lack of interactive visualization tools for comparative gaze analysis. We take the challenge with GazeDx while integrating crucial contextual information such as pupil size and windowing into the analysis process for more in-depth and ecologically valid findings. Among the interactive visualization components in GazeDx, a context-embedded interactive scatterplot is especially designed to help users examine abstract gaze data in diverse contexts by embedding medical imaging representations well known to radiologists in it. We present the results from two case studies with two experienced radiologists, where they compared the gaze patterns of 14 radiologists reading two patients' volumetric CT images.
Purpose: In this study, the researchers closely investigated the psychosocial problems faced by terminal cancer patients and their family members in hospice palliative care units.
Methods: The ...investigators conducted four sessions of art therapy intervention programs for the terminal cancer patients and their family members, carried out in-depth interviews about the influence of the cancer experience on their family function and quality of life, and analyzed their experiences using grounded theory methodology. Results: After providing autonomous written informed consent, six pairs of terminally ill cancer patients and their family members, accounting for a total of 17 participants with the inclusion of additional family members who took part sporadically, took part in the art therapy intervention and interviews. The raw data, in the form of verbatim records, were analyzed according to the procedures of grounded theory (open, axial, and selective coding). Through these processes, a total of 154 concepts, 56 subcategories, and 13 categories were identified. Families were classified into four types according to their family function, quality of life, and attitude toward death. Though the art therapy intervention, patients and their family members experienced three stages over time. Conclusion: This research focused on essential aspects of the family relationships and the art therapy experiences of terminal cancer patients and their family members through an art therapy intervention in the context of hospice palliative care. Based on these observations, the researchers constructed a theoretical rationale for art therapy interventions delivered to patients and their family members in the process of hospice palliative care. KCI Citation Count: 0
This paper presents a method for detecting and restoring integer datasets that have been manipulated by operations involving nonintegral real-number multiplication and rounding. As we discuss in the ...paper, detecting and restoring such manipulated integer datasets is not straightforward, nor are there any known solutions. We introduce the manipulation process, which was motivated by an actual case of fraud, and survey several areas of literature dealing with the possibility that manipulation may have happened or might occur. From our mathematical analysis of the manipulation process, we can prove that the nonintegral real number (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\alpha </tex-math></inline-formula>) used in the multiplication exists not as a single real number but as an interval containing infinitely many real numbers, any of which could have been used to produce the same manipulation result. Based on these analytic findings, we provide an algorithm that can detect and restore manipulated integer datasets. To validate our algorithm, we applied it to 40,000 test datasets that were randomly generated using controllable parameters that matched the real fraud case. Our results indicated that the algorithm detected and perfectly restored all datasets for which the value of the nonintegral real number was at least 16 (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\alpha \geq 16 </tex-math></inline-formula>) and the number of data entries was at least 40 (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">n\geq 40 </tex-math></inline-formula>).
PubMed is the most extensively used database and search engine in the biomedical and healthcare fields. However, users could experience several difficulties in acquiring their target papers facing ...massive numbers of search results, especially in their unfamiliar fields. Therefore, we developed a novel user interface for PubMed and conducted three steps of study: step A, a preliminary user survey with 76 medical experts regarding the current usability for the biomedical literature search task at PubMed; step B is implementing EEEvis, a novel interactive visual analytic system for the search task; step C, a randomized user study comparing PubMed and EEEvis. First, we conducted a Google survey of 76 medical experts regarding the unmet needs of PubMed and the user requirements for a novel search interface. According to the data of preliminary Google survey, we implemented a novel interactive visual analytic system for biomedical literature search. This EEEvis provides enhanced literature data analysis functions including (1) an overview of the bibliographic features including publication date, citation count, and impact factors, (2) an overview of the co-authorship network, and (3) interactive sorting, filtering, and highlighting. In the randomized user study of 24 medical experts, the search speed of EEEvis was not inferior to PubMed in the time to reach the first article (median difference 3 sec, 95% CI -2.1 to 8.5, P = 0.535) nor in the search completion time (median difference 8 sec, 95% CI -4.7 to 19.1, P = 0.771). However, 22 participants (91.7%) responded that they are willing to use EEEvis as their first choice for a biomedical literature search task, and 21 participants (87.5%) answered the bibliographic sorting and filtering functionalities of EEEvis as a major advantage. EEEvis could be a supplementary interface for PubMed that can enhance the user experience in the search for biomedical literature.
This study proposes a markerless Augmented Reality (AR) surgical framework for breast lesion removal using a depth sensor and 3D breast Computed Tomography (CT) images. A patient mesh in the real ...coordinate system is acquired through a patient 3D scan using a depth sensor for registration. The patient mesh on the virtual coordinate system is obtained by contrast-based skin segmentation in 3D mesh generated from breast CT scans. Then, the nipple area is detected based on the gradient in the segmented skin area. The region of interest (ROI) is set based on the detection result to select the vertices in the virtual coordinate system. The mesh on the real and virtual coordinate systems is first aligned by matching the center of mass, and the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) method is applied to perform more precise registration. Experimental results of 20 patients' data showed 98.35 ± 0.71% skin segmentation accuracy in terms of Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) value, 2.79 ± 1.54 mm nipple detection error, and 4.69 ± 1.95 mm registration error. Experiments using phantom and patient data also confirmed high accuracy in AR visualization. The proposed method in this study showed that the 3D AR visualization of medical data on the patient's body is possible by using a single depth sensor without having to use markers.
Purpose This study aimed to examine the effects of muscle fatigue on skin sensation by looking at changes in two-point discrimination (2PD) after inducing muscle fatigue. Subjects Thirty-four young ...and healthy adults with no pathological symptoms (17 males; 17 females) participated in this study. Methods Continuous isometric contraction was applied to the upper and lower extremities with an intensity of 50% of the maximal muscle strength to trigger muscle fatigue, and then the 2PD test was conducted on the 3 cm medial area of the elbow and 5 cm area of the knee bone. Results After muscle fatigue was induced, the 2PD distance significantly increased in the upper and lower extremities of both males and females. Before triggering muscle fatigue, the 2PD distance was longer in males than females, but after causing muscle fatigue, there was no difference between males and females. The increase in 2PD distance after the experiment was more significant in females than males. Conclusion Muscle fatigue has an effect of reducing the skin’s sensory faculty by increasing the 2PD distance in the skin. There is a difference in the response of the skin according to body area and gender; therefore, caution is needed to avoid triggering fatigue during exercise.
Gaze visualization has been used to understand the results from gaze tracking studies in a wide range of fields. In the medical field, diagnoses of medical images have been studied with gaze tracking ...technology to understand how radiologists read medical images. While prior work were mainly based on diagnosis with a single image, recent work focused on diagnosis with consecutive cross-sectional medical images acquired from preoperative computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In the diagnosis, radiologists scroll through a stack of images to get a 3D cognition of organs and lesions. Thus, it is important to understand radiologists' gaze patterns three dimensionally across such contiguous cross-sectional images. However, little has been done to visualize more complicated gaze patterns from the contiguous cross-sectional medical images. To address this problem, we present an interactive 3D gaze visualization tool, GazeVis, where InfoVis and SciVis techniques are harmonized to show the abstract gaze data along with a realistic 3D rendering of the visual stimuli (i.e., organs and lesions). We present case studies with 12 radiologists who use GazeVis to investigate gaze patterns of their colleagues with different levels of expertise, providing empirical evidences about the competence of our gaze visualization system.
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