Abstract: The commercial flightdeck is a naturally multi-tasking work environment, one in which interruptions are frequent come in various forms, contributing in many cases to aviation incident reports. Automatic characterization of pilots’ workloads is essential to preventing these kind of incidents. In addition, minimizing the physiological sensor network as much as possible remains both a challenge and a requirement. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals have shown high correlations with specific cognitive and mental states, such as workload. However, there is not enough evidence in the literature to validate how well models generalize in cases of new subjects performing tasks with workloads similar to the ones included during the model’s training. In this paper, we propose a convolutional neural network to classify EEG features across different mental workloads in a continuous performance task test that partly measures working memory and working memory capacity. Our model is valid at the general population level and it is able to transfer task learning to pilot mental workload recognition in a simulated operational environment.

Abstract: The study of mental workload becomes essential for human work efficiency, health conditions and to avoid accidents, since workload compromises both performance and awareness. Although workload has been widely studied using several physiological measures, minimising the sensor network as much as possible remains both a challenge and a requirement.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals have shown a high correlation to specific cognitive and mental states like workload. However, there is not enough evidence in the literature to validate how well models generalize in case of new subjects performing tasks of a workload similar to the ones included during model’s training.
In this paper we propose a binary neural network to classify EEG features across different mental workloads. Two workloads, low and medium, are induced using two variants of the N-Back Test. The proposed model was validated in a dataset collected from 16 subjects and shown a high level of generalization capability: model reported an average recall of 81.81% in a leave-one-out subject evaluation.

Abstract: Background: COVID-19 infection, especially in cases with pneumonia, is associated with a high rate of pulmonary embolism (PE). In patients with contraindications for CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) or non-diagnostic CTPA, perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (Q-SPECT/CT) is a diagnostic alternative. The goal of this study is to develop a radiomic diagnostic system to detect PE based only on the analysis of Q-SPECT/CT scans.
Methods: This radiomic diagnostic system is based on a local analysis of Q-SPECT/CT volumes that includes both CT and Q-SPECT values for each volume point. We present a combined approach that uses radiomic features extracted from each scan as input into a fully connected classifcation neural network that optimizes a weighted crossentropy loss trained to discriminate between three diferent types of image patterns (pixel sample level): healthy lungs (control group), PE and pneumonia. Four types of models using diferent confguration of parameters were tested.
Results: The proposed radiomic diagnostic system was trained on 20 patients (4,927 sets of samples of three types of image patterns) and validated in a group of 39 patients (4,410 sets of samples of three types of image patterns). In the training group, COVID-19 infection corresponded to 45% of the cases and 51.28% in the test group. In the test group, the best model for determining diferent types of image patterns with PE presented a sensitivity, specifcity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of 75.1%, 98.2%, 88.9% and 95.4%, respectively. The best model for detecting
pneumonia presented a sensitivity, specifcity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of 94.1%, 93.6%, 85.2% and 97.6%, respectively. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.92 for PE and 0.91 for pneumonia. When the results obtained at the pixel sample level are aggregated into regions of interest, the sensitivity of the PE increases to 85%, and all metrics improve for pneumonia.
Conclusion: This radiomic diagnostic system was able to identify the diferent lung imaging patterns and is a frst step toward a comprehensive intelligent radiomic system to optimize the diagnosis of PE by Q-SPECT/CT.

Abstract: Endoscopic estimation of the degree of stenosis in central airway obstruction is subjective and highly variable. Objective: To determine the benefits of using SENSA (System for Endoscopic Stenosis Assessment), an image-based computational software, for obtaining objective stenosis index (SI) measurements among a group of expert bronchoscopists and general pulmonologists. Methods: A total of 7 expert bronchoscopists and 7 general pulmonologists were enrolled to validate SENSA usage. The SI obtained by the physicians and by SENSA were compared with a reference SI to set their precision in SI computation. We used SENSA to efficiently obtain this reference SI in 11 selected cases of benign stenosis. A Web platform with three user-friendly microtasks was designed to gather the data. The users had to visually estimate the SI from videos with and without contours of the normal and the obstructed area provided by SENSA. The users were able to modify the SENSA contours to define the reference SI using morphometric bronchoscopy. Results: Visual SI estimation accuracy was associated with neither bronchoscopic experience (p = 0.71) nor the contours of the normal and the obstructed area provided by the system (p = 0.13). The precision of the SI by SENSA was 97.7% (95% CI: 92.4-103.7), which is significantly better than the precision of the SI by visual estimation (p < 0.001), with an improvement by at least 15%. Conclusion: SENSA provides objective SI measurements with a precision of up to 99.5%, which can be calculated from any bronchoscope using an affordable scalable interface. Providing normal and obstructed contours on bronchoscopic videos does not improve physicians' visual estimation of the SI.

Abstract: Project-Based Learning (PBL) is an educational strategy to improve student’s learning capability that, in recent years, has had a progressive acceptance in undergraduate studies. This methodology is based on solving a problem or project in a student working group. In this way, PBL focuses on learning the necessary tools to correctly find a solution to given problems. Since the learning initiative is transferred to the student, the PBL method promotes students own abilities. This allows a better assessment of the true workload that carries out the student in the subject. It follows that the methodology conforms to the guidelines of the Bologna document, which quantifies the student workload in a subject by means of the European credit transfer system (ECTS). PBL is currently applied in undergraduate studies needing strong practical training such as medicine, nursing or law sciences. Although this is also the case in engineering studies, amazingly, few experiences have been reported. In this paper we propose to use PBL in the educational organization of the Computer Graphics subjects in the Computer Science degree. Our PBL project focuses in the development of a C++ graphical environment based on the OpenGL libraries for visualization and handling of different graphical objects. The starting point is a basic skeleton that already includes lighting functions, perspective projection with mouse interaction to change the point of view and three predefined objects. Students have to complete this skeleton by adding their own functions to solve the project. A total number of 10 projects have been proposed and successfully solved. The exercises range from human face rendering to articulated objects, such as robot arms or puppets. In the present paper we extensively report the statement and educational objectives for two of the projects: solar system visualization and a chess game. We report our earlier educational experience based on the standard classroom theoretical, problem and practice sessions and the reasons that motivated searching for other learning methods. We have mainly chosen PBL because it improves the student learning initiative. We have applied the PBL educational model since the beginning of the second semester. The student’s feedback increases in his interest for the subject. We present a comparative study of the teachers’ and students’ workload between PBL and the classic teaching approach, which suggests that the workload increase in PBL is not as high as it seems.