Managing Mental Health

But needs to be carefully studied in various contexts.   Recall some of the various 'therapist' capabilities in early AI that had unexpected results.

Technology to Manage Mental Health at Your Fingertips

Texas A&M Today, Vandana Suresh, May 26, 2021

An electronic platform can read facial cues and vocal patterns, and integrate readings from smartwatch sensors to detect psychological stress, according to Texas A&M University (TAMU) researchers. They developed the monitoring and feedback system with Houston Methodist Hospital collaborators and other researchers in Texas and Hawaii, using smartwatch-collected data to train machine learning algorithms to recognize patterns that correspond with the normal state of arousal. The algorithms can then continuously monitor readings from the sensors and recognition applications to identify the state of hyperarousal, a sign of psychiatric distress. TAMU's Farzan Sasangohar said the technology “will give providers and counselors continuous access to patient variables and patient status, and I think it’s going to have a lifesaving implication because they can reach out to patients when they need it. Plus, it will empower patients to manage their mental health better.”

Portable Device Can Quickly Detect Plant Stress

Powerful idea.   Here wondering how well the measure of stress works for various crops.

Portable Device Can Quickly Detect Plant Stress

MIT News,  January 4, 2021

A device developed by researchers with the Singapore-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Alliance for Research and Technology and Singapore's Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) can read plant health, enabling sustainable crop yield maximization. The portable Raman leaf-clip sensor can diagnose nitrogen deficiency in plants, which can be connected to premature leaf deterioration and yield loss. MIT's Rajeev Ram said, "Our findings showed that in vivo measurements using the portable leaf-clip Raman sensor under full-light growth conditions were consistent with measurements obtained with a benchtop Raman spectrometer on leaf sections under laboratory conditions." TLL's Nam-Hai Chua said the sensor "was demonstrated on multiple vegetable varieties and supports the effort to produce nutritious, low-cost vegetables as part of the Singapore 30-by-30 initiative."

Sensors for Plant Stress

Possible applications for sensing problems with crops.

Nanosensor can alert a smartphone when plants are stressed
Carbon nanotubes embedded in leaves detect chemical signals that are produced when a plant is damaged.

Anne Trafton | MIT News Office

MIT engineers have developed a way to closely track how plants respond to stresses such as injury, infection, and light damage, using sensors made of carbon nanotubes. These sensors can be embedded in plant leaves, where they report on hydrogen peroxide signaling waves.

Plants use hydrogen peroxide to communicate within their leaves, sending out a distress signal that stimulates leaf cells to produce compounds that will help them repair damage or fend off predators such as insects. The new sensors can use these hydrogen peroxide signals to distinguish between different types of stress, as well as between different species of plants.

“Plants have a very sophisticated form of internal communication, which we can now observe for the first time. That means that in real-time, we can see a living plant’s response, communicating the specific type of stress that it’s experiencing,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT.

This kind of sensor could be used to study how plants respond to different types of stress, potentially helping agricultural scientists develop new strategies to improve crop yields. The researchers demonstrated their approach in eight different plant species, including spinach, strawberry plants, and arugula, and they believe it could work in many more.

Strano is the senior author of the study, which appears today in Nature Plants. MIT graduate student Tedrick Thomas Salim Lew is the lead author of the paper.  ... " 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-020-0632-4

Team Stress Levels

In the enterprise saw much lip service given to this kind of issue, but few solutions other than cautions, here an attempt at measure.    In the HBR: 

An Early Warning System for Your Team’s Stress Level
Thomas Hellwig, Caroline Rook, Elizabeth Florent-Treacy, Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Stressed Out by Work

In Knowledge@Wharton:
 " ... If you had asked any worker since the Industrial Revolution whether he or she was experiencing stress on the job, the answer would likely have been in the affirmative—and emphatic. But workplace experts say something unusual is going on today. Global competition, downsizing and the constant state of being electronically tethered to the office are combining to create a perhaps unprecedented level of stress. ... " 

Measuring Stress Levels in an Unmanageable World

An insightful piece in the HBR.  Which came up in a lunch conversation today.   Many of us are managing multiple devices now.   Will the number of devices creep upwards or downwards?  Do we need device free zones?  An unmanageable world that can be best described by the language of addiction and being chained to a (virtual) desk.  Ironically the article also mentions an App that claims to be able to detect your current stress level via heart rate variability.  If successful, this will be another example of why the devices may well prevail.