Vijay Rajanna Wins Best Student Paper Award at MobiHealth 2015

Director Dr. Tracy Hammond and the members of the Sketch Recognition Lab congratulate Vijay Rajanna for winning the Best Student Paper Award at MobiHealth 2015 for his submission, Let Me Relax: Toward Automated Sedentary State Recognition and Ubiquitous Mental Wellness Solutions, written by Vijay Rajanna, Folami Alamudun, Dr. Daniel Goldberg, and Dr. Hammond.

MobiHealth 2015 was held over October 14 – 16th in London, United Kingdom. Endorsed and organized by the European Alliance for Innovation, 2015 marked the 5th EAI International Conference on Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare, titled this year as "Transforming Healthcare through Innovations in Mobile and Wireless Technologies."

(Vijay Rajanna in London for MobiHealth 2015)

Rajanna’s paper encompasses his work on a mobile application to improve workplace productivity while reducing physical exertion and sedentary work life. At one point or another, everyone has experienced an angry associate, racing against deadlines, only being able to find a pen when what is needed is a pencil, and technical difficulties. While these are all examples of life stressors that may seem little, when someone is under fire in a work environment, little things can build upon one another to become overwhelming enough that employee productivity decreases due to mental stress.

“Because of technological advancements, most of our working style is becoming sedentary,” Rajanna stated as he explained the motivation behind the paper. “Inactivity, ultimately, results in anxiety, depression, and hypokinetic diseases. We wanted to come up with a solution, specifically, for people who work in an office for long hours.”

Using the combination of a smartwatch and smartphone, Let Me Relax seeks to increase calmness and stress reduction through simple relaxation techniques that can be used in the workplace to take a short break from everyday hardships. Let Me Relax breaks up the sedentary work day with short relaxation techniques that allow workers to breathe and tap out of daily struggles for a few moments before re-entering the fray. Rajanna’s experimentations with his application showed that subjects who followed the relaxation techniques tended to have an increased activity level at work as well as reduced mental stress. 

“These results suggest that repeated interventions, driven by an intelligent activity recognition system, is an effective strategy for promoting healthy habits, which reduce stress, anxiety, and other health risks associated with sedentary workplaces,” Rajanna wrote in his paper’s abstract.

Rajanna took the time to describe what set MobiHealth apart from other conferences that he has attended. Unlike other conferences, where research and projects are highly diverse in regard to topics, MobiHealth only focuses on research regarding mobile and wireless healthcare. It is completely tailored to healthcare and medical work using mobile devices. Everyone who attends the conference is in the same area of research as one another, which makes networking and contact connection much easier.

"You will never, ever get bored attending any presentation," Rajanna commented about the similar interests and areas of everyone at the conference. "I ended up going to pretty much all the presentations over three days. Everything that I listened to, I was able to connect to and was able to learn from that."

Of course, when asked what the most memorable part of the conference was, Rajanna smiled and laughed.

"I knew we put a lot of effort into the paper," he began. "We wanted to get a lot of good work done, and the best part is that we won the Best Student Paper Award. I never expected that, but I was so happy."

Rajanna went on to explain that his surprise partially stemmed from the fact that there were top medical and technological schools represented at the conference. He was overjoyed and shocked when it was announced that his paper had won.

(Tower Bridge in London. Photo by Vijay Rajanna)

Moving forward, Rajanna learned a lot and made multiple contacts from attending the conference that will directly influence his healthcare work with Let Me Relax. For example, one project presented at the conference that Rajanna found particularly interesting was the new, updated sensors used in mobile devices. These sensors, which are not yet available, are a technological means of measuring physiological signs. He also enthusiastically spoke about how many application and wearable sensor technology projects were presented at MobiHealth - one of which was being used to measure fatigue in drivers.

"The best part is networking - I got the contact information from a lot of people. After I got back, I sent emails to all of them and am still in contact with them," Rajanna stated.

Also unlike many other conferences, MobiHealth has both researchers and practitioners (in this case, doctors) that attend and do presentations. Instead of only having a scope on research, MobiHealth is more focused than other conferences Rajanna has attended on practice and solving health issues. Furthermore, it was interesting to Rajanna to meet real-life users of the technology, instead of only meeting other researchers and experts.

While attending MobiHealth, Rajanna was sure to not just experience all work and no play in the UK. He took time to travel and experience all he could of the United Kingdom.

"My expectation of the UK was completely different," Rajanna stated, explaining that he did not expect the large crowds of people that he saw in London. While also giving praise to the London Underground for its efficiency and ease of use for travel, regardless of how many people used it.

(Vijay Rajanna at the Prime Meridian)

"The last day of the conference was finished quite early, so I got to go to a few places," he continued. "I got to visit Tower Bridge and a couple of important places in London. But one of the places that was most interesting for me was something I could really experience and something I could connect to: visiting the Prime Meridian."

Rajanna explained that, while it is more of a symbolic line, the experience of having one foot in the west hemisphere and one in the east hemisphere of the world was still very impactful to him.

"London is a lively city," Rajanna concluded. "I used to go out around eleven or twelve at night, some days I was working and got up at three in the morning and would go out to get coffee. The streets were still busy. You still see people up and walking around. It's alive."

(London at a distance. Photograph by Vijay Rajanna)