Marko Jagodic

Bio: Marko Jagodic is an academic researcher from University of Zagreb. The author has contributed to research in topics: Resilience (network). The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 3 citations.

Prediction of Task Performance From Physiological Features of Stress Resilience

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the potential of generic physiological features of stress resilience in predicting air traffic control (ATC) candidates’ performance in a highly-stressful low-fidelity ATC simulator scenario. Stress resilience is highlighted as an important occupational factor that influences the performance and well-being of air traffic control officers (ATCO). Poor stress management, besides the lack of skills, can be a direct cause of poor performance under stress, both in the selection process of ATCOs and later in the workplace. 40 ATC candidates, within the final stages of their selection process, underwent a stimulation paradigm for elicitation and assessment of various generic task-unrelated physiological features, related to resting heart rate variability (HRV) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), acoustic startle response (ASR) and the physiological allostatic response, which are all recognized as relevant psychophysiological markers of stress resilience. The multimodal approach included analysis of electrocardiography, electromyography, electrodermal activity and respiration. We make advances in computational methodology for assessment of physiological features of stress resilience, and investigate the predictive power of the obtained feature space in a binary classification problem: prediction of high- vs. low-performance on the developed ATC simulator. Our novel approach yields a relatively high 78.16% classification accuracy. These results are discussed in the context of prior work, while considering study limitations and proposing directions for future work.

"Experience-based mitigation of age-related performance declines: Evidence from air traffic control": Correction to Nunes and Kramer

Abstract: Previous research has found age-related deficits in a variety of cognitive processes. However, some studies have demonstrated age-related sparing on tasks where individuals have substantial experience, often attained over many decades. Here, the authors examined whether decades of experience in a fast-paced demanding profession, air traffic control (ATC), would enable older controllers to perform at high levels of proficiency. The authors also investigated whether older controllers would show diminished age-related decrements on domain-relevant cognitive abilities. Both young and old controllers and non-controllers performed a battery of cognitive and ATC tasks. Results indicate that although high levels of experience can reduce the magnitude of age-related decline on the component processes that underlie complex task performance, this sparing is limited in scope. More important, however, the authors observed experience-based sparing on simulated ATC tasks, with the sparing being most evident on the more complex air traffic control tasks. These results suggest that given substantial experience, older adults may be quite capable of performing at high levels of proficiency on fast-paced demanding real-world tasks. The implications of these findings for global skilled labor shortages are discussed.

Resilience, preparedness, and distress among family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer

Abstract: Resilience has been proposed as a primary factor in how many family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer are able to resist psychological strain and perform effectively in the role while bearing a high load of caregiving tasks. To evaluate this hypothesis, we examined whether self-perceived resilience is associated with distress (anxiety and depressive symptoms), caregiver preparedness, and readiness for surrogate decision-making among a racially diverse sample of family caregivers of patients with newly diagnosed advanced cancer. Secondary analysis of baseline data from two small-scale, pilot clinical trials that both recruited family caregivers of patients with newly diagnosed advanced cancer. Using multivariable linear regression, we analyzed relationships of resilience as a predictor of mood, caregiving preparedness, and readiness for surrogate decision-making, controlling for sociodemographics. Caregiver participants (N = 112) were mean 56 years of age and mostly female (76%), the patient’s spouse/partner (52%), and White (56%) or African-American/Black (43%). After controlling for demographics, standardized results indicated that higher resilience was relevantly associated with higher caregiver preparedness (beta = .46, p < .001), higher readiness for surrogate decision-making (beta = .20, p < .05) and lower anxiety (beta = − .19, p < .05), and depressive symptoms (beta = − .20, p < .05). These results suggest that resilience may be critical to caregivers’ abilities to manage stress, be effective sources of support to patients, and feel ready to make future medical decisions on behalf of patients. Future work should explore and clinicians should consider whether resilience can be enhanced in cancer caregivers to optimize their well-being and ability to perform in the caregiving and surrogate decision-making roles.

Estimation of Respiratory Rate during Biking with a Single Sensor Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) System

Abstract: Objective: The employment of wearable systems for continuous monitoring of vital signs is increasing. However, due to substantial susceptibility of conventional bio-signals recorded by wearable systems to motion artifacts, estimation of the respiratory rate (RR) during physical activities is a challenging task. Alternatively, functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) can be used, which has been proven less vulnerable to the subject’s movements. This paper proposes a fusion-based method for estimating RR during bicycling from fNIRS signals recorded by a wearable system. Methods: Firstly, five respiratory modulations are extracted, based on amplitude, frequency, and intensity of the oxygenated hemoglobin concentration (O2Hb) signal. Secondly, the dominant frequency of each modulation is computed using the fast Fourier transform. Finally, dominant frequencies of all modulations are fused, based on averaging, to estimate RR. The performance of the proposed method was validated on 22 young healthy subjects, whose respiratory and fNIRS signals were simultaneously recorded during a bicycling task, and compared against a zero delay Fourier domain band-pass filter. Results: The comparison between results obtained by the proposed method and band-pass filtering indicated the superiority of the former, with a lower mean absolute error (3.66 vs. 11.06 breaths per minute, p<0.05). The proposed fusion strategy also outperformed RR estimations based on the analysis of individual modulation. Significance: This study orients towards the practical limitations of traditional bio-signals for RR estimation during physical activities.

Assessment of Resilience of the Hellenic Navy Seals by Electrodermal Activity during Cognitive Tasks

Abstract: Stress resilience plays a key role in task performance during emergencies, especially in occupations like military special forces, with a routine consisting of unexpected events. Nevertheless, reliable and applicable measurements of resilience in predicting task performance in stressful conditions are still researched. This study aimed to explore the stress response in the Hellenic Navy SEALs (HN-SEALs), using a cognitive-physiological approach. Eighteen candidates under intense preparation for their enlistment in the HN-SEALs and 16 healthy controls (HCs) underwent Stroop tests, along with mental-state and personality examination. Simultaneously, electrodermal activity (EDA) was assessed during each one of cognitive testing procedures. Compared to healthy control values, multiple components of EDA values were found decreased (p < 0.05) in the HN-SEALs group. These results were associated with an increase in resilience level in the HN-SEALs group, since a restricted sympathetic reactivity according to the reduced EDA values was observed during the stressful cognitive testing. This is the first report providing physiological measurements of the sympathetic response of HN-SEALs to a stressful situation and suggests that EDA turns out to be a simple and objective tool of sympathetic activation and it may be used as a complementary index of resilience in HN-SEALs candidates.

Advances in Resilience Engineering for Air Traffic Management Applications

Abstract: As an emerging safety perspective, resilience engineering is attracting increasingly attentions in aerospace industry. Numerous researches have been carried out to explore ATM resilience properties from different aspects. Nevertheless, there appear to be significant variations on the research objects, issues concerned, methods employed and indexes used. As far as we know, there seems to be an absence of a dedicated literature review to explore the application status of resilience in ATM area. To this end, our work is concentrated on the research situation and progress of resilience in ATM. A wide range of databases are retrieved to obtain an extensive coverage of the literature. Subsequently, the research works are reviewed on the basis of different classifications followed by a brief introduction of related findings and implications. Attempting to provide some reference for further studies, promising directions are pointed out in view of the challenges and requirements. It is desired that this work may throw some light on further explorations of ATM resilience.