Innovator in the Spotlight

Towards a more inclusive society to raise awareness of basic skills gaps

In the Netherlands, 2.5 million people struggle daily with reading, writing, math, and digital skills, also called basic skills. These deficiencies make it difficult for them to fully participate in society, such as reading and understanding a letter or buying a train ticket, leading to various personal and societal problems.

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The Effect of Loungescape Nap on Mental State

There is considerable evidence that a powernap has positive effects on mood, alertness, reaction time, short-term memory, focus and concentration, as supported by scientific research.

Some of these aspects can be validated by measurement of physiological and/or neural responses, such as the variability of heart rate, skin conductance responses and certain frequency components of the brain wave signals.

Assignment

Two furniture pieces At the Workplace Vitality HUB are designed specifically with the aim to provide the right conditions for a power nap, including relaxing music and a massage. We would like to support their effectiveness through physiological and neural measurements, translated into easy-to-understand metrics.

Equipment is available, both as ‘wearable’ sensors as well as more lab-oriented setups. An interesting outcome of the assignment will be to assess the suitability of the types of equipment.

Towards the future, we would like to work towards a personalized or even ‘closed-loop’ treatment. Literature study and initial steps towards this aim can be optionally made part of the assignment.

Hence, the tasks can be summarized as follows:

What we do for you

You will be working on novel R&D in the field of biofeedback, aiming at improving the vitality of office workers. You will have the opportunity to lead your own project while having the support of an international team of experts on physiological and neural sensing and processing, while using unique (wearable) sensor technology. For your work in imec you will receive a fair compensation.


Types of student project possible

TU/e: Bachelor project, Master internship, Master thesis

Contact

student@eindhovenengine.nl

Types of study

Biomedical Engineering