Skin conductivity (i.e., sweat) forms the basis of many physiology-based emotion and stress detection systems. However, such systems typically do not detect the biomarkers present in sweat, and thus do not take advantage of the biological information in the sweat. Likewise, such systems do not detect the volatile organic components (VOC’s) created under stressful conditions. This work presents a review into the current status of human emotional stress biomarkers and proposes the major potential biomarkers for future wearable sensors in affective systems. Emotional stress has been classified as a major contributor in several social problems, related to crime, health, the economy, and indeed quality of life. While blood cortisol tests, electroencephalography and physiological parameter methods are the gold standards for measuring stress; however, they are typically invasive or inconvenient and not suitable for wearable real-time stress monitoring. Alternatively, cortisol in biofluids and VOCs emitted from the skin appear to be practical and useful markers for sensors to detect emotional stress events. This work has identified antistress hormones and cortisol metabolites as the primary stress biomarkers that can be used in future sensors for wearable affective systems.

The present research proposes a novel emotion recognition framework for the computer prediction of human emotions using common wearable biosensors. Emotional perception promotes specific patterns of biological responses in the human body, and this can be sensed and used to predict emotions using only biomedical measurements. Based on theoretical and empirical psychophysiological research, the foundation of autonomic specificity facilitates the establishment of a strong background for recognising human emotions using machine learning on physiological patterning. However, a systematic way of choosing the physiological data covering the elicited emotional responses for recognising the target emotions is not obvious. The current study demonstrates through experimental measurements the coverage of emotion recognition using common off-the-shelf wearable biosensors based on the synchronisation between audiovisual stimuli and the corresponding physiological responses. The work forms the basis of validating the hypothesis for emotional state recognition in the literature and presents coverage of the use of common wearable biosensors coupled with a novel preprocessing algorithm to demonstrate the practical prediction of the emotional states of wearers.

Background: The idea of reusing dispensed medicines is appealing to the general public provided its benefits are illustrated, its risks minimized, and the logistics resolved. For example, medicine reuse could help reduce medicinal waste, protect the environment and improve public health. However, the associated technologies and legislation facilitating medicine reuse are generally not available. The availability of suitable technologies could arguably help shape stakeholders’ beliefs and in turn, uptake of a future medicine reuse scheme by tackling the risks and facilitating the practicalities. A literature survey is undertaken to lay down the groundwork for implementing technologies on and around pharmaceutical packaging in order to meet stakeholders’ previously expressed misgivings about medicine reuse (’stakeholder requirements’), and propose a novel ecosystem for, in effect, reusing returned medicines. Methods: A structured literature search examining the application of existing technologies on pharmaceutical packaging to enable medicine reuse was conducted and presented as a narrative review. Results: Reviewed technologies are classified according to different stakeholders’ requirements, and a novel ecosystem from a technology perspective is suggested as a solution to reusing medicines. Conclusion: Active sensing technologies applying to pharmaceutical packaging using printed electronics enlist medicines to be part of the Internet of Things network. Validating the quality and safety of returned medicines through this network seems to be the most effective way for reusing medicines and the correct application of technologies may be the key enabler.

Medicinal waste due to improper handling of unwanted medicines creates health and environmental risks. However, the re-dispensing of unused prescribed medicines from patients seems to be accepted by stakeholders when quality and safety requirements are met. Reusing dispensed medicines may help reduce waste, but a comprehensive validation method is not generally available. The design of a novel digital time temperature and humidity indicator based on an Internet of Pharmaceutical Things concept is proposed to facilitate the validation, and a prototype is presented using smart sensors with cloud connectivity acting as the key technology for verifying and enabling the reuse of returned medicines. Deficiency of existing technologies is evaluated based on the results of this development, and recommendations for future research are suggested.

The enhancement of human senses electronically is possible when pervasive computers interact unnoticeably with humans in ubiquitous computing. The design of computer user interfaces towards “disappearing” forces the interaction with humans using a content rather than a menu driven approach, thus the emerging requirement for huge number of non-technical users interfacing intuitively with billions of computers in the Internet of Things is met. Learning to use particular applications in ubiquitous computing is either too slow or sometimes impossible so the design of user interfaces must be naturally enough to facilitate intuitive human behaviours. Although humans from different racial, cultural and ethnic backgrounds own the same physiological sensory system, the perception to the same stimuli outside the human bodies can be different. A novel taxonomy for disappearing user interfaces (DUIs) to stimulate human senses and to capture human responses is proposed. Furthermore, applications of DUIs are reviewed. DUIs with sensor and data fusion to simulate the sixth sense is explored. Enhancement of human senses through DUIs and context awareness is discussed as the groundwork enabling smarter wearable devices for interfacing with human emotional memories.