InfoInternet for Education in the Global South: A Study of Applications Enabled by Free Information-only Internet Access in Technologically Disadvantaged Areas (authors' version)

This paper summarises our work on studying educational applications enabled by the introduction of a new information layer called InfoInternet. This is an initiative to facilitate affordable access to internet based information in communities with network scarcity or economic problems from the Global South. InfoInternet develops both networking solutions as well as business and social models, together with actors like mobile operators and government organisations. In this paper we identify and describe characteristics of educational applications, their specific users, and learning environment. We are interested in applications that make the adoption of Internet faster, cheaper, and wider in such communities. When developing new applications (or adopting existing ones) for such constrained environments, this work acts as initial guidelines prior to field studies.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, under review for a journal since March 201

High Diversity of Diazotrophs in the Forefield of a Receding Alpine Glacier

Forefields of receding glaciers are unique and sensitive environments representing natural chronosequences. In such habitats, microbial nitrogen fixation is of particular interest since the low concentration of bioavailable nitrogen is one of the key limitations for growth of plants and soil microorganisms. Asymbiotic nitrogen fixation in the Damma glacier (Swiss Central Alps) forefield soils was assessed using the acetylene reduction assay. Free-living diazotrophic diversity and population structure were resolved by assembling four NifH sequence libraries for bulk and rhizosphere soils at two soil age classes (8- and 70-year ice-free forefield). A total of 318 NifH sequences were analyzed and grouped into 45 unique phylotypes. Phylogenetic analyses revealed a higher diversity as well as a broader distribution of NifH sequences among phylogenetic clusters than formerly observed in other environments. This illustrates the importance of free-living diazotrophs and their potential contribution to the global nitrogen input in this nutrient-poor environment. NifH diversity in bulk soils was higher than in rhizosphere soils. Moreover, the four libraries displayed low similarity values. This indicated that both soil age and the presence of pioneer plants influence diversification and population structure of free-living diazotroph

Designing and Developing a Mobile Smartphone Application for Women with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Followed-Up at Diabetes Outpatient Clinics in Norway

The prevalence of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) is increasing worldwide. Controlling blood sugar levels is fundamental to the management of GDM. Current practice in Norway includes patients registering blood sugar levels in a booklet and receiving verbal and/or written health information. A smartphone application may provide patients individually targeted and easily available advice to control blood sugar levels. The aim of this paper is to document the process of designing and developing a smartphone application (the Pregnant+ app) that automatically transfers blood sugar levels from the glucometer and has information about healthy eating and physical activity. This formative research included expert-group discussions among health professionals, researchers and experts in data privacy and security. User-involvement studies were conducted to discuss prototypes of the app. Results indicated that the content of the application should be easy to understand given the varying degree of patients’ literacy and in line with the information they receive at clinics. The final version of the app incorporated behavior change techniques such as self-monitoring and cues to action. Results from the first round of interactions show the importance of involving expert groups and patients when developing a mobile health-care device.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Building Trustable Remote Monitoring and Management Systems

Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging technology that expands wireless and mobile networks into heterogeneous network of connected devices. Trustable remote monitoring and management systems are required to establish a controlled environment for new services and devices in order to (i) improve the quality of existing services and (ii) enable novel services. However, monitoring and remote management can cause security and privacy concerns and thus affect the trust formation between customer and service provider. This paper introduces a trust model considering institutions as mediators to assess trustability of remote monitoring and management systems. The proposed model considers governance as an approach to audit remote monitoring and management systems and accordingly provides institutional assurance in form of certificate or labels in order to facilitate trust decision making and motivate trustworthy behaviors. The proposed model utilized the multi-metric method to measure governance criteria objectively and represent level of trustworthiness with A-F labels. Representing governance criteria with labels accompanied by color coding facilitates trust decision making based on application context or requirements for everyone regardless of level of expertise. Meanwhile, issuing trustworthiness certificate or A-F labels will encourage service providers to improve trustability of their remote monitoring and management approaches, which improve acceptability and efficiency of managed services.acceptedVersion© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works

Privacy Labelling and the Story of Princess Privacy and the Seven Helpers

Privacy is currently in 'distress' and in need of 'rescue', much like princesses in the all-familiar fairytales. We employ storytelling and metaphors from fairytales to make reader-friendly and streamline our arguments about how a complex concept of Privacy Labeling (the 'knight in shining armour') can be a solution to the current state of Privacy (the 'princess in distress'). We give a precise definition of Privacy Labeling (PL), painting a panoptic portrait from seven different perspectives (the 'seven helpers'): Business, Legal, Regulatory, Usability and Human Factors, Educative, Technological, and Multidisciplinary. We describe a common vision, proposing several important 'traits of character' of PL as well as identifying 'undeveloped potentialities', i.e., open problems on which the community can focus. More specifically, this position paper identifies the stakeholders of the PL and their needs with regard to privacy, describing how PL should be and look like in order to address these needs. Throughout the paper, we highlight goals, characteristics, open problems, and starting points for creating, what we define as, the ideal PL. In the end we present three approaches to establish and manage PL, through: self-evaluations, certifications, or community endeavors. Based on these, we sketch a roadmap for future developments.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figure

Digital Literacy Key Performance Indicators for Sustainable Development

The concept of digital literacy has been defined in numerous ways over the last two decades to incorporate rapid technological changes, its versatility, and to bridge the global digital divide. Most approaches have been technology-centric with an inherent assumption of cultural and political neutrality of new media technologies. There are multiple hurdles in every stage of digital literacy implementation. The lack of solutions such as local language digital interfaces, locally relevant content, digital literacy training, the use of icons and audio excludes a large fraction of illiterate people. In this article, we analyse case studies targeted at under-connected people in sub-Saharan Africa and India that use digital literacy programmes to build knowledge and health literacy, solve societal problems and foster development. In India, we focus on notable initiatives undertaken in the domain of digital literacy for rural populations. In Sub-Saharan Africa, we draw from an original project in Kenya aiming at developing digital literacy for youth from low-income backgrounds. We further focus on Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Tanzania, where field studies have been conducted on the use of digital technologies by low-literacy people and on how audio and icon-based interfaces and Internet lite standard could help them overcome their limitations. The main objective of this article is to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) in the context of digital literacy skills as one of the pillars for digital inclusion. We will learn how digital literacy programmes can be used to build digital literacy and how KPIs for sustainable development can be established. In the final discussion, we offer lessons learned from the case studies and further recommendation for stakeholders and decision-makers in the field of digital health literacy