Game On? Smoking Cessation Through the Gamification of mHealth: A Longitudinal Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND: Finding ways to increase and sustain engagement with mHealth interventions has become a challenge during application development. While gamification shows promise and has proven effective in many fields, critical questions remain concerning how to use gamification to modify health behavior. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to investigate how the gamification of mHealth interventions leads to a change in health behavior, specifically with respect to smoking cessation. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative longitudinal study using a sample of 16 smokers divided into 2 cohorts (one used a gamified intervention and the other used a nongamified intervention). Each participant underwent 4 semistructured interviews over a period of 5 weeks. Semistructured interviews were also conducted with 4 experts in gamification, mHealth, and smoking cessation. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematic analysis undertaken. RESULTS: Results indicated perceived behavioral control and intrinsic motivation acted as positive drivers to game engagement and consequently positive health behavior. Importantly, external social influences exerted a negative effect. We identified 3 critical factors, whose presence was necessary for game engagement: purpose (explicit purpose known by the user), user alignment (congruency of game and user objectives), and functional utility (a well-designed game). We summarize these findings in a framework to guide the future development of gamified mHealth interventions. CONCLUSIONS: Gamification holds the potential for a low-cost, highly effective mHealth solution that may replace or supplement the behavioral support component found in current smoking cessation programs. The framework reported here has been built on evidence specific to smoking cessation, however it can be adapted to health interventions in other disease categories. Future research is required to evaluate the generalizability and effectiveness of the framework, directly against current behavioral support therapy interventions in smoking cessation and beyond

Commitment to Development Index 2014

In this report, The Commitment to Development Index ranks 27 of the world's richest countries on their policies that affect more than five billion people living in poorer nations. Moving beyond comparing how much foreign aid each country gives, the CDI quantifies a range of rich country policies that affect poor people: Quantity and quality of foreign aidOpenness to tradePolicies that encourage investment and financial transparencyOpenness to migrationEnvironmental policiesPromoting international securitySupport for technology creation and transferThe Index gives credit for generous and highquality aid, incentives for foreign direct investment and financial transparency, open immigration policies, robust support for technological research and development, and contributions to global security and the environment. Scores are reduced for barriers to imports from developing countries, selling arms to poor and undemocratic nations, barriers to sharing technology, and policies that harm shared environmental resources

Loyalty Programme Applications in Indian Service Industry

Retaining all customers would not be a good idea for any business. In contrast, allowing the profitable customers to leave would be an even worse idea. Consequently the real solution rests in knowing the value of each customer and then focusing loyalty efforts on those customers. Customers are more likely to be loyal to a group of brands than to a single brand. This is particularly true if the chosen brand is the category leader and costs more. In contrast to the one – brand- for – life mentality of the past, today’s consumers are blatant in their divided loyalties, for their own safety and pleasure. The conceptual framework presented helps to understand the evolving logic of loyalty programs and process of implementing the same. Applications in different service industry for building and sustaining loyalty provide an overview of the status of such programmes.

Aligning Employees Through \u3ci\u3eLine of Sight\u3c/i\u3e

Aligning employees with the firm’s larger strategic goals is critical if organizations hope to manage their human capital effectively and ultimately attain strategic success. An important component of attaining and sustaining this alignment is whether employees have “line of sight” to the organization’s strategic objectives. We illustrate how the translation of strategic goals into tangible results requires that employees not only understand the organization’s strategy, they must accurately understand what actions are aligned with realizing that strategy. Using recent empirical evidence, theoretical insights, and tangible examples of exemplary firm practices, we provide thought-leaders with a comprehensive view of LOS, how it is created, how it can be enhanced or stifled, and how it can be effectively managed. We integrate LOS with current thinking on employee alignment to help managers more effectively benefit from understanding human capital potential

The Entrepreneurial President: Proceedings from the Conference “The Entrepreneurial President”

[Excerpt] Each year, the Institute for Community College Development offers a leadership program on critical issues for community colleges. In August 2005, the issue was entrepreneurship. The Entrepreneurial College was a great success, but when it ended, the participants agreed that “if entrepreneurship education is going to succeed at community colleges, presidents need to hear this message.” Therefore, we held a similar program for CEOs, The Entrepreneurial President, in February 2006. What follows are highlights of the presentations and small group discussions from the CEO conference, with some additional materials from the August 2005 program. In this time of increased competition for scarce resources, entrepreneurial community colleges will have an edge. We hope you will use the ideas in this publication, generated by your colleagues, to support entrepreneurship on your campus. The possibilities are limitless, from certificate and degree programs, to business incubators, to “Entrepreneurship Halls of Fame.” The rewards include improved economic opportunities for the community, new donors for campus initiatives, and increased enrollment

A Good Age

The difference between a dream and reality, in many cases, is a simple but difficult thing, hard work. In the following pages, Bert Kruger Smith chronicles the efforts of one very determined group of people in converting their dream into reality. Her story is an important one for at least two reasons. First is its message that amazing things are possible if you just believe hard enough, work hard enough, and endure. Its second lesson, however, may be the more important. I believe that the Austin Groups for the Elderly history reminds us that it is still possible to find creative solutions to difficult problems. It underscores the ability that people have to face a crisis and convert it into a vision. And the crisis that the founders of AGE faced is not a unique one, nor is the solution one applicable only to agencies serving the elderly. Indeed, if anything, all those who are attempting to deliver services in this time of such great need and so little plenty should study carefully the efforts of these dedicated people. As I read the AGE story, I thought of the old song "High Hopes." It is very easy nowadays to dwell on the negative, to mourn the unchangeable "way things are," and forget that "high in the sky, apple pie hopes" still can make differences. Austin is a better place in which to live, and, even better, in which to grow old because of Austin Groups for the Elderly.Hogg Foundation for Mental Healt

Neighbourhood Europeanization trough ENP - The Case of Ukraine

We contribute to the literature of European Studies by introducing the approach of Neighbourhood Europeanization. Based on insights from Membership and Enlargement Europeanization, we reveal important inconsistencies of Neighbourhood Europeanization through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) as well as a lack of robust empirical support for its effectiveness. We also define core dimensions and determinants of Neighbourhood Europeanization and implement this analytical framework for the case of Ukraine. Our analysis clearly demonstrates substantial asymmetries in the ENP for Ukraine across three dimensions we chose – democracy promotion, economic cooperation, and Justice and Home Affairs, which clearly reflect the inconsistency of the ENP concept, that is top-down formulation of EU interests combined with weak conditionality. However, our analysis shows that despite Ukraine’s growing frustration because of the lack of a membership perspective, there is a lot of room for keeping up Ukraine’s motivation for Europeanization reforms. Especially, widening and strengthening the linkage-mechanisms would allow to overcome ENP inconsistency and to improve the effectiveness of Neighborhood Europeanization.neighbourhood policy; enlargement; ideas; integration theory; Europeanization; Europeanization

Incentives for Developers’ Contributions and Product Performance Metrics in Open Source Development: An Empirical Exploration

In open source software development, users rather than paid developers engage in innovation and development without the direct involvement of manufacturers. This paradigm cannot be explained by the two traditional models of innovation, the private investment model and the collective action model. Neither model in itself can explain the phenomenon of the open source model or its success. In order to bridge the gap between existing models and the open source phenomenon, we analyze data from a web survey of 160 open source developers. First, we investigate the motives affecting the individual developer’s contributions by comparing and contrasting the incentives from both the traditional private investment and collective action models. Second, we demonstrate that there is a common ground between the private and collective models where private returns and social considerations can coexist. Third, we explore the effect of incentives on the output of innovation—final product performance. The results show that the motivations for individual developer’s contributions are quite different from the incentives that affect product performance.

Spartan Daily, May 5, 2000

Volume 114, Issue 64https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9561/thumbnail.jp