Designing, delivering, and evaluating novel interventions to support dietary change for weight management

Background: Recent empirical research and theoretical models acknowledge that impulsive processes, can often undermine peoples’ attempts to lose weight despite currently available and effective support (Chapter 2). Aim: To develop, deliver, and evaluate an impulse management intervention to support weight loss in adults. Methods: A systematic review was conducted to identify available impulse management techniques for influencing eating behaviour (Chapter 3). Intervention Mapping was used to develop the intervention (Chapter 4) which drew on various sources including the findings from the systematic review, stakeholder consultations, existing guidance, and qualitative interviews. A two-arm randomised controlled feasibility trial (Chapter 5), with nested mixed-methods process evaluation and two cycles of intervention delivery and data collection (Chapter 6), was conducted. This assessed the feasibility and acceptability of, and informed refinements to, both the intervention and trial procedures in preparation for a full-scale effectiveness evaluation. Weight was measured as the proposed primary outcome for a full-scale trial at baseline, one-month, and three-months of follow-up, app usage data were collected at both follow-up time points, and semi-structured interviews were conducted at one-month with a subsample of intervention group participants only. Results: The systematic review critically appraised and synthesised evidence on 17 identified techniques which were categorised as Impulse-focused or Reflective techniques. Promising changes in eating behaviour and craving were found for the techniques of visuospatial loading, physical activity, and implementation intentions. Intervention Mapping resulted in development of a novel smartphone app-based intervention (ImpulsePal) aimed to reduce unhealthy snacking, overeating, and alcoholic and sugary drink consumption using impulse management techniques identified in the systematic review. Eighty-eight adults with a Body Mass Index of ≥25kg/m2 and wishing to lose weight, were recruited and randomised in a 2:1 ratio to use ImpulsePal (n=58) or to a waiting list control (n=30) group. Data were available for 74 participants (84%) at one-month and 67 (76%) at three months. Exploratory analyses suggest that the ImpulsePal group (n=43) lost 1.03kg (95% CI 0.33 to 1.74) more than controls (n=26) at one-month, and 1.01kg (95% CI -0.45 to 2.47) more at three months. Participants reported high satisfaction with the intervention and trial procedures. The process evaluation suggests that ImpulsePal and the impulse management techniques are feasible to deliver and acceptable to users. Interviews with twenty-two participants suggest that they valued having access to in-the-moment support, felt more aware of their own eating behaviour and influences on it, and felt an increased ability to resist temptations. Conclusions: This work has developed a novel, theory- and evidence-informed, person-centred app which showed potential to improve impulse management, promote healthier eating, and support weight loss. ImpulsePal is acceptable to overweight and obese adults who want to lose weight and is now ready for evaluation in a full-scale trial. The thesis discusses theoretical, methodological, and practical implications for the future development, evaluation, and implementation of digital behaviour change interventions.UEM

An Exploratory Approach to the Adoption Process of Bitcoin by Business Executives.

The purpose of this research study is to analyze the exploratory study of the adoption of Bitcoin cryptocurrency based on blockchain technology and its use as a means of payment in companies. This research is exploratory in nature. As such, an adoption model was investigated using the technology acceptance model (TAM) which was extended with new variables. The sample was made up of business executives from companies and commercial establishments (n = 248). Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was chosen as the analysis and evaluation technique for the model. The authors demonstrated that privacy has an important influence on perceived utility, and that trust has a very significant influence on privacy and perceived ease of use, thus indirectly affecting the intention to use cryptocurrencies.post-print1324 K

Personalizing Interactions with Information Systems

Personalization constitutes the mechanisms and technologies necessary to customize information access to the end-user. It can be defined as the automatic adjustment of information content, structure, and presentation tailored to the individual. In this chapter, we study personalization from the viewpoint of personalizing interaction. The survey covers mechanisms for information-finding on the web, advanced information retrieval systems, dialog-based applications, and mobile access paradigms. Specific emphasis is placed on studying how users interact with an information system and how the system can encourage and foster interaction. This helps bring out the role of the personalization system as a facilitator which reconciles the user’s mental model with the underlying information system’s organization. Three tiers of personalization systems are presented, paying careful attention to interaction considerations. These tiers show how progressive levels of sophistication in interaction can be achieved. The chapter also surveys systems support technologies and niche application domains

Data exploitation and privacy protection in the era of data sharing

As the amount, complexity, and value of data available in both private and public sectors has risen sharply, the competing goals of data privacy and data utility have challenged both organizations and individuals. This dissertation addresses both goals. First, we consider the task of {\it interorganizational data sharing}, in which data owners, data clients, and data subjects have different and sometimes competing privacy concerns. A key challenge in this type of scenario is that each organization uses its own set of proprietary, intraorganizational attributes to describe the shared data; such attributes cannot be shared with other organizations. Moreover, data-access policies are determined by multiple parties and may be specified using attributes that are not directly comparable with the ones used by the owner to specify the data. We propose a system architecture and a suite of protocols that facilitate dynamic and efficient interorganizational data sharing, while allowing each party to use its own set of proprietary attributes to describe the shared data and preserving confidentiality of both data records and attributes. We introduce the novel technique of \textit{attribute-based encryption with oblivious attribute translation (OTABE)}, which plays a crucial role in our solution and may prove useful in other applications. This extension of attribute-based encryption uses semi-trusted proxies to enable dynamic and oblivious translation between proprietary attributes that belong to different organizations. We prove that our OTABE-based framework is secure in the standard model and provide two real-world use cases. Next, we turn our attention to utility that can be derived from the vast and growing amount of data about individuals that is available on social media. As social networks (SNs) continue to grow in popularity, it is essential to understand what can be learned about personal attributes of SN users by mining SN data. The first SN-mining problem we consider is how best to predict the voting behavior of SN users. Prior work only considered users who generate politically oriented content or voluntarily disclose their political preferences online. We avoid this bias by using a novel type of Bayesian-network (BN) model that combines demographic, behavioral, and social features. We test our method in a predictive analysis of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Our work is the first to take a semi-supervised approach in this setting. Using the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm, we combine labeled survey data with unlabeled Facebook data, thus obtaining larger datasets and addressing self-selection bias. The second SN-mining challenge we address is the extent to which Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBNs) can infer dynamic behavioral intentions such as the intention to get a vaccine or to apply for a loan. Knowledge of such intentions has great potential to improve the design of recommendation systems, ad-targeting mechanisms, public-health campaigns, and other social and commercial endeavors. We focus on the question of how to infer an SN user\u27s \textit{offline} decisions and intentions using only the {\it public} portions of her \textit{online} SN accounts. Our contribution is twofold. First, we use BNs and several behavioral-psychology techniques to model decision making as a complex process that both influences and is influenced by static factors (such as personality traits and demographic categories) and dynamic factors (such as triggering events, interests, and emotions). Second, we explore the extent to which temporal models may assist in the inference task by representing SN users as sets of DBNs that are built using our modeling techniques. The use of DBNs, together with data gathered in multiple waves, has the potential to improve both inference accuracy and prediction accuracy in future time slots. It may also shed light on the extent to which different factors influence the decision-making process

Diverse Contributions to Implicit Human-Computer Interaction

Cuando las personas interactúan con los ordenadores, hay mucha información que no se proporciona a propósito. Mediante el estudio de estas interacciones implícitas es posible entender qué características de la interfaz de usuario son beneficiosas (o no), derivando así en implicaciones para el diseño de futuros sistemas interactivos. La principal ventaja de aprovechar datos implícitos del usuario en aplicaciones informáticas es que cualquier interacción con el sistema puede contribuir a mejorar su utilidad. Además, dichos datos eliminan el coste de tener que interrumpir al usuario para que envíe información explícitamente sobre un tema que en principio no tiene por qué guardar relación con la intención de utilizar el sistema. Por el contrario, en ocasiones las interacciones implícitas no proporcionan datos claros y concretos. Por ello, hay que prestar especial atención a la manera de gestionar esta fuente de información. El propósito de esta investigación es doble: 1) aplicar una nueva visión tanto al diseño como al desarrollo de aplicaciones que puedan reaccionar consecuentemente a las interacciones implícitas del usuario, y 2) proporcionar una serie de metodologías para la evaluación de dichos sistemas interactivos. Cinco escenarios sirven para ilustrar la viabilidad y la adecuación del marco de trabajo de la tesis. Resultados empíricos con usuarios reales demuestran que aprovechar la interacción implícita es un medio tanto adecuado como conveniente para mejorar de múltiples maneras los sistemas interactivos.Leiva Torres, LA. (2012). Diverse Contributions to Implicit Human-Computer Interaction [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/17803Palanci

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Ami-deu : un cadre sémantique pour des applications adaptables dans des environnements intelligents

Cette thèse vise à étendre l’utilisation de l'Internet des objets (IdO) en facilitant le développement d’applications par des personnes non experts en développement logiciel. La thèse propose une nouvelle approche pour augmenter la sémantique des applications d’IdO et l’implication des experts du domaine dans le développement d’applications sensibles au contexte. Notre approche permet de gérer le contexte changeant de l’environnement et de générer des applications qui s’exécutent dans plusieurs environnements intelligents pour fournir des actions requises dans divers contextes. Notre approche est mise en œuvre dans un cadriciel (AmI-DEU) qui inclut les composants pour le développement d’applications IdO. AmI-DEU intègre les services d’environnement, favorise l’interaction de l’utilisateur et fournit les moyens de représenter le domaine d’application, le profil de l’utilisateur et les intentions de l’utilisateur. Le cadriciel permet la définition d’applications IoT avec une intention d’activité autodécrite qui contient les connaissances requises pour réaliser l’activité. Ensuite, le cadriciel génère Intention as a Context (IaaC), qui comprend une intention d’activité autodécrite avec des connaissances colligées à évaluer pour une meilleure adaptation dans des environnements intelligents. La sémantique de l’AmI-DEU est basée sur celle du ContextAA (Context-Aware Agents) – une plateforme pour fournir une connaissance du contexte dans plusieurs environnements. Le cadriciel effectue une compilation des connaissances par des règles et l'appariement sémantique pour produire des applications IdO autonomes capables de s’exécuter en ContextAA. AmI- DEU inclut également un outil de développement visuel pour le développement et le déploiement rapide d'applications sur ContextAA. L'interface graphique d’AmI-DEU adopte la métaphore du flux avec des aides visuelles pour simplifier le développement d'applications en permettant des définitions de règles étape par étape. Dans le cadre de l’expérimentation, AmI-DEU comprend un banc d’essai pour le développement d’applications IdO. Les résultats expérimentaux montrent une optimisation sémantique potentielle des ressources pour les applications IoT dynamiques dans les maisons intelligentes et les villes intelligentes. Notre approche favorise l'adoption de la technologie pour améliorer le bienêtre et la qualité de vie des personnes. Cette thèse se termine par des orientations de recherche que le cadriciel AmI-DEU dévoile pour réaliser des environnements intelligents omniprésents fournissant des adaptations appropriées pour soutenir les intentions des personnes.Abstract: This thesis aims at expanding the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) by facilitating the development of applications by people who are not experts in software development. The thesis proposes a new approach to augment IoT applications’ semantics and domain expert involvement in context-aware application development. Our approach enables us to manage the changing environment context and generate applications that run in multiple smart environments to provide required actions in diverse settings. Our approach is implemented in a framework (AmI-DEU) that includes the components for IoT application development. AmI- DEU integrates environment services, promotes end-user interaction, and provides the means to represent the application domain, end-user profile, and end-user intentions. The framework enables the definition of IoT applications with a self-described activity intention that contains the required knowledge to achieve the activity. Then, the framework generates Intention as a Context (IaaC), which includes a self-described activity intention with compiled knowledge to be assessed for augmented adaptations in smart environments. AmI-DEU framework semantics adopts ContextAA (Context-Aware Agents) – a platform to provide context-awareness in multiple environments. The framework performs a knowledge compilation by rules and semantic matching to produce autonomic IoT applications to run in ContextAA. AmI-DEU also includes a visual tool for quick application development and deployment to ContextAA. The AmI-DEU GUI adopts the flow metaphor with visual aids to simplify developing applications by allowing step-by-step rule definitions. As part of the experimentation, AmI-DEU includes a testbed for IoT application development. Experimental results show a potential semantic optimization for dynamic IoT applications in smart homes and smart cities. Our approach promotes technology adoption to improve people’s well-being and quality of life. This thesis concludes with research directions that the AmI-DEU framework uncovers to achieve pervasive smart environments providing suitable adaptations to support people’s intentions

Configurable nD-visualization for complex Building Information Models

With the ongoing development of building information modelling (BIM) towards a comprehensive coverage of all construction project information in a semantically explicit way, visual representations became decoupled from the building information models. While traditional construction drawings implicitly contained the visual representation besides the information, nowadays they are generated on the fly, hard-coded in software applications dedicated to other tasks such as analysis, simulation, structural design or communication. Due to the abstract nature of information models and the increasing amount of digital information captured during construction projects, visual representations are essential for humans in order to access the information, to understand it, and to engage with it. At the same time digital media open up the new field of interactive visualizations. The full potential of BIM can only be unlocked with customized task-specific visualizations, with engineers and architects actively involved in the design and development process of these visualizations. The visualizations must be reusable and reliably reproducible during communication processes. Further, to support creative problem solving, it must be possible to modify and refine them. This thesis aims at reconnecting building information models and their visual representations: on a theoretic level, on the level of methods and in terms of tool support. First, the research seeks to improve the knowledge about visualization generation in conjunction with current BIM developments such as the multimodel. The approach is based on the reference model of the visualization pipeline and addresses structural as well as quantitative aspects of the visualization generation. Second, based on the theoretic foundation, a method is derived to construct visual representations from given visualization specifications. To this end, the idea of a domain-specific language (DSL) is employed. Finally, a software prototype proofs the concept. Using the visualization framework, visual representations can be generated from a specific building information model and a specific visualization description.Mit der fortschreitenden Entwicklung des Building Information Modelling (BIM) hin zu einer umfassenden Erfassung aller Bauprojektinformationen in einer semantisch expliziten Weise werden Visualisierungen von den Gebäudeinformationen entkoppelt. Während traditionelle Architektur- und Bauzeichnungen die visuellen Reprä̈sentationen implizit als Träger der Informationen enthalten, werden sie heute on-the-fly generiert. Die Details ihrer Generierung sind festgeschrieben in Softwareanwendungen, welche eigentlich für andere Aufgaben wie Analyse, Simulation, Entwurf oder Kommunikation ausgelegt sind. Angesichts der abstrakten Natur von Informationsmodellen und der steigenden Menge digitaler Informationen, die im Verlauf von Bauprojekten erfasst werden, sind visuelle Repräsentationen essentiell, um sich die Information erschließen, sie verstehen, durchdringen und mit ihnen arbeiten zu können. Gleichzeitig entwickelt sich durch die digitalen Medien eine neues Feld der interaktiven Visualisierungen. Das volle Potential von BIM kann nur mit angepassten aufgabenspezifischen Visualisierungen erschlossen werden, bei denen Ingenieur*innen und Architekt*innen aktiv in den Entwurf und die Entwicklung dieser Visualisierungen einbezogen werden. Die Visualisierungen müssen wiederverwendbar sein und in Kommunikationsprozessen zuverlässig reproduziert werden können. Außerdem muss es möglich sein, Visualisierungen zu modifizieren und neu zu definieren, um das kreative Problemlösen zu unterstützen. Die vorliegende Arbeit zielt darauf ab, Gebäudemodelle und ihre visuellen Repräsentationen wieder zu verbinden: auf der theoretischen Ebene, auf der Ebene der Methoden und hinsichtlich der unterstützenden Werkzeuge. Auf der theoretischen Ebene trägt die Arbeit zunächst dazu bei, das Wissen um die Erstellung von Visualisierungen im Kontext von Bauprojekten zu erweitern. Der verfolgte Ansatz basiert auf dem Referenzmodell der Visualisierungspipeline und geht dabei sowohl auf strukturelle als auch auf quantitative Aspekte des Visualisierungsprozesses ein. Zweitens wird eine Methode entwickelt, die visuelle Repräsentationen auf Basis gegebener Visualisierungsspezifikationen generieren kann. Schließlich belegt ein Softwareprototyp die Realisierbarkeit des Konzepts. Mit dem entwickelten Framework können visuelle Repräsentationen aus jeweils einem spezifischen Gebäudemodell und einer spezifischen Visualisierungsbeschreibung generiert werden

Feasibility study for a numerical aerodynamic simulation facility. Volume 1

A Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Facility (NASF) was designed for the simulation of fluid flow around three-dimensional bodies, both in wind tunnel environments and in free space. The application of numerical simulation to this field of endeavor promised to yield economies in aerodynamic and aircraft body designs. A model for a NASF/FMP (Flow Model Processor) ensemble using a possible approach to meeting NASF goals is presented. The computer hardware and software are presented, along with the entire design and performance analysis and evaluation