Digital Traces of the Mind::Using Smartphones to Capture Signals of Well-Being in Individuals

General context and questions Adolescents and young adults typically use their smartphone several hours a day. Although there are concerns about how such behaviour might affect their well-being, the popularity of these powerful devices also opens novel opportunities for monitoring well-being in daily life. If successful, monitoring well-being in daily life provides novel opportunities to develop future interventions that provide personalized support to individuals at the moment they require it (just-in-time adaptive interventions). Taking an interdisciplinary approach with insights from communication, computational, and psychological science, this dissertation investigated the relation between smartphone app use and well-being and developed machine learning models to estimate an individual’s well-being based on how they interact with their smartphone. To elucidate the relation between smartphone trace data and well-being and to contribute to the development of technologies for monitoring well-being in future clinical practice, this dissertation addressed two overarching questions:RQ1: Can we find empirical support for theoretically motivated relations between smartphone trace data and well-being in individuals? RQ2: Can we use smartphone trace data to monitor well-being in individuals?Aims The first aim of this dissertation was to quantify the relation between the collected smartphone trace data and momentary well-being at the sample level, but also for each individual, following recent conceptual insights and empirical findings in psychological, communication, and computational science. A strength of this personalized (or idiographic) approach is that it allows us to capture how individuals might differ in how smartphone app use is related to their well-being. Considering such interindividual differences is important to determine if some individuals might potentially benefit from spending more time on their smartphone apps whereas others do not or even experience adverse effects. The second aim of this dissertation was to develop models for monitoring well-being in daily life. The present work pursued this transdisciplinary aim by taking a machine learning approach and evaluating to what extent we might estimate an individual’s well-being based on their smartphone trace data. If such traces can be used for this purpose by helping to pinpoint when individuals are unwell, they might be a useful data source for developing future interventions that provide personalized support to individuals at the moment they require it (just-in-time adaptive interventions). With this aim, the dissertation follows current developments in psychoinformatics and psychiatry, where much research resources are invested in using smartphone traces and similar data (obtained with smartphone sensors and wearables) to develop technologies for detecting whether an individual is currently unwell or will be in the future. Data collection and analysis This work combined novel data collection techniques (digital phenotyping and experience sampling methodology) for measuring smartphone use and well-being in the daily lives of 247 student participants. For a period up to four months, a dedicated application installed on participants’ smartphones collected smartphone trace data. In the same time period, participants completed a brief smartphone-based well-being survey five times a day (for 30 days in the first month and 30 days in the fourth month; up to 300 assessments in total). At each measurement, this survey comprised questions about the participants’ momentary level of procrastination, stress, and fatigue, while sleep duration was measured in the morning. Taking a time-series and machine learning approach to analysing these data, I provide the following contributions: Chapter 2 investigates the person-specific relation between passively logged usage of different application types and momentary subjective procrastination, Chapter 3 develops machine learning methodology to estimate sleep duration using smartphone trace data, Chapter 4 combines machine learning and explainable artificial intelligence to discover smartphone-tracked digital markers of momentary subjective stress, Chapter 5 uses a personalized machine learning approach to evaluate if smartphone trace data contains behavioral signs of fatigue. Collectively, these empirical studies provide preliminary answers to the overarching questions of this dissertation.Summary of results With respect to the theoretically motivated relations between smartphone trace data and wellbeing (RQ1), we found that different patterns in smartphone trace data, from time spent on social network, messenger, video, and game applications to smartphone-tracked sleep proxies, are related to well-being in individuals. The strength and nature of this relation depends on the individual and app usage pattern under consideration. The relation between smartphone app use patterns and well-being is limited in most individuals, but relatively strong in a minority. Whereas some individuals might benefit from using specific app types, others might experience decreases in well-being when spending more time on these apps. With respect to the question whether we might use smartphone trace data to monitor well-being in individuals (RQ2), we found that smartphone trace data might be useful for this purpose in some individuals and to some extent. They appear most relevant in the context of sleep monitoring (Chapter 3) and have the potential to be included as one of several data sources for monitoring momentary procrastination (Chapter 2), stress (Chapter 4), and fatigue (Chapter 5) in daily life. Outlook Future interdisciplinary research is needed to investigate whether the relationship between smartphone use and well-being depends on the nature of the activities performed on these devices, the content they present, and the context in which they are used. Answering these questions is essential to unravel the complex puzzle of developing technologies for monitoring well-being in daily life.<br/

Cybercrimes and the Rule of Law in West-Africa: The Republic of Cote d’Ivoire as a Case-Study.

Since becoming independent nations in the 60s, West-African countries have enacted laws and regulations with the goals of ensuring peace and justice within their respective borders. On the paper, there was no difference between the justice systems of those newly independent nations and the justice systems of their former masters. Unfortunately, the rule of law in West-African nations since gaining independence, has not always been followed for a myriad of social, cultural, political, and economic reasons. Most justice systems in West-Africa including in Cote d’Ivoire are deeply corrupted, thus rendering the goal of a peaceful society through a fair justice system mute. With the emergence of a new type of crimes taking place in cyberspace, there has been a logical need to enact new laws to protect the public using the added information and communication technologies (ICT). Over the past few years, multiple cyber-legislations have sprung-up all over Africa including in Cote d’Ivoire. The fundamental question is to ask whether the enforcement of cybercrimes laws is more successful than the enforcement of traditional laws. The problem of the enforceability of these cybercrime legislations is compounded by the very nature of cyberspace which is “borderless.” Faced with the complexity of those computer crimes taking place in the virtual space, do West-African countries in general and specifically Cote d’Ivoire have the infrastructure, the knowledge, and the workforce to efficiently investigate and prosecute cybercrimes? This research tries to investigate, expose the theoretical inadequation between cybercrimes legislations and the enforcement capabilities of the Ivorian state, based on the deficiencies of enforcement of traditional laws and the need to stem the tide of corruption in general and specifically in the justice system. This research uses the case-study method because case studies are in-depth investigations of a single person, group, event, or community. Our findings have confirmed our assumptions that the enforcement of cybercrime laws is flawed due to the lack of proper equipment, skills of law enforcement personnel, even though the country has put in place many agencies to fight against cybercrimes. The social, cultural, political, and economical determinants that have always inhibited the fair and just enforcement of traditional laws is exerting the same kind of pressure on the capabilities of Law enforcement when it comes to the investigation and prosecution of cybercrimes in Cote d’Ivoire. This research, far from being exhaustive, needs a follow-up research in the future when the country retrieves its past stability and social peace which will allow a more open cooperation between researchers and the different authorities leading the fight against cybercrimes

Masks, Misinformation, and Making Do: Appalachian Health-Care Workers and the COVID-19 Pandemic

The firsthand pandemic experiences of rural health-care providers—who were already burdened when COVID-19 hit—raise questions about the future of public health and health-care delivery. This volume comprises the COVID-19 pandemic experiences of Appalachian health-care workers, including frontline providers, administrators, and educators. The combined narrative reveals how governmental and corporate policies exacerbated the region’s injustices, stymied response efforts, and increased the death toll. Beginning with an overview of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its impact on the body, the essays in the book’s first section provide background material and contextualize the subsequent explosion of telemedicine, the pandemic’s impact on medical education, and its relationship to systemic racism and related disparities in mental health treatment. First-person narratives from diverse perspectives recount the pandemic’s layered stresses. These visceral, personal experiences of how Appalachian health-care workers responded to the pandemic amid the nation’s deeply polarized political discourse will shape the historical record of this “unprecedented time” and provide a glimpse into the future of rural medicine. Contributors: Lucas Aidukaitis, Clay Anderson, Tammy Bannister, Alli Delp, Lynn Elliott, Monika Holbein, Laura Hungerford, Nikki King, Brittany Landore, Jeffrey J. LeBoeuf, Sojourner Nightingale, Beth O’Connor, Rakesh Patel, Mildred E. Perreault, Melanie B. Richards, Tara Smith, Kathy Osborne Still, Darla Timbo, Kathy Hsu Wibberlyhttps://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/oupress/1022/thumbnail.jp

Transforming Conservation

There are severe problems with the decision-making processes currently widely used, leading to ineffective use of evidence, faulty decisions, wasting of resources and the erosion of public and political support. In this book an international team of experts provide solutions. The transformation suggested includes rethinking how evidence is assessed, combined, communicated and used in decision-making; using effective methods when asking experts to make judgements (i.e. avoiding just asking an expert or a group of experts!); using a structured process for making decisions that incorporate the evidence and having effective processes for learning from actions. In each case, the specific problem with decision making is described with a range of practical solutions. Adopting this approach to decision-making requires societal change so detailed suggestions are made for transforming organisations, governments, businesses, funders and philanthropists. The practical suggestions include twelve downloadable checklists. The vision of the authors is to transform conservation so it is more effective, more cost-efficient, learns from practice and is more attractive to funders. However, the lessons of this important book go well beyond conservation to decision-makers in any field

Transforming Conservation

There are severe problems with the decision-making processes currently widely used, leading to ineffective use of evidence, faulty decisions, wasting of resources and the erosion of public and political support. In this book an international team of experts provide solutions. The transformation suggested includes rethinking how evidence is assessed, combined, communicated and used in decision-making; using effective methods when asking experts to make judgements (i.e. avoiding just asking an expert or a group of experts!); using a structured process for making decisions that incorporate the evidence and having effective processes for learning from actions. In each case, the specific problem with decision making is described with a range of practical solutions. Adopting this approach to decision-making requires societal change so detailed suggestions are made for transforming organisations, governments, businesses, funders and philanthropists. The practical suggestions include twelve downloadable checklists. The vision of the authors is to transform conservation so it is more effective, more cost-efficient, learns from practice and is more attractive to funders. However, the lessons of this important book go well beyond conservation to decision-makers in any field

Right Research

"Educational institutions play an instrumental role in social and political change, and are responsible for the environmental and social ethics of their institutional practices. The essays in this volume critically examine scholarly research practices in the age of the Anthropocene, and ask what accountability educators and researchers have in ‘righting’ their relationship to the environment. The volume further calls attention to the geographical, financial, legal and political barriers that might limit scholarly dialogue by excluding researchers from participating in traditional modes of scholarly conversation. As such, Right Research is a bold invitation to the academic community to rigorous self-reflection on what their research looks like, how it is conducted, and how it might be developed so as to increase accessibility and sustainability, and decrease carbon footprint. The volume follows a three-part structure that bridges conceptual and practical concerns: the first section challenges our assumptions about how sustainability is defined, measured and practiced; the second section showcases artist-researchers whose work engages with the impact of humans on our environment; while the third section investigates how academic spaces can model eco-conscious behaviour. This timely volume responds to an increased demand for environmentally sustainable research, and is outstanding not only in its interdisciplinarity, but its embrace of non-traditional formats, spanning academic articles, creative acts, personal reflections and dialogues. Right Research will be a valuable resource for educators and researchers interested in developing and hybridizing their scholarly communication formats in the face of the current climate crisis.

Teachers Matter Improving Recruitment, Retention and Development of Teachers

This book highlights the global concern about the teaching workforce, from recruitment and retention of teachers to the development and quality of teachers in schools. The collection of papers in this book is international in scope, representing a range of research designs (from longitudinal studies using national and international datasets, large-scale surveys, reviews and syntheses of evidence to randomized control trials, value-added models and design-based action research). These papers exemplify the high standard of research in education

The COVID-19 Clinician Cohort (CoCCo) Study: Empirically Grounded Recommendations for Forward-Facing Psychological Care of Frontline Doctors

In this book, we focus on health and wellbeing in the workforce within the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic, and the post-pandemic era. We begin by exploring the impacts of the pandemic on diverse occupational groups, considering the broader mental health impacts of the pandemic, reactions to national lockdowns and behavioural strategies to control the spread of the virus, such as social distancing and self-isolation, attitudes towards infection control and work presenteeism. Next, we explore the relationship between job factors, working conditions and psychological wellbeing of employees. The papers that follow examine changes in work patterns and locations, such as remote, hybrid, and on-site working, the impact of organizational climate on mental wellbeing, and organizational approaches to return-to-work after lockdown. Finally, we present innovative organizational- and individual-level pandemic mitigation interventions, including SARS-CoV-2 testing services and infection control approaches, digital mental health support, and COVID-19 Vaccine Education. This collection demonstrates the breadth of research on work, health and wellbeing, during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, covering workforce impacts and workforce interventions in various countries and settings. Learning from this research will help to build global preparedness for future pandemics and foster resilience for responding in times of crisis and uncertainty