Continuous glucose monitoring sensors: Past, present and future algorithmic challenges

Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) sensors are portable devices that allow measuring and visualizing the glucose concentration in real time almost continuously for several days and are provided with hypo/hyperglycemic alerts and glucose trend information. CGM sensors have revolutionized Type 1 diabetes (T1D) management, improving glucose control when used adjunctively to self-monitoring blood glucose systems. Furthermore, CGM devices have stimulated the development of applications that were impossible to create without a continuous-time glucose signal, e.g., real-time predictive alerts of hypo/hyperglycemic episodes based on the prediction of future glucose concentration, automatic basal insulin attenuation methods for hypoglycemia prevention, and the artificial pancreas. However, CGM sensors’ lack of accuracy and reliability limited their usability in the clinical practice, calling upon the academic community for the development of suitable signal processing methods to improve CGM performance. The aim of this paper is to review the past and present algorithmic challenges of CGM sensors, to show how they have been tackled by our research group, and to identify the possible future ones

Block-Based Development of Mobile Learning Experiences for the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things enables experts of given domains to create smart user experiences for interacting with the environment. However, development of such experiences requires strong programming skills, which are challenging to develop for non-technical users. This paper presents several extensions to the block-based programming language used in App Inventor to make the creation of mobile apps for smart learning experiences less challenging. Such apps are used to process and graphically represent data streams from sensors by applying map-reduce operations. A workshop with students without previous experience with Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile app programming was conducted to evaluate the propositions. As a result, students were able to create small IoT apps that ingest, process and visually represent data in a simpler form as using App Inventor's standard features. Besides, an experimental study was carried out in a mobile app development course with academics of diverse disciplines. Results showed it was faster and easier for novice programmers to develop the proposed app using new stream processing blocks.Spanish National Research Agency (AEI) - ERDF fund

Taking real-life seriously : an approach to decomposing context beyond 'environment' in living labs

The maturity of Living Labs has grown and several researchers have tried to create a uniform definition of what Living Labs are by emphasizing the multi-method and real-life, contextual approach. Although researchers thus recognize the importance of context in Living Labs, they do not provide insights into how context can be taken into account. The real-life context predominantly focuses on the in-situ use of a product during field trials where users are observed in their everyday life. The contribution of this paper will be twofold. By means of a case study we will show how context can be evaluated in the front end of design, so Living Lab researchers are no longer dependent on the readiness level of a product, and we will show how field trials can be evaluated in a more structured way to cover all components of context. By using a framework to evaluate the impact of context on product use, Living Lab researchers can improve the overall effectiveness of data gathering and analysis methods in a Living Lab project

DEVELOPMENT AND USABILITY EVALUATION OF PLATFORM INDEPENDENT MOBILE LEARNING APPLICATION (M-LA)

In today’s digital age, wireless technology and widespread use of handheld devices are going under a continuous advancement to provide information anywhere and at anytime. Furthermore, these technologies are being utilized in the field of education and called mobile learning (M-Learning). Hence, M-learning means using of mobile devices and wireless computing as a learning instrument and communication technology respectively. The limitations of M-learning include either hardware or software of mobile devices, content creation, and no standards for mobile learning system (M-LS), wireless technology, and security. The main objectives of this research are to study and design model for M-learning approach; to develop platform independent M-learning application (M-LA) for Fundamentals of Programming course; to design M-LS platform classification, and to evaluate the effectiveness and usability of the application. In addition, under the development of this application the following aspects are considered: learning theories, M-learning development principles, and some of the aforementioned M-learning limitations. To achieve the above mentioned objectives, ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) life cycle is adapted which is one type of instructional design model (IDM). The application has been developed using Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME), and Extensible Markup Language (XML). It contains several sections, but the main modules are Lecture Materials, and Quiz. Quasi Experiment Design and usability attributes was used to evaluate the effectiveness and usability of the application respectively using Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS foundation students. Finally, the data was analyzed using quantitative and qualitative method. The quantitative data was analyzed using coefficient variance and independent t-Test, and Cronbach alpha used to measure the internal reliability of the data. Overall results show that M-LA is efficient to improve learners’ performance, makes learning enjoyable, support continuous learning and learning time is reduced, and fulfilled the usability needs

Mobile application usability heuristics: Decoupling context-of-use

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG. All rights are reserved by the Publisher. This is the accepted manuscript version of a conference paper which has been published in final form at ttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58634-2_30Context-of-use is a vital consideration when evaluating the usability of mobile applications. Thus, when defining sets of heuristics for the usability evaluation of mobile applications, a common practice has been to include one or more heuristics that consider context-of-use. Yet, most evaluations are conducted within usability labs. Consequently, the aim of this research is to question the utility of attempting to include inherently complex areas of context-of-use within limited sets of mobile application usability heuristics. To address this, a mapping study uncovered six sets of heuristics that can be applied to mobile application usability evaluations. A within-subjects empirical test with six Human-Computer Interaction practitioners evaluated a well-known travel mobile application using three sets of the mapped heuristics. The study found that the common practice of including context-of-use within mobile application usability heuristics is an ineffective approach

Transformation theory and e-commerce adoption

This thesis investigates business transformation on the Internet; particularly the nature and significance of Cyber transformation theory and the Marketspace Model as a framework for E-commerce adoption. E-commerce can raise a firm\u27s productivity, transform customer relationships and open up new markets. The extent to which nations become adopters of E-commerce is set to become a source of comparative national competitive advantage (or disadvantage) in the twenty first century

Tablet-based Self-management Intervention for Diabetes Mellitus Type II Patients: Usability and Efficacy of The ASSISTwell Tool

Background: The usefulness of technology and the powerful capabilities of technological applications have led to a significantly increased interest in finding novel approaches to support older adults’ self-management. Self-management technological applications have been used in various contexts, and usability is key in sustainability and adoption of such technologies. Objective: The purpose of this research is to assess the usability of the ASSISTwell application in an older adult population with Diabetes Type II (DMII) and explore whether the application can effectively enhance DMII patients’ self-management. Design: Qualitative interviews, Observation, and Quasi-experimental design. Methods: Semi-structured interviews, observation, documentation, and quantitative standardized measures were used in this study. A purposive sample of 24 elderly patients with DMII was recruited for the study. Descriptive and inferential analysis were used to analyze the quantitative data. Simple content analysis was used to organize the emerging usability themes. Results: User feedback from the four-week user intervention demonstrated good usability of the ASSISTwell application. After using the ASSISTwell for 30 days, there was significant improvement in the perceived diabetes self-management skills of the intervention group (difference in mean PDSMS (F (1, 20) =5.11, p=0.035). Furthermore, those who used ASSISTwell (mean= 30.22, SD= 6.34) had higher PDSMS scores than those who received usual care without ASSISTwell (mean= 23.95, SD= 7.12). There was no significant difference in mean blood glucose levels (F (1, 20) =0.37, p=0.54) between the two groups. Those who used ASSISTwell (M=178, SD=40) had lower blood glucose levels than those who received usual care without ASSISTwell (M=185, SD=49), but the difference is not statistically significant. Conclusions: The novel ASSISTwell application presented in this paper helped participants improve their diabetes self-management skills. A well-designed application with new features has the ability to provide more promising results regarding improving perceived diabetes self-management skills. Also, examining usability is an essential step in application development to ensure that the application\u27s features match users\u27 expectations and needs and minimize the likelihood of user errors and difficulties using the system