HotMobile 2008: Postconference Report

HotMobile 2008 presented a two-day program on mobile computing systems and applications. The authors focuses on the sessions on sensors, modularity, wireless, security, systems, and screens. The mobile device is the most amazing invention in history and that it has had the largest impact on human kind. Because mobile phones combine mobile devices with ongoing developments in software and communication technologies, they have the potential to change the way people think and act

Peer to Peer: At the Heart of Influencing More Effective Philanthropy

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has had a long-standing commitment to increasing the effectiveness of grantmaking organizations, a commitment reflected in its Philanthropy Grantmaking Program. In 2015, the Foundation commissioned Harder+Company Community Research, in partnership with Edge Research, to conduct a field scan to inform its own strategies in this area as well as those of other organizations working to increase philanthropic effectiveness. Drawing on data from multiple sources, the field scan identified which knowledge sources and formats are most likely to be accessed by funders, how that knowledge is assessed by its users, and the ways in which knowledge is used to shape the practice of philanthropy

DATUM in Action

This collaborative research data management planning project (hereafter the RDMP project) sought to help a collaborative group of researchers working on an EU FP7 staff exchange project (hereafter the EU project) to define and implement good research data management practice by developing an appropriate DMP and supporting systems and evaluating their initial implementation. The aim was to "improve practice on the ground" through more effective and appropriate systems, tools/solutions and guidance in managing research data. The EU project (MATSIQEL - (Models for Ageing and Technological Solutions For Improving and Enhancing the Quality of Life), funded under the Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme, is accumulating expertise for the mathematical and computer modelling of ageing processes with the aim of developing models which can be implemented in technological solutions (e.g. monitors, telecare, recreational games) for improving and enhancing quality of life.1 Marie Curie projects do not fund research per se, so the EU project has no resources to fund commercial tools for research data management. Lead by Professor Maia Angelova, School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences (SCEIS) at Northumbria University, it comprises six work packages involving researchers at Northumbria and in Australia, Bulgaria, Germany, Mexico and South Africa. The RDMP project focused on one of its work packages (WP4 Technological Solutions and Implementation) with some reference to another work package lead by the same person at Northumbria University (WP5 Quality of Life). The RDMP project‟s innovation was less about the choice of platform/system, as it began with existing standard office technology, and more about how this can be effectively deployed in a collaborative scenario to provide a fit-for-purpose solution with useful and usable support and guidance. It built on the success of the Datum for Health project by taking it a stage further, moving from a solely health discipline to an interdisciplinary context of health, social care and mathematical/computer modelling, and from a Postgraduate Research Student context to an academic researcher context, with potential to reach beyond the University boundaries. In addition, since the EU project is re-using data from elsewhere as well as creating its own data; a wide range of RDM issues were addressed. The RDMP project assessed the transferability of the DATUM materials and the tailored DATUM DMP

Implementing Tablet PCs in a Distance Learning Environment

(First paragraph) The Commonwealth Graduate Engineering Program (CGEP) is a collaborative distance education program developed by leading Universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is over 25 years old and its main goal is to deliver graduate engineering courses to qualified professionals located across the Commonwealth of Virginia. Traditionally, the courses delivered to students in this program are done through interactive video conferencing (IVC) technology and most students are required to drive to a physical location. However, an increasing number of working professionals are beginning to want more flexibility with the timing and locations of these classes. With these changes in market demand in mind, the CGEP directors are seeking new ways to deliver these courses combined with a systematic way to manage the change

Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators: 2021/22 Annual Review Report

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Exploring (un)sustainable growth of digital technologies in the home

HCI and Ubicomp research often centres around the support of humans interacting with digital technology. Despite this obvious focus, there seems to be less work on understanding how these digital technologies can lead to growth in use, dependence, and influence practices in everyday life. In this paper we discuss how digital technologies have been, and continue to be, adopted in domestic practices—and how the growth of interactions with various ecologies of digital technologies can lead to growth in use and energy consumption. We further the discussion within ICT4S and sustainable HCI on how to promote research that encourages sustainability as a core concern—socially, economically, and ecologically—emphasising that defining limits to growth are important when trying to affect change in sustainable directions. We echo calls for more significant sustainability research from HCI, and set out some avenues of design for moving in this direction

Personalized Profiling and Self-Organization as strategies for the formation and support

Mobile and wireless technologies are globally aware therefore so to do institutions have to think globally. By this is meant not simply making learning objects available to international students, but inventing ways to engage students from any geographical location with these objects in such a way that the outcome is knowledge. This paper explores the applicability of personalized profiling as a means to link students studying similar disciplines to each other, and proposes a self-organizing ‘living systems’ model that aims to overcome present impediments to the creation of sustainable, ‘open’, m-learning communities. ‘Open’ m-learning communities are characterized by their ability to self organize and adapt to changing circumstances. Their conceptual framework is systems theoretical, which draws on understandings about the natural world from the biological and physical sciences. Concepts such as “open structure”, “self organization” and “living systems”, have currency in the discourses of information and computing sciences (i.e., the research fields of artificial life and artificial intelligence). In the biological scientific view, the sole purpose of a living organism is to renew itself by opening itself up to its environment, or to another structure. In natural scientific terms, an organism that is in equilibrium is a dead organism. Living organisms continually maintain themselves in a state far from equilibrium, which is the state of life. The transfer of understandings about the operations of living systems is evident in the approaches of computer game designers and programmers, where “swarming” and other empathetic behaviours of organisms such as bees, fireflies and even stem cells, provide the basis for the design of software to support massively multi-user on-line gaming. This new knowledge may have applicability in new approaches to m-learning, for example, through learner selfprofiling and the automated matching of learner profiles to other learners and learning opportunities. The first step in this process is that of understanding how the specificities of emerging mobile and wireless technologies might facilitate open m_learning and the formation of m-learning communities.Griffith University, Queensland, Australi

Emotional robots: principles and practice with PARO in Denmark, Germany and the UK

As societies age there will be a significant increase of those over 80 and a predicted increase in people with dementia. We know that loneliness increases with old age, and those living with dementia are at risk of social isolation. Also opportunities for sensory stimulation and engagement in pleasurable activities are reduced in old age. The question is what technologies can be used to extend the range of available interventions that can enhance well-being. Emotional robots have been developed for activity and therapeutic purposes. This article explores experiences of the emotional robot PARO in Denmark, Germany and UK, and provides principles of this robot as an activity or activity with a therapeutic purpose