A conceptual architecture for empowering responsible online gambling with predictive, real- time, persuasive and interactive intervention

Online gambling, unlike other mediums of addiction and problematic behaviour, such as tobacco and alcohol, offers unprecedented opportunities for monitoring and understanding an addict's behaviour in real-time and adapting persuasive messages and interactions that would fit their usage and personal context. Online gambling sites usually provide Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) mainly to enable third party applications to enhance the gambling experience. In this work, we propose that gamblers' online data, such as navigation path and available offers, can be used to enable a more intelligent and proactive responsible gambling care in a real-time persuasive style. To this end, we propose a conceptual architecture of persuasive responsible online gambling technology. The novelty in our approach is indeed reliant on the real time and interactivity aspects as the intervention and the persuasion can happen in the same time as the gamblers’ behaviour is taking place

Evaluating the impact of physical activity apps and wearables: interdisciplinary review

Background: Although many smartphone apps and wearables have been designed to improve physical activity, their rapidly evolving nature and complexity present challenges for evaluating their impact. Traditional methodologies, such as randomized controlled trials (RCTs), can be slow. To keep pace with rapid technological development, evaluations of mobile health technologies must be efficient. Rapid alternative research designs have been proposed, and efficient in-app data collection methods, including in-device sensors and device-generated logs, are available. Along with effectiveness, it is important to measure engagement (ie, users’ interaction and usage behavior) and acceptability (ie, users’ subjective perceptions and experiences) to help explain how and why apps and wearables work. Objectives: This study aimed to (1) explore the extent to which evaluations of physical activity apps and wearables: employ rapid research designs; assess engagement, acceptability, as well as effectiveness; use efficient data collection methods; and (2) describe which dimensions of engagement and acceptability are assessed. Method: An interdisciplinary scoping review using 8 databases from health and computing sciences. Included studies measured physical activity, and evaluated physical activity apps or wearables that provided sensor-based feedback. Results were analyzed using descriptive numerical summaries, chi-square testing, and qualitative thematic analysis. Results: A total of 1829 abstracts were screened, and 858 articles read in full. Of 111 included studies, 61 (55.0%) were published between 2015 and 2017. Most (55.0%, 61/111) were RCTs, and only 2 studies (1.8%) used rapid research designs: 1 single-case design and 1 multiphase optimization strategy. Other research designs included 23 (22.5%) repeated measures designs, 11 (9.9%) nonrandomized group designs, 10 (9.0%) case studies, and 4 (3.6%) observational studies. Less than one-third of the studies (32.0%, 35/111) investigated effectiveness, engagement, and acceptability together. To measure physical activity, most studies (90.1%, 101/111) employed sensors (either in-device [67.6%, 75/111] or external [23.4%, 26/111]). RCTs were more likely to employ external sensors (accelerometers: P=.005). Studies that assessed engagement (52.3%, 58/111) mostly used device-generated logs (91%, 53/58) to measure the frequency, depth, and length of engagement. Studies that assessed acceptability (57.7%, 64/111) most often used questionnaires (64%, 42/64) and/or qualitative methods (53%, 34/64) to explore appreciation, perceived effectiveness and usefulness, satisfaction, intention to continue use, and social acceptability. Some studies (14.4%, 16/111) assessed dimensions more closely related to usability (ie, burden of sensor wear and use, interface complexity, and perceived technical performance). Conclusions: The rapid increase of research into the impact of physical activity apps and wearables means that evaluation guidelines are urgently needed to promote efficiency through the use of rapid research designs, in-device sensors and user-logs to assess effectiveness, engagement, and acceptability. Screening articles was time-consuming because reporting across health and computing sciences lacked standardization. Reporting guidelines are therefore needed to facilitate the synthesis of evidence across disciplines

112.social: Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Crisis App for Bidirectional Communication between Emergency Services and Citizens

Emergencies threaten human lives and overall societal continuity, whether or not the crises and disasters are induced by nature, such as earthquakes, floods and hurricanes, or by human beings, such as accidents, terror attacks and uprisings. In such situations, not only do citizens demand information about the damage and safe behaviour, but emergency services also require high quality information to improve situational awareness. For this purpose, there are currently two kinds of apps available: General-purpose apps, such as Facebook Safety Check or Twitter Alerts, already integrate safety features. Specific crisis apps, such as KATWARN in Germany or FEMA in the US, provide information on how to behave before, during and after emergencies, and capabilities for reporting incidents or receiving disaster warnings. In this paper, we analyse authorities’ and citizens’ information demands and features of crisis apps. Moreover, we present the concept, implementation and evaluation of a crisis app for incident reporting and bidirectional communication between authorities and citizens. Using the app, citizens may (1) report incidents by providing a category, description, location and multimedia files and (2) receive broadcasts and responses from authorities. Finally, we outline features, requirements and contextual factors for incident reporting and bidirectional communication via mobile app

Wearables at work:preferences from an employee’s perspective

This exploratory study aims to obtain a first impression of the wishes and needs of employees on the use of wearables at work for health promotion. 76 employ-ees with a mean age of 40 years old (SD ±11.7) filled in a survey after trying out a wearable. Most employees see the potential of using wearable devices for workplace health promotion. However, according to employees, some negative aspects should be overcome before wearables can effectively contribute to health promotion. The most mentioned negative aspects were poor visualization and un-pleasantness of wearing. Specifically for the workplace, employees were con-cerned about the privacy of data collection

Development and validation of an instrument to measure the persuasion effects on parents after using the persuasive mobile child obesity monitor app

With the advent of technology, mobile healthcare (m-healthcare) applications have been developed to help people in managing their daily lives. In order to improve the use of m-healthcare applications, persuasive components in m-healthcare are vital for changing behaviour. However, there is no single agreement on how to measure the level of persuasion of users especially in m-healthcare for behaviour change. Therefore, majority of researchers attempt to measure the level of users'acceptance or attitude. So, this paper focuses on the development and validation of a generalized instrument to measure the persuasion effects which targets different group of users. Also, this work is aimed to design and evaluate an instrument to measure the persuasion perspectives of parents using the Persuasive Mobile Child Obesity Monitor (PMCOM) app. Based on the literature review analysis, there are three variables that depend on the persuasion theories which include trigger, ability and motivation that lead to behaviour change. These variables have five dimensions that include reminder, reduction, historical information, suggestion and praise. All dimensions are used to establish the required behaviour when integrated into the mobile application. The results of an evaluation among 58 parents show that the design of a persuasive instrument based on the generalizable process can provide guidance and information in the construction and validation of the questionnaires for any future studies