Wearable Computing for Health and Fitness: Exploring the Relationship between Data and Human Behaviour

Health and fitness wearable technology has recently advanced, making it easier for an individual to monitor their behaviours. Previously self generated data interacts with the user to motivate positive behaviour change, but issues arise when relating this to long term mention of wearable devices. Previous studies within this area are discussed. We also consider a new approach where data is used to support instead of motivate, through monitoring and logging to encourage reflection. Based on issues highlighted, we then make recommendations on the direction in which future work could be most beneficial

Emotions in context: examining pervasive affective sensing systems, applications, and analyses

Pervasive sensing has opened up new opportunities for measuring our feelings and understanding our behavior by monitoring our affective states while mobile. This review paper surveys pervasive affect sensing by examining and considering three major elements of affective pervasive systems, namely; “sensing”, “analysis”, and “application”. Sensing investigates the different sensing modalities that are used in existing real-time affective applications, Analysis explores different approaches to emotion recognition and visualization based on different types of collected data, and Application investigates different leading areas of affective applications. For each of the three aspects, the paper includes an extensive survey of the literature and finally outlines some of challenges and future research opportunities of affective sensing in the context of pervasive computing

Usability of Wearables without Affordances

The research question guiding this study is whether the absence of visible interaction cues in minimalist wearable devices affects the user experience. This question is answered theoretically with an affordance framework and empirically with a qualitative analysis of online user reviews about a specific fitness tracker wristband. Our theoretically-driven affordance-based analysis attributes usability challenges to affordance integration failures and contradictions. Minimalist devices with inconspicuous interfaces need compensating affordances to make them easy to use. Additionally, given the integration of affordances in the context of the user experience, there is a need for consistency among them. Integration failures and inconsistent affordances impair usability. Overall, the findings suggest that a minimalist design results in a more complex user experience if affordances are not properly balanced and integrated. These results have implications for researchers and practitioners seeking to understand what makes modern IoT devices transparent to use at the physical and digital level

Spartan Daily, February 26, 2008

Volume 130, Issue 19https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/10445/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, February 26, 2008

Volume 130, Issue 19https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/10445/thumbnail.jp

Introducing Real-Time Indeterminate Synthetic Music Feedback (RT-ISMF) as a Therapeutic Intervention Method

Started in 2007, partly unpublished artistic research has resulted in the development of a Psi-related collection of methods and instruments, which features possible applications in healing and therapeutic intervention2. This article will introduce this collection of methods and instruments, under the name Real-time Indeterminate Synthetic Music Feedback (RT-ISMF). The ISMF system generates indeterminate music by transforming quantum noise signals from a REG (random event generator) into uniformly distributed musical scales, note durations, and note values. The music produced in this way may serve as a continuous micro-PK feedback system, in which the music is the carrier of information produced by the REG (see illustration 1). Listeners to ISFM music have reported deep relaxation in short times. Dream-like images, visions, voices, and sudden insights are experienced, most of them connected in a remarkably meaningful way to important issues in the individual’s life. Since 2008, ISMF has been used during formal and informal therapeutic settings like psychological intervention, individual empowerment, relaxation and ‘healing.’ Evidence for possible applicability as a therapeutic intervention method has been collected from case studies and group events during which ISMF music was central. Case studies show that ISMF may be an effective intervention for a broad range of psychological, yet unclassified discomforts. Combinations of ‘exceptional experiences’ as well as spiritual and bodily healing are reported. ISMF and the supporting therapeutic interviewing technique have not been documented in publications so far. This article sketches the history, the design and theoretical background of ISMF. Case studies in which ISMF was central are summarized

Pervasive surveillance-agent system based on wireless sensor networks: design and deployment

Nowadays, proliferation of embedded systems is enhancing the possibilities of gathering information by using wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Flexibility and ease of installation make these kinds of pervasive networks suitable for security and surveillance environments. Moreover, the risk for humans to be exposed to these functions is minimized when using these networks. In this paper, a virtual perimeter surveillance agent, which has been designed to detect any person crossing an invisible barrier around a marked perimeter and send an alarm notification to the security staff, is presented. This agent works in a state of 'low power consumption' until there is a crossing on the perimeter. In our approach, the 'intelligence' of the agent has been distributed by using mobile nodes in order to discern the cause of the event of presence. This feature contributes to saving both processing resources and power consumption since the required code that detects presence is the only system installed. The research work described in this paper illustrates our experience in the development of a surveillance system using WNSs for a practical application as well as its evaluation in real-world deployments. This mechanism plays an important role in providing confidence in ensuring safety to our environment