System for monitoring the wellness state of people in domestic environments employing emoticon-based HCI

[EN] Wellness state is affected by the habitability state of the domestic environment. Monitoring it can help to discover the causes of a low wellness levels aiding people in the improvement of their quality of life. In this paper, we propose a system to monitor the wellness state of people utilizing Likert¿s scale to determine the state of the user through an emoticon-based human¿computer interaction. The system is intended for domestic environments and measures the habitability conditions of the dwelling (such as temperature, humidity, luminosity and noise) employing sensors. An algorithm is designed in order to establish how to measure those conditions and to calculate the statistics that allows tracking their progress. The obtained information is presented to the user to compare his/her wellness state with the habitability conditions. Measures in a real domestic environment were performed in order to determine the configuration of our system. The energy efficiency of the algorithm provides an improvement between 99.36 and 99.62% in the energy consumption depending on the selected parameters.This work has been partially supported by the “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación”, through the “Plan Nacional de I+D+i 2008–2011” and by the “Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte”, through the grand “Ayudas para contratos predoctorales de Formación del Profesorado Universitario FPU14/02953”.García-García, L.; Parra-Boronat, L.; Romero Martínez, JO.; Lloret, J. (2017). System for monitoring the wellness state of people in domestic environments employing emoticon-based HCI. The Journal of Supercomputing. 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-017-2214-4S125Sendra S, Parra L, Lloret J, Tomás J (2017) Smart system for children’s chronic illness monitoring. Inf Fusion 40:76–86Lloret J, Parra L, Taha M, Tomás J (2017) An architecture and protocol for smart continuous eHealth monitoring using 5G. Comput Netw. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2017.05.018 (in press)Hettler B (1976) The six dimensions of wellness. National Wellness Institute. http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.nationalwellness.org/resource/resmgr/docs/sixdimensionsfactsheet.pdf . Accessed 12 Dec 2017Dunn HL (1959) What high-level wellness means. Can J Public Health 50(11):447–457Herbes DJ, Mulder CH (2016) Housing and subjective well-being of older adults in Europe. J Hous Built Environ. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-016-9526-1OECD (2015) How’s life? measuring well-being. http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/how-s-life_23089679;jsessionid=55pjippucpjrq.x-oecd-live-02 . Accessed 12 Dec 2017Donaldson GC, Seemungal T, Jeffries DJ, Wedzicha JA (1999) Effect of temperature on lung function and symptoms in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Eur Respir J ERS 13(4):844–849Schwartz J, Samet J, Patz J (2004) Hospital admissions for heart disease: the effects of temperature and humidity. Epidemiology 15(6):755–761National Institute of Statistics of Spain (2005) Defunciones según causa de muerte en 2003. http://www.ine.es/prensa/np393.pdf . Accessed 12 Dec 2017Grimes A, Denne T, Howden-Dhapman P, Arnold R, Telfar-Barnard L, Preval N, Young C (2012) Cost benefit analysis of the warm up New Zealand: heat smart programme. University of Wellington, Wellington. http://sustainablecities.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/NZIF_CBA_report2.pdf . Accessed 12 Dec 2017Martínez-Pérez B, de la Torre-Díez I, Candelas-Plasencia S, López-Coronado M (2013) Developement and evaluation of tools for measuring the quality of experience (QoE) in mHealth applications. J Med Syst 37(5):9976Walther JB, D’addario KP (2001) The impacts of emotions on message interpretation in computer-mediated communication. Soc Sci Comput Rev 19(3):324–347Ghayvat H, Liu J, Mukhopadhay SC, Gui X (2015) Wellness sensor networks: a proposal and implementation for smart home for assisted living. IEEE Sens J 15(12):7341–7348Forkan ARM, Hu W (2016) A context-aware, predictive and protective approach for wellness monitoring of cardiac patients. In: Computing in Cardiology Conference, Vancouver, Canada, pp 369–372Booc CER, San Diego CMD, Tee ML, Caro JDL (2016) A mobile application for campus-based psychosocial wellness program. In: 7th International Conference on Information, Systems and Applications, Chalkidiki, Greece, pp 1–4Khan WA, Idris M, Ali T, Ali R, Hussain S, Hussain M, Amin MB, Khattak AM, Weiwei Y, Afzal M, Lee S, Kang BH, (2015) Correlating health and wellness analytics for personalized decision making. Boston, USA, pp 256–261Lim C, Kim ZM, Choi H (2017) Context-based healthy lifestyle recommendation for enhancing user’s wellness. In: IEEE International Conference on Big Data and Smart Computing, Jeju, South Korea, pp 418–421Tulu B, Strong D, Wang L, He Q, Agu E, Pedersen P, Djamasbi S (2016) Design implications of user experience studies: the case of a diabetes wellness app. In: 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Koloa, USA, pp 3473–3482Kaur D, Siddaraju GS (2016) Experimental study of cardiac functionality for the wellness of individual by developing an android application. In: International Conference on Computation System and Information Technology for Sustainable Solutions, Bangalore, India, pp 174–183Arshad A, Khan S, Alam AHMZ, Tasnim R, Boby RI (2016) Health and wellness monitoring of elderly people using intelligent sensing technique. In: International Conference on Computer and Communications Engineering, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, pp 231–235Martin CJ, Platt SD, Hunt SM (1987) Housing conditions and ill health. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed) 294(6580):1125–1127Evans GW, Wells NM, Moch A (2003) Housing and mental health: a review of the evidence and a methodological and conceptual critique. J Soc Issues 59(3):475–500Shaw M (2004) Housing and public health. Annu Rev Public Health 25:397–418Thomson H, Thomas S (2015) Developing empirically supported theories of change for housing investment and health. Soc Sci Med 124:205–214Gustafson CJ, Feldman SR, Quandt SA, Isom S, Chem H, Spears CR, Arcury TA (2014) The association of skin conditions with housing conditions among North Carolina Latino migrant farm workers. Int J Dermatol 53(9):1091–1097Laquesta R, Garcia L, Garcia-Magarino I, Lloret J (2017) System to recommend the best place to life based on wellness state of the user employing the heart rate variability. IEEE Access 5:10594–10604Isiaka F, Mwitondi K, Ibrahim A (2015) Automatic prediction and detection of affect state based on invariant human computer interaction and human physiological response. In: Seventh International Conference on Computational Intelligence, Modelling and Simulation, Kuantan, Malaysia, pp 19–25Han S, Liu R, Zhu C, Soo YG, Yu H, Liu T, Duan F (2016) Development of a human computer interaction system based on multi-modal gaze tracking methods. In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, Qingdao, China, pp 1894–1899Chen B, Huang S, Tsai W (2017) Eliminating driving distractions: human–computer interaction with built-in applications. IEEE Veh Technol Mag 12(1):20–29Kamal S, Sayeed F, Rafeeq M (2016) Facial emotion recognition for human–computer interactions using hybrid feature extraction technique. In: International Conference on Data Mining and Advanced Computing, Ernakulam, India, pp 180–184Agrawal R, Gupta N (2016) Real time hand gesture recognition for human computer interaction. In: IEEE 6th International Conference on Advanced Computing, Bhimavaram, India, pp 470–475Sánchez CS, Mavrogianni A, González FJN (2017) On the minimal thermal habitability conditions in low income dwellings in Spain for a new definition of fuel poverty. Build Environ 114:344–356Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality of Spain (2015) Plan Nacional de Actuaciones Preventivas de los Efectos del Exceso de Temperaturas Sobre la Salud. http://www.msssi.gob.es/ciudadanos/saludAmbLaboral/planAltasTemp/2015/docs/Plan_Nacional_de_Exceso_de_Temperaturas_2015.pdf . Accessed 12 Dec 2017Bornehag CG, Blomquist G, Gyntelberg F, Järvholm B, Malmberg P, Nordvall L, Nielsen A, Pershagen G, Sundell J (2001) Dampness in buildings and health. Indoor Air 11(2):72–86Garret MH, Rayment PR, Hooper MA, Abramson MJ, Hooper BM (1997) Indoor airborne fungal spores, house dampness and associations with environmental factors and respiratory health in children. Clin Exp Allergy 28:459–467Ariës MBC, Zonneveldt L (2004) Architectural aspects of healthy lighting. In: 21th Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, The Netherlands, pp 1–5Boubekri M, Cheung IN, Reid KJ, Wang C, Zee PC (2014) Impact of windows and daylight exposure on overall health and sleep quality of office workers: a case-control pilot study. J Clin Sleep Med 10(6):603–611Beute F, de Kort YAW (2014) Salutogenic effects of the environments: review of health protective effects of nature and daylight. Appl Psychol Health Well Being 6(1):67–95Boyce P, Hunter C, Howlett O (2003) The benefits of daylight through windows. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, TroyHoogendijk WJG, Lips P, Dik MG, Deeg DJH, Beekman ATF, Penninx BWJH (2008) Depression is associated with decreased 25-hydroxyvitamin D and increased parathyroid hormone levels in older adults. Arch Gen Psychiatry 65(5):508–512Ising H, Kruppa B (2004) Health effects caused by noise: evidence in the literature from the past 25 years. Noise Health 6(22):5–13Sandra S, Lloret J, Garcia M, Toledo JF (2011) Power saving and energy optimization techniques for wireless sensor networks. J Commun 6(6):439–459Heinzelman WR, Chandrakasan A, Balakrishnan H (2000) Energy-efficient communication protocol for wireless microsensor networks. In: Proceedings of the IEEE 33rd Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Maui, HawaiiKaps JP, Sunar B (2006) Energy comparison of AES and SHA-1 for ubiquitous computing. In: Proceedings of the EUC 2006 Workshops: NCUS, SecUbiq, USN, TRUST, ESO, and MSA, Seoul, KoreaParra L, Sendra S, Jiménez JM, Lloret J (2016) Multimedia sensors embedded in smartphones for ambient assisted living and e-health. Multimed Tools Appl 75(21):13271–1329

Physical Wellbeing Monitoring Employing Non-Invasive Low-Cost and Low-Energy Sensor Socks

[EN] Determining and improving the wellbeing of people is one of the priorities of the OECD countries. Nowadays many sensors allow monitoring different parameters in regard to the wellbeing of people. These sensors can be deployed in smartphones, clothes or accessories like watches. Many studies have been performed on wearable devices that monitor certain aspects of the health of people, especially for specific diseases. In this paper, we propose a non-invasive low-cost and low-energy physical wellbeing monitoring system that provides a wellness score based on the obtained data. We present the architecture of the system and the disposition of the sensors on the sock. The algorithm of the system is presented as well. The wellness threshold evaluation module allows determining if the monitored parameter is within healthy ranges. The message forwarding module allows decreasing the energy consumption of the system by detecting the presence of alerts or changes in the data. Finally, a simulation was performed in order to determine the energy consumption of the system. Results show that our algorithm allows saving 44.9% of the initial energy in 10,000 min for healthy people.García-García, L.; Parra-Boronat, L.; Jimenez, JM.; Lloret, J. (2018). Physical Wellbeing Monitoring Employing Non-Invasive Low-Cost and Low-Energy Sensor Socks. Sensors. 18(9). https://doi.org/10.3390/s18092822S18

Scatternet Formation Protocol for Environmental Monitoring in a Smart Garden

[EN] The monitoring of different parameters in the smart garden environment requires thousands of nodes and actuators. They form a multi-hop communication network. The scatternets formed with Bluetooth protocol is a communication solution. However, there is no current algorithm that considers the different capabilities of the devices (sensors or actuators) and assigns a role according to these capabilities. In this paper, we present a network topology formation algorithm for role assignment and connection establishment which considers the capabilities of the devices and use slave-slave Bridge to communicate the piconets. We design the algorithms needed for this protocol and test it. We have simulated the algorithms in order to evaluate the time needed for role assignment and to establish the first connections of the piconet. The results include different scenarios composed by one or two masters and one to seven slaves. In addition, we evaluate the established connections in piconets and bridges in a real case of the smart garden sensor network. Finally, we present the changes in the piconet connections after the deployment of two nodes in an existing network.This work is partially found by the European Union with the “Fondo Europeo Agrícola de Desarrollo Rural (FEADER) – Europa invierte en zonas rurales”, the MAPAMA, and Comunidad de Madrid with the IMIDRA, under the mark of the PDR-CM 2014-2020” project number PDR18-XEROCESPED. This work has been partially supported by the "Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad" in the "Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia, Subprograma Estatal de Generación de Conocimiento" within the project under Grant TIN2017-84802-C2-1-P. This work has also been partially supported by European Union through the ERANETMED (Euromediterranean Cooperation through ERANET joint activities and beyond) project ERANETMED3-227 SMARTWATIR.Parra-Boronat, L.; Marín, J.; Mauri Ablanque, PV.; Lloret, J.; Torices, V.; Massager, A. (2018). Scatternet Formation Protocol for Environmental Monitoring in a Smart Garden. Network Protocols and Algorithms. 10(3):63-84. https://doi.org/10.5296/npa.v10i3.14122S638410

Design of a WSN for smart irrigation in citrus plots with fault-tolerance and energy-saving algorithms

[EN] Wireless sensor networks are widely used for monitoring different processes, including agriculture, in order to reach sustainability. One of the keys to sustainable crops is water saving. In particular, saving water is extremely important in arid and semiarid regions. In those regions, citrus trees are cultivated, and drip irrigation is used to save water. In this paper, we propose a smart irrigation system for citrus trees using a WSN. We describe the employed sensors and nodes for this proposal. Next, we present the proposed architecture and the operational algorithms for the nodes. Moreover, we designed different algorithms for fault tolerance and energy saving functionalities. The energy saving algorithm is based on the relevance of the gathered data, which is analyzed in order to consider whether the information should be forwarded or not. A TPC-based protocol is proposed to perform the communication among the nodes of our system. In addition, we present different simulations of the proposed system. Particularly, we show the consumed bandwidth and the remaining energy in the different nodes. Finally, we test different energy configurations to evaluate the network lifetime and the remaining energy when the first node depletes its energy.This work has been partially supported by the “Conselleria d' Educació, Investigació, Cultura i Esport” through the “Subvenciones para la contratación de personal investigator de carácter predoctoral (Convocatoria 2017)” Grant number ACIF/2017/069, by the “Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte”, through the “Ayudas para contratacion predoctoral de Formación del Profesorado Universitario FPU (Convocatoria 2014)”. Grant number FPU14/02953 and finally, the research leading to these results has received funding from “la Caixa” Foundation and Triptolemos Foundation. This work has also been partially supported by European Union through the ERANETMED (Euromediterranean Cooperation through ERANET joint activities and beyond) project ERANETMED3-227 SMARTWATIR.Parra-Boronat, L.; Rocher-Morant, J.; García-García, L.; Lloret, J.; Tomás Gironés, J.; Romero Martínez, JO.; Rodilla, M.... (2018). Design of a WSN for smart irrigation in citrus plots with fault-tolerance and energy-saving algorithms. Network Protocols and Algorithms. 10(2):95-115. https://doi.org/10.5296/npa.v10i2.13205S9511510

Prototyping Social Action

Information technology has made social interaction an increasingly important topic for interaction design and technology development. Today’s mobile technology provides for rich communication and awareness between people, regardless of their whereabouts. When people are gathered together, technology is also often present, influencing or even actively taking part in the social activity. Social action is the essence of many systems studied, developed and prototyped by the design and research community. The problem is that this is often done without proper methodological backing. There is no lack of methods, but a need for an adequate approach: how should circumstances for social action to happen be created, how should it be observed, how should systematic, detailed inferences about it be produced for the purposes of design, and what design-related activities does such research serve? Drawing from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, this study addresses social action and social prototypes in various settings: at a workplace, in the area of mobile multimedia and the domain of ubiquitous context-aware systems. The main contribution of this study is that it articulates how this framework can be brought into design studies. The cases in this study also demonstrate empirically that this approach works

Architecture and communication protocol to monitor and control water quality and irrigation in agricultural environments

[ES] La introducción de soluciones tecnológicas en la agricultura permite reducir el uso de recursos y aumentar la producción de los cultivos. Además, la calidad del agua de regadío se puede monitorizar para asegurar la seguridad de los productos para el consumo humano. Sin embargo, la localización remota de la mayoría de los campos presenta un problema para proveer de cobertura inalámbrica a los nodos sensores y actuadores desplegados en los campos y los canales de agua para regadío. El trabajo presentado en esta tesis aborda el problema de habilitar la comunicación inalámbrica entre los dispositivos electrónicos desplegados para la monitorización de la calidad del agua y el campo a través de un protocolo de comunicación y arquitectura heterogéneos. La primera parte de esta tesis introduce los sistemas de agricultura de precisión (PA) y la importancia de la monitorización de la calidad del agua y el campo. Asimismo, las tecnologías que permiten la comunicación inalámbrica en sistemas PA y el uso de soluciones alternativas como el internet de las cosas bajo tierra (IoUT) y los vehículos aéreos no tripulados (UAV) se introducen también. Después, se realiza un análisis en profundidad del estado del arte respecto a los sensores para la monitorización del agua, el campo y las condiciones meteorológicas, así como sobre las tecnologías inalámbricas más empleadas en PA. Además, las tendencias actuales y los desafíos de los sistemas de internet de las cosas (IoT) para regadío, incluyendo las soluciones alternativas introducidas anteriormente, han sido abordados en detalle. A continuación, se presenta la arquitectura propuesta para el sistema, la cual incluye las áreas de interés para las actividades monitorización que incluye las áreas de los canales y el campo. A su vez, la descripción y los algoritmos de operación de los nodos sensores contemplados para cada área son proporcionados. El siguiente capítulo detalla el protocolo de comunicación heterogéneo propuesto, incluyendo los mensajes y alertas del sistema. Adicionalmente, se presenta una nueva topología de árbol para redes híbridas LoRa/WiFi multisalto. Las funcionalidades específicas adicionales concebidas para la arquitectura propuesta están descritas en el siguiente capítulo. Éstas incluyen algoritmos de agregación de datos para la topología propuesta, un esquema de las amenazas de seguridad para los sistemas PA, algoritmos de ahorro de energía y tolerancia a fallos, comunicación bajo tierra para IoUT y el uso de drones para adquisición de datos. Después, los resultados de las simulaciones para las soluciones propuestas anteriormente son presentados. Finalmente, se tratan las pruebas realizadas en entornos reales para el protocolo heterogéneo presentado, las diferentes estrategias de despliegue de los nodos empleados, el consumo energético y la función de cuantificación de fruta. Estas pruebas demuestran la validez de la arquitectura y protocolo de comunicación heterogéneos que se han propuesto.[CA] La introducció de solucions tecnològiques en l'agricultura permet reduir l'ús de recursos i augmentar la producció dels cultius. A més, la qualitat de l'aigua de regadiu es pot monitoritzar per assegurar la qualitat dels productes per al consum humà. No obstant això, la localització remota de la majoria dels camps presenta un problema per a proveir de cobertura sense fils als nodes sensors i actuadors desplegats als camps i els canals d'aigua per a regadiu. El treball presentat en aquesta tesi tracta el problema d'habilitar la comunicació sense fils entre els dispositius electrònics desplegats per a la monitorització de la qualitat de l'aigua i el camp a través d'un protocol de comunicació i arquitectura heterogenis. La primera part d'aquesta tesi introdueix els sistemes d'agricultura de precisió (PA) i la importància de la monitorització de la qualitat de l'aigua i el camp. Així mateix, també s'introdueixen les tecnologies que permeten la comunicació sense fils en sistemes PA i l'ús de solucions alternatives com l'Internet de les coses sota terra (IoUT) i els vehicles aeris no tripulats (UAV). Després, es realitza una anàlisi en profunditat de l'estat de l'art respecte als sensors per a la monitorització de l'aigua, el camp i les condicions meteorològiques, així com sobre les tecnologies sense fils més emprades en PA. S'aborden les tendències actuals i els reptes dels sistemes d'internet de les coses (IoT) per a regadiu, incloent les solucions alternatives introduïdes anteriorment. A continuació, es presenta l'arquitectura proposada per al sistema, on s'inclouen les àrees d'interès per a les activitats monitorització en els canals i el camp. Finalment, es proporciona la descripció i els algoritmes d'operació dels nodes sensors contemplats per a cada àrea. El següent capítol detalla el protocol de comunicació heterogeni proposat, així como el disseny del missatges i alertes que el sistema proposa. A més, es presenta una nova topologia d'arbre per a xarxes híbrides Lora/WiFi multi-salt. Les funcionalitats específiques addicionals concebudes per l'arquitectura proposada estan descrites en el següent capítol. Aquestes inclouen algoritmes d'agregació de dades per a la topologia proposta, un esquema de les alertes de seguretat per als sistemes PA, algoritmes d'estalvi d'energia i tolerància a fallades, comunicació per a IoUT i l'ús de drons per a adquisició de dades. Després, es presenten els resultats de les simulacions per a les solucions proposades. Finalment, es duen a terme les proves en entorns reals per al protocol heterogeni dissenyat. A més s'expliquen les diferents estratègies de desplegament dels nodes empleats, el consum energètic, així com, la funció de quantificació de fruita. Els resultats d'aquetes proves demostren la validesa de l'arquitectura i protocol de comunicació heterogenis propost en aquesta tesi.[EN] The introduction of technological solutions in agriculture allows reducing the use of resources and increasing the production of the crops. Furthermore, the quality of the water for irrigation can be monitored to ensure the safety of the produce for human consumption. However, the remote location of most fields presents a problem for providing wireless coverage to the sensing nodes and actuators deployed on the fields and the irrigation water canals. The work presented in this thesis addresses the problem of enabling wireless communication among the electronic devices deployed for water quality and field monitoring through a heterogeneous communication protocol and architecture. The first part of the dissertation introduces Precision Agriculture (PA) systems and the importance of water quality and field monitoring. In addition, the technologies that enable wireless communication in PA systems and the use of alternative solutions such as Internet of Underground Things (IoUT) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are introduced as well. Then, an in-depth analysis on the state of the art regarding the sensors for water, field and meteorology monitoring and the most utilized wireless technologies in PA is performed. Furthermore, the current trends and challenges for Internet of Things (IoT) irrigation systems, including the alternate solutions previously introduced, have been discussed in detail. Then, the architecture for the proposed system is presented, which includes the areas of interest for the monitoring activities comprised of the canal and field areas. Moreover, the description and operation algorithms of the sensor nodes contemplated for each area is provided. The next chapter details the proposed heterogeneous communication protocol including the messages and alerts of the system. Additionally, a new tree topology for hybrid LoRa/WiFi multi-hop networks is presented. The specific additional functionalities intended for the proposed architecture are described in the following chapter. It includes data aggregation algorithms for the proposed topology, an overview on the security threats of PA systems, energy-saving and fault-tolerance algorithms, underground communication for IoUT, and the use of drones for data acquisition. Then, the simulation results for the solutions previously proposed are presented. Finally, the tests performed in real environments for the presented heterogeneous protocol, the different deployment strategies for the utilized nodes, the energy consumption, and a functionality for fruit quantification are discussed. These tests demonstrate the validity of the proposed heterogeneous architecture and communication protocol.García García, L. (2021). Architecture and communication protocol to monitor and control water quality and irrigation in agricultural environments [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/17422

The Impact of internet social networking websites on the gay community: Behavior and identity

The hypothesis of this thesis is that social networking website design can exert a mediating influence upon the culture of a site by supporting certain behaviors more than others; this influence can be analyzed in an active and structured way that takes into account the culture of the community it addresses. Evidence will be offered by case study, demonstration of specific mediations, and analysis. This hypothesis will be tested with specific reference to the gay male community. The scope of this paper will be limited to the analysis of gay-oriented social networking websites as new media, in general and through specific examples. I will present frameworks for categorizing and analyzing these websites that consider the mediating influences associated with site design. In the last chapter, I will propose community-enhancing design. The method of analysis first takes into account the nature of new media. It then discusses the concepts of cultural mediums and mediators in terms of site-wide typology and specific forms of mediation. It then identifies common elements of gay social networking sites and their associated usage as well as the design decisions that are related to them. Next user goals and site goals are correlated to these design decisions. Virtual personas and real communities are discusses as a concept. Using the proposed methodology, gay.com and other sites are analyzed and compared. Conclusions are drawn from the results of this analysis and evidence presented. The impact of social networking websites upon sexual activity is discussed. Finally, conclusions are summarized and recommendations are cited related to what these sites could be

Quantifying Quality of Life

Describes technological methods and tools for objective and quantitative assessment of QoL Appraises technology-enabled methods for incorporating QoL measurements in medicine Highlights the success factors for adoption and scaling of technology-enabled methods This open access book presents the rise of technology-enabled methods and tools for objective, quantitative assessment of Quality of Life (QoL), while following the WHOQOL model. It is an in-depth resource describing and examining state-of-the-art, minimally obtrusive, ubiquitous technologies. Highlighting the required factors for adoption and scaling of technology-enabled methods and tools for QoL assessment, it also describes how these technologies can be leveraged for behavior change, disease prevention, health management and long-term QoL enhancement in populations at large. Quantifying Quality of Life: Incorporating Daily Life into Medicine fills a gap in the field of QoL by providing assessment methods, techniques and tools. These assessments differ from the current methods that are now mostly infrequent, subjective, qualitative, memory-based, context-poor and sparse. Therefore, it is an ideal resource for physicians, physicians in training, software and hardware developers, computer scientists, data scientists, behavioural scientists, entrepreneurs, healthcare leaders and administrators who are seeking an up-to-date resource on this subject