A Mobile App Platform for Discovering Learning Profiles and Analytics

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A Conversational Agent in mHealth for Self-Management of Parkinson’s Disease

Nos dias que correm vivemos rodeados de tecnologia, onde os “smartphones” preenchem um espaço muito importante nas nossas vidas. O uso de serviços móveis pelos “smartphones” no âmbito da saúde tem sido cada vez mais próspero, com um uso acessível por parte de todos. Com os avanços ao nível de inteligência artificial, especialmente no que toca à criação de sistemas inteligentes que comuniquem de forma natural com os humanos, torna-se possível criar agentes de conversação adequados para uma interação pessoa-máquina com distintos objetivos. Um dos objetivos que o projeto ONParkinson tem é o de aumentar a adesão terapêutica por parte das pessoas com doença de Parkinson. Sendo que a execução recorrente de exercício físico é essencial na gestão dos sintomas da doença de Parkinson. Por isso, existe a necessidade de interagir, educar e motivar os pacientes com doença de Parkinson para uma maior adesão aos exercícios terapêuticos. Este trabalho propõe uma solução, no âmbito do projeto ONParkinson, que envolve a criaçãao de um agente de conversação com unidades de conhecimento mais focadas nos exercicios terapêuticos e com unidades que visam motivar e manter a pessoa com doença de Parkinson motivada para a realização de exercícios terapêuticos. A avaliação da solução envolve fisioterapeutas e pessoas com doença de Parkinson. O plano de avaliação estabelece o estudo do desempenho técnico, da experiência do utilizador e da investigação na área da Saúde. Grande parte do conjunto dos pacientes com doença de Parkinson tem uma idade avançada, o que poderia levar a uma maior resistência ao uso das novas tecnologias. No entanto, os valores obtidos nos indicadores referentes à perspetiva de utilidade, facilidade de uso e satisfação da utilização demonstram um bom nível de usabilidade da solução proposta. Como a investigação de eficácia clínica ainda não foi conduzida, não é possível concluir a efiácia da solução proposta no aumento da adesão terapêutica por parte dos pacientes com doença de Parkinson.Nowadays, we live surrounded by technology, where smartphones fill a very important space in our lives. The use of mobile services by smartphones in the health sector has been increasingly prosperous, with accessible use by everyone. With advances in artificial intelligence methodologies, regarding the creation of intelligent systems that communicate naturally with humans, it is possible to create conversational agents for person-machine interaction with different objectives. One of the goals of the ONParkinson project is to increase therapeutic adherence by people with Parkinson’s disease. The recurrent execution of physical exercise is essential in the management of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Therefore, there is a need to interact, educate and motivate patients with Parkinson’s disease for greater adherence to therapeutic exercises. This work proposes a solution, within the scope of the ONParkinson project, which involves the creation of a conversation agent with units of knowledge more focused on therapeutic exercises and with units aiming to motivate and keep the person with Parkinson’s disease motivated to perform therapeutic exercises. The evaluation of the solution involves physical therapists and patients with Parkinson’s disease. The evaluation plan establishes the study of technical performance, the study of user experience and Health research study. A large part of the set of patients with Parkinson’s disease is of advanced age, which could lead to greater resistance to the use of new technologies. However, the values obtained in the indicators referring to the perception of usefulness, ease of use and interaction satisfaction demonstrate a good level of usability of the proposed solution. As the investigation of clinical efficacy has not yet been conducted, it is not possible to conclude the effectiveness of the proposed solution in increasing therapeutic adherence by patients with Parkinson’s disease

Blending Modalities, Pedagogies, and Technologies: Redesigning an Information Systems Course to Encourage Engagement

Having realized that the traditional approach to teaching our IS course on Business and Systems Analysis was not engaging students enough, we decided we needed to redesign our learning environment. The goal was to develop a course that encourages student participation, allows them to practice the different techniques we introduce them to, and empowers students to take control of their learning. To achieve this, we blended modalities (online and in-person), pedagogies (constructivist and collaborative approaches), and technologies (student-centered technologies). This resulted in a redesign that included replacing the lecture with learning resources of a digestible size and an activity-based discussion, the workshop focusing on a project for authentic problems, sense-making via doing and reflection, hybrid participation in a steady and sustainable pace, and learning communities to enable more interaction. In this paper, we share our experience and lessons that we have learned through a journey toward a student-centered approach to learning

A Social Media Method for Eliciting Millennials’ Worldviews on the Coastal and Marine Environment

A lack of involvement by participants with traditional data collection methods for research has led to insufficient data regarding millennials’ worldviews on the coastal and marine environment. Understanding millennial worldviews could provide insights for policy interventions for sustainable use of the marine and coastal environment. The aim of this research is to design, develop and evaluate an appropriate social media method to elicit millennials’ worldviews on the coastal and marine environment. The methodology used for the research was Design Science Research (DSR), which is a legitimate approach to conducting research in the field of Information Systems. The methods used were a literature review, interviews with social media experts and Social Media Influencers (SMIs), and a focus group discussion with researchers from the field of social sciences. The proposed artefact (the method) can be used to provide guidance to researchers for engaging and eliciting opinions and worldviews of millennials on social media. The method includes a Social Media Influencer Model that illustrates the relationship between SMIs’ characteristics and techniques for engaging the public, and a Social Media Analytics (SMA) Process model that can guide researchers through the steps of eliciting worldviews from the public. Although there are several SMA techniques that can be used, the proposed method uses sentiment analysis as an SMA technique for deriving sentiments from social media data. The method was evaluated by researchers who require a social media method for eliciting millennials worldviews. The findings confirmed some of the techniques identified in literature as well as some additional techniques and processes. It was also evident that using this method could assist researchers for data collection and specifically to obtain worldviews on the marine and coastal environment. The contribution of this study is an artefact that fulfils the need for a social media method for data collection that is more convenient for researchers and millennials and can guide researchers through the steps of eliciting worldviews from the public

Demography and the Cultural Evolution of Pictorial Styles

Image-making is a nearly-universal human behaviour. Cultures around the world have made images to convey information about living kinds, objects and ideas for at least 75,000 years. However, from a stylistic point of view, the visual strategies and conventions to represent things in pictures can vary greatly over time and space; in particular, pictorial styles can differ in figurativeness, varying from inter-subjectively recognisable representations of things to stylised and abstract forms. Are there any patterns to this variability, and what might its ecological causes be? In recent Cultural Evolution research, factors such as demography and the structure of interaction between groups of individuals have been shown to affect the evolution of languages and technology. Capitalising on these studies, I investigate the style evolution in relation with the socio-demographic variable of population contact, and in particular the influence of inter-group contact on the figurativeness of pictorial representations. For this purpose, I firstly conducted an experimental study, simulating isolated and contact social groups with laboratory micro-societies performing a drawing task; secondly, I quantitatively analysed a real-world dataset of Aboriginal Australian rock art from contact and isolated communities; then I qualitatively explored the evolution of a contemporary pictorial communication item: emoji. Results show that pictorial representations from isolated groups tend to become abstract and opaque to outsiders, whereas in contact groups they retain figurativeness and external understandability. This supports the idea that intergroup contact is an important factor in the cultural evolution of pictorial styles, because the need to communicate with outsiders and be accessible to the widest possible audience encourages figurativeness. I discuss the implications of these findings for the archaeology and anthropology of art, and the parallels with language evolution. Finally, addressing the need for research outreach in Cultural Evolution, I designed the blueprint of an exhibition aimed at disseminating my research findings while offering lay audiences an engaging and transformative experience

Are you there? : Presence in collaborative distance work

doi linkki ei toimi 31.1.2022, ilmoitettu lehteen/USAlready before the pandemic, digitally mediated collaborative work and communication were perceived as challenging. We investigate the attitudes towards emerging technologies and for transforming practises in workplaces. The focus lies on understanding the readiness for appropriating emotional tracking on presence and support for collaboration. The research-based design framework allowed to combine the various perspectives of the transdisciplinary team. Methods included participatory design, design thinking, contextual inquiry and prototype testing for enhancing presence while working with shared objects in video conferencing to explore the appropriation of tools. The findings revealed four indications: 1) awareness of interlocutors’ presence during synchronous communication is crucial. 2) Emotion and behaviour tracking raises concerns about privacy and personal control over what is displayed to others, and technology could be simpler non-distracting the work at hand. 3) The prototype was found to enhance the feeling of presence without disturbing work at hand, and 4) appropriation requires a step-by-step approach.Peer reviewe

Information Visualisation Practices for Improving Patient Readability of Blood Pressure, Health Data, and Health Literacy

Personal health data obtained through self-monitoring is often presented through standardised representations with little intrinsic meaning for those who may need it the most since low health literacy is associated with poor health. By failing to inform users about their health status, these representations can be dangerous, leaving patients feeling lost, confused, anxious, or even depressed. Information Visualisation can play an important role in aiding patients making sense of their health data and health status, as long as it's aligned with their needs, motivations, and goals. Following Human Centred Design practices, user research methods were applied in order to understand the context of self-monitorisation, as well as identifying which metrics differed the most from participants' mental models. Thanks to quantitative data obtained from a survey, Blood Pressure was identified as the most problematic health variable. A series of interviews allowed patients of chronic conditions to vocalize the challenges they faced in the management of their conditions. Taking into account information obtained from previous steps, multiple ways to map blood pressure data onto design elements were explored and different visualisations were designed. Finally, said visualisations were tested through guided interviews with patients with blood pressure problems. Results showed that participants prefered different visualisations for different goals, and enjoyed being able to choose freely from them; participants with lower literacy but who were deeply invested in monitoring their health found tables to be the most informative visualizations; finally, participants identified colour scales as the most intuitive method to represent health status and health risk

The problem of behaviour and preference manipulation in AI systems

Statistical AI or Machine learning can be applied to user data in order to understand user preferences in an effort to improve various services. This involves making assumptions about either stated or revealed preferences. Human preferences are susceptible to manipulation and change over time. When iterative AI/ML is applied, it becomes difficult to ascertain whether the system has learned something about its users, whether its users have changed/learned something or whether it has taught its users to behave in a certain way in order to maximise its objective function. This article discusses the relationship between behaviour and preferences in AI/ML, existing mechanisms that manipulate human preferences and behaviour and relates them to the topic of value alignment