Continuously Healthy, Continuously Used? – A Thematic Analysis of User Perceptions on Consumer Health Wearables

Along with the miniaturization of digital devices, consumer health wearables (CHWs) further decrease the distance between users and devices, allowing users to continuously track their personal health information (PHI). While this provides more control to users, history has shown that users’ potential concerns (e.g. privacy) can lead to devices not meeting users’ expectations and failing market diffusion. The existing literature has mostly focused on particular aspects that could foster or hinder adoption of CHWs but the big picture is still missing. Drawing upon the previous literature, we use a rigorous iterative thematic analysis to provide a comprehensive picture of any potential benefits and deficiencies that users associate with CHWs. We take the example of fitness trackers and conduct 16 semi-structured interviews that help understand the determinants on which users assess the benefits and deficiencies of CHWs related to their continuous usage. We identify 11 subthemes that we can attribute to three main user determinants (perceived benefit, deficiency, and privacy). Our results not only show the failure to meet privacy expectations as a particular potential hindrance factor, we further propose a new theoretical construct (perceived relativity) as well as a novel tracking motive (social tracking), both of which can benefit future research on PHI disclosure. We enable both researchers and practitioners to uncover and visualize user perceptions of fitness trackers, on which future design decisions can be oriented and user expectations be better met. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol11/iss1/5

The EDRS mission and its operational experiences to date from GSOC perspective

Since 2016, the European Data Relay System (EDRS) – also known as SpaceDataHighway – is serving as a geostationary (GEO) relay system offering unique laser communication services for satellites of the low earth orbit (LEO). As the satellite market evolves, today´s LEO satellites produce more accurate, more precise, and more detailed data, and thus struggle with the task of bringing huge amounts of data to ground. EDRS offers a convenient solution to that challenge by its data transfer service via its GEO nodes to ground. In addition to this basic concept, the EDRS mission also involves the technology of optical communication: the space-to-space link is performed in optical frequencies by the means of so-called Laser Communication Terminals (LCTs), offering a secure and high-speed data transfer. Currently, EDRS consists of two nodes: EDRS-A is a hosted payload on the Eutelsat-9B satellite which was launched in January 2016. It was complemented by the satellite EDRS-C, launched in August 2019, dedicated for the EDRS mission. Both payloads, as well as the EDRS-C satellite platform, are operated by the German Space Operations Center (GSOC), which is part of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The EDRS program itself is a public-private partnership between ESA and Airbus Defence and Space as the industrial prime contractor. The LCTs are manufactured by TESAT Spacecom, while the 3-ton-class SmallGEO platform built by OHB is the satellite bus for EDRS-C. In addition to the LCTs, which are the prime payloads on both nodes, GSOC also operates a Ka-Band relay antenna as supplementing part of the EDRS mission, a Ka-Band transponder for AVANTI Communications, as well as a radiation monitor of ESA as secondary payloads. The EDRS system is capable of performing up to 200 communication links with LEO satellites per node and per day. Until mid of 2023, though, the EDRS mission will consist of seven LEO customer satellites, as well as one Ka-band customer antenna (ColKa) on the Columbus module of the International Space Station ISS. All of them are using the EDRS service either via laser communication or the secondary Ka-band antenna. The high numbers of possible links as well as customer satellites pose a challenging task to the control centers at GSOC. For this reason, both LCTs are controlled using an automated operations engine, which is designed to supervise the complete cycle of telecommand uplink and execution as well as reaction monitoring of telemetry, giving GSOC permanent control and awareness. The system has proven to be very robust, is routinely used and led to over 60.000 successful optical links until mid of 2022. This paper gives an overview over the EDRS mission and shows how GSOC organises and performs EDRS-A and EDRS-C operations. It also describes how both operations evolved during the course of the project, which harmonisations were performed, and gives an outlook on how the future of the program might look from a GSOC perspective

A Robot on the Operator's Chair - The Fine Line Between Automated Routine Operations and Situational Awareness

The European Data Relay System (EDRS) will provide a high speed data link between ground stations and satellites in low earth orbit. Up to 400 links per day are foreseen to be commanded by the groundsystems established at DLR's German Space Operations Center. The high command load is beyond the capabilities of a classical operational concept with manual operations. Therefore an automated system is established at the Devolved Payload Control Center with human interaction only necessary after a contingency, either in the ground processing or the space segment. One of the biggest challenges in this operational concept will be to become aware of the complex situation after any not-nominal situation. A reporting system will inform the on-call personnel of the current state of all components. This paper presents the operational concept established at the DPCC

Understanding the Continuous Use of Fitness Trackers: A Thematic Analysis

as diabetes, obesity and hypertension. Despite these health-related benefits, perceived costs such as privacy concerns play a crucial role for the persistent success of fitness trackers. To understand which factors influence the continuous use of fitness trackers and investigate the particular role of privacy concerns in this tension field, we conducted 16 semi-structured interviews. Based on a rigorous iterative thematic analysis, where we constantly match our codes with literature, we develop a thematic map that identifies three main user determinants (Perceived Benefit, Perceived Privacy and Perceived Deficiency) and 12 sub-themes. Our findings propose a new theoretical construct (Perceived Relativity), a newly detected tracking motive (Social Tracking) and provides the prerequisites for user agreements to health data collection. By this means, we enable researchers to uncover and visualize user perceptions concerning fitness trackers and provide practitioners with workable suggestions for ensuring their continuous use