Home-based Digital Health Technologies for Older Adults to Self-Manage Multiple Chronic Conditions: A Data-Informed Analysis of User Engagement from a Longitudinal Trial

BACKGROUND: Ageing populations are resulting in higher prevalence of people with multiple chronic conditions (multimorbidity). Digital health platforms have great potential to support self-management of multimorbidity, increasing a person's awareness of their health and well-being, supporting a better understanding of diseases and encouraging behaviour change. However, little research has explored the long-term engagement of older adults with such digital interventions. METHODS: The aim of this study is to analyse how 60 older adults with multimorbidity engaged with digital symptom and well-being monitoring through a digital health platform over a period of approximately 12 months. Data analysis focused on user retention, frequency of monitoring, intervals in monitoring and patterns of daily engagement. RESULTS: Our findings show that the overall engagement with the digital health platform was high, with more than 80% of participants using the technology devices for over 200 days. The submission frequency for symptom parameters (e.g. blood glucose (BG), blood pressure (BP), etc.) was between three and four times per week which was higher than that of self-report (2.24) and weight (2.84). Submissions of exercise (6.12) and sleep (5.67) were more frequent. The majority of interactions happened in the morning time. The most common time of submission for symptom parameters was 10 am, whereas 8 am was the most common time for weight measurements. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate the patterns of engagement of older adults with complex chronic diseases with digital home-based self-management systems

"Get off my lawn!": Starting to understand territoriality in location based mobile games

With the increasing popularity of mobile video games, game designers and developers are starting to integrate geolocation information into such games. Although popular location-based games (LBGs) such as Ingress and Pokémon Go have millions of users, research still needs to be carried out to fully understand the ways in which such games impact upon a player’s interaction with other players and their physical surroundings. Consequently, there is limited knowledge on how user behavior can be addressed and drawn upon as a design resource to further engage and motivate players to play. To further understand this, we developed a LBG called CityConqueror and have conducted an in ’the wild’ study. This initial study starts to unpack the ways that human territoriality can be expressed in LBGs to facilitate player motivation, engagement and can support the integration of the game in the player’s daily life. Based on our findings we propose a series of design implications for LBGs. The primary purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the importance of territoriality and the way that this can be drawn upon as a resource for design

Coarse-to-fine Knowledge Graph Domain Adaptation based on Distantly-supervised Iterative Training

Modern supervised learning neural network models require a large amount of manually labeled data, which makes the construction of domain-specific knowledge graphs time-consuming and labor-intensive. In parallel, although there has been much research on named entity recognition and relation extraction based on distantly supervised learning, constructing a domain-specific knowledge graph from large collections of textual data without manual annotations is still an urgent problem to be solved. In response, we propose an integrated framework for adapting and re-learning knowledge graphs from one coarse domain (biomedical) to a finer-define domain (oncology). In this framework, we apply distant-supervision on cross-domain knowledge graph adaptation. Consequently, no manual data annotation is required to train the model. We introduce a novel iterative training strategy to facilitate the discovery of domain-specific named entities and triples. Experimental results indicate that the proposed framework can perform domain adaptation and construction of knowledge graph efficiently

Unfolding the interplay of self-identity and expressions of territoriality in location-based social networks

Self-identity in mobile location-based social networks (LBSN) is a relatively underexplored topic. In this paper, we present our initial understandings on the role that LBSN play in the self-identity of its users and introduce a relationship between self-identity and expressions of territoriality in LBSN. Our work presented in this paper is based on a six-week study using a novel LBSN called GeoMoments. Our primary purpose is to draw attention to the importance of potential perceived power facilitated by identity claims over an area, and to the temporal nature of the layered meanings of physical places in LBSN so they can be drawn upon as a resource for design

Molecular events associated with epithelial to mesenchymal transition of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells in the absence of Epstein-Barr virus genome

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an important process in tumor metastasis. The EMT-related events associated with metastasis of NPC in the absence of EBV have not been elucidated. We established an EBV-negative NPC cell line from a bone marrow biopsy of an NPC patient. Using a Matrigel system we isolated an invasive and non-invasive sublines, designated NPC-BM29 and NPC-BM00. NPC-BM29 acquired an invasive-like phenotype characterized by EMT, marked by down-regulation of E-cadherin and β-catenin with concomitant increased expression of Ets1. NPC-BM29 cells expressed ≥ 10-fold higher of MMP-9 than NPC-BM00 cells. NPC-BM29 cells grew better in 2% serum than NPC-BM00 cells, with a population doubling-time of 26.8 h and 30.7 h, respectively. A marked reduction in colony-formation ability of NPC-BM00 cells compared to NPC-BM29 was observed. Wound-healing assay revealed that NPC-BM29 cells displayed higher motility than NPC-BM00 and the motility was further enhanced by cell treatment with TPA, a PKC activator. Cell surface markers and tumor-associated molecules, AE3, MAK6 and sialyl-Tn, were up-regulated in NPC-BM29 cells, whereas the expression of HLA-DR and CD54 was significantly increased in NPC-BM00 cells. NPC-BM29 consistently released higher levels of IL-8 and IL-10 than NPC-BM00, with low levels of IL-1α expression in both cell lines. Higher level of VEGF production was detected in NPC-BM00 than NPC-BM29 cells. These data show that EBV is not required for exhibiting multiple metastatic phenotypes associated with EMT. More studies that target right molecules/signalings associated with the EMT may offer new therapeutic intervention options for NPC invasion and metastasis

Get off my lawn! - Starting to understand territoriality in location based mobile games

\u3cp\u3eWith the increasing popularity of mobile video games, game designers and developers are starting to integrate geolocation information into such games. Although popular location-based games (LBGs) such as Ingress and Pokémon Go have millions of users, research still needs to be carried out to fully understand the ways in which such games impact upon a player's interaction with other players and their physical surroundings. Consequently, there is limited knowledge on how user behavior can be addressed and drawn upon as a design resource to further engage and motivate players to play. To further understand this, we developed a LBG called CityConqueror and have conducted an in 'the wild' study. This initial study starts to unpack the ways that human territoriality can be expressed in LBGs to facilitate player motivation, engagement and can support the integration of the game in the player's daily life. Based on our findings we propose a series of design implications for LBGs. The primary purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the importance of territoriality and the way that this can be drawn upon as a resource for design.\u3c/p\u3

Physical shish-kebab modification vs. chemical surface coating on expanded polytetrafluoroethylene vascular grafts for enhanced endothelial cell adhesion

Promoting rapid adhesion of endothelial cells is of significance for the viability of vascular grafts for small-diameter blood vessels (SDBVs) made of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE). Many physical and chemical surface modification methods have been developed to overcome the inertness of ePTFE and to promote cell adhesion. In this study, a biomimetic poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) shish-kebab microstructure was formed on the fibrillated domains of ePTFE through induced crystallization. The surface morphology and chemistry, mechanical property, cytocompatibility, and endothelial cell adhesion of PCL shish-kebab modified ePTFE were investigated. The effectiveness of and synergy between this physical topology modification and the traditional chemical RGD dig-coating in terms of cell adhesion were also evaluated. The positive effect of the shish-kebab structure on cell adhesion was found to be more significant than that of RGD coating, and there is a strong synergy between ePTFE surface modification and RGD coating. The biomimetic shish-kebab structure could be a promising material platform for further grafting and/or surface functionalization of ePTFE for other tissue engineering applications

In Situ Growth of CVD Graphene Directly on Dielectric Surface toward Application

A technique for the in situ growth of patterned graphene by CVD has been achieved directly on insulating substrates at 800 degrees C. The graphene growth is catalyzed by a Ni-Cu alloy sacrificial layer, which integrates many advantages such as being lithography-free, and almost wrinkle-free, with a high repeatability and rapid growth. The etching method of the metal sacrificial layer is the core of this technique, and the mechanism is analyzed. Graphene has been found to play an important role in accelerating etching speeds. The Ni-Cu alloy exhibits a high catalytic activity, and thus, high-quality graphene can be obtained at a lower temperature. Moreover, the Ni-Cu layer accommodates a limited amount of carbon atoms, which ensures a high monolayer ratio of the graphene. The carbon solid solubility of the alloy is calculated theoretically and used to explain the experimental findings. The method is compatible with the current semiconductor process and is conducive to the industrialization of graphene devices