Innovation diffusion of wearable mobile computing: Pervasive computing perspective

Wearable technology has become mainstream in this information age, it is needed to understand how the potential users of this emerging technology gain value from the innovation of the technology, consequently increasing users’ diffusion. Extant literature on the acceptance of mobile computing has been developing such as in mobile banking services and in healthcare service, however, the study of users’ acceptance about the emergence of wearable mobile computing is still at the early stages. This paper examines the development of a conceptual framework to understand the technology adoption factors for wearable mobile computing utilizing the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the Diffusion of Innovation Theory (DOI) and related factors on mobility and pervasive computing. Data of 272 respondents were collected using quantitative approach of survey based questionnaires conducted in Malaysia. The findings of this research revealed the factors of mobility (MOB), personalization (PN) and perceived enjoyment (PE) achieved the highest average score by respondents, followed by perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEU), observability (OBS), facilitating condition (FC) and social influence (SI). As wearable technology is perceived to be pervasive, mobility (MOB) and perceived enjoyment (PE) contribute the dominant factor for usage acceptance, while Perceived Usefulness (PU) from established model TAM, still plays an important factors in predicting innovation adoption of wearable mobile computing

A framework for collaborative innovation to facilitate E-health systems adoption

The promise of telemedicine is great as observed in developed countries. However, its adoption in developing countries has been very slow. Extant literature on healthcare technological innovation indicates that organization collaboration can expedite the adoption of telemedicine especially in developing countries. The Kenyan government approved telemedicine (use of ICT to overcome geographical barriers and increase access to health care services) as a strategic approach of improving healthcare delivery especially in the marginalized areas of the country. However, the adoption of telemedicine is further hindered in developing countries by the fact that the cost of implementing telemedicine technology is deemed to be high and the resources needed are scarce especially in the public sector. This study employed a conceptual research framework to examine organizational factors that may influence organization collaboration in facilitating telemedicine adoption in developing countries. A questionnaire survey was conducted in 50 hospitals located in Eastern Kenya. The findings of this research revealed that Kenyan hospitals may enhance their ability to adopt telemedicine by affiliating with other organizations. Organization affiliation was found to significantly influence organizational resources, organization innovation acceptance, organization innovation capacity, organization agility and collaborative innovation aspects

Co-creative design developments for accessibility and home automation

The term “Home Automation” can be referred to a networked home, which provides electronically controlled security and convenience for its users. Home automation is also defined as the integration of home-based technology and services for a better quality of living (Quynh, et al., 2012). The main purpose of home automation technologies is to enhance home comfort for everyone through the automation of higher security, domestic tasks and easy communication. Home automation should be able to enhance one’s capacity to interact with one’s living environment and engage in activities that would have been previously difficult or impossible. This is particularly significant in the case of disabled people, elderly or in general people who have special accessibility concerns for their home (Chan, et al., 2009). Currently, visions of future automated homes have provided inspiration for product designers to offer new ways of controlling and monitoring appliances. Innovation in control and monitor technology has involved incremental steps and a wide range of products has been developed which offer part of the functionality of more sophisticated systems. While smart home users are able to take advantage of some smart devices and home automation, for common issues there are still gaps that need to be considered in terms of accessibility when designing automated homes and effective smart products (Guilly, et al., 2016). Recent innovation and design management studies have used techniques usually referred to as co-creative design, which engages customers in product design in order to produce a mutually beneficial outcome (Dell'Era & Landoni, 2014). Furthermore, co-creation can enhance the innovation processes. However, despite the potential value that co-creative design can offer, there is surprisingly little research providing a strategic approach to this process (Frow, et al., 2015) . This research paper examines how co-creative design can develop accessibility for home automation systems

Market Adoption Study for Wearable Mobile Computing

Wearable technology as new emerging technology is expected to become mainstream, after the phenomena of the mass market adoption of smartphone usage especially in Malaysia (Osman et al., 2012; Lazim and Sasitharan, 2015), with various mobile applications developments for better daily lives. Recent technological innovations in mobile computing, enhancing the innovation of wearable computing technology, known as a body worn computing (Jhajharia et al., 2014; Buenaflor and Kim, 2013; Baber, 2001; Kuru and Erbuğ, 2013), facilitate users’ interaction at any time anywhere seamlessly. Wearable mobile computing refers to embedded electronic technologies worn on the human body as unobtrusively as apparel. This paper concerns the study of smartwatches that continuously provide an interface for many computing tasks, with mobile smartphones acting as a hub (Wei, 2014; Taib et al., 2016). The highest proliferation of wearable devices are currently smartwatches (Kim and Shin, 2015; Chuah et al., 2016; Choi and Kim, 2016) that are targeted to perform multitasking as a smartphone does. However, in term of users’ acceptance this is still at its infancy stage. It is a challenging field to predict what factors may drive potential users to accept this new emerging technology thus increasing innovation diffusion. The characteristic of wearable mobile computing is the ability to provide anytime/anywhere services. Mobility is the element of mobile computing technology which may influence smartwatch adoption (Kim and Shin, 2015). Thus, further study on the innovation adoption of wearable mobile technology is essential to give the insightful knowledge to researchers whether in academia or industry, service providers, software designer and adopters. This research study empirically examines the designed and development of framework (as shown in Figure 1) to deepen the understanding the factors that influence potential users to accept wearable mobile computing, integrating the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) factors (Davis, 1989); relative to aspects of perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEU); observability (OBS) selected from Diffusion of Innovation Theory (DOI) (Rogers, 1995); and other related factors of mobility (MOB), personalisation (PN), facilitating conditions (FC): as well as perceived enjoyment (PE) to integrate social influence (SI) and mobile application (MA) as the precursor underpinning the study. The survey is based on self-administered questionnaires (quantitative approach) adapted from literature which were distributed and analysed using IBM SPSS software (v.20). Data of 272 respondents from central and southern region of Malaysia comprising university students and a professional utilising clustering sample (Awang, 2012) was collected. Empirical findings from regression analysis revealed the dominant predicted factors are perceived usefulness, mobility linked factor with observability, perceived enjoyment linked factor with personalisation and facilitating condition significantly influence the potential users to accept wearable mobile computing in Malaysia. Perceived ease of use was found not significantly influencing the users’ acceptance of wearable mobile computing

Bilateral effects of unilateral cerebellar lesions as detected by voxel based morphometry and diffusion imaging

Over the last decades, the importance of cerebellar processing for cortical functions has been acknowledged and consensus was reached on the strict functional and structural cortico-cerebellar interrelations. From an anatomical point of view strictly contralateral interconnections link the cerebellum to the cerebral cortex mainly through the middle and superior cerebellar peduncle. Diffusion MRI (dMRI) based tractography has already been applied to address cortico-cerebellar-cortical loops in healthy subjects and to detect diffusivity alteration patterns in patients with neurodegenerative pathologies of the cerebellum. In the present study we used dMRI-based tractography to determine the degree and pattern of pathological changes of cerebellar white matter microstructure in patients with focal cerebellar lesions. Diffusion imaging and high-resolution volumes were obtained in patients with left cerebellar lesions and in normal controls. Middle cerebellar peduncles and superior cerebellar peduncles were reconstructed by multi fiber diffusion tractography. From each tract, measures of microscopic damage were assessed, and despite the presence of unilateral lesions, bilateral diffusivity differences in white matter tracts were found comparing patients with normal controls. Consistently, bilateral alterations were also evidenced in specific brain regions linked to the cerebellum and involved in higher-level functions. This could be in line with the evidence that in the presence of unilateral cerebellar lesions, different cognitive functions can be affected and they are not strictly linked to the side of the cerebellar lesion

Estimulação cerebral na promoção da saúde e melhoria do desempenho físico

O avanço tecnológico das últimas décadas tem proporcionado o uso eficaz de técnicas não-invasivas na neuromodulação cerebral. Atualmente, as principais técnicas de neuromodulação são a estimulação magnética transcraniana (EMT) e a estimulação transcraniana por corrente contínua (ETCC). Por meio de revisão da literatura, o presente estudo aborda: a) história da estimulação cerebral; b) mecanismos de ação estudados através da neurofisiologia motora, farmacologia, neuroimagem e animais experimentais; c) perspectivas de aplicações da estimulação cerebral para promoção da saúde e melhoria do desempenho físico, incluindo o controle autonômico cardíaco e hipotensão pós-exercício, o controle de apetite e a modulação da fadiga e desempenho físico; e d) aspectos de segurança referentes ao uso da ETCC. Dessa forma, a ETCC parece ser uma técnica efetiva e segura para modular a função cerebral e podemos vislumbrar algumas perspectivas de aplicação no âmbito da ingestão alimentar, saúde cardiovascular e desempenho físico.The technological advances of the last decades have provided the effective use of noninvasive techniques in neuromodulation with concomitant health benefits. Currently, the main neuromodulation techniques are transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Through literature review, this study addresses the a) history of brain stimulation and the b) mechanisms of action studied by motor neurophysiology, pharmacology, neuroimaging, and experimental animals. Moreover, it is presented the c) perspectives for applications of brain stimulation for promoting health and improving physical performance, including cardiac autonomic control and post-exercise hypotension, control and modulation of appetite, fatigue and physical performance. Finally, we describe d) the security aspects related to the use of tDCS. Thus, tDCS seems to be an effective and safe technique to modulate brain function and suggests some application associated to food intake, cardiovascular health and physical performance

Association analysis identifies 65 new breast cancer risk loci

Breast cancer risk is influenced by rare coding variants in susceptibility genes, such as BRCA1, and many common, mostly non-coding variants. However, much of the genetic contribution to breast cancer risk remains unknown. Here we report the results of a genome-wide association study of breast cancer in 122,977 cases and 105,974 controls of European ancestry and 14,068 cases and 13,104 controls of East Asian ancestry. We identified 65 new loci that are associated with overall breast cancer risk at P < 5 × 10-8. The majority of credible risk single-nucleotide polymorphisms in these loci fall in distal regulatory elements, and by integrating in silico data to predict target genes in breast cells at each locus, we demonstrate a strong overlap between candidate target genes and somatic driver genes in breast tumours. We also find that heritability of breast cancer due to all single-nucleotide polymorphisms in regulatory features was 2-5-fold enriched relative to the genome-wide average, with strong enrichment for particular transcription factor binding sites. These results provide further insight into genetic susceptibility to breast cancer and will improve the use of genetic risk scores for individualized screening and prevention.We thank all the individuals who took part in these studies and all the researchers, clinicians, technicians and administrative staff who have enabled this work to be carried out. Genotyping of the OncoArray was principally funded from three sources: the PERSPECTIVE project, funded by the Government of Canada through Genome Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the ‘Ministère de l’Économie, de la Science et de l’Innovation du Québec’ through Genome Québec, and the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation; the NCI Genetic Associations and Mechanisms in Oncology (GAME-ON) initiative and Discovery, Biology and Risk of Inherited Variants in Breast Cancer (DRIVE) project (NIH Grants U19 CA148065 and X01HG007492); and Cancer Research UK (C1287/A10118 and C1287/A16563). BCAC is funded by Cancer Research UK (C1287/A16563), by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement 223175 (HEALTH-F2-2009-223175) (COGS) and by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreements 633784 (B-CAST) and 634935 (BRIDGES). Genotyping of the iCOGS array was funded by the European Union (HEALTH-F2-2009-223175), Cancer Research UK (C1287/A10710), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for the ‘CIHR Team in Familial Risks of Breast Cancer’ program, and the Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade of Quebec, grant PSR-SIIRI-701. Combining of the GWAS data was supported in part by The National Institute of Health (NIH) Cancer Post-Cancer GWAS initiative grant U19 CA 148065 (DRIVE, part of the GAME-ON initiative)