Embodying Algorithmic War: Gender, Race, and the Posthuman in Drone Warfare

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via https://doi.org/10.1177/096701061665794

User Interfaces for Patient-Centered Communication of Health Status and Care Progress

The recent trend toward patients participating in their own healthcare has opened up numerous opportunities for computing research. This dissertation focuses on how technology can foster this participation, through user interfaces to effectively communicate personal health status and care progress to hospital patients. I first characterize the design space for electronic information communication to patients through field studies conducted in multiple hospital settings. These studies utilize a combination of survey instruments, and low- and high-fidelity prototypes, including a document-editing prototype through which users can view and manage clinical data to automatically associate it with progress notes. The prototype, activeNotes, includes the first known techniques supporting clinical information requests directly within a document editor. A usage study with ICU physicians at New York-Presbyterian Hospital (NYP) substantiated our design and revealed how electronic information related to patient status and care progress is derived from a typical Electronic Health Record system. Insights gained from this study informed following studies to understand how to design abstracted, plain-language views suitable for patients. We gauged both patient and physician responses to information display prototypes deployed in patient rooms for a formative study exploring their design. Following my reports on this study, I discuss the design, development and pilot evaluations of a prototype Personal Health Record application providing live, abstracted clinical information for patients at NYP. The portal, evaluated by cardiothoracic surgery patients, is the first of its kind to allow patients to capture and monitor live data related to their care. Patient use of the portal influenced the subsequent design of tools to support users in making sense of online medication information. These tools, designed with nurses and pharmacists and evaluated by cardiothoracic surgery patients at NYP, were developed using topic modeling approaches and text analysis techniques. Embodied in a prototype called Remedy, they enable rapid filtering and comparison of medication-related search results, based on a number of website features and content topics. I conclude by discussing how findings from this series of studies can help shape the ongoing design and development of patient-centered technology

Effects of Social Media Use on Emotional Well-being and Life Satisfaction

Social media is a largely prevalent, but understudied aspect of life. The Facebook Experiment conducted by Tromholt found statistical evidence that Facebook use negatively affected well-being and life satisfaction (2016). This study was a replication of the Facebook Experiment that was altered to use the social media platform, Instagram, instead. The study was conducted in one week with seven participants, four females and three males, with ages ranging from 20-22, all were white. The study examined the effects that Instagram has on well-being and life satisfaction. Participants were asked to take a survey to measure their well-being and life satisfaction and then were randomly assigned to either stay off of Instagram for a week or maintain normal usage. After the week participants took the same survey as they did before their assignment. The results after a week found no statistical evidence that Instagram usage changed participants’ well-being or life satisfaction. Because of this the study could not conclude that Instagram negatively impacts individuals.https://digitalcommons.snc.edu/collaborative_presentations/1091/thumbnail.jp

Securing Methods, Practicing Critique: A Review of Methods and Critical Security Studies

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxford University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/isr/viw02

On the Role of Context and Prosody in the Interpretation of ‘Okay’

We examine the effect of contextual and acoustic cues in the disambiguation of three discourse-pragmatic functions of the word okay. Results of a perception study show that contextual cues are stronger predictors of discourse function than acoustic cues. However, acoustic features capturing the pitch excursion at the right edge of okay feature prominently in disambiguation, whether other contextual cues are present or not

Designing Learning Environments to Foster Affective Learning: Comparison of Classroom to Blended Learning

Affective learning is a key dimension of health professional education and involves teaching topics such as empathy or grief that impact student attitudes and beliefs to prepare them to be novice practitioners. The move in higher education toward online and blended learning (a mix of online and traditional, classroom-based learning) disrupts traditional approaches to teaching professional affect, which is heavily reliant on instructor modeling. This paper documents insight into the redesign process of a course, Professional Identity: Behaviors and Attitudes, from a traditional to a blended learning format, with a focus on affective learning. This study employed a survey approach to compare classroom and online student perceptions of learning across the seven affective topics of the course. The study also examined the contribution of various technology-enhanced learning activities to the students\u27 perceptions of learning. Twenty-five classroom students and 64 blended learning students indicated that while both formats increased students’ perceived understanding of topics related to affective learning, the blended learning group perceived a significantly greater understanding in four affective topic areas. Furthermore, blended learning students cited reading, online discussions, and unstructured out-of-classroom discussions as contributing to their learning significantly more than the classroom group

Abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear ‘ghost nets’ are increasing through time in Northern Australia

The remote Gulf of Carpentaria (GoC) represents 10% of Australia’s coastline. This large, shallow sea supports high value fishing activities and habitat for threatened species, and is a sink for abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) ‘ghost nets’, most originating from fishing activities outside of Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone. With growing concerns about the plastic waste along the world’s coastlines, we retrospectively analyzed ghost net sighting information from four aerial surveys across 15 years, to investigate whether densities of ghost nets are changing through time or in space. We found an increase in ghost nets, despite more than a decade of illegal fishing countermeasure and clean-up efforts in the broader region. This demonstrates that the input of ALDFG into the system currently overwhelms the substantial net removal activities. We make recommendations for improving monitoring and consider the underlying drivers of nets being lost to improve ghost gear management on land and at sea

How Knowledge Workers Think Generative AI Will (Not) Transform Their Industries

Generative AI is expected to have transformative effects in multiple knowledge industries. To better understand how knowledge workers expect generative AI may affect their industries in the future, we conducted participatory research workshops for seven different industries, with a total of 54 participants across three US cities. We describe participants' expectations of generative AI's impact, including a dominant narrative that cut across the groups' discourse: participants largely envision generative AI as a tool to perform menial work, under human review. Participants do not generally anticipate the disruptive changes to knowledge industries currently projected in common media and academic narratives. Participants do however envision generative AI may amplify four social forces currently shaping their industries: deskilling, dehumanization, disconnection, and disinformation. We describe these forces, and then we provide additional detail regarding attitudes in specific knowledge industries. We conclude with a discussion of implications and research challenges for the HCI community.Comment: 40 pages, 5 tables, 6 figure

Planned Parenthood: LGBTQ Healthcare in Southern New England

The LGBTQ community experiences health disparities related to access to care, utilization of care, experiences of discrimination, perceptions of injustice, healthcare neglect, and inappropriate care. In addition, statistics often cite higher rates of some health outcomes, such as higher rates of mental illness and substance use in the LGBTQ community at large and HIV/AIDS for transgender women and gay and queer men (Alvy et al., 2011; Cochran et al., 2003; Coulter et al., 2015). These disparities in health and healthcare stand as an emergency beacon to both community members and organizations aimed to serve them. Organizations throughout Connecticut and Rhode Island, such as AIDS Project New Haven, True Colors in Hartford, Triangle Community Center in Norwalk, and SAGE in Providence advocate and work toward the better health of these organizations. But the question of what healthcare needs and desires among LGBTQ community members are not being met by local organizations remains uncertain. This report highlights health disparities and needs among the LGBTQ community using both previous research and the voices of community members. Through highlighting the health care experiences of community members, we illuminate some key factors that influence the health outcomes and thoughts around healthcare within the LGBTQ community. Several of the recommendations and thoughts regarding the expansion and changes to PPSNE are simple, yet poignant fixes to strengthen the comfort and confidence levels of PPSNE staff and providers into the highly comfortable strata found in the survey. This cyclical relationship between providers and patients offers a new and expansive market and community access to Planned Parenthood, with another, often expansive healthcare organization to provide care to community members. Other Planned Parenthood locations throughout the United States offer services and amplify access through specific marketing campaigns to LGBTQ community members. Utilizing these models and heeding the suggestions of community members can offer potential success to both parties, as well as potentially working toward intangible goals, like reducing stigma, increasing awareness, and spreading positive health outcomes throughout the LGBTQ community and the general community. We encourage Planned Parenthood of Southern New England to consider these these steps, and believe that doing so will improve the health status of many LGBTQ community members by dramatically increasing both accessibility and demand for high quality clinical services at PPSNE.https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ysph_pbchrr/1051/thumbnail.jp