A mobile fitness companion

The paper introduces a Mobile Companion prototype, which helps users to plan and keep track of their exercise activities via an interface based mainly on speech input and output. The Mobile Companion runs on a PDA and is based on a stand-alone, speaker-independent solution, making it fairly unique among mobile spoken dialogue systems, where the common solution is to run the ASR on a separate server or to restrict the speech input to some specific set of users. The prototype uses a GPS receiver to collect position, distance and speed data while the user is exercising, and allows the data to be compared to previous exercises. It communicates over the mobile network with a stationary system, placed in the user’s home. This allows plans for exercise activities to be downloaded from the stationary to the mobile system, and exercise result data to be uploaded once an exercise has been completed

The use of walking sounds in supporting awareness

Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD), Boston, MA, July 7-9, 2003.There is need for applications that keep the users aware of various things happening around them. One of such things is the presence of co-workers in office environments. Playing people's walking sounds in the background as cues of their presence came up as one way to provide such information. The walking sounds have very favorable properties; as a part of the normal sound ecology in an office environment they are non-obtrusive. In addition, they have a natural association to the person they present. To study how well people can identify recorded walking sounds of their co-workers we organized a listening experiment. Without any learning the identification rates were 13%, however after short teaching session rates increased to 66%. The results show that walking sounds do contain enough information to convey the identity of the person but careful design of the sounds is necessary. In this paper we also present how walking sounds can be used as a part of a ubiquitous computing system

Personality, disability-free life years, and life expectancy : Individual participant meta-analysis of 131,195 individuals from 10 cohort studies

Objective We examined how personality traits of the Five Factor Model were related to years of healthy life years lost (mortality and disability) for individuals and the population. Method Participants were 131,195 individuals from 10 cohort studies from Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (n = 43,935 from seven cohort studies for the longitudinal analysis of disability, assessed using scales of Activities of Daily Living). Results Lower Conscientiousness was associated with higher mortality and disability risk, but only when Conscientiousness was below its median level. If the excess risk associated with low Conscientiousness had been absent, population life expectancy would have been 1.3 years longer and disability-free life 1.0 years longer. Lower emotional stability was related to shorter life expectancy, but only among those in the lowest 15% of the distribution, and disability throughout the distribution: if the excess risk associated with low emotional stability had been absent, population life expectancy would have been 0.4 years longer and disability-free life 2.4 years longer. Conclusions Personality traits of low Conscientiousness and low emotional stability are associated with reduced healthy life expectancy of individuals and population.Peer reviewe

Multimodal agent interfaces and system architectures for health and fitness companions

Multimodal conversational spoken dialogues using physical and virtual agents provide a potential interface to motivate and support users in the domain of health and fitness. In this paper we present how such multimodal conversational Companions can be implemented to support their owners in various pervasive and mobile settings. In particular, we focus on different forms of multimodality and system architectures for such interfaces

Biomarkers and long-term labour market outcomes: the case of creatine

Using the Young Finns Study (YFS) combined with the Finnish Linked Employer-Employee Data (FLEED) we show that quantities of creatine measured in 1980 prior to labour market entry affect labour market outcomes over the period 1990-2010. Those with higher levels of creatine (proxied by urine creatinine) prior to labour market entry spend more time in the labour market in the subsequent two decades and earn more. Creatine is not associated with high educational attainment. The associations between creatine and labour market outcomes are robust to controlling for other biomarkers, educational attainment and parental background. Creatine is a naturally occurring nitrogenous organic acid which supplies energy to body cells, including muscles. Our findings are consistent with high energy levels, induced by creatine, leading to productivity-enhancing traits such as a high propensity for effort, perseverance, and high-commitment.</div

Schizophrenia polygenic risk score and long-term success in the labour market : A cohort study

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The AuthorsEmployment is rare among people with a schizophrenia diagnosis. Meanwhile, a genetic liability for schizophrenia may hinder labour market performance. We studied how the polygenic risk score (PGS) for schizophrenia related to education and labour market outcomes. We found that a higher PGS was linked to lower educational levels and weaker labour market outcomes as well as a higher likelihood of receiving social income transfers, particularly among men. Assuming that the link is causal, our results indicate that individuals with schizophrenia or schizophrenia-related traits have a weakened ability to fully participate in the labour market, potentially reinforcing social exclusion.Peer reviewe