How technology supporting daily habits could help women remember oral contraception

Non-adherence to oral contraception regimens can have serious consequences: oral contraception misuse or discontinuation is often caused by forgetfulness, and results in over 1 million unwanted pregnancies in the US each year. Due to its simplicity and habitual nature, taking the Pill can be easily incorporated into a daily routine. However, technology-based interventions aimed at improving adherence only focus on just-in-time reminders and taking the Pill at a specified time; the routine aspect of the task is neglected. We argue that technology that facilitates the creation of sustainable habits and supports women when their routine changes could reduce forgetfulness and would be more effective at reducing non-adherence than existing reminder-based solutions

Designing for Health Behavior Change: HCI Research Alone Is Not Enough

Recent advances in technology and the proliferation of smartphones have made managing one’s health behaviour easier. As a field, HCI is in a position to drive the development of these new health and wellbeing technologies, and to ensure the solutions available to users are usable, meet their needs and help them change their behaviour for the better. However, HCI research tends to focus on usability and user engagement, and often does not consider the efficacy or long-term effects. Despite recent research arguing that evaluation of efficacy is beyond the scope of HCI, in this paper we debate this point and argue the importance of designing for efficacy of health and wellness technologies. We contend that moving beyond HCI literature and drawing from other fields can help us keep efficacy in mind and design personal health and wellbeing technologies that meet users’ needs and help them effectively change their behaviour

Beyond Self-Tracking and Reminders: Designing Smartphone Apps That Support Habit Formation

Habit formation is an important part of behavior change interventions: to ensure an intervention has long-term effects, the new behavior has to turn into a habit and become automatic. Smartphone apps could help with this process by supporting habit formation. To better understand how, we conducted a 4-week study exploring the influence of different types of cues and positive reinforcement on habit formation and reviewed the functionality of 115 habit formation apps. We discovered that relying on reminders supported repetition but hindered habit development, while the use of event-based cues led to increased automaticity; positive reinforcement was ineffective. The functionality review revealed that existing apps focus on self-tracking and reminders, and do not support event-based cues. We argue that apps, and technology-based interventions in general, have the potential to provide real habit support, and present design guidelines for interventions that could support habit formation through contextual cues and implementation intentions

Self-reported body fat change in HIV-infected men is a marker of decline in physical health-related quality of life with aging, independent of co-morbidity

Objective: Self-perception of changes in body fat among HIV+ persons is associated with decreased health related quality of life in cross-sectional studies. The longitudinal impact of body fat changes on health related quality of life, while accounting for comorbidity and anatomic location or severity of body fat changes, is unknown. Design: This was a longitudinal analysis of HIV+ and HIV- Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) participants who completed questionnaires assessing self-perceived body fat changes (baseline visit) and a health related quality of life (Short Form-36) at baseline and then ≥5 years later. Methods: Relationships between body fat changes and change in Short Form-36 Physical and Mental Component Summary scores were investigated using mixedmodel regression. Results: We studied 270 HIV+ and 247 HIV- men. At baseline, ≥50% of HIV+ men reported body fat changes; physical component but not mental component summary scores were lower among HIV+ men who reported moderate/severe leg or abdominal fat changes (p<0.05). At follow-up, physical component summary scores were significantly lower among men with face, leg, or abdominal fat changes compared to men without perceived fat changes (p<0.05). No significant changes were seen in mental component scores by fat change location or severity. In the final model, body fat changes at any site or severity were significant predictors of a decline in physical component summary score (p<0.05), independent of demographics or comorbidities. Mental component summary score was not associated with body fat changes, but higher mental component summary score was associated with increasing age and time. Conclusions: Negative self-perceived body fat changes were associated with decline in physical health related quality of life, independent of comorbidities, and may be a marker of an increased risk for physical function decline with aging

Durable response to serial tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in an adolescent with metastatic TFG-ROS1 fusion positive Inflammatory Myofibroblastic Tumor (IMT)

Here, we present the case of an adolescent with a rare metastatic Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (IMT) harboring a TFG-ROS1 fusion initially detected on tumor progression and retrospectively identified in the primary tumor after targeted RNA sequencing. The patient benefitted from sequential TKIs over a 5-year period with response to the third generation ALK/ROS inhibitor, lorlatinib leading to resection of the primary tumor. Detailed molecular analysis can identify targetable oncogenic kinase fusions that alters management in patients with unresectable disease and should be considered in all patients

Effect of spatial configuration of an extended nonlinear Kierstead-Slobodkin reaction-transport model with adaptive numerical scheme

In this paper, we consider the numerical simulations of an extended nonlinear form of Kierstead-Slobodkin reaction-transport system in one and two dimensions. We employ the popular fourth-order exponential time differencing Runge-Kutta (ETDRK4) schemes proposed by Cox and Matthew (J Comput Phys 176:430-455, 2002), that was modified by Kassam and Trefethen (SIAM J Sci Comput 26:1214-1233, 2005), for the time integration of spatially discretized partial differential equations. We demonstrate the supremacy of ETDRK4 over the existing exponential time differencing integrators that are of standard approaches and provide timings and error comparison. Numerical results obtained in this paper have granted further insight to the question "What is the minimal size of the spatial domain so that the population persists?" posed by Kierstead and Slobodkin (J Mar Res 12:141-147, 1953 ), with a conclusive remark that the popula- tion size increases with the size of the domain. In attempt to examine the biological wave phenomena of the solutions, we present the numerical results in both one- and two-dimensional space, which have interesting ecological implications. Initial data and parameter values were chosen to mimic some existing patternsScopus 201

"I'd sit at home and do work emails": how tablets affect the work-life balance of office workers

Advances in technology, in particular the widespread use of mobile devices, have changed work practices and transformed our everyday lives. However, as well as facilitating new ways for combining work and personal life, these new technologies can also blur the boundary between the two domains. In recent years tablets have become popular, first as leisure devices, and lately as business tools helping people to stay connected with work anywhere, anytime. Through an online questionnaire supported by a qualitative study, we investigated why, how, and where office workers use tablets and what impact those devices may have on work-life balance. The results show that, while useful for both home and work tasks, tablets have the potential to blur the boundary between work and personal life by encouraging and enabling people to complete work tasks during home time and vice versa. This could have negative impacts on work-life balance

The pharmaceutical use of permethrin: Sources and behavior during municipal sewage treatment

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.Permethrin entered use in the 1970s as an insecticide in a wide range of applications, including agriculture, horticultural, and forestry, and has since been restricted. In the 21st century, the presence of permethrin in the aquatic environment has been attributed to its use as a human and veterinary pharmaceutical, in particular as a pedeculicide, in addition to other uses, such as a moth-proofing agent. However, as a consequence of its toxicity to fish, sources of permethrin and its fate and behavior during wastewater treatment are topics of concern. This study has established that high overall removal of permethrin (approximately 90%) was achieved during wastewater treatment and that this was strongly dependent on the extent of biological degradation in secondary treatment, with more limited subsequent removal in tertiary treatment processes. Sources of permethrin in the catchment matched well with measured values in crude sewage and indicated that domestic use accounted for more than half of the load to the treatment works. However, removal may not be consistent enough to achieve the environmental quality standards now being derived in many countries even where tertiary treatment processes are applied.United Utilities PL

ASCORE: an up-to-date cardiovascular risk score for hypertensive patients reflecting contemporary clinical practice developed using the (ASCOT-BPLA) trial data.

A number of risk scores already exist to predict cardiovascular (CV) events. However, scores developed with data collected some time ago might not accurately predict the CV risk of contemporary hypertensive patients that benefit from more modern treatments and management. Using data from the randomised clinical trial Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial-BPLA, with 15 955 hypertensive patients without previous CV disease receiving contemporary preventive CV management, we developed a new risk score predicting the 5-year risk of a first CV event (CV death, myocardial infarction or stroke). Cox proportional hazard models were used to develop a risk equation from baseline predictors. The final risk model (ASCORE) included age, sex, smoking, diabetes, previous blood pressure (BP) treatment, systolic BP, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, fasting glucose and creatinine baseline variables. A simplified model (ASCORE-S) excluding laboratory variables was also derived. Both models showed very good internal validity. User-friendly integer score tables are reported for both models. Applying the latest Framingham risk score to our data significantly overpredicted the observed 5-year risk of the composite CV outcome. We conclude that risk scores derived using older databases (such as Framingham) may overestimate the CV risk of patients receiving current BP treatments; therefore, 'updated' risk scores are needed for current patients

Estimating Long-Term Survival of Critically Ill Patients: The PREDICT Model

BACKGROUND: Long-term survival outcome of critically ill patients is important in assessing effectiveness of new treatments and making treatment decisions. We developed a prognostic model for estimation of long-term survival of critically ill patients. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: This was a retrospective linked data cohort study involving 11,930 critically ill patients who survived more than 5 days in a university teaching hospital in Western Australia. Older age, male gender, co-morbidities, severe acute illness as measured by Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II predicted mortality, and more days of vasopressor or inotropic support, mechanical ventilation, and hemofiltration within the first 5 days of intensive care unit admission were associated with a worse long-term survival up to 15 years after the onset of critical illness. Among these seven pre-selected predictors, age (explained 50% of the variability of the model, hazard ratio [HR] between 80 and 60 years old = 1.95) and co-morbidity (explained 27% of the variability, HR between Charlson co-morbidity index 5 and 0 = 2.15) were the most important determinants. A nomogram based on the pre-selected predictors is provided to allow estimation of the median survival time and also the 1-year, 3-year, 5-year, 10-year, and 15-year survival probabilities for a patient. The discrimination (adjusted c-index = 0.757, 95% confidence interval 0.745-0.769) and calibration of this prognostic model were acceptable. SIGNIFICANCE: Age, gender, co-morbidities, severity of acute illness, and the intensity and duration of intensive care therapy can be used to estimate long-term survival of critically ill patients. Age and co-morbidity are the most important determinants of long-term prognosis of critically ill patients