Coronary flow reserve in stress-echo lab. From pathophysiologic toy to diagnostic tool

The assessment of coronary flow reserve by transthoracic echocardiography has recently been introduced into clinical practice with gratifying results for the diagnosis of left anterior descending artery disease simultaneously reported by several independent laboratories. This technological novelty is changing the practice of stress echo for 3 main reasons. First, adding coronary flow reserve to regional wall motion allows us to have – in the same sitting – high specificity (regional wall motion) and a high sensitivity (coronary flow reserve) diagnostic marker, with an obvious improvement in overall diagnostic accuracy. Second, the technicalities of coronary flow reserve shift the balance of stress choice in favour of vasodilators, which are a more robust hyperemic stress and are substantially easier to perform with dual imaging than dobutamine or exercise. Third, the coronary flow reserve adds a quantitative support to the exquisitely qualitative assessment of wall motion analysis, thereby facilitating the communication of stress echo results to the cardiological world outside the echo lab. The next challenges involve the need to expand the exploration of coronary flow reserve to the right and circumflex coronary artery and to prove the additional prognostic value – if any – of coronary flow reserve over regional wall motion analysis, which remains the cornerstone of clinically-driven diagnosis in the stress echo lab

Self-Reporting Technologies for Supporting Epilepsy Treatment

Epilepsy diagnosis and treatment relies heavily on patient self-reporting for informing clinical decision-making. These self-reports are traditionally collected from handwritten patient journals and tend to be either incomplete or inaccurate. Recent mobile and wearable health tracking developments stand to dramatically impact clinical practice through supporting patient and caregiver data collection activities. However, the specific types and characteristics of the data that clinicians need for patient care are not well known. In this study, we conducted interviews, a literature review, an expert panel, and online surveys to assess the availability and quality of patient-reported data that is useful but reported as being unavailable, difficult for patients to collect, or unreliable during epilepsy diagnosis and treatment, respectively. The results highlight important yet underexplored data collection and design opportunities for supporting the diagnosis, treatment, and self-management of epilepsy and expose notable gaps between clinical data needs and current patient practices

"Notjustgirls": Exploring Male-related Eating Disordered Content across Social Media Platforms

Eating disorders (EDs) are a worldwide public health concern that impact approximately 10% of the U.S. population. Our previous research characterized these behaviors across online spaces. These characterizations have used clinical terminology, and their lexical variants, to identify ED content online. However, previous HCI research on EDs (including our own) suffers from a lack of gender and cultural diversity. In this paper, we designed a follow-up study of online ED characterizations, extending our previous methodologies to focus specifically on male/masculine-related content. We highlight the similarities and differences found in the terminology utilized and media archetypes associated with the social media content. Finally, we discuss other considerations highlighted through our analysis of the male-related content that is missing from the previous research

Research Opportunities and Visions for Smart and Pervasive Health

Improving the health of the nation's population and increasing the capabilities of the US healthcare system to support diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease is a critical national and societal priority. In the past decade, tremendous advances in expanding computing capabilities--sensors, data analytics, networks, advanced imaging, and cyber-physical systems--have, and will continue to, enhance healthcare and health research, with resulting improvements in health and wellness. However, the cost and complexity of healthcare continues to rise alongside the impact of poor health on productivity and quality of life. What is lacking are transformative capabilities that address significant health and healthcare trends: the growing demands and costs of chronic disease, the greater responsibility placed on patients and informal caregivers, and the increasing complexity of health challenges in the US, including mental health, that are deeply rooted in a person's social and environmental context.Comment: A Computing Community Consortium (CCC) white paper, 12 page

Dynamic Door Displays

Traditionally, office doors have been used as display surfaces for communicating a variety of information between door owners and visitors. While flexible, doors also burden their owners with the task of maintenance and do not support notions of public and private information. In this paper we introduce the Dynamic Door Display, a tool for enhancing an office door's display capabilities to include automatic updates and tailored displays of private information for particular visitors. This work is based on an initial qualitative study of personalized location-specific information

"Mango Mango, How to Let The Lettuce Dry Without A Spinner?'': Exploring User Perceptions of Using An LLM-Based Conversational Assistant Toward Cooking Partner

The rapid advancement of the Large Language Model (LLM) has created numerous potentials for integration with conversational assistants (CAs) assisting people in their daily tasks, particularly due to their extensive flexibility. However, users' real-world experiences interacting with these assistants remain unexplored. In this research, we chose cooking, a complex daily task, as a scenario to investigate people's successful and unsatisfactory experiences while receiving assistance from an LLM-based CA, Mango Mango. We discovered that participants value the system's ability to provide extensive information beyond the recipe, offer customized instructions based on context, and assist them in dynamically planning the task. However, they expect the system to be more adaptive to oral conversation and provide more suggestive responses to keep users actively involved. Recognizing that users began treating our LLM-CA as a personal assistant or even a partner rather than just a recipe-reading tool, we propose several design considerations for future development.Comment: Under submission to CHI202

Ictus: A User-Centered System of Score Study for Semi-Novice Conductors

Ictus supports the study and preparation of musical scores by semi-novice conductors. It does so by representing the complex analytical processes in which professional conductors routinely engage. Through iterative design and prototyping and with feedback from expert conductors, we have developed a prototyped system for use as a learning tool. This paper presents a brief overview of the complexities of the conductor's task, including the difficulties inherent in externalizing it; a description of the Ictus system; and a discussion of some of the feedback and forward-looking issues that have been raised