mHealth Research Applied to Regulated and Unregulated Behavioral Health Sciences

Behavioral scientists are developing new methods and frameworks that leverage mobile health technologies to optimize individual level behavior change. Pervasive sensors and mobile apps allow researchers to passively observe human behaviors “in the wild” 24/7 which supports delivery of personalized interventions in the real-world environment. This is all possible because these technologies contain an incredible array of sensors that allow applications to constantly record user location and can contextualize current environmental conditions through barometers, thermometers, and ambient light sensors and can also capture audio and video of the user and their surroundings through multiple integrated high-definition cameras and microphones. These tools are a game changer in behavioral health research and, not surprisingly, introduce new ethical, regulatory/legal and social implications described in this article

Building the case for actionable ethics in digital health research supported by artificial intelligence

The digital revolution is disrupting the ways in which health research is conducted, and subsequently, changing healthcare. Direct-to-consumer wellness products and mobile apps, pervasive sensor technologies and access to social network data offer exciting opportunities for researchers to passively observe and/or track patients ‘in the wild’ and 24/7. The volume of granular personal health data gathered using these technologies is unprecedented, and is increasingly leveraged to inform personalized health promotion and disease treatment interventions. The use of artificial intelligence in the health sector is also increasing. Although rich with potential, the digital health ecosystem presents new ethical challenges for those making decisions about the selection, testing, implementation and evaluation of technologies for use in healthcare. As the ‘Wild West’ of digital health research unfolds, it is important to recognize who is involved, and identify how each party can and should take responsibility to advance the ethical practices of this work. While not a comprehensive review, we describe the landscape, identify gaps to be addressed, and offer recommendations as to how stakeholders can and should take responsibility to advance socially responsible digital health research

Jurisdiction of the United States Court of Veterans Appeals: Searching Out the Limits

I have been asked to talk to you about the United States Court of Veterans Appeals-specifically, challenges and trends in defining the scope of the court\u27s jurisdiction. As a brand-new court, and one without any antecedent, the court began to establish precedent to deal with all aspects of its jurisdiction. In fact, it is still very much in the process of setting such precedent. For the first time, the court brought the principle of stare decisis to the veterans\u27 community. The principle required considerable readjustment within the Department of Veterans Affairs (Department or VA). The VA\u27s regional offices and the Board of Veterans\u27 Appeals (Board or BVA) were deciding benefits applications ad hoc. At the Board level there was little effort to achieve consistency among decisions by different panels. Moreover, veterans\u27 benefits claimants were unprepared for the adversarial nature of an appellate court. The administrative adjudication, both at the agency of original jurisdiction and indeed at the Board level has been and remains a paternal system. The claimant need only present a “well-grounded” claim (much like a prima facie case) to bind the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to assist in the prosecution of the claim by guiding the evidentiary efforts on behalf of the claimant and by broaching issues not mentioned, but fairly embraced in the claim. The adversarial nature of judicial proceedings-particularly as relates to compiling a record for appellate review-has had far-reaching effects within the Department. In addition, issues relating to the court\u27s jurisdiction required new, and sometimes complex, analysis of the rule of finality as applied to actions by the Department. A claimant could relitigate the same claim again and again by reopening or alleging “clear and unmistakable error” in a prior decision. These exceptions to the rule of finality have raised significant issues relating to the court\u27s jurisdiction

Foreword

This is part of the District of Columbia Survey

Noting the tunes of seventeenth-century broadside ballads : The English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA)

The English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA), http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu, hosted at the University of California-Santa Barbara, was founded in 2003 to render pre-1700 English broadside ballads fully accessible as texts, art, songs, and cultural records. EBBA focuses especially on the broadside ballads of the seventeenth century because that period was the "heyday" of the genre.1 In their heyday, ballads were printed on one side of large sheets of paper (hence "broad"-side) mostly in swirling, decorative, black-letter (or what we today call "Gothic") typeface, embellished with many woodcuts and other ornamentation, and labeled with a tune title printed just below the song title. These alluring multimedia artifacts addressed multifarious topics--often from more than one perspective--to catch the interest of a wide audience.2Not