Evaluating the impact of physical activity apps and wearables: interdisciplinary review

Background: Although many smartphone apps and wearables have been designed to improve physical activity, their rapidly evolving nature and complexity present challenges for evaluating their impact. Traditional methodologies, such as randomized controlled trials (RCTs), can be slow. To keep pace with rapid technological development, evaluations of mobile health technologies must be efficient. Rapid alternative research designs have been proposed, and efficient in-app data collection methods, including in-device sensors and device-generated logs, are available. Along with effectiveness, it is important to measure engagement (ie, users’ interaction and usage behavior) and acceptability (ie, users’ subjective perceptions and experiences) to help explain how and why apps and wearables work. Objectives: This study aimed to (1) explore the extent to which evaluations of physical activity apps and wearables: employ rapid research designs; assess engagement, acceptability, as well as effectiveness; use efficient data collection methods; and (2) describe which dimensions of engagement and acceptability are assessed. Method: An interdisciplinary scoping review using 8 databases from health and computing sciences. Included studies measured physical activity, and evaluated physical activity apps or wearables that provided sensor-based feedback. Results were analyzed using descriptive numerical summaries, chi-square testing, and qualitative thematic analysis. Results: A total of 1829 abstracts were screened, and 858 articles read in full. Of 111 included studies, 61 (55.0%) were published between 2015 and 2017. Most (55.0%, 61/111) were RCTs, and only 2 studies (1.8%) used rapid research designs: 1 single-case design and 1 multiphase optimization strategy. Other research designs included 23 (22.5%) repeated measures designs, 11 (9.9%) nonrandomized group designs, 10 (9.0%) case studies, and 4 (3.6%) observational studies. Less than one-third of the studies (32.0%, 35/111) investigated effectiveness, engagement, and acceptability together. To measure physical activity, most studies (90.1%, 101/111) employed sensors (either in-device [67.6%, 75/111] or external [23.4%, 26/111]). RCTs were more likely to employ external sensors (accelerometers: P=.005). Studies that assessed engagement (52.3%, 58/111) mostly used device-generated logs (91%, 53/58) to measure the frequency, depth, and length of engagement. Studies that assessed acceptability (57.7%, 64/111) most often used questionnaires (64%, 42/64) and/or qualitative methods (53%, 34/64) to explore appreciation, perceived effectiveness and usefulness, satisfaction, intention to continue use, and social acceptability. Some studies (14.4%, 16/111) assessed dimensions more closely related to usability (ie, burden of sensor wear and use, interface complexity, and perceived technical performance). Conclusions: The rapid increase of research into the impact of physical activity apps and wearables means that evaluation guidelines are urgently needed to promote efficiency through the use of rapid research designs, in-device sensors and user-logs to assess effectiveness, engagement, and acceptability. Screening articles was time-consuming because reporting across health and computing sciences lacked standardization. Reporting guidelines are therefore needed to facilitate the synthesis of evidence across disciplines

Exact reconstruction of gene regulatory networks using compressive sensing.

BackgroundWe consider the problem of reconstructing a gene regulatory network structure from limited time series gene expression data, without any a priori knowledge of connectivity. We assume that the network is sparse, meaning the connectivity among genes is much less than full connectivity. We develop a method for network reconstruction based on compressive sensing, which takes advantage of the network's sparseness.ResultsFor the case in which all genes are accessible for measurement, and there is no measurement noise, we show that our method can be used to exactly reconstruct the network. For the more general problem, in which hidden genes exist and all measurements are contaminated by noise, we show that our method leads to reliable reconstruction. In both cases, coherence of the model is used to assess the ability to reconstruct the network and to design new experiments. We demonstrate that it is possible to use the coherence distribution to guide biological experiment design effectively. By collecting a more informative dataset, the proposed method helps reduce the cost of experiments. For each problem, a set of numerical examples is presented.ConclusionsThe method provides a guarantee on how well the inferred graph structure represents the underlying system, reveals deficiencies in the data and model, and suggests experimental directions to remedy the deficiencies

Implementing Ethics for a Mobile App Deployment

This paper discusses the ethical dimensions of a research project in which we deployed a personal tracking app on the Apple App Store and collected data from users with whom we had little or no direct contact. We describe the in-app functionality we created for supporting consent and withdrawal, our approach to privacy, our navigation of a formal ethical review, and navigation of the Apple approval process. We highlight two key issues for deployment-based research. Firstly, that it involves addressing multiple, sometimes conflicting ethical principles and guidelines. Secondly, that research ethics are not readily separable from design, but the two are enmeshed. As such, we argue that in-action and situational perspectives on research ethics are relevant to deployment-based research, even where the technology is relatively mundane. We also argue that it is desirable to produce and share relevant design knowledge and embed in-action and situational approaches in design activities

An evaluation of the relationship between Gray’s revised RST and Eysenck’s PEN: distinguishing BIS and FFFS in Carver and White’s BIS/BAS scales

Recent revisions of Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) have important implications for self-report measures of approach and avoidance behaviours and how Gray's model relates to other personality models. In this paper, we examine the revised RST by comparing Carver and White's (1994) original one-factor solution of the BIS scale with two alternative two-factor solutions separating BIS-Anxiety and FFFS-Fear. We also examine the relationships between Eysenck's PEN and revised RST factors. Two hundred and twelve participants completed Carver and White's BIS/BAS scales and Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire-Revised. Confirmatory factor analyses of the original BIS scale showed that the hypothesized two-factor model of BIS-Anxiety and FFFS-Fear was the best fit to these data. Associations between the revised RST and Eysenck's PEN were examined using path analysis. In line with theoretical predictions, Psychoticism was related to revised BIS-Anxiety and BAS, Neuroticism to revised BIS-Anxiety and FFFS- Fear, and Extraversion to BAS and FFFS-Fear. Distinctions between BAS subscales and their associations to BIS, N and P were made in terms of past, present and future focus. Possible explanations for mixed findings in the literature and implications for future research are discussed

Enhancing Museum Narratives: Tales of Things and UCL’s Grant Museum

Emergent mobile technologies offer museum professionals new ways of engaging visitors with their collections. Museums are powerful learning environments and mobile technology can enable visitors to experience the narratives in museum objects and galleries and integrate them with their own personal reflections and interpretations. UCL‟s QRator project is exploring how handheld mobile devices and interactive digital labels can create new models for public engagement, personal meaning making and the construction of narrative opportunities inside museum spaces. The use of narrative in museums has long been recognised as a powerful communication technique to engage visitors and to explore the different kinds of learning and participation that result. Many museums make extensive use of narrative, or storytelling, as a learning, interpretive, and meaning making tool. This chapter discusses the potential for mobile technologies to connect museums to audiences through co-creation of narratives, taking the QRator project as a case study. The QRator project aims to stress the necessity of engaging visitors actively in the creation of their own interpretations of museum collections through the integration of QR codes, iPhone, iPad, and Android apps into UCL‟s Grant Museum of Zoology. Although this chapter will concentrate on mobile technology created for a natural history museum, issues of meaning making and narrative creation through mobile technology are applicable to any discipline. In the first instance, the concern is with the development of mobile media in museums followed by a discussion of the QRator project which stresses the opportunities and challenges in utilizing mobile technology to enhance visitor meaning making and narrative construction. Finally, this chapter discusses the extent to which mobile technologies might be used purposefully to transform institutional cultures, practices and relationships with visitors

"In My Dreams I Was Almost There": Personal Music Players, Curated Soundscapes and the Contemporary Québécois Coming-Of-Age Film

In bridging the fields of sound studies, film studies, and Québécois studies, this thesis suggests a novel way of exploring national identity formation within the context of coming-of- age cinematic narratives. In many contemporary Québécois coming-of-age films, protagonists develop imaginary worlds into which they can escape from their oppressive social circumstances, but ultimately fail to reach adulthood in the way they desire. This thesis project applies two key elements in sound studies to the Québécois context: it examines how personal music players (e.g. a Walkman, an iPod, a vinyl player, etc.) and curated soundscapes (the imaginary worlds developed through interaction with said personal music players) are used by protagonists in coming-of-age films set in Québec. This study examines the ways that the personal music player and the curated soundscapes protagonists create are present in three recent coming-of-age films: C.R.A.Z.Y. (dir. Jean-Marc Vallée, 2005), Mommy (dir. Xavier Dolan, 2013) and Les êtres chers (dir. Anne Émond, 2015). Each of these films’ protagonists use the personal music player and the curated soundscape as a means to escape their marginalization in a socially oppressive Québécois society. This project conceives of the coming-of-age journeys as manifested in Québecois cinema as a process with three nodes. In Chapter 1, this project examines how these protagonists interact with their personal music players and curated soundscapes, creating imaginary worlds which they can control. Chapter 2 explores how these protagonists develop their curated soundscapes so intensely that they recognize they can never be realized in an oppressive Québécois society, revealing the contradictions of the curated soundscape in Québec. Finally, in Chapter 3, this project considers how silence is present in each of these films after these characters abandon their personal music players and curated soundscapes. It argues that they use this silence as a bridge to adulthood, but ultimately fail to reach the ideals they developed within the curated soundscape

“I’m talking but no-one is listening”: how sound in British experiential realist cinema captures class dynamics from Tony Blair to Brexit

This Ph.D. dissertation investigates how sound in British experiential realist film captures changing class dynamics felt in the United Kingdom from the resignation of Tony Blair through the Brexit referendum. The films in this project are part of the experiential realist genre, or a form of social realism in which aesthetic liberties are used in cinematography, editing, and sound design to represent the perceptual and emotional reactions of individuals through certain political and social turmoil. This project looks specifically at the role of sound design and examines how the sounds heard are changing for characters. This study prioritises the affect – that is the perceptual and sensory reactions of these characters – in order to understand how their reactions to the worlds around them (and, their awareness of their class identity) change over time. It looks at fifteen films over the course of five chapters, and studies various aspects of the cinematic soundscape. This includes: the mixing of sounds, the construction of silence, the use of diegetic and non-diegetic music, the composition of noise, and the volume levels of dialogue. To demonstrate how these films represent the actual experiences of individuals, this analysis is paired with sociological studies of class; musicology and sound studies; and other anthropological and geographical works. The conclusion that this project reaches is that the sense of silence and voicelessness is increasing in recent decades amongst characters in recent British experiential realist films. Although characters interact with their soundscapes by creating noise, listening to music, and attempting to become dominant over their soundscape in a variety of ways, members of all the classes lose their ability to communicate with one another, and thus are subsequently deprived of their agency to act in their social spheres. It suggests that this is a common theme that must be studied, in order to assess what the future of the classed British character is. These feelings of voicelessness arise due to uncertainty over what one’s class identity is, and the uncertainty of whether they can ever be meaningfully heard by others around them. This dissertation not only benefits studies of recent British film, but it suggests a method to connect sociological studies of class and sound with that of film. It also provides a new methodology to the research of Blairism and Brexit that prioritises the experiences of individuals. It suggests that feelings of dread surrounding Brexit can be meaningfully studied and the marginalisation of oppressed individuals can be measured. This project comes at a crucial moment in British history and provides a new approach to the study of class and Brexit in the future

An N-of-1 Evaluation Framework for Behaviour Change Applications

Mobile behaviour change applications should be evaluated for their effectiveness in promoting the intended behavior changes. In this paper we argue that the 'gold standard' form of effectiveness evaluation, the randomised controlled trial, has shortcomings when applied to mobile applications. We propose that N-of-1 (also known as single case design) based approaches have advantages. There is currently a lack of guidance for researchers and developers on how to take this approach. We present a framework encompassing three phases and two related checklists for performing N-of-1 evaluations. We also present our analysis of using this framework in the development and deployment of an app that encourages people to walk more. Our key findings are that there are challenges in designing engaging apps that automate N-of-1 procedures, and that there are challenges in collecting sufficient data of good quality. Further research should address these challenges