Based on its advanced computing capabilities and ubiquity, the smartphone has rapidly been adopted as a tourism travel tool. With a growing number of users and a wide variety of applications emerging, the smartphone is fundamentally altering our current use and understanding of the transport network and tourism travel. Based on a review of smartphone apps, this article evaluates the current functionalities used in the domestic tourism travel domain and highlights where the next major developments lie. Then, at a more conceptual level, the article analyses how the smartphone mediates tourism travel and the role it might play in more collaborative and dynamic travel decisions to facilitate sustainable travel. Some emerging research challenges are discussed.

Blockchain is an emerging infrastructural technology that is proposed to fundamentally transform the ways in which people transact, trust, collaborate, organize and identify themselves. In this paper, we construct a typology of emerging blockchain applications, consider the domains in which they are applied, and identify distinguishing features of this new technology. We argue that there is a unique role for the HCI community in linking the design and application of blockchain technology towards lived experience and the articulation of human values. In particular, we note how the accounting of transactions, a trust in immutable code and algorithms, and the leveraging of distributed crowds and publics around vast interoperable databases all relate to longstanding issues of importance for the field. We conclude by highlighting core conceptual and methodological challenges for HCI researchers beginning to work with blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are generally regarded as the gold standard for evaluating health care interventions. The level of uncertainty around a trial's estimate of effect is, however, frequently linked to how successful the trial has been in recruiting and retaining participants. As recruitment is often slower or more difficult than expected, with many trials failing to reach their target sample size within the timescale and funding originally envisaged, the results are often less reliable than they could have been. The high number of trials that require an extension to the recruitment period in order to reach the required sample size potentially delays the introduction of more effective therapies into routine clinical practice. Moreover, it may result in less research being undertaken as resources are redirected to extending existing trials rather than funding additional studies.Poor recruitment to publicly-funded RCTs has been much debated but there remains remarkably little clear evidence as to why many trials fail to recruit well, which recruitment methods work, in which populations and settings and for what type of intervention. One proposed solution to improving recruitment and retention is to adopt methodology from the business world to inform and structure trial management techniques.We review what is known about interventions to improve recruitment to trials. We describe a proposed business approach to trials and discuss the implementation of using a business model, using insights gained from three case studies.

Key PointsQuestionWhat is the difference in clinical outcomes among 3 corticosteroid regimens (0.75 mg/kg of daily prednisone, 0.90 mg/kg of daily deflazacort, or 0.75 mg/kg of intermittent prednisone for 10 days on and then 10 days off) as initial treatment for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy?FindingsThis randomized clinical trial included 196 boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy; the clinical outcome was a global outcome that incorporated a measure of rising from the floor, forced vital capacity, and global satisfaction with treatment assessed over 3 years. Daily prednisone and daily deflazacort resulted in significantly better outcomes compared with intermittent prednisone; there was no significant difference between the 2 daily regimens.MeaningThe findings support the use of a daily corticosteroid regimen over an intermittent prednisone regimen that alternates dosing for 10 days on and 10 days off as initial treatment for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.