This paper reports a mobile persuasive application to motivate teenagers to start and continue being physically active. Being physically active can lead to reduced risks of having weight and cardiovascular problems; however efforts in this direction had variable success. Designing technology that will be engaging and motivating for teenagers requires an understanding of the factors that contribute to behavior adoption in teenagers. To understand these, we approach the design from several theoretical models: Theory of Planned Behavior, Theory of Meaning Behavior, and Personality Theory. We found that 1) Personality traits affect perceptions on physical activities and the usefulness of devices that motivate them; 2) Favored motivational phrases are universal across traits; 3) Those who tried our prototype was generally positive and stated that they would use it on their own; 5) The characteristics of games that are desired are: social or competitive, outdoor, simple to learn and with large variations.
Throughout the last decade, there has been an alarming increase in obesity prevalence among adults and teens throughout the world. Obesity has been found to increase the risk of developing diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and some cancers. Due to the many health risks associated with obesity, an increase in prevalence has also pressured health care systems and the finances of the individual. Our research proposes to decrease obesity prevalence in adults by motivating teens to become or continue being physically active so that they can continue these healthy lifestyles as adults. Our goal is to encourage long term adoption of physically active behaviors by introducing a motivating application running on a mobile device. We use the Technology Acceptance Model, the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Theory of Meaning Behavior, and the Big 5 Personality Theory to guide our design.
This paper reports a low-cost autonomous wearable accelerometry-based posture monitoring system for stroke survivors. The hardware part of the system consists of monitoring devices, each of which comprises of a three-axial accelerometer and a beeper, LED light and vibrator to provide redundant modes of inappropriate posture warnings that would hopefully trigger self-correction. The inappropriate posture data are stored in an EEPROM. The software part of the system downloads, analyzes and presents the data in graphical format to enable a carer or therapist to quickly glance at the durations, frequency and locations of inappropriate postures.
As the applications delivered by cellular phones are becoming increasingly sophisticated, the importance of choosing an input strategy is also growing. Touch-screens can simplify navigation by far but the vast majority of phones on the market are not equipped with them. Cameras, on the other hand, are widespread even amongst low-end phones: in this paper we propose a vision-based pointing system that allows the user to control the pointer's position by just waving a hand, with no need for additional hardware.
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