Category: Publications

Cohort 1 students Romana, Joe, Morgan & Bridget publish in Human-Computer Interaction Journal

Posted on by emily.barraclough

Cohort 1 students Romana Burgess, Joe Mathews, Morgan Jenkinson and Bridget Ellis publish a Journal Article entitled ‘Fathers, Young Children and Technology: Changes in Device Use and Family Dynamics During the COVID-19 UK Lockdown’ in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Journal.

They had the following to say about their experience:

‘The coronavirus lockdown measures meant that families spent more time together than ever before, thanks to the shift to online schooling and working from home. By speaking with fathers during this time of stress, uncertainty, and change, we looked to understand changing perceptions of technology use and fatherhood, and we began to consider the design of father-supporting technologies to support fathers.

Our work involved two phases of semi-structured interviews, with participants recruited through social media and word of mouth. The first interviews (n=19) broadly discussed technology and home life during the pandemic, and fathers highlighted challenges in screen viewing, family dynamics, activity idea generation and self-care. Informed by these challenges, we designed four prototype apps which were used as prompts in follow-up interviews (n=12) to better understand the issues in more depth.
Overall, the interviews identified significant changes and concerns related to technology use within the context of COVID-19. Fathers found themselves with changing responsibilities (e.g., home schooling, more childcare), which conflicted with their typical and traditional responsibilities (e.g., work, chores). Combined with pandemic-led stressors, these issues together amplified negative feelings associated with children’s technology use and the father’s own self-care.
The paper provides guidance for fatherhood-supporting technologies. It highlights issues with existing technologies, and the areas where these kinds of support are lacking so far. We provide recommendations based on the feedback of real fathers. Future work could use these recommendations to inform technology design for fathers in a caregiving role.’

Cohort 3 student Tim publishes an Article in IEEE

Posted on by emily.barraclough

Cohort 3 student Tim Arueyingho publishes a Journal Article entitled ‘Digital Health Promotion For Fitness Enthusiasts In Africa’ in the IEEE Journal.

Tim had this to say about the publication:

‘The review paper takes a different approach in understanding the role of technology in promoting exercise among fitness enthusiasts in Africa. It begins by discussing what health promotion is and extends it to Digital Health promotion. It also differentiates between fitness enthusiasts/recreational athletes, athletes and persons who engage in fitness as a form of lifestyle modification. Thereafter, it highlights technological interventions being used by fitness enthusiasts globally before streamlining to the African context. The paper stresses on the lack of sufficient literature on interventions being used in Africa and absence of focus on fitness enthusiasts. It is an educational piece and riveting read that hopes to create awareness for gaps in literature that might be interesting points of research.

1. This paper highlights interesting gaps in academic literature that might be worth researching
2. This paper establishes the need for contextualization and afro-centric studies
3. This paper elaborates on concepts that may have been easily overlooked e.g. The difference between Fitness enthusiasts/Recreational athletes, regular gym goers, athletes and persons who visit the gym for lifestyle modification purposes
4. The paper suggests important strategies for encouraging the adoption of digital health technologies among fitness enthusiasts
5. It provides information relevant in understanding the existing landscape of fitness and Digital Health technologies’

Cohort 2 student Immi publishes a Systematic Review in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease

Posted on by emily.barraclough

Cohort 2 student Immi Biswas publishes a Systematic review entitled ‘Secular Trends in Dementia Free Cognitive Function in Older Adults’ in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Immi had the following to say about the publication:

‘The objective was to systematically evaluate the published data on generational differences in cognitive function in the older population.

Prevalence of vascular related mild cognitive impairment has increased in China. Improvements in cognition may only partially be explained by increased educational attainment across generations. This review provides evidence for generational effects in dementia-free cognitive function, predominately stability or improvements in performance, in later compared to earlier born individuals across different world regions. There is an urgent need to determine the factors driving such changes and whether they are being experienced in all world regions, particularly low- and middle-income countries where the burden of cognitive impairment is greatest and rising.’

Link to Paper: Secular Trends in Dementia Free Cognitive Function in Older Adults: A Systematic Review – PubMed (nih.gov)

Cohort 2 student Neshika is involved with Conference Proceedings at MARSS

Posted on by emily.barraclough

Cohort 2 student Neshika Wijewardhane publishes with ‘Proceedings of MARSS – International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales’ a paper entitled ‘Long-term imaging and spatio-temporal control of living cells using light.’

Neshika had the following to say about the publication:

‘The ability to optically interact with cells on both an individual and collective level has applications from wound healing to cancer treatment. Building systems which can facilitate both localised light illumination and visualisation of cells can however, be challenging and costly. This work takes the DOME, an existing platform for the closed-loop optical control of microscale agents, and adapts the design to support live-cell imaging. Through modifications made to the imaging and projection systems within the DOME, a significantly higher imaging resolution is achieved as well as the ability to customise the light projection wavelengths. Changes to the fundamental design allow for long-term use in an environment of higher temperature and humidity, facilitating the long-term imaging of live cells.

The Dynamic Optical MicroEnviroment (DOME) robotic device is now able to visualise living cells to aid the control of cells using light. This allows us to implement different light patterns and regimes in a closed-loop manner to initiate different cellular dynamics such as cell migration and thus opens the possibilities for treatments in the fields of wound healing specifically but also in cancer and anti-microbial therapy.’

Link to Journal: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/conhome/9870245/proceeding