An ideal in mental health care is user participation. This implies inclusion and facilitation by clinicians to enable users to participate in decisions about themselves and in the design of suitable treatment. However, much of the work of clinicians consists of handovers and other meetings where patients are not present. It is therefore interesting to study how the patient perspective is handled in such meetings and whether it forms a basis for user participation. We conducted fieldwork (...) in three different inpatient wards in Norwegian District Psychiatric Centres. We used an interactional perspective in our analysis, where speech acts, framing and footing were key concepts. The findings show that the talk in the handovers and meetings contained five main themes and that there was a clear correlation between what was said and how it was said, and whether clinicians related to the content in a decisive, person‐centred or indecisive manner. We discuss potential participation statuses for patients and their limited opportunity to influence the talk and possible decisions about themselves. Our conclusion is that handover meetings primarily function as an aid in organising clinicians' work and could ultimately be seen as counteracting user participation. (shrink)

In the past decade, the Norwegian government has emphasized user participation as an important goal in the care of mentally ill patients, through governmental strategic plans. At the same time, the governmental documents request normalization of psychiatric patients, including the re‐socialization of psychiatric patients back into society outside the psychiatric hospital. Milieu therapy is a therapeutic tool to ensure user participation and re‐socialization. Based on an ethnographic study in a long‐term psychiatric ward in a psychiatric hospital, (...) we identified how staff tried to implement user participation in their milieu‐oriented therapy work. We have identified three major tensions and challenges in implementing user participation in milieu‐therapeutic work. First, it is difficult to implement individual‐based user participation and at the same time take collective house rules and codes of conduct into consideration. Second, user participation proved a difficulty when patients’ viewpoints challenged staff judgements on proper conduct and goals for which patients might aim. Third, user participation becomes a challenge when trying to establish relationships based on equality when using milieu therapy in a biomedical hierarchical hospital structure. These tensions and challenges are seen in light of paradoxical political frames and demands on one side, and milieu therapy as a complex tradition anchored in different ideologies on the other. (shrink)

As the national awareness of health keeps deepening, online health communities have achieved rapid development. Users’ participation is critically important to the sustainable development of OHCs. Nevertheless, users usually lack the motive for participation. Based on the social capital theory, this research examines factors influencing users’ participation in OHCs. The purpose of this research is to find out decisive factors that influence users’ participation in OHCs, enrich the understanding of users’ participation in OHCs, and help (...) OHCs address the issue of sustainable development. The research model was empirically tested using 1277 responses from an online survey conducted in China. Data was analyzed using the structural equation modeling. We found informational support and emotional support to have significant direct effects over the structural capital, relational capital and cognitive capital of OHCs. Meanwhile, it is observed that relational capital and cognitive capital degree have a significant influence on knowledge acquisition and knowledge contribution of OHCs. For researchers this study provides a basis for further refinement of individual models of users’ participation. For practitioners, understanding the social capital is crucial to users’ knowledge acquisition and knowledge contribution that achieve high participation in OHCs. (shrink)

Active participation closely associates with the sustainable operation of co-creation communities. Different from recent studies on the promotion of sustainable operation by identifying the internal and external motivations of user participation, this paper aims to analyze the mechanism regarding how different motivations affect the decision of user participation from group-level perspective. To better understand the mechanism, internal and external motivations are, respectively, captured by return-cost analysis and user interactive network. Afterwards, a network evolutionary game (...) model was formulated to analyze the dynamic strategy selection of all users. In addition, the stable equilibrium and evolutionary path of strategies are analyzed through computational experiments. Results indicate the following: Rewards have an influence on the promotion of active participation. However, with the continued growth of rewards, this promotion does not make sense sustainably. The promotional effect of information noise on the selection of active participation can be found when passive participation is the dominant strategy. However, the inhibitory effect can be seen in populations that mainly adopt active participation. The scale-free feature of user interactive network inhibits the selection of active participation when active participation is the dominant strategy in populations. Results found here is beneficial for managers to implement the specified policies and thus to achieve the sustainability of co-creation community. (shrink)

In recent years, many online communities have launched opinion-gathering activities to promote user participation in innovation and improve the quality of new products. The current methods for online innovation activities can be divided into two categories: cognitive guidance and affective guidance. However, the studies on online communities have mainly focused on user engagement motivations, and little attention has been paid to investigating the impact and underlying mechanism of innovation guidance on user participation at the linguistic (...) level. This study first collected secondary data from NetEase.com and conducted an econometric model to explore the impact of cognitive guidance and affective guidance on users’ participation in online innovation activities. Subsequently, we investigated the impact mechanism of different innovation guidance methods on user participation through two experiments, here by drawing on mental simulation theory. The experimental results showed that outcome simulation and process simulation imposed a dual mediating effect of innovation guidance on user participation. In addition, we also found that product types moderate the dual mediating effect of outcome simulation and process simulation. The findings can deepen and expand the research on user participation while providing practical implications for companies and platforms as they attempt to promote user participation in innovation activities. (shrink)

Social media users have increased rapidly in recent years; however, most are “silent users” who rarely share information online. To maintain social media companies’ stable operation and development, this research explored the effects of flow experience and identity formation on users’ intrinsic motivation to facilitate aggressive, spontaneous, and habitual participation in virtual communities. A total of 487 valid questionnaires were collected and underwent regression analysis. The results revealed that all three intrinsic motivations had a significant impact on social media (...) participation, with social interaction exerting the strongest influence. Flow experience and identification had significant, partial mediating effects on the relationship between motivation and participation. Several suggestions were provided based on the results to help social media enterprises increase user participation. It is hoped that this research could facilitate in transforming users into habitual participants to keep the operations of the virtual community stable and enduring. (shrink)

Healthcare user fees present an important barrier for accessing services for the poorest (indigents) in Burkina Faso and selective removal of fees has been incorporated in national healthcare planning. However, establishing fair, effective and sustainable mechanisms for the removal of user fees presents important challenges. A participatory action-research project was conducted in Ouargaye, Burkina Faso, to test mechanisms for identifying those who are indigents, and funding and implementing user fee removal. In this paper, we explore stakeholder perceptions (...) of ethical considerations relating to participation and partnership arising in the action-research. (shrink)

Discourse and rhetoric of service-user involvement are pervasive in all mental health services that see themselves as promoting a Recovery ethos. Yet, for the service-user movement internationally, ‘Recovery’ was articulated as an alternative discourse of overcoming and resisting an institutionalized and oppressive psychiatric model of care. Power is all pervasive within mental health services yet often overlooked in official discourse on user-involvement. Critical research is required to expose the unacknowledged structural and power constraints on participants. My research (...) problematizes practices of user involvement in one mental health service area in Ireland. Part I of this article examines the background context of policies and practices of user-involvement from the service-user perspective and explains developments in relation to service-user involvement in the case of Ireland. Participants in my study articulate their motivation for engagement with mental health service reform in terms of the right to participate in social justice terms, of wanting to improve services and humanise care. Power dynamics emerge as one of the primary obstacles to equitable involvement. Part II of this article presents an explanatory framework of power, using a model developed in the field of development studies; Gaventa’s (2006) ‘power cube.’ The three dimensions of the cube represent the forms, spaces and levels of power. The explanatory potential of this model to highlight how hidden and invisible power operates in mental health services is illustrated by selected comments from the same participants. The power cube is a useful tool to illuminate the dynamics occurring in service-user involvement spaces. Showing how different forms of power operate in the spaces and levels of mental health involvement can develop service-users’ awareness of the hidden and invisible aspects of power. Through this awareness, they can strategize around their potential to influence decision-making in mental health services. (shrink)

Linear mixed-effects models (LMMs) are increasingly being used for data analysis in cognitive neuroscience and experimental psychology, where within-participant designs are common. The current article provides an introductory review of the use of LMMs for within-participant data analysis and describes a free, simple, graphical user interface (LMMgui). LMMgui uses the package lme4 (Bates et al., 2014a, b ) in the statistical environment R (R Core Team).

The widespread trend to transferirrigation management responsibility from the stateto “communities” or local user groups has byand large ignored the implications ofintra-community power differences for theeffectiveness and equity of water management. Genderis a recurrent source of such differences. Despitethe rhetoric on women‘s participation, a review ofevidence from South Asia shows that femaleparticipation is minimal in water users‘organizations. One reason for this is that theformal and informal membership criteria excludewomen. Moreover, the balance between costs andbenefits of participation is (...) often negative forwomen because complying with the rules and practicesof the organization involves considerable time costsand social risks, whereas other ways to obtainirrigation services may be more effective for femalewater users. Although effective, these other andoften informal ways of obtaining irrigation servicesare also typically less secure. More formalparticipation of women can strengthen women‘sbargaining position as resource users withinhouseholds and communities. Greater involvement ofwomen can also strengthen the effectiveness of theorganization by improving women‘s compliance withrules and maintenance contributions. Furtherdetailed and comparative research is required toidentify the major factors that affect women‘sparticipation and control over resources, ifdevolution policies are to address the tensionbetween objectives of transferring control overresources to community institutions, and ensuringthe participation of all members of the community,especially women. (shrink)

This study focused on the frequency of social media use. Through investigating and verifying the correlations between social media use frequency, online political participation, and social capital, we derived two models of socialization that affect citizen well-being and, accordingly, proposed strategic suggestions for democratic society construction and network management. This study drew upon the 2019 Taiwan Communication Survey database and used structural equation modeling as a statistical method to explore the causal relationship between these four variables. The data analysis (...) yielded an overall good fit with the overall fit indicators: χ2 = 214.417, df = 84, p = 2.293, RMSEA = 0.028, GFI = 0.998, CFI = 0.986, SRMR = 0.066, and CN = 993.411. Future communication scholars who wish to explore issues related to new media users can draw on this model for subsequent research. (shrink)

The competition between government-provided apps and business-provided apps for active users in China is becoming increasingly fierce. Apps with higher user activity will win this competition. To maintain active users, finding the user activity influencing factors is crucial. In this study, we selected a government-provided app—“Beijing One Card”- and a business-provided app—“Bus Code” -in the field of public transportation as the comparative research objects. Based on multiple regression analysis, we explored the factors influencing user activity. We found (...) user preference plays a critical role in distinguishing the influencing factors of user activity between two kinds of apps. Distinct from the existing research, the service quality does not affect the user activity of public transportation apps. This paper argues that, whether it is a government-provided app or a business-provided app, to enhance the user activity of the app, in the short term, it is necessary to improve the app function according to the user’s needs, try to provide services which user like, cater to user’s preference, strengthen user experience; In the long run, it is essential to pay attention to mining the user’s data accumulated while operating the app to understand user behavior. So as to affect the user’s preference, enhance user’s trust, and improve user participation through public policy. (shrink)

The issue on the role of users in knowledge-based systems can be investigated from two aspects: the design aspect and the functionality aspect. Participatory design is an important approach for the first aspect while system adaptability supported by user modelling is crucial to the second aspect. In the article, we discuss the second aspect. We view a knowledge-based computer system as the partner of users' problem-solving process, and we argue that the system functionality can be enhanced by adapting the (...) behaviour of the system to fit the needs of users with different profiles. We emphasise that the notion of user modelling is crucial to realise such kind of flexibility. User modelling will be beneficial to the user, not only through adaptive interfaces, but also through the enhanced system adaptability. In a knowledge-based system, by incorporating user models, searching can be reduced to a smaller portion in the knowledge-base, thus enhancing system functionality. In other words, user modelling is incorporated to realise flexible inference control to achieve system adaptability. An example is provided, and a general conceptual model is sketched. We conclude this paper by emphasising that the design aspect and functionality aspect are complementary. Achieving enhanced functionality through joint efforts of computers and human users indicates a kind of participatory execution of computerised problem-solving or participatory problem-solving. (shrink)

Recent theorizing and research concerning the pragmatics of analogy in persuasion posits that it serves two communicative functions. Specifically, rebuttal analogy instrumentally functions as argument and also as a social attack device used to demean the competence or character of opponents. The study reported here empirically investigated message receivers' perceptions of rebuttal analogy users. Participants were exposed to one of four messages employing rebuttal analogy or to one of the same four messages with a nonanalogy version of the rebuttal argument. (...) As anticipated, the findings revealed that participants perceived the communicator employing rebuttal analogy as less ethical and less competent than communicators using nonanalogy counterparts. These results are discussed and future research is proposed. (shrink)

While a growing number of researchers are embracing Internet-based data collection methods, the adoption of Internet-based recruitment methods has been relatively slow. This may be because little is known regarding the relative strengths and weaknesses of different methods of Internet-based participant recruitment, nor how these different recruitment strategies impact on the data collected. These issues are addressed in this article with reference to a study comparing the effectiveness of three Internet-based strategies in recruiting cannabis users for an online study. Consideration (...) of the recruitment data leads us to recommend that researchers use multipronged Internet-based recruitment campaigns with appropriately detailed recruitment messages tailored to the population of interest and located carefully to ensure they reach the intended audience. Further, we suggest that building rapport directly with potential participants, or utilising derived rapport and implicit endorsements, is an important aspect of successful Internet-based participant recruitment strategies. (shrink)

Perceived trust is a key factor affecting the behavior to donate online. In order to further explore the factors and influencing mechanisms that affect the success of medical crowdfunding projects, this paper, combined with the Stimulus-Organism-Response theory, introduces the mediating variable of social presence and perceived differences in trust, and constructs a model of online users’ donation behavior to medical crowdfunding projects. We collected 437 valid samples through a questionnaire survey, and processed the data with SPSS and Amos software to (...) test and analyze the theoretical model. The research results showed that project description and user participation have a significant positive effect on social presence; project transparency and patient identity have a significant negative effect on perceived differences in trust; social presence has a positive effect on donation behavior, while the perceived difference in trust has a negative effect; social presence and perceived differences in trust play a mediating role respectively; there is no significant effect of patient status on social presence. This study further expands the application of social presence and perceived differences in trust in medical crowdfunding, and provides a theoretical basis for the success of medical crowdfunding projects. (shrink)

This article is based on the findings of a study that elicited the views of terminally ill patients ( n = 15), their carers ( n = 10) and bereaved carers ( n = 19) on the palliative care services they received. It explores the range of ethical issues revealed by the data. Although the focus of the original study was on community services, the participants frequently commented on all aspects of their experience. They described some of its positive and (...) negative aspects. Of concern was the reported lack of sensitivity to the role of the family among health professionals. The family, as carers, service users and advocates, represent a challenge to professional boundaries and the ethical norms of confidentiality and best interest. The accounts reveal the complexity of the ethical issues that characterize terminal care, issuing specific ethical challenges to nurses and other health professionals involved in this field. (shrink)

In line with public policies, the French Association of Paralyzed People (APF) promotes the social participation of people with disabilities. This objective can be achieved both through participation in activities and participation in decision-making processes. This dual categorisation raises questions about the compatibility of logics of support and program objectives across these two facets of participation. Arising from work conducted in the context of a PhD dissertation, this article is based on document analysis and 49 indepth (...) interviews with employees, volunteers, members and users of the APF. The results highlight a tension, from the point of view of professional supports, between participation in activities and participation in decision-making. For the sake of swift and tangible results, professionals are encouraged to offer activities and services to achieve faster and more effective social participation. However, this places them in a complex, or even inextricable, position when it comes to enhancing users’ participation in decision-making. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to identify and categorize frequent patterns describing interactions between users in social networks. We analyze a social network with relationships between users that evolve in time already identified. In our research, we discover patterns based on frequent interactions between groups of users. The patterns are described by the characteristics of these interactions, such as their reciprocity, or the relative difference between estimations of global influences of the users participating in the discussions. The modification of (...) the apriori algorithms is applied as one of the methods for pattern identification. The analyzed social network is built using the data set containing data from the Polish blog website salon24, which concerns mostly socio-political issues. (shrink)

Under the influence of concerns about sustainability, health system reforms have targeted institutional designs and have overlooked the role of socio-political factors like solidarity—a concept that is generally assumed to underpin the redistributive health system. The purpose of this research is to investigate users’ perceptions of the National Health Insurance as a system, their senses of solidarity and their views on the sustainability of the system in Taiwan. Using the descriptive ethics approach, qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with typical case (...) sampling of 17 participants in the Taipei Metropolitan. The framework approach was used to analyze the interview transcripts. The research finds that despite great differences between users’ perceptions of the NHI, most users could share a notion of mutual relationship among each other. Three types of reasons are used to justify the obligations of mutual aid imposed by the NHI. These reasons are embedded within divergent conceptions of solidarity. The research also finds that government’s performance, the stability of decision-making and users’ personal experiences engaging with the system are important conditions for the users’ supportive attitude toward the system. Solidarity is a plausible concept in sustaining a non-Western social health insurance such as Taiwan’s NHI. (shrink)

Various kinds of user and patient involvement are spreading in healthcare in most Western countries. The purpose of this study is to critically assess the actual conditions for patients’ involvement in healthcare practice in Greenland and to point to possibilities for development. Patients’ perspectives on their own conduct of everyday life with illness and their possibilities for participation when hospitalized are examined in relation to the conditions in a hospital setting dominated by biomedical practice. On a theoretical level, (...) it is argued that the concept of ‘participation’ is preferable to the concept ‘involvement’ in healthcare. The study shows that there are several interconnected areas for development: the structural frames of hospital practice, including professionals’ possibilities for handling patient participation, and the agency of the patients conducting their everyday lives when hospitalized. Consequences of the biomedical hegemony are discussed in relation to WHO ́s broader approach to disease, illness and health and the still existing postcolonial traces of power and hierarchy. Finally it is argued that patient participation during hospitalization will promote the patients ́ conduct of everyday life, the cultural knowledge of the professionals, and the democratization of the healthcare sector. Such changes might be connected to a more encompassing democratic societal development – in Greenland as well as globally. (shrink)

100 years after creating the Federal Reserve System (FED), whose legality and modus operandi remains questionable, there is time to rethink the national and also international payment system as a whole. The key element of existing economic relationships is the money that makes barter-free exchange possible. But monetary economics is only one aspect of more common political framework designed and established for retention of power. Such egoistic political interest proves its own relevancy and exerts ideological pressure on economic thought that (...) consequently forms economic and political institutions. In an effort to breake a rule, and to end the circuit of capitalistic self-fullfilling prophecy, a different economic model based on joint ownership (userization) is taken into consideration. This manuscript gives explanatory statements on userization and substantiates its advantageous social and environmental appropriateness. (shrink)

This article presents a study that investigates how anonymity influences user participation in an online question-and-answer platform [Quora ]. The study is one step in identifying hypotheses that can be used to address a research and design issue concerning the role of anonymity in online participation, particularly in sensitive situations where people are seeking social support. Based on the literature, we present a model that describes the factors that influence participation. These factors were used when analyzing (...) the answers to questions in the health category on Quora. The results of this study were completed by a survey asking Quora users about their use of the anonymity feature. The main result is that the only significant difference between anonymous and non-anonymous answers is that: with anonymous answers, social appreciation correlated with the answer’s length. (shrink)

As commercial virtual assistants become an integrated part of almost every smart device that we use on a daily basis, including but not limited to smartphones, speakers, personal computers, watches, TVs, and TV sticks, there are pressing questions that call for the study of how participants perceive commercial virtual assistants and what relational roles they assign to them. Furthermore, it is crucial to study which characteristics of commercial virtual assistants are perceived as important for establishing affective interaction with commercial virtual (...) assistants. By conducting 26 interviews and performing content analysis of the interview transcripts, this study investigates how the participants in the study perceive, engage, and interact with a variety of commercial virtual assistants. The results lead to better understanding of whether forms of attachment are established or if some sort of relationship is produced between humans and commercial virtual assistants. Key takeaways from our results indicate that, in their current state, the lack of humanlike characteristics in commercial virtual assistants prevents users from forming an emotional attachment to commercial virtual assistants, but this does not deter them from using anthropomorphic language to describe commercial virtual assistants. Yet, our results reveal that users expect commercial virtual assistants’ attributes to be more humanlike in the future. (shrink)

The online healthcare community has attained rapid development in recent years in which users are facilitated to exchange disease information and seek medical treatment. However, users’ motivation of participation in OHCs is still under investigation. Taking the perspective of user perceived value, this paper examined the impacts of different incentive levels including identity incentive, privilege incentive, and material incentive on user perceived value, user engagement, and user loyalty. To test the proposed hypotheses, the study adopted (...) the methods of the between-subjects experiment and questionnaire. Based on the data analysis by ANOVA and structural equation model, the results show there are significant differences in the impacts of different incentive levels on users’ perceived value. Most of the incentive measures exert significant effects on simple user hedonic value and community identity value. Accordingly, the research findings suggest that affective support value and self-health management value demonstrate more importance for user engagement and user loyalty. Therefore, OHCs should try to improve users’ affective support value and self-health management value which are the ultimate aims of the OHCs. Our study sheds some light on profoundly understanding the design of incentive mechanism of OHC and contributes to the research of OHC services. (shrink)

This article focuses on the Independent Communication Network as an instance of alternative media in Turkey. Throughout the study we define “alternative” media as non-dominant, counter-hegemonic media that prioritizes its distinct relationship with its audience. We report research based on in-depth interviews with the producers of the network’s online site “BIANET news” combined with focus group studies with communication students and women activists that are identified as the main audience segments of BIANET news by the newsmakers. By focusing on the (...) agents of both production and reception, this research enables us to examine participation and its form at both ends and to expound the problems of the conditions under which the user/audience can become the producer in Turkey. (shrink)

Involving service users and carers in clinical research can help to improve its quality and relevance. By defining the limits of ethical acceptability, improving research design and management, ensuring information for participants is accessible and ensuring the views of participants are properly respected, user involvement can also improve the ethical conduct of research. But research proposals with good quality user involvement have experienced difficulties in obtaining ethical approval. Not all Research Ethics Committees (RECs) fully understand the active role (...) of service user/carer researchers and the current review system can act as a barrier to involving service users and carers in research. This problem urgently needs to be addressed because it is actually in the interests of RECs to promote and support user involvement. This will require adapting the systems of ethical approval, providing further training for REC members and involving service users and carers in developing and implementing these changes. (shrink)

Recently, social Q&A communities have grown increasingly popular, serving as a primary platform for people to learn and share information. Nonetheless, fewer knowledge producers in these communities are significant than knowledge consumers. Thus, promoting users’ participation in knowledge sharing is a challenge for managers of social Q&A communities. Even though many scholars have studied factors influencing willingness to share knowledge, they tend to start with one theory and ignore the impact of several factors on behaviors. Thus, this manuscript presents (...) a multi-factor model based on three dimensions of technology, cognition, and security to explore the effects of the six factors of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms, perceived security, and perceived privacy in terms of the three knowledge sharing methods of browsing including like and favorite, publishing and replying, and to compare users’ willingness to use the three knowledge sharing methods. A total of 482 questionnaires were collected online, and the hypotheses were tested and analyzed using structural equation modeling. According to the results, the factors affecting different sharing methods are not the same. Perceived behavioral control and perceived security can have a significant influence on their willingness to browse, users’ willingness to publish and reply to posts is significantly influenced by their perception of behavioral control and subjective norms, while perceived usefulness also affects their willingness to respond, it can be seen that cognition is the most important factor affecting users’ knowledge sharing among the three dimensions. In addition, users’ willingness to browse is significantly greater than their willingness to reply, and their willingness to post is the lowest. (shrink)

Humanoid robots are projected to be mass marketed in the future in several fields of application. Today, however, user evaluations of humanoid robots are often based on mediated depictions rather than actual observations or interactions with a robot, which holds true not least for scientific user studies. People can be confronted with robots in various modes of presentation, among them 2D videos, 3D, i.e., stereoscopic videos, immersive Virtual Reality, or live on site. A systematic investigation into how such (...) differential modes of presentation influence user perceptions of a robot is still lacking. Thus, the current study systematically compares the effects of different presentation modes with varying immersive potential on user evaluations of a humanoid service robot. Participants observed an interaction between a humanoid service robot and an actor either on 2D or 3D video, via a virtual reality headset or live. We found support for the expected effect of the presentation mode on perceived immediacy. Effects regarding the degree of human likeness that was attributed to the robot were mixed. The presentation mode had no influence on evaluations in terms of eeriness, likability, and purchase intentions. Implications for empirical research on humanoid robots and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Communication between road users is a major key to coordinate movement and increase roadway safety. The aim of this work was to grasp how pedestrians (Experiment A), cyclists (Experiment B), and kick scooter users (Experiment C) sought to visually communicate with drivengers when they would face autonomous vehicles (AVs). In each experiment, participants (n= 462,n= 279, andn= 202, respectively) were asked to imagine themselves in described situations of encounters between a specific type of vulnerable road user (e.g., pedestrian) and (...) a human driver in an approaching car. The human driver state and the communicative means of the approaching car through an external Human-Machine Interface (eHMI) were manipulated between the scenarios. The participants were prompted to rate from “never” to “always” (6-point Likert scale) the frequency with which they would seek eye contact with the human driver either in order to express their willingness to cross or to make their effective decision to cross. Our findings revealed that a passive human driver in an AV with no visual checking on the road triggered a decline in vulnerable road users’ desire to communicate by eye contact (Experiments A–C). Moreover, the results of Experiment C demonstrated that the speed screen, the text message screen, and the vibrating mobile app eHMI signals diminished kick scooter users’ desire to communicate visually with the human driver, with some age-based differences. This suggested a better comprehension of the approaching car’s intentions by the kick scooter users, driven by the features of the eHMI. (shrink)

As a part of user experience, user emotion has rarely been studied in mobile libraries. Specifically, with the proposed emotional model in combination with the Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance Emotion Model and the Five Factor Model, we evaluate user emotions on the mobile library’s three IS features. An experience procedure with three tasks has been designed to collect data. 50 participants were enrolled, and they were asked to fill in questionnaires right after the experience. The correlations among the PAD emotions (...) were examined. Specifically, users have a low perception of pleasure, high perception of arousal, and low perception of dominance. However, these three emotional states were not always significantly correlated with each other. This study extends mobile library research by focusing on users’ emotional experience. Specifically, the detailed PAD emotions have been examined. This study provides a new approach for application developers and managers to evaluate the user experience of an application. (shrink)

Visual cortical prostheses (VCPs) have the potential to provide artificial vision for visually impaired persons. However, the nature and utility of this form of vision is not yet fully understood. Participants in the early feasibility trial for the Orion VCP were interviewed to gain insight into their experiences using artificial vision, their motivations for participation, as well as their expectations and assessments of risks and benefits. Analyzed using principles of grounded theory and an interpretive description approach, these interviews yielded (...) six themes, including: the irreducibility of benefit to device functionality, mixed expectations for short-term device functionality and long-term technological advancement of visual prostheses, and a broad range of risks, concerns, and fears related to trial participation. We argue that these narratives motivate a nuanced set of ethical considerations related to the complex relationship between functionality and benefit, the intersection of user experience with disability justice, and the import of expectations and indirect risks on consent. (shrink)

Sankary et al. (2022) report the results of an empirical study on research participant experiences of exiting research at the end of clinical trials of deep-brain-stimulation (DBS) and responsive n...

Wearable self-tracking devices capture multidimensional health data and offer several advantages including new ways of facilitating research. However, they also create a conflict between individual interests of avoiding privacy harms, and collective interests of assembling and using large health data sets for public benefits. While some scholars argue for transparency and accountability mechanisms to resolve this conflict, an average user is not adequately equipped to access and process information relating to the consequences of consenting to further uses of her (...) data. As an alternative, this paper argues for fiduciary relationships, which put deliberative demands on digital health data controllers to keep the interests of their data subjects at the forefront as well as cater to the contextual nature of privacy. These deliberative requirements ensure that users can engage in collective participation and share their health data at a lower risk of privacy harms. This paper also proposes a way to balance the flexible and open-ended nature of fiduciary law with the specific nature and scope of fiduciary duties that digital health data controllers should owe to their data subjects. (shrink)

Two terms, student privacy and Massive Open Online Courses, have received a significant amount of attention recently. Both represent interesting sites of change in entrenched structures, one educational and one legal. MOOCs represent something college courses have never been able to provide: universal access. Universities not wanting to miss the MOOC wave have started to build MOOC courses and integrate them into the university system in various ways. However, the design and scale of university MOOCs create tension for privacy laws (...) intended to regulate information practices exercised by educational institutions. Are MOOCs part of the educational institutions these laws and policies aim to regulate? Are MOOC users students whose data are protected by aforementioned laws and policies? Many university researchers and faculty members are asked to participate as designers and instructors in MOOCs but may not know how to approach the issues proposed. While recent scholarship has addressed the disruptive nature of MOOCs, student privacy generally, and data privacy in the K-12 system, we provide an in-depth description and analysis of the MOOC phenomenon and the privacy laws and policies that guide and regulate educational institutions today. We offer privacy case studies of three major MOOC providers active in the market today to reveal inconsistencies among MOOC platform and the level and type of legal uncertainty surrounding them. Finally, we provide a list of organizational questions to pose internally to navigate the uncertainty presented to university MOOC teams. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the exhibition of artworks in museums and galleries. Many have displayed their collection online. In this context, experiencing an online exhibition is essential for visitors to appreciate and understand the artwork. Compared with offline exhibitions, visitors to online exhibitions are often unable to communicate their experiences with other visitors. Therefore, in this study, by facilitating communication via Zoom call, we established a system that allows two people to visit the museum together through the Google (...) Arts and Culture website. To reduce the psychological distance between online visitors and help increase user engagement, we designed and developed a media device based on moiré pattern visualization of electroencephalography signals. The participants were divided into two groups to visit the online museum, communicating remotely through Zoom. The objective of this study was to test whether a real-time EEG signal visualization device could help close the psychological distance between participants and whether it could increase user engagement with the online exhibition. Participants were randomly assigned to either the normal online exhibition experience group or EEG signal visualization device group. Participants in the NOEE group experienced four online exhibitions together. The conditions for participants in the ESVD group remained the same, apart from adding a media device to enable them to visualize EEG signals. A total of 40 university students participated in this study. Independent samples t-tests revealed that participants in the ESVD group perceived a significantly closer psychological distance between themselves and the participants on the opposite side than those in the NOEE group. A one-way ANOVA revealed that participants experienced Task3 with significantly closer psychological distance assessments than Task1, Task2, and Task4. Repeated ANOVAs revealed that participants in the ESVD group had higher overall user engagement than those in the NOEE group, with marginal significance. Thus, this study shows that EEG visualization media devices can reduce the psychological distance between two participants when experiencing an online exhibition. Moreover, it can increase user engagement to some extent. (shrink)

Bike sharing, as an innovative travel mode featured by mobile internet and sharing, offers a new transport mode for short trips and has a huge positive impact on urban transportation and environmental protection. However, bike-sharing operators face some operational challenges, especially in sustainable development and profitability. Studies show that the customers’ willingness to pay is a key factor affecting bike-sharing companies’ operating conditions. Based on the theories of perceived value, this study conducts an empirical analysis of factors that affect bike-sharing (...) users’ willingness to pay for bike-sharing through measurement scales, user surveys, and structural equation models. We designed a five-point Likert-type scale containing 11 latent variables affecting willingness to pay and a total of 34 measurement items. We investigate bike-sharing users in China’s first and second-tier cities, with a total of 502 participants. The results show that perceived value, payment awareness, trust, and environmental awareness constitute key factors that directly affect bike-sharing users’ willingness to pay. And perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use, perceived cost, and perceived risk indirectly affect bike-sharing users’ willingness to pay. However, we found no significant effects of perceived entertainment on perceived value or word of mouth on willingness to pay. Our results are expected to provide theoretical and practical implications for bike-sharing programs. (shrink)

A previous study demonstrated that consonant recognition improved significantly in normal hearing listeners when useful frequency and time ranges were intensified by 6 dB. The goal of this study was to determine whether bilateral cochlear implant and bilateral hearing aid users experienced similar enhancement on consonant recognition with these intensified spectral and temporal cues in noise. In total, 10 BCI and 10 BHA users participated in a recognition test using 14 consonants. For each consonant, we used the frequency and time (...) ranges that are critical for its recognition, identified from normal hearing listeners. Then, a signal processing tool called the articulation-index gram was utilized to add a 6 dB gain to target frequency and time ranges. Consonant recognition was monaurally and binaurally measured under two signal processing conditions, unprocessed and intensified target frequency and time ranges at +5 and +10 dB signal-to-noise ratio and in quiet conditions. We focused on three comparisons between the BCI and BHA groups: AI-Gram benefits, enhancement in binaural benefits via the AI-Gram processing, and reduction in binaural interferences via the AI-Gram processing. The results showed that the mean AI-Gram benefit was significantly improved for the BCI and BHA groups. However, the mean binaural benefit was not improved after AI-Gram processing. Individual data showed wide ranges of the AI-Gram benefit and binaural benefit for both groups. Individual data also showed a decrease in binaural interference in both groups after AI-Gram processing. These results suggest that the frequency and time ranges, intensified by the AI-Gram processing, contribute to consonant enhancement for monaural and binaural listening and both BCI and BHA technologies. The intensified frequency and time ranges helped to reduce binaural interference but contributed less to the synergistic binaural benefit in consonant recognition for both groups. (shrink)

The acknowledgement of basic human vulnerability in relationships between mental health service users and professionals working in community-based mental health services (in Norway) was a starting point. The purpose was to explore how users of these services describe and make sense of their meetings with other people. The research is collaborative, with researcher and person with experienced-based knowledge cooperating through the research process. Data is derived from 19 interviews with 11 people who depend on mental health services for assistance at (...) least three times a week. Data is analysed according to the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Results confirm that reciprocity is fundamental for relationships, and that recognizing the individual entails personal involvement. The participants describe a struggle, and recognizing this struggle may help the professional to achieve a deeper understanding of the individual. (shrink)

The article draws attention to the unexploited potentials in using visuals within nursing research and especially in using visuals as data. Initially, the authors give a brief description of what is meant by visual research methods and present a short overview of the different approaches that are possible. Visual methodologies are situated within different theoretical frames, often within a postmodern framework. We present a study using a postmodern approach inspired by the works of Foucault. The study demonstrates the possibilities inherent (...) in using visuals as data by exemplifying how illustrations from health journals from Scandinavia reflect otherwise veiled and/or unconscious gendered attitudes on user participation. (shrink)

With the emergence of online communities, more and more people are participating in online technology communities to meet personalized learning needs. This study aims to investigate whether and how male and female users behave differently in online technology communities. Using text data from Python Technology Community, through LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) model, sentiment analysis and regression analysis, this paper reveals the different topics of male and female users in the online technology community, their sentimental tendencies and activity under different topics, (...) and their correlation and their mutual influence. The results show that: (1) Male users tend to provide information help, while female users prefer to participate in the topic of making friends and advertising. (2) When communicating in the technology community, male and female users mostly express positive emotions, but female users express positive emotions more frequently. (3) Different emotional tendencies of male and female users under different topics have different effects on their activity in the community. The activity of female users is more susceptible to emotional orientation. (shrink)

In this paper, we study the effects of using an algorithm-based risk assessment instrument (RAI) to support the prediction of risk of violent recidivism upon release. The instrument we used is a machine learning version of RiskCanvi used by the Justice Department of Catalonia, Spain. It was hypothesized that people can improve their performance on defining the risk of recidivism when assisted with a RAI. Also, that professionals can perform better than non-experts on the domain. Participants had to predict whether (...) a person who has been released from prison will commit a new crime leading to re-incarceration, within the next two years. This user study is done with (1) general participants from diverse backgrounds recruited through a crowdsourcing platform, (2) targeted participants who are students and practitioners of data science, criminology, or social work and professionals who work with RisCanvi. We also run focus groups with participants of the targeted study, including people who use RisCanvi in a professional capacity, to interpret the quantitative results. Among other findings, we observe that algorithmic support systematically leads to more accurate predictions from all participants, but that statistically significant gains are only seen in the performance of targeted participants with respect to that of crowdsourced participants. Among other comments, professional participants indicate that they would not foresee using a fully-automated system in criminal risk assessment, but do consider it valuable for training, standardization, and to fine-tune or double-check their predictions on particularly difficult cases. We found that the revised prediction by using a RAI increases the performance of all groups, while professionals show a better performance in general. And, a RAI can be considered for extending professional capacities and skills along their careers. (shrink)

This article analyzes recent cases of company-sponsored online experiments with unsuspecting users and discusses the ethical aspects of such experimentation. These cases illustrate a new type of online research where companies modify their algorithms to intentionally misinform or mislead users. Unlike typical forms of A/B testing, where two versions of the same website are presented to different users to evaluate interface changes, algorithm modification is a deeper form of testing where changes in program code induce user deception. Thus, we (...) propose to call this new approach C/D experimentation to distinguish it from the surface-level website evaluation associated with A/B testing. Three aspects raise ethical concerns regarding C/D experimentation: the absence of user consent to participate in research, the presence of intentional deception, and the complete lack of protection for human subjects who partake in privately funded behavioral research. Three recommendations are proposed to address these issues: (i) to develop an ethical code of conduct for subject protection shared by online companies, (ii) to include special provisions for C/D experiments in social networking platforms, and (iii) to create an independent user advocacy board to protect the rights of users who partake in online research conducted in the private sector. (shrink)

Major online platforms deploy an array of policies and data-driven legislative and enforcement mechanisms, transforming economic, social, and technological powers into political might. While platforms use private law to legitimate the exercise of this form of power, the novel political relations and tools have a tremendous public impact, both on individuals’ and communities’ political freedom and on the public sphere. Digital rights literature that tends to focus on particular rights, such as privacy or freedom of expression, deals less with the (...) implications of platforms’ emerging political authority. The article addresses this lacuna by (1) analyzing the quasi-sovereign power of platforms, (2) mapping how this form of power disrupts political freedom and the public sphere, (3) revealing a theoretical trap that blocks existing attempts to address the threats and (4) developing a bottom-up approach to resolve this bind. The article proposes the creation of “Users Unions” – legal structures that create affordance for users to have a collective voice within platforms’ corporate governance and decision-making mechanisms. The proposed structural reform could mitigate the power disparities between users and online platforms and assist in respecting, protecting, and fulfilling users’ political rights. (shrink)