Recent ics_inf_oapdeposits items

We Need Granular Sharing of De-Identified Data—But Will Patients Engage? Investigating Health System Leaders' and Patients' Perspectives on A Patient-Controlled Data-Sharing Platform

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Patient-controlled data-sharing systems are increasingly promoted as a way to empower patients with greater autonomy over their health data. Yet it remains unclear how different stakeholders, especially patients and health system leaders, perceive the benefits and challenges of enabling granular control over the sharing of de-identified medical data for research. To address this gap, we developed a high-fidelity prototype of a patient-controlled, web-based consent platform and conducted a two-phase mixed-methods study: semi-structured interviews with 16 health system leaders and a survey with 523 patient participants. While both groups appreciated the potential of such a platform to enhance transparency and autonomy, their views diverged in meaningful ways. Leaders viewed transparency and granular control through the lens of informed consent and institutional ethics, whereas patients interpreted these factors as safeguards against potential risks and uncertainties. Our findings...

Correction: The social amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception shaping mask wearing behavior: A longitudinal twitter analysis

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257428.].

Shaping HCI Research for Children's Care Ecosystem Involvement

Wed, 6 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Recent HCI research emphasizes the importance of considering children’s care ecosystems in the design of technologies, extending the focus beyond families to include teachers, peers, therapists, and institutions. While this ecosystem perspective opens opportunities for more inclusive and collaborative technologies, it also introduces challenges such as recruitment, power dynamics, reconciling diverse perspectives, and complex ethical considerations. This CHI 2026 workshop builds on prior community efforts at IDC 2023, CHI 2024, and IDC 2025. Its primary focus is on children’s care ecosystems, but we also welcome researchers working with other populations who wish to apply an ecosystem lens. The workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss opportunities, challenges, and methods, and to collaboratively articulate a research agenda for care ecosystem-centered HCI. Participants will engage in mapping and synthesis activities that produce care ecosystem maps...

FamilyBloom: Examining Ecologies of Collaboration in Family-Centered Health Tracking

Wed, 6 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Family health informatics tools can help support well-being with shared data tracking. Prior work typically focused on shared data review, but often in specific moments, like bedtime, or centered on caregiving of children or elderly members. To investigate how tracking can support mutual health collaboration between family members pervasively across daily contexts, we designed and deployed FamilyBloom, a glanceable smartwatch and home display system for mood and goal tracking. Twelve families with both neurotypical and ADHD members used FamilyBloom for three months on average. Our findings reveal how family-centered tracking created collaboration opportunities and tensions across multiple ecological systems: individual self-regulation, collaborations within family dynamics, involvement of care networks with varying trust levels, institutional school constraints and cultural stigma, and temporality of regular routines and crisis periods. We discuss an ecosystem-aware approach to...

Collaboration and Assistive Technology: Facilitating Joint Awareness for Noise Sensitivity

Wed, 6 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Existing research has explored various methods to support people with noise sensitivity (PWNS), from desensitization therapies to technological solutions. However, there is a gap in systems that identify and monitor characteristics of noise sensitivity experiences to help PWNS and their companions better understand their condition and make informed management decisions. To fill this gap, we developed AudioBuddy, an app with sensing and tracking features designed to promote awareness between PWNS and their companions. We tested AudioBuddy as a technological probe over a two-week field deployment. Our results show that AudioBuddy can support awareness of how sounds and environments influence the psychophysiological states of PWNS, aiding in understanding noise sensitivity experiences. Nonetheless, technical limitations impacted the depth of awareness participants could attain. We discuss challenges and opportunities for future systems to facilitate awareness among PWNS and their...

Understanding the Perspectives of Autistic Gamers through an Online Autistic Community and a Survey

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Autistic people often have an interest in and spend a substantial amount of time engaged with video games. Games can be supportive of their mental health and social needs and have been widely used for behavioral interventions among autistic people. However, the gaming experiences and preferences of autistic people themselves have not been thoroughly studied. To explore these experiences, we used a multi-method approach, analyzing game-related posts from a large autism-related subreddit and conducting a survey with 145 autistic people. The survey allowed us to further understand preferences around accessibility and sensory experiences, representation, and social experiences in communities that emerged in the Reddit posts. We found that games offering a sense of freedom, control, and creativity might be particularly appealing to autistic gamers. Discussions also emerged around what types of audio and visual sensory input were considered soothing and appropriate. Moreover, both the...

DermaVision

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Approximately 10 million people in the United States suffer from domestic violence annually, with 4 out of 10 cases affecting people of color. Traditional coloration guides remain the primary forensic strategy to evaluate bruise injuries, which are highly subjective and inaccurate for monitoring bruises. Additionally, this approach fails to consider bruise pigmentation in darker skin tones, and the results of this qualitative method vary by the medical professional conducting the inspection. There is a need for reliable, quantitative bruise information across all skin tones that can be utilized in both medicine and justice. DermaVision aims to address this need by designing a portable multi-spectral camera to quantitatively analyze bruises in diverse skin tones. By correlating the reflective spectra of a bruise with its age and healing progression, our camera will provide an accurate timeline for when bruises occur irrespective of patients’ skin color. This technology will assist...

The effectiveness of participatory near-peer digital media literacy interventions

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The impacts of digital media literacy (DML) interventions are mixed, perhaps due to adult-driven curricula and misalignment with youth’s needs. We tested how student-led, developmentally-informed DML education could leverage youth’s expertise. Using Youth Participatory Action Research and near-peer mentoring, high school students (n = 31) designed and taught digital literacy interventions in two areas (1) digital communication (i.e. group-chats) and (2) persuasive design (e.g. features such as infinite scroll), resulting in significant increases in knowledge of digital communication conflict prevention and remediation strategies, along with identification and knowledge of persuasive design for 79 middle and 31 high school students. High schoolers also reported more feelings of agency and research knowledge. These findings indicate that making DML interventions developmentally aligned might be key for supporting youth in the digital age.

Video Games and Learning

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The interdisciplinary field of the learning sciences encompasses educational psychology, cognitive science, computer science, and anthropology, among other disciplines. The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, first published in 2006, is the definitive introduction to this innovative approach to teaching, learning, and educational technology. In this significantly revised third edition, leading scholars incorporate the latest research to provide seminal overviews of the field. This research is essential in developing effective innovations that enhance student learning - including how to write textbooks, design educational software, prepare effective teachers, and organize classrooms. The chapters illustrate the importance of creating productive learning environments both inside and outside school, including after school clubs, libraries, and museums. The Handbook has proven to be an essential resource for graduate students, researchers, consultants, software designers,...

Situating Big Data

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Lacking a digital crystal ball, we cannot predict the future of education or the precise instructional role games will have going forward. Yet we can safely say that games will play some role in the future of K-12 and higher education, and members of the games community will have to choose between being passive observers or active, progressive contributors to the complex and often political process of weaving together pedagogy, technology, and culture. This will involve agreeing that games—or, more specifically, game mechanics and the engagement in joyful learning that they engender—are not only critical for shaping online and classroom instruction but also the evolution of schooling as a whole. Likewise, it will involve a hard push beyond questions like “Are video games ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for education?” and “Are games ‘better’ for all students than traditional face-to-face teaching” to unpack how game experiences vary with individual learner goals as an interaction with the parameters...

Editorial: Extremism in games

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Editorial: Extremism in games

PIKACHU: (est. 1996) Franchise: Pokémon Developer: Game Freak

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

PIKACHU: (est. 1996) Franchise: Pokémon Developer: Game Freak

When AI Writes Back: Ethical Considerations by Physicians on AI-Drafted Patient Message Replies.

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The increasing burden of responding to large volumes of patient messages has become a key factor contributing to physician burnout. Generative AI (GenAI) shows great promise to alleviate this burden by automatically drafting patient message replies. The ethical implications of this use have however not been fully explored. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a qualitative interview study with 21 physicians who participated in a GenAI pilot program. We found that notable ethical considerations expressed by the physician participants included oversight as ethical safeguard, transparency and patient consent of AI use, patient misunderstanding of AI's role, and patient privacy and data security as prerequisites. Additionally, our findings suggest that the physicians believe the ethical responsibility of using GenAI in this context primarily lies with users, not with the technology. These findings may provide useful insights into guiding the future implementation of GenAI in...

Perceptions of AI-Driven EdTech: Nationwide Survey and Focus Group Insights from Key End Users

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Schoolchildren in the United States are increasingly exposed to educational technologies (EdTech), many of which are or will be infused with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Despite this growing integration, there is limited understanding of the current perceptions and attitudes toward EdTech with AI among parents, teachers, and teens. To address this gap, we conducted a mixed-method study involving an A/B experiment through an online survey with 3,051 participants and complemented by focus group discussions with 80 participants. Providing a comprehensive snapshot of AI perception in education in 2024, our findings indicate that participants, particularly teachers, may hold more negative perceptions of our AI-powered EdTech mock-up compared to the one powered by human tutors. Based on these insights, we discuss the future of EdTech regarding the current perceptions. This research contributes to an empirical understanding of the perceptions and attitudes toward AI in K-12 education,...

What Remotely Matters? Understanding Individual, Team, and Organizational Factors in Remote Work at Scale

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Although knowledge workers are increasingly able to adopt remote and hybrid working arrangements and work productively, many organizations continue to question the effectiveness of remote work and focus on its concerns and challenges. Previous CSCW research shows that remote workers have limited awareness of other workers, require more explicit coordination, and feel excluded from in-person colleagues. Research also shows that adopting work practices and technologies that are remote work-friendly can offset many of these challenges. Identifying which effective practices and challenges are most helpful or hurtful to remote workers-and how workplace attributes (e.g., team structure; communication frequency; tool use) affect them-could strengthen organizations' strategies and policies for remote work. Through a theoretically-informed survey of 1,526 U.S. knowledge workers, we find many factors prior research has argued as essential to remote work, such as knowing your teammates personally,...

Understanding How Personal Activities Are Shared In Short-form Videos

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Sharing activities that people do in everyday life, such as physical activity, health management, or hobbies, help people receive benefits like social support and positive self-presentation. Short-form videos present new opportunities for activity-sharing, which has traditionally been studied in static contexts like text- and image-sharing. We therefore aim to understand what information people incorporate into short-form activity videos, and how. We qualitatively analyzed 420 short-form activity videos on TikTok across three domains: running, studying, and sketching. We found people often present information before, during, and after activities, developing strategies for qualitatively and quantitatively incorporating activity-relevant information in each. We also uncover practices for aligning the sharing of activity-relevant information with the nature of short-form videos, such as modifying broader-scale goals into video-scale goals. We further discuss design opportunities...

Understanding Mental Wellbeing and Tools for Support with Taiwanese Emerging Adults: An Eastern Cultural Perspective

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Understanding Mental Wellbeing and Tools for Support with Taiwanese Emerging Adults: An Eastern Cultural Perspective

'It's a spectrum': Exploring Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness in Software Development Processes and Tools

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The recent surge of research on software developer mental health challenges highlights the importance and urgency of studying solutions to support developer wellbeing. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) offers a valuable framework for exploring wellbeing at work, emphasizing the need to satisfy three psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This paper presents an interview study with 31 software developers in the United States that uses SDT as a guide, exploring how these three needs are perceived and influenced in the work of software developers. We identify specific factors and processes at work and work tools and designs that impact developers' psychological needs and satisfaction. Results from our study can help design targeted solutions to satisfy developers psychological needs, which indirectly support developer wellbeing. This paper highlights the necessity of healthy work cultures in software development and presents design considerations for creating tools...

Approaches for tailoring between-session mental health therapy activities

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mental health activities conducted by patients between therapy sessions (or "therapy homework") are a component of addressing anxiety and depression. However, to be effective, therapy homework must be tailored to the client's needs to address the numerous barriers they encounter in everyday life. In this study, we analyze how therapists and clients tailor therapy homework to their client's needs. We interviewed 13 therapists and 14 clients about their experiences tailoring and engaging in therapy homework. We identify criteria for tailoring homework, such as client skills, discomfort, and external barriers. We present how homework gets adapted, such as through changes in difficulty or by identifying alternatives. We discuss how technologies can better use client information for personalizing mental health interventions, such as adapting to client barriers, adjusting homework to these barriers, and creating a safer environment to support discomfort.

Preparing and Experiencing Food During Life Events: Implications for Technology Supporting Social and Value Changes

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Preparing and Experiencing Food During Life Events: Implications for Technology Supporting Social and Value Changes

Conducting Research at the Intersection of HCI and Health: Building and Supporting Teams with Diverse Expertise to Increase Public Health Impact

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Research at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI) and health is increasingly done by collaborative cross-disciplinary teams. The need for cross-disciplinary teams arises from the interdisciplinary nature of the work itself-with the need for expertise in a health discipline, experimental design, statistics, and computer science, in addition to HCI. This work can also increase innovation, transfer of knowledge across fields, and have a higher impact on communities. To succeed at a collaborative project, researchers must effectively form and maintain a team that has the right expertise, integrate research perspectives and work practices, align individual and team goals, and secure funding to support the research. However, successfully operating as a team has been challenging for HCI researchers, and can be limited due to a lack of training, shared vocabularies, lack of institutional incentives, support from funding agencies, and more; which significantly inhibits their...

Transfer Learning in Animal Facial Expression Recognition: A Comparative Study Using Human Pre-Trained Models

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Transfer Learning in Animal Facial Expression Recognition: A Comparative Study Using Human Pre-Trained Models

Creative Problem-Solving: A Study With Blind and Low Vision Software Professionals

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Background: Software engineering requires both technical skills and creative problem-solving. Blind and low-vision software professionals (BLVSPs) encounter numerous workplace challenges, including inaccessible tools and collaboration hurdles with sighted colleagues. Objective: This study explores the innovative strategies employed by BLVSPs to overcome these accessibility barriers, focusing on their custom solutions and the importance of supportive communities. Methodology: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 BLVSPs and used refexive thematic analysis to identify key themes. Results: Findings reveal that BLVSPs are motivated to develop creative and adaptive solutions, highlighting the vital role of collaborative communities in fostering shared problem-solving. Conclusion: For BLVSPs, creative problem-solving is essential for navigating inaccessible work environments, in contrast to sighted peers, who pursue optimization. This study enhances understanding of how BLVSPs...

Investigating the effects of housing instability on depression, anxiety, and mental health treatment in childhood and adolescence.

Fri, 6 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Housing instability is a widespread phenomenon in the United States. In combination with other social determinants of health, housing instability affects children's overall health and development. Drawing on data from the 2022 National Survey of Children's Health, we employed multiple logistic regression models to understand how sociodemographic factors, especially housing instability, affect mental health outcomes and treatment access for youth aged 6-17 years. Our results show that youth facing housing instability have a higher likelihood of experiencing anxiety (OR: 1.42, p<0.001) and depression (OR: 1.57, p<0.001). Furthermore, youth experiencing both mental health conditions and housing instability are significantly less likely to receive mental health services in the past year, indicating the substantial barriers they face in accessing mental health care. Based on our findings, we highlight opportunities for digital mental health interventions to provide children experiencing...

Using Large Language Models for sentiment analysis of health-related social media data: empirical evaluation and practical tips.

Fri, 6 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Health-related social media data generated by patients and the public provide valuable insights into patient experiences and opinions toward health issues such as vaccination and medical treatments. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods to analyze such data, however, often requires high-quality annotations that are difficult to obtain. The recent emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as the Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) has shown promising performance on a variety of NLP tasks in the health domain with little to no annotated data. However, their potential in analyzing health-related social media data remains underexplored. In this paper, we report empirical evaluations of LLMs (GPT-3.5-Turbo, FLAN-T5, and BERT-based models) on a common NLP task of health-related social media data: sentiment analysis for identifying opinions toward health issues. We explored how different prompting and fine-tuning strategies affect the performance of LLMs on social...

Comparing the quality of human and ChatGPT feedback of students’ writing

Wed, 21 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Background: Offering students formative feedback on their writing is an effective way to facilitate writing development. Recent advances in AI (i.e., ChatGPT) may function as an automated writing evaluation tool, increasing the amount of feedback students receive and diminishing the burden on teachers to provide frequent feedback to large classes. Aims: We examined the ability of generative AI (ChatGPT) to provide formative feedback. We compared the quality of human and AI feedback by scoring the feedback each provided on secondary student essays. We scored the degree to which feedback (a) was criteria-based, (b) provided clear directions for improvement, (c) was accurate, (d) prioritized essential features, and (e) used a supportive tone. Sample: 200 pieces of human-generated formative feedback and 200 pieces of AI-generated formative feedback for the same essays. Methods: We examined whether ChatGPT and human feedback differed in quality for the whole sample, for compositions...

Incorporating generative AI into a writing-intensive undergraduate course without off-loading learning

Wed, 21 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As generative AI becomes ubiquitous, writers must decide if, when, and how to incorporate generative AI into their writing process. Educators must sort through their role in preparing students to make these decisions in a quickly evolving technological landscape. We created an AI-enabled writing tool that provides scaffolded use of a large language model as part of a research study on integrating generative AI into an upper division STEM writing-intensive course. Drawing on decades of research on integrating digital tools into instruction and writing research, we discuss the framework that drove our initial design considerations and instructional resources. We then share our findings from a year of design-based implementation research during the 2023–2024 academic year. Our original instruction framework identified the need for students to understand, access, prompt, corroborate, and incorporate the generative AI use effectively. In this paper, we explain the need for students...

The affordances and contradictions of AI-generated text for writers of english as a second or foreign language

Wed, 21 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The affordances and contradictions of AI-generated text for writers of english as a second or foreign language

Mind reading?

Wed, 21 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mind reading?

“ChatGPT seems too good to be true”: College students’ use and perceptions of generative AI

Wed, 21 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This study investigates how U.S. college students (N = 1001) perceive and use ChatGPT, exploring its relationship with societal structures and student characteristics. Regression results show that gender, age, major, institution type, and institutional policy significantly influenced ChatGPT use for general, writing, and programming tasks. Students in their 30s–40s were more likely to use ChatGPT frequently than younger students. Non-native English speakers were more likely than native speakers to use ChatGPT frequently for writing, suggesting its potential as a support tool for language learners. Institutional policies allowing ChatGPT use predicted higher use of ChatGPT. Thematic analysis and natural language processing of open-ended responses revealed varied attitudes towards ChatGPT, with some fearing institutional punishment for using ChatGPT and others confident in their appropriate use of ChatGPT. Computer science majors expressed concerns about job displacement due to...

Can AI provide useful holistic essay scoring?

Wed, 21 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Researchers have sought for decades to automate holistic essay scoring. Over the years, these programs have improved significantly. However, accuracy requires significant amounts of training on human-scored texts—reducing the expediency and usefulness of such programs for routine uses by teachers across the nation on non-standardized prompts. This study analyzes the output of multiple versions of ChatGPT scoring of secondary student essays from three extant corpora and compares it to quality human ratings. We find that the current iteration of ChatGPT scoring is not statistically significantly different from human scoring; substantial agreement with humans is achievable and may be sufficient for low-stakes, formative assessment purposes. However, as large language models evolve additional research will be needed to continue to assess their aptitude for this task as well as determine whether their proximity to human scoring can be improved through prompting or training.

myAURA: a personalized health library for epilepsy management via knowledge graph sparsification and visualization

Thu, 8 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

OBJECTIVES: Report the development of the patient-centered myAURA application and suite of methods designed to aid epilepsy patients, caregivers, and clinicians in making decisions about self-management and care. MATERIALS AND METHODS: myAURA rests on an unprecedented collection of epilepsy-relevant heterogeneous data resources, such as biomedical databases, social media, and electronic health records (EHRs). We use a patient-centered biomedical dictionary to link the collected data in a multilayer knowledge graph (KG) computed with a generalizable, open-source methodology. RESULTS: Our approach is based on a novel network sparsification method that uses the metric backbone of weighted graphs to discover important edges for inference, recommendation, and visualization. We demonstrate by studying drug-drug interaction from EHRs, extracting epilepsy-focused digital cohorts from social media, and generating a multilayer KG visualization. We also present our patient-centered design...

The Dilemma of Building Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Solutions For Workplace Accessibility

Wed, 7 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Dilemma of Building Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Solutions For Workplace Accessibility

Understanding the Career Mobility of Blind and Low Vision Software Professionals

Wed, 7 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Context: Scholars in the software engineering (SE) research community have investigated career advancement in the software industry. Research topics have included how individual and external factors can impact career mobility of software professionals, and how gender affects career advancement. However, the community has yet to look at career mobility from the lens of accessibility. Specifically, there is a pressing need to illuminate the factors that hinder the career mobility of blind and low vision software professionals (BLVSPs). Objective: This study aims to understand aspects of the workplace that impact career mobility for BLVSPs. Methods: We interviewed 26 BLVSPs with different roles, years of experience, and industry sectors. Thematic analysis was used to identify common factors related to career mobility. Results: We found four factors that impacted the career mobility of BLVSPs: (1) technical challenges, (2) colleagues' perceptions of BLVSPs, (3) BLVSPs' own perceptions...

Introduction to the Special Issue on Creativity in Software Engineering

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction to the Special Issue on Creativity in Software Engineering

Physician documentation matters. Using natural language processing to predict mortality in sepsis

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Background/objective: Sepsis remains without good outcome prediction. Technological advances, specifically, natural language processing (NLP), has an opportunity to approach sepsis mortality prediction in a novel way. Methods: Using the MIMIC III dataset, patients diagnosed with sepsis from 2008 to 2013 had physician progress notes analyzed using NLP. Researchers utilized concepts from analysis to build a model to predict for in-hospital-mortality, using notes in the first 24 hours of a patient admission. This model was retrospectively validated on septic admissions to University of California Irvine Medical Center (UCIMC) from 2013 to 2018 and compared to SOFA and qSOFA. Results: An 80-concept model was developed and validated on 7117 admissions to UCIMC. For severe sepsis, an Area Under Curve or AUC of 0.687 (95% CI 0.618-0.748) was demonstrated which was greater than SOFA at 0.571 (0.497-0.643). Additionally, for simple sepsis the model demonstrated an AUC of 0.696 (0.649-0.738)...

Modifying Curriculum for Novice Computational Thinking Elementary Teachers and English Language Learners

Wed, 9 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The demand for computational thinking (CT) problem solving abilities surge as every aspect of life becomes more dependent on complex digital technologies. Just as in math and language, a strong CT foundation needs to be established in early education in order for students to develop an instinctive CT perspective of the world. The urgent demand for CT instruction in elementary school quickly draws attention to the shortage of elementary school-level teachers qualified and interested in CT. Additionally, with a commitment to equity in the United States education system and knowledge of the high percentage of English language learning (ELL) students in schools, the obligation to create curricula that will provide access to CT knowledge, skills, and practices for elementary-level ELL students is loudly apparent. In response to these two needs, our team has adapted existing Scratch-based CT curriculum to support classroom teachers with minimal CT experience and to be more accessible...

University students describe how they adopt AI for writing and research in a general education course

Fri, 4 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

University students have begun to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in many different ways in their undergraduate education, some beneficial to their learning, and some simply expedient to completing assignments with as little work as possible. This exploratory qualitative study examines how undergraduate students used AI in a large General Education course on sustainability and technology at a research university in the United States in 2023. Thirty-nine students documented their use of AI in their final course project, which involved analyzing conceptual networks connecting core sustainability concepts. Through iterative qualitative coding, we identified key patterns in students’ AI use, including higher-order writing tasks (understanding complex topics, finding evidence), lower-order writing tasks (revising, editing, proofreading), and other learning activities (efficiency enhancement, independent research). Students primarily used AI to improve communication of their original...

Hate speech and hate-based harassment in online games

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The proliferation of hate speech and hate-based harassment has become a worryingly common trend in online gaming spaces, with researchers fearing that it could lead to the normalization of hateful behaviors on such platforms. However, little research has been done assessing the frequency of such events and how players respond to their occurrence. In this study, we conduct a large-scale survey (n = 602) asking players to reflect on their experiences and responses to hateful conduct in online games. We examine their perspectives when faced with hate speech and harassment from the role of a bystander, a victim, or the perpetrator. We then compare these responses with various demographic factors and personality traits to determine which variables might predict such conduct to occur and persist over time. Our findings suggest that hate speech and harassment are more accepted by those who are not directly targeted, potentially leaving those players as the remaining few to continue...

Intergenerational Effects of a Family Cash Transfer on the Home Environment

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

OBJECTIVE: A natural experiment that provided income supplements to families has been associated with beneficial outcomes for children that persisted into adulthood. The children in this study are now adults, and many are parents. METHOD: The study builds on the longitudinal, representative Great Smoky Mountains study conducted from 1993 to 2020. At follow-up in their late 30s, 1,094 of the 1,348 living participants (81.2%) were assessed. Of these participants (67.6%), 739 were parents. A tribe in the area implemented a cash transfer program of approximately $5,000 annually per person to every tribal member based on the profits received from operating a casino. Ten aspects of the home environment of participants were assessed (eg, family chaos, substance use, and food insecurity) as well as a composite measure across all home environment indicators. The proposed analyses were preregistered (https://osf.io/ex638). RESULTS: Of the 739 parents assessed, 192 (26.0%) were American...

Hybrid 3D Package with RDL and Laminate Substrate for Ultra-Thin and High-Bandwidth Applications

Wed, 5 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In this work, a hybrid 3D package combining a redistribution layer (RDL) and laminate substrate layer for ultra-thin and high-bandwidth mobile applications are discussed and demonstrated. The motivation behind this hybrid 3D package structure was leveraging the advantages of high density RDL layer and advanced laminate substrate layer in one package to optimize package features or performance in bandwidth, package height, assembly manufacturing and package level as well as board level reliability to each specific industry requirement. For demonstration purposes, a 12.5× 12.5-mm hybrid 3D packages combining a high density RDL and advanced laminate-substrate layer were designed and manufactured. In this demonstration, the 12.5× 12.5-mm hybrid 3D package showed 395 ? m package height including ball grid array (BGA) solder ball height and package warpage of $+64 ? m (in crying mode) at 25°C and-81 ? m (in smile mode) at 260°C. The demonstration package passed package level reliability...

Chip-Last HDFO (High-Density Fan-Out) Interposer-PoP

Wed, 5 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Interposer Package-on-Package (PoP) technology was developed and has been in very high-volume production over the last several years for high-end mobile application processors (APs). This is due to its advantages of good package design flexibility, controllable package warpage at room temperature (25°C) and high temperature (260°C), reduced assembly manufacturing cycle time and chip-last assembly manufacturing availability. To date, the laminate-substrate based interposer-PoP has been employed for high-end mobile APs with very high-volume production. Recently, this interposer-PoP design has faced some technical limitations including the need to reduce: top and bottom routing layer thickness, copper (Cu) trace line/space and via size for next generation mobile APs. These reductions may require ultra-thin package z-height and high-bandwidth bottom and top routing layers. To address these challenges, a new interposer-PoP with High-Density Fan-Out (HDFO) redistribution layer (RDL)...

Multimodal Pain Recognition in Postoperative Patients: Machine Learning Approach

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

BACKGROUND: Acute pain management is critical in postoperative care, especially in vulnerable patient populations that may be unable to self-report pain levels effectively. Current methods of pain assessment often rely on subjective patient reports or behavioral pain observation tools, which can lead to inconsistencies in pain management. Multimodal pain assessment, integrating physiological and behavioral data, presents an opportunity to create more objective and accurate pain measurement systems. However, most previous work has focused on healthy subjects in controlled environments, with limited attention to real-world postoperative pain scenarios. This gap necessitates the development of robust, multimodal approaches capable of addressing the unique challenges associated with assessing pain in clinical settings, where factors like motion artifacts, imbalanced label distribution, and sparse data further complicate pain monitoring. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to develop and evaluate...

Exploring GenAI in Software Development: Insights from a Case Study in a Large Brazilian Company

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Recent progress in Generative AI (GenAI) impacts different software engineering (ES) tasks in software development cycle, e.g., from code generation to program repair, and presents a promising avenue for enhancing the productivity of development teams. GenAI based tools have the potential to change the way we develop software and have received attention from industry and academia. However, although some studies have been addressing the adoption of these tools in the software industry, little is known about what are developers' real experiences in a professional software development context, aside the hype. In this paper, we explore the use of GenAI tools by a large Brazilian media company that has teams developing software inhouse. We observed practitioners for six weeks and used online surveys at different time points to understand their expectations, perceptions, and concerns about these tools in their daily work. In addition, we automatically collected quantitative data from...

On meetings involving remote software teams: A systematic literature review

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Context: The adoption of remote work models and the global nature of software projects have significantly transformed collaboration and communication within the software development industry. Remote meetings have become a common means of collaboration for software development teams. Objective: This study seeks to enhance our understanding of remote meeting practices in software teams. It identifies the benefits of remote meetings, the problems associated with remote meetings, tools used to facilitate remote meetings and provides recommended good practices. The study employs a systematic literature review to assist remote teams in improving their meeting practices and identifying areas for future research. Methods: We conducted a systematic literature review that involved searching multiple databases and employing quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques on the identified set of studies to answer our research questions. Results: The search yielded 30 papers offering valuable...

The Impact of Generative AI on Creativity in Software Development: A Research Agenda

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As GenAI becomes embedded in developer toolchains and practices, and routine code is increasingly generated, human creativity will be increasingly important for generating competitive advantage. This paper uses the McLuhan tetrad alongside scenarios of how GenAI may disrupt software development more broadly, to identify potential impacts GenAI may have on creativity within software development. The impacts are discussed along with a future research agenda comprising five connected themes that consider how individual capabilities, team capabilities, the product, unintended consequences, and society. can be affected.

Ma11y: A Mutation Framework for Web Accessibility Testing

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Despite the availability of numerous automatic accessibility testing solutions, web accessibility issues persist on many websites. Moreover, there is a lack of systematic evaluations of the efficacy of current accessibility testing tools. To address this gap, we present the first mutation analysis framework, called Ma11y, designed to assess web accessibility testing tools. Ma11y includes 25 mutation operators that intentionally violate various accessibility principles and an automated oracle to determine whether a mutant is detected by a testing tool. Evaluation on real-world websites demonstrates the practical applicability of the mutation operators and the framework's capacity to assess tool performance. Our results demonstrate that the current tools cannot identify nearly 50% of the accessibility bugs injected by our framework, thus underscoring the need for the development of more effective accessibility testing tools. Finally, the framework's accuracy and performance attest...

The Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance of Digital Mental Health Interventions for College Students: A Systematic Review

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Purpose of ReviewWe evaluated the impact of digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) for college students. We organized findings using the RE-AIM framework to include reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance.Recent FindingsWe conducted a systematic literature review of recent findings from 2019–2024. Our search identified 2,701 articles, of which 95 met inclusion criteria. In the reach domain, student samples were overwhelmingly female and White. In the effectiveness domain, over 80% of DMHIs were effective or partially effective at reducing their primary outcome. In the adoption domain, studies reported modest uptake for DMHIs. In the implementation and maintenance domains, studies reported high adherence rates to DMHI content. While recruitment methods were commonly reported, adaptations and costs of implementation and maintenance were rarely reported.SummaryDMHIs for college students are effective for many psychological outcomes. Future work should...

Leveraging Feedback From Families of Children With Autism to Create Digital Support for Service Navigation: Descriptive Study.

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

BACKGROUND: It is difficult for families to navigate and access services for their children with autism. Barriers to service access are compounded among families from low-resourced backgrounds. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of our study was to explore the development of an app to facilitate access to services among families of children with autism from low-resourced backgrounds. Our specific aims were to explore feedback from an advisory board about the app and to explore feedback from navigators about the app. METHODS: Via a multistage codevelopment process, we elicited feedback from 5 key parties: the research team, a community organization, the app development team, the advisory board, and family navigators. Collectively, 36 individuals provided feedback about the development of the app via individual interviews, focus groups, observations, and surveys. The key features of the app included a dashboard showing the service needs of the family and related resources, a messaging feature...

Adolescents’ Digital Technology Use, Emotional Dysregulation, and Self-Esteem: No Evidence of Same-Day Linkages

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Concerns regarding the potential negative impacts of digital technology use on youth mental health and well-being are high. However, most studies have several methodological limitations: relying on cross-sectional designs and retrospective reports, assessing technology use as an omnibus construct, and focusing on between- instead of within-person comparisons. This study addresses these limitations by prospectively following young adolescents (n = 388) over a 14-day ecological momentary assessment study to test whether adolescents’ digital technology use is linked with self-reported emotional dysregulation and self-esteem and whether these relationships are stronger for adolescent girls than boys. We found no evidence that adolescents experienced higher emotional dysregulation (b = − .02; p = .07) and lower self-esteem (b = .004; p = .32) than they normally do on days where they use more technology than they normally do (within-person). Adolescents with higher average daily technology...

Self‐regulation and comprehension in shared reading: The moderating effects of verbal interactions and E‐book discussion prompts

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The study examined how children's self-regulation skills measured by the strengths and weaknesses of ADHD symptoms and normal behavior rating are associated with story comprehension and how verbal engagement and e-book discussion prompts moderate this relation. Children aged 3-7 (N = 111, 50% female, Chinese as first language) read an interactive Chinese-English bilingual story e-book with or without discussion prompts twice with their parents (2020-2021). Results demonstrated that the lower children's self-regulation skills, the more they struggled with story comprehension. Critically, our data suggest that embedding e-book discussion prompts and more verbalization in English can mitigate this negative association for children with inattention/hyperactivity. These findings have critical implications for future e-book design, interventions, and home reading practice for children with inattention/hyperactivity and those at risk for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Reconciling the contrasting narratives on the environmental impact of large language models

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The recent proliferation of large language models (LLMs) has led to divergent narratives about their environmental impacts. Some studies highlight the substantial carbon footprint of training and using LLMs, while others argue that LLMs can lead to more sustainable alternatives to current practices. We reconcile these narratives by presenting a comparative assessment of the environmental impact of LLMs vs. human labor, examining their relative efficiency across energy consumption, carbon emissions, water usage, and cost. Our findings reveal that, while LLMs have substantial environmental impacts, their relative impacts can be dramatically lower than human labor in the U.S. for the same output, with human-to-LLM ratios ranging from 40 to 150 for a typical LLM (Llama-3-70B) and from 1200 to 4400 for a lightweight LLM (Gemma-2B-it). While the human-to-LLM ratios are smaller with regard to human labor in India, these ratios are still between 3.4 and 16 for a typical LLM and between...

Evaluation of a pilot implementation of a digital cognitive behavioral therapy platform for isolated older adults in county mental health services

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Background: Technology-enabled services (TESs) have the potential to increase access to mental healthcare. However, little research has focused on how TESs can be integrated into publicly funded service settings. As part of the state-wide Help@Hand project, Marin County conducted a pilot implementation of myStrength, a digital cognitive behavioral therapy platform, to explore its potential to reduce loneliness among isolated older adults. We evaluated the pilot impact using the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework. Method: A single-site 6-month pilot implementation recruited English (n = 15) and Spanish-speaking (n = 15) isolated older adults who received a digital literacy course followed by 8 weeks of myStrength access and human support. We evaluated factors related to reach, effectiveness, adoption, and implementation using the perspectives of users and County staff. Descriptive statistics were used to examine reach,...

Mother-child and father-child “serve and return” interactions at 9 months: Associations with children’s language skills at 18 and 24 months

Sat, 9 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Infants learn language through the back-and-forth interactions with their parents where they "serve" by uttering sounds, gesturing, or looking and parents "return" in prompt (i.e., close in time) and meaningful (i.e., semantically relevant to the object of interest) ways. In a sample of 9-month-old infants (n = 148) and their mothers and fathers (n = 296 parents) from ethnically and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds, we examined the associations between "serve and return" (SR) parent-child interactions and children's language skills at 18 and 24 months. We also examined the moderation effects between maternal and paternal SR interactions on language outcomes. SR interactions were transcribed and coded from videotaped parent-child toy play activities during home visits. We report three findings. First, mothers who provided more meaningful responses to their child's serves at 9 months had children with higher expressive language scores at 18 months. Second,...

Intergenerational effects of a casino-funded family transfer program on educational outcomes in an American Indian community

Tue, 5 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Cash transfer policies have been widely discussed as mechanisms to curb intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic disadvantage. In this paper, we take advantage of a large casino-funded family transfer program introduced in a Southeastern American Indian Tribe to generate difference-in-difference estimates of the link between children’s cash transfer exposure and third grade math and reading test scores of their offspring. Here we show greater math (0.25 standard deviation [SD], p =.0148, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 0.05, 0.45) and reading (0.28 SD, p = .0066, 95% CI: 0.08, 0.49) scores among American Indian students whose mother was exposed ten years longer than other American Indian students to the cash transfer during her childhood (or relative to the non-American Indian student referent group). Exploratory analyses find that a mother’s decision to pursue higher education and delay fertility appears to explain some, but not all, of the relation between cash transfers...

Electronic Bridge to Mental Health for College Students: A Randomized Controlled Intervention Trial

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

OBJECTIVE: Suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students in the United States, and the percentage of students reporting suicidal thoughts is increasing. Nevertheless, many students at risk do not seek mental health (MH) services. This randomized controlled trial (RCT) examined the efficacy of Electronic Bridge to Mental Health for College Students (eBridge) for increasing at-risk students' linkage to MH services. METHOD: Students from four universities were recruited via email; 40,347 (22.6%) completed the online suicide risk screen; and 3,363 (8.3%) met criteria for randomization based on suicide risk factors and lack of current treatment (62.2% female, 35.0% male, 2.8% transgender/nonbinary; 73.2% White, 7.0% Black, 19.9% Asian, 11.7% other; 12.4% Hispanic, 76.2% undergraduate). These students were randomized to eBridge [personalized feedback (PF) with option of online counseling] or Control (PF). The primary outcome was linkage to MH services within 6...

The effect of SARS-COV-2 variant on non-respiratory features and mortality among vaccinated and non-fully vaccinated patients

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of SARS-CoV-2 variants on non-respiratory features of COVID-19 in vaccinated and not fully vaccinated patients using a University of California database. METHODS: A longitudinal retrospective review of medical records (n = 63,454) from 1/1/2020-4/26/2022 using the UCCORDS database was performed to compare non-respiratory features, vaccination status, and mortality between variants. Chi-square tests were used to study the relationship between categorical variables using a contingency matrix. RESULTS: Fever was the most common feature across all variants. Fever was significantly higher in not fully vaccinated during the Delta and Omicron waves (p = 0.001; p = 0.001). Cardiac features were statistically higher in not fully vaccinated during Omicron; tachycardia was only a feature of not fully vaccinated during Delta and Omicron; diabetes and GI reflux were features of all variants regardless of vaccine status. Odds...

Hidden flaws behind expert-level accuracy of multimodal GPT-4 vision in medicine

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Recent studies indicate that Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 with Vision (GPT-4V) outperforms human physicians in medical challenge tasks. However, these evaluations primarily focused on the accuracy of multi-choice questions alone. Our study extends the current scope by conducting a comprehensive analysis of GPT-4V’s rationales of image comprehension, recall of medical knowledge, and step-by-step multimodal reasoning when solving New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) Image Challenges—an imaging quiz designed to test the knowledge and diagnostic capabilities of medical professionals. Evaluation results confirmed that GPT-4V performs comparatively to human physicians regarding multi-choice accuracy (81.6% vs. 77.8%). GPT-4V also performs well in cases where physicians incorrectly answer, with over 78% accuracy. However, we discovered that GPT-4V frequently presents flawed rationales in cases where it makes the correct final choices (35.5%), most prominent in image comprehension...

Closing the gap between open source and commercial large language models for medical evidence summarization

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Large language models (LLMs) hold great promise in summarizing medical evidence. Most recent studies focus on the application of proprietary LLMs. Using proprietary LLMs introduces multiple risk factors, including a lack of transparency and vendor dependency. While open-source LLMs allow better transparency and customization, their performance falls short compared to the proprietary ones. In this study, we investigated to what extent fine-tuning open-source LLMs can further improve their performance. Utilizing a benchmark dataset, MedReview, consisting of 8161 pairs of systematic reviews and summaries, we fine-tuned three broadly-used, open-sourced LLMs, namely PRIMERA, LongT5, and Llama-2. Overall, the performance of open-source models was all improved after fine-tuning. The performance of fine-tuned LongT5 is close to GPT-3.5 with zero-shot settings. Furthermore, smaller fine-tuned models sometimes even demonstrated superior performance compared to larger zero-shot models. The...

Xylem: An Energy-efficient, Globally Redistributive, Financial Infrastructure Using Proof-by-Location

Wed, 9 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Proof-of-Work algorithm that underlies Bitcoin, Ethereum w , 1 and many other cryptocurrencies is well known for its energy-intensive requirements. The Proof-of-Stake algorithm that underlies Ethereum and various other cryptocurrencies is less impactful environmentally, but it has a second, looming issue: the problem of wealth inequality. We have developed an alternative to Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake, called Proof-by-Location, that has the potential to address both of these issues. This article describes Proof-by-Location and a financial platform called Xylem that is based on it. This platform seeks to distribute transaction fees to billions of cryptocurrency “Notaries” around the world (essentially, anyone with a smartphone), who work together to establish a distributed consensus about financial transactions. In this article, we demonstrate that this platform can scale to more than 3.9...

Player vs. Monster: The Making and Breaking of Videogame Monstrosity

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Player vs. Monster: The Making and Breaking of Videogame Monstrosity

Review of Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing, 3rd ed by Herbert Bruderer

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The book presents the major milestones of analog and digital computing. It was first published in German in 2015, followed by a significantly expanded two volume edition in 2018, and the third edition boasts added material and is now also available in English. The author exhaustively covers mechanical calculators, historical automata, and scientific instruments. In its detailed account of analog computing, this volume is surely unrivaled-the book discusses many groundbreaking analog devices, from the Antikythera (the first known astronomical calculator) to the Curta (the smallest mechanical parallel calculator), before venturing into the electronic era. The author not only compiles a historical guide to computing, he also offers detailed lists and tables that classify machines systematically: according to their function, their national origins, or according to where extant machines are collected or exhibited. The more recent past of digital computing is similarly more complex...

Linguistic Features of Secondary School Writing: Can Natural Language Processing Shine a Light on Differences by Sex, English Language Status, or Higher Scoring Essays?

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article provides three major contributions to the literature: we provide granular information on the development of student argumentative writing across secondary school; we replicate the MacArthur et al. model of Natural Language Processing (NLP) writing features that predict quality with a younger group of students; and we are able to examine the differences for students across language status. In our study, we sought to find the average levels of text length, cohesion, connectives, syntactic complexity, and word-level complexity in this sample across Grades 7-12 by sex, by English learner status, and for essays scoring above and below the median holistic score. Mean levels of variables by grade suggest a developmental progression with respect to text length, with the text length increasing with grade level, but the other variables in the model were fairly stable. Sex did not seem to affect the model in meaningful ways beyond the increased fluency of women writers. We saw...

Introduction Algorithmic Rights and Protections for Children

Thu, 6 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction Algorithmic Rights and Protections for Children

Early Results from a Study of GenAI Adoption in a Large Brazilian Company: The Case of Globo

Thu, 6 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Early Results from a Study of GenAI Adoption in a Large Brazilian Company: The Case of Globo

Co-Designing Situated Displays for Family Co-Regulation with ADHD Children

Wed, 22 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Co-Designing Situated Displays for Family Co-Regulation with ADHD Children

Penalized Fieller's Confidence Interval for the Ratio of Bivariate Normal Means