User's Daily Life Research Articles

AniDiary: Daily Cartoon-Style Diary Exploits Bayesian Networks

AniDiary (Anywhere Diary) uses Bayesian networks to automatically detect landmark events and summarize a user's daily life in a cartoon-style diary. Our goal was to summarize a given user's daily life with a cartoon-style diary based on information collected from mobile devices such as smart phones. Our system, AniDiary (Anywhere Diary), addresses two main problems of typical diary systems-the huge number of events originating from the real-life log and the awkward presentation of the output. Using modular Bayesian networks, AniDiary can detect and visualize landmarks (relevant or novel events) and transform numerous logs into user-friendly cartoon images. The cartoons provide a good starting point for fine-grained searches of detailed information. For example, users can link each cartoon to rich media (photos or videos) that offer more details, reducing the search space and letting users easily recall the linked details.

Mobile phones and the evolution of social behaviour

Today's mobile phone is a pervasive tool. It has become such an important aspect of a user's daily life that it has moved from being a mere 'technological object' to a key 'social object'. This paper explores the societal and human implications of advances in mobile technology, and notably the increasingly personalized nature of the mobile device. It argues that human and identity and social interaction have not been untouched by the mobile phenomenon.

Bottlenecks and their Solutions for Development of Assistive Technologies. Based on Development Process of 10 ATs.

Development of assistive technologies (ATs) includes many complicated difficulty, because it must be based on daily life of users with some disabilities. This paper describes bottlenecks in development process of ATs and their solutions. 10 cases of AT development processes were investigated, then the bottlenecks and their solutions were extracted from the investigations. The results revealed that developers were frustrated with gaps between developed devices and practical devices for the users. There were many bottlenecks for improving the developed devices to the practical devices. Discussion with AT developers resulted in indication of two paradigms for the solution. One is development process that includes solutions of each bottleneck predicted. Another paradigm is relationship with human society that includes outcome research, social system, thoughts of users and stakeholders. AT development research should consist of these two paradigms and will advance creating truly useful AT for the users.

Usage and meaning of 'information' in Japanese

Japanese term ‘joho’ was coined in 1876. The meaning of ‘joho’ nearly correspond to ‘information’ in English. This paper discuss the gap between the definition of ‘joho’ or ‘information’ in books or papers and the usage of this term in daily life. Many discussions and definitions about the meaning of information by researchers emphasize four common factors; evaluation, acceptance, difference between information and data, and strong relationship to knowledge. Based on the survey of magazines, newspapers, BBS, and TV programs in Japanese, 934 phrases, which include the term ‘information’, ‘data’, or ‘knowlede’, are collected. In some phrases in these media, the term ‘information’ was used for something not evaluate, or not accept by recipient, and ‘data’ was exchangeable for ‘information’. Finally, categorization of ‘information based on the usage in daily life is conducted.

"It takes your heart": the image of methadone maintenance in the addict world and its effect on recruitment into treatment.

Using data gathered on 368 current methadone clients and 142 narcotics users not in treatment in structured interviews and through ethnographic fieldwork, the study examines the image of methadone maintenance treatment in the drug-using community and discusses the effect of that image on recruitment of addicts into methadone treatment. The results indicate that the image of the methadone client as a "loser," fear of the long-term effects of methadone, and the perception of treatment as an intrusion in the user's daily life make addicts often difficult to recruit and, once in treatment, ambivalent about their participation. The image of methadone is based on both misinformation about treatment and the user's contrasting of a treatment status with the stereotypic ideal of the "righteous dope fiend." Policy implications and suggestions derived from the data are discussed.

Social Symbolism and Space Usage in Daily Life

Social Symbolism and Space Usage in Daily Life