Use In Everyday Life Research Articles

Breathing intensity and word use in individuals with COPD

Shifts in natural or spontaneous language have been reported with psychological and physical changes, as well as shifts in predetermined words selected to describe dyspnea. Less evidence exists for natural language shifts and breathing intensity, particularly for everyday life and for negative emotion. Therefore, this study purpose was to describe the relationship between levels of everyday breathing intensity and the natural language word categories used in describing breathing, including a negative emotion category. A longitudinal descriptive research design and a convenience sample of 45 individuals were used. Natural language was analyzed as rates of word used based on three levels of breathing intensity. Non-parametric statistics were used to test differences between rates of word use and non-use on low, moderate, and high breathing intensity days, as well as correlations to subscales that measured negative emotion on the Bronchitis-Emphysema Symptom Checklist (BESC) and the Breathing Standard Index. Statistically significant associations were reported between level of breathing intensity and negative emotion, anger, cause, insight, time, and body words. Several significant correlations were reported with the psychosocial measures, including negative emotion and anxiety words with the BESC hopelessness/helplessness, time subscale, and negative emotion words with the inverse of typical breathing (i.e., atypical breathing). By showing significant associations between key word categories, in particular negative emotion and anger word use, levels of breathing intensity, and selected psychosocial measures, this study contributes to the body of knowledge about the influence of levels of breathing intensity on natural word use in everyday life.

Health, Medical Risk Factors, and Bicycle Use in Everyday Life in the Over-50 Population

Few middle-aged and elderly people get enough exercise from sports or leisure-time physical activity. Therefore, the impact of everyday physical activity on health is a matter of interest. The main objective of this study was to establish whether bicycle use in everyday life is positively associated with health. A sample of 982 randomly selected men and 1,020 women age 50-70 were asked in a computer-assisted telephone interview to provide information including a self-assessment of their health and physical activity. Self-assessed health correlates positively with bicycle use in everyday life (OR = 1.257; 95% CI: 1.031-1.532). Likewise, people who regularly cycle for transport are less likely to have medical risk factors (OR = 0.794; 95% CI: 0.652-0.967). This negative correlation is not diminished when sporting activity is controlled for. This indicates that positive effects of physical activity on risk factors can be also achieved solely by integrating more physical activity into routine everyday life.

The Third International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction

The third international conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI-2008) was held in Amsterdam, The Netherland, March 12-15, 2008. The theme of HRI-2008, Living With Robots, highlights the importance of the technical and social issues underlying human-robot interaction with companion and assistive robots for long-term use in everyday life and work activities. More than two hundred and fifty researchers, practitioners, and exhibitors attended the conference, and many more contributed to the conference as authors or reviewers. HRI-2009 will be held in San Diego, California from March 11-13, 2009.

Task and context determine where you look

The deployment of human gaze has been almost exclusively studied independent of any specific ongoing task and limited to two-dimensional picture viewing. This contrasts with its use in everyday life, which mostly consists of purposeful tasks where gaze is crucially involved. To better understand deployment of gaze under such circumstances, we devised a series of experiments, in which subjects navigated along a walkway in a virtual environment and executed combinations of approach and avoidance tasks. The position of the body and the gaze were monitored during the execution of the task combinations and dependence of gaze on the ongoing tasks as well as the visual features of the scene was analyzed. Gaze distributions were compared to a random gaze allocation strategy as well as a specific "saliency model." Gaze distributions showed high similarity across subjects. Moreover, the precise fixation locations on the objects depended on the ongoing task to the point that the specific tasks could be predicted from the subject's fixation data. By contrast, gaze allocation according to a random or a saliency model did not predict the executed fixations or the observed dependence of fixation locations on the specific task.

Comparison of »Slavic« Pots with Gender and Age of the DeceasedPrimerjava prostornine “slovanskih” loncev s starostjo in spolom pokojnika v grobu

Within this study I have attempted to determine whether, in Early medieval contexts, we can or cannot trace any links between size of a pot and both gender and age of the deceased. Have Slav people offered pots within graves of their ancestors, and did these pots carry a certain magical message, maybe as a status symbol? Or does the pot rest near the deceased merely from the point of view of use in everyday life, as a private property of the dead, which he will take to »the other side«? With the results of analysis of the volume of the pots I have answered only a few questions, but guessings, which point out interesting inhumation practices of this time, have appeared. In any case, Slavic pots, in the sense of grave offerings, did certainly have a sort of symbolic meaning.

Mobile Selves: Gender, ethnicity and mobile phones in the everyday lives of young Pakistani-British women and men

This paper focuses on mobile phone use by a young minority ethnic group as a medium through which to explore diversity and technology use in everyday life. Recent research with young people has shown that mobile phones are instrumentally, socially and emotionally important but few have problematized the homogeneous concept of ‘youth’. This paper argues for increased recognition of the intersections of social categories such as youth, gender and ethnicity with technologies, specifically mobile phones, in order to understand complexity of use. Drawing on new empirical, qualitative data from an urban area in the North East of England we explore the focus group narratives of young Pakistani-British Muslim women and men focusing on the notion of ‘shifting’ gendered and cultural identities and social practices, developed and reworked in relation to the use of mobile phones. We look at the gendered dynamics of mobile use, including gender talk and text, and ask whether the young women and men experience mobiles differently in everyday life. We also explore the ways in which mobiles are used to create ‘space of one's own’ and the gendered dynamics of remaining connected, especially to key peer groups. The paper concludes with the assertion that in order to fully explore the mutability of youth cultures across space and time, we need to develop a more dynamic concept of ‘mobile selves’ by exploring the place and meaning of technologies such as mobile phones in the rich tapestries of young people's lives.

Analysis of the individual factors affecting mobile phone use while driving in France: Socio-demographic characteristics, car and phone use in professional and private contexts

In France, as in many other countries, phoning while driving is legally restricted because of its negative impact on driving performance which increases accident risk. Nevertheless, it is still a frequently observed practice and one which has not been analyzed in detail. This study attempts to identify the profiles of those who use mobile phones while at the wheel and determine the forms taken by this use. A representative sample of 1973 French people was interviewed by phone on their driving practices and mobile phone use in everyday life and their mobile phone use while driving. Logistics regressions have been conducted to highlight the explanatory factors of phoning while driving. Strong differences between males and females have been shown. For the male population, age is the main explanatory factor of phoning while driving, followed by phone use for work-related reasons and extensive mobile phone use in everyday life. For females, high mileage and intensive use of mobile phone are the only two explanatory factors. We defined the intensive phone use at the wheel group as drivers who receive or send at least five or more calls per day while driving. There is no socio-demographic variable related to this practice. Car and phone uses in everyday life are the only explanatory factors for this intensive mobile use of the phone at the wheel.

Turkish Family Narratives: The Relationships between Mothers- and Daughters-in-Law

Through an analysis of eighteen family history interviews conducted with elderly women from Istanbul, this article examines the nature of the relationships between mothers- and daughters-in-law in Turkey between 1923 and the 1940s. This period marks the foundation of the republic and the Kemalist reforms that transform the way of life in society. The theory of narrative identity and the definition of family as a group of people who narrate the same story from generation to generation form the backbone of this study. The main themes of the interview data point out a kind of power relationship similar to Foucault's understanding of power and its use in everyday life. Thus, a social constructionist/hermeneutic position is adopted which integrates seemingly different theoretical conceptualizations like narrative identity, Foucault's concept of power, and Bourdieu's concepts of economic and cultural capital.

A phenomenographic study of Greek primary school students’ representations concerning technology in daily life

The present research investigated and studied students’ representations about daily life technologies, in a prospect of studying technology in Greek primary education. In the research participated 60 Greek primary school students aged 9 to 12 years old. Research data were collected through semi-structured, personal, clinical-type interviews. Each interview investigated student’s conceptions and views about the following thematic areas: the concept of technology, daily life technologies, technological change, and the impact of technology use in everyday life. Data analysis revealed that the majority of students equated technology with modern tools and appliances, especially with computers, TV, mobile phones, satellites and other micro- and macro-technologies, whereas experience based technologies (de Vries, Technology education: Beyond the “technology is applied science” paradigm. J. Technol. Edu. 8 (1996), 7) have been hardly recognized by them as technology. Also students’ representations can be categorized either as technology-oriented representations, which focus on a collection of technical means without reference to humans, or as human-oriented representations, focused on technical means with substantial reference to human needs and activities. Depending on these types of representations, students seem to conceive differently the nature of the problems, which they recognize that the wide use of technology causes mainly to the environment and the responsibility of the user for these problems. Moreover, it seems that the concept of technological change is a quite difficult one for the students. In order to help students form adequate representations about daily life technology and technological change an appropriate teaching approach was designed on the basis of these students’ representations.

Recent Advances in Social Skills Training for Schizophrenia

Social skills training consists of learning activities utilizing behavioral techniques that enable persons with schizophrenia and other disabling mental disorders to acquire interpersonal disease management and independent living skills for improved functioning in their communities. A large and growing body of research supports the efficacy and effectiveness of social skills training for schizophrenia. When the type and frequency of training is linked to the phase of the disorder, patients can learn and retain a wide variety of social and independent living skills. Generalization of the skills for use in everyday life occurs when patients are provided with opportunities, encouragement, and reinforcement for practicing the skills in relevant situations. Recent advances in skills training include special adaptations and applications for improved generalization of training into the community, short-term stays in psychiatric inpatient units, dually diagnosed substance abusing mentally ill, minority groups, amplifying supported employment, treatment refractory schizophrenia, older adults, overcoming cognitive deficits, and negative symptoms as well as the inclusion of social skills training as part of multidimensional treatment and rehabilitation programs.

Exploring the Role of Trust in Entrepreneurial Activity

Trust is a phenomenon which, over the past decade, has gained attention across many disciplines and fields of study, e.g., psychology, organizational theory, sociology, economic theory, and business management. There is no single comprehensive definition of trust, and even within disciplines several definitions often exist. However, in terms of business behavior, trust is based on a perception of the probability that other agents will behave in a way that is expected (Gambetta, 1988). In addition, there is a danger that academics concerned with different aspects of human behavior may sometimes be guilty of exaggerating the role of trust, which emphasizes the importance of developing robust methodologies to identify and assess it. As Endres (2004, p. 15) stated, “we are confronted with an inflationary use of the concept of trust in several scientific disciplines, while its use in everyday life is much rarer.” Compared with their contemporaries in fields such as management studies, entrepreneurship scholars have only recently started to pay attention to trust-related issues, which may or may not be justified. This special issue aims to contribute to a discussion of the role of trust in the field of entrepreneurship, both conceptually (Goel & Karri, 2006; Zahra, Yavuz, & Ucbasaran, 2006) and empirically (Howorth & Moro, 2006; Neergard & Ulhoi, 2006).

From the Laboratory to Real Life: A Pilot Study of an Expectancy Challenge With “Heavy Drinking” Young People on Holiday

The Alcohol Expectancy Challenge (EC) is a promising program for changing alcohol expectancies and reducing alcohol consumption in “heavy drinking” young men in a bar-lab setting. In this study the EC was adapted for use in mixed-gender groups in a holiday setting and its feasibility tested in camping resorts in the Netherlands where a lot of binge drinking takes place (summer 2002). Male and female participants (N = 170; mean age, 18.8 years) were randomly assigned to an EC or to an assessment-only control group. One day before the intervention, alcohol expectancies were measured by a Visual Analogue Scale of arousal-sedation expectancies (VAS expectancies questionnaire). At the same time, alcohol use in everyday life and on holiday was assessed by a General Drinking Questionnaire and a 24-hour drinking diary, respectively. Twenty-four hours after the intervention, the VAS expectancies questionnaire was administered again and alcohol use over the previous 24 hours was reported in the drinking diary. Six weeks after the intervention, participants were telephoned and administered oral versions of the VAS expectancies questionnaire and General Drinking Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using mixed ANOVAs. Although the study was hampered by recruitment difficulties, the EC proved feasible in this setting, was well received by youngsters, and effects on their alcohol expectancies may have been present. No effect was found on alcohol use. In conclusion, implementation must be improved and more studies are needed to come to more definite conclusions about the value of the EC in a real-life targeted intervention.

The computer as “an exercise and repetition” medium in mathematics lessons: Educational Effectiveness of Tablet PCs

The request of a new educational culture within the classroom goes hand in hand with the introduction of the new Educational Standards. That is they are essentially connected with a paradigm shift. The Project supports this aim via different tasks administered through Tablet PC's within the scope of exercise and repetition phase of learning. The central concern is to find appropriate lesson approaches through computer use in everyday life at school, which are conductive for the math learners and are at the same time easy to effectively implement in other classrooms. In the summer of 2004 the use of Tablet-PCs in school took place in two 9th classes of an Ostalbkreis secondary school in Baden-Wurttenberg. We report on the effectiveness of this new technology in the classroom.

Treatment adherence in the Estonian postmenopausal hormone therapy (EPHT) trial [ISRCTN35338757

Objective : To investigate treatment adherence and factors related to non-adherence in the Estonian postmenopausal hormone therapy (EPHT) trial. Methods : A total of 1823 postmenopausal women aged 50–64 years were recruited into the EPHT trial from 1999 to 2001. They were randomised into the blind group receiving continuous orally administered postmenopausal hormone therapy (PHT) or a placebo and to a non-blind group receiving open-label PHT or no drugs. A woman was classified as non-adherent, if she had stopped treatment for at least 6-month period in treatment arms or used PHT for at least 6-month period in the control group. Adherence was calculated by the Kaplan–Meier method, and factors affecting adherence were studied with Cox proportional hazard modelling. Results : The rate of adherent women declined approximately 50% during the first year in all treatment arms. Less than 10% of the control group women started taking prescribed PHT. Older women, with lower education, with only one birth, never used oral contraceptives (OC), with lower physical activity or who were dissatisfied with the information received from the trial staff, were more likely to discontinue. In treatment arms, the two most often cited reasons for non-adherence were side-effects and woman's loss of interest in participation. Control group women started PHT due to the menopausal symptoms or on doctor's recommendation. Conclusions : The adherence was similar to that found for PHT use in everyday life. Higher adherence was related to younger age, higher education, previous OC use, physical activity and satisfaction with received information.

Speech Recognition With the Advanced Combination Encoder and Transient Emphasis Spectral Maxima Strategies in Nucleus 24 Recipients

One of the difficulties faced by cochlear implant (CI) recipients is perception of low-intensity speech cues. A. E. Vandali (2001) has developed the transient emphasis spectral maxima (TESM) strategy to amplify short-duration, low-level sounds. The aim of the present study was to determine whether speech scores would be significantly higher with TESM than with the advanced combination encoder (ACE) strategy fitted using procedures that optimize perception of soft speech and other sounds. Eight adult recipients of the Nucleus 24 CI system participated in this study. No significant differences in scores were seen between ACE and TESM for consonant-vowel nucleus-consonant (CNC) words presented at 55 and 65 dB SPL, for sentences in noise presented at 65 dB SPL at 2 different signal-to-noise ratios, or for closed-set vowels and consonants presented at 60 dB SPL. However, perception of stop consonants within CNC words presented at the lower level (55 dB SPL) was significantly higher with TESM than ACE. In addition, percentage of information transmitted for words at 55 dB SPL was significantly higher with TESM than with ACE for manner and voicing features for consonants in the initial word position. Analysis of closed-set consonants presented at 60 dB SPL revealed percentage of information transmitted for manner was significantly higher with TESM than with ACE. These improvements with TESM were small compared with those reported by Vandali for recipients of the Nucleus 22 CI system. It appears that mapping techniques used to program speech processors and improved processing capabilities of the Nucleus 24 system contributed to soft sounds being understood almost as well with ACE as with TESM. However, half of the participants preferred TESM to ACE for use in everyday life, and all but 1 used TESM in specific listening situations. Clinically, TESM may be useful to ensure the audibility of low-intensity, short-duration acoustic cues that are important for understanding speech, for recipients who are difficult to map, or if insufficient time precludes the use of mapping techniques to increase audibility of soft sound.

Psychometric Properties of the French Version of the Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire for Adults and the Elderly

The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of a French version of the Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire (MMQ) (Troyer and Rich, 2002). The MMQ, which is suited to clinical and research purposes, evaluates subjective memory functioning (i.e., affect related to memory abilities, frequency of problems remembering in different situations, and strategy use in everyday life). The questionnaire was administered to 294 French adult or elderly subjects (46-94 years old). The results allowed us to conclude that the French version of this scale is psychometrically sound. Indeed, the scores proved to be highly reliable (Cronbach's a for the subscales ranged from 0.79 to 0.88) and correlated in the expected directions with measures of other constructs (correlation coefficients ranged from -0.34 to 0.39). Convergent validity evidence for MMQ scores was provided by their statistically significant positive correlations (from 0.56 to 0.73) with several dimensions of the Metamemory in Adulthood scale (MIA) (i.e., the anxiety, change, capacity, and strategy dimensions). However, the three-factor model found in the original version was not validated here. An exploratory factor analysis revealed that a four-factor solution offered the most interpretable pattern for the factor scores. Two of the dimensions proposed by Troyer and Rich (2002) were replicated: ability and contentment. The third subscale (strategy) was divided into two factors: internal strategies and external strategies.

Culture in Interaction

How does culture work in everyday settings? Current social research often theorizes culture as “collective representations”—vocabularies, symbols, or codes—that structure people’s abilities to think and act. Missing is an account of how groups use collective representations in everyday interaction. The authors use two ethnographic cases to develop a concept of “group style,” showing how implicit, culturally patterned styles of membership filter collective representations. The result is “culture in interaction,” which complements research in the sociology of emotion, neoinstitutionalism, the reproduction of inequality, and other work, by showing how groups put culture to use in everyday life.

Effects of stimulation rate with the Nucleus 24 ACE speech coding strategy.

The primary objective of the study was to determine whether individual cochlear implant recipients recognize speech better with an electrical stimulation rate of 720 or 1800 pulses per second per channel (pps/ch) using the Nucleus 24 Advanced Combination Encoder (ACE) speech coding strategy. The secondary objective was to determine, for each active electrode, the relation between psychophysical measures and MAP minimum and maximum stimulation levels for each rate, as well as the stability of MAP minimum and maximum levels during the study. Eight postlinguistically deaf adults implanted with the Nucleus 24 device participated in this study comparing the effect of a moderate (720 pps/ch) and a fast (1800 pps/ch) rate of electrical stimulation on speech recognition of words in quiet and sentences in noise presented at 50, 60, and 70 dB SPL in the laboratory and on listening to sound in everyday life over a 14-wk time period. At the beginning of the study, psychophysical measures (i.e., counted threshold and maximum acceptable loudness [MAL] levels) were obtained for each active electrode with each of the two rates to initially set MAP minimum and maximum stimulation levels. These levels were then adjusted to make speech and environmental sound clear and comfortable in everyday life. Threshold and MAL levels were obtained again half way through the study to monitor possible hearing changes. A four-phase test design for evaluation of speech recognition was followed; an equal number of subjects started with each of the two rates and alternated rates for each phase. In the last 2 wk of each phase, word and sentence scores were obtained, and subjects responded to a questionnaire. For the group, factorial analyses of variance were conducted for subject, stimulation rate, and time period (first two phases versus second two phases) for words, phonemes within words, and sentences at each level. Additional analyses were obtained for individual subjects. Group mean scores across time periods were significantly higher for 1800 pps/ch than 720 pps/ch for phonemes and sentences in noise at 50 dB SPL. There was no significant difference in scores for phonemes and sentences at 60 and 70 dB SPL or for words at any of the three levels. Group mean scores across stimulation rate were significantly higher during the second half than the first half of the study for words, phonemes, and sentences at 50 dB SPL. This result is consistent with subjects learning to recognize speech cues near threshold. A subject by rate interaction was seen for sentences at 70 dB SPL and for all three speech measures at 50 dB SPL. These interactions reflect the fact that two subjects performed significantly better with 720 pps/ch, whereas two other subjects performed significantly better with 1800 pps/ch. Responses to the questionnaire indicated that two subjects preferred 720 pps/ch, three preferred 1800 pps/ch, and three had no preference. The minimum and/or maximum levels in most subjects' final MAPs differed from the psychophysical measures for both rates. Changes in Current Level at threshold and MAL were minimal from the first to the second half of the study for each rate. More than half the subjects preferred one of the two rates for use in everyday life, and four subjects performed significantly better with one of the two rates on at least one test measure. These findings underscore the clinical importance of creating MAPs for each implant recipient that include at least a moderate and a fast rate within ACE during the first months of device use. Given the significant learning effects for soft speech that occurred over several weeks use of each rate in this study, it is suggested that each rate be used alone for a week or two before comparing them and deciding which provides more benefit. In addition, adjustments in an individual's MAP minimum and maximum levels are needed at each rate so soft and normal conversational speech as well as loud sound are clear and comfortable in everyday life.

On the Move: Technology, Mobility, and the Mediation of Social Time and Space

The current explosion in mobile computing and telecommunications technologies holds the potential to transform "everyday" time and space, as well as changes to the rhythms of social institutions. Sociologists are only just beginning to explore what the notion of "mobility" might mean when mediated through computing and communications technologies, and so far, the sociological treatment has been largely theoretical. This article seeks instead to explore how a number of dimensions of time and space are being newly reconstructed through the use of mobile communications technologies in everyday life. The article draws on long-term ethnographic research entitled "The Socio-Technical Shaping of Mobile Multimedia Personal Communications," conducted at the University of Surrey. This research has involved ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a variety of locales and with a number of groups. This research is used here as a resource to explore how mobile communications technologies mediate time in relation to mobile spaces. First the paper offers a review and critique of some of the major sociological approaches to understanding time and space. This review entails a discussion of how social practices and institutions are maintained and/or transformed via mobile technologies. Ethnographic data is used to explore emerging mobile temporalities. Three interconnected domains in mobile time are proposed: rhythms of mobile use, rhythms of mobile use in everyday life, and rhythms of mobility and institutional change. The article argues that while these mobile temporalities are emerging, and offer new ways of acting in and perceiving time and space, the practical construction of mobile time in everyday life remains firmly connected to well-established time-based social practices, whether these be institutional (such as clock time, "work time") or subjective (such as "family time").

Configuring the Mobile User: Sociological and Industry Views

This article considers the role of the consumer in the diffusion of mobile telecommunications technologies. There is presently little research on the consumption and use of mobile technologies, and the aim of the present paper is to facilitate discussion about the way consumer behaviour is currently understood in industry and academia. The paper considers key themes in social science research on mobile ICTs, and understandings of the consumer held by those in the mobile industry. Bringing these understandings together, we reiterate the now well attested view that the diffusion and consumption of mobile telephony and computing cannot be understood without investigating the contexts and processes of their use in everyday life.