Voice Messages Research Articles

How to Train an All-Purpose Robot: DeepMind is Tackling one of the Hardest Problems for AI

Artificial intelligence has reached deep into our lives, though you might be hard pressed to point to obvious examples of it. Among countless other behind-the-scenes chores, neural networks power our virtual assistants, make online shopping recommendations, recognize people in our snapshots, scrutinize our banking transactions for evidence of fraud, transcribe our voice messages, and weed out hateful social-media postings. What these applications have in common is that they involve learning and operating in a constrained, predictable environment. • But embedding AI more firmly into our endeavors and enterprises poses a great challenge. To get to the next level, researchers are trying to fuse AI and robotics to create an intelligence that can make decisions and control a physical body in the messy, unpredictable, and unforgiving real world. It's a potentially revolutionary objective that has caught the attention of some of the most powerful tech-research organizations on the planet. “I'd say that robotics as a field is probably 10 years behind where computer vision is,” says Raia Hadsell, head of robotics at DeepMind, Google's London-based AI partner. (Both companies are subsidiaries of Alphabet.) • Even for Google, the challenges are daunting. Some are hard but straightforward: For most robotic applications, it's difficult to gather the huge data sets that have driven progress in other areas of AI. But some problems are more profound, and relate to long-standing conundrums in AI. Problems like, how do you learn a new task without forgetting the old one? And how do you create an AI that can apply the skills it learns for a new task to the tasks it has mastered before?

Identifying interception possibilities for WhatsApp communication

On a daily basis, law enforcement officers struggle with suspects using mobile communication applications for criminal activities. These mobile applications replaced SMS-messaging and evolved the last few years from plain-text data transmission and storage to an encrypted version. Regardless of the benefits for all law abiding citizens, this is considered to be the downside for criminal investigations. Normal smartphone, computer or network investigations do no longer provide the contents of the communication in real-time when suspects are using apps like WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram. Among them, WhatsApp is one of the most common smartphone applications for communication, both criminal as well as legal activities. At the beginning, WhatsApp communication between smartphone and server used to be in plain-text and therefore visible to law enforcement during a wiretap. Early 2016 WhatsApp introduced end-to-end encryption for all users, immediately keeping law enforcement officers around the world in the dark. Existing research to recuperate the position of law enforcement is limited to a single field of investigation and often limited to post mortem research on smartphone or computer while wiretapping is limited to metadata information. Therefore, it provides only historical data or metadata while law enforcement officers want a continuous stream of live and substantive information. This paper identified that gap in available scenarios for law enforcement investigations and identified a gap in methods available for forensic acquiring and processing these scenarios. In this paper, we propose a forensic approach to create real-time insight in the WhatsApp communication. Our approach is based on the wiretapping, decrypting WhatsApp databases, open source intelligence and WhatsApp Web communication analysis. We also evaluate our method with different scenarios in WhatsApp forensics to prove its feasibility and efficiency. Through these scenarios, we found that by providing real-time intelligence such as profile pictures, their activity, voice and video call behaviour including location data as well as remote access to a suspect WhatsApp account, their conversations including voice messages (live) geolocation, shared contacts, documents, images and videos are made accessible. Hence, our corresponding method can be used by law enforcement agencies around the world to reinforce their position in the world of WhatsApp communication interception.

Encouraging technology adoption using ICTs and farm trials in Senegal: Lessons for gender equity and scaled impact

• Exposure to ICT-enabled extension raised awareness but was not associated with increased uptake of fertilizers and seeds. • Personal connections to participatory farm trials were correlated with farmers’ adoption of promoted seeds and fertilizers. • Women were less likely to engage with ICT services and somewhat less likely to adopt promoted technologies. • Voice-based push messaging shows promise in spreading information and encouraging behavior change. • Market failures, choice of technologies, and message complexity likely reduced the effectiveness of ICT-enabled extension. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are generating substantial interest from aid donors and development practitioners, including as tools for agricultural extension. However, empirical evidence of the impact of ICT-enabled extension on farmers’ uptake of introduced technologies remains scarce. This four-year study evaluates an ICT-enabled extension project in Senegal using radio and mobile phone services to encourage rural smallholder farmers’ use of certified improved seeds and organic and inorganic fertilizers across Senegal. Data were collected using large-scale annual surveys in six regions over four years as well as focus groups. The findings suggest that, in general, the forms and format of ICT-enabled extension services deployed failed to significantly contribute to the adoption of promoted technologies. Personal connections to participatory farm trials were consistently associated with adoption, and phone-based voice messaging appears to have potential to increase technology uptake. Gender-based disparities in engagement with ICT services and Senegal’s poorly developed systems for producing and distributing quality seeds emerged as key factors limiting the effectiveness of this project. These findings raise concerns about the equity and effectiveness of ICT-enabled extension in promoting agricultural inputs in contexts like Senegal and have important implications for similar efforts in other countries.

Distant work as a new reality of labor relations.

The article is devoted to the study of the remote form of employment of workers as one of the forms of employment at a distance. The main problems of remote work development in Ukraine and ways of their solution on the legislative basis are given. The bases of transition of the worker to the remote form of work are considered. All positive and negative aspects of remote employment for both employees and enterprises are analyzed. Developed effective tips for employees who work remotely. It is concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic and the dynamic development of information and communication networks are a confirmation of the urgency of improving social and labor relations of remote employment. Remote work at home is more conducive to procrastination than in the office, so it is worth taking measures against this phenomenon. Namely, remove everything that can distract from work, turn off all voice messages. The opposite extreme of procrastination is also possible, especially for those who live at home alone. This is when you do not have to go anywhere during the day and in the evening, a person can easily immerse himself entirely in work, rework a lot, and eventually burn out. Working from home, especially when you live alone, you can easily start yourself. This applies not only to hygiene, but also to an attractive appearance, and socialization and basic needs of the body may also suffer. Having healthy freshly prepared food, the required amount of movement and sleep directly affect the health and well-being of the employee, which in turn affects his efficiency. Another disadvantage of working at home, which must be compensated for somehow, is informal conversations with colleagues. Such communication benefits each individual employee and the company as a whole. They are important for generating new ideas, inspiration; is a source of information about what is happening in others; help to feel part of a large team and not feel isolated. It is difficult to compensate for all this in the remote form of work, but it is necessary to try. You can create working group chats, video calls, virtual extracurricular meetings and in general it is very important not to lose contact with the team and the world around you.

KMAS as a Tool for Dissemination of Agricultural Technologies in Nagaon District of Assam

Development of Agricultural and allied activities can be achieved through various approaches of Information and communication (ICT) tools. Kisan Mobile Advisory system (KMAS) is one of ICT approaches for dissemination of agricultural technologies to the farming community through SMSs. KVK, Nagaon created a registered farmers group and information related to crop production, insect pest control, dairy and poultry farming, fishery and other marketing related information was sent to users in monthly basis for many years. A sample size of 100 registered farmers were selected for the study in order to examine the impact of KMAS for technology dissemination in Nagaon district. With the help of Pretested scheduled with Simple Random sampling data were collected and analyze in percent analysis. The survey showed that majority of the farmers found agricultural information as increase in knowledge (41.00%), partially applicable (73.00%). The overall impact of the KMAS was low About at 55 percent, medium at 38 per cent and high at 7 per cent. Further they suggested that messages on latest technologies should be served flowed by local language, voice messages.

Virtual and in-person accompaniment of hospitalized patients during the COVID-19 pandemic in ColombiaAcompanhamento virtual e presencial de pacientes hospitalizados durante a pandemia de COVID-19 na Colômbia

RESUMENObjetivo.Describir los resultados de una estrategia de acompañamiento virtual y presencial, con base en el cuidado centrado en la persona durante la atención a pacientes hospitalizados por sospecha o confirmación de enfermedad por el nuevo coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19, por su sigla en inglés).Método.Estudio observacional descriptivo retrospectivo realizado en cinco instituciones de salud de la red de clínica Colsanitas que implementaron una estrategia de acompañamiento con siete modalidades: información virtual, dispositivos móviles personales, visitas virtuales, contactos con otros medios, acompañante permanente, visita presencial y contacto compasivo. Se utilizó estadística descriptiva para el análisis de los datos.Resultados.La estrategia de acompañamiento se aplicó a 871 pacientes con estancia hospitalaria de 1 a 90 días, 70% fueron positivos para COVID-19; en la modalidad de información virtual, se contactaron a familias de 764 pacientes realizando 3984 llamadas; en promedio se realizaron 71 visitas virtuales al día; se recibieron 428 cartas, mensajes de voz y videos, entre otros; 114 pacientes tuvieron un acompañante permanente; 154 pacientes tuvieron visita presencial; y 20 familias realizaron visita presencial póstuma al paciente.Conclusión.Los resultados de la estrategia de acompañamiento virtual y presencial con enfoque centrado en la persona mostraron que la participación de las familias es importante en el cuidado del paciente y mejora la comunicación e interacción entre los pacientes, las familias y el equipo de salud.

Sensing to Hear

Voice interactions and voice messages on mobile phones are rapidly growing in popularity. However, the user experience of these services is still worse than desired in noisy environments, especially in multi-talker scenarios, where the phone can only provide low-quality voice recordings. Speech enhancement using only audio as the input remains a grand challenge in these scenarios. In this paper, we handle this with the help of the emerging acoustic sensing technology. The key insight is that the inaudible acoustic signals emitted by speakers of phones can capture the subtle lip movements when people speak. Instead of enabling lip reading for the classification of limited voice commands, we further unlock the potential of acoustic sensing and leverage the captured lip information to improve the voice recording quality. We propose WaveVoice, a joint audio-sensory deep learning method for end-to-end speech enhancement on mobile phones. The model of WaveVoice is structured as an encoder-decoder network, in which audio and acoustic sensing data are processed through two individual CNN branches, respectively, and then fused into a joint network to generate enhanced speech. In addition, to improve the performance on new users, a self-supervised learning methodology is developed to adapt the model to extract speaker-specific features. We construct a dataset to train and evaluate WaveVoice. We also perform online tests under various noisy conditions to show the applicability of our system in real-world scenarios. Experimental results show that WaveVoice can effectively reconstruct the target clean speech from the noisy audio signals, and yield notably superior performance compared with the audio-only encoder-decoder model and the state-of-the-art speech enhancement methods. Given its promising performance, we believe that WaveVoice has made a substantial contribution to the advancement of mobile voice input.

Design and Development of a Wearable Assistive Device Integrating a Fuzzy Decision Support System for Blind and Visually Impaired People.

In this article, a new design of a wearable navigation support system for blind and visually impaired people (BVIP) is proposed. The proposed navigation system relies primarily on sensors, real-time processing boards, a fuzzy logic-based decision support system, and a user interface. It uses sensor data as inputs and provides the desired safety orientation to the BVIP. The user is informed about the decision based on a mixed voice–haptic interface. The navigation aid system contains two wearable obstacle detection systems managed by an embedded controller. The control system adopts the Robot Operating System (ROS) architecture supported by the Beagle Bone Black master board that meets the real-time constraints. The data acquisition and obstacle avoidance are carried out by several nodes managed by the ROS to finally deliver a mixed haptic–voice message for guidance of the BVIP. A fuzzy logic-based decision support system was implemented to help BVIP to choose a safe direction. The system has been applied to blindfolded persons and visually impaired persons. Both types of users found the system promising and pointed out its potential to become a good navigation aid in the future.

Remote patient monitoring after cardiac surgery: The utility of a novel telemedicine system.

ObjectiveWe examined cardiac surgery patients who underwent monitoring of postoperative vital parameters using medical monitoring devices which transferred data to a mobile application and a web‐based software.MethodsFrom November 2017 to November 2020, a total of 2340 patients were enrolled in the remote patient monitoring system after undergoing cardiac surgery. The medical devices recorded vital parameters, such as blood pressure, pulse rate, saturation, body temperature, blood glucose, and electrocardiography were measured via the Health Monitor DakikApp and Holter ECG DakikApp devices which reported data to web‐based software and a mobile application (DakikApp Mobile Systems, Remscheid, Germany). During the follow‐up period, patients were contacted daily through text and voice messages, and video conferences. Remote Medical Evaluations (RMEs) concerning patients' medical states were performed. Medication reminders, daily treatment were communicated to the patients with the DakikApp Mobile Systems Software.ResultsDuring a mean follow‐up period of 78.9 ± 107.1 (10–395) days, a total of 135,786 patient contacts were recorded (782 video conferences, 2805 voice messaging, and 132,199 text correspondence). The number of RMEs handled by the Telemedicine Team was 79,560. A total of 105,335 vital parameter measurements were performed and 5024 hospital application requests (6.3% per RME) were addressed successfully and hospitalization was avoided. A total of 144 (6.1%) potentially life‐threatening complications were found to have been diagnosed early using the Telemedicine System.ConclusionRemote Patient Monitoring Systems combined with professional medical devices are feasible, effective, and safe for the purpose of improving postoperative outcomes.

Identifikasi Chatbot dalam Meningkatkan Pelayanan Online Menggunakan Metode Natural Language Processing

Chatbot is a software with artificial intelligence that can imitate human conversations through text messages or voice messages. This chatbot can convey information, according to the knowledge that has been given previously. Helping the limitations of the academic section in answering questions posed by students. The method in this study was sourced from a questionnaire distributed to students at the Muhammadiyah University of West Sumatra. Based on the analysis of the questionnaire, there are 40 questions that are often asked by students to the academic section. Then it is processed using Natural Language Processing (NLP). Natural Language Processing is a branch of science from artificial intelligence that is able to study communication between humans and computers through natural language. The processing stage is to identify the intent, process the input and display the results according to the input. The results of the test using a questionnaire addressed to 227 students got a score of 3,55 with a very good predicate. Then do the test using 40 question and answer data. So, obtained 37 appropriate answers and 3 answers that are not in accordance with the percentage of answer accuracy generated from the chatbot is 92.5 percent. The results of this test have been able to respond to the questions asked by students. This chatbot can make it easier for students to get information with a very good level of accuracy

Implementasi Pisanc Chiper Untuk Autentikasi Voice Chat

In securing voice messages, information sent through the internet network must be authenticated for its authenticity, data content, delivery time, and so on. To prevent data manipulation by irresponsible parties, the creation of a data leak that has a negative impact. The occurrence of data leaks that most users are still not aware of. This can happen due to the lack of security of the message itself which results in problems that arise and also losses by certain authoritarian parties. The solution in securing voice messages using modern cryptographic techniques that have been combined with NRZI encoding and the Feistel network by Pisanc Cipher, is a way to maintain the authenticity and accuracy of data or authentication in voice messages. It is useful to look for the characteristics of good encryption, namely confusion and diffusion. This results in a higher level of security. By using the Pisanc Cipher method to secure voice messages, it can generate security and authenticate data to prevent data leakage. In addition, another benefit of using the Pisanc Cipher method is to maintain the authenticity of voice messages.

Efek Aplikasi Smartphone (Promotif Dan Preventif) Terhadap Perubahan Gaya Hidup Pada Prediabetes: Literature Review

Prediabetes is high risk developing type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Modification in lifestyle plays an important role to avoid the prognosis of T2DM and its complications in the future. The aim of this literature is to identify the effect of smartphone app (promotive and preventive) to lifestyle change in prediabetes. Searching strategy used PICO approach by keywords in the on PubMed (1.581) and Cochrane Library (699) databased. The Critical Appraisal is used to evaluate the articles. Twelve articles have been in this literature with intervention: voice mail (1), phone call (1), text messages (3), web-based (3), applications (4). Two articles showed significant to increase motivation and education (promotion). Six articles were reported significantly increasing physical activity and weight loss (prevention). One article (promotive and preventive) reported significantly to promote knowledge and physical activity. Three articles demonstrated not significant to modify lifestyle of prevent T2DM (2 articles of prevention, 1 article of promotion and prevention, respectively). Recent review suggest that the smartphone app can help to slow-down the progression of diseases in individual with prediabetes and as a reference to construct effective program to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with T2D.

Family E-Chat Group Use Was Associated with Family Wellbeing and Personal Happiness in Hong Kong Adults amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Instant messaging (IM) is increasingly used for family communication amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. However, evidence remains scarce on how family e-chat groups were used and their associations with family and individual wellbeing amidst the pandemic. The numbers of family e-chat groups, functions used, and messages sent and received daily in groups were reported by 4890 adults in May 2020, and their associations with family wellbeing and personal happiness and the mediation effect of family communication quality were examined. Results showed that sending/receiving text messages was most commonly used, followed by receiving/sending photos/pictures, making voice calls, receiving/sending short videos and voice messages, and making video calls. Women and older people used more non-text functions. Higher levels of family wellbeing and personal happiness were associated with having more groups, receiving/sending photos/pictures, video calls, more IM functions used, and more IM messages received/sent daily. Forty-six point two to seventy-five point five percent of their associations with more groups and more functions used were mediated by family communication quality. People having more family e-chat groups and using more IM functions may be more resilient amidst the pandemic, while those without or with low use of family e-chat groups amidst the pandemic would need more attention and assistance in the presence of social distancing.

Enhancing The Ability Of Poultry Farming To Cope With Covid-19 Pandemic Using Lora Internet Of Things Technology

Abstract- Since December 2019, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic has been pretentious in all sectors of human life. Scientists, as well as engineers, are working for developing a serum, through progressing more testing facilities and to improve monitoring systems. Advanced technology will help to cope with the Covid -19 outbreak and is convenient. In every part of life, it is essential to be updated through ratification of the progress in mass interest. With the growing demand, poultry farming has to cope with Covid -19 pandemic by using Lora IoT technology that becomes well known that contributes enormously to economic growth. In this paper, we will introduce a real-time automated poultry monitoring system that can be very useful to farmers effortlessly access and control the system remotely. The sensor will be used to sense and all data directed collected to the TTN cloud, the data in the cloud can be accessed and controlled by mobile apps, the summary of the information will be sent to the user through a text message or voice messages through handheld mobile devices. This reduces human involvement, saving time, and increases poultry production during the Covid-19 pandemic, in this automated system the physiological parameters such as temperature, air quality level, humidity, light intensity ventilation, and food feeding, in farms needs to be monitored and controlled virtual with less human involvement. The proposed system will generate quality data recording from a sensor that is will be stored in a Network server. The IoT technology will increase poultry fulfillment and raise demand for chicken meat and eggs during the Covid-19 epidemic as well as protection of chicken and the entire system. The strategic intentions of the production are to fulfill human demands and to ensure sustainable agriculture. K eywords— Covid-19, LoRa, IoT, TTN, poultry farm.

Evaluation and Refinement of a Bank of SMS Text Messages to Promote Behavior Change Adherence Following a Diabetes Prevention Program: Survey Study.

BackgroundSMS text messaging is a low-cost and far-reaching modality that can be used to augment existing diabetes prevention programs and improve long-term diet and exercise behavior change adherence. To date, little research has been published regarding the process of SMS text message content development. Understanding how interventions are developed is necessary to evaluate their evidence base and to guide the implementation of effective and scalable mobile health interventions in public health initiatives and in future research.ObjectiveThis study aims to describe the development and refinement of a bank of SMS text messages targeting diet and exercise behavior change to be implemented following a diabetes prevention program.MethodsA bank of 124 theory-based SMS text messages was developed using the Behaviour Change Wheel and linked to active intervention components (behavior change techniques [BCTs]). The Behaviour Change Wheel is a theory-based framework that provides structure to intervention development and can guide the use of evidence-based practices in behavior change interventions. Once the messages were written, 18 individuals who either participated in a diabetes prevention program or were a diabetes prevention coach evaluated the messages on their clarity, utility, and relevance via survey using a 5-point Likert scale. Messages were refined according to participant feedback and recoded to obtain an accurate representation of BCTs in the final bank.Results76/124 (61.3%) messages were edited, 4/124 (3.2%) were added, and 8/124 (6.5%) were removed based on participant scores and feedback. Of the edited messages, 43/76 (57%) received minor word choice and grammar alterations while retaining their original BCT code; the remaining 43% (33/76, plus the 4 newly written messages) were recoded by a reviewer trained in BCT identification.ConclusionsThis study outlines the process used to develop and refine a bank of SMS text messages to be implemented following a diabetes prevention program. This resulted in a bank of 120 theory-based, user-informed SMS text messages that were overall deemed clear, useful, and relevant by both individuals who will be receiving and delivering them. This formative development process can be used as a blueprint in future SMS text messaging development to ensure that message content is representative of the evidence base and is also grounded in theory and evaluated by key knowledge users.

Using the Discord Application to Facilitate EFL Vocabulary Acquisition

Vocabulary knowledge is a prerequisite for mastering any foreign language. It takes a lot of time and effort to develop English as a foreign language (EFL) vocabulary skills. Efficient ways to facilitate this process should be studied and analyzed. The present study aimed to investigate the role of the Discord application in teaching and learning EFL vocabulary. Discord is a free messenger with support for IP telephony and video conferencing, as well as the possibility to create public and private chats for exchanging text and voice messages. The study relied on pre-test and post-test design to get the necessary data of one experimental and one control group, 80 university students altogether. The results of the pre-test showed no significant difference between the two groups. The experimental group was taught with the help of the Discord application, while the control group was dealing with the traditional educational process, that is, 180 min every week in a classroom with a textbook and no electronic educational resources. Results of the t-test indicated that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group on a researcher-made vocabulary post-test. A post-treatment speaking test was administered—the participants took part in speaking interviews where they were asked to give a short speech on one of the topics studied during the experimental training. The representatives of the experimental group managed to use more vocabulary items per person correctly (pronunciation, lexical combinability, etc.). The findings revealed that the suggested way of using the Discord application may positively influence the acquisition of EFL vocabulary and its further application in speaking. Hence, it is recommended that the Discord application be used as a tool in the EFL vocabulary teaching and learning process to reinforce in-class tasks and activities.

Design and Construction of Speech Controlled Door

Home security is extremely important, and several methods of security have been improved, such as the usage of alarms, monitoring systems, and the interplay of electronic hardware, software, and other factors. Keys can be misplaced and found by others, putting the guarded structure at risk; keys can also be fabricated or stolen. This project entails creating a voice message-based door access system that can both open the door and identify intruders, trespassers, criminals, or any other type of illegal behaviour. The speech-controlled door was meant to generate a voice message based on the input data and was developed around a microcontroller (ATmega328p). A speech recognition module is used to allow the owner or user entry to the door. To gain access to the door, the owner must first utter the specific speech or key word required to open it. A voice notification is then outputted through the associated speaker if the pronounced word does not match the speech recognized by the microcontroller. To signify that access is refused, a red-light emitting diode will flash. The microprocessor would activate a relay and current will flow through the latch, allowing the door to be unlocked, if the uttered speech matches. A speech recognition module is used to allow the owner or user entry to the door. To gain access to the door, the owner must first utter the specific speech or key word required to open it. A voice notification is then outputted through the associated speaker if the pronounced word does not match the speech recognized by the microcontroller. To signify that access is refused, a red light emitting diode will flash. The microprocessor will activate a relay and current will flow through the latch, allowing the door to be unlocked, if the uttered speech matches.

A Mobile Health Breast Cancer Educational and Screening Intervention Tailored for Low-Income, Uninsured Latina Immigrants.

Objective: To investigate the efficacy of mobile health (mHealth) intervention strategies that delivered either personalized, culturally, and linguistically tailored cell phone voice messages or text messages related to breast cancer and prevention, compared to the control group, to determine which strategy is more likely to increase breast cancer knowledge and screening mammography among low-income Latina immigrants.Methods: This randomized controlled trial assigned 256 Latina immigrants 40 years of age or older to one of three groups: an automated cell phone voice message group, an automated text message group, or the control group (mail). The mHealth intervention employed a comprehensive approach that included breast cancer and prevention education and free mammography screening. Outcome measures included knowledge of breast cancer and breast cancer prevention, and adherence to screening mammography.Results: There was a general increase in breast cancer knowledge after the educational intervention for all the groups [p = 0.01, t(199) = 3.996]. Knowledge increase and mammography adherence did not differ based on group.Conclusion: More important than the actual method of communication is how breast cancer and prevention messages are constructed, who the messenger is, and the enabling factors that facilitate screening adherence. A breast cancer preventive intervention program that is personalized, culturally and linguistically tailored, and offers a free or low-cost mammogram holds promise to be an effective method in reaching an underserved Latina population with a high breast cancer burden.

“Just One Short Voice Message”—Comparing the Effects of Text- vs. Voice-Based Answering to Text Messages via Smartphone on Young Drivers’ Driving Performances

Despite the well-known distracting effects, many drivers still engage in phone use, especially texting and especially among young drivers, with new emerging messaging modes. The present study aims to examine the effects of different answering modes on driving performance. Twenty-four students (12 females), aged between 19 and 25 years (M = 20.83, SD = 1.53), volunteered for the study. They accomplished the Lane Change Task (LCT) with baseline and dual-task runs in a driving simulator. In dual-task runs, participants answered text messages on a smartphone by voice or text message with varying task complexity. Driving performance was measured by lane deviation (LCT) and subjective measures (NASA-TLX). Across all trials, driving performance deteriorated during dual-task runs compared with the baseline runs, and subjective demand increased. Analysis of dual-task runs showed a benefit for voice-based answering to received text messages that leveled off in the complex task. All in all, the benefits of using voice-based answering in comparison with text-based answering were found regarding driving performance and subjective measures. Nevertheless, this benefit was mostly lost in the complex task, and both the driving performance and the demand measured in the baseline conditions could not be reached.

Social and physical effects of a pedometer and communication application among older men: a mixed-methods, pre/post pilot study

ABSTRACT We developed ‘Kikoeru’, a pedometer and communication application (app) for older people, with functions that include voice conversations and messages, photograph sharing, and pedometer sharing among users. This pilot study aimed to clarify the effects of Kikoeru on social connectedness related to interactions through the app, subjective health, loneliness, and setting a target number of steps for seven men aged 65 and older who lived at home. Survey items consisted of the Ando-Osada-Kodama loneliness scale, target number of steps, and subjective health ratings. We utilized interviews, seeking to determine whether users felt connected when using the app. The app usage days were collected from the server. The social and physical effects of the app were assessed using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. Participants used the app for 54.9 days on average during the 60-day intervention period. Interviews revealed four social connectedness benefits: ‘constructing reliance’, ‘remembering to consider friends’, ‘awareness of friends’ daily lives and encouragement for me’, and ‘taking an interest in friends’. Loneliness decreased for four out of seven people, remained the same for three, and did not worsen for anyone. The target number of steps increased for three people, remained the same for four, and did not decrease for anyone. Average subjective health improved from 63.6 to 72.9 points out of 100 after the intervention. Results showed participants experienced social connectedness, reduced loneliness, and improved their target steps and health by using Kikoeru. Future large-scale studies with expanded sample sizes should be conducted.