Designing for engagement towards healthier lifestyles through food image sharing : the case of I8DAT

This paper introduces the underlying design concepts of I8DAT, a food image sharing application that has been developed as part of a three-year research project – Eat, Cook, Grow: Ubiquitous Technology for Sustainable Food Culture in the City (http://www.urbaninformatics .net/projects/food) – exploring urban food practices to engage people in healthier, more environmentally and socially sustainable eating, cooking, and growing food in their everyday lives. The key aim of the project is to produce actionable knowledge, which is then applied to create and test several accessible, user-centred interactive design solutions that motivate user-engagement through playful and social means rather than authoritative information distribution. Through the design and implementation processes we envisage to integrate these design interventions to create a sustainable food network that is both technical and socio-cultural in nature (technosocial). Our primary research locale is Brisbane, Australia, with additional work carried out in three reference cities with divergent geographic, socio-cultural, and technological backgrounds: Seoul, South Korea, for its global leadership in ubiquitous technology, broadband access, and high population density; Lincoln, UK, for the regional and peri-urban dimension it provides, and Portland, Oregon, US, for its international standing as a hub of the sustainable food movement.

Start playing with your food : fun food experiences with mobile social media

Healthy and sustainable food is gaining more attention from consumers, industry, and researchers. Yet many approaches to date are limited to information dissemination, advertisement or education. We have embarked on a three year collaborative research project (2011 – 2013) to explore urban food practices – eating, cooking, growing food – to support the well-being of people and the environment. Our overall goal is to employ a user-centred interaction design research approach to inform the development of entertaining, real-time, mobile and networked applications, engaging playful feedback to build motivation. Our aspiration for this study is to deliver usable and useful mobile and situated interaction prototypes that employ individual and group strategies to foster food cultures that provide new pathways to produce, share and enjoy food that is green, healthy, and fun.

Inexact uniformization method for computing transient distributions of Markov chains

The uniformization method (also known as randomization) is a numerically stable algorithm for computing transient distributions of a continuous time Markov chain. When the solution is needed after a long run or when the convergence is slow, the uniformization method involves a large number of matrix-vector products. Despite this, the method remains very popular due to its ease of implementation and its reliability in many practical circumstances. Because calculating the matrix-vector product is the most time-consuming part of the method, overall efficiency in solving large-scale problems can be significantly enhanced if the matrix-vector product is made more economical. In this paper, we incorporate a new relaxation strategy into the uniformization method to compute the matrix-vector products only approximately. We analyze the error introduced by these inexact matrix-vector products and discuss strategies for refining the accuracy of the relaxation while reducing the execution cost. Numerical experiments drawn from computer systems and biological systems are given to show that significant computational savings are achieved in practical applications.

What is food literacy and does it influence what we eat : a study of Australian food experts

This report details the findings of the Food Literacy Delphi Study. This study was the first of three studies commissioned by Health Promotion Queensland, Queensland Health. It examines the views of experts from around Australia about food literacy; its meaning, potential components and relationship to nutrition.

Contribution of take-out food consumption to socioeconomic differences in fruit and vegetable intake : a mediation analysis

Lower fruit and vegetable intake among socioeconomically disadvantaged groups has been well documented, and may be a consequence of a higher consumption of take-out foods. This study examined whether, and to what extent, take-out food consumption mediated (explained) the association between socioeconomic position and fruit and vegetable intake. A cross-sectional postal survey was conducted among 1500 randomly selected adults aged 25–64 years in Brisbane, Australia in 2009 (response rate = 63.7%, N = 903). A food frequency questionnaire assessed usual daily servings of fruits and vegetables (0 to 6), overall take-out consumption (times/week) and the consumption of 22 specific take-out items (never to ≥once/day). These specific take-out items were grouped into “less healthy” and “healthy” choices and indices were created for each type of choice (0 to 100). Socioeconomic position was ascertained by education. The analyses were performed using linear regression, and a bootstrap re-sampling approach estimated the statistical significance of the mediated effects. Mean daily serves of fruits and vegetables was 1.89 (SD 1.05) and 2.47 (SD 1.12) respectively. The least educated group were more likely to consume fewer serves of fruit (B= –0.39, p<0.001) and vegetables (B= –0.43, p<0.001) compared with the highest educated. The consumption of “less healthy” take-out food partly explained (mediated) education differences in fruit and vegetable intake; however, no mediating effects were observed for overall and “healthy” take-out consumption. Regular consumption of “less healthy” take-out items may contribute to socioeconomic differences in fruit and vegetable intake, possibly by displacing these foods.

Food(ing): between human-computer and human-food-experience

This workshop is a continuation and extension to the successful past workshops exploring the intersection of food, technology, place, and people, namely 2009 OZCHI workshop, Hungry 24/7? HCI Design for Sustainable Food Culture and Sustainable Interaction with Food, Technology, and the City [1] and 2010 CHI panel Making Food, Producing Sustainability [3]. The workshop aims to bring together experts from diverse backgrounds including academia, government, industry, and non-for-profit organisations. It specifically aims to create a space for discussion and design of innovative approaches to understanding and cultivating sustainable food practices via human-computer-interaction (HCI) as well as addressing the wider opportunities for the HCI community to engage with food as a key issue for sustainability The workshop addresses environmental, health, and social domains of sustainability in particular, by looking at various conceptual and design approaches in orchestrating sustainable interaction of people and food in and through dynamic techno-social networks.

Reconfiguration or innovation in supply chains?

This research explores supply chain competitiveness and dynamic capabilities. It examines a pilot group of Australian supply chain organisations to understand the importance of dynamic capability in building innovation capacity for competitive advantage, and the concept of adopting a strategic approach to supply chain relationship building. A supply chain is after all a group of intra and interorganisational relationships delivering demand to end-users. This exploratory study confirms a positive relationship between the variables indicating both a strategic intent to develop relational capability, and very strong predictive linkages between the importance placed on developing supply chain dynamic capability and achieving supply chain innovation capacity as a competitive advantage.

Negative affect-induced food intake in non-dieting women is reward driven and associated with restrained-disinhibited eating subtype

In humans the presence of negative affect is thought to promote food intake, but there is widespread variability. Susceptibility to negative affect-induced eating may depend on trait eating behaviours, notably ‘emotional eating’, ‘restrained eating’ and ‘disinhibited eating’, but the evidence is not consistent. In the present study, 30 non-obese, non-dieting women were given access to palatable food whilst in a state of negative or neutral affect, induced by a validated autobiographical recall technique. As predicted, food intake was higher in the presence of negative affect; however, this effect was moderated by the pattern of eating behaviour traits and enhanced wanting for the test food. Specifically, the High Restraint-High Disinhibition subtype in combination with higher scores on emotional eating and food wanting was able to predict negative-affect intake (adjusted R2 = .61). In the absence of stress, individuals who are both restrained and vulnerable to disinhibited eating are particularly susceptible to negative affect food intake via stimulation of food wanting. Identification of traits that predispose individuals to overconsume and a more detailed understanding of the specific behaviours driving such overconsumption may help to optimise strategies to prevent weight gain.

Simultaneous voltammetric determination of three herbicides in food and water samples with the aid of chemometrics

Differential pulse stripping voltammetry method(DPSV) was applied to the determination of three herbicides, ametryn, cyanatryn, and dimethametryn. It was found that their voltammograms overlapped strongly, and it is difficult to determine these compounds individually from their mixtures. With the aid of chemometrics, classical least squares(CLS), principal component regression(PCR) and partial least squares(PLS), voltammogram resolution and quantitative analysis of the synthetic mixtures of the three compounds were successfully performed. The proposed method was also applied to the analysis of some real samples with satisfactory results.

Socio-economic differences in takeaway food consumption among adults

To examine socioeconomic differences in the frequency and types of takeaway foods consumed. Cross-sectional postal survey. Participants were asked about their usual consumption of overall takeaway food (< four times a month, or ≥ four times a month) and 22 specific takeaway food items (< once a month, or ≥ once a month): these latter foods were grouped into “healthy” and “less healthy” choices. Socioeconomic position was measured using education and equivalised household income and differences in takeaway food consumption were assessed by calculating prevalence ratios using log binomial regression. Adults aged 25–64 years from Brisbane, Australia were randomly selected from the electoral roll (N = 903, 63.7% response rate). Compared with their more educated counterparts, the least educated were more regular consumers of overall takeaway food, fruit/vegetable juice, and less regular consumers of sushi. For the “less healthy” items, the least educated more regularly consumed potato chips, savoury pies, fried chicken, and non-diet soft drinks; however, the least educated were less likely to consume curry. Household income was not associated with overall takeaway consumption. The lowest income group were more regular consumers of fruit/vegetable juice compared with the highest income group. Among the “less healthy” items, the lowest income group were more regular consumers of fried fish, ice-cream, and milk shakes, while curry was consumed less regularly. The frequency and types of takeaway foods consumed by socioeconomically disadvantaged groups may contribute to inequalities in overweight/obesity and chronic disease.