Review and evaluation of mindfulness-based iPhone apps

Background There is growing evidence for the positive impact of mindfulness on wellbeing. Mindfulness-based mobile apps may have potential as an alternative delivery medium for training. While there are hundreds of such apps, there is little information on their quality. Objective This study aimed to conduct a systematic review of mindfulness-based iPhone mobile apps and to evaluate their quality using a recently-developed expert rating scale, the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS). It also aimed to describe features of selected high-quality mindfulness apps. Methods A search for “mindfulness” was conducted in iTunes and Google Apps Marketplace. Apps that provided mindfulness training and education were included. Those containing only reminders, timers or guided meditation tracks were excluded. An expert rater reviewed and rated app quality using the MARS engagement, functionality, visual aesthetics, information quality and subjective quality subscales. A second rater provided MARS ratings on 30% of the apps for inter-rater reliability purposes. Results The “mindfulness” search identified 700 apps. However, 94 were duplicates, 6 were not accessible and 40 were not in English. Of the remaining 560, 23 apps met inclusion criteria and were reviewed. The median MARS score was 3.2 (out of 5.0), which exceeded the minimum acceptable score (3.0). The Headspace app had the highest average score (4.0), followed by Smiling Mind (3.7), iMindfulness (3.5) and Mindfulness Daily (3.5). There was a high level of inter-rater reliability between the two MARS raters. Conclusions Though many apps claim to be mindfulness-related, most were guided meditation apps, timers, or reminders. Very few had high ratings on the MARS subscales of visual aesthetics, engagement, functionality or information quality. Little evidence is available on the efficacy of the apps in developing mindfulness.

Effectiveness of mobile apps in teaching field-based identification skills

It has been suggested that few students graduate with the skills required for many ecological careers, as field-based learning is said to be in decline in academic institutions. Here, we asked if mobile technology could improve field-based learning, using ability to identify birds as the study metric. We divided a class of ninety-one undergraduate students into two groups for field-based sessions where they were taught bird identification skills. The first group has access to a traditional identification book and the second group were provided with an identification app. We found no difference between the groups in the ability of students to identify birds after three field sessions. Furthermore, we found that students using the traditional book were significantly more likely to identify novel species. Therefore, we find no evidence that mobile technology improved students’ ability to retain what they experienced in the field; indeed, there is evidence that traditional field guides were more useful to students as they attempted to identify new species. Nevertheless, students felt positively about using their own smartphone devices for learning, highlighting that while apps did not lead to an improvement in bird identification ability, they gave greater accessibility to relevant information outside allocated teaching times.

iTeach we learn via mobile apps : "a case study in a business course"

Mobile smart phones and Mobile applications (apps) can be seen as an added opportunity for education and for teachers in particular, this can be true if educational institutions are willing to enable this type of delivery mechanism. With the recent development of app technologies in today’s society and the shift towards mobile technologies (devices and applications), it seems hard to imagine better devices and tools that can grant students easy and on demand access to learning content. These smart devices and technologies are multitasking and can offer variety of educational apps that teachers and students are able to integrate into their daily learning activities and can carry with them anywhere. In this paper mobile apps and their integration in education are discussed, a case study on the use of three mobile apps (e-Lecture-Producer, Dropbox and QR Code) in an educational setting in a Business e-commerce course is described. Results and outcomes are discussed based on the results from the case study.

Mining mobile apps reviews to support release planning

The mobile apps market is a tremendous success, with millions of apps downloaded and used every day by users spread all around the world. For apps’ developers, having their apps published on one of the major app stores (e.g. Google Play market) is just the beginning of the apps lifecycle. Indeed, in order to successfully compete with the other apps in the market, an app has to be updated frequently by adding new attractive features and by fixing existing bugs. Clearly, any developer interested in increasing the success of her app should try to implement features desired by the app’s users and to fix bugs affecting the user experience of many of them. A precious source of information to decide how to collect users’ opinions and wishes is represented by the reviews left by users on the store from which they downloaded the app. However, to exploit such information the app’s developer should manually read each user review and verify if it contains useful information (e.g. suggestions for new features). This is something not doable if the app receives hundreds of reviews per day, as happens for the very popular apps on the market. In this work, our aim is to provide support to mobile apps developers by proposing a novel approach exploiting data mining, natural language processing, machine learning, and clustering techniques in order to classify the user reviews on the basis of the information they contain (e.g. useless, suggestion for new features, bugs reporting). Such an approach has been empirically evaluated and made available in a web-­‐based tool publicly available to all apps’ developers. The achieved results showed that the developed tool: (i) is able to correctly categorise user reviews on the basis of their content (e.g. isolating those reporting bugs) with 78% of accuracy, (ii) produces clusters of reviews (e.g. groups together reviews indicating exactly the same bug to be fixed) that are meaningful from a developer’s point-­‐of-­‐view, and (iii) is considered useful by a software company working in the mobile apps’ development market.

MobiMed: Framework for Rapid Application Development of Medical Mobile Apps

In the medical field images obtained from high definition cameras and other medical imaging systems are an integral part of medical diagnosis. The analysis of these images are usually performed by the physicians who sometimes need to spend long hours reviewing the images before they are able to come up with a diagnosis and then decide on the course of action. In this dissertation we present a framework for a computer-aided analysis of medical imagery via the use of an expert system. While this problem has been discussed before, we will consider a system based on mobile devices. Since the release of the iPhone on April 2003, the popularity of mobile devices has increased rapidly and our lives have become more reliant on them. This popularity and the ease of development of mobile applications has now made it possible to perform on these devices many of the image analyses that previously required a personal computer. All of this has opened the door to a whole new set of possibilities and freed the physicians from their reliance on their desktop machines. The approach proposed in this dissertation aims to capitalize on these new found opportunities by providing a framework for analysis of medical images that physicians can utilize from their mobile devices thus remove their reliance on desktop computers. We also provide an expert system to aid in the analysis and advice on the selection of medical procedure. Finally, we also allow for other mobile applications to be developed by providing a generic mobile application development framework that allows for access of other applications into the mobile domain. In this dissertation we outline our work leading towards development of the proposed methodology and the remaining work needed to find a solution to the problem. In order to make this difficult problem tractable, we divide the problem into three parts: the development user interface modeling language and tooling, the creation of a game development modeling language and tooling, and the development of a generic mobile application framework. In order to make this problem more manageable, we will narrow down the initial scope to the hair transplant, and glaucoma domains.

Mindfulness-based stress management: Findings from randomized controlled trials

The use of Mindfulness has become increasingly popular in the field of psychotherapy and counselling, and is now finding application in unexpected places. Is it just another therapeutic fad or an evidence-based intervention with lasting value? ROBERT KING provides a timely review of the research literature to provide a summary of the findings of randomised control trials of the clinical efficacy or effectiveness of Mindfulness as a stress reduction intervention.

Mobile app rating scale: A new tool for assessing the quality of health mobile apps

Background The use of mobile apps for health and well being promotion has grown exponentially in recent years. Yet, there is currently no app-quality assessment tool beyond “star”-ratings. Objective The objective of this study was to develop a reliable, multidimensional measure for trialling, classifying, and rating the quality of mobile health apps. Methods A literature search was conducted to identify articles containing explicit Web or app quality rating criteria published between January 2000 and January 2013. Existing criteria for the assessment of app quality were categorized by an expert panel to develop the new Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) subscales, items, descriptors, and anchors. There were sixty well being apps that were randomly selected using an iTunes search for MARS rating. There were ten that were used to pilot the rating procedure, and the remaining 50 provided data on interrater reliability. Results There were 372 explicit criteria for assessing Web or app quality that were extracted from 25 published papers, conference proceedings, and Internet resources. There were five broad categories of criteria that were identified including four objective quality scales: engagement, functionality, aesthetics, and information quality; and one subjective quality scale; which were refined into the 23-item MARS. The MARS demonstrated excellent internal consistency (alpha = .90) and interrater reliability intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC = .79). Conclusions The MARS is a simple, objective, and reliable tool for classifying and assessing the quality of mobile health apps. It can also be used to provide a checklist for the design and development of new high quality health apps.

‘To me, it's like a little box of tricks’: Breaking the depressive interlock as a programme participant in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy

Objectives. Mindfulness meditation practices have become increasingly popular in clinical therapies, changing patterns of depressogenic thinking for individuals who experience consecutive episodes of depression. We were interested in finding out how Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) worked for programme participants by focussing on how meditative practices changed their relationships to their thoughts. Design. Data for the study came from six semi-structured research interviews carried out with individuals who had taken part in an 8 week MBCT programme Methods. We used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to analyse the experiential accounts. Results. We report on two superordinate themes – Engaging the Neutral Mind (with subordinate themes ‘breaking the paralysis of worry’ and ‘choosing to think differently’) and Experiencing the Neutral Mind (with subordinate themes of ‘reflection on previous thinking styles’ and ‘becoming psychologically self-reliant’). Conclusions. Themes from the present study offer support to the assertion that mindfulness meditation helps facilitate a different mode of meta-cognitive processing with which to handle depression-related cognitions. Practitioner Points Participants reported that they experienced an enhanced capacity to differentiate between their thought processes, experiencing an ability to tolerate some more uncomfortable thoughts and experiencing a/more choice in how to respond to thoughts Participants recognised that ruminating over negative thoughts was related to depressive states and experienced a shift in meta-cognitive processes that actively challenged depressogenic cognitions Participants became more psychologically self-reliant and therapeutically independent following MBCT Integrating mindfulness based practices in therapy may be a mediating factor in sustaining psychological wellbeing and may help clients develop self-compassion Future research looks to examining exit cases to understand elements of MBCT which are experienced as less successful by clients

Linux based mobile: operating systems

Trabalho de Projeto para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática e de Computadores

Can location-based mobile marketing enhance the customer experience and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty?

This study intends to explore the impact of customer experience on customer satisfaction and loyalty by trying to understand how location-based mobile marketing might enhance the customer experience. Primary data was collected from 201 smartphone users in 24 countries. Results have indicated that targeted location-based marketing positively influences customers’ experiences. Besides, the analysis has also shown a favorable impact on customers’ satisfaction and self-perceived loyalty. This suggests that location-based mobile marketing has the potential to positively add value to a customer’s experience and should therefore be considered an important tool in marketing communications.

Privacy-friendly Business Models for Location-Based Mobile Services

This paper presents a theoretical model to analyze the privacy issues around location based mobile business models. We report the results of an exploratory field experiment in Switzerland that assessed the factors driving user payoff in mobile business. We found that (1) the personal data disclosed has a negative effect on user payoff; (2) the amount of personalization available has a direct and positive effect, as well as a moderating effect on user payoff; (3) the amount of control over user's personal data has a direct and positive effect, as well as a moderating effect on user payoff. The results suggest that privacy protection could be the main value proposition in the B2C mobile market. From our theoretical model we derive a set of guidelines to design a privacy-friendly business model pattern for third-party services. We discuss four examples to show the mobile platform can play a key role in the implementation of these new business models.

Ability of students to recognize the relationship between using mobile apps for learning during fieldwork and the development of graduate attributes

The increasing importance of employability in Higher Education curricula and the prevalence of using mobile devices for fieldbased learning prompted an investigation into student awareness of the relationship between the use of mobile apps for learning and the development of graduate attributes (GAs) (and the link to employability). The results from post-fieldwork focus groups from four field courses indicated that students could make clear links between the use of a variety of mobile apps and graduate attribute development. The study suggests a number of mobile apps can align simultaneously with more than one graduate attribute. Furthermore, prior experience and the context of use can influence students’ perceptions of an app and its link with different GAs.