Archive for February, 2011
People and Animals and Computers (and stuff) – Journal club 18.2.2011
Feb 22nd
The number of people turning up at our weekly Journal Club sessions is increasing far quicker than the number of cakes (see figure 1 for a rough estimation). However, its great to be able to get people from across many disciplines in the University together to talk about computers and stuff. This week we had Nelly Lakestani from the dept of Psychology over to talk to us about her work in the field of animal welfare.
Recently, people have become more interested in where their food comes from. Indeed, we have explored this issue ourselves in a workshop paper last year. Nelly discussed with us how the consumer focus on where meat comes from has implications on animal welfare – especially in terms of getting information to people about welfare standards. Indeed, Nelly described a survey, recently carried out by the European Comission (link), which found that people from every member state are interested in knowing more about the welfare of the animals that they end up eating. We feel that there is a role for technology in helping people find this information. Nelly is also interested in game-based education for animal welfare and introduced us to a very interesting (disturbing) game developed to teach Finnish Abbatoir workers how to humanely slaughter animals. We’ll stick the link up to that work asap!
Martin Thayne, a Lecturer in the School of Media, and whose research interests are very much in the domain of social media, also came along to his first Journal Club meeting. We look forward to seeing more of martyn over the coming months as our research interests are quite closely aligned.
Bluetooth – Quietly Ubiquitous
Feb 15th
Last year we had a discussion over the use of Bluetooth technologies and how we could potentially utilise them to create context aware mobile applications including games and sensor-ware. Current and emerging sensor technologies are always of interest at LiSC in their potential to enable new experiences for end users and can assist in supporting lifestyle choices. A quick check revealed that much work has already been done in investigating the proliferation and ubiquitiness of Bluetooth enabled devices, see Lavelle et al (2007) here and Kostakos et al here.
However, being the inquisitive folks that we are, we installed our own Bluetooth scanner in a residential area in Sheffield to give us an idea on how popular Bluetooth enabled devices were in the area. We didn’t expect a great deal of devices to be found but after only 3 months (Feb – May 2010) we had picked up 13785 unique devices across 20 categories. Bluetooth appears to have become quietly ubiquitous in the scanned area for a myriad of uses from car entertainment systems to mobile printers. It certainly gave our group food for thought and we couldn’t help but think there may be life yet in teh’Bluetooth for innovative studies.
Journal Club 04.02.2011 – Facebook Usage, ENACT
Feb 7th
This week our discussion focused on social media regarding topics such as; motivation, structure and impacts of usage. The discussion of Facebook usage was in aid of the ENACT project which aims to study usage of social networking sites in order to improve the uptake of computerised cognitive behavioural therapy. The initial review paper (Students’ and teachers’ use of Facebook) gave a brief overview of current research into Facebook usage in an educational setting concerning topics such as student Facebook usage, profile information disclosure and students’ attitudes towards Facebook.
Interestingly Facebook usage was found to have a detrimental effect on users that were high consumers of information. One suggestion we had to combat this effect was to track the Facebook usage of users in order to determine those users who were consuming large amounts. Using this information it would then be possible to prompt the user into producing and incorporating themselves within their social network.
In the Older adults’ perceptions paper it was unsurprising to discover that this age group associated technology with distrust and therefore preferred to offer emotional support to other users with more established mediums such as face to face and telephones. Although the paper did highlight the fact that there are older users out there providing drawing from their own experiences in order to support to others.
Amazingly cakes were oversupplied this week, there may have to be a national cull in times to come.
Reviewed Papers
[pdf] Social Network Activity and Social Well-Being
[pdf] College students’ social networking experiences on Facebook
[pdf] Students’ and teachers’ use of Facebook
[pdf] Older adults’ perceptions and experiences of online social support
HEFCE LGM Conference – Electro-Magnates
Feb 1st
Shaun and I recently attended the HEFCE LGM 2011 Conference in London at the stately Royal Society of Medicine buildings. At the event we presented our LGM funded Electro-Magnates project, participated in a Q & A panel, carried out a poster session and took part in workshops. The poster can be viewed here and the presentation here. Many other LGM funded projects were presented at various phases of development, the dissemination of which gave us a useful insight into the diverse range of projects the LGM element of HEFCE will fund. Altogether it turned it to be a busy but informative day with much interest from other delegates in our project.
Some interesting projects were presented, particularly the aptly named Carbon Brainprint project being run by Cranfield University. The project looks at the research contributions universities make across the public and private sector in reducing emissions. This is the type of project that LiSC would be well suited to in a collaborative partnership with our new engineering department when it opens.
 Presentation |
 Shaun on Q & A panel, slightly pasty but on form |
Despite a much compressed trip we still managed to sample some Indian cuisine in Euston’s Drummond Rd which plays host to at least a dozen Indian restaurants and cafes in a short 100m strip. Unfortunately, despite the chicken chilli with green chillies being branded ‘extra hot’, it had a rather lacklustre kick to it which even a Bombay Badboy could best. We also chanced upon a great real ale house, The Euston Tap, the twin counterpart of the northern Sheffield Tap which is well worth a visit with not a single lager-shandy-tops in sight.
Upon leaving the restaurant we spotted a full rack of Boris Bikes in a distinctly unused state. This reminded me of the Pedal-Mania RewiredState project designed to spur on the even dispersal of the bikes to other locations and to promote fitness. However, I can’t imagine jumping on one of them after a curry and a few bottles of fizzy Mongoose beer.
 Unused full rack of Boris Bikes in Euston |
 Fizzy Mongoose Indian beer |