Monitoring the Physical Activity of Patients Suffering From Peripheral Arterial Disease

The peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is characterized by leg pain during walking, and a recommended treatment for this disease is to perform supervised physical activity. In this chapter, a system that monitories the physical activity containing one application for smartwatch, one application for smartphone, and a back-end webservice is presented. The applications collect heart rate, GPS locations, step count, and altitude data. The methodology used for the development of the system was based on the agile method with the production of prototypes. In this chapter, four development cycles, which cover the users' and researchers' needs, are presented. In this work, the main objective is to evaluate the current mobile technologies on the physical activity data collection and the development of a system that assists the users to maintain an active life.

Mobile Apps for Acting on the Physical Space

This chapter focuses on the development of mobile applications in a research strategy that combines computer sciences and architecture and urbanism. The main goal of the research is to develop mobile applications that help specific target people in daily life situations and that clearly contribute for advances in the fields of computer sciences and social responses. The authors discuss a group of mobile apps that were developed for smartphones and tablets and that respond to the following broad goals: 1) mapping of the physical space in order to adapt it to respond better to the users' needs, 2) adaptation of the physical space to the users' needs, and finally, 3) give the users a better knowledge about the physical space they are in. For each app developed, the authors describe the research problem involved, the goals, the development process, and the developed solution as well as the tests conducted to measure their performance. Usability and satisfaction tests revealed that the developed apps have a good acceptance by the target users.

UX Design Guideline for Health Mobile Application to Improve Accessibility for the Visually Impaired

A health mobile application (app) has enabled users to access personal health records at any time and place. As an app provides health service to users, it is crucial for an app to be accessible to every user. However, often an app does not provide proper visual aid for users who are visually impaired. The authors restrict the range of visually impaired to retinitis pigmentosa (RP) patients in this chapter. RP is a rare type of progressive retinal disease that is hard to cure. Unfortunately, there are no established guidelines to assist RP patients in using their degrading sense of vision. In this chapter, the authors review WCAG (web content accessibility guidelines) specified by W3C, analyze the UX designs of 140 popular health apps chosen based on the number of download counts in app stores, and propose a set of standard-compliant UX design guidelines to assist the visually impaired (RP) in accessing visual data and evaluate its compliance compared to WCAG.

Use of Mobile Devices in Science Education in a Brazilian Public School Located in a Region of High Social Vulnerability

This chapter aims to present a case study about the use mobile devices as a tool to practice in science classes in subjects related to the parts of the human body and digestive system. This case study was carried out with 24 students of the fifth grade of a public school located in a region of high social vulnerability of the city of Araranguá, Santa Catarina, Brazil, in partnership with the Laboratory of Remote Experimentation (RexLab). For the practice, the following applications were used: Human Body Systems 3D, Human Anatomy and Puzzle Anatomy. At the end, students were asked to respond to a questionnaire about the level of satisfaction related to the use of tablets in the classroom. Through the answers, a positive reaction related to the integration of digital technologies in the classroom was perceived, characterizing, thus, an assertive opportunity to continue the use of mobile devices in the school environment, giving an improvement in the quality of teaching of the sciences provided by the applications, considering the benefits of digital inclusion.

The Urbis Prototype Development

Currently, tourists spend a lot of time planning their trips because they need to make the most of every moment. In this sense, technology has been a great ally, especially when performing and adapting this planning in the event of some unforeseen event during the journey. And the emergence of distinct types of mobile devices was presented as an opportunity to improve the experience of tourism significantly. In this context, this chapter aims to identify the main computing needs to a mobile application to support the promotion of tourist sites for the traveler. The authors adopted a literature review as the research methodology. The main result of this chapter is the proposal of the Urbis prototype, an application that aims to help tourists to know better the cities they are visiting, even in the absence of local information or a specialized tour guide.

An Approach for Detecting Social Interactions on Mobile Devices

Social exclusion can occur in a variety of ways, one of which is lack of social interaction. The recognition of the social relations that occur in a group is fundamental to identify possible exclusions. This chapter proposes SocialCount, a mobile application that identifies social interactions performed by the user. In order not to interfere in the naturalness of relationships, the application was designed to infer social interactions without user intervention. The data of the interactions generated sociograms that represented the structure of the relations in a group in a simple way. Through the sociogram it was possible to visualize the users who may be socially at risk and alert the professionals responsible to solve the situation.

Continuous Stress Assessment

Chronic stress is a spreading disease that affects millions of individuals with an enormous economic and social impact. Its prevention is, increasingly, a fundamental aspect for the improvement of the quality of life of individuals and the overall society. This chapter aims to understand how stress can be continuously monitored with the goal of predicting and alerting the occurrence of chronic or pathological stress and burnout situations. For this purpose, a non-invasive individual measurement instrument was developed to measure biometric signals through a wearable device that is connected to a mobile device. The prototype consists of a mobile application that gets the signals from a smartband and sends the data to an information system, tracking the individual physical condition to calculate the risk of entering the state of chronic stress. Continuous assessment of signs of stress is a key aspect for early detection of distress and effective intervention.

Factors for Resistance to the Use of Mobile Banking

In spite of the great potential for the development of mobile banking in Brazil, since the banking index reaches more than half of the population and the number of internet users is even higher, this potential is not evenly distributed among the age groups in the country. Taking into account the tendency to resist new technologies as one ages, this chapter aimed to identify the factors that lead the Brazilian population aged 45 years or over to use the internet and, within this spectrum, identify the barriers to the adoption of mobile banking technology. A questionnaire was applied and 113 responses were analyzed and categorized between functional and psychological aspects in these barriers. This chapter presents the results of this research.

Development of a Framework for Technological Embedding in Private Social Solidarity Institutions

The economic and social challenges felt in recent years because of the financial crisis impact wave were somehow attenuated by the silent work provided by the third sector institutions. Therefore, the incessant instability of the markets, as well as the population life-expectancy increasing and the implications thereof require new approaches towards pointing strategies to mitigate these problematic situations. For that reason, the development of technological solutions and applications for the private social solidarity institutions is an utmost challenge towards guaranteeing their sustainability and efficiency over time. The adoption of such solutions should be properly conceived to enhance their efficiency of the daily routines and to fulfill and inclusion of all users, while trying to reduce the technological literacy. The development of a technological framework to support the adoption of the practices, selection of technical requirements, and functionalities is seen as a great contribution for setting the roadmap that should be followed. This chapter explores the development of a framework for technological embedding in private social solidarity institutions.

Mobile Payment and Its Social Impact

This chapter describes mobile payment, a mobile financial activity born of digital revolution, which is the combination of electronic money and mobile technology. The underlying technologies of mobile payment, its big players, and its status quo and future trend are discussed. In addition, this chapter discusses how mobile payment is related to social equality and social inclusion. Through presenting the historical, technical, economic, and social aspects of mobile payment, this chapter intends to provide readers with a holistic view of one of the fast-evolving financial activities that are transforming business, individuals, and the society.