Kyle Lutes

Use of technology in children’s dietary assessment

Background:Information on dietary intake provides some of the most valuable insights for mounting intervention programmes for the prevention of chronic diseases. With the growing concern about adolescent overweight, the need to accurately measure diet becomes imperative. Assessment among adolescents is problematic as this group has irregular eating patterns and they have less enthusiasm for recording food intake.Subjects/Methods:We used qualitative and quantitative techniques among adolescents to assess their preferences for dietary assessment methods.Results:Dietary assessment methods using technology, for example, a personal digital assistant (PDA) or a disposable camera, were preferred over the pen and paper food record.Conclusions:There was a strong preference for using methods that incorporate technology such as capturing images of food. This suggests that for adolescents, dietary methods that incorporate technology may improve cooperation and accuracy. Current computing technology includes higher resolution images, improved memory capacity and faster processors that allow small mobile devices to process information not previously possible. Our goal is to develop, implement and evaluate a mobile device (for example, PDA, mobile phone) food record that will translate to an accurate account of daily food and nutrient intake among adolescents. This mobile computing device will include digital images, a nutrient database and image analysis for identification and quantification of food consumption. Mobile computing devices provide a unique vehicle for collecting dietary information that reduces the burden on record keepers. Images of food can be marked with a variety of input methods that link the item for image processing and analysis to estimate the amount of food. Images before and after the foods are eaten can estimate the amount of food consumed. The initial stages and potential of this project will be described.

Technology-Assisted Dietary Assessment

Dietary intake provides valuable insights for mounting intervention programs for prevention of disease. With growing concern for adolescent obesity, the need to accurately measure diet becomes imperative. Assessment among adolescents is problematic as this group has irregular eating patterns and have less enthusiasm for recording food intake. Preliminary studies among adolescents suggest that innovative use of technology may improve the accuracy of diet information from young people. In this paper, we propose a novel food record method using a mobile device that will provide an accurate account of daily food and nutrient intake among adolescents. Our approach includes the use of image analysis tools for identification and quantification of food consumption. Images obtained before and after food is consumed can be used to estimate the diet of an individual. In this paper we describe our initial results and indicate the potential of the proposed system.

Diabetic e-Management System (DEMS)

The purpose of this paper is to describe a recent project in which Internet-ready handheld computers (personal digital assistants, PDAs) and custom software applications were used to help diabetes patients self manage their condition. The project research team is made up of professors and graduate students with backgrounds in information technology, nursing, and sociology who have an interest in using emerging technologies in healthcare applications. The researchers theorized that allowing diabetes patients to easily enter information about their daily activities (e.g. diet, exercise, blood sugar levels, and medications) into a handheld computer, and then immediately use a wireless network connection to upload that information to a central server for review by a medical professional would prove more useful than simply logging this information for the patients own use. A seed grant was acquired, computer hardware was purchased, and a prototype system was developed. Thirteen individuals tested the prototype system and the users were qualitatively interviewed. The users were also presented with a 10-question survey based on the system usability scale (SUS)

Software development for mobile computers

The author describes a course that he developed and teaches on software development for mobile computing. The course provides the theory and hands-on experience that students need to develop applications for new mobile computing environments.

Nurses' Perceptions of Using a Pocket PC for Shift Reports and Patient Care

Nurses working in hospitals with paper-based systems often face the challenge of inefficiency in providing quality nursing care. Two areas of inefficiency are shift-to-shift communication among nurses and access to information related to patient care. An integrated IT system, consisting of Pocket PCs and a desktop PC interfaced to a hospital’s mainframe system, was developed. The goal was to use mobile IT to give nurses easier access to patient information. This paper describes the development of this system and reports the results of a pilot study: a comparison of time spent in taking and giving shift reports before and after the study and nurses’ perceptions of the mobile IT system. Results showed significant difference in taking shift reports and no significant difference in giving shift reports. Nurses stated that quick and easy access to updated patient information in the Pocket PC was very helpful, especially during mainframe downtime.

Exploring Our Options: Modern Publishing Alternatives for our Computer Programming Textbook

The authors of this paper are also the authors of an introductory computer programming textbook used in several college courses. Due to the rapidly changing content, the textbook requires frequent revisions causing the shelf-life of each specific version of the textbook to be relatively short, sometimes being no longer than a single semester. In addition, the time required to actually print a new version of the textbook and make it available to students was too long considering the time-sensitivity of the content and frequency of revisions. For these reasons, traditional publishing of this textbook was an unsatisfactory option. In this paper, we describe our exploration of alternatives to traditional textbook publication in hopes of finding an easy, uncomplicated, and rapid means of textbook publication. Our findings on ease of content creation/revision, time-to-market, monetization, and digital rights management are presented in this paper. Finally, we present our criteria for a publishing option we think is needed for authors who publish textbooks on similar rapidly changing domain topics.