Theano Moussouri

Consumer perceptions of privacy, security and trust in ubiquitous commerce

Commerce is a rapidly emerging application area of ubiquitous computing. In this paper, we discuss the market forces that make the deployment of ubiquitous commerce infrastructures a priority for grocery retailing. We then proceed to report on a study on consumer perceptions of MyGrocer, a recently developed ubiquitous commerce system. The emphasis of the discussion is on aspects of security, privacy protection and the development of trust; we report on the findings of this study. We adopt the enacted view of technology adoption to interpret some of our findings based on three principles for the development of trust. We expect that this interpretation can help to guide the development of appropriate strategies for the successful deployment of ubiquitous commerce systems.

Negotiated agendas: families in science and technology museums

This paper argues for the importance of museum professionals and policy makers to understand the expectations and perceptions of family groups. Family agendas influence the way the visit is perceived and accounted for. On the other hand, the museum agenda – that is the overall aim of the museum as well as its expectations for the visitor experience – influences the agenda of the family. This paper aims to give an insight into how family groups make sense of their visit to a hands-on museum and to discuss their experience in their own terms, including their perceptions of interactive science exhibitions.

Examining the Effect of Visitor Motivation on Observed Visit Strategies Using Mobile Computer Technologies

ABSTRACT This article examines the interaction between visitor motivation and in-museum visitor behavior. The authors postulate that, in order to understand this aspect of the dynamics of museum visiting, we need to view the motivations to visit the museum as lists compiled by individual visitors but also as part of wider lists of reasons for visiting that exist in society—which they refer to as cultural itineraries. Self-report methods have been used to capture patterns of motivation that emerge across the data, which in this case were used to examine their relation to visit strategies as manifested by visitor pathways through the London Zoo. Visitor pathways were captured through the novel use of mobile location-sensing technology which offers distinct opportunities in this context that have been unexplored in audience research. The combination of standard research methodology and automated location tracking used in this study allowed us to indentify two distinct visit strategies that directly relate to social groupings with different motivations: (a) groups with an education/participation motivation, who visit exhibits only, and (b) groups with a social event motivation, who spend a considerable amount of time on nonexhibit related activities and socializing with other family members and friends.

Conducting Visitor Studies Using Smartphone-Based Location Sensing

Visitor studies explore human experiences within museums, cultural heritage sites, and other informal learning settings to inform decisions. Smartphones offer novel opportunities for extending the depth and breadth of visitor studies while considerably reducing their cost and their demands on specialist human resources. By enabling the collection of significantly higher volumes of data, they also make possible the application of advanced machine-learning and visualization techniques, potentially leading to the discovery of new patterns and behaviors that cannot be captured by simple descriptive statistics. In this article, we present a principled approach to the use of smartphones for visitor studies, in particular proposing a structured methodology and associated methods that enable its effective use in this context. We discuss specific methodological considerations that have to be addressed for effective data collection, preprocessing, and analysis and identify the limitations in the applicability of these tools using family visits to the London Zoo as a case study. We conclude with a discussion of the wider opportunities afforded by the introduction of smartphones and related technologies and outline the steps toward establishing them as a standard tool for visitor studies.

Knowledge management for collaborative exhibition development

Abstract Museums increasingly develop exhibitions through collaboratives, a trend that demands the investigation of novel ways to facilitate the exchange of ideas and the documentation of knowledge gained. Current knowledge management technologies and tools can support such cross-organisational activities, yet they are limited in that they do not adequately cater for the particular requirements of this activity. In this article we show how the Mirror Knowledge Management System (MKMS), specifically designed to support collaborative exhibition development around a three-dimensional web-based environment founded upon the communities of practice concept, can facilitate geographically distributed collaboration and advance exhibition development practice. Through user studies we identify the key elements of the MKMS that add value to face-to-face interaction or enhance existing collaborative exhibition development practices. Moreover, we show how the MKMS supports professional development and on-the-job training, both recognised as highly desirable features in this setting.

Deep learning Parkinson's from smartphone data

The cloudUPDRS app is a Class I medical device, namely an active transient non-invasive instrument, certified by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the UK for the clinical assessment of the motor symptoms of Parkinsons Disease. The app follows closely the Unified Parkinsons Disease Rating Scale which is the most commonly used protocol in the clinical study of PD; can be used by patients and their carers at home or in the community; and, requires the user to perform a sequence of iterated movements which are recorded by the phone sensors. This paper discusses how the cloudUPDRS system addresses two key challenges towards meeting essential consistency and efficiency requirements, namely: (i) How to ensure high-quality data collection especially considering the unsupervised nature of the test, in particular, how to achieve firm user adherence to the prescribed movements; and (ii) How to reduce test duration from approximately 25 minutes typically required by an experienced patient, to below 4 minutes, a threshold identified as critical to obtain significant improvements in clinical compliance. To address the former, we combine a bespoke design of the user experience tailored so as to constrain context, with a deep learning approach used to identify failures to follow the movement protocol while at the same time limiting false positives to avoid unnecessary repetition. We address the latter by developing a machine learning approach to personalise assessments by selecting those elements of the UPDRS protocol that most closely match individual symptom profiles and thus offer the highest inferential power hence closely estimating the patents overall UPRDS score.

From Wellness to Medical Diagnostic Apps: The Parkinson’s Disease Case

This paper presents the design and development of the CloudUPDRS app and supporting system developed as a Class I medical device to assess the severity of motor symptoms for Parkinson’s Disease. We report on lessons learnt towards meeting fidelity and regulatory requirements; effective procedures employed to structure user context and ensure data quality; a robust service provision architecture; a dependable analytics toolkit; and provisions to meet mobility and social needs of people with Parkinson’s.

Implications of the Social Model of Disability for visitor research

ABSTRACT Museum professionals have long held the view that their institutions can play a central role in supporting learning and inclusion but evidence seems to be in sort supply in the case of visitors with disabilities. Until recently, most of the work conducted in museums relating to learning and access for this particular visitor group has been about developing products and services rather than assessing their impact. The lack of research in this area reflects the slow development of disability studies as a distinct field and the fact that anti-discrimination and human rights legislation only extended to those with disabilities in the mid to late 1990s. The author introduces one approach to negotiating a balanced design of visitor research and the principles of the emancipatory research framework. She argues that this framework has the capacity to delve into the experiences of people with disabilities and provide a deeper analysis that would not otherwise be possible. The Heritage Education For All project will be used as an example to demonstrate how this approach can be developed in practice, and to show that informal learning programs designed using an emancipatory insight have the capacity to enable people with disabilities to gain new insights into their lives and identities.