Exploring the challenges in obtaining physical activity data from women using hip-worn accelerometers

Quality objective physical activity data are required to inform physical activity-based health improvement initiatives, however, various challenges undermine acquisition of such data. We examined the efficacy and challenges of a hip-worn accelerometry protocol in women. Specific objectives included determining accelerometer-wear-compliance rates and understanding the barriers and acceptability of wearing accelerometers. Healthy New Zealand women (n?=?406) of three ethnicities (Māori (indigenous New Zealander), Pacific, European) aged 16–45 years (30.9?±?8.7 y) wore hip-mounted Actigraph wGT3X+ accelerometers for 7 consecutive days under a 24-h wear protocol. Post hoc, a sub-sample (n?=?45; age: 29.4?±?9.0 y) was interviewed to investigate comfort/convenience and burdens of accelerometer-wear. Wear-compliance (≥10?h/day, ≥4 day) was 86%. European women returned more valid data (92.7%, p?<?.04) than Pacific (73.0%) or Māori women (82.1%). Twenty-two participants (5.4%) had completely missing data; 13 due to lost accelerometers. Burden of accelerometer-wear was greatest during sleeping (66.7%) due to discomfort. Embarrassment of accelerometer visibility through clothing and consequent restricted clothing choices caused high burden in social settings (45.2%). Discomfort during sleeping, embarrassment due to perceived appearance in social settings and ethnicity are key factors affecting the efficacy of collecting physical activity data from women using hip-worn accelerometers. Refining accelerometer design to reduce size and subsequently participant burden should improve acceptability and wear-compliance. Increasing overall participant compliance by reducing burden and ensuring appropriate understanding of study aims and relevance should reduce attrition and improve wear-compliance and data quality when collecting accelerometry data from women of different ethnicities.     

Prospective analysis of technological innovation systems: Identifying technological and organizational development options for biogas in Switzerland

In this article, we put forward a concept for the identification and analysis of future development options of technological innovation systems. The key element of our approach, the so-called variation analysis, is a methodology to identify coherent socio-technical and organizational variants within a specific innovation field. Consistent combinations of these two dimensions may be interpreted as nuclei for alternative future developments of innovation systems. The method may be used in discursive foresight processes to inform strategy formulation of firms or policy makers who see a utility in furthering the innovation field. The paper has a focus on developing the theoretical background and the analytical structure of the methodology. Empirically, we illustrate the method for the innovation system of biomass digestion in Switzerland.     

Shaping selection environments for industrial catch-up and sustainability transitions: A systemic perspective on endogenizing windows of opportunity

Transitioning economic sectors towards more sustainable futures is a major global challenge, in particular for non-OECD countries. Policymakers in these countries are confronted with a double challenge: how to implement cleaner technologies and infrastructures while at the same time promoting rapid industrial development. In catch-up studies, this trade-off has been increasingly interpreted as providing windows of opportunity for gaining strong leadership in new generations of cleantech industries. In this paper, we maintain that in order to specify how these windows of opportunity can be endogenized, a deeper understanding is needed about whether, how and by whom the directionality of innovation systems can be influenced. For this purpose, we propose an analytical approach that draws on the technological innovation system framework extending the current understanding of directionality in two ways: first, we complement the prevalent top-down perspective with a bottom-up view exemplified by the institutional entrepreneurship literature. Second, we posit that the focus has to be shifted from the manufacturing of single technologies to the transformation of entire socio-technical systems. The presented framework is validated by a case study on recent shifts in the dominant technology in China’s urban water management sector. Major changes in the country’s sectoral selection environment led membrane bioreactor technology to become the dominant design in urban water management – a development that is unmatched in any other country in the world. Owing to these transformations, China’s technology firms outcompete multinational players and therefore they show strong potentials for industrial leapfrogging. However, although the promise to solve environmental problems played a decisive role in the shaping of the selection environment, it remains unclear whether the observed transformation leads the way to a more sustainable sector structure in the longer run. The case, however, still enables us to specify how windows of opportunity can be endogenized through the interplay of different actors trying to shape different layers of the selection environment in a specific sector.     

Reflections on working with virtual action learning

This paper brings together the reflections of the authors on their shared and individual experiences of virtual action learning. Whilst many conclusions are shared, there are also some points of difference in practices.     

Manifest: Strategische Bedeutung des Software Engineering für die Medizin

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

A Conceptual View of Web-Based E-Learning Systems

Starting from a general framework for web-based e-learning systems that is based on an abstraction layer model, this paper presents a conceptual modelling approach, which captures the modelling of learners, the modelling of courses, the personalisation of courses, and the management of data in e-learning systems. Courses are modelled by outline graphs, which are further refined by some form of process algebra. The linguistic analysis of word fields referring to an application domain helps to set up these course outlines. Learners are modelled by classifying value combinations for their characteristic properties. Each learner type gives rise to intentions as well as rights and obligations in using a learning system. Intentions can be formalised as postconditions, while rights and obligations lead to deontic constraints. The intentions can be used for the personalisation of the learning system to a learner type. Finally, the management of data in an e-learning system is approached on two different levels dealing with the content of individual learning units and the integrated content of the whole system, respectively. This leads to supporting databases and views defined on them.