Un/Making Data Imaginaries: The Data Epics

Introduction. Multimorbidity is defined as the occurrence of two or more chronic diseases and is the most noticeable feature of an elderly person. With age, an increase in the incidence of chronic diseases is observed. Somatic diseases frequently co-occur with mental illnesses. In most cases, chronic diseases result in seniors’ disability. The most common ones include cardiovascular system, locomotor system, sight and hearing disorders; neurological and mental diseases; and mental impairments. Aim. The aim of the paper was to assess the prevalence of multimorbidity in elderly people in their home environment and to determine the relationship between multimorbidity and seniors’ functional skills. Material and Methods. The method of a diagnostic survey was applied, with the direct questionnaire technique. A questionnaire of the authors’ own construction was used, as well as standardized tools, i.e. the Barthel and the Lawton scales. The study involved 504 people aged 66–94 years staying in their home environment. Results. Only 0.05% of the subjects did not report any disease. The average number of diseases was 2.98 (3.03 in women, 2.90 in men). A statistically significant correlation was found between the number of the declared diseases and the patients’ age (p<0.001). In addition, together with an increase in the number of diseases, a deterioration was observed in the results on the Barthel and Lawton scales (p<0.001), as well as in cognitive and emotional skills (p<0.001). Conclusions. The vast majority of people aged over 65 years living in rural areas experienced multimorbidity; the following predominated among the diseases: hypertension, osteoarthritis, circulatory insufficiency, atherosclerosis, and diabetes mellitus. Together with an increase in the number of diseases, a deterioration was observed in the patients’ functional, cognitive, and emotional skills. (JNNN 2024;13(1):17–22)

As more people gain at‐home access to the Internet, information seeking on the Web has become embedded in everyday life. The objective of this study was to characterize the home as an information use environment and to identify a range of information seeking and Web‐search behaviors at home. Twelve Northern California residents were recruited, and the data were collected through semi‐structured at‐home interviews based on a self‐reported Search Activities Diary that subjects kept over a 3–5 day period. The data were analyzed on four levels: home environment, information seeking goals, information retrieval interaction, and search query. Findings indicated that the home, indeed, provided a distinct information use environment beyond physical setting alone in which the subjects used the Web for diverse purposes and interests. Based on the findings, the relationships among home environment, Web context, and interaction situation were identified with respect to user goals and information‐seeking behaviors.

A smart home is a home environment enriched with sensing, actuation, communication and computation capabilities which permits to adapt it to inhabitants preferences and requirements. Establishing a proper strategy of actuation on the home environment can require complex computational tasks on the sensed data. This is the case of activity recognition, which consists in retrieving high-level knowledge about what occurs in the home environment and about the behaviour of the inhabitants. The inherent complexity of this application domain asks for tools able to properly support the design and implementation phases. This paper proposes a framework for the design and implementation of smart home applications focused on activity recognition in home environments. The framework mainly relies on the Cloud-assisted Agent-based Smart home Environment (CASE) architecture offering basic abstraction entities which easily allow to design and implement Smart Home applications. CASE is a three layered architecture which exploits the distributed multi-agent paradigm and the cloud technology for offering analytics services. Details about how to implement activity recognition onto the CASE architecture are supplied focusing on the low-level technological issues as well as the algorithms and the methodologies useful for the activity recognition. The effectiveness of the framework is shown through a case study consisting of a daily activity recognition of a person in a home environment.

In spite of the therapies currently available to treat people with multiple sclerosis (MS), some individuals continue to experience physical, cognitive, and/or emotional changes over the course of the disease that severely compromise function, independence, safety, and quality of life. In addition, co-morbidities are common in people with MS, further impacting health and well-being, as well as the ability to manage their healthcare needs and cope with everyday life. The National MS Society’s Edward M Dowd Personal Advocate Program (which is one component of the National MS Society’s MS Navigator® Service) is designed to pick up where traditional neurologic care and Society MS Navigators cannot go—into patients’ home environments. This centrally administered program contracts with local professional case managers (most often nurses and social workers) to help stabilize individuals with multiple urgent care needs (for example, in cases of abuse or neglect, or inadequate food, housing or medical care, among others) while identifying and implementing longer-term, sustainable solutions leading to greater independence and quality of life. This article outlines the rationale and goals of the Society’s case management services, considers successful and unsuccessful outcomes that have occurred since the program’s inception, examines the factors that contribute to success or failure for any given patient, and describes future goals.

We examined whether two variables – pattern recognition (i.e., predicting which chute a ball would come down), and exposure to repeated behaviors in the home environment (e.g., drinking from a cup or folding washing multiple times) – predicted children’s later theory of mind (ToM). These two variables have been hypothesized to assist ToM development because they help children learn to recognize patterns in behavior, and therefore predict future behavior. Because this behavior is underpinned by mental states (e.g., people act in particular ways due to their desires and beliefs), repeated behaviors accompanied by pattern recognition should also help children to eventually acquire a ToM. We studied these questions using a longitudinal study of 56 children (primarily of European ethnicity, 22 girls, 34 boys) at four timepoints (21, 24, 27 and 30 months). Replicating previous research, we found that repeated behaviors were very frequent ( M = 143.4 per hour). Crucially, we also found that both repeated behaviors and pattern recognition were unique predictors of children’s subsequent ToM (along with their earlier language ability), consistent with the idea that pattern recognition and repeated behaviors facilitate children’s subsequent ToM. • Longitudinal study of ToM over four timepoints between 21 and 30 mos of age. • Infants fitted with a head camera, allowing us to observe their home environment. • Infants had better ToM at 30 mos if they had better pattern recognition at early timepoints • Infants had better ToM at 30 mos if they had more exposure to patterns of behavior. • Longitudinal design suggests causal role for pattern recognition and repeated behaviors in ToM

This study aims to explore and understand how people with advanced cancer create meaning and handle everyday life through activity. A purposive sample of seven participants was recruited from a larger study. Data were collected through qualitative interviews and participant observations conducted in the participants' home environments while they were engaged in activities to which they assigned particular value. Interpretive analysis was conducted using narrative theory and relevant literature. The study shows how people in conditions of advanced cancer fashion narratives useful for handling everyday life with advanced cancer. A meta-narrative of "saying goodbye in a good way" provided an overall structure for the participants as they attempted to create desired narratives negotiated in context of the individuals' sociocultural life and in the proximity of death. A narrative of "being healthy although ill" provided an arena for exploring the contrast between simultaneously feeling well and severely ill. Further emplotment of activities in "routines and continuity" was identified as a means to provide a safe, familiar framework stimulating participants' everyday agency. "My little Mecca" was identified as a narrative reflecting the activity of life-confirming experiences and taking time out. The identified narratives performed and told in daily life may guide the development of palliative care services to support people with advanced cancer in creating meaning in the remains of their lives.

In recent years, there have been a surge in ubiquitous technologies such as smartwatches and fitness trackers that can track the human physical activities effortlessly. These devices have enabled common citizens to track their physical fitness and encourage them to lead a healthy lifestyle. Among various exercises, walking and running are the most common ones people do in everyday life, either through commute, exercise, or doing household chores. If done at the right intensity, walking and running are sufficient enough to help individual reach the fitness and weight-loss goals. Therefore, it is important to measure walking/ running speed to estimate the burned calories along with preventing them from the risk of soreness, injury, and burnout. Existing wearable technologies use GPS sensor to measure the speed which is highly energy inefficient and does not work well indoors. In this paper, we design, implement and evaluate a convolutional neural network based algorithm that leverages accelerometer and gyroscope sensory data from the wrist-worn device to detect the speed with high precision. Data from $15$ participants were collected while they were walking/running at different speeds on a treadmill. Our speed detection algorithm achieved $4.2\%$ and $9.8\%$ MAPE (Mean Absolute Error Percentage) value using $70-15-15$ train-test-evaluation split and leave-one-out cross-validation evaluation strategy respectively.

BackgroundWeight stigma is a public health concern linked to psychological distress, social exclusion, and poorer health outcomes. Although stigma in daily life has been studied internationally, little is known about its effects on lived experience in Finland, especially across different socioeconomic groups. This study examined how weight stigma is encountered in everyday life among Finnish adults, exploring potential differences in the sources and impacts of socioeconomic position and body mass index (BMI).MethodsThis qualitative interview study is a part of the Helsinki Health Study. Participants (n = 40) were selected from the City of Helsinki employee cohort, equally divided by educational level (low/high) and BMI (BMI ≥30 kg/m² and BMI <30 kg/m²), with an equal representation of women and men. Interviews were conducted in 2023-2024, and the data were analyzed using inductive content analysis.ResultsParticipants described experiencing weight stigma as a recurring part of everyday life, especially in close relationships such as parents, partners, and relatives, as well as in healthcare, media, and workplaces. Stigma took many forms, from subtle suggestions or ‘concerns’ to direct criticism and bullying. These experiences led to shame, guilt, frustration, and sometimes defiance. Many reflected on the lasting effects on body image, self-worth, and health behavior. Some also described how their children were bullied because of their weight. The findings revealed how stigma was embedded in social relationships and often internalized over time.ConclusionsThe experience of weight stigma was not limited to public discourse or institutions but was deeply woven into everyday interactions. Even well-meaning comments could reinforce harmful ideals or cause emotional harm. Public health responses must address relational and intergenerational aspects of stigma and promote compassionate, inclusive environments in homes, workplaces, and healthcare.Key messages• Weight stigma experiences affect mental health, body image, and relationships, and cause emotional and social harm, as revealed through people’s lived experiences.• This study highlights the social nature of weight stigma in Finland, emphasizing the need for stigma-free environments in healthcare, workplaces, media, and families.

The purpose of this article is to explore how unboxing videos on YouTube contribute to the domestication of privacy-invasive technology. Further, the objective is to show how consumer influencers on YouTube adapt to the flexible persona of the online warm expert (OWE) which expands the concept of the ‘warm expert’ from the domestication literature ( Bakardjieva, 2005 , Internet Society: The Internet in Everyday Life . London: Sage Publications). I argue that the OWE and unboxing discourse advance corporate interests of surveillance capitalism in home environments by promoting the circulation of emergent consumer technologies and eschewing meaningful discussion of privacy and surveillance issues. A case study of the Amazon Echo smart speaker and Alexa, its voice-activated personal assistant, is presented. The research consists of a qualitative thematic analysis of unboxing videos ( N = 73) and viewer comments on YouTube. Unboxing discourse reflects normative consumer culture values that are detached from critical discussions of surveillance or the informational privacy framework of end-user agreements. As a practical implication, the study helps look beyond the household and traditional social relationships in the domestic sphere to understand how technological domestication is being shaped in a paradigm of consumer culture that is fused with the infrastructural and cultural logics of the Internet and social media.

Growing urbanisation in Africa is accompanied by rapid changes in food environments, with potential shifts towards unhealthy food/beverage consumption, including in socio-economically disadvantaged populations. This study investigated how unhealthy food and beverages are embedded in everyday life in deprived areas of two African countries, to identify levers for context relevant policy. Deprived neighbourhoods (Ghana: 2 cities, Kenya: 1 city) were investigated (total = 459 female/male, adolescents/adults aged ≥13 y). A qualitative 24hr dietary recall was used to assess the healthiness of food/beverages in relation to eating practices: time of day and frequency of eating episodes (periodicity), length of eating episodes (tempo), and who people eat with and where (synchronisation). Five measures of the healthiness of food/beverages in relation to promoting a nutrient-rich diet were developed: i. nutrients (energy-dense and nutrient-poor -EDNP/energy-dense and nutrient-rich -EDNR); and ii. unhealthy food types (fried foods, sweet foods, sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs). A structured meal pattern of three main meals a day with limited snacking was evident. There was widespread consumption of unhealthy food/beverages. SSBs were consumed at three-quarters of eating episodes in Kenya (78.5%) and over a third in Ghana (36.2%), with those in Kenya coming primarily from sweet tea/coffee. Consumption of sweet foods peaked at breakfast in both countries. When snacking occurred (more common in Kenya), it was in the afternoon and tended to be accompanied by a SSB. In both countries, fried food was an integral part of all mealtimes, particularly common with the evening meal in Kenya. This includes consumption of nutrient-rich traditional foods/dishes (associated with cultural heritage) that were also energy-dense: (>84% consumed EDNR foods in both countries). The lowest socio-economic groups were more likely to consume unhealthy foods/beverages. Most eating episodes were <30 min (87.1% Ghana; 72.4% Kenya). Families and the home environment were important: >77% of eating episodes were consumed at home and >46% with family, which tended to be energy dense. Eating alone was also common as >42% of eating episodes were taken alone. In these deprived settings, policy action to encourage nutrient-rich diets has the potential to prevent multiple forms of malnutrition, but action is required across several sectors: enhancing financial and physical access to healthier foods that are convenient (can be eaten quickly/alone) through, for example, subsidies and incentives/training for local food vendors. Actions to limit access to unhealthy foods through, for example, fiscal and advertising policies to dis-incentivise unhealthy food consumption and SSBs, especially in Ghana. Introducing or adapting food-based dietary guidelines to incorporate advice on reducing sugar and fat at mealtimes could be accompanied by cooking skills interventions focussing on reducing frying/oil used when preparing meals, including ‘traditional’ dishes and reducing the sugar content of breakfast.

Palestinian children have been described as targets of the Israel government’s melange of mechanisms used to control the Palestinian people and territories. In this role, Palestinian children are subjected to direct violence, bureaucratic constructs, interrogation, incarceration, and other various means of marginalisation and oppression. Simultaneously, Palestinian children have also been depicted as nationalised subjects and resources for the future of Palestine, upon which historical and ongoing national symbols are projected. Palestinian children, therefore, play a dual role within the conflict and in everyday life: both innocent and in need of protection while also embodying sites of resistance. Nowhere is this dual role more pronounced than within the Palestinian home. In order to explore the multiple roles that children represent within the physical structure of the home, this chapter draws upon the authors’ research experience using collaborative family interviews and testimony collections in home environments. The authors’ methodological engagement with children and families at the home-level has found children to be a present absence within the home, with adult family members dominating the data-gathering discourse. In other words, children are ubiquitous within Palestinian landscapes, but they are rarely heard from. However, in research, children’s voices may be acknowledged for brief moments when data-gathering methods such as drawing or neighbourhood walks are used. Children may also be cherished as a focus of family protection and future resistance against the occupation. While much research has considered children affected by political violence as both victims and actors, this chapter adds another layer by exploring the multiple roles and representations of children within the Palestinian home. The authors focus is not on how these representations are imposed upon children by adults, but rather how representations of children are enacted and negotiated within oftentimes protective home spaces.

Mosquitoes are animals that are very often found in everyday life. Starting from the home environment, to the school environment. Mosquitoes are also animals that can carry various diseases. The FMIPA UNY Biology Garden Laboratory is overgrown with trees and there is a pool of water from several ponds that are deliberately made. That is what makes mosquitoes like the environment that is included in their habitat. At the UNY Biology Garden Laboratory, which is one of the student learning locations, mosquitoes are found flying and sometimes disrupting learning activities because they can stab and cause itching. The disturbance is feared to cause mosquito-borne diseases in students who are active in biology gardens. So that mosquito traps are made that are modified and adapted to the needs and location of the target. The tool made is a simple mosquito trap that utilizes a pool of water from a fish pond and a net from mesh or paranet cloth. The target place is the FMIPA UNY Biology Garden Laboratory, especially the pool area. While the target is the larvae or seeds of mosquitoes left by the mother. It is expected that the mosquitoes will perch on the paranet to lay eggs, then the eggs will fall down and will be eaten by fish. This is in addition to reducing the growth of mosquitoes, it can also be used for alternative food for fish, which can reduce spending to buy fish feed. Key words: mosquitos, trap

Matchmaking in the current era of globalization is also a problem faced by the younger generation. Indonesian people who are multi-ethnic and multi-religious mingle in everyday life, both in the school, college, work and home environment around us. For Muslims, getting a partner in the faith is of course the dream of every family. The problem that sometimes occurs is that parents are anxious because their child is in a relationship with someone who is not a believer or even if their child is old enough, it turns out that they still have difficulty getting a partner in the faith because of their busy schedules. This is what inspired researchers to analyze the design and build of Islamic dating agency applications using the Profile Matching Algorithm Based on the Android Platform. Through the help of this Profile Matching algorithm, it is hoped that someone can more easily find a potential partner according to the criteria he wants.

Chapter Five challenges the assertion that wartime holidays were sacrificed ‘for the greater good’, using archival sources to demonstrate that leisure travel continued to be a favoured pastime in Scotland during the Second World War. The chapter begins by exploring the history of Scottish holiday-making. It then examines war’s effect on holidays, beginning with the innovative ‘holiday at home’ scheme. It then studies holidays away from the home environment, and assesses the war’s influence on this favoured pastime. The chapter then delves more deeply into the motivations behind Scottish wartime holidays, assessing a range of factors that were used to justify or prompt leisure travel, such as morale, entitlement, and denial. This chapter also explores elements of difference between English and Scottish wartime holidays. This chapter’s exploration of the Scottish determination to holiday during a time of national and global crisis has significant implications. The Scottish commitment to holidays away from home reveals that everyday life was not controlled by work, frugality and discipline, despite the predominance of Presbyterian ideals about work and sacrifice. Rather, it argues, leisure holidays were a revered cultural tradition that Scots were unwilling to sacrifice, even during war.

Fall events are important health issues in elderly living environments such as homes. Hence, a confident and real-time video surveillance device that pays attention could better their everyday lives. We proposed an optical flow feedback convolutional neural network according to the video stream in a home environment. Our proposed model uses rule-based filters before an input convolutional layer and the recorded optical flow for supervising the optical flow of variation. Detecting human posture is a key factor, while fall events are like a falling posture. By sequencing frames of action, it is possible to recognize a fall. Our system can clearly detect the normal lying posture and lying after falling. Our proposed method can efficiently detect action motion and recognize the action posture. We compared the performance with other standard benchmark data sets and deployed our model to simulate a real-home situation, and the correct ratio achieved 82.7% and 98% separately.