Talks by Shazmin Majid and Harriet Cameron

Shazmin and Harriet, who are both new PhD students in the lab, will give introductory talks this week.

Shazmin Majid – Integrating the use of sensing technology to detect early warning signs of relapse in bipolar disorder  

Recognised as one of the 10 most debilitating conditions worldwide [1], bipolar disorder (BD) is a complex, cyclical and chronic mental illness which has no cure. With each relapse causing permanent neurological damage, minimising future mood episodes is the key objective for individuals living with this condition. A checklist of early warning signs (EWS), which are a set of early symptoms and signs of mania and depression that arise approximately 2-4 weeks before a full manic or depressive episode, has been developed by Lobban et al [2]. Recognising EWS of shifts to either mania or depression has been proven effective in preventing episodes. This project aims to amalgamate four different personal data streams (smartphone usage, financial transactions, car usage and home utility usage) to create a self-management sensing system which will be able to detect EWS of mania and depression for those with BD. The project will be split into three discrete work packages:

Work package 1 will focus on understanding what are the human-computer interaction aspects in designing this technology.

Work package 2 will investigate whether it is possible to sense smartphone usage, financial transactions, car usage and home utility usage to provide insights into individual EWS.

Work package 3 will focus on testing the accuracy and usability of the system.

Harriet Cameron – Digital Relationships: Making new and more meaningful relationships with audiences

This presentation will provide an introduction to the PhD project and supervision team. The presentation will briefly cover what the project is about, the methodology and methods being used, and the upcoming stages being carried out over the next few months.

The project is looking at what personal data is currently gathered and used in galleries, what personal data would be more useful to galleries, and how that data could be gathered. The project will go on to explore how ethical data donation by gallery visitors could be used to increase awareness of personal data usage and value, provide more value to the venue, and also gift something back to the visitor in return for their data. It utilises sequential design to explore these questions, with the initial stage of the study being to hold workshops with venues to establish answers to the first set of questions presented in this abstract.