L’autodétermination est un droit universel qui repose sur le principe de normalisation (Nirje, 1972). Wehmeyer (1999) définit le concept d’autodétermination comme l’ensemble des habiletés et attitudes requises chez une personne, lui permettant d'agir directement sur sa vie en effectuant librement des choix non influencés par des agents externes. En accord avec ces idées, les politiques sociales de nombreux pays placent le concept d’autodétermination comme un élément central, permettant de guider toute démarche d’accompagnement des personnes en situation de handicap et notamment des personnes présentant une Déficience Intellectuelle (DI). Les recherches montrent que les personnes présentant une trisomie 21 présentent une autodétermination limitée, ainsi que des difficultés cognitives, motrices et de fonctionnement quotidien qui ne leur permettent pas de participer pleinement à leur vie et à leur communauté. Les technologies d’assistance, et en particulier les technologies de soutien à l’autodétermination, offrent des perspectives extrêmement prometteuses chez les personnes présentant une DI, notamment en ce qui concerne le développement personnel, les compétences, l'inclusion sociale ou encore la participation communautaire. Dans ce contexte, les objectifs de cette thèse sont de : 1) mieux comprendre les difficultés d’autodétermination des personnes présentant une trisomie 21 ; 2) mieux comprendre les difficultés cognitives dans cette population ; et 3) concevoir et valider deux outils numériques de soutien à l’autodétermination. Les résultats des études présentées dans cette thèse montrent que l’autorégulation est la composante de l’autodétermination perçue comme étant la plus faible par les personnes présentant une trisomie 21, alors que l’autonomie comportementale et l’autoréalisation ne sont pas perçues comme étant problématiques. Ils montrent également que le niveau d’autodétermination est lié aux compétences langagières, mnésiques ainsi qu’aux capacités motrices. De plus, ces études mettent en avant des déficits de mémoire prospective et de prise de décision chez les adultes présentant une trisomie 21, en lien également avec les difficultés d’autodétermination et d’autorégulation. Enfin, les deux assistances numériques conçues et développées ont montré leur efficacité (amélioration de la richesse du projet de vie, pour l’un, et des habiletés domiciliaires, pour l’autre). Leur utilisation prolongée a été associée à des répercussions extrêmement positives sur le bien-être psychologique, l’inquiétude, l’autodétermination et l’estime de soi. / Self-determination is a universal right based on the principle of normalization (Nirje, 1972). Wehmeyer (1999) defines the concept of self-determination as the set of skills and attitudes required for individuals to act upon their lives by making free choices that are not influenced by unwanted external agents. In line with this concept, the social policies of many countries place self-determination as a central element in support for people with disabilities, especially people with intellectual disability (ID). Research shows that people with ID have self-determination, cognitive, motor, and daily functioning difficulties that do not allow them to fully participate in their lives and their communities. Assistive technologies, and in particular self-determination support technologies, offer extremely promising perspectives for people with ID, especially with regard to personal development, skills, social inclusion or community participation. In this context, the objectives of this thesis are: 1) to better understand the difficulties of self-determination of people with Down syndrome; 2) to better understand the cognitive difficulties in this population; and 3) to design, develop and validate two digital assistants for self-determination support. The results of the studies, presented in this thesis, show that self-regulation is the component of self-determination perceived as the weakest by people with Down syndrome, while autonomy and self-realization are not perceived as problematic. Furthermore, the level of self-determination is related to language, memory and motor skills. Prospective memory and decision-making abilities are deficient in adults with Down syndrome and are also related to elf-determination and self-regulation. Finally, the two digital assistants that we have designed and developed have shown their effectiveness: improvement of ideas and elements related to the life plan and home skills. Their prolonged use of these technologies has also been associated with extremely positive impact on psychological well-being, worry, self-determination and self-esteem

The PDA is an important technology in clinical medicine. Although PDAs are widely utilized by medical students and residents, older teaching faculty have not readily adopted them. The medical library can position itself as a leader in training patrons to use these devices. The East Tennessee State University (ETSU) Quillen College of Medicine Library (QCOML) staff trained older, experienced teaching faculty to use PDAs loaded with ePocrates and InfoRetriever databases. The training was rated highly and several faculty members became PDA users. The library is now considered the place to go on campus for PDA help.

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Yes / As part of a CETL funded project (ALPS 2006) 29 student midwives and their link lecturers were given an electronic version of a clinical portfolio on hand held computers (PDAs). These devices were used during an eight week clinical practice placement to record tripartite assessment interviews and to facilitate grading of the placement. Three focus groups conducted at the end of the placement explored the concept of clinical practice assessment and the impact of the electronic portfolio on the students’ experience of clinical practice and its assessment. Data was analysed from an activity theory perspective in that the electronic assessment tool was viewed as an artefact mediating situated knowing about student assessment in a particular socio-historical context. Findings suggest that students perceive clinical assessment as contested with different assessors having different understandings of it. However the electronic devise facilitated changes to the assessment tool. These changes promoted a shared understanding of the assessment process which was pragmatic and acceptable to students and clinicians. The significance of this study is that it highlights the role of assessment tools in creating a shared understanding of the assessment process rather than simply articulating that understanding.

Digital assistants such as Google Assistant and Alexa are becoming more and more common in people's homes through smart speakers. Technologies that assist with stress management have increased as well, leading to an abundance of stress management applications for different devices. However, there is a limited amount of research regarding how advanced digital assistants could support stress management and be integrated into users' daily activities. Therefore, our study explores how people anticipate that they would relate to an advanced digital assistant in the future and how they would integrate it into their everyday activities for stress management. Our study shows that important aspects of digital assistants relate to their objectivity, personalization, and adaptability in terms of type of interaction in different contexts. The study also finds that privacy and control, such as a mute function or an on & off function, are desired in order to adjust the digital assistant and integrate it into everyday activities. Finally, stress management with digital assistants is highly personal and how users would relate to and integrate digital assistants into their everyday activities for stress management is unique to each user.

Fenomenet konversationshandel beskriver en växande handelsplattform världen över som främjar interaktivitet för att skapa personlig köpupplevelse och relation mellan konsumenter och företag. Detta fenomen växer i takt med utvecklingen av artificiell intelligens (AI) och robotar för att underlätta och eventuellt ersätta den mänskliga faktorn inom e-handel. Detta syns då termen “konversationshandel” börjat användas mer och mer sedan 2010 för varje år som går. Konventionell e-handel har fått en negativ syn på sig från många konsumenter på grund av dess ytliga och kalla gränssnitt vilket skapar risk för bortval från konsumenter till att handla på vissa webbplatser. På grund av detta har företag och utvecklare funnit behovet av interaktivitet och mer personliga köpupplevelser som flera konsumenter kräver i deras handel. Detta har lett till att e-handeln behöver efterlikna den traditionell butikshandeln mer men med hjälp av ny teknik. Konversationshandel har dock en begränsad användning på grund av sin nya tillkomst och därmed är syftet i denna studie att undersöka vad som skiljer konversationshandel från konventionell e-handel och undersöka den svenska befolkningens uppfattning om aspekter inom konversationshandel. Studien har använt sig av en systematisk litteraturstudie och en digital enkätstudie för att besvara syftets frågeställning. Resultatet visar på att interaktivitet, AI och konversationell assistans urskiljer konversationshandel från konventionell e-handel och att svenska konsumenter främst använder chatt över röstassistenter men att handel via båda har en liten användning. Slutsatserna av studien förklarar att konversationshandel har en förmåga att komplettera konventionell e-handel med hjälp av interaktivitet. Digitala assistenters förmåga att efterlikna människor är en svår uppgift att genomföra men kan bidra till en större personlig upplevelse för kunder. Sverige är ett land som inte utnyttjat konversationhandel till en stor del, vilket beror på en uppfattad komfortabilitet för konventionell e-handel och begränsade resurser för implementation. / The phenomenon of conversational commerce describes a growing trading platform around the world that is enhancing interactivity for the sake of creating a personal purchase experience and relation between consumers and businesses. This phenomenon is growing with the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots in order to favour and eventually replace the human factor in e-commerce. This shows because the term “conversational commerce” has started being used more and more since 2010 and is growing every year that passes. Conventional e-commerce has received a negative view from many consumers due to its superficial and cold interface, which creates a risk of consumers opting out of shopping on certain websites. Because of this, companies and developers have found the need for interactivity and more personalized shopping experiences that several consumers demand in their shopping. This has led to e-commerce needing to emulate the traditional retail trade further but with the help of new technology. Conversational commerce is however, used to a limited extent due to its new origins and thus the purpose of this study is to investigate what distinguishes conversational commerce from conventional e-commerce and to examine the Swedish population’s perception of aspects of conversational commerce. The study used a systematic literature study and a digital survey to answer the scientific questions. The results show that interactivity, AI and conversational assistance distinguish conversational commerce from e-commerce and that the theoretical Swedish population mainly uses chat over voice assistants, but that commerce via both has little use. The conclusions of the study explain that conversational commerce has an ability to complement conventional e-commerce through interactivity. The ability of digital assistants to imitate people is a difficult task to accomplish but can contribute to a greater personal experience for customers. Sweden is a country that has not used conversational commerce much, which is due to the perceived convenience of conventional e-commerce and limited resources for implementation.

Effective Health Systems make service provision easy for health workers, especially if they have access to the latest guidelines in a dynamic profession where new technologies are ever emerging. However, available data indicates that the health system in Uganda is constrained and still using old technologies despite the availability of newer technologies. As a result, this study sought to investigate the adoptability, cost effectiveness, and sustainability with regard to Personal Digital Assistants. The study, which was cross sectional in nature, was carried out in Mbale District in Eastern Uganda between 2008 and 2010. In depth interviews were conducted with health workers and key informants. Also, published and unpublished literature about theUganda Health Information Network was reviewed.The findings revealed that the use of Personal Digital Assistants also known as handheld computers can go a long way towards improving healthcare delivery in countryside health facilities. To health workers in remote places, the PDAs are a source of the latest clinical care guidelines for several diseases including HIV and AIDS as well as malaria. Health information systems have been improved and data collection and reporting have been eased by this technology. However, while evidence of viability of this technology exists, it still has challenges like power and delays in software updates among others.

No / In this article we share our experiences of a large-scale five-year innovative programme to introduce mobile learning into health and social care (HSC) practice placement learning and assessment that bridges the divide between the university classroom and the practice setting in which these students learn. The outputs are from the Assessment Learning in Practice Settings (ALPS) Centre for Excellence in Teaching Learning (CETL), which is working towards a framework of interprofessional assessment of Common Competences in the HSC professions. The mobile assessment process and tools that have been developed and implemented and the outcomes of the first-stage evaluation of the mobile assessment tools are discussed from the student perspective.

Artificial Intelligence och robotar tar en allt större plats i samhället och viktiga arbeten automatiseras för att effektivisera processer. Digitala assistenter som är en AI-teknik tillämpas inom många verksamheter och underlättar många uppgifter. Digitala assistenter har en positiv påverkan på företag då en verksamhet kan få högre kundnöjdhet eftersom att digitala assistenter är tillgängligt jämt och på så sätt får kunden hjälp snabbt och smidigt. Det sänker även kostnaderna i ett företag. Detta minskar ärenden till kundservice och själva bemanningen kan optimeras hos kundservice. Digitala assistenter har en stor påverkan på samhället eftersom det är en av vår tids teknologier. I nuläget anser man att digitala assistenter agerar som stöd och förstärker människan inom dess roller genom att hjälpa till med enklare uppgifter som t.ex. mottagning av personuppgifter innan vidarekoppling för telefonsamtal med en människa. Syftet med denna studie är att analysera fördelarna och nackdelarna med användandet av digitala assistenter. Det genomfördes en kvalitativ studie med djupgående intervjuer men även en litteraturstudie av forskningsartiklar. De gjordes fyra intervjuer med verksamheten, Talking to me, och en intervju med deras kund, Telia ACE. Det genomfördes sedan en jämförelse mellan praktiken och litteraturen för att se ifall det fanns några samband mellan dem samt för att kunna dra en slutsats kring hur det ligger till. Studien resulterade i att man fann fler fördelar än nackdelar med användningen av digitala assistenter inom t.ex. verksamheter. Bland annat såg man att arbetsbelastningen minskade samt att en effektivare resursfördelning ägde rum. De inom verksamheten och även deras kunder såg digitala assistenter som en positiv teknik som underlättar många processer. De var måna om att det fanns brister med digitala assistenter också men det var inte något som påverkade dem negativt, utan det kunde skapa bland annat irritation. Men trots detta blev kunderna nöjda och återkom för fler projekt. / Artificial Intelligence and robots are taking an increasing place in society and important jobs are being automated to make processes more efficient. Digital assistants, an AI technology, is applied in many businesses and facilitates many tasks. Digital assistants have a positive impact on businesses and can help increase customer satisfaction due to many reasons. It also minimizes costs in a company as it reduces customer service calls and the staffing itself can be optimized in customer service. Digital assistants have a great impact on society as it is one of the technologies of our time. At present, digital assistants are considered to act as support and reinforce humans within their roles by helping with simple tasks such as receiving personal data before forwarding for phone calls with a human. The purpose of this study is to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of using digital assistants. A qualitative study was carried out with in-depth interviews but also a literature study of research articles. They were given four interviews with the business, Talking to me, and one interview with their customer, Telia ACE. A comparison was then carried out between the practice and the literature to see if there were any connections between them and to be able to draw a conclusion about how it is. The study resulted in finding more advantages than disadvantages with the use of digital assistants in e.g. companies. Among other things, it was seen that the workload was reduced and that a more efficient distribution of resources took place. Those within the business and also their customers saw digital assistants as a positive technology that facilitates many processes. They were concerned that there were shortcomings with digital assistants as well, but it was not something that affected them negatively, but it could create, among other things, irritation. But despite this, the customers were satisfied and returned for more projects.