There is evidence that athermal radiofrequency radiation can alter Heat Shock Protein (HSP) expression or protein phosphorylation, or alter MAP kinase signalling. Effects of long-term exposure in brain tissue due to repeated HSP perturbation (eg an inhibition of apoptosis) have been hypothesised (French et al, 2001). This study aimed to investigate the RNA expression profile (12,000 genes) and HSP family protein expression levels after either acute 1-hour or chronic 4-day intermittent exposures to simulated GSM radiation in a human primary fibroblast model. The results found minimal or no effects of GSM. Flasks were exposed to 900 MHz (217 Hz modulation) at 0.18 W/kg SAR within a Transverse Electromagnetic Mode chamber (TEM cell). Cultures rested for 2 hours before exposures. Affymetrix U95A microarray analysis of a single pilot set of experiments showed that about 40 genes were reported as upregulated &gt=2.5 fold in each condition. There was no evidence of altered expression of any MAPK-associated genes. Target genes reported in both conditions (CBFA2T1, ZNF148, ITGA1), and genes altered in one condition (CCS, PLEC1, BIRC5), and marginally altered HSP72 were selected for PCR analysis. No other members of the HSP family were altered. In three replicate experiments assayed by real-time PCR, six genes were either unchanged or showed randomly variable expression. However HSP72 RNA showed possible consistent slight upregulation of 1.37 +/- 0.21 in the chronic condition. Western immunoblots of HSP-60, -70, -72 and -V90 proteins showed no significant changes 5 hours after exposure. In preliminary studies using a serum starvation protocol, ERK-1 phosphorylation was unaltered after 5 or 30 minutes GSM (single experiments). When flasks were transiently cooled, ERK-1 phosphorylation was increased 20 minutes later, indicating a source of artefact in some protocols. An inflammatory challenge experiment with a low-dose of the cytokine IL-1???? found that acute GSM exposure post-challenge inhibited NF????B-mediated GRO???? induction by 1.5 fold (2 experiments). Preconditioning with mild heat induces transient inhibition of both NF????B signalling and apoptosis. Other studies indicate that EMF exposures similarly evoke cytoprotection. It is suggested that GSM evoked cytoprotective signalling in this inflammatory model.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur människor upplever att ständigt vara tillgänglig med sin mobiltelefon och/eller Internet. En kvalitativ metod med semistrukturerade intervjuer har använts, där tolv personer, sex gymnasieungdomar och sex vuxna personer, har intervjuats. Hälften av de intervjuade bor i södra Sverige, hälften i norra. För analysen har McQuails grupperingar inom Uses and gratifications-teorin använts, liksom cultural studies teorier. Resultatet visar att de intervjuade ser det både som en möjlighet och ett krav att vara tillgängliga och uppkopplade, att Internet och mobiltelefon verkar bidra till att arbete/skola och fritid flyter ihop samt att de äldre intervjuade i något högre grad än de yngre upplever negativa aspekter av att vara ständigt tillgänglig. Vi har inte kunnat urskilja några skillnader mellan de intervjupersoner som bor i södra Sverige och de som bor i norra. När vi med utgångspunkt från McQuails kategorier inom Uses and gratifications-teorin har grupperat de belöningar som de intervjuade kan tänkas uppnå, har vi funnit exempel på belöningar inom samtliga kategorier; avkoppling, personlig identitet, personliga relationer och bevakning. / The purpose of this essay is to examine how people experience always being available on their mobile phone and/or Internet. A qualitative method of semi structured interviews has been used, where twelve respondents, six students in upper secondary school and six adults, have been interviewed. Half of the respondents live in southern Sweden, half in northern. The clusters that McQuail developed within the uses and gratifications theory, as well as cultural studies theories, have been used for analyzing our findings. The results show that the respondents see it both as a possibility and a demand to always be available and online, that Internet and/or mobile phones seem to contribute to the merging of work/school  and leisure time, and that the adult respondents to a greater degree than the younger respondents experience negative effects of always being available. We have not been able to distinguish any differences between respondents living in southern Sweden and those living in the north. When grouping our respondents’ obtained gratifications according to McQuails clusters within the uses and gratifications theory, we have found examples in all the categories; entertainment, personal identity, integration and social interaction, and information.

When care is moved from the hospital to the home the demands for high quality care still remain. For problems arising from the geographical separation of patients and professional caregivers, information and communication technology may offer important solutions. The overall aim of this thesis was to describe relevant requirements, to design and implement an IT-based system, and finally to evaluate the system’s influence on symptom control and support for both patients/next-of-kin and professional caregivers in advanced home healthcare. Of importance were needs in basic as well as advanced home healthcare, as were usability perspectives of both patients and professional caregivers. Requirement areas such as security, mobility, and responsibility, which should be considered when monitoring patients in the home, were identified. A prototype system for everyday assistance for diabetes patients was designed, and a system for frequent pain assessment for palliative home healthcare patients using a pain diary, digital pen and mobile Internet technology, was developed and evaluated through a qualitative content analysis approach. Twelve palliative cancer patients and six professional caregivers participated. The data collected included an ease-of-use questionnaire, and interviews with patients, spouses and professional caregivers. Patients expressed increased and improved contact with the caregivers, increased participation in their own care, a sense of increased security, and easiness in using the equipment in spite of severe illness and difficulties in comprehending the technology and system intervention. The professional caregivers showed a shifting outlook towards the pain assessment method; an initial cautious outlook due to low expectations of the patients’ abilities to use the pain assessment method and the caregivers’ own reluctance to use the system and change their way-of-working. Despite this, the professional caregivers experienced positive outcomes in terms of an increased awareness of pain, and positive patient influences including increased participation in their care, increased security and improved changes in pain treatment as a response to reported pain assessments. In conclusion, the networked digital pen system provided an effortless method for pain assessment and had positive influences on the care. The results imply that digital pen technology is suitable for the assessment of symptoms by palliative patients since these patients often have a limited capacity to handle technology due to their state of health. / On the day of the public defence date of the doctoral thesis the status of article III and IV was Submitted.

This dissertation investigates ways of supporting parents in managing youth's social media use. I present empirical evidence of the challenges parents face in managing youth technology use. I then translate these results into the design and deployment of ParentNet, a community-based online social network for middle school parents to keep up with changes in technology. This dissertation provides new insights into the opportunities and challenges in conducting HCC research with a particular demographic, parents and youth. The contributions of this research are: (1) empirical studies of challenges parents face in managing youth technology use; (2) the design and deployment of a community-based online social network called ParentNet; (3) limitations and design considerations for deploying technological interventions for different social groups; and (4) reflection on emerging themes around overuse and disconnection in daily life.

In the United States, between 90 and 95% of deaf children are born to hearing parents. In most circumstances, the birth of a deaf child is the first experience these parents have with American Sign Language (ASL) and the Deaf community. Parents learn ASL as a second language to provide their children with language models and to be able to communicate with their children more effectively, but they face significant challenges. To address these challenges, I have developed a mobile learning application, SMARTSign, to help parents of deaf children learn ASL vocabulary. I hypothesize that providing a method for parents to learn and practice ASL words associated with popular children's stories on their mobile phones would help improve their ASL vocabulary and abilities more than if words were grouped by theme. I posit that parents who learn vocabulary associated with children's stories will use the application more, which will lead to more exposure to ASL and more learned vocabulary. My dissertation consists of three studies. First I show that novices are able to reproduce signs presented on mobile devices with high accuracy regardless of source video resolution. Next, I interview hearing parents with deaf children to discover the difficulties they have with current methods for learning ASL. When asked which methods of presenting signs they preferred, participants were most interested in learning vocabulary associated with children's stories. Finally, I deploy SMARTSign to parents for four weeks. Participants learning story vocabulary used the application more often and had higher sign recognition scores than participants who learned vocabulary based on word types. The condition did not affect participants' ability to produce the signed vocabulary.

<p>In this study I have looked at social impacts of mobile telephone usage in Sweden in the Spring of 2001. Through observations and interviews have I tried to outline how social relations and concepts of time have changed and are still in a process of change alongside with the high percentage of mobile phone users today.</p><p>The conclusions I have made from my research is that mobile phone usage affects society and how people interact and that people want to reach others, but want to control their own reachability. Communication via mobile phone differs from face-to-face communication and communication on stationary phones, but mobile phones seem to be used as means to facilitate face-to-face interaction. There seem to be some commonly shared notions among my informants of what appropriate mobile phone behavior is, but people seem to not always abide to this. People tend to create their own private zones in public places when using their mobile phones and through their usage send social messages to others. I have also found that the use of time is an important aspect connected to mobile phones. People seem not to make as many plans ahead any longer, but instead make up plans as they go. Many seem to have forgotten how life was before there where mobile phones!</p>

This report discusses how non-profit organizations can utilize mobile phone technology to reach supporters and inspire them to both act and give. The significance of this report and topic lies in the opportunity for non-profit organizations to understand how people are interacting with messages on their mobile devices. The research found within, serves as a reference for non-profits to utilize when planning and implementing mobile phone marketing campaigns. / text

In this study I have looked at social impacts of mobile telephone usage in Sweden in the Spring of 2001. Through observations and interviews have I tried to outline how social relations and concepts of time have changed and are still in a process of change alongside with the high percentage of mobile phone users today. The conclusions I have made from my research is that mobile phone usage affects society and how people interact and that people want to reach others, but want to control their own reachability. Communication via mobile phone differs from face-to-face communication and communication on stationary phones, but mobile phones seem to be used as means to facilitate face-to-face interaction. There seem to be some commonly shared notions among my informants of what appropriate mobile phone behavior is, but people seem to not always abide to this. People tend to create their own private zones in public places when using their mobile phones and through their usage send social messages to others. I have also found that the use of time is an important aspect connected to mobile phones. People seem not to make as many plans ahead any longer, but instead make up plans as they go. Many seem to have forgotten how life was before there where mobile phones!

L’évolution technologique et l'accroissement de la population vieillissante sont deux tendances majeures de la dernière décennie. Durant cette période, la prolifération ubiquitaire de la téléphonie mobile a changé les habitudes de communication des gens. Le changement constant des appareils téléphoniques portatifs, l'augmentation des fonctions, la diversité iconographique, la variété des interfaces et la complexité de navigation exigent aujourd’hui non seulement plus de temps d'adaptation et d’apprentissage, mais représentent aussi un effort cognitif important. Les technologies d'information et de communication (TIC) sont devenues des outils incontournables de la vie moderne. Pour les personnes âgées, cet univers en perpétuelle mutation avec ces nouveaux appareils représente un obstacle à l’accès à l’information et contribue ainsi au gap générationnel. Le manque de référence et de soutien et les déficiences physiques ou cognitives, que certaines personnes développent en vieillissant, rendent l'usage de ce type d’objet souvent impossible. Pourtant, les produits intelligents plus accessibles, tant au niveau physique que cognitif sont une réelle nécessité au sein de notre société moderne permettant aux personnes âgées de vivre de manière plus autonome et « connectée ». Cette recherche a pour but d'exposer les défis d'usage des téléphones portables existants et d'identifier en particulier les problèmes d’usage que les personnes âgées manifestent. L’étude vise la tranche de population qui est peu habituée aux technologies de communications qui ne ciblent le plus souvent que les plus jeunes et les professionnels. C’est en regardant les habitudes d’usage, que la recherche qualitative nous permettra d’établir un profil des personnes âgées par rapport au TIC et de mieux comprendre les défis liés à la perception, compréhension et l’usage des interfaces de téléphones portables. / Technological progress and the growing aging population are two major trends of the last decade. The ubiquitous proliferation of mobile communication devices during this period has significantly altered people’s communication habits. The constantly changing mobile phones, their increasing features, the numerous icon designs, the variety of user interfaces and its complex navigation require nowadays not only more time for adaptation and learning but also a significant cognitive effort. Information technology and communication (ICT) have become essential tools of modern life. For seniors, this constantly mutating universe with its new digital devices makes information accessible to many thus contributing to a generational divide. The lack of reference and support and the physical or cognitive impairment that some people often develop while aging makes the use of such products very difficult. Both, a physically and cognitively accessible system becomes a real necessity in our modern society since it could help seniors live more autonomously and« connected ». This research aims to identify the challenges related to mobile phone use and reveal specific problems that older people encounter. The study focuses on the population that is little familiar with these devices especially since communication technologies seem aimed at the younger generations and professionnels. Through qualitative research seniors’ usage pattern will be studied allowing us not only to establish different user profiles with respect to ICT but also to better understand the challenges related to the perception, comprehension and manipulation of mobile phone user interfaces.

This research uses the 2010-post election survey by Pew Internet and American Life project and traces the direct and indirect paths of online political information use, Facebook political information use, and mobile phones political information use to political participation to online and offline political participation. Indirect paths are traced through the paths of wider view exposure and the credibility to online and offline political participation. The theoretical framework of the O-S-O-R model is used to guide the path analyses for this research. This research finds that both online political information use and Facebook political information use expose respondents to a wider diversity of views, but that it does not lead to political participation. Furthermore, all three mediums are found to be credible sources of information leading to online political participation with different strengths, while Facebook political information use also leads to offline political participation. Thus, credibility is an important factor and even suggests the possible need for an opinion leader. This is especially so for the use of Facebook, which has the best balanced information dissemination structure its friend network of identifiable people, organisations, and institutions. Facebook also provides the best platform for critical debate and engaging potential voters. Mobile phone political use is also supportive of political participation, but is more questioned in terms of whether the participation it brings is able to lead to critical debate. Keywords: Political participation, Facebook, social media, mobile phones, online political information, wider view exposure, credibility.