Enhancing Urban Mobility: Integrating Ride-sharing and Public Transit

Seamless integration of ride-sharing and public transit may offer fast, reliable, and affordable transfer to and from transit stations in suburban areas thereby enhancing mobility of residents. We investigate the potential benefits of such a system, as well as the ride-matching technology required to support it, by means of an extensive computational study

The Benefits of Meeting Points in Ride-sharing Systems

We investigate the potential benefits of introducing meeting points in a ride-sharing system. With meeting points, riders can be picked up and dropped off either at their origin and destination or at a meeting point that is within a certain distance from their origin or destination. The increased flexibility results in additional feasible matches between drivers and riders, and allows a driver to be matched with multiple riders without increasing the number of stops the driver needs to make. We design and implement an algorithm that optimally matches drivers and riders in large-scale ride- sharing systems with meeting points. We perform an extensive simulation study to assess the benefits of meeting points. The results demonstrate that meeting points can significantly increase the number of matched participants as well as the system-wide driving distance savings in a ride-sharing system

Self‐reported sleep patterns and quality amongst adolescents: cross‐sectional and prospective associations with anxiety and depression

Background Sleep problems are common in adolescence, and frequently comorbid with both anxiety and depression. Research studies have suggested a bidirectional relationship between sleep and psychopathology, which includes evidence that sleep interventions can alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression. However, little is known about the nature of sleep problems amongst adolescents with anxiety and depression, and whether specific sleeping difficulties are involved in the longitudinal relationship between sleep, anxiety and depression. Method The sample was derived from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a population‐based, prospective, birth cohort study of children born in 1991–1992. Data were explored from a subset of participants who took part in a clinical assessment at age 15, on self‐report sleep patterns and quality, and diagnostic outcomes of anxiety and depression (N = 5,033). Subsequent diagnostic and symptom severity data on anxiety and depression at ages 17, 21 and 24 were also examined. Results Cross‐sectional and longitudinal analyses were conducted to explore the relationship between sleep problems, anxiety and depression. Results revealed that adolescents aged 15 with depression experience difficulties with both sleep patterns and sleep quality, whereas adolescents with anxiety only reported problems with sleep quality. A range of sleep variables at age 15 predicted the severity of anxiety and depression symptoms and the diagnoses of anxiety and depressive disorders at age 17, 21 and 24 years. Conclusions The results provide further insight into the nature of sleep problems amongst adolescents with anxiety and depression, and the prospective relationship between sleep disturbance and future psychopathology. These data suggest that targeting sleep difficulties during adolescence may have long‐term mental health benefits

Games for health for children - current status and needed research

Videogames for health (G4H) offer exciting, innovative, potentially highly effective methods for increasing knowledge, delivering persuasive messages, changing behaviors, and influencing health outcomes. Although early outcome results are promising, additional research is needed to determine the game design and behavior change procedures that best promote G4H effectiveness and to identify and minimize possible adverse effects. Guidelines for ideal use of different types of G4H by children and adolescents should be elucidated to enhance effectiveness and minimize adverse effects. G4H stakeholders include organizational implementers, policy makers, players and their families, researchers, designers, retailers, and publishers. All stakeholders should be involved in G4H development and have a voice in setting goals to capitalize on their insights to enhance effectiveness and use of the game. In the future, multiple targeted G4H should be available to meet a population's diverse health needs in developmentally appropriate ways. Substantial, consistent, and sophisticated research with appropriate levels of funding is needed to realize the benefits of G4H

Large-Scale Sleep Condition Analysis Using Selfies from Social Media

Sleep condition is closely related to an individual's health. Poor sleep conditions such as sleep disorder and sleep deprivation affect one's daily performance, and may also cause many chronic diseases. Many efforts have been devoted to monitoring people's sleep conditions. However, traditional methodologies require sophisticated equipment and consume a significant amount of time. In this paper, we attempt to develop a novel way to predict individual's sleep condition via scrutinizing facial cues as doctors would. Rather than measuring the sleep condition directly, we measure the sleep-deprived fatigue which indirectly reflects the sleep condition. Our method can predict a sleep-deprived fatigue rate based on a selfie provided by a subject. This rate is used to indicate the sleep condition. To gain deeper insights of human sleep conditions, we collected around 100,000 faces from selfies posted on Twitter and Instagram, and identified their age, gender, and race using automatic algorithms. Next, we investigated the sleep condition distributions with respect to age, gender, and race. Our study suggests among the age groups, fatigue percentage of the 0-20 youth and adolescent group is the highest, implying that poor sleep condition is more prevalent in this age group. For gender, the fatigue percentage of females is higher than that of males, implying that more females are suffering from sleep issues than males. Among ethnic groups, the fatigue percentage in Caucasian is the highest followed by Asian and African American.Comment: 2017 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS'17

Using big data to explore worldwide trends in objective sleep in the transition to adulthood

Background: Development induces changes in sleep, and its duration has been reported to change as a function of aging. Additionally, sleep timing is a marker of pubertal maturation, where during adolescence, the circadian rhythm shifts later. Typically, this is manifested in a later sleep onset in the evening and later awakening in the morning. These changes across development seem to be universal around the world but are unlikely to persist into adulthood. Methods: This study utilized accelerometer data from 17,355 participants aged 16-30 years (56% female) measured by validated Polar wearables over a 14-day period. We compared sleep duration, chronotype (sleep midpoint) and weekend catch-up (ie, social jetlag) sleep across ages and regions over 242,948 nights. Results: The data indicate a decline in sleep duration as well as a dramatic shift in sleep onset times throughout adolescence. This continues well into early adulthood and stabilizes nearer age 30. Differences in sleep duration across ages were significant, and ranged from 7:53 h at age 16 to 7:29 h at age 30 in the sample. Additionally, there was a clear difference between females and males throughout adolescence and young adulthood: girls had longer sleep duration and earlier timed sleep in the current study. Differences in sleep were found between regions across the world, and across European areas. Conclusions: Both sleep duration and sleep timing go through a clear developmental pattern, particularly in early adulthood. Females had an earlier sleep midpoint and obtained more sleep. Regional differences in sleep occurred across the world. Crown Copyright (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

The relationship between parent and child dysfunctional beliefs about sleep and child sleep

Cognitive theories emphasise the role of dysfunctional beliefs about sleep in the development and maintenance of sleep-related problems (SRPs). The present research examines how parents' dysfunctional beliefs about children's sleep and child dysfunctional beliefs about sleep are related to each other and to children's subjective and objective sleep. Participants were 45 children aged 11 -12 years and their parents. Self-report measures of dysfunctional beliefs about sleep and child sleep were completed by children, mothers and fathers. Objective measures of child sleep were taken using actigraphy. The results showed that child dysfunctional beliefs about sleep were correlated with father (r=.43, p<.05) and mother (r=.43, p<.05) reported child SRPs, and with Sleep Onset Latency (r=.34, p<.05). Maternal dysfunctional beliefs about child sleep were related to child SRPs as reported by mothers (r=.44, p<.05), and to child dysfunctional beliefs about sleep (r=.37, p<.05). Some initial evidence was found for a mediation pathway in which child dyfunctional beliefs mediate the relationship between parent dysfunctional beliefs and child sleep. The results support the cognitive model of SRPs and contribute to the literature by providing the first evidence of familial aggregation of dysfunctional beliefs about sleep

Facebook use and sleep quality: light interacts with socially induced alertness

It has been demonstrated that the use of social networking sites late at night can lead to sleep related problems that extend into the next day. A common explanation is that the light emitted from screens is disrupting the users’ circadian rhythms. An alternative explanation is that the social cognition inherent in the use of social networking sites is responsible. Here the two factors were looked at together. Participants used Facebook on iPad tablets before sleep. This was done on different nights with two lighting conditions and with two levels of content. In the ‘light’ condition, blue wavelength light was manipulated so that it was either full wavelength or blue light filtered. In the ‘alertness’ condition the personal significance of the content was changed, from personally relevant to irrelevant. A modified version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was used to measure sleep related problems. No evidence was found that simply filtering blue light or simply removing relevant content improved sleep quality. However, the two factors interacted. The results suggest that the light emitted from screens can affect sleep quality under some conditions but this is behaviourally irrelevant in the context of normal Facebook usage

Trying to fall asleep while catastrophising:what sleep-disordered adolescents think and feel

Objective: Catastrophising is a repetitive cognitive process related to sleep disturbance in adult insomnia patients. More recently catastrophising has been associated with increased sleep disturbances in community samples of children and adolescents, with this association mediated by anxiety and depression. However, there currently is no evidence of these processes outside of community samples; impeding our ability to draw clinical conclusions. Knowledge on such dysfunctional cognitive processes in adolescents experiencing sleep disturbance would be clinically beneficial in aetiology and intervention. Our research examined the link between catastrophising, anxiety, depression and sleep latency in a sample of sleep-disordered adolescents. We also explored specific catastrophising themes which may impact the sleep latency of these adolescents. Method: Forty adolescents (age = 15.1. ± 1.5. years, 53% boys) diagnosed with delayed sleep phase disorder completed a 7-day sleep diary, along with measures of anxiety and depression and a catastrophising interview with a trained sleep therapist. Results: Several catastrophisation themes were generated, the most common concerning interpersonal and performance aspects of school. Bootstrapping analyses showed depression did not mediate the relationship between catastrophising and sleep; however, an indirect relationship was found between catastrophising, anticipatory anxiety, and sleep latency. Conclusion: These findings have implications for the role of dysfunctional thinking in prolonging sleep onset for adolescents and providing a clinical framework for health professionals when assessing and treating adolescents with delayed sleep timing

A randomised controlled trial of bright light therapy and morning activity for adolescents and young adults with Delayed Sleep-Wake Phase Disorder

© 2018 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This author accepted manuscript is made available following 12 month embargo from date of publication (February 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyA randomised controlled trial evaluated bright light therapy and morning activity for the treatment of Delayed Sleep-Wake Phase Disorder (DSWPD) in young people. 60 adolescents and young adults (range = 13–24 years, mean = 15.9 ± 2.2 y, 63% f) diagnosed with DSWPD were randomised to receive three weeks of post-awakening Green Bright Light Therapy (∼507 nm) and Sedentary Activity (sitting, watching TV), Green Bright Light Therapy and Morning Activity (standing, playing motion-sensing videogame), Red Light Therapy (∼643 nm) and Sedentary Activity or Red Light Therapy and Morning Activity. Sleep (ie sleep onset time, wake up time, sleep onset latency, total sleep time) and daytime functioning (ie morning alertness, daytime sleepiness, fatigue, functional impairment) were measured pre-treatment, post-treatment and at one and three month follow-up. Contrary to predictions, there were no significant differences in outcomes between treatment groups; and interaction effects between treatment group and time for all outcome variables were not statistically significant. However, adolescents and young adults in morning activity conditions did not meaningfully increase their objective activity (ie movement frequency). Overall, adolescents reported significantly improved sleep timing (d = 0.30–0.46), sleep onset latency (d = 0.32) and daytime functioning (d = 0.45–0.87) post-treatment. Improvements in sleep timing (d = 0.53–0.61), sleep onset latency (d = 0.57), total sleep time (d = 0.51), and daytime functioning (d = 0.52–1.02) were maintained, or improved upon, at the three month follow-up. However, relapse of symptomology was common and 38% of adolescents and young adults requested further treatment in addition to the three weeks of light therapy. Although there is convincing evidence for the short-term efficacy of chronobiological treatments for DSWPD, long-term treatment outcomes can be improved. To address this gap in our current knowledge, avenues for future research are discussed