Background Most adults do not engage in sufficient physical activity to maintain good health. Smartphone apps are increasingly used to support physical activity but typically focus on tracking behaviors with no support for the complex process of behavior change. Tracking features do not engage all users, and apps could better reach their targets by engaging users in reflecting their reasons, capabilities, and opportunities to change. Motivational interviewing supports this active engagement in self-reflection and self-regulation by fostering psychological needs proposed by the self-determination theory (ie, autonomy, competence, and relatedness). However, it is unknown whether digitalized motivational interviewing in a smartphone app engages users in this process. Objective This study aimed to describe the theory- and evidence-based development of the Precious app and to examine how digitalized motivational interviewing using a smartphone app engages users in the behavior change process. Specifically, we aimed to determine if use of the Precious app elicits change talk in participants and how they perceive autonomy support in the app. Methods A multidisciplinary team built the Precious app to support engagement in the behavior change process. The Precious app targets reflective processes with motivational interviewing and spontaneous processes with gamified tools, and builds on the principles of self-determination theory and control theory by using 7 relational techniques and 12 behavior change techniques. The feasibility of the app was tested among 12 adults, who were asked to interact with the prototype and think aloud. Semistructured interviews allowed participants to extend their statements. Participants’ interactions with the app were video recorded, transcribed, and analyzed with deductive thematic analysis to identify the theoretical themes related to autonomy support and change talk. Results Participants valued the autonomy supportive features in the Precious app (eg, freedom to pursue personally relevant goals and receive tailored feedback). We identified the following five themes based on the theory-based theme autonomy support: valuing the chance to choose, concern about lack of autonomy, expecting controlling features, autonomous goals, and autonomy supportive feedback. The motivational interviewing features actively engaged participants in reflecting their outcome goals and reasons for activity, producing several types of change talk and very little sustain talk. The types of change talk identified were desire, need, reasons, ability, commitment, and taking steps toward change. Conclusions The Precious app takes a unique approach to engage users in the behavior change process by targeting both reflective and spontaneous processes. It allows motivational interviewing in a mobile form, supports psychological needs with relational techniques, and targets intrinsic motivation with gamified elements. The motivational interviewing approach shows promise, but the impact of its interactive features and tailored feedback needs to be studied over time. The Precious app is undergoing testing in a series of n-of-1 randomized controlled trials.
The main drivers for the mobile core network evolution is to serve the future challenges and set the way to 5G networks with need for high capacity and low latency. Different technologies such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) are being considered to address the future needs of 5G networks. However, future applications such as Internet of Things (IoT), video services and others still unveiled will have different requirements, which emphasize the need for the dynamic scalability of the network functionality. The means for efficient network resource operability seems to be even more important than the future network element costs. This paper provides the analysis of different technologies such as SDN and NFV that offer different architectural options to address the needs of 5G networks. The options under consideration in this paper may differ mainly in the extent of what SDN principles are applied to mobile specific functions or to transport network functions only.
A major challenge of future mobile networks is providing the needed elastic scaling to the increased traffic demand, number of users and applications with acceptable cost. Another challenge is suitability for numerous communications applications while curbing unwanted traffic on the air interface and the mobile devices. This paper proposes a vision of how these challenges can be met by applying the concept of Software Defined Networking (SDN) to mobile networks. We also discuss the needed migration path that minimizes unnecessary replacement investments. While we have verified some key parts of the vision with experiments, we realize that the effectiveness of the proposed approach depends on the adoption of SDN technology for other purposes so that mass production of SDN switches leads to significant economies of scale. The paper shows how we can model mobile networks using SDN concepts and migrate the 3GPP mobile architecture to SDN. The resulting control plane of the mobile architecture consists of a group of SDN applications starting from the base stations i.e., virtual eNodeBs, Backhaul transport, Mobility management, Access, Caching, Monitoring, and Services delivery. The data plane consists of simplified access points and SDN and Carrier Grade Ethernet switches. Our experiments are based on using OpenFlow as the interface between the planes.
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