Reciprocal recommender is a class of recommender systems that is important for tasks where people are both the subject and the object of the recommendation; one such task is online dating. We have implemented RECON, a reciprocal recommender for online dating, and we have evaluated it on a major dating website. Results show an improved success rate for recommendations that consider reciprocity in comparison to recommendations that only consider the preferences of the users receiving the recommendations.

Abstract-Group work is widespread in education. The growing use of online tools supporting group work generates huge amounts of data. We aim to exploit this data to support mirroring: presenting useful high-level views of information about the group, together with desired patterns characterizing the behaviour of strong groups. The goal is to enable the groups and their facilitators to see relevant aspects of the group's operation and provide feedback if these are more likely to be associated with positive or negative outcomes and where the problems are. We explore how useful mirror information can be extracted via a theory-driven approach and a range of clustering and sequential pattern mining. The context is a senior software development project where students use the collaboration tool TRAC. We extract patterns distinguishing the better from the weaker groups and get insights in the success factors. The results point to the importance of leadership and group interaction, and give promising indications if they are occurring. Patterns indicating good individual practices were also identified. We found that some key measures can be mined from early data. The results are promising for advising groups at the start and early identification of effective and poor practices, in time for remediation.

BackgroundThe prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents has dramatically increased in the Pacific Island countries and territories over the last decade. Childhood overweight and obesity not only have short-term consequences but are also likely to lead to noncommunicable diseases in adulthood. A major factor contributing to the rising prevalence is an insufficient amount of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). In the Pacific region, less than 50% of children and adolescents meet the international recommendations of 11,000 steps and 60 min of MVPA per day. Although studies have shown the potential of digital technologies to change behaviors, none has been proposed to guide adolescents toward achieving these recommendations.ObjectiveThe aims of this study were (1) to investigate whether a technology-based educational program that combines education, objective measures of physical activity (PA), and self-assessment of goal achievement would be well received by Pacific adolescents and help change their PA behaviors toward the international PA recommendations and (2) to create more insightful data analysis methods to better understand PA behavior change.MethodsA total of 24 adolescents, aged 12 to 14 years, participated in a 4-week program comprising 8 1-hour modules designed to develop health literacy and physical skills. This self-paced user-centered program was delivered via an app and provided health-related learning content as well as goal setting and self-assessment tasks. PA performed during the 4-week program was captured by an activity tracker to support learning and help the adolescents self-assess their achievements against personal goals. The data were analyzed using a consistency rate and daily behavior clustering to reveal any PA changes, particularly regarding adherence to international recommendations.ResultsThe consistency rate of daily steps revealed that the adolescents reached 11,000 steps per day 48% (approximately 3.4 days per week) of the time in the first week of the program, and this peaked at 59% (approximately 4.1 days per week) toward the end of the program. PA data showed an overall increase during the program, particularly in the less active adolescents, who increased their daily steps by 15% and ultimately reached 11,000 steps more frequently. The consistency of daily behavior clustering showed a 27% increase in adherence to international recommendations in the least active adolescents.ConclusionsTechnology-supported educational programs that include self-monitored PA via activity trackers can be successfully delivered to adolescents in schools in remote Pacific areas. New data mining techniques enable innovative analyses of PA engagement based on the international recommendations.

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Abstract.We have created a set of novel visualisations of group activity: they mirror activity of individuals and their interactions, based upon readily available authentic data. We evaluated these visualisations in the context of a semester long software development project course. We give a theoretical analysis of the design of our visualizations using the framework from the "Big 5" theory of team work as well as a qualitative study of the visualisations and the students' reflective reports. We conclude that these visualisations provide a powerful and valuable mirroring role with potential, when well used, to help groups learn to improve their effectiveness.

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