Promoting Social Connection and Deepening Relations Among Older Adults: Design and Qualitative Evaluation of Media Parcels.

BACKGROUND: Being socially connected is related to well-being, and one way of avoiding social isolation is to deepen existing relationships. Even though existing relationships can be reinforced by regular and meaningful communication, state-of-the-art communication technologies alone do not increase the quality of social connections. Thus, there is a need for the involvement of a trained human facilitator in a network of older adults, preferably for a short period, to promote the deepening of their relationships. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the hypothesis that a human-facilitated, media-sharing social networking system can improve social connection in a small group of older people, who are more vulnerable to social isolation than most, and deepen their relationships over a period of a few weeks. METHODS: We conducted the design and evaluation of Media Parcels, a novel human-facilitated social networking system. Media Parcels is based on the metaphor of a facilitator collecting and delivering parcels in the physical mail. Extending the metaphor, the system supports a facilitator in designing time-based dialogue requesting parcels from participants that bring out their memories and feelings, in collecting the parcels, wrapping them in annotations that communicate the corresponding requests, and delivering the wrapped parcel to a target person. Qualitative evaluation was carried out in two trials with a group of three people each, one with family members (children and father; aged 55, 56, and 82 years old) and the other with a group of friends (aged 72, 72, and 74 years old), over two weeks. In each trial, data were collected in three interviews (pre-, mid-, and posttrial) and via system logging. RESULTS: Collected data indicate positive social effects for deepening and developing relationships. The parcel metaphor was easily understood and the computational system was readily adopted. Preferences with regard to media production or consumption varied among participants. In the family group, children preferred receiving media parcels (because of their sentimental value) to producing them, whereas the father enjoyed both. In the friendship group, preferences varied: one friend enjoyed both producing and receiving, while the other two preferred one over the other. In general, participants reported a preference for the production of items of a certain type depending on the associated content. Apart from having a strong engagement with the system, participants reported feeling closer to each other than usual. CONCLUSIONS: For both groups, Media Parcels was effective in promoting media sharing and social connections, resulting in the deepening of existing relationships. Its design informs researchers who are attempting to promote social connection in older adults.

Determination of roughness coefficient in 3D digital representations of rocks.

The roughness property of rocks is significant in engineering studies due to their mechanical and hydraulic performance and the possibility of quantifying flow velocity and predicting the performance of wells and rock mass structures. However, the study of roughness in rocks is usually carried out through 2D linear measurements (through mechanical profilometer equipment), obtaining a coefficient that may not represent the entire rock surface. Thus, based on the hypothesis that it is possible to quantify the roughness coefficient in rock plugs reconstructed three-dimensionally by the computer vision technique, this research aims to an alternative method to determine the roughness coefficient in rock plugs. The point cloud generated from the 3D model of the photogrammetry process was used to measure the distance between each point and a calculated fit plane over the entire rock surface. The roughness was quantified using roughness parameters ([Formula: see text]) calculated in hierarchically organized regions. In this hierarchical division, the greater the quantity of division analyzed, the greater the detail of the roughness. The main results show that obtaining the roughness coefficient over the entire surface of the three-dimensional model has peculiarities that would not be observed in the two-dimensional reading. From the 2D measurements, mean roughness values ([Formula: see text]) of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] were obtained for samples 1 and 2, respectively. By the same method, the results of the [Formula: see text] coefficient applied three-dimensionally over the entire rocky surface were at most [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], respectively, showing the difference in values along the surface and the importance of this approach.