W.P. Brinkman
45 records found
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This thesis investigates how Reinforcement Learning (RL) can increase support effectiveness in virtual coach-based smoking cessation interventions. Such interventions have shown promise in helping people change behaviors such as smoking. However, personalizing the support they pr
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The use of chatbots in eHealth applications has grown significantly, providing an interactive platform for users to improve their health and lifestyle. To enhance these applications, human feedback has been incorporated, with a coach offering personalized guidance to help users a
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Analyzing users’ introductions to human coaches
Insights from eHealth applications introductions
This study analyzed the self-introductions of participants in a smoking and vaping cessation program to understand their motivations, barriers, and support needs. Through thematic analysis of 787 participant introductions, six main themes were identified: Motivations for Quitting
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Background. Quitting smoking is a challenge nowadays. Virtual coaches offer autonomous, personalized guidance for smoking cessation. However, such systems cannot replace human coaches completely. In situations, when human coaches cannot provide help to everyone - a virtual coach
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Smoking and vaping cessation remains a significant public health challenge despite the availability of numerous aids and eHealth applications. This study explores the reasons behind users' preference for human feedback when preparing to quit smoking or vaping, aiming to address a
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Smoking remains one of the largest health concerns worldwide, which is why eHealth applications with virtual coaches have been developed to assist smokers with quitting. Providing additional feedback from human coaches during such smoking cessation programs can further improve th
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Smoking has been one of the great threats to health in recent years, being strongly correlated with multiple negative health consequences, including lung cancer. Recent research suggests that artificial intelligence chatbots can be effective in persuading healthy behavior change.
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Examining the Efficacy of Persuasive eHealth Applications in Facilitating Smoking Cessation
An Analysis of Competency Based Activities
To assist smokers in potentially quitting their habit, this paper investigates digital eHealth applications. Based on a dataset provided by research into an eHealth application, it aims to determine if persuasive activities can convince users of the usefulness of competencies det
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Use Reinforcement Learning to Choose Activities for Preparing to Quit Smoking
How Effective a Reinforcement Learning Model is for Choosing Activities that Optimizes the Likelihood that Users Return to the Next Session and the Effort Users Spend on Their Activities?
Unhealthy behaviors such as smoking is the major cause for premature deaths and changing behaviors by oneself can be difficult. That is where eHealth applications come into rescue. One of the recent research explored the possibility of using a Reinforcement Learning model to choo
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Child helplines play a crucial role in delivering expert assistance to young clients facing challenges and seeking support. While counselling is instrumental in enhancing children’s mental well-being, the limited number of experienced counsellors is inadequate given the substanti
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Evaluating the Believability of the Lilobot Conversational Agent
A Bachelor Thesis
The aim of this research is to evaluate the believability of Lilobot, a conversational agent meant to act as a virtual child for training helpline workers. Numerous aspects of believability are explored by means of a user study involving a questionnaire and interview with 10 part
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Agent-Based Social Skills Training Systems: A Comprehensive Analysis of Commercial Solutions
What commercially available training systems are out there and how do they model their agents and feedback?
Agent-based social skills training systems have been gaining attention for their potential to improve social skills development in various contexts. Through a rapid review methodology, data was collected from diverse sources, including company websites and research papers. This s
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The noticeability of behavioral changes of a conversational agent
An evaluation of an agent-based social skills training system
Helpline counselors can be trained faster using agent-based social skills training systems. These systems utilize conversational agents that simulate interactions with users and provide feedback. This research evaluates the noticeability of behavior changes in such a conversation
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Perceptions of Artificial Social Agents
The cultural similarities and differences between Dutch and Chinese speakers in their perception of artificial social agents
Artificial social agents (ASAs) are systems designed to interact with humans in a socially intelligent manner. As the field of robotics is rapidly advancing, some studies focused on creating more effective agents by analysing how people perceive them. However, culture affects peo
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Self-tracking has expanded exponentially in an era defined by the ubiquitous presence of wearable technologies and smart devices. From health and fitness to finances and productivity, these devices empower users to delve into their quantified self (QS) through an almost infinite
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Joint attention is the shared focus multiple people can have on the same object and it is subconsciously used by humans every day. The simple act of verbally or non-verbally pointing out an object to one another, is a form of joint attention. Its use facilitates human cooperation
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Physical activity is one of the main factors that contribute to reducing the chance of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, obesity, and depression, all while improving an individual’s health in general. While this is the case, the fact still remains that many adults
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To reduce morbidity and mortality caused by multiple chronic conditions, the number of steps people take each day should be gradually increased. For this, a recommended step goal can be created that is based on an individual's previous walking behaviour. However, for a person, th
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Using and Abusing Equivariance
Investigating Differences between Exact and Approximate Equivariance in Computer Vision
In this work we show how Group Equivariant Convolutional Neural Networks use subsampling to learn to break equivariance to their symmetries. We focus on the 2D roto-translation group and investigate the impact of broken equivariance on network performance. We show that changing
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In this study we let police officers interact with conversational agents during specific scenarios. These scenarios are focused on difficult situations that can happen during a day of work. This is done to get to know what is needed to better help police officers with a conversat
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