Since the beginning of the coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic, digital contact-tracing applications (apps) have been at the centre of attention as a digital tool to enable citizens to monitor their social distancing, which appears to be one of the leading practices for mitigating the spread of airborne infectious diseases. Many countries have been working towards developing suitable digital contact-tracing apps to allow the measurement of the physical distance between citizens and to alert them when contact with an infected individual has occurred. However, the adoption of digital contact-tracing apps has faced several challenges so far, including interoperability between mobile devices and users’ privacy concerns. There is a need to reach a trade-off between the achievable technical performance of new technology, false-positive rates, and social and behavioural factors. This paper reviews a wide range of factors and classifies them into three categories of technical, epidemiological and social ones, and incorporates these into a compact mathematical model. The paper evaluates the effectiveness of digital contact-tracing apps based on received signal strength measurements. The results highlight the limitations, potential and challenges of the adoption of digital contact-tracing apps.

Clinical observations made by practitioners and reported using web- and mobile-based technologies may benefit disease surveillance by improving the timeliness of outbreak detection. Equinella is a voluntary electronic reporting and information system established for the early detection of infectious equine diseases in Switzerland. Sentinel veterinary practitioners have been able to report cases of non-notifiable diseases and clinical symptoms to an internet-based platform since November 2013. Telephone interviews were carried out during the first year to understand the motivating and constraining factors affecting voluntary reporting and the use of mobile devices in a sentinel network. We found that non-monetary incentives attract sentinel practitioners; however, insufficient understanding of the reporting system and of its relevance, as well as concerns over the electronic dissemination of health data were identified as potential challenges to sustainable reporting. Many practitioners are not yet aware of the advantages of mobile-based surveillance and may require some time to become accustomed to novel reporting methods. Finally, our study highlights the need for continued information feedback loops within voluntary sentinel networks.

In this article, a new construction of a small planar dual-band fed printed monopole antenna based on coplanar waveguide is suggested. Impedance matching for dual-band operations is obtained by embedding three vertical strips with different sizes in the U-shaped conductor-backed plane. The main problem of the designed antenna is the measuring of the specifications with the Agilent 8722ES Vector Network Analyzer, when the coaxial cable is connected to the antenna. Hence, in this paper a new method for decoupling the cable from the antenna is presented. This method is based on using the ferrite bead. The ferrite bead reduces the cable radiation, so that its position plays the important part in the antenna radiation characteristics. The fabricated antenna includes the benefits of the miniaturized size and dual-band operating specifications, so that the mentioned properties have been achieved without modifying the coplanar-waveguide-ground surface or radiator patch. The antenna has the small size of 15 × 15 × 0.8 mm3and bandwidths with S11 < −10 dB about 2.2 GHz (5.05–7.25 GHz) for WLAN-band or IEEE 802.11a-band and 5.2GHz (7.6–12.8 GHz) for X-band, which correspond to 36 and 51% practical bandwidths, respectively. The antenna measured peak gains are about 1.8 dBi at WLAN-band and 4.3 dBi at X-band.

There are several converging forces that create a particularly opportune time for technological solutions to enhance cost efficiency in healthcare. Health care costs are unsustainable, yet many patients do not have adequate access to state-of-the-art treatments or to ongoing disease management. Consumerism is an increasingly powerful force in healthcare and the emphasis on personalised medicine will help to define future research and clinical treatment strategies. At the same time, the phenomenal advances in internet utilisation and mobile device applications provide possibilities that have never before existed. We have reason to be very optimistic about these opportunities, but appropriate research will be required to develop scalable and sustainable methods as well as determine expected outcomes.

Ototoxic drugs are widely used in the developing world, without audiological monitoring. Epidemiological data on ototoxic deafness are lacking for developing countries. The public health aspect of ototoxicity is often overlooked, to the detriment of the individual patient. This paper reviews ototoxic hearing loss, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and also assesses the impact of treatments for tuberculosis, cancer and human immunodeficiency virus (the latter including highly active antiretroviral therapy) on ototoxic hearing loss. The paper also discusses obstacles to audiological monitoring for ototoxicity in the developing world, and the potential of audiology screening using applications for mobile devices.

The use of mobile phones and other portable devices is beginning to have an impact on how learning takes place in many disciplines and contexts, including language learning. Learners who are not dependent on access to fixed computers can engage in activities that relate more closely to their current surroundings, sometimes crossing the border between formal and informal learning. This creates the potential for significant change in teaching and learning practices. Taking the broader field of mobile learning as the setting within which developments in mobile-assisted language learning may be understood, the paper argues that an emphasis on mobility can lead to new perspectives and practices. The paper offers reflections on what mobile learning has to offer and considers whether it is likely to change how languages are taught and learnt. ‘Mobile learning’ is not a stable concept; therefore its current interpretations need to be made explicit. Examples of current projects and practices show an affinity between mobile and games-based learning, and can further illuminate what is distinctive and worthwhile about mobile learning.