Chapter 1

Question 1

what is the 1.2. definition of the quantified self?

Answer 1

“The quantified self is any individual engaged in the self tracking of any kind of biological, physical, behavioral, or environmental information. The self tracking is driven by a certain goal of the individual with a desire to act upon the collected information.

Question 2

What is the difference between definition 1.1. and 1.2. in the book?

Answer 2

1. 1. defines the quantified self as having a proactive stance toward obtaining information and acting upon it
2. 2. is not interested in the proactive stand. it just defines the quantified self as performing self tracking with a certain goal in mind

Question 3

three broad categories of motivation to gather quantified self data

by Choe et al

Answer 3

1. improve health
2. enhance other aspects of life (work, mindfulness)
3. find new life experiences

> e.g. learn new things

Question 4

definition of machine learning in book?

Answer 4

machine learning:

machine learning is to automatically identify patterns from data

Question 5

what are 5 unique characteristics of machine learning in the quantified self domain?

Answer 5

1. sensory data is noisy
2. many requirements are missing
3. data has highly temporal nature
4. algorithms should enable support of and interaction with users without a long learning period
5. collecting multiple datasets (one per user) and learn across them

Question 6

definition supervised learning?

Answer 6

supervised learning is the machine learning task of inferring a function from labeled training data

Question 7

definition unsupervised learning?

Answer 7

in unsupervised learning there is no target measure or label and the goal is to describe associations and patterns among the attributes

Question 8

name two examples of unsupervised learning in the book

Answer 8

1. clustering
2. outlier detection

Question 9

definition reinforcement learning?

Answer 9

reinforcement learning tries to find optimal actions in a given situation so as to maximize a numerical reward that does not immediately come with the action but later in time

Question 10

name the five factors of the five factor framework of self tracking motivations

Answer 10

1. self-healing

> help yourself to become healthy

2. self-discipline

> like the rewarding aspects of the quantified self

3. self-design

> control and optimize yourself using data

4. self-association

> enjoying being part of a community and to relate

5. self-entertainments

> enjoying the entertainment value of self tracking

Question 11

Lupton: what are the two different modes of self-tracking?

Answer 11

1. private self-tracking
2. pushed self-tracking

> incentive to engage in self tracking comes from another party