The effectiveness of multimedia for library-user education: Final report of the LUMENS project

The purpose of the LUMENS (The Effectiveness of Multimedia for Library-User Education) Project was to train library educators to build interactive multimedia Web sites using Macromedia Flash and to enlist library users in a test of these sites to determine whether interactive multimedia web sites are effective vehicles for conveying library-user education content. The research effort included a large-scale, distance-education training effort because few library educators are trained in interactive multimedia production.The Institute for Computer Museum and Library Services (IMLS)http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/58007/1/The_effectiveness_of_multimedia_for_library-user_education.pd

Comparing Basic Computer Literacy Self-Assessment Test and Actual Skills Test in Hospital Employees

A new hospital in United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to adopt health information technology (HIT) and become fully digitalized once operational. The hospital has identified a need to assess basic computer literacy of new employees prior to offering them training on various HIT applications. Lack of research in identifying an accurate assessment method for basic computer literacy among health care professionals led to this explanatory correlational research study, which compared self-assessment scores and a simulated actual computer skills test to find an appropriate tool for assessing computer literacy. The theoretical framework of the study was based on constructivist learning theory and self-efficacy theory. Two sets of data from 182 hospital employees were collected and analyzed. A t test revealed that scores of self-assessment were significantly higher than they were on the actual test, which indicated that hospital employees tend to score higher on self-assessment when compared to actual skills test. A Pearson product moment correlation revealed a statistically weak correlation between the scores, which implied that self-assessment scores were not a reliable indicator of how an individual would perform on the actual test. An actual skill test was found to be the more reliable tool to assess basic computer skills when compared to self-assessment test. The findings of the study also identified areas where employees at the local hospital lacked basic computer skills, which led to the development of the project to fill these gaps by providing training on basic computer skills prior to them getting trained on various HIT applications. The findings of the study will be useful for hospitals in UAE who are in the process of adopting HIT and for health information educators to design appropriate training curricula based on assessment of basic computer literacy

IAIMS newsletter

NewsletterThe IAIMS Newsletter (1996-2005) provides valuable information about library activities and resources as well as informative articles related to information technology

Characteristics of Smartphone Applications for Nutrition Improvement in Community Settings: A Scoping Review

Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press https://academic.oup.com Copyright © 2019 American Society for NutritionSmartphone applications are increasingly being used to support nutrition improvement in community settings. However, there is a scarcity of practical literature to support researchers and practitioners in choosing or developing health applications. This work maps the features, key content, theoretical approaches, and methods of consumer testing of applications intended for nutrition improvement in community settings. A systematic, scoping review methodology was used to map published, peer-reviewed literature reporting on applications with a specific nutrition-improvement focus intended for use in the community setting. After screening, articles were grouped into 4 categories: dietary self-monitoring trials, nutrition improvement trials, application description articles, and qualitative application development studies. For mapping, studies were also grouped into categories based on the target population and aim of the application or program. Of the 4818 titles identified from the database search, 64 articles were included. The broad categories of features found to be included in applications generally corresponded to different behavior change support strategies common to many classic behavioral change models. Key content of applications generally focused on food composition, with tailored feedback most commonly used to deliver educational content. Consumer testing before application deployment was reported in just over half of the studies. Collaboration between practitioners and application developers promotes an appropriate balance of evidence-based content and functionality. This work provides a unique resource for program development teams and practitioners seeking to use an application for nutrition improvement in community settings

Usage-driven Maintenance of Knowledge Organization Systems

Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) are typically used as background knowledge for document indexing in information retrieval. They have to be maintained and adapted constantly to reflect changes in the domain and the terminology. In this thesis, approaches are provided that support the maintenance of hierarchical knowledge organization systems, like thesauri, classifications, or taxonomies, by making information about the usage of KOS concepts available to the maintainer. The central contribution is the ICE-Map Visualization, a treemap-based visualization on top of a generalized statistical framework that is able to visualize almost arbitrary usage information. The proper selection of an existing KOS for available documents and the evaluation of a KOS for different indexing techniques by means of the ICE-Map Visualization is demonstrated. For the creation of a new KOS, an approach based on crowdsourcing is presented that uses feedback from Amazon Mechanical Turk to relate terms hierarchically. The extension of an existing KOS with new terms derived from the documents to be indexed is performed with a machine-learning approach that relates the terms to existing concepts in the hierarchy. The features are derived from text snippets in the result list of a web search engine. For the splitting of overpopulated concepts into new subconcepts, an interactive clustering approach is presented that is able to propose names for the new subconcepts. The implementation of a framework is described that integrates all approaches of this thesis and contains the reference implementation of the ICE-Map Visualization. It is extendable and supports the implementation of evaluation methods that build on other evaluations. Additionally, it supports the visualization of the results and the implementation of new visualizations. An important building block for practical applications is the simple linguistic indexer that is presented as minor contribution. It is knowledge-poor and works without any training. This thesis applies computer science approaches in the domain of information science. The introduction describes the foundations in information science; in the conclusion, the focus is set on the relevance for practical applications, especially regarding the handling of different qualities of KOSs due to automatic and semiautomatic maintenance

An investigation into applying ontologies to the UK railway industry

The uptake of ontologies in the Semantic Web and Linked Data has proven their excellence in managing mass data. Referring to the movements of Linked Data, ontologies are applied to large complex systems to facilitate better data management. Some industries, e.g., oil and gas, have at-tempted to use ontologies to manage its internal data structure and man-agement. Researchers have dedicated to designing ontologies for the rail system, and they have discussed the potential benefits thereof. However, despite successful establishment in some industries and effort made from some research, plus the interest from major UK rail operation participants, there has not been evidence showing that rail ontologies are applied to the UK rail system. This thesis will analyse factors that hinder the application of rail ontolo-gies to the UK rail system. Based on concluded factors, the rest of the the-sis will present corresponding solutions. The demonstrations show how ontologies can fit in a particular task with improvements, aiming to pro-vide inspiration and insights for the future research into the application of ontology-based system in the UK rail system

Work flows in life science

The introduction of computer science technology in the life science domain has resulted in a new life science discipline called bioinformatics. Bioinformaticians are biologists who know how to apply computer science technology to perform computer based experiments, also known as in-silico or dry lab experiments. Various tools, such as databases, web applications and scripting languages, are used to design and run in-silico experiments. As the size and complexity of these experiments grow, new types of tools are required to design and execute the experiments and to analyse the results. Workflow systems promise to fulfill this role. The bioinformatician composes an experiment by using tools and web services as building blocks, and connecting them, often through a graphical user interface. Workflow systems, such as Taverna, provide access to up to a few thousand resources in a uniform way. Although workflow systems are intended to make the bioinformaticians' work easier, bioinformaticians experience difficulties in using them. This thesis is devoted to find out which problems bioinformaticians experience using workflow systems and to provide solutions for these problems.\u

Quantifying ocular inflammation in uveitis using optical coherence tomography

Inflammation is the key underlying physiological process in uveitis. It drives the onset of acute flares, causes permanent structural damage and can result in sight-threatening complications. Being able to accurately detect and measure changes in inflammatory activity is crucial for managing uveitic flares and rationalising therapeutic decisions. Unfortunately, many of the current methods for quantifying inflammation are imperfect, due to the fact that they are based on subjective and unreliable clinician estimates. In this thesis, I evaluated the potential for imaging-based technologies such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) to measure key markers of intraocular inflammation in uveitis. Whilst several key markers of inflammation are recognised, this thesis focuses on those with an existing clinical standard, which can be used as a comparator or reference test (anterior chamber cells, anterior chamber flare and vitreous haze). I conducted a series of systematic reviews evaluating potential instrument-based techniques for measuring anterior chamber cells, anterior chamber flare and vitreous inflammation, respectively. These identified OCT and laser flare photometry as potential instruments for measuring anterior chamber cell and flare, and OCT and retinal photography for measuring vitreous inflammation. However, the interpretation of results in each review was limited by relatively few studies and the inclusion of highly heterogenous uveitic patient populations, varying severities of disease, and lack of a standardised image acquisition protocol. Second, in the prospective study, OCTAVE (OCT-assisted vitreous evaluation), I found that our custom OCT-based vitreous analysis technique (EQUIP) demonstrated good repeatability in healthy and uveitic eyes, was able to detect vitreous inflammation and was associated with the current clinical vitreous haze grading. The EQUIP measurement was able to predict visual acuity whereas the current standard method (clinician grading 3 using the National Eye Institutevitreous haze scale) could not. Whilst these results were encouraging, there remains substantial overlap in the OCT measurement between NEI vitreous haze grades. It is not clear whether this is due to poor signal-to-noise ratio of the OCT technique, or a sign of poor reliability of the comparator (clinician-based grading using the NEI vitreous haze scale). Further investigation through longitudinal studies may be able to answer this question. In summary, OCT has demonstrated potential for quantifying inflammation for multiple key measures in uveitis. However, a key limitation for the validation of all instrument-based measures has been the lack of a reliable reference test

Web-based system for outcome analysis and modification in laser vision correction

Refractive laser eye surgery is a specialised field in ophthalmology which aims to correct the refractive disorder of an eye. The most established technique is LASIK, which has shown good results for the treatment of simple myopia. Complex refractive disorders, such as compound myopic astigmatism, have shown less predictable refractive outcomes, and in some cases the severe over- or under-correction can even worsen the preoperative situation and damage the eye. In its first stage, this research aimed to develop a software system able to present and analyse refractive outcomes. Over 2 prototype stages, this research has led to an operational system named IBRA (Internet Based Refractive Analysis), offering web-based data collection and refractive and vector analysis. In a second stage, Nomogram calculation formulas were developed and integrated into IBRA. These formulas were created from linear regression and best-fit analyses of spherical and cylindrical outcome data stored in IBRA. The purpose of the nomogram calculations was to provide surgeons with adjustment factors that could be used to improve the refractive outcome of patients with complex refractive disorders. Two extensive clinical audits and a randomized controlled trial were performed at Moorfields Eye Hospital to evaluate the IBRA nomogram adjustments. This research showed that IBRA was able to achieve a positive health change. In addition, results from the audits and trial contributed to the knowledge of nomogram adjustments and provided a framework in which future investigations on nomogram and treatment modifications could be performed. In addition to the above clinical studies, two evaluations were performed with the use of IBRA and data logging techniques to investigate users‟ behaviour relating to the management of data entry processes and the use of analysis functions. This research revealed the best method for entering refractive data, and was able to identify the most important analysis methods. Finally, the use of IBRA and its user-interface were investigated with a user satisfaction survey. The results from this questionnaire based study showed a high acceptance of the web-based platform of IBRA and indicated points for improvement (Documentation)