A tale of two studies

Running user evaluation studies is a useful way of getting feedback on partially or fully implemented software systems. Unlike hypothesis-based testing (where specific design decisions can be tested or comparisons made between design choices) the aim is to find as many problems (both usability and functional) as possible prior to implementation or release. It is particularly useful in small-scale development projects that may lack the resources and expertise for other types of usability testing. Developing a user-study that successfully and efficiently performs this task is not always straightforward however. It may not be obvious how to decide what the participants should be asked to do in order to explore as many parts of the system’s interface as possible. In addition, ad hoc approaches to such study development may mean the testing is not easily repeatable on subsequent implementations or updates, and also that particular areas of the software may not be evaluated at all. In this paper we describe two (very different) approaches to designing an evaluation study for the same piece of software and discuss both the approaches taken, the differing results found and our comments on both of these

Credit Programs for the Poor: A Tale of Two Studies

Alongside with the poverty alleviation program is the effort to make credit accessible to small and poor households. Despite the government’s effort of resource mobilization towards these programs, poverty is still widespread. Reviewing the directed-credit programs implemented by the government non-financial agencies and by the government financial institutions this issue shows that these have exhibited dreary performance. Measures of reforms are advocated.money and banking, credit program, credit market

Chaucer's Jailer's Daughter

textWe know that Shakespeare read Chaucer, but we do not know exactly how he read Chaucer. Established models of source studies require solid "proof," but this paper proposes a more liquid conception of influence that permeates a work in unexpected ways. The Jailer's Daughter, the seemingly un-Chaucerian alteration to The Knight's Tale frame of the Shakespeare and Fletcher play, The Two Noble Kinsmen, acts as the case study of such permeation. Only a single line in the lengthy Knight's Tale offers a parallel figure for this character: the Knight narrates that Palamon escapes prison "By helpyng of a freend," and in the play the Jailer's Daughter frees Palamon from her father's prison. Because it does not supply dialogue, a name, or even a gender to the "freend," The Knight's Tale has long been presumed to offer Shakespeare and Fletcher little beyond this event to inspire the play's more substantive subplot. I argue that the Jailer's Daughter offers a surprising means of connection not only to The Knight's Tale, the obvious source text, but also to the other tales of the First Fragment of The Canterbury Tales, which "quite" the tale of courtly love that precedes them. In The Two Noble Kinsmen, she embodies what the Knight disallows in his narration of the tale, leaking madness and feminine desire into the play's foundation. This structure ultimately suggests how Shakespeare works characterologically, channeling the complexity of a source such as Chaucer fluidly through a unit of character.Englis

A Tale of Two Stars: Interferometric Studies of Post-AGB Binaries

Binaries with circumbinary disks are commonly found among optically bright post-AGB stars. Although clearly linked to binary interaction processes, the formation, evolution and fate of these disks are still badly understood. Due to their compactness, interferometric techniques are required to resolve them. Here, we discuss our high-quality multiwavelength interferometric data of two prototypical yet very different post-AGB binaries, AC and 89 Herculis, as well as the modeling thereof with radiative transfer models. A detailed account of the data and models of both objects is published in three separate papers elsewhere; here we focus on comparing the modeling results for the two objects. In particular we discuss the successes and limitations of the models which were developed for protoplanetary disks around young stars. We conclude that multiwavelength high-angular-resolution observations and radiative transfer disk models are indispensible to understand these complex interacting objects and their place in the grand scheme of the (binary) evolution of low and intermediate mass stars.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, Conference proceedings for contributed talk at "Why Galaxies care about AGB stars III

Making energy behaviour research relevant to policy: A tale of two studies

Within a context of shrinking government resources and greater pressure on academics and other researchers to generate ‘impact’ from (publically funded) research there is a greater need than ever to ensure that published research is readily usable by and relevant to policy end-users. Through examining and comparing two energy related evidence reviews commissioned by the UK government, this paper presents a set of recommendations for those researchers who seek to make their publications (in both the white and grey literature) more accessible, usable and relevant to those working in policy and practice domains

Centralization of cleft care in the UK. Part 6:a tale of two studies

OBJECTIVES: We summarize and critique the methodology and outcomes from a substantial study which has investigated the impact of reconfigured cleft care in the United Kingdom (UK) 15 years after the UK government started to implement the centralization of cleft care in response to an earlier survey in 1998, the Clinical Standards Advisory Group (CSAG). SETTING AND SAMPLE POPULATION: A UK multicentre cross-sectional study of 5-year-olds born with non-syndromic unilateral cleft lip and palate. Data were collected from children born in the UK with a unilateral cleft lip and palate between 1 April 2005 and 31 March 2007. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We discuss and contextualize the outcomes from speech recordings, hearing, photographs, models, oral health and psychosocial factors in the current study. We refer to the earlier survey and other relevant studies. RESULTS: We present arguments for centralization of cleft care in healthcare systems, and we evidence this with improvements seen over a period of 15 years in the UK. We also make recommendations on how future audit and research may configure. CONCLUSIONS: Outcomes for children with a unilateral cleft lip and palate have improved after the introduction of a centralized multidisciplinary service, and other countries may benefit from this model. Predictors of early outcomes are still needed, and repeated cross-sectional studies, larger longitudinal studies and adequately powered trials are required to create a research-led evidence-based (centralized) service

A dysphoric's TALE: The relationship between the self-reported functions of autobiographical memory and symptoms of depression

Autobiographical memory (AM) is believed to serve self, social and directive functions; however, little is known regarding how this triad of functions operates in depression. Using the Thinking About Life Experiences questionnaire [Bluck, S., & Alea, N. (2011). Crafting the TALE: Construction of a measure to assess the functions of autobiographical remembering. Memory, 19, 470–486.; Bluck, S., Alea, N., Habermas, T., & Rubin, D. C. (2005). A TALE of three functions: The self–reported uses of autobiographical memory. Social Cognition, 23, 91–117.], two studies explored the relationship between depressive symptomology and the self-reported frequency and usefulness of AMs for self, social and directive purposes. Study 1 revealed that thinking more frequently but talking less frequently about past life events was significantly associated with higher depression scores. Recalling past events more frequently to maintain self-continuity was also significantly associated with higher depressive symptomology. However, results from Study 2 indicated that higher levels of depression were also significantly associated with less-frequent useful recollections of past life events for self-continuity purposes. Taken together, the findings suggest atypical utilisations of AM to serve self-continuity functions in depression and can be interpreted within the wider context of ruminative thought processes

African adventure and metropolitan dissent in Thomas Hardy’s Two on a Tower (1882)

Recent studies of late 19th-century imperialism have challenged postcolonial arguments for the existence of a uniform imperial culture in colonial Britain that unquestioningly supported its overseas expansionist agenda. Through a cultural materialist reading of Thomas Hardy’s Two on a Tower (1882), this article extends these critical challenges to claims for a cohesive colonial society by exploring moments of textual and biographical dissent in relation to African adventure and travel writing. It demonstrates the way in which colonial pursuits in the African interior control and devastate metropolitan worlds. It additionally considers a range of oppositional responses that unite the novel’s metropolitan heroine and labourers against the African colonizer. Examples in Hardy’s tale of radical scepticism in relation to debasing representations of autochthonous cultures are likewise evaluated in this article for the riposte they offer to 19th-century travel writing about Africa