Interaction on digital tv : electronic government study and proposal

Orientador: Maria Cecilia Calani BaranauskasDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: A TV digital interativa pode ser considerada uma ferramenta com potencial para contribuir na inclusão digital. Dentro de alguns anos, essa tecnologia estará disponível em grande parte dos domicílios brasileiros, incluindo aqueles que não possuem acesso a outros tipos de Tecnologia de Informação e Comunicação. Além disso, a TV já é um dispositivo conhecido por grande parte da população, o que pode facilitar a transposição de barreiras relacionadas à alfabetização digital. Para oferecer aplicações interativas na TV digital que façam sentido para a população brasileira, é necessário conhecer esses usuários prospectivos e entender como eles poderão interagir com essa nova mídia. Além disso, é preciso despertar o interesse dessa população em experimentar a interação na TV, até que essa tecnologia se torne parte do dia-a-dia dessas pessoas. Nesse contexto, este trabalho faz uma análise do cenário brasileiro para a oferta de interatividade na TV com o objetivo de identificar as principais questões que um designer de aplicações interativas encontra ao projetar uma interface de usuário para toda a população, incluindo usuários inexperientes e com baixa alfabetização digital. Artefatos da Semiótica Organizacional são aplicados na condução dessa análise. Conceber uma aplicação de governo eletrônico com o intuito de abranger a maior parte da sociedade implica em analisar a acessibilidade dessa mídia. Esse tema é estudado, mais uma vez fazendo uso da Semiótica Organizacional, para se chegar a recomendações de acessibilidade que possam ser aplicadas à interface de aplicações em TV interativa. Com base nesses estudos, é proposto um protótipo de aplicação de governo eletrônico na TV. Essa aplicação, chamada ciT-goV, representa um canal de comunicação entre o cidadão e a prefeitura de sua cidade. Sua interface de usuário foi concebida de forma a ser auto-explicativa, auxiliando a interação de usuários na sua primeira experiência com a TV interativa. A validação desse protótipo por grupos de usuários confirmou o interesse potencial da população nesse tipo de aplicação. Também foram avaliadas as decisões de design tomadas na sua concepção, respondendo algumas das questões levantadas no início do trabalho e apontando direções para futuras pesquisasAbstract: The interactive digital TV can be considered a potential tool to cope with digital divide. In some years, this technology will be available to most of Brazilians households, including those without access to other Information and Communications Technologies. Furthermore, as TV is already a familiar device for most part of the population, this may overcome a digital literacy barrier. To offer interactive applications on digital TV that make sense to the Brazilian people, it is necessary to identify the prospective users and to understand how they would interact with this new media. Moreover, it is necessary to attract people¿s interest to try interaction on TV, until this technology become part of their daily life. In this context, this work analyses the Brazilian scenario to offer interactivity on TV aiming at identifying the main questions an application designer faces to design a user interface to the whole population, including non-expert and low digital literacy users. Organizational Semiotics artifacts are applied to conduct this analysis. Conceiving an electronic government application to reach most part of the society implies analyzis of this media accessibility. This topic is studied, once again using Organizational Semiotics artifacts, to determine accessibility recommendations that may be applied to applications interfaces of interactive TV. Based on these studies, a prototype of an electronic government application on TV prototype is proposed. This application, named ciT-goV, stands for a communication channel between the citizen and the municipal administration. Its user interface was conceived to be self-explanatory, helping users during their first experience with interactive TV. The validation of this prototype validation by groups of users confirmed the potential population¿s interest on this kind of application. Design decisions on conception were also validated, answering some questions identified in the beginning of this work and pointing out some directions for future researchesMestradoMestre em Ciência da Computaçã

The development and institutionalisation of an integrated health care waste information system

Includes bibliographical references.Waste management generally in South Africa is poorly defined and practised, and the inadequate management of health care waste (HCW) has been recognised by the South African government as a significant environmental and public health risk. The literature revealed that an integrated health care waste information system (IHCWIS) serves as an important intervention to address the issue of poor health care waste management (HCWM). The overall key research question which this research asked was: "How does an IHCWIS develop and become institutionalised among health care waste generators?" The aim of the research was to gather empirical data to understand how the development and institutionalisation of an IHCWIS contributes to effective HCWM

Predicting South Africa 's true marine biodiversity : a comparison of methods

Word processed copy.Includes bibliographical references (p. 80-89).The aims of this thesis are to estimate how many marine species remain to be described in this region and which areas are most in need of additional sampling effort

Método para la evaluación de usabilidad de sitios web transaccionales basado en el proceso de inspección heurística

La usabilidad es considerada uno de los factores más importantes en el desarrollo de productos de software. Este atributo de calidad está referido al grado en que, usuarios específicos de un determinado aplicativo, pueden fácilmente hacer uso del software para lograr su propósito. Dada la importancia de este aspecto en el éxito de las aplicaciones informáticas, múltiples métodos de evaluación han surgido como instrumentos de medición que permiten determinar si la propuesta de diseño de la interfaz de un sistema de software es entendible, fácil de usar, atractiva y agradable al usuario. El método de evaluación heurística es uno de los métodos más utilizados en el área de Interacción Humano-Computador (HCI) para este propósito debido al bajo costo de su ejecución en comparación otras técnicas existentes. Sin embargo, a pesar de su amplio uso extensivo durante los últimos años, no existe un procedimiento formal para llevar a cabo este proceso de evaluación. Jakob Nielsen, el autor de esta técnica de inspección, ofrece únicamente lineamientos generales que, según la investigación realizada, tienden a ser interpretados de diferentes maneras por los especialistas. Por tal motivo, se ha desarrollado el presente proyecto de investigación que tiene como objetivo establecer un proceso sistemático, estructurado, organizado y formal para llevar a cabo evaluaciones heurísticas a productos de software. En base a un análisis exhaustivo realizado a aquellos estudios que reportan en la literatura el uso del método de evaluación heurística como parte del proceso de desarrollo de software, se ha formulado un nuevo método de evaluación basado en cinco fases: (1) planificación, (2) entrenamiento, (3) evaluación, (4) discusión y (5) reporte. Cada una de las fases propuestas que componen el protocolo de inspección contiene un conjunto de actividades bien definidas a ser realizadas por el equipo de evaluación como parte del proceso de inspección. Asimismo, se han establecido ciertos roles que deberán desempeñar los integrantes del equipo de inspectores para asegurar la calidad de los resultados y un apropiado desarrollo de la evaluación heurística. La nueva propuesta ha sido validada en dos escenarios académicos distintos (en Colombia, en una universidad pública, y en Perú, en dos universidades tanto en una pública como en una privada) demostrando en todos casos que es posible identificar más problemas de usabilidad altamente severos y críticos cuando un proceso estructurado de inspección es adoptado por los evaluadores. Otro aspecto favorable que muestran los resultados es que los evaluadores tienden a cometer menos errores de asociación (entre heurística que es incumplida y problemas de usabilidad identificados) y que la propuesta es percibida como fácil de usar y útil. Al validarse la nueva propuesta desarrollada por el autor de este estudio se consolida un nuevo conocimiento que aporta al bagaje cultural de la ciencia.Tesi

Bibliometric Studies and Worldwide Research Trends on Global Health

Global health, conceived as a discipline, aims to train, research and respond to problems of a transboundary nature, in order to improve health and health equity at the global level. The current worldwide situation is ruled by globalization, and therefore the concept of global health involves not only health-related issues, but also those related to the environment and climate change. Therefore, in this Special Issue, the problems related to global health have been addressed from a bibliometric approach in four main areas: environmental issues, diseases, health, education and society

Health and disease status of sea turtles in Western Australia

The current state of sea turtle health in the Indian Ocean is largely unknown, especially for the endemic flatback turtle (Natator depressus) which is listed as ‘vulnerable’ in Western Australia (WA) and ‘data deficient’ globally. Anecdotally, the causes of illness, injury, and death in Western Australian turtles are comparable to those in other parts of Australia and the world (e.g., spirorchiidiasis, fibropapillomatosis, and marine debris interaction) but scientific studies to validate these reports are particularly limited in this region. To address these knowledge gaps, causes of both live and dead turtle strandings in WA were investigated through an array of veterinary diagnostic techniques including necropsy, clinical pathology, diagnostic imaging, histopathology, parasitology, microbiology, toxicology, and molecular analyses. Health assessments were conducted on live animals to determine baseline levels of health and disease for specific populations, predominately nesting and foraging flatback turtles. Through these health and disease investigations, baselines were developed, along with the discovery of new diseases in flatback turtles including a novel haemoparasite, Haemocystidium spp., occurring specifically in the foraging life stage; a potentially emerging zoonotic bacterium, Streptococcus iniae associated with a multi-species mass mortality event involving post-hatchlings; as well as spirorchiidiasis, previously unreported in this species. Other unusual and emerging diseases were also reported in sea turtles in this study, including microsporidial myopathy, salt gland adenitis, gout, and pseudogout. In this study, natural disease-related causes of mortality occurred more frequently than direct anthropogenic causes, with parasitoses the most frequently occurring natural disease. Spirorchiidiaisis was the most common cause of mortality (32.0%) with a prevalence of 93.2% in turtles susceptible to the disease (i.e., excluding the post-hatchling life stage). The next most common cause of mortality was unknown (17.3%), followed by trauma (13.3%), endoparasitosis (10.7%), infectious disease (6.7%), and pneumonia (6.7%), with the remaining mortality categories each accounting for less than 5% of cases (including systemic inflammation, osmoregulatory disorder, gastrointestinal impaction, gastrointestinal foreign body, fibropapillomatosis, and metabolic disorder). We developed the first flatback turtle reference intervals (RIs) in Reference Value Advisor (RefVal v2.1) following the American Society of Veterinary Clinical Pathology (ASVCP) guidelines. We found flatback turtle RIs were generally similar to other published sea turtle RIs and reference values (RVs) but detected significant differences in our study for the various boundary conditions including life stage (nesting or foraging), as well for measurement methodology (field or laboratory tests), justifying the establishment of separate RIs/RVs for nesting and foraging flatbacks, and for field and laboratory techniques. This study was the first sea turtle health and disease investigation in WA and the eastern Indian Ocean to offer broader insights into sea turtle health and disease status on a regional scale. These essential baselines provided a number of crucial functions which include serving as a reference point for future studies to monitor changes in population health and disease levels. Specifically, these baseline data will be useful for future comparative studies of the same population where changes are an indication of a changing environment. The blood RIs can be used for disease diagnosis, monitoring progress and assessing prognosis of clinical flatback turtle cases in rehabilitation. Considering that diseases in the marine environment are predicted to rise with increasing anthropogenic pressures, detection of new and emerging diseases is of significance to the global knowledge of sea turtle diseases; and for understanding and mitigating disease threats to sea turtle populations. Finally, this study provided a framework to integrate health into future conservation management decisions to ensure the long-term survival of sea turtles

Long-term effects of fire on nitrogen cycling in a broad-leaf savanna, Kruger National Park, South Africa

Includes bibliographical references (p. 118-139).Fire with herbivory, climate, and soil properties including nutrients are said to be important in regulating the structure and function of savanna ecosystems. Frequent fire is often held responsible for a decrease in nitrogen pools and availability and the maintenance of low fertility conditions. However, previous research in the Kruger National Park (KNP) and elsewhere found conflicting results for the effects of fire on nitrogen pools and transformation rates. The main aim of this study was to gain a better understanding ofthe long-term effects of fire on nitrogen cycling in the KNP. The KNP provided an ideal opportunity for this study because of the initiation of a fire experiment in 1954. The Experimental Bum Plot (EBP) experiment was initiated in four representative landscapes of the KNP to determine the effects of fire on vegetation structure. I tested the effect of burning on nitrogen cycling and productivity in four fire treatments situated in Pretoriuskop Sour Bushveld (broad-leaf savanna). The fire treatments included a late winter, annual bum (August), late winter and summer triennial bums (August and February) and a fire exclusion treatment. Total soil nitrogen, available nitrogen, woody biomass and herbaceous production were measured. 1 hypothesized that vegetation adapted to low N conditions with low N foliage would be expected to dominate in frequently burnt areas if fire was to decrease N pools and fluxes