Moving Usability Testing onto the Web

Abstract: In order to remotely obtain detailed usability data by tracking user behaviors within a given web site, a server-based usability testing environment has been created. Web pages are annotated in such a way that arbitrary user actions (such as "mouse over link" or "click back button") can be selected for logging. In addition, the system allows the experiment designer to interleave interactive questions into the usability evaluation, which for instance could be triggered by a particular sequence of actions. The system works in conjunction with clustering and visualization algorithms that can be applied to the resulting log file data. A first version of the system has been used successfully to carry out a web usability evaluation

Transforming data silos into knowledge: Early Chinese Periodicals Online (ECPO)

This paper introduces the project “Early Chinese Periodicals Online (ECPO)” [1]. ECPO joins several important digital collections of the early Chinese press and puts them into a single overarching framework. In a first phase, several databases on early women’s periodicals and entertainment publishing were created: “Chinese Women’s Magazines in the Late Qing and Early Republican Period” (WoMag), “Chinese Entertainment Newspapers” (Xiaobao), and databases hosted at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. These systems approach the material in two ways: in the intensive approach all articles, images, advertisements, and related agents are recorded and assigned to a complete set of scanned pages, while in the extensive approach the main characteristic features of publications are stored. ECPO has begun to join these various materials in a second, ongoing phase of the project. Today, ECPO provides open access to 267 publications comprising over 280.000 pages of print. A key aspect is to make entire issues available, front-to-back, including illustrations, advertisements, and even blank pages. For 138 publications we also provide descriptions of individual items in Chinese with Pinyin transcription. These records also contain genre and column information, basic content analysis, as well as names and roles of agents associated with an item. Our new cross-database agent service allows us to manage the approximately 47.000 names recorded in WoMag and ECPO: a) merge identical names across databases, b) identify agents and assigning names to them, and c) link agent records to authority data (GND, VIAF, Wikidata). Besides creating a curated list of agents occurring in the publications, we also aim to add missing persons to authority files like the GND. One crucial aspect ECPO is full text capability. Unfortunately, OCR software cannot be used out-of-the-box, for a number of reasons: document analysis fails to recognize complex newspaper layout, character recognition fails when it faces emphasis marks next to characters, and recognized passages have to be grouped in the right semantic order. The paper will discuss approaches to further exploring and analyzing the knowledge hidden in these publications, together with efforts to open the collection’s data for re-use. We will demonstrate workflows in the Agents service and cross-database record curation. We also present results from a crowdsourced approach to newspaper segmentation to generate segments that can easier be OCRed. In addition, we introduce first ideas to create a module for encoding text in TEI and relate it to the database

Applied Epidemiology in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health

My placement for the Master of Philosophy in Applied Epidemiology (MAE) degree was with the Evidence and Evaluation section, within the Indigenous Health Division, Australian Government Department of Health. In this thesis, I present projects undertaken which fulfil the requirements of the MAE program. Data analysis project: The Northern Territory Aboriginal Health Key Performance Indicators (NT AHKPIs) are a collection of key performance indicators that measure primary health care (PHC) performance. I conducted a descriptive analytical study of the NT AHKPIs. The data that inform the NT AHKPIs are not currently in the public domain, this chapter is therefore a closed chapter. Evaluation project: I evaluated the NT AHKPIs to assess the extent to which the NT AHKPIs are addressing their intended goals and to determine whether they were being used for other purposes; my approach to the evaluation was utilisation focused. Preliminary findings show that the KPIs are useful to inform service planning and continuous quality improvement, but there is room for improvement. Findings were reported back to the NT AHKPI steering committee to inform ongoing strengthening of the NT AHKPI system. Epidemiological study: Anaemia in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the NT is a public health problem. I undertook a study to describe the application of best practice guidelines for screening and management of children aged 6 months to 3 years with anaemia in the NT. Findings show that of 5,543 children, 63% were screened for anaemia. The prevalence of anaemia was 40% - a ‘severe’ public health problem as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO). A very low proportion of anaemic children were recorded as treated according to best practice guidelines, however, our findings are subject to multiple potential biases and these findings need to be validated. Outbreak investigation: I was a member of the Communicable Disease Network Australia team that investigated an unusual cluster of Ralstonia bacteraemia from 1 April to 26 June 2014 in three states in Australia. The objectives of this investigation were to assess the possibility of a causal association between the administration of propofol and Ralstonia bacteraemia, and to identify sources of the infections. The propofol solution passed all sterility and contamination tests, but 18% of the flip-off caps and external surfaces of the rubber stoppers were contaminated with a variety of bacterial species including R. mannitolylitica. These isolates were genetically indistinguishable from three out of eight isolates from patients with R. mannitolylitica bacteraemia. Findings from this study highlighted the need for proper aseptic techniques when administering intravenous injections. I spent ten weeks in Sierra Leone supporting the WHO’s response to the Ebola virus disease outbreak (EVD). I summarise my role and responsibilities in the outbreak, including a description of our investigation of a cluster of cases with EVD

Association Between Race, Neighborhood, and Medicaid Enrollment and Outcomes in Medicare Home Health Care

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142524/1/jgs15082_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142524/2/jgs15082.pd

Geographic Variation in Out‐of‐Pocket Expenditures of Elderly Medicare Beneficiaries

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107567/1/jgs12834.pd

Hedonic shopping motivations in collectivistic and individualistic consumer cultures

We reinvestigate what constitutes hedonic customer experiences in collectivistic versus individualistic cultures using four country samples (N=2,336) in Germany and the U.S. as well as Oman and India. Across country samples, intrinsically enjoyable customer experiences are associated with the same underlying hedonic shopping motivations as shown in the original U.S. context. In comparison with individualistic cultures, we find that a hedonic shopping experience in collectivistic cultures is less strongly associated with selforiented gratification shopping, yet more strongly associated with others-oriented role shopping

Magnetic exchange coupling of a synthetic Co(II)-complex to a ferromagnetic Ni substrate

On-surface assembly of a spin-bearing and non-aromatic porphyrin-related synthetic Co(II)-complex on a ferromagnetic Ni thin film substrate and subsequent magnetic exchange interaction across the interface were studied by scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) and density functional theory +U (DFT + U) calculations