Iterative usability testing of a corporate Intranet

This paper details an effort to apply usability techniques to the redesign of a corporate intranet. The process included interviews, a heuristic review and three rounds of user testing. The goal of the project was to determine whether user performance and attitude improved across the three tests, and, if so, to suggest design principles which might account for this improvement. Intranets have become an important part of the business infrastructure for many companies. While they are often used to deliver organizational information, some intranets have evolved to become an integral part of the company's actual business processes and task workflow. Intranets have a tendency to grow through accretion rather than design, however, and as more of a company's information resources are added, the intranet can outgrow its ability to make the information easily available. User testing of the site can help developers design an intranet that is efficient and easy to use

Who owns desistance? A triad of agency enabling social structures in the desistance process

Theories of desistance assert agency is a prerequisite to the process which can be enabled or curtailed by social structures. We present data from six community hub sites that hosted probation services in the UK in 2019. While our analysis identifies agency enabling institutional and relational structures across the different hub governance sub-types in our sample, these were clearest in hubs run in the community by the community. This article contributes a triad of core enabling social structures that operate at the intersection between agency and structure in the desistance process. The significance of our findings is that the ownership question is key to the expedition of enabling social structures

Delivering desistance-focused probation in community hubs: five key ingredients

This article argues that probation is well placed to facilitate desistance when delivered in community hubs – community-based offices where probation services are co-located with other community-based provision. However, we highlight that hubs need to include certain key factors to maximise the potential for desistance. Using data collected through a piece of empirical research in six community hubs in England and Wales, we identify what factors make for a ‘good’ community hub as perceived by staff who work in them, those subject to supervision via a hub, and managers with strategic responsibility for commissioning hub services. We consider what it is about those factors which facilitate desistance-focused practice as outlined in McNeill et al.’s (2012) eight principles of desistance-focused practice. The five key factors identified in this study are the location of a hub, the hub’s physical environment, the extent to which services are co-located/produced, the cultural context of the hub, and the need for leaders to be innovative in the way services are commissioned. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for the National Probation Service as it takes over the work of Community Rehabilitation Companies in the coming years

Archaeological survey at the Citico site (40HA65), Hamilton County, Tennessee

During May of 1989 Dr. Nicholas Honerkamp of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) led a team of students enrolled in the ANTH 335 Archaeological Field School course in a survey of the Citico Site (40HA65). This well-known mound site is located adjacent to Amnicola Highway in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The area covered during the study consisted of an approximately 450 x 50 m strip of property situated between the Sandbar Restaurant and Citico Creek (Figure 1); the University of Tennessee is the current landowner. The purpose of the survey was to locate and identify any significant prehistoric or historic sites in the project area prior to its development. Current plans call for the construction of a boat house, road, and a parking facility within the parcel. The Citico mound and village complex are known to have existed in the area just east of Citico Creek prior to their destruction in the 20th century. Hence, a survey of the boat house parcel was desirable in order to determine if any remnants of the site might still be present and subject to disturbance or destruction by planned construction activities.https://scholar.utc.edu/archaeology-reports/1055/thumbnail.jp

Deliver Me From The Days Of Old: Rock And Roll, Youth Culture, And The Civil Rights Movement

The U.S. civil rights movement is almost always presented as an undisputed success in mainstream culture and educational curricula, but scholars continue to question whether the widespread protests against racial segregation and inequality that swept the nation in the 1950s and 1960s led to meaningful economic, or social change. These criticisms extend to shifts in popular culture and the emergence of rock and roll music, which, as many contemporary critics noted, were areas where racial integration had already occurred. Since rock and roll emerged from both African-American and European-American cultural traditions, it introduced both black and white listeners to sounds and styles indicative of different racial backgrounds that were simultaneously integrated with musical elements that were still familiar to them. This new genre helped to encourage cross-racial identification among some young listeners. In Deliver Me From the Days of Old: Rock and Roll Music, Youth Culture, and the Civil Rights Movement, I argue that rock and roll music converged with widespread media coverage of civil rights activism to encourage support for the desegregation of public spaces and moderate racial equality among certain groups of middle-class white and black teenagers during the 1950s and 1960s. Many historians agree that rock and roll had the potential to disrupt racial divisions, but that music industry exploitation, as well as persistent political and economic oppression that overtook cultural integration, prevented it from doing so. Others note a correlation between changing racial politics and the birth of rock and roll, but do not explicitly show how this genre, and the decisions teenagers made to embrace it, emerged within a civil rights context that promoted integration as a positive change. While all of these historians offer insight into the origins of rock and roll, their accounts ignore the fact that teenage rock and roll fans made their own decisions about music and culture that were informed by, and contributed to, the emergence of a national movement for racial integration. When these decisions are ignored, the origin story of rock and roll music becomes one of exploitation rather than one of cultural integration. Although many rock and roll fans did not become politically active in the civil rights movement, they were not the passive consumers of popular culture that they are often depicted as. The choices they made to listen to and embrace this music and the artists who performed it constitute a form of political consciousness in light of the strict censures that existed in both the North and the South against racial integration. Since most rock and roll fans did not flock to sit-ins or voter registration drives, many scholars have assumed that the music\u27s appeal was mostly aesthetic, and that teenagers who did not explicitly participate in movement activities were fairly apolitical. And yet, the ways they acted and communicated in both public and private spaces during this period indicates a shift in thinking that is in keeping with moderate civil rights goals. But this viewpoint ignores the changing attitudes and behaviors exhibited by many people born during and after World War Two, which ultimately led to at least tacit support for the desegregation of public spaces and moderate racial equality among black and white youth. Black teenagers usually supported actions against segregation, and often suffered the direct repercussions when entering previously all-white schools or breaking racial barriers at concert halls. Most stated that they would only work for integration if they were treated with full respect and dignity, not if they were expected to adjust to white norms. White youth were not as aware of the challenges facing their black contemporaries, but many were eager to resist conformist Cold War culture and politics, the expansion of the military-industrial complex, unregulated capitalist development, and overt racial segregation and discrimination, even outside of traditional Southern boundaries. Rock and roll music therefore helped young people to talk about race relations and discrimination in both public and private spaces, and to challenge racial norms during the civil rights movement. Even though racial discrimination and structural racism did not disappear, this new middle ground, shaped by a popular new art form, helped young people of both races find ways to communicate across supposedly rigid racial lines

Organizational and Cultural Readiness for Integration of Evidence-based Practice into Graduate Nursing Education

The adoption of EBP is fundamental to the reform of healthcare outcomes

Sensorimotor Behavioral Tests for Use in a Juvenile Rat Model of Traumatic Brain Injury: Assessment of Sex Differences

Modeling juvenile traumatic brain injury (TBI) in rodents presents several unique challenges compared to adult TBI, one of which is selecting appropriate sensorimotor behavioral tasks that enable the assessment of the extent of injury and recovery over time in developing animals. To address this challenge, we performed a comparison of common sensorimotor tests in Long-Evans rats of various sizes and developmental stages (postnatal days 16–45, 35–190 g). Tests were compared and selected for their developmental appropriateness, scalability for growth, pre-training requirements, and throughput capability. Sex differences in response to TBI were also assessed. Grid walk, automated gait analysis, rotarod, beam walk, spontaneous forelimb elevation test, and measurement of motor activity using the force-plate actometer were evaluated. Grid walk, gait analysis, and rotarod failed to meet one or more of the evaluation criteria. Beam walk, spontaneous forelimb elevation test, and measurement of motor activity using the force-plate actometer satisfied all criteria and were capable of detecting motor abnormalities in rats subjected to controlled cortical impact on postnatal day 17. No sex differences were detected in the acute effects of TBI or functional recovery during the 28 days after injury using these tests. This demonstrates the utility of these tests for the evaluation of sensorimotor function in studies using rat models of pediatric TBI, and suggest that pre-pubertal males and females respond similarly to TBI with respect to sensorimotor outcomes

The Landscape of Advanced Coursework Participation: Understanding Disparities and Intersectionality

This population-based study explored students\u27 participation in advanced coursework in elementary schools (gifted/talented programs), middle schools (Algebra I+), and high schools (Advanced Placement) to address enrollment equity. The study identified demographic disparities and the intersectionality of multiple identities to achieve two research aims: 1) to explore how advanced course-taking varies by student demographics, and 2) to understand how disparities in advanced course-taking vary by student demographics and intersectional identities. The findings indicate that disparities in advanced course-taking are related to students’ race, ethnicity, disability status, English learner (EL) status, socioeconomic status, as well as the intersection of these variables. The report includes implications for policies and practices that consider complex school system variables that affect advanced course enrollment. This report is part of the Equitable Access and Support for Advanced Coursework (EASAC) study by the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium. Interpretations of findings as well as implications and recommendations have been drafted in partnership with PK-12 leaders and educators. To access an interactive version of the data in this report, including additional details about demographic comparisons for each academic year, please see our MERC data dashboard that accompanies this report

Mid-IR spectroscopic instrumentation for point-of-care diagnosis using a hollow silica waveguide gas cell

Laser spectroscopy provides the basis of instrumentation developed for the diagnosis of infectious disease, via quantification of organic biomarkers that are produced by associated bacteria. The technology is centred on a multichannel pulsed quantum cascade laser system that allows multiple lasers with different wavelengths to be used simultaneously, each selected to monitor a different diagnostic biomarker. The instrument also utilizes a hollow silica waveguide (HSW) gas cell which has a very high ratio of interaction pathlength to internal volume. This allows sensitive detection of low volume gas species from small volume biological samples. The spectroscopic performance of a range of HSW gas cells with different lengths and bore diameters has been assessed using methane as a test gas and a best-case limit of detection of 0.26 ppm was determined. The response time of this cell was measured as a 1,000 sccm flow of methane passed through it and was found to be 0.75 s. These results are compared with those obtained using a multi-pass Herriot cell. A prototype instrument has been built and approved for clinical trials for detection of lung infection in acute-care patients via analysis of ventilator breath. Demonstration of the instrument for headspace gas analysis is made by monitoring the methane emission from bovine faeces. The manufacture of a hospital-ready device for monitoring biomarkers of infection in the exhaled breath of intensive care ventilator patients is also presented