Current Practices for Product Usability Testing in Web and Mobile Applications

Software usability testing is a key methodology that ensures applications are intuitive and easy to use for the target audience. Usability testing has direct benefits for companies as usability improvements often are fundamental to the success of a product. A standard usability test study includes the following five steps: obtain suitable participants, design test scripts, conduct usability sessions, interpret test outcomes, and produce recommendations. Due to the increasing importance for more usable applications, effective techniques to develop usable products, as well as technologies to improve usability testing, have been widely utilized. However, as companies are developing more cross-platform web and mobile apps, traditional single-platform usability testing has shortcomings with respect to ensuring a uniform user experience. In this report, a new strategy is proposed to promote a consistent user experience across all application versions and platforms. This method integrates the testing of different application versions, e.g., the website, mobile app, mobile website. Participants are recruited with a better-defined criterion according to their preferred devices. The usability session is conducted iteratively on several different devices, and the test results of individual application versions are compared on a per-device basis to improve the test outcomes. This strategy is expected to extend on current practices for usability testing by incorporating cross-platform consistency of software versions on most devices

Repeat coronary angioplasty: Correlates of a second restenosis

AbstractTo identify the correlates of a second restenosis after repeat percutaneous coronary angioplasty, the records of 384 patients with single vessel disease who underwent repeat angioplasty for restenosis complicating a first elective angioplasty were examined. A second restenosis occurred in 47 (31%) of 151 patients having angiographic follow-up. Univariate correlates of a second restenosis were an interval between the first and the second angioplasty <5 months (41 versus 20% of patients had restenosis, p < 0.01), male gender (35 versus 12%, p < 0.05), lesion length ≥15 mm before the second angioplasty (62 versus 28%, p < 0.05), diameter stenosis >90% before the second angioplasty (67 versus 29%, p < 0.05), final gradient >20 mm Hg after the second angioplasty (52 versus 28%, p < 0.05) and an additional site requiring dilation at the time of the second angioplasty (50 versus 29%, p = 0.10).Multivarlate predictors of a second restenosis were an interval of <5 months between the first and the second angioplasty (p = 0.001), male gender (p = 0.001), lesion length ≥15 mm before the second angioplasty (p = 0.001) and the need to have an additional site dilated at the time of the second angioplasty (p = 0.002). Patients at increased risk of restenosis after the second angioplasty can be identified and may serve as a useful population for intervention studies

Observations of C-Band Brightness Temperature and Ocean Surface Wind Speed and Rain Rate in Hurricanes Earl And Karl (2010)

Ocean surface emission is affected by: a) Sea surface temperature. b) Wind speed (foam fraction). c) Salinity After production of calibrated Tb fields, geophysical fields wind speed and rain rate (or column) are retrieved. HIRAD utilizes NASA Instrument Incubator Technology: a) Provides unique observations of sea surface wind, temp and rain b) Advances understanding & prediction of hurricane intensity c) Expands Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer capabilities d) Uses synthetic thinned array and RFI mitigation technology of Lightweight Rain Radiometer (NASA Instrument Incubator) Passive Microwave C-Band Radiometer with Freq: 4, 5, 6 & 6.6 GHz: a) Version 1: H-pol for ocean wind speed, b) Version 2: dual ]pol for ocean wind vectors. Performance Characteristics: a) Earth Incidence angle: 0deg - 60deg, b) Spatial Resolution: 2-5 km, c) Swath: approx.70 km for 20 km altitude. Observational Goals: WS 10 - >85 m/s RR 5 - > 100 mm/hr

Radio-Excess IRAS Galaxies: PMN/FSC Sample Selection

A sample of 178 extragalactic objects is defined by correlating the 60 micron IRAS FSC with the 5 GHz PMN catalog. Of these, 98 objects lie above the radio/far-infrared relation for radio-quiet objects. These radio-excess galaxies and quasars have a uniform distribution of radio excesses and appear to be a new population of active galaxies not present in previous radio/far-infrared samples. The radio-excess objects extend over the full range of far-infrared luminosities seen in extragalactic objects. Objects with small radio excesses are more likely to have far-infrared colors similar to starbursts, while objects with large radio excesses have far-infrared colors typical of pure AGN. Some of the most far-infrared luminous radio-excess objects have the highest far-infrared optical depths. These are good candidates to search for hidden broad line regions in polarized light or via near-infrared spectroscopy. Some low far-infrared luminosity radio-excess objects appear to derive a dominant fraction of their far-infrared emission from star formation, despite the dominance of the AGN at radio wavelengths. Many of the radio-excess objects have sizes likely to be smaller than the optical host, but show optically thin radio emission. We draw parallels between these objects and high radio luminosity Compact Steep-Spectrum (CSS) and GigaHertz Peaked-Spectrum (GPS) objects. Radio sources with these characteristics may be young AGN in which the radio activity has begun only recently. Alternatively, high central densities in the host galaxies may be confining the radio sources to compact sizes. We discuss future observations required to distinguish between these possibilities and determine the nature of radio-excess objects.Comment: Submitted to AJ. 44 pages, 11 figures. A version of the paper with higher quality figures is available from http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~cdrake/PMNFSC/paperI

Cryptosporidium Priming Is More Effective than Vaccine for Protection against Cryptosporidiosis in a Murine Protein Malnutrition Model

Cryptosporidium is a major cause of severe diarrhea, especially in malnourished children. Using a murine model of C. parvum oocyst challenge that recapitulates clinical features of severe cryptosporidiosis during malnutrition, we interrogated the effect of protein malnutrition (PM) on primary and secondary responses to C. parvum challenge, and tested the differential ability of mucosal priming strategies to overcome the PM-induced susceptibility. We determined that while PM fundamentally alters systemic and mucosal primary immune responses to Cryptosporidium, priming with C. parvum (106 oocysts) provides robust protective immunity against re-challenge despite ongoing PM. C. parvum priming restores mucosal Th1-type effectors (CD3+CD8+CD103+ T-cells) and cytokines (IFNγ, and IL12p40) that otherwise decrease with ongoing PM. Vaccination strategies with Cryptosporidium antigens expressed in the S. Typhi vector 908htr, however, do not enhance Th1-type responses to C. parvum challenge during PM, even though vaccination strongly boosts immunity in challenged fully nourished hosts. Remote non-specific exposures to the attenuated S. Typhi vector alone or the TLR9 agonist CpG ODN-1668 can partially attenuate C. parvum severity during PM, but neither as effectively as viable C. parvum priming. We conclude that although PM interferes with basal and vaccine-boosted immune responses to C. parvum, sustained reductions in disease severity are possible through mucosal activators of host defenses, and specifically C. parvum priming can elicit impressively robust Th1-type protective immunity despite ongoing protein malnutrition. These findings add insight into potential correlates of Cryptosporidium immunity and future vaccine strategies in malnourished children

Hurricane Imaging Radiometer

The Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) is a synthetic thinned array passive microwave radiometer designed to allow retrieval of surface wind speed in hurricanes, up through category five intensity. The retrieval technology follows the Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR), which measures surface wind speed in hurricanes along a narrow strip beneath the aircraft. HIRAD maps wind speeds in a swath below the aircraft, about 50-60 km wide when flown in the lower stratosphere. HIRAD has flown in the NASA Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment in 2010 on a WB-57 aircraft, and on a Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system (UAS) in 2012 and 2013 as part of NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storms Sentinel (HS3) program. The GRIP program included flights over Hurricanes Earl and Karl (2010). The 2012 HS3 deployment did not include any hurricane flights for the UAS carrying HIRAD. The 2013 HS3 flights included one flight over the predecessor to TS Gabrielle, and one flight over Hurricane Ingrid. This presentation will describe the HIRAD instrument, its results from the 2010 and 2013 flights, and potential future developments

Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD)

No abstract availabl

Quantitative Interpretation of a Genetic Model of Carcinogenesis Using Computer Simulations

The genetic model of tumorigenesis by Vogelstein et al. (V theory) and the molecular definition of cancer hallmarks by Hanahan and Weinberg (W theory) represent two of the most comprehensive and systemic understandings of cancer. Here, we develop a mathematical model that quantitatively interprets these seminal cancer theories, starting from a set of equations describing the short life cycle of an individual cell in uterine epithelium during tissue regeneration. The process of malignant transformation of an individual cell is followed and the tissue (or tumor) is described as a composite of individual cells in order to quantitatively account for intra-tumor heterogeneity. Our model describes normal tissue regeneration, malignant transformation, cancer incidence including dormant/transient tumors, and tumor evolution. Further, a novel mechanism for the initiation of metastasis resulting from substantial cell death is proposed. Finally, model simulations suggest two different mechanisms of metastatic inefficiency for aggressive and less aggressive cancer cells. Our work suggests that cellular de-differentiation is one major oncogenic pathway, a hypothesis based on a numerical description of a cell's differentiation status that can effectively and mathematically interpret some major concepts in V/W theories such as progressive transformation of normal cells, tumor evolution, and cancer hallmarks. Our model is a mathematical interpretation of cancer phenotypes that complements the well developed V/W theories based upon description of causal biological and molecular events. It is possible that further developments incorporating patient- and tissue-specific variables may build an even more comprehensive model to explain clinical observations and provide some novel insights for understanding cancer

Expected Performance of the ATLAS Experiment - Detector, Trigger and Physics

A detailed study is presented of the expected performance of the ATLAS detector. The reconstruction of tracks, leptons, photons, missing energy and jets is investigated, together with the performance of b-tagging and the trigger. The physics potential for a variety of interesting physics processes, within the Standard Model and beyond, is examined. The study comprises a series of notes based on simulations of the detector and physics processes, with particular emphasis given to the data expected from the first years of operation of the LHC at CERN