Developing heuristics for Web communication: an introduction to this special issue

This article describes the role of heuristics in the Web design process. The five sets of heuristics that appear in this issue are also described, as well as the research methods used in their development. The heuristics were designed to help designers and developers of Web pages or sites to consider crucial communicative aspects of Web site design. Also previewed is a sixth article that presents a framework for characterizing and analyzing the broad variety of heuristics that are available for Web designers

The Impact of Socioeconomic Status, Surgical Resection and Type of Hospital on Survival in Patients with Pancreatic Cancer:A Population-Based Study in The Netherlands

The influence of socioeconomic inequalities in pancreatic cancer patients and especially its effect in patients who had a resection is not known. Hospital type in which resection is performed might also influence outcome. Patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer from 1989 to 2011 (n = 34,757) were selected from the population-based Netherlands Cancer Registry. Postal code was used to determine SES. Multivariable survival analyses using Cox regression were conducted to discriminate independent risk factors for death. Patients living in a high SES neighborhood more often underwent resection and more often were operated in a university hospital. After adjustment for clinicopathological factors, risk of dying was increased independently for patients with intermediate and low SES compared to patients with high SES. After resection, no survival difference was found among patients in the three SES groups. However, survival was better for patients treated in university hospitals compared to patients treated in non-university hospitals. Low SES was an independent risk factor for poor survival in patients with pancreatic cancer. SES was not an adverse risk factor after resection. Resection in non-university hospitals was associated with a worse prognosis.</p

Cognitive map formation supported by auditory, haptic, and multimodal information in persons with blindness

For efficient navigation, the brain needs to adequately represent the environment in a cognitive map. In this review, we sought to give an overview of literature about cognitive map formation based on non-visual modalities in persons with blindness (PWBs) and sighted persons. The review is focused on the auditory and haptic modalities, including research that combines multiple modalities and real-world navigation. Furthermore, we addressed implications of route and survey representations. Taking together, PWBs as well as sighted persons can build up cognitive maps based on non-visual modalities, although the accuracy sometime somewhat differs between PWBs and sighted persons. We provide some speculations on how to deploy information from different modalities to support cognitive map formation. Furthermore, PWBs and sighted persons seem to be able to construct route as well as survey representations. PWBs can experience difficulties building up a survey representation, but this is not always the case, and research suggests that they can acquire this ability with sufficient spatial information or training. We discuss possible explanations of these inconsistencies

High angiopoietin-2 levels associate with arterial inflammation and long-term glucocorticoid requirement in polymyalgia rheumatica

OBJECTIVES: PMR frequently co-occurs with GCA. So far, a simple biomarker for detecting concomitant arterial inflammation in PMR patients is lacking. Furthermore, biomarkers predicting disease course in PMR are awaited. We here investigated the diagnostic and prognostic value of acute-phase markers (ESR, CRP, IL-6, serum amyloid A) and angiogenesis markers (VEGF, soluble Tie2, angiopoietin-1, angiopoietin-2) in isolated PMR and PMR/GCA overlap patients. METHODS: We prospectively included 39 treatment-naïve PMR patients, of whom 10 patients also showed evidence of large vessel GCA by PET-CT. Age-matched healthy controls (n = 32) and infection controls (n = 13) were included for comparison. Serum marker levels were measured by an ELISA or Luminex assay. Receiver operating characteristic and Kaplan-Meier analyses were used to asses diagnostic and prognostic accuracy, respectively. RESULTS: All acute-phase and angiogenesis markers, except angiopoietin-1, were higher in isolated PMR patients than in healthy controls. Angiopoietin-2, ESR and soluble Tie-2 were significantly higher in patients with PMR/GCA overlap than in isolated PMR patients. Angiopoeietin-2, but not soluble Tie2, outperformed ESR and CRP in discriminating patients with and without overlapping GCA (area under the curve: 0.90; sensitivity: 100%; specificity: 76%). Moreover, high angiopoietin-2 levels were associated with long-term glucocorticoid requirement. CONCLUSION: Assessment of angiopoietin-2 at baseline may assist diagnosis of concomitant vasculitis in PMR. Moreover, high levels of angiopoietin-2 were associated with an unfavourable disease course in isolated PMR patients. These findings imply that angiopoietin-2 is an interesting diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in PMR

Markers of angiogenesis and macrophage products for predicting disease course and monitoring vascular inflammation in giant cell arteritis

Objective. GCA, a systemic vasculitis, is characterized by an IL-6-dependent acute-phase response. This response is typically suppressed by treatment rendering CRP/ESR unreliable for monitoring vascular inflammation. Also, there are no accurate biomarkers predicting a non-favourable disease course. Here we investigated macrophage products and markers of angiogenesis as biomarkers for prognosis and monitoring of vascular inflammation. Methods. Forty-one newly diagnosed, glucocorticoid-naive GCA patients were prospectively followed for relapses and glucocorticoid requirement for a median of 30 months (range 0-71). Serum markers at baseline and during follow-up were compared with 33 age-matched healthy controls and 13 infection controls. Concentrations of IL-6, serum amyloid A, soluble CD163, calprotectin, YKL-40, VEGF, angiopoietin-1 and -2 and sTie2 were determined by ELISA/Luminex assay. Results. Serum concentrations of all markers, but not angiopoietin-1, were elevated in GCA patients at baseline when compared with healthy controls. High VEGF (P = 0.0025) and angiopoietin-1 (P = 0.0174) and low YKL-40 (P = 0.0369) levels at baseline were predictive of a short time to glucocorticoid-free remission. Elevated angiopoietin-2 levels were associated with an imminent relapse during treatment (P <0.05). IL-6 correlated strongly with acute-phase markers and soluble CD163 but not with markers of angiogenesis, YKL-40 or calprotectin. Glucocorticoid treatment down-modulated all markers except for calprotectin and YKL-40. Tissue expression of markers in temporal arteries was confirmed. Conclusion. Markers of angiogenesis at baseline and during treatment predict GCA disease course, suggesting utility in patient stratification for glucocorticoid-sparing therapy. Calprotectin and YKL-40 are candidate markers for monitoring vessel wall inflammation