An Accessible Chat Prototype for Screen Reader Users in Mobile Devices

[Poster] 15th International Conference on Human–Computer Interaction (HCI International 2013), Las Vegas (Nevada, USA), 21–26 July 2013Chats present accessibility problems for screen reader users. This work presents a prototype of an accessible chat for Mobile Devices (MD). The main aim of this research is to remove the accessibility barriers that screen reader users face when they use a chat in a MD. Thus, this prototype is based on the requirements which have been elicited considering background research and with the use of Software Engineering (SE) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) methods as well as accessibility standards and guidelines.This research work has been partially supported by MA2VICMR (S2009/TIC-1542) and MULTIMEDICA (TIN2010-20644-C03-01)Publicad

Qualitative study of psychosocial factors impacting on Aboriginal women's management of chronic disease

Background: Aboriginal women are frequently called upon to support their families and other community members. At times, such supporting roles can be burdensome for these women. Many Aboriginal women live with chronic conditions. We explored the ways in which the women’s caring roles impacted on how they maintained their own health. Methods: The aim of this manuscript is to explore the psychosocial factors associated with the management of health and chronic disease in Aboriginal women. An interpretive phenomenological approach was used for the analysis of 72 in-depth semi-structured interviews. These interviews were conducted in four community controlled Aboriginal health services, in urban, rural and remote settings, across two states and a territory in Australia. Results: Women living with chronic disease experience multiple challenges while caring for family, such as intergenerational trauma, mental health issues relating to addiction, domestic and family violence and incarceration. When these women become ill, they also have to take care of themselves. These women provided informal and unfunded care in response to a range of complex family and community problems. This continuous caring for family affected the women’s ability to maintain their health and manage their own chronic conditions. Conclusion: The caring roles and responsibilities Aboriginal women have in their community impact on their health. Aboriginal women provide much needed refuge and support to family and the wider community. Underfunded and over-burdened formal support services are not meeting the needs of many Aboriginal women. Improved culturally secure resources and social services are required within communities to support Aboriginal women to successfully manage their own health.A. Eades, M.L. Hackett, H. Liu, A. Brown, J. Coffin and A. Cas

What are the resourcing requirements for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care research project?

Objective and importance: To explore the role of resourcing during an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care research project. Study type: Process evaluation using grounded theory approaches of a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research project (N = 500) named Getting it Right: the validation study. Methods: Qualitative semistructured interviews with 36 primary health care staff and 4 community members from 9 of 10 primary health care services involved in the research project. Interviews included questions about the resources needed to conduct the research project, including fexible reimbursement to participating services (allocated within services), human resources and reimbursement to research participants (vouchers). Qualitative data were triangulated with participant feedback, study administrative data and feld notes kept by the interviewer. Results: Three themes were identifed: 1) the infuence of reimbursement on participating services and the research project; 2) the infuence of human resources on the research project at participating services; and 3) the consequences of offering vouchers to reimburse research participants. Reimbursement was allocated to research expenses (human resources and logistics) or non-research expenses (service operations, equipment and conference attendance costs). Most services opted to offer vouchers to compensate participants for their time, which staff considered was appropriate recognition of participants’ contributions and facilitated recruitment. Some staff described some potential unintended negative consequences from offering vouchers, including creating a welfare mentality or creating problematic expectations. Conclusion: Primary health care research should have suffcient resourcing available, including human resource capacity, to achieve research targets. Research planning should include consideration of the existing commitments, priorities and human capacity needs of services and patients.Sara Farnbacha, Graham Geec, Anne-Marie Eadesa, John Robert Evanse, Jamie Fernandog, Belinda Hammond, Matty Simms, Karrina DeMasi, Nick Glozier, Maree L Hackett, on behalf of the Getting it Right Investigator

Stress testing and non-invasive coronary angiography in patients with suspected coronary artery disease: time for a new paradigm

Diagnosis and management of coronary artery disease represents major challenges to our health care system, affecting millions of patients each year. Until recently, the diagnosis of coronary artery disease was possible only through cardiac catheterization and invasive coronary angiography. To avoid the risks of an invasive procedure, stress testing is often employed for an initial assessment of patients with suspected coronary artery disease, serving as a gatekeeper for cardiac catheterization. With the emergence of non-invasive coronary angiography, the question arises if such a strategy is still sensible, particularly, in view of only a modest agreement between stress testing results and the presence of coronary artery disease established by cardiac catheterization. Much data in support of the diagnostic accuracy and prognostic value of non-invasive coronary angiography by computed tomography have emerged within the last few years. These data challenge the role of stress testing as the initial imaging modality in patients with suspected coronary artery disease. This article reviews the clinical utility, limitations, as well as the hazards of stress testing compared with non-invasive coronary artery imaging by computed tomography. Finally, the implications of this review are discussed in relation to clinical practice

Towards evidence-based marketing: The case of childhood obesity

Contentious commodities such as tobacco, alcohol and fatty foods are bringing marketing under scrutiny from consumers and policymakers. Yet there is little agreement on whether marketing is harmful to society. Systematic review (SR), a methodology derived from clinical medicine, offers marketers a tool for providing resolution and allowing policymakers to proceed with greater confidence. This article describes how SR methods were applied for the first time to a marketing problem -- the effects of food promotion to children. The review withstood scrutiny and its findings were formally ratified by government bodies and policymakers, demonstrating that SR methods can transfer from clinical research to marketing

Fine structure in the α decay of 223U

Fine structure in the α decay of 223U was observed in the fusion-evaporation reaction 187Re(40Ar, p3n) by using fast digital pulse processing technique. Two α-decay branches of 223U feeding the ground state and 244 keV excited state of 219Th were identified by establishing the decay chain 223U →α1 219Th →α2 215Ra →α3 211Rn. The α-particle energy for the ground-state to ground-state transition of 223U was determined to be 8993(17) keV, 213 keV higher than the previous value, the half-life was updated to be 62−10+14 μs. Evolution of nuclear structure for N = 131 even-Z isotones from Po to U was discussed in the frameworks of nuclear mass and reduced α-decay width, a weakening octupole deformation in the ground state of 223U relative to its lighter isotones 219Ra and 221Th was suggested

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

On the mechanisms governing gas penetration into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection

A new 1D radial fluid code, IMAGINE, is used to simulate the penetration of gas into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection (MGI). The main result is that the gas is in general strongly braked as it reaches the plasma, due to mechanisms related to charge exchange and (to a smaller extent) recombination. As a result, only a fraction of the gas penetrates into the plasma. Also, a shock wave is created in the gas which propagates away from the plasma, braking and compressing the incoming gas. Simulation results are quantitatively consistent, at least in terms of orders of magnitude, with experimental data for a D 2 MGI into a JET Ohmic plasma. Simulations of MGI into the background plasma surrounding a runaway electron beam show that if the background electron density is too high, the gas may not penetrate, suggesting a possible explanation for the recent results of Reux et al in JET (2015 Nucl. Fusion 55 093013)

Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET

A phase relationship is identified between sequential edge localized modes (ELMs) occurrence times in a set of H-mode tokamak plasmas to the voltage measured in full flux azimuthal loops in the divertor region. We focus on plasmas in the Joint European Torus where a steady H-mode is sustained over several seconds, during which ELMs are observed in the Be II emission at the divertor. The ELMs analysed arise from intrinsic ELMing, in that there is no deliberate intent to control the ELMing process by external means. We use ELM timings derived from the Be II signal to perform direct time domain analysis of the full flux loop VLD2 and VLD3 signals, which provide a high cadence global measurement proportional to the voltage induced by changes in poloidal magnetic flux. Specifically, we examine how the time interval between pairs of successive ELMs is linked to the time-evolving phase of the full flux loop signals. Each ELM produces a clear early pulse in the full flux loop signals, whose peak time is used to condition our analysis. The arrival time of the following ELM, relative to this pulse, is found to fall into one of two categories: (i) prompt ELMs, which are directly paced by the initial response seen in the flux loop signals; and (ii) all other ELMs, which occur after the initial response of the full flux loop signals has decayed in amplitude. The times at which ELMs in category (ii) occur, relative to the first ELM of the pair, are clustered at times when the instantaneous phase of the full flux loop signal is close to its value at the time of the first ELM