103 research outputs found
Children's Interface Design for Searching and Browsing
Elementary-age children are among the largest user groups of computers and the Internet, so it is important to design searching and browsing interfaces to support them. However, many interfaces for children do not consider their skills and preferences. Children can perform simple, single item searches, and are also capable of conducting Boolean searches involving multiple search criteria. However, they have difficulty creating Boolean searches using hierarchical structures found in many interfaces. These interfaces often employ a sequential presentation of the category structure, where only one branch or facet at a time can be explored. This combination of structure and presentation keeps the screen from becoming cluttered, but requires a lot of navigation to explore categories in different areas and an understanding of potentially abstract high-level categories.
Based on previous research with adults, I believed that a simultaneous presentation of a flat category structure, where users could explore multiple, single-layer categories simultaneously, would better facilitate searching and browsing for children. This method reduces the amount of navigation and removes abstract categories. However, it introduces more visual clutter and sometimes the need for paging or scrolling. My research investigated these tradeoffs in two studies comparing searching and browsing in two interfaces with children in first, third, and fifth grade. Children did free browsing tasks, searched for a single item, and searched for two items to create conjunctive Boolean queries. The results indicate that a flat, simultaneous interface was significantly faster, easier, likeable, and preferred to a hierarchical, sequential interface for the Boolean search tasks. The simultaneous interface also allowed children to create significantly more conjunctive Boolean searches of multiple items while browsing than the sequential interface. These results suggest design guidelines for others who create children's interfaces, and inform design changes in the interfaces used in the International Children's Digital Library
Multiple health behaviours among mothers and partners in England : clustering, social patterning and intra-couple concordance
Research on multiple health behaviours is increasing but little is known about parental behaviours and how they covary. Our study investigates cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption and physical activity among mothers and co-resident partners in England. Using the UK Household Longitudinal Study, we examined (i) clustering of health behaviours using observed-expected ratios and latent class analysis (ii) socio-demographic correlates of the derived latent classes and (iii) intra-couple concordance of individual health behaviours and their latent classes. We identified five latent classes for mothers and partners: Never smoked drinkers (28% of mothers; 29% of partners), Abstainers (25%; 17%), Drinkers and ex-smokers (19%; 26%), Unhealthy low frequency drinkers (18%; 16%) and Unhealthiest behaviour group (11%; 12%). These had distinctive social profiles. Never smoked drinkers were more likely than those in other groups to be white and socially advantaged: married, older, and with higher educational qualifications and incomes. Abstainers were non-smokers who never or occasionally drank, and were disproportionately drawn from ethnic minority groups and middle/lower income families. Drinkers and ex-smokers were the most physically active group and were more likely to be socially advantaged. Unhealthy low frequency drinkers were more likely to be disadvantaged and have a limiting long-standing illness. The Unhealthiest behaviour group had the highest proportion of smokers, heavy smokers and binge drinkers and the lowest F&V intake and physical activity levels. They were largely white and socially disadvantaged: younger, non-married and with lower educational levels. Mothers and their partners typically shared the same risk behaviours, and 44 per cent of partners and mothers belonged to the same latent class. Our findings point to the potential for a broadening of research and policy perspectives, from separate behaviours to combinations of behaviours, and from individuals to the domestic units and communities of which they are part
Family Calendar Survey
Beginning in late July 2002, we conducted a survey about people's personal and
family calendaring habits. By the end of September, we had over 400 responses,
which are summarized below. The survey was conducted to help inform our work in
designing new technologies for families, motivated in part by our work on the
interLiving project. InterLiving is a 3 year, European Union-funded project
where we work with distributed, multi-generational families as design partners
to create new technologies (see http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/interliving for
details).
The survey was administered from a web page
(https://www.cs.umd.edu/users/hilary/survey/survey.htm), and participants were
solicited via a "chain-mail" email approach. We began by sending a request to
fill out a survey to our friends, families, and colleagues. We asked that they
forward the request on to their friends, family and colleagues as well.
While we realize that this was an imperfect approach, we believed that the
respondents would be representative of the users we are initially targeting in
our research on family calendaring and coordination - individuals who are
already making relatively heavy use of computers at home and/or work. The results seem to validate this assumption.
Many of our respondents likely come from the HCI community as the mailing went
to our large lab mailing list. We may have some pollution in the data as a
result of people in the same household (e.g. husband and wife) both filling out
the survey. Despite these issues, the results we got were helpful in eliciting a
number of important findings, namely that people rely on multiple calendars,
many of which are still paper.
(UMIACS-TR-2002-92)
(HCIL-TR-2002-21
Technology Probes: Inspiring Design for and with Families
We describe a new methodology for designing technologies for and with families
called technology probes. Technology probes are simple, flexible, adaptable
technologies introduced into families' homes with three interdisciplinary goals:
the social science goal of collecting data about the use of the technology in a
real-world setting, the engineering goal of field-testing the technology, and
the design goal of inspiring users and designers to think about new
technologies. We present the results of designing and deploying two technology
probes, the MessageProbe and the VideoProbe, with families in France, Sweden,
and the U.S. We conclude with our plans for creating new technologies based on
our experiences.
Keywords
Design Methods, Computer Mediated Communication, Computer Supported Cooperative
Work (CSCW), Home,
Ethnography, Participatory Design and Cooperative Design, User Studies and
Fieldwork
(UMIACS-TR-2002-87)
(HCIL-TR-2002-16
Economic analysis of the health impacts of housing improvement studies: a systematic review
Background: Economic evaluation of public policies
has been advocated but rarely performed. Studies from a
systematic review of the health impacts of housing
improvement included data on costs and some economic
analysis. Examination of these data provides an
opportunity to explore the difficulties and the potential
for economic evaluation of housing.
Methods: Data were extracted from all studies included
in the systematic review of housing improvement which
had reported costs and economic analysis (n=29/45).
The reported data were assessed for their suitability to
economic evaluation. Where an economic analysis was
reported the analysis was described according to pre-set
definitions of various types of economic analysis used in
the field of health economics.
Results: 25 studies reported cost data on the
intervention and/or benefits to the recipients. Of these,
11 studies reported data which was considered
amenable to economic evaluation. A further four studies
reported conducting an economic evaluation. Three of
these studies presented a hybrid ‘balance sheet’
approach and indicated a net economic benefit
associated with the intervention. One cost-effectiveness
evaluation was identified but the data were unclearly
reported; the cost-effectiveness plane suggested that the
intervention was more costly and less effective than the
status quo.
Conclusions: Future studies planning an economic
evaluation need to (i) make best use of available data
and (ii) ensure that all relevant data are collected. To
facilitate this, economic evaluations should be planned
alongside the intervention with input from health
economists from the outset of the study. When
undertaken appropriately, economic evaluation provides
the potential to make significant contributions to
housing policy
Strengthening the research to policy and practice interface: exploring strategies used by research organisations working on sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS
This commentary introduces the HARPS supplement on getting research into policy and practice in sexual and reproductive health (SRH). The papers in this supplement have been produced by the Sexual Health and HIV Evidence into Practice (SHHEP) collaboration of international research, practitioner and advocacy organizations based in research programmes funded by the UK Department for International Development
A scoping review of observational studies examining relationships between environmental behaviors and health behaviors
Individual lifestyles are key drivers of both environmental change and chronic disease. We undertook a scoping review of peer-reviewed studies which examined associations between environmental and health behaviors of individuals in high-income countries. We searched EconLit, Medline, BIOSIS and the Social Science Citation Index. A total of 136 studies were included. The majority were USA-based cross-sectional studies using self-reported measures. Most of the evidence related to travel behavior, particularly active travel (walking and cycling) and physical activity (92 studies) or sedentary behaviors (19 studies). Associations of public transport use with physical activity were examined in 18 studies, and with sedentary behavior in one study. Four studies examined associations between car use and physical activity. A small number included other environmental behaviors (food-related behaviors (n = 14), including organic food, locally-sourced food and plate waste) and other health behaviors ((n = 20) smoking, dietary intake, alcohol). These results suggest that research on individual environmental and health behaviors consists largely of studies examining associations between travel mode and levels of physical activity. There appears to be less research on associations between other behaviors with environmental and health impacts, and very few longitudinal studies in any domain
Functional, Non-Clonal IgMa-Restricted B Cell Receptor Interactions with the HIV-1 Envelope gp41 Membrane Proximal External Region
The membrane proximal external region (MPER) of HIV-1 gp41 has several features that make it an attractive antibody-based vaccine target, but eliciting an effective gp41 MPER-specific protective antibody response remains elusive. One fundamental issue is whether the failure to make gp41 MPER-specific broadly neutralizing antibodies like 2F5 and 4E10 is due to structural constraints with the gp41 MPER, or alternatively, if gp41 MPER epitope-specific B cells are lost to immunological tolerance. An equally important question is how B cells interact with, and respond to, the gp41 MPER epitope, including whether they engage this epitope in a non-canonical manner i.e., by non-paratopic recognition via B cell receptors (BCR). To begin understanding how B cells engage the gp41 MPER, we characterized B cell-gp41 MPER interactions in BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice. Surprisingly, we found that a significant (∼7%) fraction of splenic B cells from BALB/c, but not C57BL/6 mice, bound the gp41 MPER via their BCRs. This strain-specific binding was concentrated in IgMhi subsets, including marginal zone and peritoneal B1 B cells, and correlated with enriched fractions (∼15%) of gp41 MPER-specific IgM secreted by in vitro-activated splenic B cells. Analysis of Igha (BALB/c) and Ighb (C57BL/6) congenic mice demonstrated that gp41 MPER binding was controlled by determinants of the Igha locus. Mapping of MPER gp41 interactions with IgMa identified MPER residues distinct from those to which mAb 2F5 binds and demonstrated the requirement of Fc CH regions. Importantly, gp41 MPER ligation produced detectable BCR-proximal signaling events, suggesting that interactions between gp41 MPER and IgMa determinants may elicit partial B cell activation. These data suggest that low avidity, non-paratopic interactions between the gp41 MPER and membrane Ig on naïve B cells may interfere with or divert bnAb responses
What Should We Agree on about the Repugnant Conclusion?
The Repugnant Conclusion served an important purpose in catalyzing and inspiring the pioneering stage of population ethics research. We believe, however, that the Repugnant Conclusion now receives too much focus. Avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion should no longer be the central goal driving population ethics research, despite
its importance to the fundamental accomplishments of the existing literature
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