Ubiquitous Computing and Cellular Handsets—are menus the best way forward?

Embedded interactive computer systems, such as those found in cellular handsets, can be hard to use. The combination of small form factor – limited input and output potential – and an increasing feature set, result in devices which confuse novice users. Although most of these devices utilise hierarchical menu structures to mediate the interaction between user and device, we believe that these menus are poorly designed and that other interaction styles may be more appropriate. In this paper we will investigate how well menu design research has been used by current handset manufacturers. We will also propose and report on the success of some new interface designs and finally examine how new Internet technologies, like WML, might be used to further improve the handset’s interface

An Evaluation of Techniques for Image Searching and Browsing on Mobile Devices

This paper reports on a system for browsing and searching image collections on small-screen devices. The system design was informed by our studies of how people organize and access image collections on desktop computers. The final system was evaluated in a user study where users had to search for images with varying degrees of precision about what they were searching for. We discovered that individual users adopt a wide variety of search strategies and that future image management tools must support users through a wide variety of interaction techniques

Improving web interaction in small screen displays

Soon many people will retrieve information from the Web using handheld, palmsized or even smaller computers. Although these computers have dramatically increased in sophistication, their display size is – and will remain – much smaller than their conventional, desktop counterparts. Currently, browsers for these devices present web pages without taking account of the very different display capabilities. As part of a collaborative project with Reuters, we carried out a study into the usability impact of small displays for retrieval tasks. Users of the small screen were 50% less effective in completing tasks than the large screen subjects. Small screen users used a very substantial number of scroll activities in attempting to complete the tasks. Our study also provided us with interesting insights into the shifts in approach users seem to make when using a small screen device for retrieval. These results suggest that the metaphors useful in a full screen desktop environment are not the most appropriate for the new devices. Design guidelines are discussed, here, proposing directed access methods for effective small screen interaction. In our ongoing work, we are developing such “meta-interfaces” which will sit between the small screen user and the “conventional” web page

The Use of Algorithms in Interface Design

A new and effective user interface was constructed for a cellular telephone handset, basing the feature set closely on a commercial model. Once implemented, usability experiments were conducted, showing that predicted improvements in usability were confirmed with real users doing realistic tasks. The new user interface was designed by a "computer science" approach to user interface design: we conclude that using computer science algorithms are an effective and creative way to improve user interfaces

Making Technology Invisible in the Developing World

Those of us who live in the developed world dwell in an ecology where information is literally everywhere. Besides physical forms such as newspapers, books and magazines, the air around us is crammed with signals carrying information that we can access and use almost without thought on our smartphones and other devices. Information, and the technologies that allow us to access it, are so convenient that we scarcely think about them. They are mostly invisible to our conscious mind. However, for those living in the developing world, information is less than ubiquitous. Although many of people in the developing world have a cellular handset, issues around cost of access and user literacy barriers mean that accessing information is a deliberate, complicated and expensive undertaking. People living here cannot effortlessly pluck invisible information from the air but must go to great lengths to find the information they need. In the rest of this article we shall explore three separate projects that seek to make access to information ubiquitous for these users. We will highlight systems that fit naturally into their ecologies effectively making the technology invisible and allowing users natural, convenient access to information sources

Please call ME.N.U.4EVER: Callback & Social Media Sharing in Rural Africa

In this paper we report findings generated during the early phase of a research project that aims to design and develop social media sharing systems to benefit marginalized communities. Studies of cell-phone network users in the developing world have shown that the relatively high tariffs for network access have resulted in new and innovate uses of technology to circumvent these costs. In this paper we describe a completely new form of service appropriation and how it is being used to overcome tariff costs in a remote rural area of South Africa. In this country, cell-phone providers offer a highly constrained form of free messaging to their subscribers called “callback”. These requests contain the caller’s cell-phone number and the recipient’s very short personalized message. Up to five free callback requests can be sent per day to any South African cell-phone network. This service is provided for emergencies when as pay-as-you-go customers do not have any airtime left. However, callback is used in rural areas in ways that go far beyond emergencies. As with SMS, the constraints on the callback have been appropriated by people to shape both a new language and cultural interactions. This paper reports the context of our study in communication practices in a remote rural area of South Africa, our methodology which we position within Ethnographic Action Research, and our findings and their implications for the design, development and deployment of social media sharing systems for this area

Unpacking the relationships between impulsivity, neighborhood disadvantage, and adolescent violence : an application of a neighborhood-based group decomposition

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013)/ERC Grant Agreement no. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects); and from the Marie Curie programme under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013)/Career Integration Grant no. PCIG10-GA-2011-303728 (CIG Grant NBHCHOICE, Neighbourhood choice, neighbourhood sorting, and neighbourhood effects).Scholars have become increasingly interested in how social environments condition the relationships between individual risk-factors and adolescent behavior. An appreciable portion of this literature is concerned with the relationship between impulsivity and delinquency across neighborhood settings. The present article builds upon this growing body of research by considering the more nuanced pathways through which neighborhood disadvantage shapes the development of impulsivity and provides a situational context for impulsive tendencies to manifest in violent and aggressive behaviors. Using a sample of 12,935 adolescent from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) (mean age = 15.3, 51% female; 20% Black, 17% Hispanic), we demonstrate the extent to which variation in the association between impulsivity and delinquency across neighborhoods can be attributed to (1) differences in mean-levels of impulsivity and violence and (2) differences in coefficients across neighborhoods. The results of a series of multivariate regression models indicate that impulsivity is positively associated with self-reported violence, and that this relationship is strongest among youth living in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The moderating effect of neighborhood disadvantage can be attributed primarily to the stronger effect of impulsivity on violence in these areas, while differences in average levels of violence and impulsivity account for a smaller, yet nontrivial portion of the observed relationship. These results indicate that the differential effect of impulsivity on violence can be attributed to both developmental processes that lead to the greater concentration of violent and impulsive adolescents in economically deprived neighborhoods as well as the greater likelihood of impulsive adolescents engaging in violence when they reside in economically disadvantaged communities.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The Welfare Implications of Using Exotic Tortoises as Ecological Replacements

<div><h3>Background</h3><p>Ecological replacement involves the introduction of non-native species to habitats beyond their historical range, a factor identified as increasing the risk of failure for translocations. Yet the effectiveness and success of ecological replacement rely in part on the ability of translocatees to adapt, survive and potentially reproduce in a novel environment. We discuss the welfare aspects of translocating captive-reared non-native tortoises, <em>Aldabrachelys gigantea</em> and <em>Astrochelys radiata</em>, to two offshore Mauritian islands, and the costs and success of the projects to date.</p> <h3>Methodology/Principal Findings</h3><p>Because tortoises are long-lived, late-maturing reptiles, we assessed the progress of the translocation by monitoring the survival, health, growth, and breeding by the founders. Between 2000 and 2011, a total of 26 <em>A. gigantea</em> were introduced to Ile aux Aigrettes, and in 2007 twelve sexually immature <em>A. gigantea</em> and twelve male <em>A. radiata</em> were introduced to Round Island, Mauritius. Annual mortality rates were low, with most animals either maintaining or gaining weight. A minimum of 529 hatchlings were produced on Ile aux Aigrettes in 11 years; there was no potential for breeding on Round Island. Project costs were low. We attribute the success of these introductions to the tortoises’ generalist diet, habitat requirements, and innate behaviour.</p> <h3>Conclusions/Significance</h3><p>Feasibility analyses for ecological replacement and assisted colonisation projects should consider the candidate species’ welfare during translocation and in its recipient environment. Our study provides a useful model for how this should be done. In addition to serving as ecological replacements for extinct Mauritian tortoises, we found that releasing small numbers of captive-reared <em>A. gigantea</em> and <em>A. radiata</em> is cost-effective and successful in the short term. The ability to release small numbers of animals is a particularly important attribute for ecological replacement projects since it reduces the potential risk and controversy associated with introducing non-native species.</p> </div

Profiling Critical Cancer Gene Mutations in Clinical Tumor Samples

BACKGROUND: Detection of critical cancer gene mutations in clinical tumor specimens may predict patient outcomes and inform treatment options; however, high-throughput mutation profiling remains underdeveloped as a diagnostic approach. We report the implementation of a genotyping and validation algorithm that enables robust tumor mutation profiling in the clinical setting. METHODOLOGY: We developed and implemented an optimized mutation profiling platform ("OncoMap") to interrogate approximately 400 mutations in 33 known oncogenes and tumor suppressors, many of which are known to predict response or resistance to targeted therapies. The performance of OncoMap was analyzed using DNA derived from both frozen and FFPE clinical material in a diverse set of cancer types. A subsequent in-depth analysis was conducted on histologically and clinically annotated pediatric gliomas. The sensitivity and specificity of OncoMap were 93.8% and 100% in fresh frozen tissue; and 89.3% and 99.4% in FFPE-derived DNA. We detected known mutations at the expected frequencies in common cancers, as well as novel mutations in adult and pediatric cancers that are likely to predict heightened response or resistance to existing or developmental cancer therapies. OncoMap profiles also support a new molecular stratification of pediatric low-grade gliomas based on BRAF mutations that may have immediate clinical impact. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate the clinical feasibility of high-throughput mutation profiling to query a large panel of "actionable" cancer gene mutations. In the future, this type of approach may be incorporated into both cancer epidemiologic studies and clinical decision making to specify the use of many targeted anticancer agents

Investigation of inter- and intraspecies variation through genome sequencing of Aspergillus section Nigri

Aspergillus section Nigri comprises filamentous fungi relevant to biomedicine, bioenergy, health, and biotechnology. To learn more about what genetically sets these species apart, as well as about potential applications in biotechnology and biomedicine, we sequenced 23 genomes de novo, forming a full genome compendium for the section (26 species), as well as 6 Aspergillus niger isolates. This allowed us to quantify both inter-and intraspecies genomic variation. We further predicted 17,903 carbohydrateactive enzymes and 2,717 secondary metabolite gene clusters, which we condensed into 455 distinct families corresponding to compound classes, 49% of which are only found in single species. We performed metabolomics and genetic engineering to correlate genotypes to phenotypes, as demonstrated for the metabolite aurasperone, and by heterologous transfer of citrate production to Aspergillus nidulans. Experimental and computational analyses showed that both secondary metabolism and regulation are key factors that are significant in the delineation of Aspergillus species.Peer reviewe