The visual and beyond : characterizing experiences with auditory, haptic and visual data representations

Research in sonification and physicalization have expanded data representation techniques to include senses beyond the visual. Yet, little is known of how people interpret and make sense of haptic and sonic compared to visual representations. We have conducted two phenomenologically oriented comparative studies (applying the Repertory Grid and the Microphenomenological interview technique) to gather in-depth accounts of people's interpretation and experience of different representational modalities that included auditory, haptic and visual variations . Our findings show a rich characterization of these different representational modalities: our visually oriented representations engage through their familiarity, accuracy and easy interpretation, while our representations that stimulated auditory and haptic interpretation were experienced as more ambiguous, yet stimulated an engaging interpretation of data that involved the whole body. We describe and discuss in detail participants' processes of making sense and generating meaning using the modalities' unique characteristics, individually and as a group. Our research informs future research in the area of multimodal data representations from both a design and methodological perspective.Postprin

Breathlessness and respiratory disability after kidney transplantation

Background: Dyspnea is a common symptom in patients with end-stage kidney disease being treated with dialysis. This study aimed to ascertain the level of respiratory disability in patients after kidney transplantation through assessing a cohort of kidney allograft recipients for respiratory compromise and thereby identifying a potential target for therapeutic intervention. Methods: Kidney transplant recipients who were under active observation in a single tertiary referral center were invited to take part in this prevalence study at the time of clinic follow-up. All patients agreed to take part in the study, which involved completing a Medical Research Council (MRC) dyspnea scale, completing the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire, and performing basic spirometry. An MRC score of ≥2 and/or a forced expiratory volume in 1 second <90% predicted prompted formal clinical assessment by a respiratory physician. Results: This study enrolled 103 patients; 35% of all patients reported breathlessness, and 56% of all patients warranted formal respiratory medicine review. After completion of their investigations, 33 patients were found to have an underlying condition accounting for their symptoms. Conclusion: Our study highlights the issues of respiratory disability and breathlessness in patients who have undergone kidney transplantation. Although extensive cardiologic evaluation is performed routinely and can rule out many causes of dyspnea, respiratory assessment is not a preoperative prerequisite. This study could suggest that a formal pulmonological evaluation and basic spirometry should be part of the pretransplant evaluation of the kidney transplant recipient

Encouraging Entrepreneurship: Microfinance, Knowledge Support, and the Costs of Operating in Institutional Voids

This study focuses on the supplemented strategies of microfinance institutions (MFIs), in which the MFI offers nonfinancial services, such as entrepreneurship related knowledge, in addition to financial services to impoverished borrowers at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP). We examine two contextual factors–foreign direct investment (FDI) and loan defaults–to better understand the relationship between providing knowledge support to encourage entrepreneurship and costs of operating at the BoP for MFIs. In contexts where FDI is low and loan defaults are high, providing knowledge support to encourage entrepreneurship aggravates the MFI\u27s costs of operating at the BoP. However, in contexts where FDI is high and loan defaults are low, providing knowledge support to encourage entrepreneurship among impoverished borrowers does not aggravate the MFI\u27s costs of operating at the BoP. Hence, in emerging markets where governments welcome FDI and curb loan defaults, MFIs can viably support entrepreneurship among the poor

Empirical investigation to explore potential gains from the amalgamation of Phase Changing Materials (PCMs) and wood shavings

The reduction of gained heat, heat peak shifting and the mitigation of air temperature fluctuations are some desirable properties that are sought after in any thermal insulation system. It cannot be overstated that these factors, in addition to others, govern the performance of such systems thus their effect on indoor ambient conditions. The effect of such systems extends also to Heating, Ventilation and Air-conditioning (HVAC) systems that are set up to operate optimally in certain conditions. Where literature shows that PCMs and natural materials such as wood-shavings can provide efficient passive insulation for buildings, it is evident that such approaches utilise methods that are of a degree of intricacy which requires specialist knowledge and complex techniques, such as micro-encapsulation for instance. With technical and economic aspects in mind, an amalgam of PCM and wood-shavings has been created for the purpose of being utilised as a feasible thermal insulation. The amalgamation was performed in the simplest of methods, through submerging the wood shavings in PCM. An experimental procedure was devised to test the thermal performance of the amalgam and compare this to the performance of the same un-amalgamated materials. Comparative analysis revealed that no significant thermal gains would be expected from such amalgamation. However, significant reduction in the total weight of the insulation system would be achieved that, in this case, shown to be up to 20.94%. Thus, further reducing possible strains on structural elements due to the application of insulation on buildings. This can be especially beneficial in vernacular architectural approaches where considerably large amounts and thicknesses of insulations are used. In addition, cost reduction could be attained as wood shavings are significantly cheaper compared to the cost of PCMs

Pseudoacromegaly

© 2018 Elsevier Inc. Individuals with acromegaloid physical appearance or tall stature may be referred to endocrinologists to exclude growth hormone (GH) excess. While some of these subjects could be healthy individuals with normal variants of growth or physical traits, others will have acromegaly or pituitary gigantism, which are, in general, straightforward diagnoses upon assessment of the GH/IGF-1 axis. However, some patients with physical features resembling acromegaly – usually affecting the face and extremities –, or gigantism – accelerated growth/tall stature – will have no abnormalities in the GH axis. This scenario is termed pseudoacromegaly, and its correct diagnosis can be challenging due to the rarity and variability of these conditions, as well as due to significant overlap in their characteristics. In this review we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of pseudoacromegaly conditions, highlighting their similarities and differences with acromegaly and pituitary gigantism, to aid physicians with the diagnosis of patients with pseudoacromegaly.PM is supported by a clinical fellowship by Barts and the London Charity. Our studies on pituitary adenomas and related conditions received support from the Medical Research Council, Rosetrees Trust and the Wellcome Trust

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM