Increasing the UX Maturity Level of Clients: A Study of Best Practices in an Agile Environment

Context While multiple studies have attempted to define and measure User Experience (UX) Maturity — i.e., how familiar organizations are with UX concepts or strategies— more practice-based insight is needed to examine how UX practitioners maneuver in their relationships with low UX Maturity organizations and help these clients become more ‘UX Mature’. Objective This study evaluates how UX practitioners work with low UX Maturity clients, what obstacles they face, and how they cope with these obstacles. From these insights, a set of best practices are identified for UX practitioners who work with low UX Maturity clients and wish to increase their clients’ UX maturity in an agile environment. Method These best practices were collected in the form of case studies, involving a total of 20 case studies based on interviews with 22 UX practitioners. The case studies reflect on past projects that were conducted for clients with a low UX Maturity level. Data was obtained through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using a grounded theory approach combined with elements of a thematic analysis. Results The results help to identify frequently experienced obstacles in working with low UX Maturity organizations, as well as six best practices for increasing the UX Maturity of these clients. Conclusions The study results demonstrate that UX practitioners indeed fulfill a significant role in overcoming organizational UX boundaries. A Low UX Maturity Best Practice model was developed, which summarizes how UX practitioners can optimize their impact in working with low UX Maturity clients, while simultaneously contributing to a more user-centered focus on the part of their clients

Expression of coinhibitory receptors on T cells in the microenvironment of usual vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia is related to proinflammatory effector T cells and an increased recurrence-free survival

Human papillomavirus-induced usual-type vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (uVIN) are infiltrated by immune cells but apparently not cleared. A potential explanation for this is an impaired T cell effector function by an immunesuppressive milieu, coinfiltrating regulatory T cells or the expression of coinhibitory molecules. Here, the role of these potential inhibitory mechanisms was evaluated by a detailed immunohistochemical analysis of T cell infiltration in the context of FoxP3, Tbet, indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, programmed cell death 1, T cell immunoglobulin mucin 3 (TIM3), natural killer cell lectin-like receptor A (NKG2A) and galectins-1, -3 and -9. Paraffin-embedded tissues of primary uVIN lesions (n=43), recurrent uVIN lesions (n=20), vulvar carcinoma (n=21) and healthy vulvar tissue (n=26) were studied. We show that the vulva constitutes an area intensely surveyed by CD8+, CD4+, Tbet+ and regulatory T cell populations, parts of which express the examined coinhibitory molecules. In uVIN especially, the number of regulatory T cells and TIM3+ T cells increased. The expression of the coinhibitory markers TIM3 and NKG2A probably reflected a higher degree of T cell activation as a dense infiltration with stromal CD8+TIM3+ T cells and CD3+NKG2A+ T cells was related to the absence of recurrences and/or a prolonged recurrence-free survival. A dense coinfiltrate with regulatory T cells was negatively associated with the time to recurrence, most dominantly when the stromal CD8+TIM3+ infiltration was limited. This notion was sustained in vulvar carcinoma's where the numbers of regulatory T cells progressively increased to outnumber coinfiltrating CD8+TIM3+ T cells and CD3+NKG2A+ T cells

How many species in the Southern Ocean? Towards a dynamic inventory of the Antarctic marine species

The IPY sister-projects CAML and SCAR-MarBIN provided a timely opportunity, a strong collaborative framework and an appropriate momentum to attempt assessing the "Known, Unknown and Unknowable" of Antarctic marine biodiversity. To allow assessing the known biodiversity, SCAR-MarBIN "Register of Antarctic Marine Species (RAMS)" was compiled and published by a panel of 64 taxonomic experts. Thanks to this outstanding expertise mobilized for the first time, an accurate list of more than 8100 valid species was compiled and an up-to-date systematic classification comprising more than 16,800 taxon names was established. This taxonomic information is progressively and systematically completed by species occurrence data, provided by literature, taxonomic and biogeographic databases, new data from CAML and other cruises, and museum collections. RAMS primary role was to establish a benchmark of the present taxonomic knowledge of the Southern Ocean biodiversity, particularly important in the context of the growing realization of potential impacts of the global change on Antarctic ecosystems. This, in turn, allowed detecting gaps in knowledge, taxonomic treatment and coverage, and estimating the importance of the taxonomic impediment, as well as the needs for more complete and efficient taxonomic tools. A second, but not less important, role of RAMS was to contribute to the "taxonomic backbone" of the SCAR-MarBIN, OBIS and GBIF networks, to establish a dynamic information system on Antarctic marine biodiversity for the future. The unknown part of the Southern Ocean biodiversity was approached by pointing out what remains to be explored and described in terms of geographical locations and bathymetric zones, habitats, or size classes of organisms. The growing importance of cryptic species is stressed, as they are more and more often detected by molecular studies in several taxa. Relying on RAMS results and on some case studies of particular model groups, the question of the potential number of species that remains to be discovered in the Southern Ocean is discussed. In terms of taxonomic inputs to the census of Southern Ocean biodiversity, the current rate of progress in inventorying the Antarctic marine species as well as the state of taxonomic resources and capacity were assessed. Different ways of improving the taxonomic inputs are suggested