Remote direct manipulation:A case study of a telemedicine workstation

This paper describes our experience with the design of a remote pathologists workstation. We illustrate how our effort to apply direct manipulation principles led us to explore remote direct manipulation designs. The use of computer and communication systems to operate devices remotely introduces new challenges for users and designers. In addition to the usual concerns, the activation delays, reduced feedback, and increased potential for breakdowns mean that designers must be especially careful and creative. The user interface design is closely linked to the total system design. (Also cross-referenced as CAR-TR-551

The ABCD of usability testing

We introduce a methodology for tracking and auditing feedback, errors and suggestions for software packages. This short paper describes how we innovate on the evaluation mechanism, introducing an (Antecedent, Barrier, Consequence and Development) ABCD form, embedded within an eParticipation platform to enable end users to easily report on any usability issues. This methodology will be utilised to improve the STEP cloud eParticipation platform (part of the current STEP Horizon2020 project http://step4youth.eu. The platform is currently being piloted in real life contexts, with the participation of public authorities that are integrating the eParticipation platform into their regular decision-making practices. The project is involving young people, through engagement and motivation strategies and giving them a voice in Environmental decision making at the local level. The pilot evaluation aims to demonstrate how open engagement needs to be embedded within public sector processes and the usability methodology reported here will help to identify the key barriers for wide scale deployment of the platform

The legal and ethical framework governing Body Donation in Europe-1st update on current practice

Previously, we have reported on the legal and ethical aspects and current practice of body donation in several European countries, reflecting cultural and religious variations as well as different legal and constitutional frameworks. We have also established good practice in body donation. Here we shall further extend the legal and ethical frameworks in place and also focus on novelties in the law and different directives. Of particular interest are points that address the commercialization of human bodies and body parts and weaknesses in the legal directives. Therefore, it is important to define what is ethical and what needs to be considered unethical in body donation and the subsequent utilisation of human bodies for teaching and research.peer-reviewe

Wearable Haptic Devices for Gait Re-education by Rhythmic Haptic Cueing

This research explores the development and evaluation of wearable haptic devices for gait sensing and rhythmic haptic cueing in the context of gait re-education for people with neurological and neurodegenerative conditions. Many people with long-term neurological and neurodegenerative conditions such as Stroke, Brain Injury, Multiple Sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease suffer from impaired walking gait pattern. Gait improvement can lead to better fluidity in walking, improved health outcomes, greater independence, and enhanced quality of life. Existing lab-based studies with wearable devices have shown that rhythmic haptic cueing can cause immediate improvements to gait features such as temporal symmetry, stride length, and walking speed. However, current wearable systems are unsuitable for self-managed use for in-the-wild applications with people having such conditions. This work aims to investigate the research question of how wearable haptic devices can help in long-term gait re-education using rhythmic haptic cueing. A longitudinal pilot study has been conducted with a brain trauma survivor, providing rhythmic haptic cueing using a wearable haptic device as a therapeutic intervention for a two-week period. Preliminary results comparing pre and post-intervention gait measurements have shown improvements in walking speed, temporal asymmetry, and stride length. The pilot study has raised an array of issues that require further study. This work aims to develop and evaluate prototype systems through an iterative design process to make possible the self-managed use of such devices in-the-wild. These systems will directly provide therapeutic intervention for gait re-education, offer enhanced information for therapists, remotely monitor dosage adherence and inform treatment and prognoses over the long-term. This research will evaluate the use of technology from the perspective of multiple stakeholders, including clinicians, carers and patients. This work has the potential to impact clinical practice nationwide and worldwide in neuro-physiotherapy

Exploring Large Digital Library Collections Using a Map-Based Visualisation

In this paper we describe a novel approach for exploring large document collections using a map-based visualisation. We use hierarchically structured semantic concepts that are attached to the documents to create a visualisation of the semantic space that resembles a Google Map. The approach is novel in that we exploit the hierarchical structure to enable the approach to scale to large document collections and to create a map where the higher levels of spatial abstraction have semantic meaning. An informal evaluation is carried out to gather subjective feedback from users. Overall results are positive with users finding the visualisation enticing and easy to use

Inhibition of Hedgehog Signaling Decreases Proliferation and Clonogenicity of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) have the ability to differentiate into osteoblasts, adipocytes and chondrocytes. We have previously shown that hMSC were endowed with a basal level of Hedgehog signaling that decreased after differentiation of these cells. Since hMSC differentiation is associated with growth-arrest we investigated the function of Hh signaling on cell proliferation. Here, we show that inhibition of Hh signaling, using the classical inhibitor cyclopamine, or a siRNA directed against Gli-2, leads to a decrease in hMSC proliferation. This phenomenon is not linked to apoptosis but to a block of the cells in the G0/G1 phases of the cell cycle. At the molecular level, it is associated with an increase in the active form of pRB, and a decrease in cyclin A expression and MAP kinase phosphorylation. Inhibition of Hh signaling is also associated with a decrease in the ability of the cells to form clones. By contrast, inhibition of Hh signaling during hMSC proliferation does not affect their ability to differentiate. This study demonstrates that hMSC are endowed with a basal Hedgehog signaling activity that is necessary for efficient proliferation and clonogenicity of hMSC. This observation unravels an unexpected new function for Hedgehog signaling in the regulation of human mesenchymal stem cells and highlights the critical function of this morphogen in hMSC biology

The State of the Art in Multilayer Network Visualization

Modelling relationships between entities in real-world systems with a simple graph is a standard approach. However, reality is better embraced as several interdependent subsystems (or layers). Recently the concept of a multilayer network model has emerged from the field of complex systems. This model can be applied to a wide range of real-world datasets. Examples of multilayer networks can be found in the domains of life sciences, sociology, digital humanities and more. Within the domain of graph visualization there are many systems which visualize datasets having many characteristics of multilayer graphs. This report provides a state of the art and a structured analysis of contemporary multilayer network visualization, not only for researchers in visualization, but also for those who aim to visualize multilayer networks in the domain of complex systems, as well as those developing systems across application domains. We have explored the visualization literature to survey visualization techniques suitable for multilayer graph visualization, as well as tools, tasks, and analytic techniques from within application domains. This report also identifies the outstanding challenges for multilayer graph visualization and suggests future research directions for addressing them

Electronic Medical Records: Provotype visualisation maximises clinical usability

The Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is the essential tool of the clinical consultation, effectively replacing the paper medical record. Since its gradual adoption in the early 2000s there has been a failure to achieve even moderate levels of EMR usability in clinical settings, resulting in a negative impact on clinical care, time efficiency and patient safety. This research explores how deeper collaboration with clinical users through participatory design, drawing on the disciplines of visual design, user experience (UX) design and visual analytics, might offer a more effective approach to this important problem. The lead researcher for this project is both a practising doctor and design researcher. Usability of two commercial EMR interfaces in the field of sexual health is explored through a mixed method survey, with responses used to inform the design of an interface provotype. This in turn is evaluated through repeat survey and ‘test-drive’ talk-aloud workshops. Results from the survey on two commercial EMR interfaces (n=49) revealed deep dissatisfaction particularly around issues of navigation, flow of consultation, frustration, safety, time-dependent and time-independent data, data complexity and data salience. Comparative provotype evaluation (n=63) showed that clinically-relevant visualisation offers marked gains in clinical usability and performance. This research argues for a re-imagining of the way we look at medical data during the clinical consultation so that the affordances and benefits of the digital format can be exploited more fully. It highlights the value of combining participatory design with visualisation to embed explicit, experiential and even tacit clinical knowledge into the EMR interface

The Case for Visual Analytics of Arsenic Concentrations in Foods

Arsenic is a naturally occurring toxic metal and its presence in food could be a potential risk to the health of both humans and animals. Prolonged ingestion of arsenic contaminated water may result in manifestations of toxicity in all systems of the body. Visual Analytics is a multidisciplinary field that is defined as the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces. The concentrations of arsenic vary in foods making it impractical and impossible to provide regulatory limit for each food. This review article presents a case for the use of visual analytics approaches to provide comparative assessment of arsenic in various foods. The topics covered include (i) metabolism of arsenic in the human body; (ii) arsenic concentrations in various foods; (ii) factors affecting arsenic uptake in plants; (ii) introduction to visual analytics; and (iv) benefits of visual analytics for comparative assessment of arsenic concentration in foods. Visual analytics can provide an information superstructure of arsenic in various foods to permit insightful comparative risk assessment of the diverse and continually expanding data on arsenic in food groups in the context of country of study or origin, year of study, method of analysis and arsenic species

Methods for visual mining of genomic and proteomic data atlases

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>As the volume, complexity and diversity of the information that scientists work with on a daily basis continues to rise, so too does the requirement for new analytic software. The analytic software must solve the dichotomy that exists between the need to allow for a high level of scientific reasoning, and the requirement to have an intuitive and easy to use tool which does not require specialist, and often arduous, training to use. Information visualization provides a solution to this problem, as it allows for direct manipulation and interaction with diverse and complex data. The challenge addressing bioinformatics researches is how to apply this knowledge to data sets that are continually growing in a field that is rapidly changing.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This paper discusses an approach to the development of visual mining tools capable of supporting the mining of massive data collections used in systems biology research, and also discusses lessons that have been learned providing tools for both local researchers and the wider community. Example tools were developed which are designed to enable the exploration and analyses of both proteomics and genomics based atlases. These atlases represent large repositories of raw and processed experiment data generated to support the identification of biomarkers through mass spectrometry (the PeptideAtlas) and the genomic characterization of cancer (The Cancer Genome Atlas). Specifically the tools are designed to allow for: the visual mining of thousands of mass spectrometry experiments, to assist in designing informed targeted protein assays; and the interactive analysis of hundreds of genomes, to explore the variations across different cancer genomes and cancer types.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The mining of massive repositories of biological data requires the development of new tools and techniques. Visual exploration of the large-scale atlas data sets allows researchers to mine data to find new meaning and make sense at scales from single samples to entire populations. Providing linked task specific views that allow a user to start from points of interest (from diseases to single genes) enables targeted exploration of thousands of spectra and genomes. As the composition of the atlases changes, and our understanding of the biology increase, new tasks will continually arise. It is therefore important to provide the means to make the data available in a suitable manner in as short a time as possible. We have done this through the use of common visualization workflows, into which we rapidly deploy visual tools. These visualizations follow common metaphors where possible to assist users in understanding the displayed data. Rapid development of tools and task specific views allows researchers to mine large-scale data almost as quickly as it is produced. Ultimately these visual tools enable new inferences, new analyses and further refinement of the large scale data being provided in atlases such as PeptideAtlas and The Cancer Genome Atlas.</p