Collaboration for Success in Young Adults with Traumatic Brain Injury

Aim. The aim of this study was to explore self-efficacy and success in young adult survivors of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and provide the opportunity for participants to communicate their perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and concerns. Background. Many of those affected by TBI are young adults who are establishing their social and work lives. Young adults face challenges and choices that are pivotal in establishing a course for their lifetime. Self-efficacy theory provided the conceptual framework for the study. The TBI Self-Efficacy Questionnaire and General Self-Efficacy Scale were used to measure self-efficacy, and the Glasgow Outcomes Scale-Extended was used to measure outcomes after TBI and situate qualitative data in the context of known scales of measurement. Methods. The research was approached as a collective instrumental case study delving deeply into the complexity of each case, using ethnographic methods, in the milieu of a collaborative orientation. Ethnographic methods directed attention to the everyday lives and contexts of the participants. Triangulation with established quantitative instruments vii increased descriptive validity and strengthened reliability of the study. The collaborative orientation influenced the author to consider barriers to and facilitators of success. Findings. The context and setting of the human experience of recovery and adaptation in the 2 young adult participants at 9 and 12 months after a TBI were critically analyzed from interviews and descriptive questionnaires. The research questions evoked participants voices and focused awareness on the challenges and transformation associated with their TBI and the role of family in recovery. Self-efficacy and success theory illuminated the process of achieving success and life satisfaction after TBI. Barriers to health, independence, connectivity, mobility, and productivity were some of the challenges faced by participants. Success in navigating the barriers was found to be crucial to continuing life patterns of self-belief and confidence. Conclusions. This study comprised a needs assessment phase of collaborative research and has potential to become foundational in developing a self-management program targeted to optimizing health, self-efficacy, and success. Young adult survivors of TBI may benefit from ongoing collaborative research, improved health care access, comprehensive care planning, and educational content designed to facilitate self-efficacy and success

Improving expressivity in desktop interactions with a pressure-augmented mouse

Desktop-based Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers (WIMP) interfaces have changed very little in the last 30 years, and are still limited by a lack of powerful and expressive input devices and interactions. In order to make desktop interactions more expressive and controllable, expressive input mechanisms like pressure input must be made available to desktop users. One way to provide pressure input to these users is through a pressure-augmented computer mouse; however, before pressure-augmented mice can be developed, design information must be provided to mouse developers. The problem we address in this thesis is that there is a lack of ergonomics and performance information for the design of pressure-augmented mice. Our solution was to provide empirical performance and ergonomics information for pressure-augmented mice by performing five experiments. With the results of our experiments we were able to identify the optimal design parameters for pressure-augmented mice and provide a set of recommendations for future pressure-augmented mouse designs

Player experience and deceptive expectations of difficulty adaptation in digital games

Increasingly, digital games are including adaptive features that adjust the level of difficulty to match the skills of individual players. The intention is to improve and prolong the player experience by allowing the player to have the feeling of challenge without it being overwhelming and leading to repeated failure and frustration. Previous work has shown that player experience is indeed improved by such adaptations but also that the player experience can be improved by simply claiming such an adaptation is present even when it is not. It is therefore possible that claims about adaptations and the actual adaptations could interact and not lead to the intended outcomes for the players or worse disappoint players. This paper reports on two studies that were conducted to experimentally investigate the interaction between game adaptations and player information about adaptations on the player experience, specifically their sense of immersion in the game. For this, two games were developed using two different kinds of adaptations to adjust difficulty based on players’ performance in the game. Participants were provided with information about game adaptations independently of whether the adaptations were present. The results suggest that players felt more immersed in the game when told that the game adapts to them, regardless of whether the adaptation was present in the game or not. This effect was observed in both games despite their different adaptations and it remained prominent even during longer gaming sessions. These findings demonstrate that players’ knowledge of adaptations influences their experience independently of adaptations. In this particular context, the knowledge reinforced the experience of the adaptations. This suggests that, at least in some circumstances, developers do not need to be concerned about negative effects of telling players about in-game adaptations

Augmenting the mouse with pressure sensitive input

In this paper we investigate the use of a uni-pressure and dual-pressure augmented mouse. With a pressure augmented mouse users can simultaneously control cursor positions as well as multiple levels of discrete selection modes for common desktop application tasks. Two or more independent pressure sensors can be mounted onto several locations on the body of the mouse. To highlight the design potential of a pressure augmented mouse we conducted a multi-part study. In the first part we identified the number of maximum discrete levels controllable with a uni-pressure augmented mouse, the most appropriate locations for installing pressure sensors on the mouse, and the design of new interaction techniques to support selection with pressure-based input. In a follow-up design we introduced an additional sensor and two different types of selection techniques to control a larger number of discrete levels with two pressure sensors. Our results show that users can comfortably control up to 64 modes with a dual-pressure augmented mouse. We discuss the findings of our results in the context of several desktop interaction techniques and identify several design recommendations. Author Keywords Input device, mouse, interaction technique, pressure-base

A Sample of Rural and Global Health Issues

Carol Bett is a faculty member at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas, where she teaches in the undergraduate nursing program. She writes about health challenges in rural Papua New Guinea and the efficacy of community health projects in developing countries. Carol has taught nursing students and worked in rural clinics in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Demetrius Chapman is a public health clinical nurse specialist who has worked in urban and rural public health care settings and has served in various community health areas, including lead poisoning, adolescent parenting, and HIV/AIDS, as well as a satellite public health nursing office. His work with Native Americans living with HIV/AIDS exposed him to the difficulties they endure in trying to receive optimal care and prompted him to write the chapter about community-based health care for Diné people with HIV/AIDS. Barbara Cechanowicz has practiced in a variety of surgical settings as a mid-level provider. She has done medical mission work in Uganda and Zambia, has worked in a community health empowerment program in the inner city of Detroit with the Robert Wood Johnson Partnership for Training, and presently works in an Indian Health Service hospital. Barbara has a passion for delivering quality care to vulnerable populations and for translating today’s world of health care into the deeper dialogue of theory and philosophy. She writes about Navajo spiritual traditions and complex cultural phenomena. Stephen Hernandez is Assistant Professor at Northwestern State University, College of Nursing, in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he teaches undergraduate nursing students. His research interests include the factors that influence the decision of deployed armed A iv service members to seek needed mental health services. In his chapter, Stephen provides an exploration of the alarming prevalence of overweight and obese children in rural Louisiana. Hanna Krieger has been working in various capacities and in different specialty areas within nursing, nursing education, and advanced practice. Hanna does not subscribe to a specialty area in nursing; rather, she is particularly interested in the discipline of nursing itself. She is currently enrolled in the PhD program at the University of New Mexico and is writing her dissertation on clinically inflicted pain. In her chapter, Hanna discusses lesbian health and sexual orientation as a social determinant of health. Melanie Mayo was Director of Primary Care and Prevention Services at an urban Native American health clinic, worked in men’s and women’s prisons, was Associate Clinical Director at an inpatient hospice, and currently is a clinical practitioner in a long-term care setting. She writes about the economic and political dynamics associated with occupational and environmental exposure to uranium mining on New Mexico’s Colorado Plateau. Loyce Phoenix is a Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Public Health Service Corps and has worked most of her career in the Indian Health Service in a variety of administrative and clinical positions. Her most recent position is in public health nursing, and she is a Robert Wood Johnson Fellow with a study interest in Native American disparities. Loyce writes about violence against women on the Navajo reservation. Conrad Rios writes about nurse practitioners and physician assistants who provide health care in California's Rural Central Valley. Conrad is a family nurse practitioner and physician assistant whose area of interest is the care of the elderly. He wears multiple hats, including student, clinical faculty, and health care provider. He resides in Fresno, California. Teresa Sellstrom is Assistant Professor of Nursing at King College, Bristol, Tennessee, and teaches all levels of nursing students, including Master of Science in Nursing clinical nurse specialist students. Her background is in community health and maternal and acute adult health nursing. In her chapter, Teresa explores the use of telemedicine to improve rural health care. Max Veltman is Assistant Professor at Boise State University in the Department of Nursing. In addition to teaching, he works with the Idaho Health & Welfare Department on various projects dealing with the health care needs of children and adolescents in the foster care system. In his chapter, Max provides insight into the challenges of combating methamphetamine use and providing quality mental health services to improve the welfare of rural children.The challenges faced by local, national, and global communities in an ever-changing world have continued to grow as we complete the first decade of the 21st century. The doctoral students writing this book undertook the effort with advocacy for disenfranchised populations in mind. This compilation illuminates the challenges and gaps in access to health care confronted by a wide range of people, from overweight children, lesbians, and Native Americans to individuals in rural communities in Papua New Guinea. As the reader can readily see, we are a group of students with wide-ranging experiences and interests.Dr. Jennifer Averil