A scrutable adaptive hypertext

Fuelled by the popularity and uptake of the World Wide Web since the 1990s, many researchers and commercial vendors have focussed on Adaptive Hypermedia Systems as an effective mechanism for disseminating personalised information and services. Such systems store information about the user, such as their goals, interests and background, and use this to provide a personalised response to the user. This technology has been applied to a number of contexts such as education systems, e-commerce applications, information search and retrieval systems. As an increasing number of systems collect and store personal information about their users to provide a personalised service, legislation around the world increasingly requires that users have access to view and modify their personal data. The spirit of such legislation is that the user should be able to understand how personal information about them is used. There literature has reported benefits of allowing users to access and understand data collected about them, particularly in the context of supporting learning through reflection. Although researchers have experimented with open user models, typically the personalisation is inscrutable: the user has little or no visibility in to the adaptation process. When the adaptation produces unexpected results, the user may be left confused with no mechanism for understanding why the system did what it did or how to correct it. This thesis is the next step, giving users the ability to see what has been personalised and why. In the context of personalised hypermedia, this thesis describes the first research to go beyond open, or even scrutable user models; it makes the adaptivity and associated processes open to the user and controllable. The novelty of this work is that a user of an adaptive hypertext system might ask How was this page personalised to me? and is able to see just how their user model affected what they saw in the hypertext document. With an understanding of the personalisation process and the ability to control it, the user is able to steer the personalisation to suit their changing needs, and help improve the accuracy of the user model. Developing an interface to support the scrutinisation of an adaptive hypertext is difficult. Users may not scrutinise often as it is a distraction from their main task. But when users need to scrutinise, perhaps to correct a system misconception, they need to easily find and access the scrutinisation tools. Ideally, the tools should not require any training and users should be able to use them effectively without prior experience or if have not used them for a long time, since this is how users are likely to scrutinise in practice. The contributions of thesis are: (1) SASY/ATML, a domain independent, reusable framework for creation and delivery of scrutable adaptive hypertext; (2)a toolkit of graphical tools that allow the user to scrutinise, or inspect and understand what personalisation occurred and control it; (3) evaluation of the scrutinisation tools and (4) a set of guidelines for providing support for the scrutinisation of an adaptive hypertext through the exploration of several forms of scrutinisation tools

Repeated ventricular "torsade de pointes" tachycardia and cardiogenic shock in the course of hypothyroidism

Few publications report the possibility of "torsade de pointes"” (TdP) type tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation occurring in patients with prolonged QT syndrome in the course of hypothyroidism. The authors present the case of a 51-year-old woman with Hashimoto disease and hypothyroidism, inadequately supplemented with L-thyroxine. This patient was admitted to the ward with symptoms of hypometabolic crisis. She was diagnosed with shock and had marked sinus bradycardia with a QT interval prolongation of 0.8 s and paroxysmal TdP-type ventricular tachycardia. TdP was triggered by R-on-T ventricular extrasystoles. Laboratory tests revealed profound hypothyroidism. As pharmacological treatment of the arrhythmia and bradycardia was ineffective, an endocavital electrode was introduced. As a result of ventricular stimulation with a frequency of 90/min, shortening of the QT interval and disappearance of the cardiac arrhythmia and cardiogenic shock symptoms were obtained. L-thyroxine was administered and two days later ventricular stimulation was discontinued. When corrected for heart rate, the QT interval (QTc) was 0.43 s and no QT prolongation was detected in the course of a follow-up period of several months, during which L-thyroxine supplementation was adequate. Hypothyroidism may be the cause of life-threatening arrhythmias secondary to acquired long QT syndrome. Ventricular electrostimulation proved to be a life-saving intervention in this case in which prolonged QT syndrome and ventricular cardiac arrhythmias complicated hypometabolic crisis. (Cardiol J 2007; 14: 198-201

Nawracające częstoskurcze komorowe torsade de pointes i wstrząs kardiogenny w przebiegu ciężkiej niedoczynności tarczycy

W pojedynczych publikacjach wskazuje się na możliwość występowania częstoskurczów typu torsade de pointes (TdP) i migotania komór w przebiegu nabytego zespołu wydłużonego QT u chorych z niedoczynnością tarczycy. W niniejszej pracy przedstawiono przypadek 51-letniej kobiety z chorobą Hashimoto i niedoczynnością tarczycy, która przyjmowała za małe dawki l-tyroksyny. Chorą przyjęto do kliniki z objawami przełomu hipometabolicznego. Obserwowano objawy wstrząsu, a w zapisach EKG bradykardię zatokową, wydłużenie odstępu QT do 0,8 s i napadowe częstoskurcze komorowe typu TdP, wywoływane pobudzeniami dodatkowymi komorowymi typu R na T. W badaniach dodatkowych wykazano głęboką niedoczynność tarczycy. Ponieważ farmakoterapia zaburzeń rytmu serca i bradykardii była nieskuteczna, założono elektrodę endokawitarną. Dzięki stymulacji komór z częstotliwością 90/min uzyskano skrócenie odstępu QT, ustąpienie zaburzeń rytmu serca oraz objawów wstrząsu. Po 2 dobach podawania hydrokortyzonu i l-tyroksyny zaprzestano stosowania elektrostymulacji. Skorygowany odstęp QT (QTc) wynosił 0,43 i nie wydłużał się istotnie w okresie dalszej wielomiesięcznej obserwacji, w trakcie odpowiedniej substytucji l-tyroksyną. Niedoczynność tarczycy może być przyczyną groźnych dla życia zaburzeń rytmu serca wtórnych do nabytego zespołu wydłużonego QT. Elektrostymulacja komór była w tym przypadku zabiegiem ratującym życie. (Folia Cardiologica Excerpta 2007; 2: 255-258

A scrutable adaptive hypertext

Fuelled by the popularity and uptake of the World Wide Web since the 1990s, many researchers and commercial vendors have focussed on Adaptive Hypermedia Systems as an effective mechanism for disseminating personalised information and services. Such systems store information about the user, such as their goals, interests and background, and use this to provide a personalised response to the user. This technology has been applied to a number of contexts such as education systems, e-commerce applications, information search and retrieval systems. As an increasing number of systems collect and store personal information about their users to provide a personalised service, legislation around the world increasingly requires that users have access to view and modify their personal data. The spirit of such legislation is that the user should be able to understand how personal information about them is used. There literature has reported benefits of allowing users to access and understand data collected about them, particularly in the context of supporting learning through reflection. Although researchers have experimented with open user models, typically the personalisation is inscrutable: the user has little or no visibility in to the adaptation process. When the adaptation produces unexpected results, the user may be left confuse

Demographic changes and problems of social policies in contemporary Poland (on the example of the Lower Silesia region)

According to demographic prognosis the process of ageing of the Lower Silesian population is going to intensify greatly. Such changes will require updating local and regional social policy. Local governments will be obliged to take actions, both in short- and long-term perspectives, as far as adjusting plans to the present demographic situation is concerned (especially issues of health and social care). The article presents the analysis of the Lower Silesian Strategy of Social Integration for 2014-2020 as well as The Strategy of Solving Social Problems of Wołów Commune for 2016-2026 and also the legal basis of the issue introduced in the article

The use of biogas energy technology in the energy security system

Wytwarzanie energii elektrycznej oraz cieplnej z biogazu rolniczego stanowi obecnie jedną z najkorzystniejszych metod pozyskiwania energii odnawialnej. Inwestycje w energetykę biogazową na obszarze Polski na dzień dzisiejszy nie znajdują powszechnego zastosowania. Powodem, dla którego Polska w dalszym ciągu jest za liderem produkcji energii z biogazu w Unii Europejskiej, tj. Niemcami, pomimo porównywalnych warunków geograficznych, są przeszkody związane z przepisami prawnymi, uwarunkowaniami społecznymi, a także problemami związanymi ze źródłami finansowania. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest poszerzenie wiedzy w zakresie wytwarzania oraz wykorzystania energii biogazowej pochodzącej z surowców odnawialnych. W artykule przedstawiono możliwe formy finansowania inwestycji w tego rodzaju źródła energii odnawialnej oraz zaprezentowano perspektywy i uwarunkowania rozwoju, a więc korzyści wpływające na środowisko, społeczeństwo i gospodarkę oraz bariery utrudniające ich rozwój.Electricity and heat production from agricultural biogas is currently one of the most beneficial methods of obtaining renewable energy. Investments in biogas power engineering in Poland are not widespread at the moment. The obstacles connected with legal regulations, social conditions as well as problems connected with the sources of financing are the reasons why Poland is still behind the leader in biogas energy production in the European Union, i.e. Germany, despite its comparable geographical conditions. The aim of this article is to broaden the knowledge of production and use of biogas energy from renewable resources. The article presents possible forms of financing investments in this type of renewable energy source and presents perspectives and conditions of its development, i.e. benefits affecting the environment, society and economy as well as barriers hindering their development