The use of analytical models in human-computer interface design

Some of the many analytical models in human-computer interface design that are currently being developed are described. The usefulness of analytical models for human-computer interface design is evaluated. Can the use of analytical models be recommended to interface designers? The answer, based on the empirical research summarized here, is: not at this time. There are too many unanswered questions concerning the validity of models and their ability to meet the practical needs of design organizations

Outside Funding of Community Organizations: Benefiting or Displacing the Poor?

In response to the widespread consensus on the importance of social capital, and to concerns about the scarcity of institutions giving voice to disadvantaged groups, some donors have begun programs designed to strengthen indigenous community organizations. We use a prospective, randomized evaluation to examine a development program explicitly targeted at building social capital among rural women's groups in western Kenya. The program increased turnover among group members. It increased entry into group membership and leadership by younger, more educated women, by women employed in the formal sector, and by men. The analysis suggests that providing development assistance to indigenous community organizations of the disadvantaged may change the very characteristics of these organizations that made them attractive to outside funders.

The use of analytical models in human-computer interface design

Recently, a large number of human-computer interface (HCI) researchers have investigated building analytical models of the user, which are often implemented as computer models. These models simulate the cognitive processes and task knowledge of the user in ways that allow a researcher or designer to estimate various aspects of an interface's usability, such as when user errors are likely to occur. This information can lead to design improvements. Analytical models can supplement design guidelines by providing designers rigorous ways of analyzing the information-processing requirements of specific tasks (i.e., task analysis). These models offer the potential of improving early designs and replacing some of the early phases of usability testing, thus reducing the cost of interface design. This paper describes some of the many analytical models that are currently being developed and evaluates the usefulness of analytical models for human-computer interface design. This paper will focus on computational, analytical models, such as the GOMS model, rather than less formal, verbal models, because the more exact predictions and task descriptions of computational models may be useful to designers. The paper also discusses some of the practical requirements for using analytical models in complex design organizations such as NASA

Disease Surveillance Networks Initiative Global: Final Evaluation

In August 2009, the Rockefeller Foundation commissioned an independent external evaluation of the Disease Surveillance Networks (DSN) Initiative in Asia, Africa, and globally. This report covers the results of the global component of the summative and prospective1 evaluation, which had the following objectives:[1] Assessment of performance of the DSN Initiative, focused on its relevance, effectiveness/impact, and efficiency within the context of the Foundation's initiative support.[2] Assessment of the DSN Initiative's underlying hypothesis: robust trans-boundary, multi-sectoral/cross-disciplinary collaborative networks lead to improved disease surveillance and response.[3] Assessment of the quality of Foundation management (value for money) for the DSN Initiative.[4] Contribute to the field of philanthropy by:a. Demonstrating the use of evaluations in grantmaking, learning and knowledge management; andb. Informing the field of development evaluation about methods and models to measure complex networks

Effects of Cell Phone Conversation Difficulty on Driving Performance

The literature has shown that conversations and verbal tasks degrade the driver’s ability to maintain control of the vehicle and avoid hazardous conditions. However, the question of how the difficulty (or intensity) of a conversation relates to decrements in driving performance needs further investigation. Other studies have shown that conversations may hinder driving, but these were unable to quantify a difficulty threshold at which conversations and verbal tasks became more hazardous. This study compared two quantifiably different levels of conversation difficulty and a non-conversing condition over measures of driving performance and mental workload. This study used a GlobalSim Corporation driving simulator, allowing participants full control of the vehicle on two lane roads in a rural setting. Driving conditions were set up and controlled in order to determine the extent to which conversation had an effect on driving performance, which was assessed in terms of steering and speed-maintenance ability and the ability to deal with hazardous situations. We compared driving performance when participants were not conversing to when they were conversing, as well as whether a more difficult conversation had a greater effect on performance than an easier one. Participants conversed with the experimenter over a hands-free headset. Conversations consisted of answering and conversing based on either easy (“small talk”) or difficult (“thought provoking”) questions. Participants drove a simulated car for approximately thirty minutes, with ten minutes devoted to driving under each of the conversation conditions (no talking, easy conversation, difficult conversation). During each of the ten minute driving sessions, participants were exposed to one of three hazardous events: an ambulance running a red light in front of the driver, an oncoming car swerving into the driver’s lane, and a parallel-parked car pulling out in front of the driver. A variety of variables were measured in the categories of speed maintenance (accelerator position variability, speed variability, average speed), lane position maintenance (steering offset, average lateral speed), crash avoidance (collisions, response time to hazardous events), and mental workload (RSME). Two double multivariate ANOVAs were conducted, and then planned contrast analyses were used to test how the conversation levels affected each dependent measure. While concurrently driving and conversing, participants had higher variation in their steering and speed than when driving without conversing. While driving and conversing, participants also drove at slower average speeds and reported having to exert higher mental effort. No significant differences between conversation and non-conversation conditions were found for collisions or response time to hazards. When comparing the difficult and easy conversation conditions, the only significant difference in driving performance was for speed variation—participants showed more speed variation during difficult than during easy conversations. The findings from this study suggest that having a conversation over a hands-free phone while driving may cause decrements in steering and speed maintenance performance. Also, people thought that talking on a cell phone while driving was more mentally demanding than driving while not talking. These findings suggest that regardless of conversation intensity, driving performance will be affected by this attentional distraction both through actual decrements in performance as well as in perceived distraction from the driving task. It seems to be something about the act of talking, as opposed to the content of the material, that is detrimental to driving performance. This is consistent with other research (Briem & Hedman, 1995; Irwin, Fitzgerald, & Burg, 2000; McKnight & McKnight, 1993) that has found effects for conversations but little or no effect of varying conversational difficulty

Effects of Cell Phone Conversation Difficulty on Driving Performance

The literature has shown that conversations and verbal tasks degrade the driver’s ability to maintain control of the vehicle and avoid hazardous conditions. However, the question of how the difficulty (or intensity) of a conversation relates to decrements in driving performance needs further investigation. Other studies have shown that conversations may hinder driving, but these were unable to quantify a difficulty threshold at which conversations and verbal tasks became more hazardous. This study compared two quantifiably different levels of conversation difficulty and a non-conversing condition over measures of driving performance and mental workload. This study used a GlobalSim Corporation driving simulator, allowing participants full control of the vehicle on two lane roads in a rural setting. Driving conditions were set up and controlled in order to determine the extent to which conversation had an effect on driving performance, which was assessed in terms of steering and speed-maintenance ability and the ability to deal with hazardous situations. We compared driving performance when participants were not conversing to when they were conversing, as well as whether a more difficult conversation had a greater effect on performance than an easier one. Participants conversed with the experimenter over a hands-free headset. Conversations consisted of answering and conversing based on either easy (“small talk”) or difficult (“thought provoking”) questions. Participants drove a simulated car for approximately thirty minutes, with ten minutes devoted to driving under each of the conversation conditions (no talking, easy conversation, difficult conversation). During each of the ten minute driving sessions, participants were exposed to one of three hazardous events: an ambulance running a red light in front of the driver, an oncoming car swerving into the driver’s lane, and a parallel-parked car pulling out in front of the driver. A variety of variables were measured in the categories of speed maintenance (accelerator position variability, speed variability, average speed), lane position maintenance (steering offset, average lateral speed), crash avoidance (collisions, response time to hazardous events), and mental workload (RSME). Two double multivariate ANOVAs were conducted, and then planned contrast analyses were used to test how the conversation levels affected each dependent measure. While concurrently driving and conversing, participants had higher variation in their steering and speed than when driving without conversing. While driving and conversing, participants also drove at slower average speeds and reported having to exert higher mental effort. No significant differences between conversation and non-conversation conditions were found for collisions or response time to hazards. When comparing the difficult and easy conversation conditions, the only significant difference in driving performance was for speed variation—participants showed more speed variation during difficult than during easy conversations. The findings from this study suggest that having a conversation over a hands-free phone while driving may cause decrements in steering and speed maintenance performance. Also, people thought that talking on a cell phone while driving was more mentally demanding than driving while not talking. These findings suggest that regardless of conversation intensity, driving performance will be affected by this attentional distraction both through actual decrements in performance as well as in perceived distraction from the driving task. It seems to be something about the act of talking, as opposed to the content of the material, that is detrimental to driving performance. This is consistent with other research (Briem & Hedman, 1995; Irwin, Fitzgerald, & Burg, 2000; McKnight & McKnight, 1993) that has found effects for conversations but little or no effect of varying conversational difficulty

Asynchronous displays for multi-UV search tasks

Synchronous video has long been the preferred mode for controlling remote robots with other modes such as asynchronous control only used when unavoidable as in the case of interplanetary robotics. We identify two basic problems for controlling multiple robots using synchronous displays: operator overload and information fusion. Synchronous displays from multiple robots can easily overwhelm an operator who must search video for targets. If targets are plentiful, the operator will likely miss targets that enter and leave unattended views while dealing with others that were noticed. The related fusion problem arises because robots' multiple fields of view may overlap forcing the operator to reconcile different views from different perspectives and form an awareness of the environment by "piecing them together". We have conducted a series of experiments investigating the suitability of asynchronous displays for multi-UV search. Our first experiments involved static panoramas in which operators selected locations at which robots halted and panned their camera to capture a record of what could be seen from that location. A subsequent experiment investigated the hypothesis that the relative performance of the panoramic display would improve as the number of robots was increased causing greater overload and fusion problems. In a subsequent Image Queue system we used automated path planning and also automated the selection of imagery for presentation by choosing a greedy selection of non-overlapping views. A fourth set of experiments used the SUAVE display, an asynchronous variant of the picture-in-picture technique for video from multiple UAVs. The panoramic displays which addressed only the overload problem led to performance similar to synchronous video while the Image Queue and SUAVE displays which addressed fusion as well led to improved performance on a number of measures. In this paper we will review our experiences in designing and testing asynchronous displays and discuss challenges to their use including tracking dynamic targets. © 2012 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc

Resilience amid Uncertainty: The on-going impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on nonprofits in Washington State

This report represents the second phase of on-going research to understand how nonprofits in Washington State have responded to the twin public health crises of systemic racism and the COVID-19 pandemic. The first report focused on the initial phases of the pandemic from March to July 2020 and revealed that many nonprofits faced precarious financial and operational conditions precipitated by an increased demand for services and dwindling revenue sources. Our second phase sought to understand how nonprofits fared in the subsequent period, specifically to investigate (a) how nonprofits, especially organizations led by and serving communities of color, which bore the greatest burden of the twin pandemics, have been able to navigate, (b) the types of support that organizations have been able to access, what that support has allowed them to do (i.e. the needs it covered), the sufficiency of that support to meet organizational needs, and any challenges experienced in receiving support, and (c) the financial and operational outlook for the future of nonprofits in Washington State.We interviewed 37 nonprofit leaders located across Washington State from March to August 2021. Our sample included many of our 2020 survey respondents as well as nonprofits serving communities of color and rural communities. Our interviews revealed that nonprofits responded to the twin pandemics with resilience, compassion, and initiative.

Myo/Nog cells expressing muscle proteins are present in preretinal membranes from patients with proliferative vitreoretinopathy.

Proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) is a complication of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment and ocular trauma. The disease is characterized by development of membranes that may apply traction to the retina and cause redetachment. Membrane contractions are attributed to myofibroblasts arising from retinal pigment epithelial cells, glia and fibroblasts. The progenitors of myofibrobasts in the lens are Myo/Nog cells that express the skeletal muscle transcription factor MyoD and bone morphogenetic protein inhibitor Noggin. The retina and choroid also contain Myo/Nog cells that respond to stress. We examined preretinal PVR membranes from three ocular trauma patients with retinal detachment for Myo/Nog cells and their expression of muscle proteins. Myo/Nog cells were identified by co-localization of antibodies to the G8 antigen and Noggin. Greater than 80% of all cells in sections from two of three patients expressed both G8 and Noggin. Myo/Nog cells lacked pigment. Alpha smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and striated myosin II heavy chain were present in the majority of Myo/Nog cells in these two patients. Differentiation of Myo/Nog cells was paralleled by low levels of MyoD. Membrane sections from the third patient consisted mostly of connective tissue with very few cells. A small subpopulation in these sections expressed both G8 and Noggin, and muscle proteins were detected in only a minority of G8-positive (+) cells. In all three patients, greater than 99% of cells with MyoD, α-SMA and striated muscle myosin co-expressed G8. These findings suggest that contractile myofibroblasts in PVR membranes may be derived from differentiating Myo/Nog cells