A comparative study into how pupils can play different roles in co-design activities

We explore the roles children play in the design and evaluation of technological tools in a formal educational environment. In order to do so, we describe two separate projects set in a formal educational context: primary schools, with children aged 8-10, in Switzerland (called PADS), and with older students, 11-12, in Scotland (called CHIS). In the first case the teacher and pupils were co- designing a novel application to support the creation of multimedia fairy tales, where in the second students and teachers worked towards the definition of new tools to assist them in searching for information. Tasks are different but comparable in terms of complexity and level of interest expressed by children. Researchers followed a similar approach in order to interact with the stakeholders. We here describe the different attitudes and assumptions of the teachers involved. In the Scottish study these encouraged students to make choices, propose solutions and work independently. In the Swiss study these aimed at supporting children use of digital media and artefacts for the creation of a digital fairy tale. Our investigation aims at getting a better understanding of the kind of roles and contributions young users could bring to collaborative design and how to better engage and motivate them

Supporting creativity in designing story authoring tools

In this paper we describe our experience in designing an application to support children in producing their stories in a formal setting, a primary school. In particular, we reflect on the implications of our findings on levels of creativity found in the produced stories. Besides, we compare two versions of our application: one is text-based and the other is image-rich. Feedback from teachers and children is presented and discussed in terms of implications for the design. We will then use our experience to revise the existing guidelines to design authoring tools to stimulate creativity

Open issues with collaborative design in schools: what is in it for us?

The focus of our work is on how to design a user experience for children using digital artefacts in an educational environment. Specifically, in the paper we reported the outcomes of a longitudinal study in which teachers and children were involved within a co-design process. We illustrated some opportunities and constraints of designing for and with schools’ stakeholders. Our contribution explores one of the workshop’s challenges concerning the confirmation bias and limited decision making and how this affects children in their CD experiences in formal school contexts

Developing a networked public display system

Engaging stakeholders in the design of networked public display systems is critical for long-term deployments. The authors describe the three-year development and installation of a display network at a university, revealing the fuzziness of stakeholder roles and need for compromise

"Fun place within a serious space”: stimulating community interaction and engagement through situated snapshots In a university setting

Networked public displays can stimulate interaction between members of place-based communities, e.g., through situated snapshots – photos taken through a display attached camera. Previous work pointed the need for deploying networked public display applications in various settings in order to make the findings transferable and generalizable and recommends that findings should be connected with research from community psychology. In this paper we report a 15-week “in the wild” deployment of the Moment Machine 2.0 that allowed taking situated snapshots at a university. The application’s evaluation involved in-depth interviews (n=20), survey (n=119), and log file analysis. We synthesize our findings with prior work and show how certain effects transfer across settings. We show how the application affected community interaction and sense of community as defined by McMillan and Chavis. We provide implications for design of similar experiences. Overall, our work contributes to the general knowledge of common effects produced by public displays

Frontal Fibrosing Alopecia: Role of Dermoscopy in Differential Diagnosis

Frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA) is more common in postmenopausal women, but it can occur in younger women. Some authors consider FFA to be a distinct frontal variant of lichen planopilaris. From a clinical point of view, this relatively uncommon condition is characterized by progressive frontotemporal recession due to inflammatory destruction of hair follicles. Dermoscopy can be very useful, as the differential diagnosis between traction alopecia, alopecia areata, FFA and cicatricial marginal alopecia may be difficult. It is not clear whether or not treatment alters the natural history of the disease - the disease stabilized with time in most of the patients with or without continuing treatment. Here we report a case of a 50-year-old woman with FFA and discuss the relevance of dermoscopy in the differential diagnosis of this disease

A good balance of costs and benefits: convincing a university administration to support the installation of an interactive multi-application display system on campus

Interactive digital signage systems allow passers-by to take (temporary) control of a public display in order to select content and applications of interest, or even upload content of their own. Not surprisingly, display owners are hesitant to embrace such interactivity, given the uncertainty of what will be shown on their displays. In this paper we summarize our experience of deploying an interactive multi-application display system in the context of a university environment, and in particular our engagements with display owners (i.e., university administration) in order to convince them and get their support for the installation and deployment of such a system. We present the results of semi-structured interviews with display owners regarding their motivations, needs, and concerns with respect to the deployment of such a system at our university. While one cannot generalize from our results, we nevertheless believe that our experiences offer helpful advice to developers of such systems (and/or researchers interested in designing and studying them) in order to aid them in successfully gathering the support of these important stakeholders

IGF1 synthesis after CO2 fractional laser resurfacing (FLR): New insights in the treatment of scalp actinic keratoses

ObjectivesActinic keratosis have a high risk of progression to a squamous cell carcinoma. Insulin-like growth factor 1 and its receptor play a relevant role in restoring repair of ultraviolet-induced cell damage. This pathway is reduced in patients older than 65 years. Ablative fractional laser resurfacing could normalize insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) secretion in elderly by recruiting new fibroblasts. The aim of the study is to evaluate restoration of IGF1 values by PCR in senescent fibroblasts after ablative fractional laser resurfacing. MethodsWe enrolled 30 male patients with multiple actinic keratosis on the scalp, equally divided into two mirror areas of up to 50 cm(2), treating only the right one. We performed one skin biopsy for each area 30 days after treatment. Real-time PCR in fibroblasts was performed to assess the change in IGF1. At baseline and after 6 months, in vivo reflectance confocal microscopy examination was performed in all patients. ResultsIGF1 values were increased in the treated side by about 60%. The right areas had fairly complete resolution of actinic keratosis at the last follow-up visit after 6 months with no appearance of new lesions. The mean number of actinic keratosis in the right area was reduced by more than 75% at four- and six-follow-up visits compared to the left area. The improvement in the right area was also evidenced by lower values of the mean AKASI (actinic keratosis area and severity index) score. Reflectance confocal microscopy showed a reduction of keratinocytic disarray and scales after treatment. DiscussionTaken together, all the clinical, laboratory, and in vivo results of our study allowed us to confirm that ablative fractional laser resurfacing is a valuable tool for the treatment of actinic keratosis and cancerization field, both for the management of clinically evident lesions and for preventing the occurrence of squamous cell carcinoma