Watch out for the preview: The effects of a preview on the usability of a Content Management System and on the user's confidence level

As time moves on, a trend crystallizes that sets new requirements on content management systems. The circle of users shifts from a small technically experienced group to a large network of inexperienced editors. Literature stresses that a higher need for usability is present if personnel with a low grade of human computer interaction expertise is using a system. But how can system designers accomplish a high level of usability? This study suggests a preview as an important factor for strengthening the usability (effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction) of a content management system. The findings of this study support the hypothesis: the results showed that a preview enhances the userspsila satisfaction with the system. Moreover, the study shows that the userspsila confidence to be able to work with the system is an important factor; the results showed positive correlations between confidence and satisfaction and between confidence and effectiveness

Development of a Capillary Blood Mail-in Kit for the Measurement of Hemoglobin A1c

Biomedical Tissue Engineering, Biomaterials and Medical Devices Poster SessionIt is estimated that in the United States diabetes affects 25 million children and adults, and is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Cost of diabetes in the United States is over $175 billion a year. To optimize insulin dose diabetic patients regularly measure their blood glucose. Random glucose measurement does not provide indication of long-term glucose control. The long-term indicator of glucose control is the hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). It provides average blood glucose level of the previous 2 to 3 months. In most cases, for HbA1c testing, patients come to clinical laboratories for blood draw. It is time consuming and inconvenient. In recent years efforts have been made to develop sample mail-in kit where the blood sample can be collected at home and mailed to a testing laboratory. We present the development of a stabilizing solution (SS) and mail-in kit for Hb A1c testing. With this kit, after a simple finger prick, a patient collects blood using a capillary tube. The blood-containing capillary tube is dropped in a tube containing SS, and is mailed to the laboratory in a pre-stamped box in a regular mail. Validation of the kit included 1) Comparing HbA1c levels in the whole blood to hemolysate and SS immediately after preparation of the samples, 2) Stability of HbA1c in SS for 4 and 7 days at 4oC, room temperature and 37oC, 3) mailing the samples in the regular mail and comparing the values of HbA1c in mailed-in samples to the whole blood samples. The data for some of these comparisons are shown in the Table below. No significant difference was found in the values of HbA1c in various test groups. In conclusion, we have developed a convenient mail-in kit for the measurement of HbA1c. The advantages of mail-in kit for HbA1c measurement include patients' satisfaction as it negates the need for venipuncture and laboratory visit for sample collection, and the availability of results to a physician before the patient's visit for optimal care

Thermal radiation and near-field energy density of thin metallic films

We study the properties of thermal radiation emitted by a thin dielectric slab, employing the framework of macroscopic fluctuational electrodynamics. Particular emphasis is given to the analytical construction of the required dyadic Green's functions. Based on these, general expressions are derived for both the system's Poynting vector, describing the intensity of propagating radiation, and its energy density, containing contributions from non-propagating modes which dominate the near-field regime. An extensive discussion is then given for thin metal films. It is shown that the radiative intensity is maximized for a certain film thickness, due to Fabry-Perot-like multiple reflections inside the film. The dependence of the near-field energy density on the distance from the film's surface is governed by an interplay of several length scales, and characterized by different exponents in different regimes. In particular, this energy density remains finite even for arbitrarily thin films. This unexpected feature is associated with the film's low-frequency surface plasmon polariton. Our results also serve as reference for current near-field experiments which search for deviations from the macroscopic approach

Near-field heat transfer in a scanning thermal microscope

We present measurements of the near-field heat transfer between the tip of a thermal profiler and planar material surfaces under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. For tip-sample distances below 10-8 m our results differ markedly from the prediction of fluctuating electrodynamics. We argue that these differences are due to the existence of a material-dependent small length scale below which the macroscopic description of the dielectric properties fails, and discuss a corresponding model which yields fair agreement with the available data. These results are of importance for the quantitative interpretation of signals obtained by scanning thermal microscopes capable of detecting local temperature variations on surfaces

Solution Structure of Oxidized Horse Heart Cytochrome c

The solution structure of oxidized horse heart cytochrome c was obtained at pH 7.0 in 100 mM phosphate buffer from 2278 NOEs and 241 pseudocontact shift constraints. The final structure was refined through restrained energy minimization. A 35-member family, with RMSD values with respect to the average structure of 0.70 ± 0.11 Å and 1.21 ± 0.14 Å for the backbone and all heavy atoms, respectively, and with an average penalty function of 130 ± 4.0 kJ/mol and 84 ± 3.7 kJ/mol for NOE and pseudocontact shift constraints, respectively (corresponding to a target function of 0.9 Å^2 and 0.2 Å^2), was obtained. The solution structure is somewhat different from that recently reported (Qi et al., 1996) and appears to be similar to the X-ray structure of the same oxidation state (Bushnell et al., 1990). A noticeable difference is a rotation of 17 ± 8° of the imidazole plane between solid and solution structure. Detailed and accurate structural determinations are important within the frame of the current debate of the structural rearrangements occurring upon oxidation or reduction. From the obtained magnetic susceptibility tensor a separation of the hyperfine shifts into their contact and pseudocontact contributions is derived and compared to that of the analogous isoenzyme from S. cerevisiae and to previous results

Enacting Stories: Discovering Parallels of Narrative and Expressive Therapies, A Literature Review

This literature review will analyze the use of narrative therapy (NT) techniques, dance/movement therapy (DMT) techniques, and expressive therapy (ET) techniques in an effort to distinguish where theoretical parallels exist between these methods of counsel. Narrative therapy is a postmodern framework of counseling that assists clients in resisting damaging stories that have been embedded through bioecological systems of exposure throughout development. Narrative therapy structures its philosophy through processes of externalization and deconstruction, and encourages the process of reframing or re-authoring one’s personal self-narrative. At their core, DMT and ET already utilize components of foundational NT practices, through processes of enactment, arts-based mapping, and reorientation. This thesis will explore ways in which this happens within expressive therapeutic techniques independently, and in combination with NT