Elicitation of situated values: need for tools to help stakeholders and designers to reflect and communicate

Explicitly considering human values in the design process of socio-technical systems has become a responsibility of designers. It is, however, challenging to design for values because (1) relevant values must be identified and communicated between all stakeholders and designers and (2) stakeholders?? values differ and trade-offs must be made. We focus on the first aspect, which requires elicitation of stakeholders?? situated values, i.e. values relevant to a specific real life context. Available techniques to elicit knowledge and requirements from stakeholders lack in providing the context and means for reflection needed to elicit situated values as well as an explicit concept of value. In this paper we present our design of a tool to support active elicitation of stakeholders?? values and communication between stakeholders and designers. We conducted an exploratory user study in which we compared the suitability of methods used in social sciences for (1) eliciting situated values, (2) supporting people??s expressions of values and (3) being implemented in value elicitation tool. Based on the outcomes we propose a design for a value elicitation tool that consists of a mobile application used by stakeholders for data collection and in-situ self-reflection, and a website used collaboratively by designers and stakeholders to analyse and communicate values. Discussion focuses on contributions to value sensitive design.     

Interoperabilit?t für Informationssysteme im Gesundheitswesen auf Basis medizinischer Standards

Eine Vernetzung der Dienstleister im Gesundheitswesen wird aus Effizienzgründen immer wichtiger. Schwierigkeiten bereitet jedoch die Interoperabilität, womit die korrekte Kommunikation von beteiligten Softwaresystemen verschiedener Herkunft gemeint ist. Dieser Beitrag konzentriert sich auf die Interoperabilitätsproblematik auf der Ebene der Anwendungsarchitekturen. Mit Hilfe von Standards und Integrationstechniken bemühen sich verschiedene Lösungsansätze die Heterogenität zu überwinden, die einer umfassenden Interoperabilität im Wege steht. Die Frage, die sich uns in diesem Zusammenhang nun stellt ist, ob diverse Standards im Gesundheitswesen sinnvoll kombiniert werden können bzw. zwischen ihnen vermittelt werden kann. In diesem Artikel stellen wir die Grundzüge einer Architektur vor, die auf der Basis von Standards eine institutionsübergreifende Interoperabilität im Gesundheitswesen ermöglichen soll. Die Strukturen der relevanten Standards werden einheitlich als Instanzen des Meta-Object Facility (MOF) spezifiziert und dann geeignet zueinander in Beziehung gesetzt. Die resultierenden Modelle und Metamodelle bilden einen Leitfaden zur Strukturanalyse der Standards und helfen so beim Entwurf der Transformationen zwischen den verschiedenen Standards. Architektur und Metamodelle dienen als Grundlage für eine prototypische Implementierung am Beispiel des Epidemiologischen Krebsregisters Niedersachsen zur Evaluation des vorgestellten Konzeptes.     

Cultural participation in major Chinese cities

We study the socioeconomic determinants of cultural participation in thirteen major Chinese cities for a broad range of indicators that cover highbrow and popular cultures. Consistent with previous studies from high-income countries, we find strong support for the elitism hypothesis: education and income increase participation in a broad range of cultural activities. There are also some exceptions. Interestingly, we also find a U-shaped relation between participation and city development for free and publicly supplied culture. Moreover, the impact of education, and to some extent also income, is weaker in richer cities. These findings contribute to understanding China’s key policy objective of promoting equal access to culture.     

Does endurance training improve red blood cell aging and hemorheology in moderate-trained healthy individuals?

ObjectiveTo examine the impact of a 6-week endurance training on red blood cell (RBC) aging and deformability of healthy participants to detect possible improved hemorheological and performance-related adaptations.MethodsA total of 31 participants (17 females and 14 males) performed a 6-week moderate training protocol (three 1-h running sessions per week at 70% of maximal heart rate). Blood was sampled before and after the training. RBCs from each participant were fractioned according to density and age into 4 RBC subfractions. Subfractions were examined for changes of RBC properties, including aging distribution, RBC deformability, RBC microparticles, and phosphatidylserine concentrations. RBC and plasma nitrite levels were measured as indicators of nitric oxide metabolism.ResultsAerobic performance, peak oxygen consumption, ventilatory thresholds, velocity at the aerobic–anaerobic threshold, and lactate at exhaustion improved after training. The relative amount of both young RBCs and old RBCs increased, and the amount of the main RBC fraction decreased. Phosphatidylserine externalization and RBC-derived microparticles decreased. Overall deformability expressed as shear stress required to achieve half-maximum deformation to theoretical maximal elongation index at infinite shear stress improved in unfractioned RBCs (p < 0.001). Nitrite decreased in total (p = 0.001), young (p < 0.001), main (p < 0.001), and old (p = 0.020) aged RBCs and in plasma (p = 0.002), but not in very old RBCs.ConclusionThese results indicate that non-endurance-trained healthy participants benefit from a regular moderate running training program because performance-related parameters improve and a younger RBC population with improved RBC properties is induced, which might support oxygen supply in the microcirculation.     

Investigating Neutralization Strategies in Digital Piracy: The Role of Content Preferences and Social Norms

ABSTRACT

Digital piracy is perceived as a victimless crime and therefore still challenges media industries. According to the neutralization theory, criminal behavior is more likely if individuals are able to justify it. As little is known about inhibitors and drivers of these cognitive processes, the current study investigated such preconditions by linking neutralization to social norms and content preferences (movies and series) in order to explain piracy attitudes and behavior. Results of an online survey which adopted a conjoint-task showed that attitudes toward digital piracy mediate neutralization effects on digital piracy behavior. Injunctive norms and the preference for independent movies foster neutralization effects.     

Surface protein gradients generated in sealed microchannels using spatially varying helium microplasma

Spatially varied surface treatment of a fluorescently labeled Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) protein, on the walls of a closed (sealed) microchannel is achieved via a well-defined gradient in plasma intensity. The microchips comprised a microchannel positioned in-between two microelectrodes (embedded in the chip) with a variable electrode separation along the length of the channel. The channel and electrodes were 50 μm and 100 μm wide, respectively, 50 μm deep, and adjacent to the channel for a length of 18 mm. The electrode separation distance was varied linearly from 50 μm at one end of the channel to a maximum distance of 150, 300, 500, or 1000 μm to generate a gradient in helium plasma intensity. Plasma ignition was achieved at a helium flow rate of 2.5 ml/min, 8.5 kV_pk-pk, and 10 kHz. It is shown that the plasma intensity decreases with increasing electrode separation and is directly related to the residual amount of BSA left after the treatment. The plasma intensity and surface protein gradient, for the different electrode gradients studied, collapse onto master curves when plotted against electrode separation. This precise spatial control is expected to enable the surface protein gradient to be tuned for a range of applications, including high-throughput screening and cell-biomolecule-biomaterial interactions.