Comparison of screening methods for conductive hearing loss identification in children: low-cost proposal

Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of two screening methods (imitanciometry screening and questionnaire) to identify children at risk for conductive hearing loss, comparing this data with complete audiologic evaluation. Methods Of 507 children aged between three and six, 111 completed all procedures. The observational methods used were: imitanciometry screening, a questionnaire to identify risk factors for hearing loss and complete audiologic evaluation. Results obtained in the first two instruments were compared with results from complete audiologic evaluation (gold standard). From these comparisons, sensitivity and specificity, accuracy, positive and negative predictive values, and odds ratio were determined for the two screening methods and for the combination of both methods. Results The two methods applied in series (questionnaire and after imitanciometry screening) showed a greater odds ratio and better correlation between sensitivity and proportion of false-positives (ROC curve). Conclusion Combining the two tests in series improved screening accuracy. This combination was the best tool for identifying children at risk for conductive hearing loss.

What is the diagnostic value of ultrasonography compared to physical evaluation in patients with idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome?

[EN] OBJECTIVE: Our hypothesis is that sonography performed by the rheumatologist in patients with suspected carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) has higher diagnostic value compared to physical evaluation. METHODS: Adult patients with suspected idiopathic CTS, defined by sensory symptoms over the distribution of the median nerve with or without positive results with the Phalen and/or the Tinel's maneuvers were included. The diagnosis of CTS was indicated by typical symptoms daily for at least 3 months and a positive nerve conduction study. One rheumatologist unaware of the clinical and electrodiagnostic results performed an ultrasound examination of the median nerve for the area ranging from the inlet to the outlet of the carpal tunnel. Mean cross-sectional area at each level, flattening ratio and bowing of flexor retinaculum were obtained. RESULTS: Sixty-eight patients with 105 affected wrists were examined. Tinel's and Phalen's signs had a closer sensitivity (73% and 67% respectively) and specificity (40% and 30% respectively). The best swelling nerve cut-off by sonography was 9.7 mm2 at the tunnel inlet, with a sensitivity of 86%, a specificity of 48% and accuracy of 77%. A 100% positive predictive value was reached with a cross-sectional area of 13 mm2, involving 33 hands (31% of the whole sample). Maximal cross sectional area and the measurement of flexor retinaculum had an accuracy of 72% and 73% respectively. Combination of physical maneuvers and sonography not yielded more accuracy than cross-sectional area itself. CONCLUSION: In patients with clinical history of idiopathic CTS and positive nerve conduction study, sonography performed by the rheumatologist has higher diagnostic value than physical maneuvers.

Evaluation and quantification of spectral information in tissue by confocal microscopy

A confocal imaging and image processing scheme is introduced to visualize and evaluate the spatial distribution of spectral information in tissue. The image data are recorded using a confocal laser-scanning microscope equipped with a detection unit that provides high spectral resolution. The processing scheme is based on spectral data, is less error-prone than intensity-based visualization and evaluation methods, and provides quantitative information on the composition of the sample. The method is tested and validated in the context of the development of dermal drug delivery systems, introducing a quantitative uptake indicator to compare the performances of different delivery systems is introduced. A drug penetration study was performed in vitro. The results show that the method is able to detect, visualize and measure spectral information in tissue. In the penetration study, uptake efficiencies of different experiment setups could be discriminated and quantitatively described. The developed uptake indicator is a step towards a quantitative assessment and, in a more general view apart from pharmaceutical research, provides valuable information on tissue composition. It can potentially be used for clinical in vitro and in vivo applications.

Desing of an Airport Surface Routing Evaluation Tool

There are many studies related with airport surface routing algorithms, based on different approaches and with different evaluation methods and metrics. So, the need of performing a balanced analysis and comparison using a common framework is evident. This paper presents an implementation of an evaluation tool for airport surface routing algorithms. The routing evaluation tool presented here is based in three basic pillars composed by the airport model, the model and generation of traffic and a comprehensive figure of merit function. The paper includes some example evaluations performed over Barajas Airport with representative traffic samples using several simple routing methods.

Semantic Interoperability: Perspectives and Technology Evaluation

Interoperability between semantic technologies is a must because they need to be in communication to interchange ontologies and use them in the distributed and open environment of the SemanticWeb. However, such interoperability is not straightforward due to the high heterogeneity in such technologies. This chapter describes the problem of semantic technology interoperability from two different perspectives. First, from a theoretical perspective by presenting an overview of the different factors that affect interoperability and, second, from a practical perspective by reusing evaluation methods and applying them to six current semantic technologies in order to assess their interoperability.

Evaluation of configurations of supply networks supported by it systems

Los sistemas transaccionales tales como los programas informáticos para la planificación de recursos empresariales (ERP software) se han implementado ampliamente mientras que los sistemas analíticos para la gestión de la cadena de suministro (SCM software) no han tenido el éxito deseado por la industria de tecnología de información (TI). Aunque se documentan beneficios importantes derivados de las implantaciones de SCM software, las empresas industriales son reacias a invertir en este tipo de sistemas. Por una parte esto es debido a la falta de métodos que son capaces de detectar los beneficios por emplear esos sistemas, y por otra parte porque el coste asociado no está identificado, detallado y cuantificado suficientemente. Los esquemas de coordinación basados únicamente en sistemas ERP son alternativas válidas en la práctica industrial siempre que la relación coste-beneficio esta favorable. Por lo tanto, la evaluación de formas organizativas teniendo en cuenta explícitamente el coste debido a procesos administrativos, en particular por ciclos iterativos, es de gran interés para la toma de decisiones en el ámbito de inversiones en TI. Con el fin de cerrar la brecha, el propósito de esta investigación es proporcionar métodos de evaluación que permitan la comparación de diferentes formas de organización y niveles de soporte por sistemas informáticos. La tesis proporciona una amplia introducción, analizando los retos a los que se enfrenta la industria. Concluye con las necesidades de la industria de SCM software: unas herramientas que facilitan la evaluación integral de diferentes propuestas de organización. A continuación, la terminología clave se detalla centrándose en la teoría de la organización, las peculiaridades de inversión en TI y la tipología de software de gestión de la cadena de suministro. La revisión de la literatura clasifica las contribuciones recientes sobre la gestión de la cadena de suministro, tratando ambos conceptos, el diseño de la organización y su soporte por las TI. La clasificación incluye criterios relacionados con la metodología de la investigación y su contenido. Los estudios empíricos en el ámbito de la administración de empresas se centran en tipologías de redes industriales. Nuevos algoritmos de planificación y esquemas de coordinación innovadoras se desarrollan principalmente en el campo de la investigación de operaciones con el fin de proponer nuevas funciones de software. Artículos procedentes del área de la gestión de la producción se centran en el análisis de coste y beneficio de las implantaciones de sistemas. La revisión de la literatura revela que el éxito de las TI para la coordinación de redes industriales depende en gran medida de características de tres dimensiones: la configuración de la red industrial, los esquemas de coordinación y las funcionalidades del software. La literatura disponible está enfocada sobre todo en los beneficios de las implantaciones de SCM software. Sin embargo, la coordinación de la cadena de suministro, basándose en el sistema ERP, sigue siendo la práctica industrial generalizada, pero el coste de coordinación asociado no ha sido abordado por los investigadores. Los fundamentos de diseño organizativo eficiente se explican en detalle en la medida necesaria para la comprensión de la síntesis de las diferentes formas de organización. Se han generado varios esquemas de coordinación variando los siguientes parámetros de diseño: la estructura organizativa, los mecanismos de coordinación y el soporte por TI. Las diferentes propuestas de organización desarrolladas son evaluadas por un método heurístico y otro basado en la simulación por eventos discretos. Para ambos métodos, se tienen en cuenta los principios de la teoría de la organización. La falta de rendimiento empresarial se debe a las dependencias entre actividades que no se gestionan adecuadamente. Dentro del método heurístico, se clasifican las dependencias y se mide su intensidad basándose en factores contextuales. A continuación, se valora la idoneidad de cada elemento de diseño organizativo para cada dependencia específica. Por último, cada forma de organización se evalúa basándose en la contribución de los elementos de diseño tanto al beneficio como al coste. El beneficio de coordinación se refiere a la mejora en el rendimiento logístico - este concepto es el objeto central en la mayoría de modelos de evaluación de la gestión de la cadena de suministro. Por el contrario, el coste de coordinación que se debe incurrir para lograr beneficios no se suele considerar en detalle. Procesos iterativos son costosos si se ejecutan manualmente. Este es el caso cuando SCM software no está implementada y el sistema ERP es el único instrumento de coordinación disponible. El modelo heurístico proporciona un procedimiento simplificado para la clasificación sistemática de las dependencias, la cuantificación de los factores de influencia y la identificación de configuraciones que indican el uso de formas organizativas y de soporte de TI más o menos complejas. La simulación de eventos discretos se aplica en el segundo modelo de evaluación utilizando el paquete de software ‘Plant Simulation’. Con respecto al rendimiento logístico, por un lado se mide el coste de fabricación, de inventario y de transporte y las penalizaciones por pérdida de ventas. Por otro lado, se cuantifica explícitamente el coste de la coordinación teniendo en cuenta los ciclos de coordinación iterativos. El método se aplica a una configuración de cadena de suministro ejemplar considerando diversos parámetros. Los resultados de la simulación confirman que, en la mayoría de los casos, el beneficio aumenta cuando se intensifica la coordinación. Sin embargo, en ciertas situaciones en las que se aplican ciclos de planificación manuales e iterativos el coste de coordinación adicional no siempre conduce a mejor rendimiento logístico. Estos resultados inesperados no se pueden atribuir a ningún parámetro particular. La investigación confirma la gran importancia de nuevas dimensiones hasta ahora ignoradas en la evaluación de propuestas organizativas y herramientas de TI. A través del método heurístico se puede comparar de forma rápida, pero sólo aproximada, la eficiencia de diferentes formas de organización. Por el contrario, el método de simulación es más complejo pero da resultados más detallados, teniendo en cuenta parámetros específicos del contexto del caso concreto y del diseño organizativo. ABSTRACT Transactional systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have been implemented widely while analytical software like Supply Chain Management (SCM) add-ons are adopted less by manufacturing companies. Although significant benefits are reported stemming from SCM software implementations, companies are reluctant to invest in such systems. On the one hand this is due to the lack of methods that are able to detect benefits from the use of SCM software and on the other hand associated costs are not identified, detailed and quantified sufficiently. Coordination schemes based only on ERP systems are valid alternatives in industrial practice because significant investment in IT can be avoided. Therefore, the evaluation of these coordination procedures, in particular the cost due to iterations, is of high managerial interest and corresponding methods are comprehensive tools for strategic IT decision making. The purpose of this research is to provide evaluation methods that allow the comparison of different organizational forms and software support levels. The research begins with a comprehensive introduction dealing with the business environment that industrial networks are facing and concludes highlighting the challenges for the supply chain software industry. Afterwards, the central terminology is addressed, focusing on organization theory, IT investment peculiarities and supply chain management software typology. The literature review classifies recent supply chain management research referring to organizational design and its software support. The classification encompasses criteria related to research methodology and content. Empirical studies from management science focus on network types and organizational fit. Novel planning algorithms and innovative coordination schemes are developed mostly in the field of operations research in order to propose new software features. Operations and production management researchers realize cost-benefit analysis of IT software implementations. The literature review reveals that the success of software solutions for network coordination depends strongly on the fit of three dimensions: network configuration, coordination scheme and software functionality. Reviewed literature is mostly centered on the benefits of SCM software implementations. However, ERP system based supply chain coordination is still widespread industrial practice but the associated coordination cost has not been addressed by researchers. Fundamentals of efficient organizational design are explained in detail as far as required for the understanding of the synthesis of different organizational forms. Several coordination schemes have been shaped through the variation of the following design parameters: organizational structuring, coordination mechanisms and software support. The different organizational proposals are evaluated using a heuristic approach and a simulation-based method. For both cases, the principles of organization theory are respected. A lack of performance is due to dependencies between activities which are not managed properly. Therefore, within the heuristic method, dependencies are classified and their intensity is measured based on contextual factors. Afterwards the suitability of each organizational design element for the management of a specific dependency is determined. Finally, each organizational form is evaluated based on the contribution of the sum of design elements to coordination benefit and to coordination cost. Coordination benefit refers to improvement in logistic performance – this is the core concept of most supply chain evaluation models. Unfortunately, coordination cost which must be incurred to achieve benefits is usually not considered in detail. Iterative processes are costly when manually executed. This is the case when SCM software is not implemented and the ERP system is the only available coordination instrument. The heuristic model provides a simplified procedure for the classification of dependencies, quantification of influence factors and systematic search for adequate organizational forms and IT support. Discrete event simulation is applied in the second evaluation model using the software package ‘Plant Simulation’. On the one hand logistic performance is measured by manufacturing, inventory and transportation cost and penalties for lost sales. On the other hand coordination cost is explicitly considered taking into account iterative coordination cycles. The method is applied to an exemplary supply chain configuration considering various parameter settings. The simulation results confirm that, in most cases, benefit increases when coordination is intensified. However, in some situations when manual, iterative planning cycles are applied, additional coordination cost does not always lead to improved logistic performance. These unexpected results cannot be attributed to any particular parameter. The research confirms the great importance of up to now disregarded dimensions when evaluating SCM concepts and IT tools. The heuristic method provides a quick, but only approximate comparison of coordination efficiency for different organizational forms. In contrast, the more complex simulation method delivers detailed results taking into consideration specific parameter settings of network context and organizational design.

Priority evaluation in transportation policies and programmes

This work is concerned with the development of techniques for the evaluation of large-scale highway schemes with particular reference to the assessment of their costs and benefits in the context of the current transport planning (T.P.P.) process. It has been carried out in close cooperation with West Midlands County Council, although its application and results are applicable elsewhere. The background to highway evaluation and its development in recent years has been described and the emergence of a number of deficiencies in current planning practise noted. One deficiency in particular stood out, that stemming from inadequate methods of scheme generation and the research has concentrated upon improving this stage of appraisal, to ensure that subsequent stages of design, assessment and implementation are based upon a consistent and responsive foundation. Deficiencies of scheme evaluation were found to stem from inadequate development of appraisal methodologies suffering from difficulties of valuation, measurement and aggregation of the disparate variables that characterise highway evaluation. A failure to respond to local policy priorities was also noted. A 'problem' rather than 'goals' based approach to scheme generation was taken, as it represented the current and foreseeable resource allocation context more realistically. A review of techniques with potential for highway problem based scheme generation, which would work within a series of practical and theoretical constraints were assessed and that of multivariate analysis, and classical factor analysis in particular, was selected, because it offerred considerable application to the difficulties of valuation, measurement and aggregation that existed. Computer programs were written to adapt classical factor analysis to the requirements of T.P.P. highway evaluation, using it to derive a limited number of factors which described the extensive quantity of highway problem data. From this, a series of composite problem scores for 1979 were derived for a case study area of south Birmingham, based upon the factorial solutions, and used to assess highway sites in terms of local policy issues. The methodology was assessed in the light of its ability to describe highway problems in both aggregate and disaggregate terms, to guide scheme design, coordinate with current scheme evaluation methods, and in general to improve upon current appraisal. Analysis of the results was both in subjective, 'common-sense' terms and using statistical methods to assess the changes in problem definition, distribution and priorities that emerged. Overall, the technique was found to improve upon current scheme generation methods in all respects and in particular in overcoming the problems of valuation, measurement and aggregation without recourse to unsubstantiated and questionable assumptions. A number of deficiencies which remained have been outlined and a series of research priorities described which need to be reviewed in the light of current and future evaluation needs.

Menu Analysis: Review and Evaluation

In the article - Menu Analysis: Review and Evaluation - by Lendal H. Kotschevar, Distinguished Professor School of Hospitality Management, Florida International University, Kotschevar’s initial statement reads: “Various methods are used to evaluate menus. Some have quite different approaches and give different information. Even those using quite similar methods vary in the information they give. The author attempts to describe the most frequently used methods and to indicate their value. A correlation calculation is made to see how well certain of these methods agree in the information they give.” There is more than one way to look at the word menu. The culinary selections decided upon by the head chef or owner of a restaurant, which ultimately define the type of restaurant is one way. The physical outline of the food, which a patron actually holds in his or her hand, is another. These descriptions are most common to the word, menu. The author primarily concentrates on the latter description, and uses the act of counting the number of items sold on a menu to measure the popularity of any particular item. This, along with a formula, allows Kotschevar to arrive at a specific value per item. Menu analysis would appear a difficult subject to broach. How does a person approach a menu analysis, how do you qualify and quantify a menu; it seems such a subjective exercise. The author offers methods and outlines on approaching menu analysis from empirical perspectives. “Menus are often examined visually through the evaluation of various factors. It is a subjective method but has the advantage of allowing scrutiny of a wide range of factors which other methods do not,” says Distinguished Professor, Kotschevar. “The method is also highly flexible. Factors can be given a score value and scores summed to give a total for a menu. This allows comparison between menus. If the one making the evaluations knows menu values, it is a good method of judgment,” he further offers. The author wants you to know that assigning values is fundamental to a pragmatic menu analysis; it is how the reviewer keeps score, so to speak. Value merit provides reliable criteria from which to gauge a particular menu item. In the final analysis, menu evaluation provides the mechanism for either keeping or rejecting selected items on a menu. Kotschevar provides at least three different matrix evaluation methods; they are defined as the Miller method, the Smith and Kasavana method, and the Pavesic method. He offers illustrated examples of each via a table format. These are helpful tools since trying to explain the theories behind the tables would be difficult at best. Kotschevar also references examples of analysis methods which aren’t matrix based. The Hayes and Huffman - Goal Value Analysis - is one such method. The author sees no one method better than another, and suggests that combining two or more of the methods to be a benefit.

A study of the implementation of junior college *evaluation system in Taiwan

Since the establishment of the evaluation system in 1975, the junior colleges in the Republic of China (Taiwan), have gone through six formal evaluations. We know that evaluation in schooling, like quality control in businesses, should be a systematic, formal, and a continual process. It can doubtless serve as a strategy to refine the quality of education. The purpose of this research is to explore the current practice of junior college evaluation in Taiwan. This provides insight into the development of and quality of the current evaluation system. Moreover, this study also identified the source of problems with the current evaluation system and provided suggestion for improvements.^ In order to attain the above purposes, this research was undertaken in both theoretical and practical ways. First, theoretically, on the basis of a literature review, the theories of educational evaluation and, according to the course and principles of development, a view of the current practice in Taiwan. Secondly, in practice, by means of questionnaires, an analysis of the views of evaluation committeemen, junior college presidents, and administrators were obtained on evaluation models, methods, contents, organization, functions, criteria, grades reports, and others with suggestions for improvement. The summary of findings concludes that most evaluators and evaluatees think the purpose of evaluation can help the colleges explore their difficulties and problems. In addition, it was found that there is significant difference between the two groups regarding the evaluation methods, contents, organization, functions, criteria, grades reports and others, while analyzing these objective data forms the basis for an improved method of evaluation for Junior Colleges in Taiwan. ^

Evaluation of a One-Day Meditech Magic Training Program for Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses in a long term care program

Background: An evaluation was completed on the One-Day Meditech Magic Training Program for Registered Nurses (RNs) and Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) developed for the Long Term Care (LTC) Program. Methods: Both a literature review and consultation with stakeholders were completed to determine possible evaluation methods, expected outcomes, and ways to measure the effectiveness of the education program. A pretest/posttest design and questionnaire were chosen as the evaluation tools for this project. Results: No significant difference was found between the pretest and posttest total scores indicating that learners retained information from the orientation session (Z = -1.820, p = 0.069). Additional Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank tests were performed on the individual sections of the tests and revealed a significant decrease in the posttest scores for entering a Diagnostic Imaging requisition (Z = -1.975, p = 0.048). No other significant findings were present. Questionnaires were also analyzed revealing that most participants were pleased with the Meditech documentation education they received and did not indicate barriers that would affect electronic documentation. Conclusions: Further testing is required to ensure reliability and validity of the evaluation tools. Finally, caution is needed due to a small sample size. However, problematic documentation tasks were identified during the evaluation, and as a result both the training session and support materials will be improved as a result of this project.

G181(P) Evaluation of a new e-health intervention in neonatal care : perspectives of parents and health professionals.

Aim This paper will report findings from the first phase of an evaluation of a new e-health intervention designed to allow mothers to ‘see’ their baby in neonatal care (NNU) when they are not able to be with them. The intervention, MyLittleOne, involves a web-camera being placed over the incubator in NNU, which transmits a real-time video wirelessly to a coupled tablet device at the mother’s bedside. Guided by the MRC Framework for the Development and Evaluation of Healthcare Interventions (MRC, 2008), the aim was to explore parent and professional views of the technology and make recommendations for its future development, use and evaluation. Methods A qualitative approach was adopted, guided by a critical realist perspective (McEvoy and Richards, 2003). The study took place in a Level 3 NNU in Scotland. Participants were recruited purposively and included parents (n = 33) and a range of health professionals working in neonatal and postnatal care (n = 21). The data were collected during semi-structured individual, paired and small group interviews and were analysed thematically using NVivo v10. Results The majority of parents and professionals spoke positively about MyLittleOne. Perceptions were that: use of the technology assisted bonding and responsiveness; it promoted the recovery process following birth; and, for mothers who wished to breast-feed, being able to see their baby on the tablet device encouraged the ‘let-down’ reflex. An additional benefit was that siblings and others who may not be able to visit the NNU were able to see the baby. In contrast, for a small number of mothers, viewing their baby remotely appeared to increase their levels of anxiety. Switching off the camera during a medical procedure and back on after the procedure was completed was found to be problematic, at times and in different ways, for both parents and professionals. Conclusions Findings from this preliminary evaluation will guide future developments of the technology, including its use in family homes following the mother’s discharge. The findings will also inform the design of a feasibility study and subsequent RCT to assess the impact of MyLittleOne on a range of psychological indicators of postnatal adjustment.

Using interaction data for improving the offline and online evaluation of search engines

This thesis investigates how web search evaluation can be improved using historical interaction data. Modern search engines combine offline and online evaluation approaches in a sequence of steps that a tested change needs to pass through to be accepted as an improvement and subsequently deployed. We refer to such a sequence of steps as an evaluation pipeline. In this thesis, we consider the evaluation pipeline to contain three sequential steps: an offline evaluation step, an online evaluation scheduling step, and an online evaluation step. In this thesis we show that historical user interaction data can aid in improving the accuracy or efficiency of each of the steps of the web search evaluation pipeline. As a result of these improvements, the overall efficiency of the entire evaluation pipeline is increased. Firstly, we investigate how user interaction data can be used to build accurate offline evaluation methods for query auto-completion mechanisms. We propose a family of offline evaluation metrics for query auto-completion that represents the effort the user has to spend in order to submit their query. The parameters of our proposed metrics are trained against a set of user interactions recorded in the search engine’s query logs. From our experimental study, we observe that our proposed metrics are significantly more correlated with an online user satisfaction indicator than the metrics proposed in the existing literature. Hence, fewer changes will pass the offline evaluation step to be rejected after the online evaluation step. As a result, this would allow us to achieve a higher efficiency of the entire evaluation pipeline. Secondly, we state the problem of the optimised scheduling of online experiments. We tackle this problem by considering a greedy scheduler that prioritises the evaluation queue according to the predicted likelihood of success of a particular experiment. This predictor is trained on a set of online experiments, and uses a diverse set of features to represent an online experiment. Our study demonstrates that a higher number of successful experiments per unit of time can be achieved by deploying such a scheduler on the second step of the evaluation pipeline. Consequently, we argue that the efficiency of the evaluation pipeline can be increased. Next, to improve the efficiency of the online evaluation step, we propose the Generalised Team Draft interleaving framework. Generalised Team Draft considers both the interleaving policy (how often a particular combination of results is shown) and click scoring (how important each click is) as parameters in a data-driven optimisation of the interleaving sensitivity. Further, Generalised Team Draft is applicable beyond domains with a list-based representation of results, i.e. in domains with a grid-based representation, such as image search. Our study using datasets of interleaving experiments performed both in document and image search domains demonstrates that Generalised Team Draft achieves the highest sensitivity. A higher sensitivity indicates that the interleaving experiments can be deployed for a shorter period of time or use a smaller sample of users. Importantly, Generalised Team Draft optimises the interleaving parameters w.r.t. historical interaction data recorded in the interleaving experiments. Finally, we propose to apply the sequential testing methods to reduce the mean deployment time for the interleaving experiments. We adapt two sequential tests for the interleaving experimentation. We demonstrate that one can achieve a significant decrease in experiment duration by using such sequential testing methods. The highest efficiency is achieved by the sequential tests that adjust their stopping thresholds using historical interaction data recorded in diagnostic experiments. Our further experimental study demonstrates that cumulative gains in the online experimentation efficiency can be achieved by combining the interleaving sensitivity optimisation approaches, including Generalised Team Draft, and the sequential testing approaches. Overall, the central contributions of this thesis are the proposed approaches to improve the accuracy or efficiency of the steps of the evaluation pipeline: the offline evaluation frameworks for the query auto-completion, an approach for the optimised scheduling of online experiments, a general framework for the efficient online interleaving evaluation, and a sequential testing approach for the online search evaluation. The experiments in this thesis are based on massive real-life datasets obtained from Yandex, a leading commercial search engine. These experiments demonstrate the potential of the proposed approaches to improve the efficiency of the evaluation pipeline.

Using Research Methods in Human Computer Interaction to Design Technology for Resilience

Research in human computer interaction (HCI) covers both technological and human behavioural concerns. As a consequence, the contributions made in HCI research tend to be aware to either engineering or the social sciences. In HCI the purpose of practical research contributions is to reveal unknown insights about human behaviour and its relationship to technology. Practical research methods normally used in HCI include formal experiments, field experiments, field studies, interviews, focus groups, surveys, usability tests, case studies, diary studies, ethnography, contextual inquiry, experience sampling, and automated data collection. In this paper, we report on our experience using the evaluation methods focus groups, surveys and interviews and how we adopted these methods to develop artefacts: either interface’s design or information and technological systems. Four projects are examples of the different methods application to gather information about user’s wants, habits, practices, concerns and preferences. The goal was to build an understanding of the attitudes and satisfaction of the people who might interact with a technological artefact or information system. Conversely, we intended to design for information systems and technological applications, to promote resilience in organisations (a set of routines that allow to recover from obstacles) and user’s experiences. Organisations can here also be viewed within a system approach, which means that the system perturbations even failures could be characterized and improved. The term resilience has been applied to everything from the real estate, to the economy, sports, events, business, psychology, and more. In this study, we highlight that resilience is also made up of a number of different skills and abilities (self-awareness, creating meaning from other experiences, self-efficacy, optimism, and building strong relationships) that are a few foundational ingredients, which people should use along with the process of enhancing an organisation’s resilience. Resilience enhances knowledge of resources available to people confronting existing problems.

Metodos de avaliação em Educação Fisica no ensino fundamental

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Desenvolvimento de ferramentas de análise de desempenho de atletas em 3 diferentes modalidades : Handebol, Provas Combinadas e Salto com Vara

Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Faculdade de Educação Física