Recent Articles

Responses of animals exposed to microgravity during in-space experiments were observed via available video recording stored in the NASA Ames Life Sciences Data Archive. These documented observations of animal behavior, as well as the range and level of activities during spaceflight, clearly demonstrate that weightlessness conditions and the extreme novelty of the surroundings exert damaging psychological stresses on the inhabitants. In response to a recognized need for in-flight animals to improve their wellbeing we propose to reduce such stresses by shaping and interrelating structures and surroundings to satisfying vital physiological needs of inhabitants. A Rodent Habitat Hardware System (RHHS) based housing facility incorporating a tubing network system, to maintain and monitor rodent health environment with advanced accessories has been proposed. Placing mice in a tubing-configured environment creates more natural space-restricted nesting environment for rodents, thereby facilitating a more comfortable transition to living in microgravity. A sectional tubing structure of the RHHS environment will be more beneficial under microgravity conditions than the provision of a larger space area that is currently utilized. The new tubing configuration was found suitable for further incorporation of innovative monitoring technology and accessories in the animal holding habitat unit which allow to monitor in real-time monitoring of valuable health related biological parameters under weightlessness environment of spaceflight.

Persuasive techniques are recently being explored by computer science researchers as an effective strategy towards creating applications that are aimed at positive attitudinal changes especially in the health domain but finding effective evaluation approaches for these technologies remain an herculean task for all stakeholders involved and in order to overcome this limitation, the Persuasive System Design (PSD) model was designed but researchers claim that the model is too theoretical in nature and some of its design principles are too subjective as they cannot be measured quantitatively. Hence, the focus of this paper is to critically review the PSD model and popular models currently being used to evaluate the usability of information systems as usability has been identified as an important requirement currently used to evaluate the overall success of persuasive technologies. To achieve the stated objectives, the systematic review method of research was done to objectively analyze the PSD model, its applicability as an evaluation tool was tested on a popular mobile health application installed on the Samsung Galaxy Tablet using android Operation system. Exhaustive evaluation of the application was performed by 5 software usability researchers using the method of cognitive walkthrough. From the analysis, it was realized that the PSD model is a great tool at designing persuasive technologies but as an evaluation tool, it is too theoretical in nature, its evaluation strategies are too subjective in nature and the 28 principles described in it overlap with one another. As a result, the PSD model was extended with an integrated usability model and the fuzzy Analytic Hierarchical Technique was proposed theoretically to evaluate usability constructs so as to make evaluation of persuasive technologies more quantitative in nature and easier for researchers to analyze their design early enough to minimize developmental efforts and other resources.

Since a wide warm surface current, permanently flowing northeast off California, has been documented with all the available data that could be found plus helping to organize the collection of a new set of observations has happened, a search was carried out for a similar circulation feature in other oceans. Very likely there exists a wide warm surface current in the South Pacific moving southeast from the middle of the ocean and impinging on the coast of South America. In the South Atlantic a wide warm surface current appears to go south in the western half of the basin. Contained in the North Atlantic is “the large volume of warm water outside the Gulf Stream drifting north”, which was first described by Maury and confirmed recently by newer measurements. A puzzling SST observation in the northwest Indian Ocean, that in a given year two summers and two winters occur, is explained by a hypothesis that is a bit more complicated than shown by the surface currents in the other oceans. For confirmation more surface and near surface measurements are needed.

The principle of substance stability describes the thermodynamic interactions between hierarchical structures in chemistry and biology. The note contains links of author’s recent survey studies published online.

With changing conditions of the financial environment, relative issues of non-audit services still require further developments and researches, concerning their rationale and risks that can be admitted so far, and influences of latest regulations. Here the rationale and risks of NAS were investigated through summarizing prior studies. Some researchers believe that there is a trade-off effect between advantages and disadvantages of NAS, therefore, it can be accordingly concluded that there is at least net effect in NAS’s downsides and upsides, the rationality of NAS can be prove based on this sight. However, many latest researches tend to believe NAS has adverse impacts.

Because of the success of keeping people alive after a life-threatening arrhythmia, the implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) has become an invasive medical device posing unique challenges to patients, physicians, and healthcare personnel. This paper examines the unique societal challenges of the ICD in the context of consent and informed consent in the Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia. The main societal issues in consent and informed consent regarding implantable life-saving medical devices involve the types of information (individual vs. societal) that are to drive the discussion between patient and his or her physician.