Auscultation is one of the most important noninvasive and feasible methods for the detection of lung diseases. Systematic changes in breathing sounds with increasing age are of diagnostic importance. To investigate these changes, we recorded lung sounds taken from four locations in the posterior thorax of 162 subjects, together with airflow. The data were analyzed according to age, sex, and smoking habit. In order to describe the power spectrum of the lung sounds, we calculated mean and median frequency, frequency with the highest power, and a ratio (Q) of relative power of the two frequency bands of 330 to 600 Hz and 60 to 330 Hz. Linear regression analysis was used as a measurement of age-dependence of these variables. Significant differences in Q were found in men versus women (p < 0.05), but not in smokers versus nonsmokers. Within the groups, a small but significant correlation existed between Q and age (r(2) /= +/- 5%) have no clinical significance and need not to be considered in the automatic detection of lung diseases by analyzing lung sounds.

In this paper we discuss an approach linking GUI specifications to abstract dialog models. Both specifications are based on task models describing behavioral features. It will be shown how first prototypes of interactive systems, which are generated from user interface models, can help to capture requirements. Users can interactively play with prototypes. Tool support is also provided for co-operative work of different users, which starts with abstract canonical prototypes that can evolve to concrete GUI specifications.

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Interactive system design is typically more successful if it is an iterative process involving collaboration between multidisciplinary teams with different viewpoints. While some sub-teams may focus on the creative aspects of the user interface design and other subgroups on the implementation of required functionality, all must ensure that they are working towards the same goal. They must also satisfy the requirements and needs of all stakeholders. Although many suggestions have been made as to how such design might be supported in a more formal way (such as by using a model-driven process), less focus has been given to managing the coordination of design sub-teams following a creative process. In this paper we propose a semi-formal framework to describe and to compare design spaces, and the external design representations within those spaces. The framework is based on ideas from interaction design and on formal refinement approaches. It suggests a distinction of design options into alternatives and variants to describe and guide processes of idea generation and convergence within, and between, different design sub-spaces and subgroups. We provide a small example to illustrate our approach and to show how it can be implemented by using standard formal approaches alongside less formal design notations and human-computer interaction processes.

This paper describes how the HOPS notation can be used to support Human Centered Design. It discusses the role of the notation in providing multiple design viewpoints. It demonstrates how the HOPS tool can be used to animate these viewpoints. Finally, HOPS is used to specify how the system provides information resources for user action. This approach to specifying plausible user behavior is contrasted with a task based approach. The HOPS based design techniques are illustrated through a process control example.

The use of calendars for work and personal activities has been widely investigated for decades and the term calendar work, coined by Palen (CHI 17-24,1999), refers to the many ways people employ and interact with calendars. Previous research has focused on calendar usage in specific domains or on the differences between paper and digital calendars. The current paper is positioned somewhat differently by exploring calendars as object in personal ecologies of calendar artifacts. In such personal calendar ecologies, the users, their tasks, their practices, and the calendar artifacts adapt and evolve together. In addition, individual users are typically engaged in various activities in specific contexts (realms) that are established and maintained by groups of people, supporting the overarching culture of these realms. As such, the web of common practices, activities and tasks, as well as the calendar artifacts shape the individual calendar work. To our knowledge, this article is the first study that investigates diverse personal ecologies of calendar artifacts. To this end we collected detailed user data with (a) exploratory interviews and (b) the Day-Reconstruction Method. The results indicate that the changing demands in daily life, the availability of new tools, and the participants' knowledge about the costs and benefits of their calendar work and about the consequences of potential failures influence their tendency to explore and possibly integrate new calendar artifacts and appear implicated in the deliberate non-use of new technology. It appears that paper and digital calendar artifacts continue to co-exist. The results indicate an existing 'appointment culture' with a high demand of precisely scheduled episodes, and the importance of calendar artifacts for maintaining work and personal relationships in the light of the travel and new technologies for communication.

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