Increasing globalization has created tremendous opportunities and challenges for organizations and societies. Consequently, a broad range of information technologies to better support the collaboration of diverse, and increasingly distributed, sets of participants is ever more utilized. Arguably, the success of such technology-mediated collaboration is dependent upon the quality of each individual's contributions; however, although individuals' motivations to do their best could be significantly influenced by the design of a system's human-computer interface, this area has received little attention within the context of group collaboration environments. We fill this gap by integrating research from human-computer interaction, motivation, and technology-supported group work to theoretically derive mechanisms for increasing each individual's motivation within a collective setting. Specifically, we manipulate the interface of a computer-mediated idea generation system (a widely used collaboration tool) to enhance the system's motivational affordance, i.e., the system's properties that fulfill users' motivational needs. Results from two studies demonstrate that by embedding the theoretically derived mechanisms "providing feedback" and "designing for optimal challenge" into the collaboration environment, significant performance gains were realized. The results suggest that even slight manipulations of the human-computer interface can contribute significantly to the successful design of a wide variety of group collaboration environments.human-computer interaction, motivational affordance, collaboration, computer-mediated idea generation, goal setting, performance feedback

Intracerebroventricular treatment with redox-regulating Mn(III) Nhexylpyridylporphyrin (MnPorphyrin) is remarkably efficacious in experimental central nervous system (CNS) injury. Clinical development has been arrested because of poor blood-brain barrier penetration. Mn(III) meso-tetrakis (N-hexylpyridinium-2-yl) porphyrin (MnTnHex-2-PyP) was synthesized to include four six-carbon (hexyl) side chains on the core MnPorphyrin structure. This has been shown to increase in vitro lipophilicity 13,500-fold relative to the hydrophilic ethyl analog Mn(III) meso-tetrakis(N-ethylpyridinium-2-yl)porphyrin (MnTE-2-PyP). In normal mice, we found brain MnTnHex-2-PyP accumulation to be ϳ9-fold greater than MnTE-2-PyP 24 h after a single intraperitoneal dose. We then evaluated MnTnHex-2-PyP efficacy in outcome-oriented models of focal cerebral ischemia and subarachnoid hemorrhage. For focal ischemia, rats underwent 90-min middle cerebral artery occlusion. Parenteral MnTnHex-2-PyP treatment began 5 min or 6 h after reperfusion onset and continued for 7 days. Neurologic function was improved with both early (P ϭ 0.002) and delayed (P ϭ 0.002) treatment onset. Total infarct size was decreased with both early (P ϭ 0.03) and delayed (P ϭ 0.01) treatment. MnTnHex-2-PyP attenuated nuclear factor B nuclear DNA binding activity and suppressed tumor necrosis factor-␣ and interleukin-6 expression. For subarachnoid hemorrhage, mice underwent perforation of the anterior cerebral artery and were treated with intraperitoneal MnTnHex-2-PyP or vehicle for 3 days. Neurologic function was improved (P ϭ 0.02), and vasoconstriction of the anterior cerebral (P ϭ 0.0005), middle cerebral (P ϭ 0.003), and internal carotid (P ϭ 0.015) arteries was decreased by MnTnHex-2-PyP. Side-chain elongation preserved MnPorphyrin redox activity, but improved CNS bioavailability sufficient to cause improved outcome from acute CNS injury, despite delay in parenteral treatment onset of up to 6 h. This advance now allows consideration of MnPorphyrins for treatment of cerebrovascular disease.

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The PHES was useful for detecting patients with MHE. A significant proportion of Korean patients with liver cirrhosis suffer from MHE.

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