Recursos

Nowadays, the information systems are an indispensable resource for the organizations. The processes that are managed through these systems most of the time are hard to understand, maintain and improve. The data associated to the process becomes the main source and input to do all types of analysis. Process Mining allows the extraction of useful knowledge from the generated information of the corporate systems.

This work suggests a methodology based on process mining to execute process support analysis of a corporate intranet implemented in SharePoint Server. With the extracted information it is possible to do analysis from several perspectives. The obtained results allow administrators of this type of technology platforms to evaluate the techniques used and generate benefits. The methodology was applied in a case study for a Retail client, besides doing an exploratory analysis of the data for two additional clients in the Industrial Safety industry in Chile.

Este artículo desarrolla una descripción del proceso de desarrollo y creación de la primera carrera propia de todas las sedes regionales de la Universidad de Costa Rica, la carrera de Bachillerato en Informática Empresarial. Adicionalmente se describen los retos enfrentados por la carrera, especialmente los relacionados a la ejecución de proyec­tos de actualización y a responder a los requisitos para obtener una acreditación.

En la actualidad, se ha promovido con ma ́s fuerza el estudiar con detalle la situación de género en carreras de ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas (STEM por sus siglas en Ingle ́s). Cada día, los perfiles asociados con estas carreras han empezado a ser ma ́s demandados por las organizaciones debido a la idoneidad que estos tienen para desempeñar actividades laborales en la era digital. Debido a ello, existe un creciente interés por analizar la brecha de género en este tipo de carreras a nivel universitario. En este artículo se presenta un análisis acerca de carreras STEM a nivel de pregrado y grado que se imparten en el Departamento de Ciencias Naturales de la Sede de Occidente de la Universidad de Costa Rica durante el periodo 2000 a 2018. Resultados obtenidos evidencian que existe una disminución en la presencia de mujeres en las carreras analizadas, as ́ı como mayor efectividad en graduarse por parte de las mujeres cuando se enfrentan al reto académico de finalizar carreras STEM. Estos resultados sirven de motivación para potenciar su participación e incentivar su permanencia dentro de esta a ́rea.

Background: Monitoring of patients may decrease treatment costs and improve quality of care. Pain is the most common health problem that people seek help for in hospitals. Therefore, monitoring patients with pain may have significant impact in improving treatment. Several studies have studied factors affecting pain; however, no previous study has reviewed the contextual information that a monitoring system may capture to characterize a patient’s situation.

Objective: The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review to (1) determine what types of technologies have been used to monitor adults with pain, and (2) construct a model of the context information that may be used to implement apps and devices aimed at monitoring adults with pain. Methods: A literature search (2005-2015) was conducted in electronic databases pertaining to medical and computer science literature (PubMed, Science Direct, ACM Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore) using a defined search string. Article selection was done through a process of removing duplicates, analyzing title and abstract, and then reviewing the full text of the article.

Results: In the final analysis, 87 articles were included and 53 of them (61%) used technologies to collect contextual information. A total of 49 types of context information were found and a five-dimension (activity, identity, wellness, environment, physiological) model of context information to monitor adults with pain was proposed, expanding on a previous model. Most technological interfaces for pain monitoring were wearable, possibly because they can be used in more realistic contexts. Few studies focused on older adults, creating a relevant avenue of research on how to create devices for users that may have impaired cognitive skills or low digital literacy.

Conclusions: The design of monitoring devices and interfaces for adults with pain must deal with the challenge of selecting relevant contextual information to understand the user’s situation, and not overburdening or inconveniencing users with information requests. A model of contextual information may be used by researchers to choose possible contextual information that may be monitored during studies on adults with pain.

Elderly users are usually not the target of design of mobile applications, and they may have cognitive and physical difficulties. Mobile notifications may help them remember to use an application, promoting adoption and allowing them to become content providers. We developed a mobile application, QuestionReport, that asks users one question per day, and implemented two types of notifications: one that is activated at the same time each day, and one that is activated while using the smartphone. We tested both notification types with 18 users over a period of 8 days, measuring the time it took to answer the question after receiving the notification and their perceptions about each notification style. We found that the ideal time for users to receive a notification depends on their employment status and that users with low digital skills have less confidence in their abilities to use a mobile application such as QuestionReport.

The purpose of this report is to present the results of a work performed as part of the Fourth International Business Process Intelligence Challenge (BPIC ́14). This challenge provides a real life event log from Rabobank Netherlands Group ICT, a log that contains information related with service desk processes, including interaction, incident and change management. We show the analysis performed applying different tools, including a prediction analysis, impact patterns analysis, change process review and the use of process mining techniques to analyze process characteristics and team’s interaction. The results generated can be useful for Rabobank, providing them more knowledge about the incident and change management process, and also, bringing some insights that can help change implementation teams in their tasks related to improve their standard operation procedures.

El presente artículo describe la experiencia personal en el uso de Moodle en la carrera de Bachillerato en Informática Empresarial en la Sede de Occidente de la Universidad de Costa Rica. Se destaca aquí las facilidades que proporciona como una propuesta de evaluación emergente a través de diferentes funcionalidades tanto para la interacción con los estudiantes como las alternativas que ofrece a los procesos tradicionales de evaluación. Se busca además compartir los resultados y logros obtenidos con su uso a lo largo de los años en los diferentes cursos de la carrera.

Developing high levels of competence in the execution of surgical procedures through training is a key factor for obtaining good clinical results in healthcare. To improve the effectiveness of the training, it is advisable to provide feedback to each student tailored to how the student has performed the procedure on each occasion. Current state-of-the-art feedback is based on Checklists and Global Rating Scales, which indicate whether all process steps have been carried out and the quality of each execution step. However, there is a process perspective that is not captured successfully by these instruments, e.g., steps performed, but in an undesired order, group of activities that are repeated an unnecessary number of times, or an excessive transition time between two consecutive steps. In this research, we propose a novel use of process mining techniques to effectively identify desired and undesired process patterns regarding rework, the order in which activities are performed, and time performance, in order to complement the tailored feedback for surgical procedures using a process perspective. The proposed approach was applied to analyze a real case of ultrasound-guided Central Venous Catheter placement training. It was quantitatively and qualitatively validated that the students who participated in the training program perceived the process-oriented feedback they received as favorable for their learning.

Pain is usually measured through patient reports during doctor visits, but it requires regular evaluation under real-life conditions to be resolved effectively. Over half of older adults suffer from pain. Chronic conditions such as this one may be monitored through technology; however, elderly users require technology to be specifically designed for them, because many have cognitive and physical limitations and lack digital skills. The purpose of this article is to study whether mobile or wearable devices are appropriate to self-report pain levels and to find which body position is more appropriate for elderly people to wear a device to self-report pain. We implemented three prototypes and conducted two phases of evaluation. We found that users preferred the wearable device over the mobile application and that a wearable to self-report pain should be designed specifically for this purpose. Regarding the placement of the wearable, we found that there was no preferred position overall, although the neck position received the most positive feedback. We believe that the possibility of creating a wearable device that may be placed in different positions may be the best solution to satisfy users’ individual preferences.

Human posture and activity levels are indicators for assessing health and quality of life. Maintaining improper posture for an extended period of time can lead to health issues, e.g. improper alignment of the vertebrae and accelerated degenerative disc. This, in turn, can be the cause of back pain, neurological deterioration, deformity, and cosmetic issues. Some wearable prototypes have been proposed for spine posture monitoring, however, there has not been enough consideration for the users’ experience with these devices, to understand which characteristics are central to acceptance and long-term use. This paper presents a prototype of a low-cost spine posture wearable, along with its preliminary evaluation, which aims both to confirm that the wearable can measure spine posture and to evaluate user experience with this device. The results show that the wearable was comfortable, causing a sensation of security, and that feedback to users would be needed to help improve posture. Further work is required to make sure the device is easy to put on and remove, and discreet enough to be worn in public.