Medication errors are one of the most common causes of patient injuries in healthcare systems. Poor labelling has been identified as a contributing factor of medication errors, particularly for those involving injectable drugs. Colour coding and colour differentiation are two major techniques being used on labels to aid drug identification. However, neither approach has been scientifically proven to minimize the occurrence of or harm from medication errors. This thesis investigates potential effects of different approaches for using colour on standardized labels on the task of identifying a specific drug from a storage area via a controlled experiment involving human users. Three different ways of using colour were compared: labels where only black, white and grey are used; labels where a unique colour scheme adopted from an existing manufacturer’s label is applied to each drug; colour coded labels based on the product’s strength level within the product line. The results show that people might be vulnerable to confusion from drugs that have look-alike labels and also have look-alike, sound-alike drug names. In particular, when each drug label had a fairly unique colour scheme, participants were more prone to misperceive the look-alike, sound-alike drug name as the correct drug name than when no colour was used or when colour was used on the labels with no apparent one-to-one association between the label colour and the drug identity. This result could suggest a perceptual bias to perceive stimuli as the expected stimuli especially when the task involved is familiar and the stimuli look similar to the expected stimuli. Moreover, the results suggest a potential problem that may arise from standardizing existing labels if careful consideration is not given to the effects of reduced visual variations among the labels of different products on how the colours of the labels are perceived and used for drug identification. The thesis concludes with recommendations for improving the existing standard for labelling of injectable drug containers and for avoiding medication errors due to labelling and packaging in general.

Medication errors are one of the most common causes of patient injuries in healthcare systems. Poor labelling has been identified as a contributing factor of medication errors, particularly for those involving injectable drugs. Colour coding and colour differentiation are two major techniques being used on labels to aid drug identification. However, neither approach has been scientifically proven to minimize the occurrence of or harm from medication errors. This thesis investigates potential effects of different approaches for using colour on standardized labels on the task of identifying a specific drug from a storage area via a controlled experiment involving human users. Three different ways of using colour were compared: labels where only black, white and grey are used; labels where a unique colour scheme adopted from an existing manufacturer’s label is applied to each drug; colour coded labels based on the product’s strength level within the product line. The results show that people might be vulnerable to confusion from drugs that have look-alike labels and also have look-alike, sound-alike drug names. In particular, when each drug label had a fairly unique colour scheme, participants were more prone to misperceive the look-alike, sound-alike drug name as the correct drug name than when no colour was used or when colour was used on the labels with no apparent one-to-one association between the label colour and the drug identity. This result could suggest a perceptual bias to perceive stimuli as the expected stimuli especially when the task involved is familiar and the stimuli look similar to the expected stimuli. Moreover, the results suggest a potential problem that may arise from standardizing existing labels if careful consideration is not given to the effects of reduced visual variations among the labels of different products on how the colours of the labels are perceived and used for drug identification. The thesis concludes with recommendations for improving the existing standard for labelling of injectable drug containers and for avoiding medication errors due to labelling and packaging in general.

The aim of this thesis was to explore the spatiality’s affect on refugee’s sense of safety in the Osire refugee settlement in Namibia. The gathered empirics together with previous research and theories should lead to a design for a spatial information system. The system should contribute to peoples’ understanding of their environments’ whole structure as well as showing the way to the health centre and the police station, thus increasing their sense of psychological and physical safety. A wish was also to breathe life into the point of intersection of spatial information design and human science. The methods used to enable this were first and foremost a field study in the settlement to experience and acquire first-hand information. In addition observation, introspection and several interviews were conducted. As a result I established safety to be an issue that could be solved with spatial design. Refugees expressed that not knowing your environment or finding your way leaves you scared, uncomfortable and confused. With the use of a spatial information system safety can literally be created, as demonstrated in the design proposal. The conclusion is that much could be done to spatially solve complex issues as long as it’s addressed from that perspective.

Submitted for the fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts In the Department of IsiZulu Namagugu at the University of Zululand, 2002. / The topic of this thesis is informed by the writer's observation of the trend wherein modemist and traditionalist Zulu women tend to wear. as style, colourfully beaded outfits to decorate their fashion and wear. The colourful regalia is found in ceremonial dress, like isidwaba (cow-hide skirt) and other forms of dress made of cloth and textile. and decorated in beads. The decoration. as observed, is often designed to fit in a particular mode of interpretation, thus promoting the notion of fashion as form of communication interaction and definition of status. It is the hypothesis of the present writer that beads. designed and patterned in a specific way tend not only to communicate certain literal and figurative or poetic meanings, but also to declare fashion as a medium of communication, very much like ordinary speech does. In the context of this thesis Zulu womens' beadwork is a form of colour coding, literary and poetic speech communication and a declaration of fashion as a medium of social interaction, status, and social display. Thus, wearing their colourfully designed beadwork and fashion, Zulu women are always highly visible and recognisable. The thesis is thus confined to introducing the angle of fashion as statement and medium of literary and poetic communication in the creation of the modem and traditional status of a Zulu woman through beadwork. Colourcoding is key because the power of beadwork to communicateThe focus on Zulu Women is for the sake of creating a focus group of study and more so due to the observation by the present writer that in the context of modemist and traditionalist Zulu society, real or imaginary, it is women who wear more beads compared, to any other social group. meaningfully very much depends on the design and patteming of colours.

Colour coding is seen in various forms throughout different types of media and in reallife. This study focuses on what effect colour coded visuals can have on a player in avideo game, using lights and environments deliberately coloured in a specific way togain the players attention. Results suggest that colour coding aids the player inunderstanding where to go in the game and what something means. Participantsexpressing their ability to traverse levels in the game with ease thanks to theirunderstanding of what a colour may imply. The participants selected for the test havevaried in skill, age and gender to avoid any form of bias. Further prevention of biaswas done through the between-subjects method where the subjects always started on arandom level. / Färgkodning ses i olika former inom media och verkliga livet. Denna studie fokuserarpå vad för effekt färgkodade visuella element kan ha på en spelare i ett videospel, medhjälp av ljus och miljö i ett videospel med avsiktlig färgkodning för att vägledaspelaren och fånga dennes uppmärksamhet. Resultaten föreslår att färgkodning hjälperspelaren att förstå vart de ska gå i datorspelet, samt vad något betyder. Deltagare anseratt deras förmåga att ta sig igenom spelets nivåer var enkelt tack vare deras förståelseav vad en färg kan antyda. Deltagarna valda för studien varierade i förmåga, ålder ochkön för att förhindra någon form av partiskhet. Vidare förebyggande av partiskhetgjordes via mellan-deltagare metoden, där deltagare startade på en slumpad nivå.

An integrating approach, including knowledge about whole systems of processes, is essential in order to reach both development and environmental protection goals. In this thesis Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are suggested as a tool to realise such integrated models. The main hypothesis in this work is that several natural technical and social systems that share a time-space can be compared and analysed in a GIS. My first objective was to analyze how GIS can support research, planning, and, more specifically, bring a broad scattering of competence together in an interdisciplinary process. In this process GIS was ivestigated as a tool to achieve models that give us a better overview of a problem, a better understanding for the processes involved, aid in foreseeing conflicts between interests, find ecological limits and assist in choosing countermeasures and monitor the result of different programs. The second objective concerns the requirement that models should be comparable and possible to include in other models and that they can be communicated to planners, politicians and the public. For this reason the possibilities to communicate the result and model components of multidimensional and multi-temporal data are investigated. Four examples on the possibilities and problems when using GIS in interdisciplinary studies are presented. In the examples, water plays a central role as a component in questions about development, management and environmental impact. The first articles focus on non-point source pollutants as a problem under growing attention when the big industrial and municipal point sources are brought under control. To manage non-point source pollutants, detailed knowledge about local conditions is required to facilitate precise advices on land use. To estimate the flow of metals and N(itrogen) in an area it is important to identify the soil moisture. Soil moisture changes over time but also significantly in the landscape according to several factors. Here a method is presented that calculate soil moisture over large areas. Man as a hydrologie factor has to be assessed to also understand the relative importance of anthropogen processes. To offer a supplement to direct measurements and add anthropogen factors, a GIS model is presented that takes soil-type, topography, vegetation, land-use, agricultural drainage and relative position in the watershed into account. A method to analyse and visualise development over time and space in the same model is presented in the last empirical study. The development of agricultural drainage can be discussed as a product of several forces here analyzed together and visualized with help of colour coded "Hyper pixels" and maps. Finally a discussion concerning the physiological and psychological possibilities to communicate multidimensional phenomena with the help of pictures and maps is held. The main conclusions in this theses are that GIS offer the possibilities to develop distributed models, e.g., models that calculate effects from a vide range of factors in larger areas and with a much higher spatial resolution than has been possible earlier. GIS also offer a possibility to integrate and communicate information from different disciplines to scientists, decision makers and the public. / <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 1993, härtill 6 uppsatser.</p> / digitalisering@umu