The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of far-infrared (FIR) rays on the meridian in hemodialysis (HD) patients. End-stage renal disease or kidney failure is the last stage of chronic renal failure, and often implies that the renal function cannot be restored and HD or kidney transplantation is required as a life-saving measure. HD patients often feel sick, debilitated, demotivated, and sad. A quasi-experimental design was conducted using convenience sampling with 61 HD patients from a hemodialysis center. Meridian testing and Brief Fatigue Inventory-Taiwan Form (BFI-T) were used as screening test for HD. The experimental group (n = 36) received FIR irradiation on each acupoint for 30 min, thrice a week, for two months, whereas the control group (n = 25) received no intervention. The outcome measures included meridian equipment, the level of hemoglobin (Hb), albumin, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine (CRE), and BFI-T. Ryodoraku values reveal a significant increase (p < 0.05) in the left small intestine meridian, left large intestine meridian, and yin-yang ratio. Overall, the increase in the meridians of the patients of experimental group is significantly higher than that of the control group. The results establish that FIR treatment on Qihai (RN 6), Guanyuan (RN 4), Zhongji (RN 3), and Tianshu (ST 25) is effective. Based on these findings, one can believe that FIR regulates the Qi of the kidney. The findings of this study would help doctors effectively dealing with thermal therapy treatment of HD patients.

Distance education has experienced profound changes due to the introduction of new technologies, especially mobile devices of different types. It is necessary to define new learning techniques which are able to capture students 'attention and to engage them in their learning activities, reducing problems like distraction generated by the use ofthe device itself and/or by the surrounding environment. Game-based learning is a valuable possibility. The excursion-game has been recently proposed to support pupils learning history during visits to historical sites: its goal is to make the visit and the overall experience of cultural heritage more engaging. This paper describes the approach followed in the design ofthe system implementing the excursion-game: it takes into account an end-user development perspective in order to allow domain experts, i.e., experts in history and cultural heritage, contributing to design excursion-games for a wide set of historical sites.

Information Security Awareness, though known as a primary and important issue in the domain of Information Security, CSI computer crime and security survey showed poor security awareness training in public and private sectors. In many studies, the authors have found that the usage of knowledge maps helps the process of learning and conception building. Therefore, the authors have tried to figure out if the implementation of knowledge maps on the training materials of Information Security Awareness will improve the learning performance. Based on the e-learning materials for E-Mail Information Security Awareness, the authors designed them in the format of knowledge maps and compared the learning performance with common browsing-based materials. The results showed the knowledge map-based materials lead to higher learning performance than browse-based ones.