Museum gives visitors a ‘smart’ experience

Smart card technology is being used in an Austrian museum to offer visitors individually-tailored and interactive ways of experiencing the exhibition.This is a short news story only. Visit www.compseconline.com for the latest computer security industry news.     

Why ‘GSA: a gravitational search algorithm’ is not genuinely based on the law of gravity

This letter highlights a fundamental inconsistency in the formulation of the Gravitational search algorithm (GSA) (Rashedi et al., Inf Sci 2232?C48, 2009). GSA is said to be based on the law of gravity, that is, candidate solutions attract each other in the search space based on their relative distances and ??masses?? (qualities). We show that, contrary to what is claimed, GSA does not take the distances between solutions into account, and therefore cannot be considered to be based on the law of gravity.     

A modal contrastive logic: The logic of ‘but’

In this paper we present a modal approach to contrastive logic, the logic of contrasts as these appear in natural language conjunctions such as but. We use a simple modal logic, which is an extension of the well-knownS5 logic, and base the contrastive operators proposed by Francez in [2] on the basic modalities that appear in this logic. We thus obtain a logic for contrastive operators that is more in accord with the tradition of intensional logic, and that, moreover — we argue — has some more natural properties. Particularly, attention is paid to nesting contrastive operators. We show that nestings of but give quite natural results, and indicate how nestings of other contrastive operators can be done adequately. Finally, we discuss the example of the Hangman's Paradox and some similarities (and differences) with default reasoning. But but us no buts, as they say.Also partially supported by Nijmegen University, Toernooiveld, 6525 ED Nijmegen, The Netherlands.     

Breaking the walls of social exclusion of women rural by means of ICTs: The case of ‘digital divides’ in Galician

This paper examines the digital divides for women in rural areas within the Information Society, referring particularly to the Galician experience (Autonomous Region in the North West of Spain). In order to explore the barriers to social and labor exclusion it was elaborated a survey relating with the use and impact of ITC in social and labor experiences of rural women. The results showed that rural women are aware of the key role played for ITC on their way to achieve the participation on decision making process as well as in social life and labor. The main barriers to the Internet penetration in women social life were employment, education and income. From an individual point of view, the existence of non-users was explained by a combination of access problems, lack of ICT skills or rather negative attitudes towards ITC. Finally, a bunch of policy recommendations is proposed focus on providing better Internet access in rural areas and to sensitize the population, particularly the oldest, about the importance of gender equality in access to technology in order to avoid digital barriers for rural women and reduce social exclusion of this group.     

The Deceptive Safety of RTF Files: A breach in a system’s safety is not the biggest threat posed by RTF files

RTF (Rich Text Format), as presented to many users, is considered to be a so-called universal remedy against obtrusive macro-viruses and any other sort of malicious code. Numerous anti-virus companies categorically recommend not accepting any standard MS Word (DOC) files. It is true that RTF files cannot contain a macro-program (macros) in basic form — in the instance of conversion by standard means from other formats, the macros are automatically deleted — however, this same RTF feature has a flip side to it: users are lulled into a false sense of security, ignoring the basic principles of safety when working with RTF documents.     

‘The Standard Logic for Z’: A Clarification

Some clarification is made of a recent article in Formal Aspects of Computing [Hen98]. Specifically, it is noted that the inconsistency found is in a draft logic, which is clearly unfinished. The latest news of the position of the Z Standards Panel on a logic for Z is given.     

The sense of ‘thinking’

It will be found that the great majority, given the premiss that thought is not distinct from corporeal motion, take a much more rational line and maintain that thought is the same in the brutes as in us, since they observe all sorts of corporeal motions in them, just as in us. And they will add that the difference, which is merely one of degree, does not imply any essential difference; from this they will be quite justified in concluding that, although there may be a smaller degree of reason in the beasts than there is in us, the beasts possess minds which are of exactly the same type as ours. (Descartes 1642: 288–289.)     

Effects of breaks on regaining vitality at work: An empirical comparison of ‘conventional’ and ‘smart phone’ breaks

Recently, the popularity of smart phones has brought about changes in how people work and take breaks. This paper focuses on whether taking a break with a smart phones (e.g., browsing the internet or using social network services) has a different association with regaining vitality after ‘conventional breaks’ (e.g., walking or chatting face to face with friends). We surveyed a total of 450 workers in Korea with a diary questionnaire to see if there were differences in the effects of breaks via two theoretical paths of association: positively in terms of vigor and negatively in terms of emotional exhaustion. Empirical results show that psychological detachments by breaks, independent of break modes, did increase vigor and reduce emotional exhaustion, consistent with the existing literature. However, we also found that the effects, particularly in reducing emotional exhaustion, were significantly lower for the smart phone break group versus the conventional group. We discuss some theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

The Bible as a Parallel Corpus: Annotating the ‘Book of 2000 Tongues’

We report on a project to annotate biblical texts in order to create an aligned multilingual Bible corpus for linguistic research, particularly computational linguistics, including automatically creating and evaluating translation lexicons and semantically tagged texts. The output of this project will enable researchers to take advantage of parallel translations across a wider number of languages than previously available, providing, with relatively little effort, a corpus that contains careful translations and reliable alignment at the near-sentence level. We discuss the nature of the text, our annotation process, preliminary and planned uses for the corpus, and relevant aspects of the Corpus Encoding Standard (CES) with respect to this corpus. We also present a quantitative comparison with dictionary and corpus resources for modern-day English, confirming the relevance of this corpus for research on present day language.     

The effect of ‘ unwanted’ signals on performance in a vigilance task: a reply to Jerison

Jerison's remarks (Ergonomics, 1966, 9, 413) are discussed in relation to the results of a further experiment on ' unwanted ' signals in which (a) the original interaction between the effects of signal probability and signal disc location was not observed, and (b) it was demonstrated that a search requirement is not a necessary condition for eliciting the main effects previously found.     

‘Real’ information is not flat – and why it matters

We consider Luciano Floridi's proposal for a structural realism based on an Informational Structural Realism which, as he describes in his book (p. 339): ‘As a form of realism … is committed to the existence of a mind-independent reality addressed by, and constraining knowledge’. In doing this, we inform and reform aspects of the argument within a mathematical and, specifically, computability theoretic context.     

The acceptance of ‘intelligent trade shows’: Visitors’ evaluations of IS innovation

Trade Shows (TSs) provide “high-quality information,” as thousands of specialists and experts are gathered in one place at one time. Thus, information technology systems become essential for TSs. This study explores the characteristics of TSs’ onsite Information Technology (IT). This study aim to explore the relationships among onsite IT usage, visitors’ effectiveness and perception through the innovation characteristics (i.e., relative advantage, compatibility, and complexity). The study was conducted at a representative TS in Korea and used a survey approach to empirically understand the perception of onsite IT usage. The findings suggest that the four characteristics of product intelligence are influential factors of TSs’ onsite IT. Among them, relative advantage and compatibility had positive impacts on TS effectiveness, while complexity did not. In addition, discussions of the results, theoretical and practical implications for practitioners, limitations, and suggestions for future studies are presented.     

The ‘Oxylog’: an evaluation

Abstract

The Oxylog is a portable instrument designed to measure the oxygen consumption ([Vdot]0₂) an ambulatory subject. Steady-state measurements have been made, using an Oxylog, of inspiratory volume ( [Vdot]₁) [Vdot]0₂ during bicycle ergometer exercise at work rates ranging from 30 to 150 W. These measurements have been compared with simultaneous measurements of expiratory volume ([Vdot] _E) and [Vdot]O₂ made using a dry gas meter and mass spectrometer.

Four experiments were conducted, during which a total of 433 comparative measurements were made. In two experiments the Oxylog significantly underestimated [Vdot]O₂ (by 4-4 and 5-6%). Averaging over the four experiments, however, the underestimate reduced to 1-5%, which could be accounted for by a respiratory exchange ratio of approximately 0-9. There was, overall, no significant difference between [Vdot] ₁ and [Vdot] _E.

It is concluded that the Oxylog is sufficiently accurate for the reliable determination of [Vdot]0₂ and of energy expenditure under field conditions.     

The only duty we owe to history is to rewrite it: reflections on Bob Galliers’ article ‘A discipline for a stage?’

In an opinion paper in the preceding issue of the European Journal of Information Systems, history is used to illustrate some differences in the research plot and performance of the Information Systems field. In this response, history is rewritten to show that the differences are natural, even to be welcomed, and that an understanding of their origins is sufficient for peace to break out and for harmony to be the natural state.     

The ‘Cash-Point’ Service: A Verification Case Study Using STeP

STeP, the Stanford Temporal Prover, supports the computer-aided formal verification of concurrent and reactive systems based on temporal specifications [MBB99]. Automated model checking is combined with computer-aided deductive methods to allow for the verification of a broad class of systems, including parameterised (N-component) circuit designs, parameterised (N-process) programs, and programs with infinite data domains. Received February 2000 / Accepted in revised form December 2000     

The extended ‘chilling’ effect of Facebook: The cold reality of ubiquitous social networking

Prior research has established the phenomenon of the ‘Chilling Effect’ where people constrain the self they present online due to peer-to-peer surveillance on Social Network Sites (SNS). However currently uninvestigated is the possibility that the threat of such surveillance on these sites might constrain the self presented offline in ‘reality’, known here as ‘the extended chilling effect’. The purpose of this study is to examine the existence of this ‘extended chilling effect’. Drawing on theories of self-awareness and self-presentation, the impact of surveillance in SNS is theorized to lead to an awareness of online audiences in offline domains, stimulating a self-comparison process that results in impression management. A mixed methods study of semi-structured interviews (n = 28) and a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment (n = 80), provides support for offline impression management in order to avoid an undesired image being projected to online audiences. The novel finding that the chilling effect has extended highlights the potential dangers of online peer-to-peer surveillance for autonomy and freedom of expression in our offline lives.