Let's talk: anthropomorphization as means to cope with stress of interacting with technical devices

This study is concerned with the anthropomorphization of technical devices and the resulting influence on human-machine interaction; a special focus is on the verbal interaction between human and machine. Questions included: why do people regard technical devices as humans, when do they do so and how do they perceive their own dialogue and other persons' dialogues with technical devices? Correlation coefficients were calculated between the amount of displayed anthropomorphism and subjects' personality structure, fear of technical devices and self-rated technical competency. A subsequent regression analysis revealed that extraversion and gender of the respondents significantly predicted the amount of interaction with technical devices. Regression analysis showed that neuroticism and agreeableness significantly predicted self-rated technical competency. Technical devices that were seen as helpers or friends were generally treated less unfriendly than devices perceived as merely tools. The findings are discussed in the context of emotion and stress at work and the usability of technical devices.     

Understanding age differences in PDA acceptance and performance

The present study addresses two basic determinants of technology utilization: the attitude towards a certain technology and the performance when using it. According to the technology acceptance model (TAM), perceived ease of use and usefulness are assumed to be strong determinants of the actual and successful utilization of technology. However, the relationship between the acceptance of technical devices and their successful utilization (i.e. performance) is not completely understood. In this study, users’ attitudes towards technology and their performance when interacting with a computer simulated PDA device were examined. Moreover, the moderating role of individual variables like age, gender, subjective technical confidence, and computer expertise in the relationship between technical performance and acceptance was analyzed. The results showed significant associations between performance and TAM factors. However, this interrelation was much stronger for the older group, especially between performance and the ease of use. The factors computer expertise and technical self-confidence played a minor role. Gender effects on technical self-confidence and TAM factors were identified, although they did not affect performance. Future research should focus on training formats for the older age group, which facilitate a successful interaction with technical devices.     

Interacting with proactive public displays

In this paper we describe the design and architecture of an adaptive proactive environment in which information, which reflects the communal interests of current inhabitants, is proactively displayed on large-scale public displays. Adaptation is achieved through implicit communication between the environment and personal sensor devices worn by users. These devices, called Pendle, serve two purposes: they store and make available to the environment user preferences, and they allow users to override the environment's proactive behavior by means of simple gestures. The result is a smooth integration of environment-controlled interaction (experienced by the user as implicit interaction, triggered by their presence) and user-controlled explicit interaction. Initial results show that user-controlled adaptation leads to an engaging user experience that is unobtrusive and not distracting.     

支持移动设备接入Gnutella网络的代理架构研究

针对当前移动设备无法加入Gnutella网络实现文件共享网络的现状,提出一种移动代理Gnutella网络架构的设计方案。利用移动代理作为移动设备的代理加入Gnutella网络,帮助移动设备实现文件的共享功能。架构能有效地减少移动设备的信息流量,并支持移动设备在Gnutella网络中实现可移动性。     

Effects of stress and effort on self-rated reports in experimental study of design activities

This paper investigates the relationships between subjective rating measure and physiological measure of mental stress and mental effort during design activities. Mental stress and mental effort were captured by skin conductance and EEG beta2 power (20–30 Hz) whereas self-rated mental stress and self-rated mental effort were obtained using the NASA Task Load Index. A strong association between self-rated effort and EEG beta2 power was found in several design tasks. The analysis shows that self-rating is by itself a mental activity which may be affected by psychological stress and may be influenced by the amount of cognitive effort allocated. Researchers who rely on subjective rating should take into account the stress and effort of respondents during the rating activities to ensure the validity of the self-report measures. The study also demonstrated that design tasks induced mental stress that continued to stay above the baseline even after the tasks were completed.     

Impact of Parenthood,Informal Caregiving and its Combination on Self-Rated Health - a Population-Based Study in Switzerland

In view of the lack of representative longitudinal studies comparing the effect of different caregiving situations on self-rated health, we aim to study the effect of parenting underage children and informal caregiving with or without children on self-rated health at baseline and one year later and whether this effect differs between the sexes. Sex-stratified linear mixed models were performed to assess the effect of different informal caregiving situations on self-rated health at baseline and one year later, using data from the Swiss Labor Force Survey. In Switzerland, the percentage of informal caregivers with and without children is low and has been decreasing since 1997. Informal male caregivers with and without children reported significantly worse health at baseline, whereas no significant difference was found for informal female caregivers. Mothers and fathers (defined as living with underage child(ren) in the same household) without informal caregiving responsibilities reported slightly better health compared to non-caregivers. The caregiving situation did not affect the general decline in self-rated health for women, whereas fathers reported significantly worse and informal male caregivers significantly better health one year later compared to the change in self-rated health among non-caregivers. Being parent, informal caregiving and the combination of both have a substantial impact on self-rated health at baseline and one year later. The effects however differ between men and women as well as between caregiving roles. More population-based studies investigating the effect of informal caregiving on health outcomes among both sexes are needed.     

Configuring and controlling ubiquitous computing infrastructure with semantic connections: a tangible and an AR approach

In the transition from a device-oriented paradigm toward a more task-oriented paradigm with increased interoperability, people are struggling with inappropriate user interfaces, competing standards, technical incompatibilities, and other difficulties. The current handles for users to explore, make, and break connections between devices seem to disappear in overly complex menu structures displayed on small screens. This paper tackles the problem of establishing connections between devices in a smart home environment, by introducing an interaction model that we call semantic connections. Two prototypes are demonstrated that introduce both a tangible and an augmented reality approach toward exploring, making, and breaking connections. In the augmented reality approach, connections between real-world objects are visualized by displaying visible lines and icons from a mobile device containing a pico projector. In the tangible approach, objects in the environment are tagged and can be scanned and interacted with, to explore connection possibilities, and manipulate the connections. We discuss the technical implementation of a pilot study setup used to evaluate both our interaction approaches. We conclude the paper with the results of a user study that shows how the interaction approaches influence the mental models users construct after interacting with our setup.     

Human interaction with IoT-based smart environments

This paper describes concepts, design, implementation, and performance evaluation of a 3D-based user interface for accessing IoT-based Smart Environments (IoT-SE). The generic interaction model of the described work addresses some major challenges of Human-IoT-SE-Interaction such as cognitive overload associated with manual device selection in complex IoT-SE, loss of user control, missing system image or over-automation. To address these challenges we propose a 3D-based mobile interface for mixed-initiative interaction in IoT-SE. The 3D visualization and 3D UI, acting as the central feature of the system, create a logical link between physical devices and their virtual representation on the end user’s mobile devices. By so doing, the user can easily identify a device within the environment based on its position, orientation, and form, and access the identified devices through the 3D interface for direct manipulation within the scene. This overcomes the problem of manual device selection. In addition, the 3D visualization provides a system image for the IoT-SE, which supports users in understanding the ambience and things going on in it. Furthermore, the mobile interface allows users to control the amount and the way the IoT-SE automates the environment. For example, users can stop or postpone system triggered automatic actions, if they don’t like or want them. Users also can remove a rule forever. By so doing, users can delete smart behaviors of their IoT-SE. This helps to overcome the automation challenges. In this paper, we present the design, implementation and evaluation of the proposed interaction system. We chose smart meeting rooms as the context for prototyping and evaluating our interaction concepts. However, the presented concepts and methods are generic and could be adapted to similar environments such as smart homes. We conducted a subjective usability evaluation (ISO-Norm 9241/110) with 16 users. All in one the study results indicate that the proposed 3D-User Interface achieved a good high score according to the ISO-Norm scores.     

Human centred design of 3-D interaction devices to control virtual environments

It is commonly acknowledged that user needs should drive design, but often technical influences prevail. Currently, there are no standard interaction devices or interfaces used in 3-D environments, and there is a lack of specific best practice guidelines to develop these. This paper discusses the process of collecting feedback on prototype designs for VR/VE interaction devices from both expert users and non-expert users, and demonstrates how the information gained from human centred evaluation can be used to further the design process. Experiment 1 examined the usability of two magnetically tracked interaction devices with three different types of menus (Sphere, Linear and Fan). Quantitative and qualitative analysis was carried out on the results, and usability problems with the menus and devices are discussed. The findings from this experiment were translated into general design guidance, in addition to specific recommendations. A new device was designed on the basis of some of these recommendations and its usability was evaluated in Experiment 2. Feedback from participants in Experiment 2 demonstrated that the design recommendations emerging from Experiment 1 were successfully applied to develop a more usable and acceptable device.     

Interacting with mouse and touch devices on horizontal interactive displays

This article presents and discusses findings on collaborative interaction on horizontal interactive displays using touch and mouse input devices. Tabletop interaction environments are suitable for small computer-supported group collaboration, and usually allow for concurrent interaction by multiple users. The appropriate support of interaction on horizontal interactive displays is crucial to the successful design and adoption of digital tabletops for work, education and entertainment. A study was conducted investigating interactions of users on tabletops operating with mouse and touch input devices, and shedding light on the differences and commonalities from different perspectives. This laboratory study was designed to allow for as much ecological validity and to provide good experimental control at the same time. The study builds on the standard digital puzzle, or mosaic task, by adding a hidden or implicit task, for the participants to discover and work on. Without solving the hidden task, participants were not able to solve the primary puzzle task. This approach was chosen to trigger spontaneous and natural collaborative work amongst the participants in the lab setting. The analysis of the interaction is based on system-logged interaction data, questionnaires and observations focused on the participants’ selection and usage of input devices during the task execution. The study revealed, amongst others, that participants did not change their initially preferred input device even when they became more engaged in coordination and communication with their partner during the course of the study.     

Contracting With Uncertain Level Of Trust

The paper investigates the impact of trust on market efficiency and bilateral contracts. We prove that a market in which agents are trusted to the degree they deserve to be trusted is as efficient as a market with complete trustworthiness. In other words, complete trustworthiness is not a necessary condition for market efficiency. We prove that distrust could significantly reduce market efficiency, and we show how to solve the problem by using appropriately designed multiagent contracts. The problem of trust is studied in the context of a bilateral negotiation game between a buyer and a seller. It is shown that if the seller's trust equals the buyer's trustworthiness, then the social welfare, the amount of trade, and the agents' utility functions are maximized. The paper also studies the efficiency of advance payment contracts as a tool for improving trustworthiness. It is proved that advance payment contracts maximize the social welfare and the amount of trade. Finally, the paper studies the problem of how to make agents truthfully reveal their level of trustworthiness. An incentive–compatible contract is defined, in which agents do not benefit from lying about their trustworthiness. The analysis and the solutions proposed in this paper could help agent designers avoid many market failures and produce efficient interaction mechanisms.     

Toward Data-Driven Digital Therapeutics Analytics: Literature Review and Research Directions

With the advent of digital therapeutics(DTx), the development of software as a medical device(SaMD) for mobile and wearable devices has gained significant attention in recent years. Existing DTx evaluations, such as randomized clinical trials, mostly focus on verifying the effectiveness of DTx products.To acquire a deeper understanding of DTx engagement and behavioral adherence, beyond efficacy, a large amount of contextual and interaction data from mobile and wearable devices during field deplo...     

Exploring factors influencing multitasking interaction with multiple smart devices

The intention of this study is to investigate multitasking interaction with multiple smart devices and to unveil factors that play important roles in multitasking scenarios. A survey was carried out and 240 respondents participated whose scores ultimately demonstrated the degree of influence of various items on multitasking interaction with multiple smart devices. Then an exploratory factor analysis was conducted and a seven-factor model named MINDCOS was derived, including Motivation, Input, Navigation and control, Display screen, Cognitive workload, Output, Spatial distribution. The model was utilized to describe the scenario of multitasking interaction with multiple smart devices and the top three factors which illustrated the total variance the most were used to analyze related applications. Then the relationship between the factors and perceived behavior intention of multitasking interaction was tested by regression analysis. This study also found whether users had multitasking experience had a significant impact on their perceived influence of two factors which are Navigation and control and Output.     

Data analytics competency for improving firm decision making performance

This study develops and validates the concept of Data Analytics Competency as a five multidimensional formative index (i.e., data quality, bigness of data, analytical skills, domain knowledge, and tools sophistication) and empirically examines its impact on firm decision making performance (i.e., decision quality and decision efficiency). The findings based on an empirical analysis of survey data from 151 Information Technology managers and data analysts demonstrate a large, significant, positive relationship between data analytics competency and firm decision making performance. The results reveal that all dimensions of data analytics competency significantly improve decision quality. Furthermore, interestingly, all dimensions, except bigness of data, significantly increase decision efficiency. This is the first known empirical study to conceptualize, operationalize and validate the concept of data analytics competency and to study its impact on decision making performance. The validity of the data analytics competency construct as conceived and operationalized, suggests the potential for future research evaluating its relationships with possible antecedents and consequences. For practitioners, the results provide important guidelines for increasing firm decision making performance through the use of data analytics.     

Crowd enabled curation and querying of large and noisy text mined protein interaction data

The abundance of mined, predicted and uncertain biological data warrant massive, efficient and scalable curation efforts. The human expertise required for any successful curation enterprise is often economically prohibitive, especially for speculative end user queries that ultimately may not bear fruit. So the challenge remains in devising a low cost engine capable of delivering fast but tentative annotation and curation of a set of data items that can later be authoritatively validated by experts demanding significantly smaller investment. The aim thus is to make a large volume of predicted data available for use as early as possible with an acceptable degree of confidence in their accuracy while the curation continues. In this paper, we present a novel approach to annotation and curation of biological database contents using crowd computing. The technical contribution is in the identification and management of trust of mechanical turks, and support for ad hoc declarative queries, both of which are leveraged to enable reliable analytics using noisy predicted interactions. While the proposed approach and the CrowdCure system are designed for literature mined protein-protein interaction data curation, they are amenable to substantial generalization.     

Exploring casual point-and-tilt interactions for mobile geo-blogging

People record and share their experiences through text, audio and video. Increasingly they do this blogging from mobile devices. We illustrate a novel, mobile, low interaction cost approach to support the creation of a rich record of journeys made and places encountered: by pointing and tilting a mobile, users indicate their interests in a location. We built three mobile prototypes to explore the approach—the first one combines gestures and visual map feedback; the second provides a simpler visual interface; the third supports eyes-free interaction, allowing the user to simply point-and-tilt, with no visual display required. We describe two field studies undertaken to understand the value of the interaction styles afforded, then continue with a further user study to assess the interaction speed and accuracy between these interaction methods. We present the results of these studies and raise issues relevant to their design and to the wider class of devices and services concerned with mobile spatial information access.     

Constrained temporal structure for text-dependent speaker verification

In the context of mobile devices, speaker recognition engines may suffer from ergonomic constraints and limited amount of computing resources. Even if they prove their efficiency in classical contexts, GMM/UBM systems show their limitations when restricting the quantity of speech data. In contrast, the proposed GMM/UBM extension addresses situations characterised by limited enrolment data and only the computing power typically found on modern mobile devices. A key contribution comes from the harnessing of the temporal structure of speech using client-customised pass-phrases and new Markov model structures. Additional temporal information is then used to enhance discrimination with Viterbi decoding, increasing the gap between client and imposter scores. Experiments on the MyIdea database are presented with a standard GMM/UBM configuration acting as a benchmark. When imposters do not know the client pass-phrase, a relative gain of up to 65% in terms of EER is achieved over the GMM/UBM baseline configuration. The results clearly highlight the potential of this new approach, with a good balance between complexity and recognition accuracy.     

基于岗位胜任力的高职计算机网络专业人才培养模式实践与探索

随着计算机网络技术飞速发展,各种新技术、新产品、新应用层出不穷。面对新形势、新挑战,国内许多高职院校都在人才培养和课程体系建设中积极探索、大胆改革,但在高职计算机网络专业人才培养与企业岗位胜任力之间还存在着一定的差距,因此实行基于岗位胜任力的人才培养势在必行。本文通过分析计算机网络专业建设的现状及存在的问题,从而进行岗位胜任力分析与模型构建,构建"四双一多"培养模式,提高学生核心竞争力,为社会培养具备岗位胜任力的高素质技术技能人才。     

OmniStore: Automating data management in a personal system comprising several portable devices

The ever growing amount of data generated and consumed on the move using portable devices gives rise to serious data management issues. The fact that each person may own and is likely to carry several such devices further aggravates this problem. On the other hand, new opportunities for achieving cleverer device interaction emerge due to the increased wireless networking capabilities of wearable and portable devices. This paper introduces OmniStore, a system that combines portable devices and infrastructure-based services to relieve the user from explicit and time consuming file management tasks. Our approach is to let devices communicate with each other as well as with a repository service, in an opportunistic and asynchronous fashion, to perform a variety of file movement and copying actions behind the scenes, which would have typically required considerable explicit user interaction.     

Similar products different processes: Exploring the orchestration of digital resources in a primary school project

Today, teachers and pupils are interacting with digital devices during different types of activities in the classroom context. During such activities, dialogic interaction has a particular value as a pedagogical practice that helps to develop pupils' understanding. This study has explored the question: In what ways do digital resources support dialogic and synergistic interaction?In order to explore primary school pupils' interaction within group activity and how they make use of the features of the laptops, the empirical material was collected through video recordings and further analysed with the interactivity analysis framework (IAF) developed by Beauchamp and Kennewell (2010). The findings show that although the products produced by the different groups of pupils were similar in a technological way (i.e. the pupils used the same modes of expression), the patterns of interaction during the group processes varied. Two out of six groups used the digital resource as an 'object of interaction', where the tool had a more passive role during the group collaboration. The other four groups used the ICT resource as a 'tool for interaction', where the resource became more of an interaction partner during the meaning-making processes, which opened up opportunities for learning. The findings also indicate that the interplay in these four groups between the group members and the laptop features seems to have developed the pupils' understanding of ICT resources as well as their understanding of the subject content during the group work. Synergistic interaction with ICT was rather rare but was observed in one of the groups.