Using trust assumptions with security requirements

Assumptions are frequently made during requirements analysis of a system about the trustworthiness of its various components (including human components). These trust assumptions, whether implicit or explicit, affect the scope of the analysis, derivation of security requirements, and in some cases how functionality is realized. This paper presents trust assumptions in the context of analysis of security requirements. A running example shows how trust assumptions can be used by a requirements engineer to help define and limit the scope of analysis and to document the decisions made during the process. The paper concludes with a case study examining the impact of trust assumptions on software that uses the secure electronic transaction specification.

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Protecting business intelligence and customer privacy while outsourcing data mining tasks

Nowadays data mining plays an important role in decision making. Since many organizations do not possess the in-house expertise of data mining, it is beneficial to outsource data mining tasks to external service providers. However, most organizations hesitate to do so due to the concern of loss of business intelligence and customer privacy. In this paper, we present a Bloom filter based solution to enable organizations to outsource their tasks of mining association rules, at the same time, protect their business intelligence and customer privacy. Our approach can achieve high precision in data mining by trading-off the storage requirement. This research was supported by the USA National Science Foundation Grants CCR-0310974 and IIS-0546027.

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Building effective online game websites with knowledge-based trust

Knowledge-based trust is trust that is grounded in knowledge about another party developed through repeated interaction. Knowledge-based trust is especially important for online business environments where there are repeated transactions between fixed pairs of consumers and merchants. Building on previous studies of trust, this paper examines the proposition that players’ knowledge about website characteristics (i.e., security and interface design) and about website outputs (i.e., online game quality and service quality) has an effect on the development of trust in the context of online game websites. The impact of trust on building an effective online game website is also investigated. A conceptual model of knowledge-based trust is tested with questionnaire responses of 253 online game players. Overall, the results indicate that all of these four classes of knowledge engender trust and that trust helps develop effective online game websites.

An interoperable context sensitive model of trust

Although the notion of trust is widely used in secure information systems, very few works attempt to formally define it or reason about it. Moreover, in most works, trust is defined as a binary concept—either an entity is completely trusted or not at all. Absolute trust on an entity requires one to have complete knowledge about the entity. This is rarely the case in real-world applications. Not trusting an entity, on the other hand, prohibits all communications with the entity rendering it useless. In short, treating trust as a binary concept is not acceptable in practice. Consequently, a model is needed that incorporates the notion of different degrees of trust. We propose a model that allows us to formalize trust relationships. The trust relationship between a truster and a trustee is associated with a context and depends on the experience, knowledge, and recommendation that the truster has with respect to the trustee in the given context. We show how our model can measure trust and compare two trust relationships in a given context. Sometimes enough information is not available about a given context to evaluate trust. Towards this end we show how the relationships between different contexts can be captured using a context graph. Formalizing the relationships between contexts allows us to extrapolate values from related contexts to approximate the trust of an entity even when all the information needed to calculate the trust is not available. Finally, we show how the semantic mismatch that arises because of different sources using different context graphs can be resolved and the trust of information obtained from these different sources compared.

ONTRACK: Dynamically adapting music playback to support navigation

Listening to music on personal, digital devices whilst mobile is an enjoyable, everyday activity. We explore a scheme for exploiting this practice to immerse listeners in navigation cues. Our prototype, ONTRACK, continuously adapts audio, modifying the spatial balance and volume to lead listeners to their target destination. First we report on an initial lab-based evaluation that demonstrated the approach’s efficacy: users were able to complete tasks within a reasonable time and their subjective feedback was positive. Encouraged by these results we constructed a handheld prototype. Here, we discuss this implementation and the results of field-trials. These indicate that even with a low-fidelity realisation of the concept, users can quite effectively navigate complicated routes.

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The 2007 IEEE CEC simulated car racing competition

This paper describes the simulated car racing competition that was arranged as part of the 2007 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation. Both the game that was used as the domain for the competition, the controllers submitted as entries to the competition and its results are presented. With this paper, we hope to provide some insight into the efficacy of various computational intelligence methods on a well-defined game task, as well as an example of one way of running a competition. In the process, we provide a set of reference results for those who wish to use the simplerace game to benchmark their own algorithms. The paper is co-authored by the organizers and participants of the competition.

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Multimodal support to group dynamics

The complexity of group dynamics occurring in small group interactions often hinders the performance of teams. The availability of rich multimodal information about what is going on during the meeting makes it possible to explore the possibility of providing support to dysfunctional teams from facilitation to training sessions addressing both the individuals and the group as a whole. A necessary step in this direction is that of capturing and understanding group dynamics. In this paper, we discuss a particular scenario, in which meeting participants receive multimedia feedback on their relational behaviour, as a first step towards increasing self-awareness. We describe the background and the motivation for a coding scheme for annotating meeting recordings partially inspired by the Bales’ Interaction Process Analysis. This coding scheme was aimed at identifying suitable observable behavioural sequences. The study is complemented with an experimental investigation on the acceptability of such a service.

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E-redesigning of society: towards experiential connectivity of generations in Lithuania

The paper reflects on the unique experience of social and technological development in Lithuania since the regaining of independence as a newly reshaped society constructing a distinctive competitive IST-based model at global level. This has presented Lithuanian pattern of how to integrate different experiences and relations between generations in implementing complex information society approaches. The resulting programme in general is linked to the Lisbon objectives of the European Union. The experience of transitional countries in Europe, each different but facing some common problems, may be useful to developing countries in Africa.

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COMUNICAR: designing a multimedia, context-aware human-machine interface for cars

The European Union co-funded COMUNICAR (communication multimedia unit inside car) project designed and developed an integrated multimedia human–machine interface (HMI) able to manage a wide variety of driver information systems (from entertainment to safety). COMUNICAR proposed an innovative information provision paradigm, in which the on-vehicle HMI is able to tailor the delivery of the information in real time according to the actual driving context and the drivers workload. COMUNICAR adopted a user-centred design process involving an iterative development based on extensive user tests since the early phases of the project. This approach was particularly useful to define and improve the layout of the user interface and specify the rules that decide the scheduling and the modalities of the delivery of the information messages to the driver. This paper introduces the COMUNICAR concept and the user-centred flow of design. Then, a concrete case of user-test driven, iterative improvement of a systems functionality is presented. We also briefly describe two software tools that we have designed to enhance the development process in a user-centred perspective. Finally, the future evolution of the concept of smart and safe information scheduling is sketched and discussed.

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Methods for quantitative usability requirements: a case study on the development of the user interface of a mobile phone

Quantitative usability requirements are a critical but challenging, and hence an often neglected aspect of a usability engineering process. A case study is described where quantitative usability requirements played a key role in the development of a new user interface of a mobile phone. Within the practical constraints of the project, existing methods for determining usability requirements and evaluating the extent to which these are met, could not be applied as such, therefore tailored methods had to be developed. These methods and their applications are discussed.

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Connecting the family with awareness systems

Awareness systems have attracted significant research interest for their potential to support interpersonal relationships. Investigations of awareness systems for the domestic environment have suggested that such systems can help individuals stay in touch with dear friends or family and provide affective benefits to their users. Our research provides empirical evidence to refine and substantiate such suggestions. We report our experience with designing and evaluating the ASTRA awareness system, for connecting households and mobile family members. We introduce the concept of connectedness and its measurement through the Affective Benefits and Costs of communication questionnaire (ABC-Q). We inform results that testify the benefits of sharing experiences at the moment they happen without interrupting potential receivers. Finally, we document the role that lightweight, picture-based communication can play in the range of communication media available.

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An integrative approach to assess qualitative and quantitative consumer feedback

The increasing availability of consumer feedback on the web provides a wealth of information that organizations can use for product and service improvement. Many consumer feedback sites allow users to enter both a quantitative rating and a qualitative critique. Previous research has used this information disjunctively. This work proposes an innovative approach that integrates the two types of information to identify words that are related to positive or negative consumer ratings. A case study shows that this approach does raise some issues not identified using existing analytical approaches.

Interacting with mobile services: an evaluation of camera-phones and visual tags

We present a study of using camera-phones and visual-tags to access mobile services. Firstly, a user-experience study is described in which participants were both observed learning to interact with a prototype mobile service and interviewed about their experiences. Secondly, a pointing-device task is presented in which quantitative data was gathered regarding the speed and accuracy with which participants aimed and clicked on visual-tags using camera-phones. We found that participants’ attitudes to visual-tag-based applications were broadly positive, although they had several important reservations about camera-phone technology more generally. Data from our pointing-device task demonstrated that novice users were able to aim and click on visual-tags quickly (well under 3 s per pointing-device trial on average) and accurately (almost all meeting our defined speed/accuracy tradeoff of 6% error-rate). Based on our findings, design lessons for camera-phone and visual-tag applications are presented.

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Website accessibility: a cross-sector comparison

The Web has transformed the way organizations interact with clients, customers, and constituents. A large portion of these groups is often neglected, namely people with disabilities. This study compares federal government, non-profit organization (NPO), and corporate homepages accessibility to determine how accessible these websites are to people with disabilities and how they compare to each other. The results indicate that federal homepages (23%), which are mandated to be accessible, are significantly more accessible than NPO (11%) and corporate homepages (6%).

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Do online reviews affect product sales? The role of reviewer characteristics and temporal effects

Online product reviews provided by consumers who previously purchased products have become a major information source for consumers and marketers regarding product quality. This study extends previous research by conducting a more compelling test of the effect of online reviews on sales. In particular, we consider both quantitative and qualitative aspects of online reviews, such as reviewer quality, reviewer exposure, product coverage, and temporal effects. Using transaction cost economics and uncertainty reduction theories, this study adopts a portfolio approach to assess the effectiveness of the online review market. We show that consumers understand the value difference between favorable news and unfavorable news and respond accordingly. Furthermore, when consumers read online reviews, they pay attention not only to review scores but to other contextual information such as a reviewer’s reputation and reviewer exposure. The market responds more favorably to reviews written by reviewers with better reputation and higher exposure. Finally, we demonstrate that the impact of online reviews on sales diminishes over time. This suggests that firms need not provide incentives for customers to write reviews beyond a certain time period after products have been released.

Ethical regulations on robotics in Europe

There are only a few ethical regulations that deal explicitly with robots, in contrast to a vast number of regulations, which may be applied. We will focus on ethical issues with regard to “responsibility and autonomous robots”, “machines as a replacement for humans”, and “tele-presence”. Furthermore we will examine examples from special fields of application (medicine and healthcare, armed forces, and entertainment). We do not claim to present a complete list of ethical issue nor of regulations in the field of robotics, but we will demonstrate that there are legal challenges with regard to these issues.

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Scientific models and ethical issues in hybrid bionic systems research

Research on hybrid bionic systems (HBSs) is still in its infancy but promising results have already been achieved in laboratories. Experiments on humans and animals show that artificial devices can be controlled by neural signals. These results suggest that HBS technologies can be employed to restore sensorimotor functionalities in disabled and elderly people. At the same time, HBS research raises ethical concerns related to possible exogenous and endogenous limitations to human autonomy and freedom. The analysis of these concerns requires reflecting on the availability of scientific models accounting for key aspects of sensorimotor coordination and plastic adaptation mechanisms in the brain.

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Was kann die Wirtschaftsinformatik dazu beitragen,E-Health voran zu bringen?

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Next generation networking: distributed multimedia information for healthcare

This paper is derived from a keynote address given that the DMS-03 meeting. It chronicles the need and development of next generation networks (NGN) in the United States. Specific organizational examples are derived from the Internet2-Abilene Network. The technical characteristics of a next generation network versus the Internet are discussed. Examples are given from the point of view of the need for a quality of service based network to deliver distributed multimedia healthcare information to the point of need. The concepts of network trust and of a network based scalable information infrastructure for the reliable delivery of distributed multimedia information is also introduced.