Trust-enhanced Security in Location-based Adaptive Authentication

We propose trust to enhance security in adaptive and non-intrusive user authentication in controlled and pervasive environments. In addition to who a user is (e.g., via biometrics) and what a user knows (e.g., a password, a PIN), recent authentication solutions evaluate what a user has. The user's identity is then derived from what detectable accredited items (e.g., badges, RFIDs) and personal devices (e.g., smart-phones, PDAs) the user shows when authenticating. The level of security of the access is set consequently. Position information is also considered in authentication; only those users carrying authorised items in proximity of certain places can benefit from available resources at those places. Unfortunately, items such as badges, mobile phones, smart phones, RFID-ed cards can be stolen, forgotten, or lost with a consequent risk of identity theft and intrusion. In controlled environment like buildings, where sensors can detect a wide range of different types of items, the security of authentication can be improved by evaluating the amount of trust that can be reposed on the user standing in the area from where he tries to access a resource. This piece of information can be calculated from the positions of all the items linkable to the requester as sensed along time by the different sensors available. Sensors are seen as recommenders that give opinions on a user being in a requested position depending on what they have perceived in the environment. We apply Subjective Logics to model recommendations that originate from different types of location detectors and to combine them into a trust value. Our solution has been tested to improve authentication in an intelligent coffee corner of our research institute. A user at the coffee corner can see, displayed on a wall screen, the position of his colleagues depending on the level of authentication he obtains. The user authentication level depends on the number and on the quality of tokens he provides when authenticating. We comment how the use of a location-based trust (on the requester standing at the coffee corner) improves the adaptability, the non-intrusiveness, and the security of the authentication process. We validate our proposal with a simulation that shows how location-based trust changes when a user device moves away from the coffee corner.     

Designing concurrent full-body gestures for intense gameplay

Full body gestures provide alternative input to video games that are more natural and intuitive. However, full-body game gestures designed by developers may not always be the most suitable gestures available. A key challenge in full-body game gestural interfaces lies in how to design gestures such that they accommodate the intensive, dynamic nature of video games, e.g., several gestures may need to be executed simultaneously using different body parts. This paper investigates suitable simultaneous full-body game gestures, with the aim of accommodating high interactivity during intense gameplay. Three user studies were conducted: first, to determine user preferences, a user-elicitation study was conducted where participants were asked to define gestures for common game actions/commands; second, to identify suitable and alternative body parts, participants were asked to rate the suitability of each body part (one and two hands, one and two legs, head, eyes, and torso) for common game actions/commands; third, to explore the consensus of suitable simultaneous gestures, we proposed a novel choice-based elicitation approach where participants were asked to mix and match gestures from a predefined list to produce their preferred simultaneous gestures. Our key findings include (i) user preferences of game gestures, (ii) a set of suitable and alternative body parts for common game actions/commands, (iii) a consensus set of simultaneous full-body game gestures that assist interaction in different interactive game situations, and (iv) generalized design guidelines for future full-body game interfaces. These results can assist designers and practitioners to develop more effective full-body game gestural interfaces or other highly interactive full-body gestural interfaces.     

From the user's perspective: Perceptions of risk relative to benefit associated with using the Internet

We departed from existing studies on Internet use by exploring users' perception of their own use of the Internet. Using a mixed-method explanatory sequential design approach, we first asked users to generate lists of actions they take on the Internet and then asked them why they engage in these 35 activities. Using the information gleaned from the interviews, we developed surveys that asked 261 users (ages 19–68) to rate the perceived risk (defined as situations that contain uncertainty regarding outcomes and/or possess the potential for negative consequences) associated with each action, benefits received from each action, frequency with which they engage in the action, and amount of information they are willing to share to engage in the action. We also assessed a number of individual difference characteristics. Our study results (1) provide an Internet Action list usable in future studies; (2) provide an initial understanding that users (to a degree) engage in Internet actions for the benefits they perceive they gain; (3) show that users share little personal information, if any, to get those benefits; and (4) users have little ability to accurately evaluate the true risk (i.e., due to Internet threats) associated with those actions.     

The influence of built environment features on crowdsourced physiological responses of pedestrians in neighborhoods

With the growth of interest in walkable neighborhoods, various efforts have been made to investigate to determine what kinds of built environment features induce physical and physiological discomfort in pedestrians in a neighborhood. Traditional evaluation approaches primarily rely on opinion surveys and field observation (e.g., neighborhood surveys and visual inspection) completed by pedestrians and trained auditors respectively, both of which require considerable time and funding. Additionally, visual audit and opinion survey methods are not free from subjectivity concerns. In this paper, we propose and test a novel approach to assess conditions of walkable environment by using body responses. The paper utilizes crowdsourced physiological data from pedestrians (e.g., gait stability, gait acceleration, and relative heart rate) to examine the interaction between built environment features and pedestrians' physical activities in a neighborhood. In an experiment conducted in Havelock neighborhood of Lincoln, Nebraska, subjects were asked to walk a pre-defined path of 1.26 km while bearing a wearable inertial measurement units (IMU) sensor, a wristband-type wearable device, and a smartphone. Additionally, subjects were asked to provide a subjective assessment of subsegments on a scale of 0 to 10. With these data, we investigate the relationship between physiological responses and the existing built environment features encountered by subjects. Our findings indicate that physiological response has a statistically significant relationship with built environment features and subjective ratings. The outcomes of the research will help improve the evaluation methods of built environment features and will promote neighborhood walkability.     

The validity of visual observation to assess posture in a laboratory-simulated,manual material handling task

A wide range of methods to evaluate posture in work situations relies on simple, unaided visual observation. In the present study the validity of visual observation to assess posture in a dynamic job was evaluated. Postural aspects were observed and recorded during a manual materials handling job simulated in a laboratory. The results from these observations, concerning gross body posture, torso flexion, arms and legs position, and load to be handled, were compared to the results obtained by direct opto-electronic recording. The agreement on a sample-to-sample basis (expressed by Cohen's k) was poor for the variables torso flexion (mean value for tc = 0.38), position of arms (tc = 0.43) and legs (tc = 0.46) and load to be handled (tc — 0.50) and acceptable only for the gross body posture (k = 0.79). Moreover, for each variable except gross body posture, the crude distributions of all observations and recordings across categories (irrespective of time) were significantly different. The results demonstrate that the observations are not valid. It is concluded mat dynamic work situations require less simple, more time consuming methods (e.g., analyzing film or video records of the job) than a posture registration method based on direct visual observation.     

Can I connect with both you and my social network? Access to network-salient communication technology and get-acquainted interactions

Although recent research has found evidence that the mere presence of a cell phone or other communication device has negative effects on the reported quality of face-to-face interactions (e.g., Misra, Cheng, Genevie, & Yuan, 2014; Przybylski & Weinstein, 2013), no prior study has examined how individuals' actual access to communication devices during an interaction may affect that interaction, either negatively or positively. This was the focus of our study. Seventy-five previously unacquainted dyads engaged in a get-acquainted interaction over Skype. In the experimental dyads, one member unobtrusively (out of the view of his or her interaction partner) checked his or her cell phone and Facebook while interacting with the other. In the control dyads, neither partner had cell phone or Facebook access. Regardless of condition, participants rated the interaction positively. Generally, being connected to one's social network had no effect on the interaction. A comparison of our results with those of recent studies (e.g., Przybylski & Weinstein) led to the conclusion that divided attention from the presence of a communication device may be detrimental for an interaction only when the network members cannot be accessed.     

Tracking in object action space

In this paper we focus on the joint problem of tracking humans and recognizing human action in scenarios such as a kitchen scenario or a scenario where a robot cooperates with a human, e.g., for a manufacturing task. In these scenarios, the human directly interacts with objects physically by using/manipulating them or by, e.g., pointing at them such as in “Give me that…”. To recognize these types of human actions is difficult because (a) they ought to be recognized independent of scene parameters such as viewing direction and (b) the actions are parametric, where the parameters are either object-dependent or as, e.g., in the case of a pointing direction convey important information. One common way to achieve recognition is by using 3D human body tracking followed by action recognition based on the captured tracking data. For the kind of scenarios considered here we would like to argue that 3D body tracking and action recognition should be seen as an intertwined problem that is primed by the objects on which the actions are applied. In this paper, we are looking at human body tracking and action recognition from a object-driven perspective. Instead of the space of human body poses we consider the space of the object affordances, i.e., the space of possible actions that are applied on a given object. This way, 3D body tracking reduces to action tracking in the object (and context) primed parameter space of the object affordances. This reduces the high-dimensional joint-space to a low-dimensional action space. In our approach, we use parametric hidden Markov models to represent parametric movements; particle filtering is used to track in the space of action parameters. We demonstrate its effectiveness on synthetic and on real image sequences using human-upper body single arm actions that involve objects.     

How to draw a sphere.2. Coordinate systems

For pt. 1 see ibid., 1995. The author continues his discussion about how to render a single arbitrarily transformed sphere. In part 1 he described what the inner loop is going to look like and he listed a whole bunch of vector matrix algebra operations and the geometric constructions they represent. He now starts to derive the inner loop of the rendering algorithm in order to see all the matrix algebra in action. Most of the time, however, will be spent picking the correct coordinate system to make the inner loop fast and accurate. Even if you aren't going to write special purpose sphere rendering programs, this will clearly illustrate the workings of the homogeneous perspective transform and the geometric interpretations of transformation matrices     

Cooperative behaviour in the FIDO system

One of the demands that are put on a Natural Language interface is that it behaves in a cooperative way, that is, roughly speaking, in the most useful and natural way.This problem has been addressed in the context of the FIDO system (Flexible Interface for Database Operations), and in particular two points have been examined: the generation of answers that take into account the expectations and presuppositions the user showed in his/her question; the correction of some semantic mistakes detected during the analysis of the input question.In particular, as far as the former point is concerned, two issues have been addressed: the correction of user's misconceptions regarding the stored data; the generation of answers as suited as possible to what the user asked and to the way he/she phrased his/her question.     

Flash mobs,Arab Spring and protest movements: Can we analyse group identities in online conversations?

The Internet has provided people with new ways of expressing not only their individuality but also their collectivity i.e., their group affiliations. These group identities are the shared sense of belonging to a group. Online contact with others who share the same group identity can lead to cooperation and, even, coordination of social action initiatives both online and offline. Such social actions may be for the purposes of positive change, e.g., the Arab Spring in 2010, or disruptive, e.g., the England Riots in 2011. Stylometry and authorship attribution research has shown that it is possible to distinguish individuals based on their online language. In contrast, this work proposes and evaluates a model to analyse group identities online based on textual conversations amongst groups. We argue that textual features make it possible to automatically distinguish between different group identities and detect whether group identities are salient (i.e., most prominent) in the context of a particular conversation. We show that the salience of group identities can be detected with 95% accuracy and group identities can be distinguished from others with 84% accuracy. We also identify the most relevant features that may enable mal-actors to manipulate the actions of online groups. This has major implications for tools and techniques to drive positive social actions online or safeguard society from disruptive initiatives. At the same time, it poses privacy challenges given the potential ability to persuade or dissuade large groups online to move from rhetoric to action.     

“Love the Way You Lie”: Sexting deception in romantic relationships

In this study, we examined the prevalence of lying during sexting in a sample of 155 young adult college students. More than one third (37%) of those who had ever had a committed relationship and approximately half (48%) of active sexters (i.e., those who had ever sent a sexual text message) had lied to their committed partners during sexting about what they were wearing, doing, or both. Most people (67%) lied to serve their partner in some way (e.g., make it better for their partner) but some (33%) lied to serve themselves (e.g., they were bored). Additionally, lying during sexting was much more common among women than men: 45% of women and 24% of men had lied during sexting with committed partners. When attachment characteristics were considered, attachment avoidance predicted lying during sexting among active sexters, even after controlling for gender. Therefore, lying during sexting, just like pretending orgasm in a face-to-face context, is more likely to occur among those with insecure attachments to relationship partners. We discuss the similarities and differences between sexual deception in face-to-face and CMC contexts and propose future directions for this research.     

Asynchronous action-reward learning for nonstationary serial supply chain inventory control

Action-reward learning is a reinforcement learning method. In this machine learning approach, an agent interacts with non-deterministic control domain. The agent selects actions at decision epochs and the control domain gives rise to rewards with which the performance measures of the actions are updated. The objective of the agent is to select the future best actions based on the updated performance measures. In this paper, we develop an asynchronous action-reward learning model which updates the performance measures of actions faster than conventional action-reward learning. This learning model is suitable to apply to nonstationary control domain where the rewards for actions vary over time. Based on the asynchronous action-reward learning, two situation reactive inventory control models (centralized and decentralized models) are proposed for a two-stage serial supply chain with nonstationary customer demand. A simulation based experiment was performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed two models. Chang Ouk Kim received his Ph.D. in industrial engineering from Purdue University in 1996 and his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Korea University, Republic of Korea in 1988 and 1990, respectively. From 1998--2001, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial Systems Engineering at Myongji University, Republic of Korea. In 2002, he joined the Department of Information and Industrial Engineering at Yonsei University, Republic of Korea and is now an associate professor. He has published more than 30 articles at international journals. He is currently working on applications of artificial intelligence and adaptive control theory in supply chain management, RFID based logistics information system design, and advanced process control in semiconductor manufacturing. Ick-Hyun Kwon is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Previous to this position, Dr. Kwon was a research assistant professor in the Research Institute for Information and Communication Technology at Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering from Korea University, in 1998, 2000, and 2006, respectively. His current research interests are supply chain management, inventory control, production planning and scheduling. Jun-Geol Baek is an assistant professor in the Department of Business Administration at Kwangwoon University, Seoul, Korea. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering from Korea University, Seoul, Korea, in 1993, 1995, and 2001 respectively. From March 2002 to February 2007, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial Systems Engineering at Induk Institute of Technology, Seoul, Korea. His research interests include machine learning, data mining, intelligent machine diagnosis, and ubiquitous logistics information systems. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Virtual Symposium on Virtual Mind

When certain formal symbol systems (e.g., computer programs) are implemented as dynamic physical symbol systems (e.g., when they are run on a computer) their activity can be interpreted at higher levels (e.g., binary code can be interpreted as LISP, LISP code can be interpreted as English, and English can be interpreted as a meaninguful conversation). These higher levels of interpretability are called ‘virtual’ systems. If such a virtual system is interpretable as if it had a mind, is such a ‘virtual mind’ real? This is the question addressed in this ‘virtual’ symposium, originally conducted electronically among four cognitive scientists. Donald Perlis, a computer scientist, argues that according to the computationalist thesis, virtual minds are real and hence Searle's Chinese Room Argument fails, because if Searle memorized and executed a program that could pass the Turing Test in Chinese he would have a second, virtual, Chinese-understanding mind of which he was unaware (as in multiple personality). Stevan Harnad, a psychologist, argues that Searle's Argument is valid, virtual minds are just hermeneutic overinterpretations, and symbols must be grounded in the real world of objects, not just the virtual world of interpretations. Computer scientist Patrick Hayes argues that Searle's Argument fails, but because Searle does not really implement the program: a real implementation must not be homuncular but mindless and mechanical, like a computer. Only then can it give rise to a mind at the virtual level. Philosopher Ned Block suggests that there is no reason a mindful implementation would not be a real one.     

Comments, with reply, on 'Structured flowcharts outperform pseudocode: an experimental comparison' by D.A. Scanlan

The commenter maintains that what is being compared in the abovementioned article (see ibid., vol.6, no.5, p.28-36 (1989)) is the relative stability of flowcharts and pseudocode for the expression of a restricted aspect of actual programs, better isolated in the lab than in practice. He notes that the author avoids any loops in his three test algorithms. He points out that flowcharts require special output capabilities and an elaborate editor if they are to compare as a tool with pseudocode. The author responds that the commenter's point about the lack of loops in the algorithms is well taken but that he chose algorithms very similar to those used in a study with which he wished to compare his results. He addresses other points made by the commenter, defending his own approach and conclusions.<>     

Automated multi-level governance compliance checking

An institution typically comprises constitutive rules, which give shape and meaning to social interactions and regulative rules, which prescribe agent behaviour in the society. Regulative rules guide social interaction, in particular when they are coupled with reward and punishment regulations that are enforced for (non-)compliance. Institution examples include legislation and contracts. Formal institutional reasoning frameworks automate ascribing social meaning to agent interaction and determining whether those actions have social meanings that comprise (non-)compliant behaviour. Yet, institutions do not just govern societies. Rather, in what is called multi-level governance, institutional designs at lower governance levels (e.g., national legislation at the national level) are governed by higher level institutions (e.g., directives, human rights charters and supranational agreements). When an institution design is found to be non-compliant, punishments can be issued by annulling the legislation or imposing fines on the responsible designers (i.e., government). In order to enforce multi-level governance, higher governance levels (e.g., courts applying human rights) must check lower level institution designs (e.g., national legislation) for compliance; in order to avoid punishment, lower governance levels (e.g., national governments) must check their institution designs are compliant with higher-level institutions before enactment. However, checking non-compliance of institution designs in multi-level governance is non-trivial. In particular, because institutions in multi-level governance operate at different levels of abstraction. Lower level institutions govern with concrete regulations whilst higher level institutions typically comprise increasingly vague and abstract regulations. To address this issue, in this paper we propose a formal framework with a novel semantics that defines compliance between concrete lower level institutions and abstract higher level institutions. The formal framework is complemented by a sound and complete computational framework that automates compliance checking, which we apply to a real-world case study.     

Control enactment in context: Understanding the interaction of controlee and controller perceptions in inter-organisational project teams

Control is necessary for aligning the actions of management (i.e., controllers) and subordinates (i.e., controlees) around common goals. The enactment of control often fails in practice; however, as controlee perceptions may not match those of controllers, leading to a myriad of possible outcomes. Through an interpretive case study of two inter-organisational IT projects, we reveal how controlees' appraisals and responses to controls are context-dependent and play out across multiple levels (e.g., personal, professional, project and organisational contexts). We build on a coping perspective of IS controls to theorise the ‘coping strategies’ that controlees pursued relevant to these contexts and the ‘coping routes’ followed when combining different consecutive coping strategies. We find the process need not end with the selection of a single strategy but can potentially continue as both the controller and controlees make ongoing readjustments. While Behavioural Control Theory traditionally assumes the presence of a single control hierarchy, interorganisational IT projects are multi-level entities that amalgamate different structures and cultures. Our study moves beyond the existing assumptions of Behavioural Control Theory to discuss how a controller's choice of activities shapes the salience of different contexts in controlee appraisals.     

Alternative scenarios of green consumption in Italy: An empirically grounded model

Any transition towards a more environmentally sustainable world will strongly depend on people's willingness to adopt the best available practices. We present here the Consumption Italy (CITA) model, an empirically grounded agent-based model designed to represent household consumption in Italy and to estimate the related greenhouse gas emissions under different environmental policy scenarios. We explored the effect of a price increase for high impact goods and services (e.g., because of the introduction carbon taxes) and of a change of agents' environmental concern (e.g., because of information campaigns). We found that both kind of actions can orient people consumption in the desired direction. However, their target and intensity should be carefully calibrated to produce significant effects at an acceptable cost.     

The emotional impact of cyberbullying: Differences in perceptions and experiences as a function of role

Research is accumulating to confirm adverse consequences of cyberbullying. Less is known about the perceptions, expectations and reactions of those involved as a function of their different roles (e.g., as bullies, victims, bully-victims) and how this relates to their experiences of traditional bullying. We examined whether cyberbullies' beliefs about the impact of their actions reflects the impact as reported by cybervictims themselves. We tested also whether the emotional reactions to cyberbullying differed depending upon whether the victim was or was not also a victim of traditional bullying behaviours. Participants were 1353 Spanish adolescents. Approximately 8% reported experiences of cyberbullying (compared to 12% reporting experiences of traditional bullying). Cyberbullies believed that their victims would experience more discomfort than cybervictims actually reported experiencing. Those who had experienced victimization in both traditional and cyber contexts evaluated cyberbullying as having greater negative impact than did those who had experienced victimization only in cyber contexts. Perceptions differed according to role and the context(s) in which bullying has been experienced. Findings are discussed in relation to the ways in which technologically delivered aggression may differ from traditional bullying.