Cities under fire: Crisis communication on home front versus frontline cities' Facebook pages during operation ‘guardian of the walls’

Social media has been widely adopted by local governments during emergencies and crises and its role as a communication platform has been discussed in various studies on natural hazards, pandemics and terror attacks. However, research in the field has not addressed how municipalities use social media to communicate valuable information during armed conflicts and military operations. The current study examined the ways five major cities in Israel used their Facebook pages to connect to their residents during operation ‘Guardian of the Walls' in 2021. We examined the social media usage and the strategies of these cities during the 12 days of the operation. The findings revealed significant differences between cities that are considered as home front versus frontline regions regarding content type and information dissemination strategies. Additionally, differences regarding content types in terms of sentiment and overall rates of engagement were also identified. These findings highlight the need to further investigate local municipalities' usage of social media during armed conflicts concerning the civil population.     

A traffic analysis attack to compute social network measures

The development of digital media, the increasing use of social networks, the easier access to modern technological devices, is perturbing thousands of people in their public and private lives. People love posting their personal news without consider the risks involved. Privacy has never been more important. Privacy enhancing technologies research have attracted considerable international attention after the recent news against users personal data protection in social media websites like Facebook. It has been demonstrated that even when using an anonymous communication system, it is possible to reveal user’s identities through intersection attacks or traffic analysis attacks. Combining a traffic analysis attack with Analysis Social Networks (SNA) techniques, an adversary can be able to obtain important data from the whole network, topological network structure, subset of social data, revealing communities and its interactions. The aim of this work is to demonstrate how intersection attacks can disclose structural properties and significant details from an anonymous social network composed of a university community.

     

Modelling teenage personal contexts to support technology enhanced enquiry into personal energy consumption

Reducing energy consumption is becoming an increasingly high government priority. Teenagers are an important category of future energy consumers, but little is known of their conceptions about energy and, particularly, how formal learning about energy translates into understanding of personal energy consumption. We have worked with teenagers to investigate the design of learning technologies that support understanding about energy consumption in a way that is relevant to teenagers' personal contexts, including their motivations, concerns and conceptions, their personal energy consumption, and the sources of information about energy already available to them. In this paper we report on our findings and participatory design methodology. The findings contribute to our understanding of the support learning technologies must provide to scaffold teenagers' learning about personal energy consumption, in terms of how teenagers conceptualise energy consumption, what skills they have in searching for information, and what they consider motivating and relevant. Our methodology, more generally, contributes to our understanding of the initial phases of developing learning technologies that are grounded in an understanding of learners' personal contexts.     

The social media paradox: an intersection with freedom of expression and the criminal law

This article begins by setting out the human rights provisions that apply to social media expression. It then provides insight into the part social media plays within our society by analysing the social media landscape and how it facilitates a ‘purer’ form of expression. The social media paradox is explored through the lens of current societal issues and concerns regarding the use of social media and how these have manifested into litigation. It concludes by analysing the tension that the application of an array of criminal legislation and jurisprudence has created with freedom of expression, and whether this can successfully mitigated by the Director of Public Prosecution's Interim Guidelines.     

Certificate sharing system for secure certificate distribution in mobile environment

As mobile and Internet technologies evolve, mobile services (e.g., Internet banking, social commerce) continuously expand and diversify. In order to use these mobile services, it is essential that security services, especially distribution certificates (e.g., bank certificates), relevant to mobile devices be provided. Some approaches to providing distribution certificates between a user's mobile device and a personal computer (PC) have been proposed. However, the existing approaches do not guarantee that the certificate in the mobile devices same with the issued one from the PC, causing constraints on mobile services such as mobile phone banking and mobile commerce (M-commerce).In this paper, we propose a novel approach that shares certificates securely without modification of the existing standard certificate format between a smartphone and a PC. We also implemented the certificate sharing system (CSS) in a virtual private network (VPN). The CSS provides strong end-to-end data security for the certificate with a key size of 192-bits which is able to guarantee an expiration date of three years. It also provides strong data security on physical devices with the use of device ID. The certificate that is shared between devices is available only through the CSS's authorization process. In addition, the CSS provides a flexible and extensible system for sharing certificates in enterprise environments. The CSS module of a PC was implemented by way of a standard web language, and the CSS module of a smartphone was developed with the assistance of mobile applications with a small size of 1210KB.     

Examining the impact of social media advertising using ANOVA analysis

Social media has become a significant part of daily life and nowadays it has started to turn out to be common practice for consumers and companies to employ social media to form, establish, and connect relationships. In addition, social media is based on web and mobile-based technologies for creating highly interactive paradigms by which communities and individuals co-create, share, modify and discuss user-generated content. However, it is never easy for businesses to create social media advertising that attracts people and encourages them to buy their products. This article intends to present a statistical analysis that focuses on social media marketing among people of different ages. Six categories—personal profile, usage, assessment, higher-order data, trustworthiness, and elements of social media ads—are included in the analysis of social media marketing. The initial phase focuses on questionnaire preparation depending on social media advertising. Subsequently, the planned questionnaire is collected from diverse respondents at various educational levels utilizing a Google form. Then, these respondents' responses are collected for examination. To determine whether the outcomes of the experiment are meaningful, the evaluation in this piece of study is based on an ANOVA analysis.     

Rendezvousing with location-aware devices: Enhancing social coordination

Emerging technologies such as location-awareness devices have the potential to significantly impact users' social coordination, particularly while rendezvousing. It is important that we explore how new technologies influence social behaviours and communication in order to realize their full potential. This paper presents a field study investigating the use of mobile location-aware devices for rendezvous activities. Participants took part in one of three mobile device conditions (a mobile phone, a location-aware handheld, or both a mobile phone and a location-aware handheld) and completed three rendezvousing scenarios. The results reveal key differences in communication patterns between the mediums, as well as the potential strengths and limitations of location-aware devices for social coordination. The paper concludes with a discussion of relevant design issues drawn from observations gathered during the field study.     

Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes,Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences

This article investigates Facebook users' awareness of privacy issues and perceived benefits and risks of utilizing Facebook. Research found that Facebook is deeply integrated in users' daily lives through specific routines and rituals. Users claimed to understand privacy issues, yet reported uploading large amounts of personal information. Risks to privacy invasion were ascribed more to others than to the self. However, users reporting privacy invasion were more likely to change privacy settings than those merely hearing about others' privacy invasions. Results suggest that this lax attitude may be based on a combination of high gratification, usage patterns, and a psychological mechanism similar to third‐person effect. Safer use of social network services would thus require changes in user attitude.     

A personal mobile DRM manager for smartphones

In this paper we report on our experience in building the experimental Personal Digital Rights Manager for Motorola smartphones, an industry first.Digital Rights Management allows producers or owners of digital content to control the manner in which the content is consumed. This may range from simply preventing duplication to finer access policies such as restricting who can use the content, on what devices, and for how long. In most commercial DRM systems, the average end user plays the role of content consumer, using DRM protected content made available by a service. Here we present a personal digital rights system for mobile devices where the end user has the ability to place DRM protection and controls on his or her own personal content.We designed the personal DRM system to allow users of a mobile device to transparently define controls and generate licenses on custom content and securely transfer them to other mobile devices. A user is able to define and restrict the intended audience and ensure expiration of the content as desired. Compatible devices automatically detect each other and exchange credentials. The personal DRM system on each device safely enforces the content usage rules and also handles moving licenses between devices while preventing leakage of content. We implemented a prototype of our system on Motorola E680i smartphones.     

Mobile social commerce: The booster for brand loyalty?

In view of the deficiencies in current literature, this study seeks to examine if mobile social commerce continuance usage influences brand loyalty among customers, and assessed the inhibitor role of privacy concern in mobile social commerce usage intention. Privacy concern was measured by using concern for social media information privacy (CFSMIP). Therefore, this study proposes and empirically validated a model that combines CFSMIP, brand loyalty, and Expectation Confirmation Model, in the Asian context. The results suggested that users' CFSMIP does not inhibit them from the continuous usage of mobile social commerce, and influences their perceived usefulness on mobile social commerce positively. Moreover, all the paths in the baseline model of Expectation Confirmation Model have been reconfirmed in this study. Besides, users' continuance usage and satisfaction on mobile social commerce are proven to be boosters for brand loyalty. Relevant managerial implications are then discussed.     

Impact of Ergonomic and Social Psychological Perspective: A Case Study of Fashion Technology Adoption in Taiwan

Recently, there have been dramatic and emerging innovations in portable media devices. This is evident, for example, with the Apple iPod, Microsoft Zune, Sony Walkman, and the Samsung and iriver media players. Because of this, how to best understand the users' intentions to adopt these fashionable technologies has become a new issue in the information technology domain. However, in the literature, little is published about what motivates people to adopt these innovative technologies. To address this issue, this research sought to come up with a model by integrating key variables from the role of ergonomic and social psychological facets on estimates of the fashion technology acceptance. A structural equation modeling approach was used to examine 10 hypotheses in the proposed model. The results indicated that usefulness, playfulness, and aesthetics from the ergonomic facet and critical mass from the social psychological perspective positively contributed to the users' intent to adopt the fashion technology. Furthermore, the perceived ease of use indirectly affects adoptive intentions through perceived usefulness and playfulness. Important implications of these findings are discussed from both theoretical and practical aspects.     

A system for adaptive disk rearrangement

The speed of mass storage devices has a significant impact on the performance of computer systems. The speed that is realized on a particular mass storage device, however, depends heavily on how that device is used. Operating systems, such as the UNIX

1 UNIX is a trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories.

time-sharing system, use layout policies and head-scheduling disciplines that are designed to work well on average. Numerous studies have shown that disk access patterns exhibit a high degree of locality. Further, studies have shown that these access patterns do not necessarily correspond to the usage patterns anticipated by the system's designers, and that head scheduling is used infrequently enough that it has limited effect. This paper describes the design, implementation, and use of a disk subsystem that adaptively corrects the disparity between expected access patterns and actual access patterns by reorganizing disk data. A representative experiment that demonstrates the resulting performance improvement is presented.     

Innovation at work: The relative advantage of using consumer IT in the workplace

Employees' personal devices are increasingly evident in the workplace; the use of non‐enterprise sanctioned hardware and software is now commonplace. This phenomenon, frequently referred to as IT consumerization, is gaining momentum. Employees increasingly are using their own devices and choosing their own software (eg, Google Apps, Skype or Dropbox) in addition to—or instead of—enterprise IT. Employees are turning from consumers of enterprise IT to IT deciders, bypassing the IS department to use what critics call “rogue IT.” While discouraged in some contexts, the influx of consumer IT into the workplace has been suggested to influence innovative behaviours among employees. Although the phenomenon is very prevalent, research lags in the operationalization of an IT consumerization model. In this paper, we take a close look at the antecedents and consequences of consumerization behaviours. We examine to what extent an individual's level of satisfaction with enterprise IT in juxtaposition with the level of perceived relative advantage of consumer IT over enterprise IT influences an individual's usage of consumer IT in the workplace; we also examine how organizational mandates and IT empowerment influences IT consumerization behaviours. Finally, we investigate the influence of IT consumerization on innovative behaviours at work.     

Adoption and use of technology in early education: The interplay of extrinsic barriers and teacher attitudes

The increased access to, but continued under-use of, technology in education makes it imperative to understand the barriers teachers face when integrating technology into their classrooms. While prior research suggests teachers encounter both first-order extrinsic barriers and second-order personal barriers, much of this research has focused on K-12 teachers, not early childhood educators. Applying the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology to early childhood education, the current study examines predictors of early childhood educators' access to and use of traditional technologies and newer mobile devices. Findings from 1329 teachers of 0–4-year-olds reveal that while extrinsic barriers influence access to a range of technologies, positive beliefs in children's learning from technology significantly predicted actual use of technology. Overall, the study provides new insight into factors influencing technology integration specifically for early childhood educators, a subgroup that has not been represented in much of the literature on technology integration in formal education.     

Steerable projection: exploring alignment in interactive mobile displays

Emerging smartphones and other handheld devices are now being fitted with a set of new embedded technologies such as pico-projection. They are usually designed with the pico-projector embedded in the top of the device. Despite the potential of personal mobile projection to support new forms of interactivity such as augmented reality techniques, these devices have not yet made significant impact on the ways in which mobile data is experienced. We suggest that this ‘traditional’ configuration of fixed pico-projectors within the device is unsuited to many projection tasks because it couples the orientation of the device to the management of the projection space, preventing users from easily and simultaneously using the mobile device and looking at the projection. We present a study which demonstrates this problem and the requirement for steerable projection behaviour and some initial users’ preferences for different projection coupling angles according to context. Our study highlights the importance of flexible interactive projections which can support interaction techniques on the device and on the projection space according to task. This inspires a number of interaction techniques that create different personal and shared interactive display alignments to suit a range of different mobile projection situations.     

Understanding persistence in the use of Online Fitness Communities: Comparing novice and experienced users

Mobile and wearable technologies facilitate physiological data collection for health and wellness purposes. Users typically access these data via Online Fitness Community (OFC) platforms (e.g., Fitbit, Strava, RunKeeper). These platforms present users with functionalities centered on self-monitoring, social networking and enjoyment. In order to fully benefit from these functionalities, users need to make a habit out of integrating OFC use into their everyday workout routines. However, research suggests that users often fail to use OFCs over a longer period of time. This study sheds light on the factors that explain persisted OFC use. To that end, the study compares novice and experienced users in terms of their OFC use motives and how these motives contribute to the habitual integration of OFCs into everyday workout routines. Based on the survey responses of 394 OFC users, a multi-sample structural equation model indicates that self-regulatory and social motives directly predict habitual OFC use, and that enjoyment and self-regulatory motives indirectly predict habitual OFC use, by driving the perceived usefulness of OFCs. Moderation analysis revealed that, for novice users, self-regulatory motives are the prime drivers of habitual OFC use, while social motives and enjoyment are more important for experienced users.     

Handheld Librarians: A Survey of Librarian and Library Patron Use of Wireless Handheld Devices

ABSTRACT

Wireless technologies are becoming more prevalent in American society, but are they in our libraries? This article is a result of a survey of 766 librarians (mostly academics) across the United States on their use and perceived use of their customers of personal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones, webpads, and other handheld wireless devices. How are these devices being used? What percentage of libraries support wireless handheld device users, and how is this support delivered? Is there a demand for more services for these users and for what are they asking? Have libraries modified content to meet the needs of wireless handheld device users, and if so, what content have they changed? Last, what are librarians’ perceptions of wireless handheld devices and the cost and licensing of wireless content?     

Bird's‐Eye ‐ Large‐Scale Visual Analytics of City Dynamics using Social Location Data

The analysis of behavioral city dynamics, such as temporal patterns of visited places and citizens' mobility routines, is an essential task for urban and transportation planning. Social media applications such as Foursquare and Twitter provide access to large‐scale and up‐to‐date dynamic movement data that not only help to understand the social life and pulse of a city but also to maintain and improve urban infrastructure. However, the fast growth rate of this data poses challenges for conventional methods to provide up‐to‐date, flexible analysis. Therefore, planning authorities barely consider it. We present a system and design study to leverage social media data that assist urban and transportation planners to achieve better monitoring and analysis of city dynamics such as visited places and mobility patterns in large metropolitan areas. We conducted a goal‐and‐task analysis with urban planning experts. To address these goals, we designed a system with a scalable data monitoring back‐end and an interactive visual analytics interface. The monitoring component uses intelligent pre‐aggregation to allow dynamic queries in near real‐time. The visual analytics interface leverages unsupervised learning to reveal clusters, routines, and unusual behavior in massive data, allowing to understand patterns in time and space. We evaluated our approach based on a qualitative user study with urban planning experts which demonstrates that intuitive integration of advanced analytical tools with visual interfaces is pivotal in making behavioral city dynamics accessible to practitioners. Our interviews also revealed areas for future research.     

Videolization: knowledge graph based automated video generation from web content

Web content nowadays can also be accessed through new generation of Internet connected TVs. However, these products failed to change users’ behavior when consuming online content. Users still prefer personal computers to access Web content. Certainly, most of the online content is still designed to be accessed by personal computers or mobile devices. In order to overcome the usability problem of Web content consumption on TVs, this paper presents a knowledge graph based video generation system that automatically converts textual Web content into videos using semantic Web and computer graphics based technologies. As a use case, Wikipedia articles are automatically converted into videos. The effectiveness of the proposed system is validated empirically via opinion surveys. Fifty percent of survey users indicated that they found generated videos enjoyable and 42 % of them indicated that they would like to use our system to consume Web content on their TVs.

     

Managing emerging technology and organizational transformation: An acculturative analysis

From 1992 to 2005 Singapore National Library Board (NLB) successfully incorporated IT into its working procedures and customer service. The organization has adopted RFID and other technology applications; transformed its operating routines and provided access to millions of publications for its library users. A key issue in this transformation was how the organization managed its cultural change and took advantage of emerging technology. The success can be considered remarkable since, in the past, public libraries in Singapore have carried the stigma of traditional public sector organizations in tending to resist new technology. We examined the cultural changes resulting from introduction of IT in order to show how the Singapore National Library Board managed its employees’ adaptation to the new technology. A number of key factors emerged; these show how an organization can manage this type of cultural adaptation.