Can computers be teammates?

This study investigated the claim that humans will readily form team relationships with computers. Drawing from the group dynamic literature in human-human interactions, a laboratory experiment (n=56) manipulated identity and interdependence to create team affiliation in a human-computer interaction. The data show that subjects who are told they are interdependent with the computer affiliate with the computer as a team. The data also show that the effects of being in a team with a computer are the same as the effects of being in a team with another human: subjects in the interdependence conditions perceived the computer to be more similar to themselves, saw themselves as more cooperative, were more open to influence from the computer, thought the information from the computer was of higher quality, found the information from the computer friendlier, and conformed more to the computer's information. Subjects in the identity conditions showed neither team affiliation nor the effects of team affiliation.     

Can EVI-derived land-surface phenology be used as a surrogate for phenology of canopy photosynthesis?

Canopy phenology plays a prominent role in determining the timing and magnitude of carbon uptake by many ecosystems. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Global Land Cover Dynamics product developed from the enhanced vegetation index (EVI) provides broad spatial and temporal coverage of land-surface phenology (LSP), and may serve as a useful proxy for the phenology of canopy photosynthesis. Here, we compare the MODIS growing season start and end dates (SOS and EOS) with the seasonal phenology of canopy photosynthesis estimated using the eddy covariance approach. Using 153 site-years obtained from the Ameriflux database, we calculated the SOS and EOS of gross primary production (GPP) and canopy photosynthesis capacity (CPC) for seven different boreal and temperate vegetation types. CPC is GPP at maximum radiation, estimated by fitting half-hourly GPP and radiation to a rectangular hyperbolic function. We found large mean absolute differences of up to 53 days, depending on vegetation type, between the phenology of canopy development and photosynthesis, indicating that remotely sensed LSP is not a robust surrogate of seasonal changes in GPP, particularly for evergreen needleleaf forests. This limited correspondence of ecosystem carbon uptake with the MODIS LSP product points to the need for improved remotely sensed proxies of GPP phenology.     

Office automation — Can it be justified?

The use of office automation has increased in recent years. However, its implementation has not taken place as quickly as was originally anticipated. Suppliers have faced cutbacks in demand and users have remained unconvinced by the advantages. This paper outlines the results of an NCC subscriber survey into the justification, monitoring and use of office automation. Areas such as text processing word processing, personal communications, information access and personal computing are discussed.     

Can errors-in-variables systems be identified from closed-loop experiments?

Errors-in-variables (EIV) systems are known to be identifiable not generally, but under some specific conditions. These conditions are normally formulated for open-loop systems. This paper examines to what extent an EIV system can be identifiable from closed-loop experiments.     

Dynamic testing: Can a robot as tutor be of help in assessing children's potential for learning?

This study examined whether computerized dynamic testing by utilizing a robot would lead to different patterns in children's (aged 6–9 years) potential for learning and strategy use when solving series‐completion tasks. The robot, in a “Wizard of Oz” setting, provided instructions and prompts during dynamic testing. It was found that a dynamic training resulted in greater accuracy and more correctly placed pieces at the post‐test than repeated testing only. Moreover, children who were dynamically trained appeared to use more heuristic strategies at the post‐test than their peers who were not trained. In general, observations showed that children were excited to work with the robot. All in all, the study revealed that computerized dynamic testing by means of a robot has much potential in tapping into children's potential for learning and strategy use. The implications of using a robot in educational assessment were stressed further in the discussion.     

Can bi‐cubic surfaces be class A?

'Class A surface’ is a term in the automotive design industry, describing spline surfaces with aesthetic, non‐oscillating highlight lines. Tensor‐product B‐splines of degree bi‐3 (bicubic) are routinely used to generate smooth design surfaces and are often the de facto standard for downstream processing. To bridge the gap, this paper explores and gives a concrete suggestion, how to achieve good highlight line distributions for irregular bi‐3 tensor‐product patch layout by allowing, along some seams, a slight mismatch of normals below the industry‐accepted tolerance of one tenth of a degree. Near the irregularities, the solution can be viewed as transforming a higher‐degree, high‐quality formally smooth surface into a bi‐3 spline surface with few pieces, sacrificing formal smoothness but qualitatively retaining the shape.     

Can pupil size be measured to assess design products?

Some studies assessed aesthetic appreciation by pupillary measurement. While design judgments are also a kind of aesthetic appreciation, design products might be suitable for assessment in pupillary measurement as well. Hence, this study explores the relationship between pupil size and user subjective opinion using forty-eight International Affective Picture System (IAPS) images and forty-eight product images as stimuli. The stimuli are composed of positive, negative, and neutral images. For each trial, participants viewed scrambled versions of image and then viewed unscrambled versions (target image). The pupil sizes of participants were measured while viewing target image. After viewing target image, participants rated immediately their emotional response to the target on a 7-point scale.     

Can Mean‐Curvature Flow be Modified to be Non‐singular?

This work considers the question of whether mean‐curvature flow can be modified to avoid the formation of singularities. We analyze the finite‐elements discretization and demonstrate why the original flow can result in numerical instability due to division by zero. We propose a variation on the flow that removes the numerical instability in the discretization and show that this modification results in a simpler expression for both the discretized and continuous formulations. We discuss the properties of the modified flow and present empirical evidence that not only does it define a stable surface evolution for genus‐zero surfaces, but that the evolution converges to a conformal parameterization of the surface onto the sphere.     

Can traditional fault prediction models be used for vulnerability prediction?

Finding security vulnerabilities requires a different mindset than finding general faults in software—thinking like an attacker. Therefore, security engineers looking to prioritize security inspection and testing efforts may be better served by a prediction model that indicates security vulnerabilities rather than faults. At the same time, faults and vulnerabilities have commonalities that may allow development teams to use traditional fault prediction models and metrics for vulnerability prediction. The goal of our study is to determine whether fault prediction models can be used for vulnerability prediction or if specialized vulnerability prediction models should be developed when both models are built with traditional metrics of complexity, code churn, and fault history. We have performed an empirical study on a widely-used, large open source project, the Mozilla Firefox web browser, where 21% of the source code files have faults and only 3% of the files have vulnerabilities. Both the fault prediction model and the vulnerability prediction model provide similar ability in vulnerability prediction across a wide range of classification thresholds. For example, the fault prediction model provided recall of 83% and precision of 11% at classification threshold 0.6 and the vulnerability prediction model provided recall of 83% and precision of 12% at classification threshold 0.5. Our results suggest that fault prediction models based upon traditional metrics can substitute for specialized vulnerability prediction models. However, both fault prediction and vulnerability prediction models require significant improvement to reduce false positives while providing high recall.     

Can consumers be persuaded on brand microblogs? An empirical study

Building upon the persuasion theory in the social psychology literature, this study investigates how companies can use microblogging services to influence consumers’ participation and brand loyalty. We develop and empirically test our research model using an online survey in China. Our findings show that persuasion factors, including information quality, perceived similarity, and source credibility, increase community commitment. Perceived similarity and source credibility exhibit bias effects on information quality. Community commitment affects participation and brand loyalty, which is also influenced by participation. We expect that this research can contribute to the existing literature and provide marketers with important practical suggestions.     

Can cognitive inferences be made from aggregate traffic flow data?

Space syntax analysis or the topological analysis of street networks has illustrated that human traffic flow is highly correlated with some topological centrality measures, implying that human movement at an aggregate level is primarily shaped by the underlying topological structure of street networks. However, this high correlation does not imply that any individual's movement can be predicted by any street network centrality measure. In other words, traffic flow at the aggregate level cannot be used to make inferences about an individual's spatial cognition or conceptualization of space. Based on a set of agent-based simulations using three types of moving agents – topological, angular, and metric – we show that topological–angular centrality measures correlate better than does the metric centrality measure with the aggregate flows of agents who choose the shortest angular, topological or metric routes. We relate the superiority of the topological–angular network effects to the structural relations holding between street network to-movement and through-movement potentials. The study findings indicate that correlations between aggregate flow and street network centrality measures cannot be used to infer knowledge about individuals' spatial cognition during urban movement.     

Can privacy concerns for insurance of connected cars be compensated?

Internet-of-things technologies enable service providers such as insurance companies to collect vast amounts of privacy-sensitive data on car drivers. This paper studies whether and how privacy concerns of car owners can be compensated by offering monetary benefits. We study the case of usage based car insurance services for which the insurance fee is adapted to measured mileage and driving behaviour. A conjoint experiment shows that consumers prefer their current insurance products to usage based car insurance. However, when offered a minor financial compensation, they are willing to give up their privacy to car insurers. Consumers find privacy of behaviour and action more valuable than privacy of location and space. The study is a first to compare different forms of privacy in the acceptance of connected car services. Hereby, we contribute to more fine-grained understanding of privacy concerns in the acceptance of digital services, which will become more important in the upcoming Internet-of-things era.     

Face-to-face or Facebook: Can social connectedness be derived online?

Previous research has identified the importance of social connectedness in facilitating a number of positive outcomes, however, investigation of connectedness in online contexts is relatively novel. This research aimed to investigate for the first time social connectedness derived from the use of Facebook. Study 1 investigated whether offline social connectedness and Facebook connectedness were separate constructs. Participants were Facebook users (N = 344) who completed measures of offline social connectedness and Facebook social connectedness. Factor analysis (Maximum Likelihood analysis with Oblimin rotation) revealed Facebook connectedness to be distinct from offline social connectedness. Study 2 examined the relationship between Facebook social connectedness and anxiety, depression, and subjective well-being in a second sample of Facebook users (N = 274) in a cross-sectional design. Results suggest that Facebook use may provide the opportunity to develop and maintain social connectedness in the online environment, and that Facebook connectedness is associated with lower depression and anxiety and greater satisfaction with life. Limitations and future directions are considered. It is concluded that Facebook may act as a separate social medium in which to develop and maintain relationships, providing an alternative social outlet associated with a range of positive psychological outcomes.