Accessibility Support for Older Adults with the ACCESS Framework

Equitable access to the digital economy is predicated on the usability of the devices that are used to access electronic goods and services, with computers being the primary mechanism for many users by which this is currently done. For novice users with special interaction requirements, current arrangements for enabling accessibility support are suboptimal. Older users in particular require special consideration with regards to the design of software support packages to ensure the burden of knowledge required to configure a system is reasonable. This article describes the ACCESS Framework, a novel open-source, plug-in enabled software framework designed to address some of the issues around providing accessibility support on the desktop. The framework employs a system through which corrections are successively adapted to an individual user's preferences. Through empirical work with older adults, the framework has been shown to provide an understandable, appropriate, and effective way to enable accessibility support.     

Towards secure information sharing using role-based delegation

As computing becomes more pervasive, information sharing occurs in broad, highly dynamic network-based environments. Such pervasive computing environments pose a difficult challenge in formally accessing the resources. The digital information generally represents sensitive and confidential information that organizations must protect and allow only authorized personnel to access and manipulate them. As organizations implement information strategies that call for sharing access to resources in the networked environment, mechanisms must be provided to protect the resources from adversaries. In this paper, we seek to address the issue of how to advocate selective information sharing while minimizing the risks of unauthorized access. We integrate a role-based delegation framework to propose a system architecture. We also demonstrate the feasibility of our framework through a proof-of-concept implementation.     

Selective and authentic third-party distribution of XML documents

Third-party architectures for data publishing over the Internet today are receiving growing attention, due to their scalability properties and to the ability of efficiently managing large number of subjects and great amount of data. In a third-party architecture, there is a distinction between the Owner and the Publisher of information. The Owner is the producer of information, whereas Publishers are responsible for managing (a portion of) the Owner information and for answering subject queries. A relevant issue in this architecture is how the Owner can ensure a secure and selective publishing of its data, even if the data are managed by a third-party, which can prune some of the nodes of the original document on the basis of subject queries and access control policies. An approach can be that of requiring the Publisher to be trusted with regard to the considered security properties. However, the serious drawback of this solution is that large Web-based systems cannot be easily verified to be secure and can be easily penetrated. For these reasons, we propose an alternative approach, based on the use of digital signature techniques, which does not require the Publisher to be trusted. The security properties we consider are authenticity and completeness of a query response, where completeness is intended with regard to the access control policies stated by the information Owner. In particular, we show that, by embedding in the query response one digital signature generated by the Owner and some hash values, a subject is able to locally verify the authenticity of a query response. Moreover, we present an approach that, for a wide range of queries, allows a subject to verify the completeness of query results.     

Preserving and ensuring long-term access to digitally born legal information

Written laws, records and legal materials form the very foundation of a democratic society. Lawmakers, legal scholars and everyday citizens alike need, and are entitled, to access the current and historic materials that comprise, explain, define, critique and contextualize their laws and legal institutions. The preservation of legal information in all formats is imperative. Thus far, the twenty-first century has witnessed unprecedented mass-scale acceptance and adoption of digital culture, which has resulted in an explosion in digital information. However, digitally born materials, especially those that are published directly and independently to the Web, are presently at an extremely high risk of permanent loss. Our legal heritage is no exception to this phenomenon, and efforts must be put forth to ensure that our current body of digital legal information is not lost. The authors explored the role of the United States law library community in the preservation of digital legal information. Through an online survey of state and academic law library directors, it was determined that those represented in the sample recognize that digitally born legal materials are at high risk for loss, yet their own digital preservation projects have primarily focused upon the preservation of digitized print materials, rather than digitally born materials. Digital preservation activities among surveyed libraries have been largely limited by a lack of funding, staffing and expertise; however, these barriers could be overcome by collaboration with other institutions, as well as participation in a large-scale regional or national digital preservation movement, which would allow for resource-sharing among participants. One such collaborative digital preservation program, the Chesapeake Project, is profiled in the article and explored as a collaborative effort that may be expanded upon or replicated by other institutions and libraries tackling the challenges of digital preservation.     

A framework for informing consumers on the ecological impact of products at point of sale

The use of intelligent information technologies has the means to provide ecological information just-in-time, thus alleviating consumers' cognitive burden at the time of purchase. We propose a computational framework for supporting consumer awareness of the ecological impact of products they consider purchasing at point of sale. The proposed framework permits consulting multiple information sources through diverse access interfaces, combined with a recommendation engine to score product greenness. We evaluate our approach in terms of usability, performance, and user-influence tests through two conceptual prototypes: an online store and an augmented reality interface to use at physical stores. Our findings suggest that providing ecological information at the time of purchase is able to direct consumers' preference towards products that are ecological and away from products that are not; consumers also express willingness to pay slightly more for ecological products. The experimental results obtained with the interface prototypes are statistically significant.     

A system for securing push-based distribution of XML documents

Push-based systems for distributing information through Internet are today becoming more and more popular and widely used. The widespread use of such systems raises non trivial security concerns. In particular, confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of the distributed data must be ensured. To cope with such issues, we describe here a system for securing push distribution of XML documents, which adopts digital signature and encryption techniques to ensure the above mentioned properties and allows the specification of both signature and access control policies. We also describe the implementation of the proposed system and present an extensive performance evaluation of its main components.     

Requesting Pervasive Services by Touching RFID Tags

As the vision of pervasive computing gradually becomes a reality, we are seeing an increasing number of services in our everyday environments. We don't just access them at desktop computers but everywhere our activities lead us-using mobile terminals and built-in technology. Although a positive phenomenon, this transition also introduces considerable challenges to discovering and selecting services. The authors propose a general framework for requesting pervasive services by touching RFID tags. Visual symbols communicate to users the objects that they can touch and that activate services. When a user touches such a symbol with a mobile phone, the data stored in the tag and other contextual information related to the situation trigger the requested service. The authors designed a set of visual symbols and implemented the required functionality as component-based middleware. They studied this novel system's usability and user experience. This article is part of a special issue on RFID Technology.     

A Usability Management Framework for Securing Healthcare Information System

Transformation from conventional business management systems to smart digital systems is a recurrent trend in the current era. This has led to digital revolution, and in this context, the hardwired technologies in the software industry play a significant role However, from the beginning, software security remains a serious issue for all levels of stakeholders. Software vulnerabilities lead to intrusions that cause data breaches and result in disclosure of sensitive data, compromising the organizations’ reputation that translates into, financial losses and compromising software usability as well. Most of the data breaches are financially motivated, especially in the healthcare sector. The cyber invaders continuously penetrate the E- Health data because of the high cost of the data on the dark web. Therefore, security assessment of healthcare web-based applications demands immediate intervention mechanisms to weed out the threats of cyber-attacks for the sake of software usability. The proposed disclosure is a unique process of three phases that are combined by researchers in order to produce and manage usability management framework for healthcare information system. In this most threatened time of digital era where, Healthcare data industry has borne the brunt of the highest number of data breach episodes in the last few years. The key reason for this is attributed to the sensitivity of healthcare data and the high costs entailed in trading the data over the dark web. Hence, usability management of healthcare information systems is the need of hour as to identify the vulnerabilities and provide preventive measures as a shield against the breaches. The proposed unique developed model of usability management workflow is prepared by associating steps like learn; analyze and manage. All these steps gives an all in one package for the healthcare information management industry because there is no systematic model available which associate identification to implementation steps with different evaluation steps.     

一种云计算数字签名技术的研究与实现

由于云计算具有可靠性高、成本低、性能高等特点,已经成为了新一代信息技术变革的核心。为了能够有效推动互联网安全架构的可持续性发展。本文提出了一种云计算数字签名技术,该技术有机结合了云计算技术与数字签名技术。首先阐述了数字签名系统中应用云计算技术的价值,其次,分析了云计算数字签名技术的实现模型,并且设计了云计算数字签名协议,最后,开展了实例分析,将云计算数字签名技术应用到移动营业厅的业务信息交易中。结果表明：所有业务均可在网上完成,那么既可大大方便用户,又可降低移动营业厅的工作量,还可确保业务信息交易的可靠性、唯一性、真实性、安全性与不可抵赖性。通过结果分析得出结论：云计算数字签名技术既可保障签名文件的完整性与真实性,又可跨平台操作签名文件,还可让数字签名模型利用互联网来对密码运算基础设施进行便捷化、可靠化地访问。     

The paradox of digital preservation

Preserving digital information is plagued by short media life, obsolete hardware and software, slow read times of old media, and defunct Web sites. Herein lies the paradox: we want to maintain digital information intact, but we also want to access this information in a dynamic use context. Failure to address digital preservation problems is analogous to squandering potential professional, personal and economic gains, contributing to cultural and intellectual poverty and resulting in exorbitant costs for recovery. We are compelled to meet the research challenge to resolve the conflict between the creation context and the use context to facilitate digital information preservation     

Sustainability of digital libraries: a conceptual model and a research framework

This paper aims to develop a conceptual model and a research framework for study of the economic, social and environmental sustainability of digital libraries. The major factors that are related to the economic, social and environmental sustainability of digital libraries have been identified. Relevant research in digital information systems and services in general, and digital libraries in particular, have been discussed to illustrate different issues and challenges associated with each of the three forms of sustainability. Based on the discussions of relevant research that have implications on sustainability of information systems and services, the paper proposes a conceptual model and a theoretical research framework for study of the sustainability of digital libraries. It shows that the sustainable business models to support digital libraries should also support equitable access supported by specific design and usability guidelines that facilitate easier, better and cheaper access; support the personal, institutional and social culture of users; and at the same time conform with the policy and regulatory frameworks of the respective regions, countries and institutions. It is also shown that measures taken to improve the economic and social sustainability should also support the environmental sustainability guidelines, i.e. reduce the overall environmental impact of digital libraries. It is argued that the various factors affecting the different sustainability issues of digital libraries need to be studied together to build digital libraries that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.     

How do we inspire people to contact aboriginal culture with Web2.0 technology?

Culture right have become a newly emerging human rights around the world after 1980. From a long term perspective of culture protection, it is very important to focus on culture propagation and preservation. Under the erosion of mainstream culture, the preservation issue of aboriginal culture has become a particular important issue. For the sake, this study explores how information technology can be used to effectively help preserve, promote and revitalize traditional Formosan aboriginal cultures through the implementation of digital archives, which can make a culture to be more readily accessible to the general public. To have a better understand about what factors prompt users to continually access the digital culture archive. This paper first presents an adaptation of ‘Web 2.0’ to build a digital archive for the Atayal Culture Museum in Taiwan. Then, explores correlations between constructs such as Web 2.0 site characteristics, media richness, para-social presence, user experience, user satisfaction and user intention. The results could be useful in developing integrated platforms or tools for educational purposes, allowing teachers and students to effectively share and apply cultural and educational resources. Another objective is to revitalize and commercialize the cultural industry, using the digital archive's content as the basis for collaboration with teachers and other relevant professionals to achieve maximum creativity and create practical and innovative digital learning products.     

Front-end Control Mechanism of Electronic Records

In the digital era, how to ensure the authenticity and integrity of electronic records has become an open challenging issue. Front-end control is an important concept as well as a basic principle in electronic record management. Under the instruction of front-end control, many original management links in the record-management stage are required to move forward, and the managers enter the formation stage of the electronic records to ensure the originality. However, the front-end control technique primarily focuses on transaction management, and it lacks the strategy of providing the control of electronic records. In this paper, a novel electronic record front-end control mechanism is proposed by adopting proxy re-encryption and requiring archivists to participate in the management of electronic records before the record is created to solve the problem. Specifically, when an electronic record is generated, the proposed mechanism interacts with the producer of the electronic record to generate a corresponding encryption key. Moreover, electronic records are encrypted by the key to protect their confidentiality, which can prevent the leakage of electronic record information. In addition, when transferring the electronic record, archivists use proxy re-encryption technology to convert electronic records, allowing management by an archivist, ensuring their originality and authenticity.     

一种基于Bayesian的信任协商模型

信任协商是一种通过逐步暴露数字证书而在陌生人之间建立信任关系的方法。当一个用户在访问资源被拒绝时,系统提供适当的信息反馈可以提高系统的可用性,尤其对于访问控制策略依赖于上下文相关信息的系统。然而,不加选择地提供反馈可能会泄露一些有价值的商业信息或个人隐私。本文通过分析访问控制中存在的问题,将Bayesian条件概率 率测量方法引入到信任协商中,提出了一种基于Bayesian概率的信任协商模型。该模型通过实时概率计算来给予反馈信息,以提高访问成功的几率。该方法既保护了系统的敏感信息,又提高了系统的可用性。     

A usability evaluation toolkit for In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVISs)

Usability must be defined specifically for the context of use of the particular system under investigation. This specific context of use should also be used to guide the definition of specific usability criteria and the selection of appropriate evaluation methods. There are four principles which can guide the selection of evaluation methods, relating to the information required in the evaluation, the stage at which to apply methods, the resources required and the people involved in the evaluation. This paper presents a framework for the evaluation of usability in the context of In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVISs). This framework guides designers through defining usability criteria for an evaluation, selecting appropriate evaluation methods and applying those methods. These stages form an iterative process of design–evaluation–redesign with the overall aim of improving the usability of IVISs and enhancing the driving experience, without compromising the safety of the driver.     

Development of a personal digital assistant-based wireless application in clinical practice

PURPOSE: Our study aims to develop a personal digital assistant (PDA)-based wireless application in medical information processing by using Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11b wireless standards and SyncML codes. METHODS: In this study, an "integrated database access module" is used to provide a unified integrated access interface while consistency of wireless data transmission is achieved by using the standardized SyncML protocol. A prototype of the system has been developed, implemented, and tested for its mobility, usability, stability, and performance with questionnaire survey. RESULTS: Response time for browsing/searching was usually less than 3s. The average time intervals needed for data transmissions were 68.6+/-8.5s for Bluetooth and 47.0+/-4.8s for 802.11b. The five-point Likert scale (from 1=least to 5=most) questionnaire survey of 30 medical professionals yielded a high degree of satisfaction with the system's mobility (4.18+/-0.89), usability (4.69+/-0.90), stability (3.81+/-0.94), and performance (3.97+/-0.88). CONCLUSION: The results of our study suggested that PDA applications which exploit wireless communication are convenient and feasible in clinical practice.     

EvIcon: Designing High-Usability Icon with Human-in-the-loop Exploration and IconCLIP

Interface icons are prevalent in various digital applications. Due to limited time and budgets, many designers rely on informal evaluation, which often results in poor usability icons. In this paper, we propose a unique human-in-the-loop framework that allows our target users, that is novice and professional user interface (UI) designers, to improve the usability of interface icons efficiently. We formulate several usability criteria into a perceptual usability function and enable users to iteratively revise an icon set with an interactive design tool, EvIcon. We take a large-scale pre-trained joint image-text embedding (CLIP) and fine-tune it to embed icon visuals with icon tags in the same embedding space (IconCLIP). During the revision process, our design tool provides two types of instant perceptual usability feedback. First, we provide perceptual usability feedback modelled by deep learning models trained on IconCLIP embeddings and crowdsourced perceptual ratings. Second, we use the embedding space of IconCLIP to assist users in improving icons' visual distinguishability among icons within the user-prepared icon set. To provide the perceptual prediction, we compiled IconCEPT10K, the first large-scale dataset of perceptual usability ratings over 10,000 interface icons, by conducting a crowdsourcing study. We demonstrated that our framework could benefit UI designers' interface icon revision process with a wide range of professional experience. Moreover, the interface icons designed using our framework achieved better semantic distance and familiarity, verified by an additional online user study.     

Bionic digital brain realizing the digital twin-cutting process

A digital twin (DT) is an effective means of achieving physical and information fusion and has great potential for achieving a new paradigm of cutting process (CP) intelligence. This paper traces the relevant studies of digital technology in manufacturing and proposes a bionic digital brain (BDB) as the intelligent core of a digital twin-cutting process (DTCP) framework. The BDB was built with digital neurons (DN) as the basic functional unit, and the reaction mechanism between the DN stimulated the BDB to compute intelligently in real time (RT). The left brain obtains the prophetic theoretical processing information through the DN. The right brain receives actual perceptive processing information through the DN. After the corpus callosum fuses the left and right brain information, the DN outputs the optimal control solutions in RT to ensure demand. The details of monitoring, predicting, optimizing, and controlling the CP based on this framework are described in detail through a case study, demonstrating the powerful information processing capability of the BDB and the RT precision intelligent machining effects. The developed DTCP system confirmed the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed framework. It provided a theoretical and technical reference for applying and promoting DT technology in the CP.