Migrating from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0 - A comparative study based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines in Taiwan

The primary purpose of this research was to explore a comparative analysis of the “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)” standard in Taiwan and the international WCAG standards (WCAG 1.0/WCAG 2.0). The WCAG in Taiwan was established by the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC), Executive Yuan in 2002. The WCAG 1.0 was established by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI, an organization that created the Web Content Accessibility system) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and became a W3C standard on May 5, 1999. The WCAG 2.0 became a W3C standard on December 11, 2008.The WCAG in Taiwan was established based on the contents of the WCAG 1.0. However, as the WCAG 2.0 was announced in 2008, check standards based on the WCAG 1.0 were facing revision in all aspects. Therefore, this study aimed at analyzing and comparing the differences between the WCAG 2.0 and the WCAG standards in Taiwan. Utilizing “human check” based on the WCAG 2.0 standard, this study assessed disabilities-related websites conforming to the WCAG standard in Taiwan. Results suggested that migrating from WCAG in Taiwan (based on WCAG 1.0) to WCAG 2.0 does not require a full range revision of webpage design. Suggestions given to disabilities-related websites in Taiwan for developing and providing more complete web accessibility included: (1) websites without accessible design should directly follow the WCAG 2.0 standard in developing web accessibility; (2) future promotion of web accessibility should include all educational institutes and related associations/organizations.For future studies, the resource availability for the disabled and the government achievement in web accessibility after WCAG 2.0 is implemented in Taiwan are topics worth of investigation. Expert opinions and user feedbacks should be included to reflect the actual needs of people with disabilities.     

Identifying critical factors for corporate implementing virtualization technology

Virtualization technology has attracted great attention with its advantages of multiple platform operation and resultant cost and power reduction. This study investigated the key factors for corporations to implement virtualization information environment from the viewpoint of IT staffs. Through purposeful sampling, 400 effective questionnaires were collected from IT personnel currently working in the virtualization-related fields. From key factor analysis, seven influential factors were identified for corporations to implement virtualization. These seven factors include: (1) system quality, (2) information quality, (3) simplified management and maintenance, (4) integration of resources, (5) cost reduction, (6) ease of deployment, test and development, and (7) organizational consensus. Based on the obtained findings, suggestions for corporations and to IT system integrators were provided to the implementation of virtualization information environment. The scales developed in this study provide useful measures to study common factors of the implementation of virtualization information technology.     

A theoretical acceptance model for computer-based communication media: Nine field studies

This research study develops and tests a theoretical acceptance model to explain users’ acceptance of computer-based communication media. The model, which is referred to as TAM_CCM, originated from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and conforms to the context of Computer-based Communication Media (CCM). It explains perceived usefulness and actual system use in terms of system characteristics (information process support and facilitating conditions), social influence (subjective norm and rules on media use), and user characteristics (experience and computer self efficacy). The model was tested using empirical data collected at nine organizations (N = 425), of which four had media rules and five had no similar rules. The TAM_CCM model was strongly supported accounting for 74% of the variance in usefulness perceptions and up to 74% of the variance in behavior intention to use. System characteristics (information process support), social influence (subjective norm and rules on media use), and user experience significantly influenced user acceptance of computer-based communication media. These advanced theory findings on computer-based communication media adoption and the research approach contribute to future research aimed at incorporating the TAM into specific contexts.     

Rapid polymer microchannel fabrication by hot roller embossing process

Using thermoplastic polymers as substrate material is an attractive approach to develop low-cost, disposable microfluidic devices. This study investigates a simple and rapid polymer replication method of fabricating microchannels by a hot roller embossing process. The hot roller embosser used in this study was modified from a commercially available film laminator, and the roller micromold was fabricated by spin coating an SU-8 layer on a flexible copper sheet. A straight microchannel measuring 5?cm long, 200?μm wide, and 41.4?μm deep was used to evaluate the imprinting performance on cyclic olefin copolymer and polyvinylchloride film. This study also investigates the effects of hot roller embossing temperature, rolling speed, and embossing pressure on the microchannel depth and geometry transfer efficiency.     

Intercalation of Metal Ions into Ti3C2Tx MXene Electrodes for High‐Areal‐Capacitance Microsupercapacitors with Neutral Multivalent Electrolytes

Microsupercapacitors (MSCs) with neutral multivalent electrolytes are safer, cheaper, and exhibit higher theoretical energy densities compared with the MSCs with acidic and alkaline electrolytes. Multivalent charge carriers (e.g., Mg²⁺, Zn²⁺) in the MSCs with Ti₃C₂T_x MXene electrodes have not been demonstrated, which could theoretically achieve higher specific capacitances and energy densities. However, because of the larger size of multivalent charge carriers, the MXene electrodes require further modifications to facilitate reversible electrochemical reactions. Herein, through spontaneous intercalation of various metal ions into MXene multilayers, twelve metal ion intercalated MXene electrodes (Mⁿ⁺‐MXene) are fabricated and demonstrate improved electrochemical performance. Different nanopillar effects are observed between divalent Be²⁺ and trivalent Al³⁺ intercalants, which are systematically investigated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulation. Among all Mⁿ⁺‐MXene electrodes, the Be²⁺‐MXene electrode largely facilitates the charge‐transfer process with minimal disturbance of electrolyte diffusion rates, showing improved specific capacitances and high rate performance in univalent (Li₂SO₄, Na₂SO₄, K₂SO₄) and multivalent electrolytes (BeSO₄, MgSO₄, ZnSO₄). Finally, flexible Be²⁺‐MXene MSCs with neural ZnSO₄ gel electrolytes are fabricated, demonstrating superior areal capacitances (77.2 mF cm^?2) and high energy density (3.86 μWh cm^?2 at 0.12 mW cm^?2) together with high user safety.     

Success of electronic commerce Web sites: A comparative study in two countries

This study incorporated attitude toward a site (Ast) in the proposed model together with moderating factors like cultural effects and attitude toward online shopping (Ashop). The proposed model and hypotheses were partially supported in Taiwan's and Thailand's data. Information quality affected both user satisfaction and attitude toward the web site and was the dimension common across both countries. Ashop moderated the effects of system quality on user satisfaction in Taiwan, but moderated information quality in the Thailand. National identity moderated the effect of system quality on both user satisfaction and attitude toward the site in the Thai data.     

NDM-Based Cognitive Agents for Supporting Decision-Making Teams

Naturalistic decision making (NDM) focuses on how people actually make decisions in realistic settings that typically involve ill-structured problems. Taking an experimental approach, we investigate the impacts of using an NDM-based software agent (R-CAST) on the performance of human decision-making teams in a simulated C3I (Communications, Command, Control and Intelligence) environment. We examined four types of decision-making teams with mixed human and agent members playing the roles of intelligence collection and command selection. The experiment also involved two within-group control variables: task complexity and context switching frequency. The result indicates that the use of an R-CAST agent in intelligence collection allows its team member to consider the latest situational information in decision making but might increase the team member's cognitive load. It also indicates that a human member playing the role of command selection should not rely too much on the agent serving as his or her decision aid. Together, it is suggested that the roles of both humans and cognitive agents are critical for achieving the best possible performance of C3I decision-making teams: Whereas agents are superior in computation-intensive activities such as information seeking and filtering, humans are superior in projecting and reasoning about dynamic situations and more adaptable to teammates' cognitive capacities. This study has demonstrated that cognitive agents empowered with NDM models can serve as the teammates and decision aids of human decision makers. Advanced decision support systems built upon such team-aware agents could help achieve reduced cognitive load and effective human-agent collaboration.     

Identification and verification of chaotic dynamics in a missile system from experimental time series

This article is concerned with the chaotic dynamics in a missile system. Five channels of acceleration signals were measured at different locations and/or orientations of the missile during a test flight. Based on these data, the existence of chaotic behaviour is determined using common techniques for nonlinear time series analysis, such as phase-space reconstruction, Poincaré map, correlation dimension and maximum Lyapunov exponent. It is found that the vibration behaviour of the missile system represents high-order (eight dimensional) chaos. Chaotic dynamics exist in three (out of the five) channels of acceleration signals. As typical in experimental time series, the acceleration signals are contaminated with random noises. In order to determine whether deterministic chaos dominates in the three acceleration signals, a sequence of two statistical tests, the BDS test and the Kaboudan test, is applied. The BDS test rules out the possibility that the three acceleration signals are purely random. The subsequent Kaboudan test indicates that deterministic chaotic dynamics indeed dominate in two acceleration signals where the seeker is located.     

Determination of shallow water depth using optical satellite images

The Penghu archipelago comprises 64 basaltic volcanic isles lying on the Taiwan Strait between mainland China and Taiwan. The water around and within these isles is shallow and poses considerable difficulty in echo sounding detection for bathymetry. Most existing bathymetry data around such areas are in water depths of greater than 5 m. Therefore, when the water depth is less than 5 m the data tend to be over-extrapolated. In this study, a remote sensing method provides a more effective approach to recording shallow water depths compared to traditional soundings using multitemporal images collected by optical/near-infrared sensors from SPOT satellites. This method employs optical energy reflections to obtain the water depth. In this study, we made several improvements wherein a relative atmosphere correction technique was used to calibrate two images within a similar atmospheric condition. We then compared the satellite images acquired from different dates to obtain the local water attenuation coefficient of sunlight. Finally, we developed a means to estimate the water attenuation coefficient and bottom reflectance which will satisfy the two parameters across the study area. Our results show a high-resolution map of shallow bathymetry for the Penghu archipelago and revealed a maximum depth of about 20 m. This study provides an efficient approach for shallow bathymetry retrieval. Many detailed features revealed by this approach may contribute to further geological research and developments in harbour and coastal engineering.     

Robust tracking control for a class of electrically driven flexible-joint robots without velocity measurements

This article addresses the motion tracking control for a class of flexible-joint robotic manipulators actuated by brushed direct current motors. This class of electrically driven flexible-joint robots is perturbed by time-varying parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. A novel observer-based robust dynamic feedback tracking controller without velocity measurements will be developed such that the resulting closed-loop system is locally stable, all the states and signals are bounded and the trajectory tracking errors can be made as small as possible. Only the measurements of link position and armature current are required for feedback and so the number of sensors in the practical implementation of the developed control scheme can be greatly reduced. The observer structure is of reduced order in the sense that the observer is constructed only to estimate the velocity signals and whose dimension is half of the dimension of flexible-joint robots. Especially, for the set-point regulation problem, the developed controller is simplified to a linear time-invariant controller. Consequently, the robust tracking control scheme developed in this study can be extended to handle a broader class of uncertain electrically driven flexible-joint robots and the developed robust control schemes possess the properties of computational simplicity and easy implementation. Finally, simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithms.