Beauty is more than screen deep: Improving the web survey respondent experience through socially-present and aesthetically-pleasing user interfaces

Web surveys are rapidly becoming standard issue in many researchers’ toolkits; however, measurement error has been shown to affect web surveys to a greater extent than paper-and-pencil surveys (Couper, 2000, Manfreda and Vehovar, 2002). Principles of aesthetic design and social presence have been applied to web surveys to reduce the prevalence of such error with promising results, which were further investigated in this research. A sample of 181 first-year psychology undergraduate students participated in this study. Participants were randomly allocated to view one of eight web survey interfaces, which varied by aesthetic quality and social presence. Exploratory structural equation modeling using the partial least squares method revealed that classical aesthetic quality and social presence were both positively related to perceived ease of use of the web survey interface and positive state affect; social presence and perceived ease of use were positively related to trust in the web survey researcher; classical aesthetic quality was negatively related to negative state affect; and, expressive aesthetic quality was negatively related to perceived ease of use and positively related to positive state affect. Interestingly, expressive aesthetic quality was also positively related to negative state affect. These relationships between aesthetic quality and social presence should inform best practice web survey design recommendations, and future empirical work should extend and test the generalizability of these findings.     

A UNIFIED FRAMEWORK OF TARGETED MARKETING USING CUSTOMER PREFERENCES

One of the fundamental tasks of targeted marketing is to elicit associations between customers and products. Based on the results from information retrieval and utility theory, this article proposes a unified framework of targeted marketing. The customer judgments of products are formally described by preference relations and the connections of customers and products are quantitatively measured by market value functions. Two marketing strategies, known as the customer‐oriented and product‐oriented marketing strategies, are investigated. Four marketing models are introduced and examined. They represent, respectively, the relationships between a group of customers and a group of products, between a group of customers and a single product, between a single customer and a group of products, and between a single customer and a single product. Linear and bilinear market value functions are suggested and studied. The required parameters of a market value function can be estimated by exploring three types of information, namely, customer profiles, product profiles, and transaction data. Experiments on a real‐world data set are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.     

BiOSS: A system for biomedical ontology selection

In biomedical informatics, ontologies are considered a key technology for annotating, retrieving and sharing the huge volume of publicly available data. Due to the increasing amount, complexity and variety of existing biomedical ontologies, choosing the ones to be used in a semantic annotation problem or to design a specific application is a difficult task. As a consequence, the design of approaches and tools addressed to facilitate the selection of biomedical ontologies is becoming a priority. In this paper we present BiOSS, a novel system for the selection of biomedical ontologies. BiOSS evaluates the adequacy of an ontology to a given domain according to three different criteria: (1) the extent to which the ontology covers the domain; (2) the semantic richness of the ontology in the domain; (3) the popularity of the ontology in the biomedical community. BiOSS has been applied to 5 representative problems of ontology selection. It also has been compared to existing methods and tools. Results are promising and show the usefulness of BiOSS to solve real-world ontology selection problems. BiOSS is openly available both as a web tool and a web service.     

Implementation of Web‐based argumentation in facilitating elementary school students to learn environmental issues

This research develops a Web‐based argumentation system named the Web‐based Interactive Argumentation System (WIAS). WIAS can provide teachers with the scaffolding for argumentation instruction. Students can propose their statements, collect supporting evidence and share and discuss with peers online. This research adopts a quasi‐experimental design, applying WIAS to the teaching of environmental issues, including mudslides, global warming and nuclear power. Fifty‐seven elementary school fifth graders from two classes participated in this research. With each class as a unit, they were divided into the WIAS group (n = 30) and the traditional argumentation instruction (TAI) group (n = 27). Before research, all students took the pre‐test of the ‘achievement test for environmental issues (ATEI)’ and the ‘environmental literacy scale (ELS).’ Then all students received argumentation training and six classes of argumentation instruction. Students in the WIAS group performed argumentation in the WIAS, while those in the TAI group performed argumentation in a traditional classroom. After the six‐class argumentation instruction, all students took the post‐test of the ATEI and ELS. The results show that students in the WIAS group have significantly better learning effectiveness than those in the TAI group. Students in the WIAS group also exhibited significantly better improvement in their environmental literacy.     

基于随机词汇迭代模型的POI分类检索

从特征选择、局部区域划分和词汇语义相似性计算入手,利用随机词汇迭代模型(random terms iterativemodel,RTIM)进行海量兴趣点(point of interest,POI)文本分类.通过词汇频度、集中度和离散度方法筛选出特征词汇;依据文本与各POI类别间的相似度进行局部区域划分;在每个局部区域内基于词汇在文本中的排列顺序构建词频向量,基于词频向量中词频的随机删除和重构,获取特征映射矩阵;通过特征映射矩阵将文本转为特征向量,并采用SVM分类器进行POI文本分类.实验证明,该方法有效提升了POI文本分类准确性和覆盖率.     

一种支持服务关联的Web服务选择方法

目前存在的大多数基于QoS(quality of service)的Web服务选择方案都忽略了服务之间的关联关系, 认为服务之间是相互独立的, 使得组合服务的结果与实际有所偏差。为了提高组合Web服务QoS的精确性, 考虑到服务之间的关联关系对组合服务质量的影响, 分别对服务之间的接口关联、业务关联和统计关联三种关联关系进行研究, 提出了一种基于关联度的关联服务集合发现方法, 将支持服务关联的选择问题转换为混合整数规划模型进行求解。实验结果表明, 考虑服务之间的关联关系会提高组合Web服务的质量。     

Web软件可信性的模糊评价方法

在对ISO/IEC 9126模型及Web软件属性图进行改进和扩充后,应用因子分析法构建了Web软件可信性评价指标体系,运用结构熵值法确定了各个可信指标的权重,并运用改进的证据合成方法构造专家评价信息的模糊评价矩阵;最后,运用置信度识别准则对软件可信性进行等级评价和得分计算,对应可信性决策规则集得出相应的策略。结合对Web软件中网上银行项目的实例分析说明了该方法的实用性和有效性。     

基于“二叉决策树”模型的嵌入式软件调试

在嵌入式软件开发过程中,软件不可避免地会出现各种错误,因此调试是软件生命周期中一个非常重要的环节。针对嵌入式软件开发的流程和特点,对其调试部分进行较为深入具体的研究和探索,提出基于调试器的"二叉决策树"调试模型。该模型描述了嵌入式软件调试的一般过程、调试对象和常用方法。实践表明"二叉决策树"调试模型具有较好的实用性和扩展性。     

基于 Qt ＆ Linux 视频播放器的设计与实现

随着嵌入式处理器运算能力不断增强,影音娱乐已经成为人们日常生活中必不可少的一部分。设计以博创公司 ARM9开发板（UP -TECH2410）为平台,以 Linux 为开发环境,Qt 为开发工具,详细介绍了硬件平台搭建,嵌入式操作系统选型,Qt Designer 以及视频播放器的设计方法。实现了 Linux 下对 LCD 的显示功能及开发板触摸屏控制的实现。通过测试,系统运行正常,性能稳定。开发过程以 ARM9与 Linux 操作系统结合开发的模式突破了以往的嵌入式开发架构,为嵌入式系统开发开辟了一种新途径。     

采用嵌人式技术的智能电导率仪设计

为了实时精确地测量水溶液的电导率,设计了一种高精度的智能电导率仪。系统采用S3C2440为核心控制处理器,包含时钟模块、正弦交流激励模块、精密整流模块、A／D采样模块、触摸屏显示模块、以太网接口模块、数据存储模块、故障报警模块等。提供数据采集和处理、触摸屏显示、以太网通信、故障报警等功能。实验数据表明,该仪表能准确测量水溶液的电导率,测量精度高、工作稳定可靠、重复性好,有较高的实用价值和推广意义。