“These devices have not been made for older people's needs” – Older adults' perceptions of digital technologies in Finland and Ireland

This article examines how older adults use and perceive digital technologies in Finland and Ireland. These two countries are at different stages regarding two important global trends – demographic ageing and digitalization. Finland, being the fastest ageing society in Europe, is also one of the leaders in implementing digital technologies in social and health care services. In contrast, Ireland is a demographically younger and less digitalized society. Drawing on focus group discussions on the usage of digital technologies, conducted with older adults in both countries, we analyse how digital technologies are adopted and viewed by older generations. The analyses showed that older adults associate digitalization with both advantages and drawbacks. To encapsulate these two contrasting aspects, we developed the term Janus-faced conceptions of technology. This concept encapsulates how the successful adoption of digital technology facilitates everyday activities whereas the inability to utilise technologies results in feelings of alienation and being out-of-touch. The digital divide was found to occur not only between generations but also between different socioeconomic groups of older adults.     

Manual dexterity of older Mexican American adults: a cross-sectional pilot experimental investigation

This paper reports results from an experimental pilot study performed to quantify the manual dexterity of older Mexican American adults. The Purdue pegboard test, a two-arm coordination test, and a hand-tool dexterity test were used in this study. To enable cross-sectional comparisons of manual dexterity measures of older Mexican American adults with young Mexican American adults, these tests were administered to 18 older Mexican American adults aged 63–85 (mean age: 71.3 years, SD: 7.0 years), recruited from senior recreation centers in El Paso, and eighteen young adults aged 21–32 (mean age: 25.6 years, SD: 3.8 years) recruited from the student body at the University of Texas at El Paso. For the Purdue pegboard test, the number of pegs placed in 30 s using the preferred hand, the non-preferred hand, and both hands were first individually monitored. Then, scores on an assembly task using the Purdue pegboard were obtained. For the two-arm coordination test, participants were required to trace a star pattern with a stylus using both hands. The time for task completion and the number of errors made during task performance were monitored. For the hand-tool dexterity test, participants were required to use common hand tools and remove nuts and bolts from one side of a wooden upright, and to assemble nuts and bolts in the corresponding holes on the other side of the upright. The time taken for task completion was recorded. Since modified Levene's test showed equality of variances, two sample t-tests, comparing the mean responses of older adults with the mean responses of young adults for each individual test, were conducted. Results indicate that responses for the older adults were statistically significant different (p<0.001) from young adults for all Purdue pegboard tasks. On the average, older adults performed significantly slower (p<0.001) than young adults on the two-arm coordination test, and committed more errors before task completion (p<0.05). Older adults also took longer to complete the hand-tool dexterity task compared to their younger counterparts (p<0.05). In addition to the t-tests, manual dexterity performance measures from older adults were regressed with age to determine the cross-sectional age effects on manual dexterity measures. Results indicate that all Purdue pegboard performance measures were significantly affected by age (p<0.05). The time to complete the two-arm coordination test was significantly linearly related to age (p<0.05). However, the number of errors committed by older adults in the performance of the two-arm coordination test was not significantly linearly related to age. Time to complete the hand-tool dexterity was also significantly linearly related to age (p<0.05). Accommodating age-related changes in manual dexterity is important for job design in industry, especially in industries employing older adults requiring significant assembly and hand-tool use.

Relevance to industry

Given the aging of the industrial workforce, it is important to understand how manual dexterity is affected by age, so that jobs requiring significant manual dexterity for task initiation, task performance and task completion are designed to fit older adult dexterity levels.     

辽宁省节水工作存在问题及对策

辽宁省是水资源严重短缺的省份之一，水资源不足已成为制约全省经济社会可持续发展的瓶颈。通过对全省大型取用水户的调查分析，找出了辽宁省节水工作中存在的问题，提出了节约用水工作的对策和建议。     

Using sketches and storyboards to assess impact of age difference in user experience

We compared two versions of a touch-screen digital thermostat using a framework encompassing several user experience (UX) characteristics, and here describe how the implementation of certain design factors (specialists, praises, tooltips and increased interactivity) was done on mixed-fidelity prototypes of the user interface. We illustrate how the experimental comparison, involving 20 university students and 20 older adults, revealed important differences in UX, including perceived ease of use, behavioral intentions, enjoyment, quality, satisfaction, trust and usability, measured mainly through established questionnaires.Analysis revealed that using that kind of artifacts is a very cost effective way to elicit interesting and useful results; many UX variables are significantly affected by design factors and by age differences, as expected; effects of design factors go well beyond usability and therefore could not be caught by running an investigation focused only on usability.Age difference matters: older adults do not respond to addition of specialists, praises and tooltips as younger users do. We argue that potential benefits of these design choices are outweigh by the increase in complexity of the user interface.From a methodological viewpoint we suggest using a particular array of UX characteristics and metrics when testing mixed-fidelity prototypes. Not all the metrics that we adopted were equally useful, and in particular perceived usability, subjective mental effort, and emotions did not help us highlighting differences.     

A New Risk Assessment Approach for Cloud Consumer

The cloud computing introduces several changes in technology that have resulted a new ways for cloud providers to deliver their services to cloud consumers mainly in term of security risk assessment, thus, adapting a current risk assessment tools to cloud computing is a very difficult task due to its several characteristics that challenge the effectiveness of risk assessment approaches. Consequently, there is a need of risk assessment approach adapted to cloud computing. With such an approach, the cloud consumers can be guaranteed the effectiveness of data security and the cloud providers can win the trust of their cloud consumers. This paper requires the formalization of risk assessment method for conventional system as fundamental steps towards the development of flexible risk assessment approach regarding cloud consumers.     

基于网络消费者购买过程的网络营销策略分析

网络消费者是新的消费群体,与传统市场消费群体有着截然不同的特性。企业要想卓有成效地开展网络营销活动,获得来自虚拟世界的利益,就必须了解、分析和把握住网络消费者的消费过程,尽可能地为营销活动提供可靠的数据分析和营销依据。本文从网络消费者购买行为形成和实现的过程入手,对网络消费者购买过程的环节进行策略分析。     

网络中心环境下基于信息超市的数据共享

数据共享是信息资源管理的核心内容。传统"点到点"数据共享方式存在如下缺陷:增加新的应用时就要建立该应用系统到已经存在的应用系统之间的连接,在不同的应用系统进行升级或接口发生变化时会遇到很多的麻烦,至少需要重新修改不同应用系统之间的连接,这导致其缺乏灵活性。本文针对上述缺陷提出了基于信息超市的数据共享方式。该方式使得新的信息资源能动态地加入并且不需要修改系统间的接口。     

企业品牌形象与产品造型设计

品牌形象是企业最有价值的资产之一.现在许多企业已经意识到良好的品牌形象能够使他们更加快速有效的发展.良好的产品造型设计是吸引消费者最直接的途径,也是消费者购买动机的主要因素之一.对一个完整的产品设计来说,不仅要规范生产,销售和产品本身,还需要注意到不同品牌形象产品造型的不同需求,独特而良好的造型风格能够增强产品的可识别性.树立良好的品牌形象,从而提高消费者的忠诚度.     

Driving with pets and motor vehicle collision involvement among older drivers: A prospective population-based study

ObjectiveDistracted driving is a major cause of motor vehicle collision (MVC) involvement. Pets have been identified as potential distraction to drivers, particularly in the front. This type of distraction could be worse for those with impairment in the cognitive aspects of visual processing. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the association between driving with pets and rates of motor vehicle collision involvement in a cohort of older drivers.MethodsA three-year prospective study was conducted in a population-based sample of 2000 licensed drivers aged 70 years and older. At the baseline visit, a trained interviewer asked participants about pet ownership, whether they drive with pets, how frequently, and where the pet sits in the vehicle. Motor vehicle collision (MVC) involvement during the three-year study period was obtained from the Alabama Department of Public Safety. At-fault status was determined by the police officer who arrived on the scene. Participants were followed until the earliest of death, driving cessation, or end of the study period. Poisson regression was used to calculate crude and adjusted rate ratios (RR) examining the association between pet ownership, presence of a pet in a vehicle, frequency of driving with a pet, and location of the pet inside with vehicle with any and at-fault MVC involvement. We examined whether the associations differed by higher order visual processing impairment status, as measured by Useful Field of View, Trails B, and Motor-free Visual Perception Test.ResultsRates of crash involvement were similar for older adults who have ever driven with a pet compared to those who never drove with their pet (RR = 1.15, 95% CI 0.76–1.75). Drivers who reported always or sometimes driving with their pet had higher MVC rates compared to pet owners who never drive with a pet, but this association was not statistically significant (RR = 1.39, 95% CI 0.86–2.24). In terms of location, those reporting having a pet frequently ride in the front of the vehicle had similar rates of MVC involvement compared to those who did not drive with a pet in the front. A similar pattern of results was observed for at-fault MVCs. This association was not modified by visual processing impairment status.ConclusionThe current study demonstrates a positive but non-significant association between frequently driving with pets and MVC involvement. More research is needed, particularly on restraint use and whether the pet was in the car at the time of the crash, to help characterize the public safety benefit of regulations on driving with pets.     

第三方支付现状分析与发展对策

文章针对第三方支付行业飞速发展而国内对于第三方支付领域监管滞后的现状进行了分析,刚出台的《非金融机构支付服务管理办法》明确了第三方支付非金融机构支付服务方的市场地位,加强了对于第三方支付的风险管理,但在很多方面仍有不足,使第三方支付的发展面临很多风险。对于第三方支付的监管不足,尤其是对于消费者保护力度的不足,制约着第三方支付的进一步发展。