bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Preliminary Evaluation of a Serious Game for the Dissemination and Public Awareness on Preschool Children's Oral Health
Authors: Ito Cristina  , Marinho Filho Alfeu V.  , Ito Márcia  , Azevedo Marilia M.  , de Almeida Maurício Amaral
Published: February 2025

This article presents the preliminary evaluation by dentists, teachers and parents of a serious game for dissemination of public awareness on preschool children's oral health. In this game, the player keeps a victory condition, while your tooth remains whole. Preliminary evaluation was performed in two parts. The first part was a questionnaire designed to evaluate the applicability of this technology and the opinions on the effectiveness of games in education and in oral health promotion. In the second part, the game is presented and an evaluation questionnaire of it is applied. This study had the participation of 115 persons. There was 80% approval which suggested that the game is an alternative for the prevention of dental awareness. Furthermore, the study perceives that teachers can work together with dentists in order to perform dental prevention.
Long-term Changes of Information Environments and Computer Anxiety of Nurse Administrators in Japan
Authors: Majima Yukie  , Izumi Takako
Published: February 2025

In Japan, medical information systems, including electronic medical records, are being introduced increasingly at medical and nursing fields. Nurse administrators, who are involved in the introduction of medical information systems and who must make proper judgment, are particularly required to have at least minimal knowledge of computers and networks and the ability to think about easy-to-use medical information systems. However, few of the current generation of nurse administrators studied information science subjects in their basic education curriculum. It can be said that information education for nurse administrators has become a pressing issue. Consequently, in this study, we conducted a survey of participants taking the first level program of the education course for Japanese certified nurse administrators to ascertain the actual conditions, such as the information environments that nurse administrators are in, their anxiety attitude to computers. Comparisons over the seven years since 2004 revealed that although introduction of electronic medical records in hospitals was progressing, little change in attributes of participants taking the course was observed, such as computer anxiety.
Digital Pen-Based Telemonitoring of Elderly Heart Failure Patients
Authors: Lind Leili  , Karlsson Daniel
Published: February 2025

Considering that a majority of elderlies are non-users of computers and Internet we developed a telemonitoring system for elderly heart failure (HF) home care patients based on digital pen technology – a technology never used before by this patient group. We implemented the system in clinical use in a 13 months long study. Fourteen patients (mean/median age 84 years) with severe HF participated. They accepted the technology and performed daily reports of their health state using the digital pen and a Health Diary form. Via the system the clinicians detected all HF-related deteriorations at an early stage and thereby prevented hospital re-admissions for all patients during the study, implying improved symptom control and large cost savings.
Using Text Prediction for Facilitating Input and Improving Readability of Clinical Text
Authors: Ahltorp Magnus  , Skeppstedt Maria  , Dalianis Hercules  , Kvist Maria
Published: February 2025

Text prediction has the potential for facilitating and speeding up the documentation work within health care, making it possible for health personnel to allocate less time to documentation and more time to patient care. It also offers a way to produce clinical text with fewer misspellings and abbreviations, increasing readability. We have explored how text prediction can be used for input of clinical text, and how the specific challenges of text prediction in this domain can be addressed. A text prediction prototype was constructed using data from a medical journal and from medical terminologies. This prototype achieved keystroke savings of 26% when evaluated on texts mimicking authentic clinical text. The results are encouraging, indicating that there are feasible methods for text prediction in the clinical domain.
Temporal Pattern Mining for Multivarite Clinical Decision Support
Authors: Saini Sheetal  , Dua Sumeet
Published: February 2025

Multivariate temporal data are collections of contiguous data values that reflect complex temporal changes over a given duration. Technological advances have resulted in significant amounts of such data in high-throughput disciplines, including EEG and iEEG data for effective and efficient healthcare informatics, and decision support. Most data analytics and data-mining algorithms are effective in capturing global trends, but fail to capture localized behavioral changes in large temporal data sets. We present a two-step algorithmic methodology to uncover temporal patterns and exploiting them for an efficient and accurate decision support system. This methodology aids the discovery of previously unknown, nontrivial, and potentially useful temporal patterns for enhanced patient-specific clinical decision support with high degrees of sensitivity and specificity. Classification results on multivariate time series iEEG data for epileptic seizure detection also demonstrate the efficacy and accuracy of the technique to uncover interesting and effective domain class-specific temporal patterns.
Simulating Cloud Environment for HIS Backup using Secret Sharing
Authors: Kuroda Tomohiro  , Kimura Eizen  , Matsumura Yasushi  , Yamashita Yoshinori  , Hiramatsu Haruhiko  , Kume Naoto
Published: February 2025

In the face of a disaster hospitals are expected to be able to continue providing efficient and high-quality care to patients. It is therefore crucial for hospitals to develop business continuity plans (BCPs) that identify their vulnerabilities, and prepare procedures to overcome them. A key aspect of most hospitals' BCPs is creating the backup of the hospital information system (HIS) data at multiple remote sites. However, the need to keep the data confidential dramatically increases the costs of making such backups. Secret sharing is a method to split an original secret message so that individual pieces are meaningless, but putting sufficient number of pieces together reveals the original message. It allows creation of pseudo-redundant arrays of independent disks for privacy-sensitive data over the Internet. We developed a secret sharing environment for StarBED, a large-scale network experiment environment, and evaluated its potential and performance during disaster recovery. Simulation results showed that the entire main HIS database of Kyoto University Hospital could be retrieved within three days even if one of the distributed storage systems crashed during a disaster.
Improving Heart Failure Information Extraction by Domain Adaptation
Authors: Kim Youngjun  , Garvin Jennifer  , Heavirland Julia  , Meystre Stéphane M.
Published: February 2025

Adapting an information extraction application to a new domain (e.g., new categories of narrative text) typically requires re-training the application with the new narratives. But could previous training from the original domain alleviate this adaptation?
Verbal Protocols for Assessing the Usability of Clinical Decision Support: The Retrospective Sense Making Protocol
Authors: Balatsoukas Panagiotis  , Ainsworth John  , Williams Richard  , Carruthers Emma  , Davies Colin  , McGrath James  , Akbarov Artur  , Soiland-Reyes Claudia  , Badiyani Saurin  , Buchan Iain
Published: February 2025

We compare the effectiveness of two types of verbal protocol, concurrent think aloud vs. retrospective sense making, for evaluating the usability of a clinical decision support tool. Thirty-five medical and nursing students participated in a usability experiment. Participants were asked to complete seven tasks using the system under evaluation. Eighteen students were allocated to the concurrent think aloud group and the remainder followed the retrospective protocol. The retrospective protocol was significantly more sensitive than the concurrent protocol in recording unique usability problems related to users' cognitive behaviour. These problems concerned the interpretation and comprehension of statistical output, search results and system messages. These findings can be explained by the retrospective protocol's greater ability to detect compound usability problems, capturing the cognitive dimensions of users' interactions with the interface in greater depth. Evaluations of clinical decision support systems should take an evidence-based approach to selecting protocols.
Full-text Automated Detection of Surgical Site Infections Secondary to Neurosurgery in Rennes, France
Authors: Campillo-Gimenez Boris  , Garcelon Nicolas  , Jarno Pascal  , Chapplain Jean Marc  , Cuggia Marc
Published: February 2025

The surveillance of Surgical Site Infections (SSI) contributes to the management of risk in French hospitals. Manual identification of infections is costly, time-consuming and limits the promotion of preventive procedures by the dedicated teams. The introduction of alternative methods using automated detection strategies is promising to improve this surveillance. The present study describes an automated detection strategy for SSI in neurosurgery, based on textual analysis of medical reports stored in a clinical data warehouse. The method consists firstly, of enrichment and concept extraction from full-text reports using NOMINDEX, and secondly, text similarity measurement using a vector space model. The text detection was compared to the conventional strategy based on self-declaration and to the automated detection using the diagnosis-related group database. The text-mining approach showed the best detection accuracy, with recall and precision equal to 92% and 40% respectively, and confirmed the interest of reusing full-text medical reports to perform automated detection of SSI.
Barriers and Opportunities to the Widespread Adoption of Telemedicine: A Bi-Country Evaluation
Authors: Vimarlund Vivian  , Le Rouge Cynthia
Published: February 2025

Recognizing that current practices for healthcare delivery are no longer sustainable, OECD governments are focusing more and more on how to leverage ICT to facilitate superior healthcare delivery. One such possibility is the use of Telemedicine. A major goal of telemedicine today is to develop next-generation telemedicine tools and technologies. However, key “classic” barriers continue to challenge widespread telemedicine adoption by health care organizations. These barriers include technology, financial, legal/standards, business strategy, and human resources issues. This comparative study explores the current status of barriers and opportunities to the widespread adoption of telemedicine in two different countries: Sweden, and USA.
The Evaluation of Integrating Physical Restraint Report and Care Record System
Authors: Hou I-Ching  , Chen Jimmy  , Lin Fan-Lian  , Yu Hui-Zu  , Huang Si-Fen  , Huang Yue-Jiao
Published: February 2025

Physical restraint is the nursing intervention to protect patient safety in the hospital. Nurses should monitor and charting during the physical restraint period. Physical restraint is also the measurement of Taiwan clinical performance indicator. The traditional physical restraint quality measurement depends on the nurses' report. Lacking of integrating of report and nurses' care record induces the low report rate. In 2007, we developed the integrating physical restraint report and care record system to facilitate the report process in 2300-bed medical center in northern Taiwan. We evaluated the system with two methods after system implemented for one year. The results show it significantly increased the reporting rate from before (0.77%) to after (1.5%) and had no significance difference with the average reporting rate in Taiwan (P>0.05). Most nurses felt nature to satisfy on the system usefulness (81%) and preferred to use system then use paper form record (83.1%). Almost every nurse had correct cognitions on report physical restrain event when it occurred to patients. The system seemed to be successful implemented and helpful for the quality measurement management.
Open Data Protection: Challenges, Perspectives, and Tools for the Reuse of PSI
Authors: Pagallo Ugo  , Bassi Eleonora
Published: February 2025

Open data debate and PSI (public sector information) legislation have so far focused on the access to public rather than personal data for reuse purposes. As a number of cases discussed before some European Data Protection Authorities have shown over the past years, however, conditions of access to PSI for reuse purposes may raise issues of data protection. Consider commercial and land registers, case law databases, public deliberations, vehicle registrations, socioeconomic data, and more, in light of such techniques as big data analytics. Correspondingly, it is likely that the reuse of PSI will increasingly concern principles and criteria for making personal data processing legitimate. The aim of this paper is to examine today's legal framework and the technical means that may enable the lawful reuse of personal data, collected and held by public sector bodies. Whereas openness and data protection are often conceived as opposed in a ‘zero sum game’, the paper explores whether a ‘win-win’ scenario is feasible.
Constructing a Hierarchical Learning Cost Curve for Photovotaic System
Authors: Trappey Amy J.C.  , Trappey Charles V.  , Liu Penny H.Y.  , Lin Lee-Cheng  , Ou Jerry J.R.
Published: February 2025

Developing renewable energy is an effective approach to reduce global warming and satisfies increasing energy demands. Among all of the renewable energy sources, solar power has the greatest potential because it is derived naturally from the sun. Photovoltaic methods convert solar radiation into direct current electricity via semiconductors. Although the energy coming from the sun is abundant, the cost of generating electricity using photovoltaic methods remains higher than conventional means of generating electricity. Often, expensive manufacturing and installation costs reduce the benefits of photovoltaic systems. In order to encourage the usage of photovoltaic systems, several countries have used a feed-in tariff calculated based on the installation costs as an incentive. Considering this important incentive, a learning curve model is constructed to model the installation costs. The cost and benefit model helps evaluate profitability as well as determine the feasible buyback prices and future installation plans. There are many factors that influence the costs. Therefore, this study uses Taiwan as case study and develops a hierarchical installation cost learning curve model for photovoltaic facility construction. Finally, the progression rate, which represents the cost trend, is calculated using case data.
Cloud Technology for Service-Oriented Manufacturing
Authors: Xu Xun
Published: February 2025

Cloud computing is changing the way industries and enterprises do their businesses in that dynamically scalable and virtualized resources are provided as services mostly over the Internet. Cloud Computing is also emerging as one of the major enablers for the manufacturing industry; it can transform the traditional manufacturing business model, help it align product innovation with business strategy, and create intelligent factory networks that encourage effective collaboration. Two types of Cloud Computing adoptions in the manufacturing sector have been suggested, manufacturing with direct adoption of Cloud Computing technologies and Cloud Manufacturing – the manufacturing version of Cloud Computing. Cloud computing has been implemented in some of key areas of manufacturing such as IT and pay-as-you-go business models. In Cloud Manufacturing, distributed resources are encapsulated into cloud services and managed in a centralized way. Clients can use cloud services according to their requirements. A cloud manufacturing platform has been proposed to provide users with a big range of flexible and sustainable manufacturing capabilities. Manufacturing capabilities and business opportunities are integrated and broadcasted in a larger resource pool, which can enhance the competiveness of the entire consortium.
Kansei Clustering Using Design Structure Matrix and Graph Decomposition for Emotional Design
Authors: Chen Chun-Hsien  , Huang Yuexiang  , Khoo Li Pheng  , Chang Danni
Published: February 2025

Conventionally, Kansei engineering relies heavily on the intuition of the person who uses the method in clustering the Kansei. As a result, the selection of Kansei adjectives may not be consistent with the consumer's opinions. Nevertheless, to obtain a consumer-consistent result, all of the collected Kansei adjectives (usually hundreds) might need to be evaluated by every survey participant, which is impractical in most design cases. Accordingly, a Kansei clustering method based on design structure matrix (DSM) and graph decomposition (GD) is proposed in this work. The method breaks the Kansei adjectives down into a number of subsets for the ease of management among the survey participants. In so doing, each participant deals with only a portion of the collected words and the subsets are integrated using a DSM-based algorithm for an overall Kansei clustering result. In order to differentiate the groups in the combined DSM further, graph decomposition (GD) is used to yield non-exclusive Kansei clusters. The hybrid approach, i.e., using DSM and GD, is able to handle the Kansei clustering problem. A case study on cordless battery drills is used to illustrate the proposed approach. The obtained results are compared and discussed.
Usability of ICT Application for the Elderly People in Disaster Reduction
Authors: Iwasaki Naoko
Published: February 2025

This paper aims to grasp the role of CIOs for the super aging society in Japan. The paper is based on the surveys on ICT applications for Elderly people, which the Institute of e-Government of Waseda University conducted in 2010–2011. The paper begins by reviewing the damage of 3.11 in Japan. Next I analysed the results of questionnaires, and tried to find the best ICT solutions for elderly people in order to reduce the damage of disasters. Finally I evaluated against the availability of special infrastructure, devices interfaces, and services and applications for elderly people in Japan. The paper concludes with an outline of proposed measures for promotion of ICT applications and the role of CIO based on the innovation for the aging society.
Metadata on Biofilm Development in Drinking Water Distribution Systems
Authors: Ramos-Martínez Eva  , Gutiérrez-Pérez Joanna A.  , Herrera Manuel  , Izquierdo Joaquín  , Pérez-García Rafael
Published: February 2025

Biofilm is formed by complex communities of microorganisms that grow within a drinking water distribution system (DWDS) and can lead to various undesirable problems. Nowadays, biofilm represents a paradigm in the management of all DWDSs. In this context, we focus on how the physical and hydraulics characteristics of DWDSs affect the development of these communities of microorganisms, looking for the problematic points associated with biofilm development within a DWDS. Various studies have been performed in relation to the influence that a number of characteristics of DWDSs have on biofilm development. Nevertheless, their joint influence, apart from few exceptions, has been scarcely studied, due to the complexity of the community and the environment under study. To achieve this goal we have compiled biofilm data from different sources and pre-processed it, applying some machine learning methods, to get a complete and extensive enough database to perform inference by posterior analysis. In this case, an agent-based label negotiation technique is applied to the obtained database to identify important pre-relationships between the physical and the hydraulic characteristics of the pipes, their specific location, and biofilm development in a given DWDS.
Remote Attestation Mechanism for Embedded Devices Based on Physical Unclonable Functions
Authors: Akram Raja Naeem  , Markantonakis Konstantinos  , Mayes Keith
Published: February 2025

Remote attestation mechanisms are well studied in the high-end computing environments; however, the same is not true for embedded devices – especially for smart cards. With ever changing landscape of smart card technology and advancements towards a true multi-application platform, verifying the current state of the smart card is significant to the overall security of such proposals. The initiatives proposed by GlobalPlatform Consumer Centric Model (GP-CCM) and User Centric Smart Card Ownership Model (UCOM) enables a user to download any application as she desire – depending upon the authorisation of the application provider. Before an application provider issues an application to a smart card, verifying the current state of the smart card is crucial to the security of the respective application. In this paper, we analyse the rationale behind the remote attestation mechanism for smart cards, and the fundamental features that such a mechanism should possess. We also study the applicability of Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) for the remote attestation mechanism and propose two algorithms to achieve the stated features of remote attestation. The proposed algorithms are implemented in a test environment to evaluate their performance.
Securing NFC with Elliptic Curve Cryptography – Challenges and Solutions
Authors: Fan Xinxin  , Gong Guang
Published: February 2025

Near Field Communication (NFC) is an emerging short-range wireless communication technology that is at the heart of an expanding spectrum of easy-to-use, intuitive, and contactless applications. Unfortunately, the multiple operating modes and numerous application scenarios have made it particularly challenging for securing NFC based systems. In this paper, we review the potential security threats for NFC and summarize the efforts of standardization bodies and industry using elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) to protect NFC based systems in great detail. We also improve a key agreement and confirmation protocol in the ECMA-386 standard to an authenticated version and propose an entity authentication protocol based on the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) primitive and the elliptic curve Qu-Vanstone (ECQV) implicit certificate scheme. Efficient and secure implemen tations of the ECDH scheme on NFC-enabled devices are discussed and reported.
Expressive Planning Through Constraints
Authors: Köckemann Uwe  , Pecora Federico  , Karlsson Lars
Published: February 2025

The real-world applicability of automated planners depends on the expressiveness of the problem modeling language. Contemporary planners can deal with causal features of the problem, but only limited forms of temporal, resource and relational constraints. These constraints should be fully supported for dealing with real-world applications. We propose a highly-expressive, action-based planning language which includes causal, relational, temporal and resource constraints. This paper also contributes an approach for solving such rich planning problems by decomposition and constraint reasoning. The approach is general with respect to the types of constraints used in the problem definition language, in that additional solvers need only satisfy certain formal properties. The approach is evaluated on a domain which utilizes many features offered by the introduced language.
A Software Package for Web Deployment of Probabilistic Graphical Models
Authors: Madsen Anders L.  , Karlsen Martin  , Barker Gary C.  , Garcia Ana Belen  , Hoorfar Jeffrey  , Jensen Frank  , Vigre Håkan
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a software architecture for deployment of decision support systems based on probabilistic graphical models (PGMs). It has been developed to ease the task of deploying a PGM on the Internet as a decision support system. The paper describes how the architecture has served as a strong platform for the development and deployment of two case studies in food safety.
Learning Air Combat Parameters using Differential Evolution
Authors: Salling Emil  , Rensfelt Agnes  , Stensbäck Niclas  , Ögren Petter
Published: February 2025

In this paper, we improve the performance of autonomous air combat behaviours using a differential evolution approach. We have previously developed air combat behaviours, that are used as opponents in a pilot training facility of the Swedish Air Force. These behaviours contain a number of design parameters, such as at what distance to fire missiles and what risk levels toaccept before disengaging. We improve the performance of the behaviours by applying two approaches. First, by searching for the best response against a given opponent strategy, second by looking for a Nash-equilibrium in a game where both players are allowed to adapt their strategies. Differential Evolution is used in both cases, and the fitness of the parameters is evaluated using parallel execution of detailed high fidelity models of aircraft, weapons and behaviours.
Semantic Web Enabled Software Analysis
Authors: Tappolet Jonas  , Kiefer Christoph  , Bernstein Abraham
Published: February 2025

One of the most important decisions researchers face when analysing software systems is the choice of a proper data analysis/exchange format. In this paper, we present EvoOnt, a set of software ontologies and data exchange formats based on OWL. EvoOnt models software design, release history information, and bug-tracking meta-data. Since OWL describes the semantics of the data, EvoOnt (1) is easily extendible, (2) can be processed with many existing tools, and (3) allows to derive assertions through its inherent Description Logic reasoning capabilities. The contribution of this paper is that it introduces a novel software evolution ontology that vastly simplifies typical software evolution analysis tasks. In detail, we show the usefulness of EvoOnt by repeating selected software evolution and analysis experiments from the 2004–2007 Mining Software Repositories Workshops (MSR). We demonstrate that if the data used for analysis were available in EvoOnt then the analyses in 75% of the papers at MSR could be reduced to one or at most two simple queries within off-the-shelf SPARQL tools. In addition, we present how the inherent capabilities of the Semantic Web have the potential of enabling new tasks that have not yet been addressed by software evolution researchers, e.g., due to the complexities of the data integration.
Semantically Enabling Web Service Repositories
Authors: Sabou Marta  , Maleshkova Maria  , Pan Jeff Z.
Published: February 2025

The success of the Web service technology has brought topics such as software reuse and discovery once again on the agenda of software engineers. While there are several efforts towards automating Web service discovery and composition, many developers still search for services via online Web service repositories and then combine them manually. However, from our analysis of these repositories, it yields that, unlike traditional software libraries, they rely on little metadata to support service discovery. We believe that the major cause is the difficulty of automatically deriving metadata that would describe rapidly changing Web service collections. In this paper, we discuss the major shortcomings of current Web service repositories and, as a solution, we report on how to use techniques developed in the context of the Semantic Web (ontology learning, service annotation tools, automatic classifiers, metadata based presentation) to improve the current situation.
Development of Extracorporeal Suturing Simulation in Virtual Basic Laparoscopic Skill Trainer (VBLaST
Authors: Lee Jason  , Ahn Woojin  , De Suvranu
Published: February 2025

This paper presents the development of extracorporeal suturing simulation in Virtual Basic Laparoscopic Skill Trainer (VBLaST©). A novel hardware interface is designed to allow the user to perform the physical action of trying a knot and seamlessly integrate the knot into the virtual simulation.
Anthropomorphic Passive Mechanism for Performing Hand Exercises
Authors: Uribe-Quevedo Alvaro  , Leon-Rodriguez Hernando  , Perez-Gutierrez Byron
Published: February 2025

Hand disabilities resulting from traumas, accidents and other causes impact how people carry on everyday tasks, thus, the importance of physical therapy. This process is characterized for performing repetitive sequences of motion with the guidance of a physical therapist, and in some cases, requires doing the therapy without attendance, which may lead to unsatisfactory results due to pain, unclear guides and poor feedback on their performance. This paper presents the development of a humanoid passive mechanism for hand exercising using its limbs for achieving flexion/extension, pronation/supination and radial/ulnar deviations. Preliminary tests show an interest in having similar devices for hand training associated as a leisure activity that could be used as a stress reliever that allows entertaining while training.
Toward a Realistic Simulation of Organ Dissection
Authors: Villard Pierre-Frederic  , Koenig Nicolas  , Perrenot Cyril  , Perez Manuela  , Boshier Piers
Published: February 2025

Whilst laparoscopic surgical simulators are becoming increasingly realistic they can not, as yet, fully replicate the experience of live surgery. In particular tissue dissection in one task that is particularly challenging to replicate. Limitation of current attempts to simulate tissue dissection include: poor visual rendering; over simplification of the task and; unrealistic tissue properties. In an effort to generate a more realistic model of tissue dissection in laparoscopic surgery we propose a novel method based on task analysis. Initially we have chosen to model only the basic geometrics of this task rather than a whole laparoscopic procedure. Preliminary work has led to the development of a real time simulator performing organ dissection with a haptic thread at 1000Hz. A virtual cutting tool, manipulated through a haptic device, in combination with 1D and 2D soft-tissue models accuratelyreplicatetheprocessoflaparoscopictissuedissection.
The ELF@Home project: Elderly sELF-care based on sELF-check of health conditions and sELF-fitness at home
Authors: Carús Juan Luis  , García Sonia  , García Rodrigo  , Waterworth John  , Erdt Stefanie
Published: February 2025

The ELF@Home project is a research and innovation project running from June 1st2013 to May 31st2016 and co-funded by the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL JP) and National Authorities in Spain, Sweden and Germany. The ELF@Home project relies on the use of the proven advantages of elderly fitness to develop a self-care solution based on self-check of health conditions and self-fitness at home. The project uses information and communication technologies (ICT) to build an autonomous fitness system targeting healthy or pre-frail elderly people aged over 65 and living independently at home.
Connectors and Solution Providers – Postal Services in the Digital Age
Authors: Bukovc Bernhard
Published: February 2025

Postal Services in the Digital Age looks at the status of the postal industry and the possibilities postal operators have to maintain their strong role as connectors and solution-providers in the market. The digital age has changed the needs of customers, and with the new demands, as well as declining mail volumes and strong competition in new and profitable areas, postal operators face huge challenges. This makes it important to focus on the strengths and unique selling propositions (USPs) of postal operators, and build a service portfolio around these strengths in order to maximize their USPs. This article summarizes the findings of Postal Services in the Digital Age, and creates, based upon the input and findings of other authors, a picture of the core postal competences, value propositions and new roles that would enable postal operators to strengthen or regain their position as connectors and solution-providers.
Postal Organisations in the Face of eCommerce: Part of the Steamroller or Part of the Road?
Authors: Umbers Richard
Published: February 2025

This paper discusses the nature of the challenge presented for postal organizations by digitization, and presents parcels and eCommerce as a real opportunity for profitable growth. These areas are discussed from the perspective of a changing customer profile, informing the need for a new product offering and operating model, but in the context of a highly competitive and evolving market. Australia Post is presented as a short case study.
Mini-Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Intelligence: A Threat to Land Vehicles
Authors: Le Vu Thanh  , Filippidis Arthur  , Lim Chee Peng  , Abdelrahman Wael  , Nahavandi Saeid
Published: February 2025

Increasing use of commercial off-the-shelf Mini-Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (MAV) systems with enhanced intelligence methodologies can potentially be a threat, if this technology falls into the wrong hands. In this study, we investigate the level of threat imposed on critical infrastructure using different MAV swarm artificial intelligence traits and coordination methodologies. The critical infrastructure in consideration is a moving commercial land vehicle that may be transporting for example an important civil servant or politician. Non-dimensional fitness functions used for measuring MAV mission effectiveness have been established for the case studies considered in this paper. The findings indicated that increased in intelligent and coordination level elevate teams' efficiency, therefore poses a higher degree of threat to targeted land vehicle. Observations from the study have suggested that memory-based cooperative technique provides a consistent efficiency compared to other methods for the mission objectives considered in this paper.
Toward a Typology of Technology Users: How Older People Experience Technology's Potential for Active Aging
Authors: Gjevjon Edith Roth  , Øderud Tone  , Wensaas Gro H.  , Moen Anne
Published: February 2025

This paper outlines an emerging typology of older users of information and communication technology (ICT) to facilitate active aging. Through inductive data analysis from focus groups, iterative workshops, and personal interviews, we suggest three types of technology users. These types are “the Excluded,” “the Entertained,” and “the Networker.” Clearly, ICT offers several benefits to those who are enthusiastic and frequent users, exemplified as the Entertained and the Networker. Hence, our findings support the notion of technology as a tool to maintain or increase an older person's engagement and activity level. Conversely, for those reluctant, uninterested, or incapable of using ICT, such potentials are limited and imply fewer opportunities for participation in activities.
Off-Policy Shaping Ensembles in Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Harutyunyan Anna  , Brys Tim  , Vrancx Peter  , Nowé Ann
Published: February 2025

In this work we propose learning an ensemble of policies related through potential-based shaping rewards via the off-policy Horde framework.
Eliciting a Suitable Voting Rule via Examples
Authors: Cailloux Olivier  , Endriss Ulle
Published: February 2025

We address the problem of specifying a voting rule by means of a series of examples. Each example consists of the answer to a simple question: how should the rule rank two alternatives, given the positions at which each voter ranks the two alternatives? To be able to formalise this elicitation problem, we develop a novel variant of classical social choice theory in terms of associations of alternatives with vectors of ranks rather than the common associations of voters with preference orders. We then define and study a class of voting rules suited for elicitation using such answers. Finally, we propose and experimentally evaluate several elicitation strategies for arriving at a good approximation of the target rule with a reasonable number of queries.
Formal Arguments, Preferences, and Natural Language Interfaces to Humans: an Empirical Evaluation
Authors: Cerutti Federico  , Tintarev Nava  , Oren Nir
Published: February 2025

It has been claimed that computational models of argumentation provide support for complex decision making activities in part due to the close alignment between their semantics and human intuition. In this paper we assess this claim by means of an experiment: people's evaluation of formal arguments — presented in plain English — is compared to the conclusions obtained from argumentation semantics. Our results show a correspondence between the acceptability of arguments by human subjects and the justification status prescribed by the formal theory in the majority of the cases. However, post-hoc analyses show that there are some significant deviations, which appear to arise from implicit knowledge regarding the domains in which evaluation took place. We argue that in order to create argumentation systems, designers must take implicit domain specific knowledge into account.
Nonparametric Bayesian Multi-Task Large-margin Classification
Authors: Du Changying  , He Jia  , Zhuang Fuzhen  , Qi Yuan  , He Qing
Published: February 2025

In this paper, we present a nonparametric Bayesian multi-task large-margin classification model which can cluster tasks into the most appropriate number of groups and induce flexible model sharing within each task group simultaneously. Specifically, we first show a very simple method to integrate large margin learning with hierarchical Bayesian models by employing an important variant of the standard SVMi.e.proximal SVM (PSVM)whose loss function is used to define a novel likelihood function. And then we assume that the model parameter of each task consists of two parts: one is shared within each task group (group-level parameter) while the other is specific to each distinct task (task rescaling parameter). A Dirichlet process prior is imposed on the group-level parameter while the task rescaling parameter is assigned a one-mean Laplace prior. Finally the parameter of a task is the corresponding group parameter times its specific rescaling parameter. We give efficient Markov chain Monte Calo (MCMC) algorithm to conduct model inference. Experiments on the Landmine detection data and the UCI Yeast data demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.
Measuring Diversity of Preferences in a Group
Authors: Hashemi Vahid  , Endriss Ulle
Published: February 2025

We introduce a general framework for measuring the degree of diversity in the preferences held by the members of a group. We formalise and investigate three specific approaches within that framework: diversity as the range of distinct views held, diversity as aggregate distance between individual views, and diversity as distance of the group's views to a single compromise view. While similarly attractive from an intuitive point of view, the three approaches display significant differences when analysed using both the axiomatic method and empirical studies.
Declarative Spatial Reasoning with Boolean Combinations of Axis-Aligned Rectangular Polytopes
Authors: Schultz Carl  , Bhatt Mehul
Published: February 2025

We present a formal framework and implementation for declarative spatial representation and reasoning about the topological relationships between boolean combinations of regions (i.e., union, intersection, difference, xor). Regions of space here correspond to arbitrary axis aligned n-polytope objects, with geometric parameters either fully grounded, partially grounded, or completely unspecified. The framework is implemented in the context of CLP(𝒬𝒮)CLP(𝒬𝒮): A Declarative Spatial Reasoning System. www.spatial-reasoning.com
Boosting Constraint Acquisition via Generalization Queries
Authors: Bessiere Christian  , Coletta Remi  , Daoudi Abderrazak  , Lazaar Nadjib  , Mechqrane Younes  , Bouyakhf El Houssine
Published: February 2025

Constraint acquisition assists a non-expert user in modeling her problem as a constraint network. In existing constraint acquisition systems the user is only asked to answer very basic questions. The drawback is that when no background knowledge is provided, the user may need to answer a great number of such questions to learn all the constraints. In this paper, we introduce the concept of generalization query based on an aggregation of variables into types. We present a constraint generalization algorithm that can be plugged into any constraint acquisition system. We propose several strategies to make our approach more efficient in terms of number of queries. Finally we experimentally compare the recent QUACQ system to an extended version boosted by the use of our generalization functionality. The results show that the extended version dramatically improves the basic QUACQ.
A! – A Cooperative Heuristic Search Algorithm
Authors: Halme Antti
Published: February 2025

We propose a new parallel search algorithm – A! – based on cooperating A* search agents, concurrency and a secondary tiebreaking heuristic. The search agents in A! share information asynchronously and trade some of their independence for additional search focus and a more global view of the search task. A! is inherently nondeterministic due to the implicit randomness of instruction scheduling, but given a consistent primary heuristic, it still finds optimal solutions for the single-source shortest path problem (SSSP). A! combines into a single cooperative search algorithm the breadth available in parallel execution and the depth-first orientation of both locally and globally informed search.
Improving Laboratory Results Turnaround Time By Reducing Pre Analytical Phase
Authors: Khalifa Mohamed  , Khalid Parwaiz
Published: February 2025

Laboratory turnaround time is considered one of the most important indicators of work efficiency in hospitals, physicians always need timely results to take effective clinical decisions especially in the emergency department where these results can guide physicians whether to admit patients to the hospital, discharge them home or do further investigations. A retrospective data analysis study was performed to identify the effects of ER and Lab staff training on new routines for sample collection and transportation on the pre-analytical phase of turnaround time. Renal profile tests requested by the ER and performed in 2013 has been selected as a sample, and data about 7,519 tests were retrieved and analyzed to compare turnaround time intervals before and after implementing new routines. Results showed significant time reduction on “Request to Sample Collection” and “Collection to In Lab Delivery” time intervals with less significant improvement on the analytical phase of the turnaround time.
Financial Well-being in Active Ageing
Authors: Rajola Federico  , Frigerio Chiara  , Parrichi Monica
Published: February 2025

In developed countries, economic and financial well-being is playing a crucial positive role in ageing and inclusion processes. Due to the complexity and pervasiveness of financial economy in the real life, more and more social as well as individual well-being are perceived as influenced by financial conditions. On the other hand, the demographic circumstances drive scholars as well as politicians to reflect on ageing dynamics. Bridging the two domains, the following research focuses on the role of the financial well-being as a mediating role of general well-being in elder people. The assumption is that elderly people have specific financial needs that sometimes are not covered by financial providers' offers. The motivation is mainly on the role of information asymmetries between elder consumers and financial institutions. On the dynamics of these asymmetries, the research will specifically investigate the role of financial literacy, as the ability of comprehension of elder people of their needs and of financial information. The applicative implication of this research work consists in finding the determinants of financial well-being for elders and the definition of their specific financial competencies, in order to 1) identify educational and regulatory guidelines for policy makers in charge of creating financial market transparency conditions, and to 2) support design of organizational mechanisms as well as financial product/services for this specific target of client. The following chapter presents preliminary explorative results of a survey delivered on 200 elder individuals (65–80 yrs.) leaving in Milan. Findings show that active elders consider the ability of managing personal wealth as one of the core determinant of well-being, although the economic and financial literacy is limited. Furthermore, the chapter proposes a research agenda for scholars interested in exploring the relationship between financial well-being and ageing.
Usability of a virtual community of practice for workforce development of clinical supervisors
Authors: Mather Carey  , Cummings Elizabeth
Published: February 2025

Workplaces are being transformed by technological change. There is great potential for innovation at educational institutions and in the workplace. Creative and effective use of information communication technology in learning and teaching and for continuing professional development of health professionals is imperative. To determine the usability of a virtual community of practice for clinical supervisors, an online survey was administered prior to attendance at professional development workshops. Clinical supervisors were targeted because they were senior nurse leaders and could promote and model the use of the virtual network within their organisations. Survey findings indicated that a community of practice would be useful for communication about clinical supervision and obtaining information from the University. However, respondents were less certain they would share information by actively contributing to the public mobile learning resources. This study indicates there is considerable potential to build capacity of healthcare professionals through workforce development. Support for clinical supervisors to understand and use mobile learning strategies for continuing professional development and promote life-long learning can assist with realising the vision of the National Workforce Development Strategy.
How Can ICTs Support Rural Development
Authors: Jansen Arild
Published: February 2025

The development of Internet and small scale computing created the belief that ICTs would help the development of rural areas. In retrospect, these visions turned out to be too optimistic. Today, we experience rather dramatic centralisation trends. This is not because of ICTs alone, but we have seen that ICTs often support centralizing forces, rather than help local development. However, the academic discourse on these issues suffers from the lack of clarity and precise understanding of the ICT artefact. We have therefor developed an analytical framework by conceptualizing ICTs along three dimensions; how it is viewed, its use and how it impacts development. Our main message is that ICTs have to be used locally to foster horizontal collaboration, innovation and knowledge creation activities.