bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Outside of School for Boys and Girls with Motor Disabilities
Authors: Lidström Helene  , Ahlsten Gunnar  , Hemmingsson Helena
Published: February 2025

The aim of the study was to investigate boys and girls with motor disabilities use and opinions of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in outside-of-school activities compared with non-disabled children. Participants were 254 children and youths, with motor disabilities, attending mainstream schools. The participants responded to a questionnaire about the use of ICT activities outside-of-school. For group comparisons with non-disabled children, data from the survey “Kids and Media” was used. A significantly higher proportion of children with motor disabilities was engaged in ICT activities, such as using the Internet, playing computer games and visiting communities. Our study reveals a positive result from a gender perspective, where the use of ICT activities is more equal among boys and girls with disabilities than among non-disabled boys and girls. This brings new interest in ICT and computer activities as an opportunity for all boys and girls, since previous studies show that digital skills affect academic skills, and ICT activities may also serve as a gateway to technology in general.
Creating an Inclusive Synergy between User Focused and Environmental Approaches in Further and Higher Education
Authors: Duffin Dawn  , Sax Caren
Published: February 2025

This paper approaches student needs identification and education and training programme delivery from a universal design perspective. The concept of a universal design approach here focuses not just on the way in which the needs of the student in accessing, attending and achieving potential on the programme are met but also on the way the institution responds to diversity under the following elements: Access, Needs identification, Resources, Curriculum structure, Lecture format, and Assessment, through maximising the use of ICT across the board.
New Video Games Generations: Only Games or an Opportunity for Assistive Technology?
Authors: Davalli Angelo  , Orlandini Duccio  , Cutti Andrea  , Gruppioni Emanuele  , Mainardi Elena  , Malavasi M.
Published: February 2025

The recent introduction in the consumer electronics of MEMS sensors can be a challenge for applications in areas were high cost technologies has been before used. In rehabilitation as well as in the aids for PC access the new games can be used and the emulation of standard (HID) Human Input Devices enable people con disabilities to have a low cost devices and to continue at home the rehabilitation process started in a rehabilitation centre..
“he Accessibility Agency” – Promoting the Development of Inclusive Environments by Mainstreaming Accessibility Issues
Authors: Bühler Christian  , Schmitz Wolfgang  , Hubert Michael
Published: February 2025

The government of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has launched the “accessibility agency NRW”, as a nationwide unique approach. The Agency is run by FTB (Research Institute for Technology and Disability) and the “Landesbehindertenrat” as a head organisation of self-help communities of people with disabilities in North Rhine-Westphalia. In order to support changes in social and disability legislation designed to improve participation opportunities and quality of life of people with disabilities, the free services of the “accessibility agency NRW” focus on the implementation of accessibility in several areas of application. Independent, non-commercial information, a widespread spectrum of counselling and management services are offered, targeted at people with disabilities and their organisations as well as at decision-makers in public administration, policy and economy. As an example of the agency's work the implementation process of an EU guideline on the accessibility of airports is reported. It has been found to be advantageous to professionally support the process of generating accessibility by an independent and non-commercial competence centre. There is interest in the successful concept of the agency not only on the part of other federal states but also on federal level.
Turning Back Time for Inclusion Today as well as Tomorrow
Authors: Bringolf Jane  , Schraner Ingrid
Published: February 2025

Inclusion is a futuristic concept insofar as it is something for which we are striving, for if it were achieved, no discussion would be needed. Inclusion, as a future-focused endeavor, conveniently allows the legacies of the past to be ignored and prevents us from achieving inclusiveness today. In addition, the interchangeable use of various terms, such as accessible, adaptable and universal, restricts our capacity to achieve inclusion and potentially hinders useful academic debate and effective practical application. The reflections in this paper are the result of work to identify the key factors preventing Australian construction industry professionals from supplying more inclusively designed housing stock.
Analysis of the AT ICT Industry in Europe
Authors: Pastor Carmen  , Zarate Leire  , Stack Jennifer  , Eizmendi Gorka
Published: February 2025

There are currently approximately 45 million people in Europe who report a long standing health problem or disability. Further, the aging population means that more people will have to live with some sort of disability. Recent figures from the 2008-based national population projections EUROPOP2008 show that the share of people aged 65 years or over in the total population is projected to increase from 17.1% to 30.0% and the number is projected to rise from 84.6 million in 2008 to 151.5 million in 2060. Many assistive technology devices are allocated to the elderly and the needs will not be smaller with an aging population. This study, “Analysis of the Assistive Technologies Information and Communication Technologies (AT ICT) industry in Europe”, has been commissioned by the European Commission. Its global objective has been to gain information as to the state of the EU AT ICT industry and develop conclusions and recommendations to what steps can be taken to improve the competitiveness of the companies which form this industry.
Assistive Technology Transfer to New EU Countries Market and Users
Authors: Šimšík Dušan  , Galajdová Alena  , Onofrejová Daniela
Published: February 2025

The ageing of human population is becoming an actual problem in Europe, and in Slovakia too. The recent report of the World Bank says that in 2025 nine states of East Europe (including Slovakia) shall have 20-25% citizens older than 65 years. Regarding to this fact there are new requirements arisen to assure better quality of technologies, services and care for people with limited autonomy due to health condition and/or their special needs.
Educational Approach for User Training in Standardisation
Authors: Bühler Christian
Published: February 2025

The importance of addressing the needs of older persons and people with disabilities in standardization work is emphasized in important documents like: Heart (1,2), ANEC policy statement (3) and the draft Standardisation Mandate to CEN, CENELEC and ETSI in Support of European Accessibility Requirements for Public Procurement of Products and Services in the ICT Domain from the European Commission (4). To arrive to appropriate standards users should participate in the standardisation process. They can introduce the perspective of the users as a complement to technical and industrial viewpoints. To be able to fulfil the role as equal partner in this process, knowledge about the process, their role and responsibilities must be gained. CEN guide 6 (8) and the USEM concept (6, 7) build now the baseline for a series of trainings for users with disabilities and members of technical standardisation committees in the context of the European projects USEM and Stand4All. The training makes use of a mixture of online material, taught lessons, interactive sessions and assignments.
USEM Trainees at Work – First Experiences
Authors: Engelen Jan  , Strobbe Christophe
Published: February 2025

Within the EU funded project “USEM” users with a functional impairment or a handicap are trained to be able to participate in the ongoing standardisation activities focusing on the ICT related subjects for which these users can be considered as both technical and personal aspects.
STAND4ALL: Training of Stakeholders on Consultations on Standardisation
Authors: Mosies Charlotte
Published: February 2025

Within the EU funded project “STAND4ALL” both users with a functional impairment and representatives in standardisation are trained to take into account the needs of older people and people with disabilities in standardisation. STAND4ALL recognizes that CEN/CENELEC/ETSI/TCs, wherein standards are developed, have the responsibility to take on board a wide range of representatives in their particular field. In practice, consumers are not well presented. This applies to consumers in general, but even more to consumers with disabilities. In CEN/CENELEC/ETSI/TCs it turns out that representatives are not well informed about the needs of older and people with disabilities and that qualified users (who represent user organizations) with disabilities hardly participate in the standardisation process. It is therefore needed both to inform representatives in CEN/CENELEC/ETSI/TCs about the needs of people with disabilities and to convince them to take these needs into consideration while developing a standard as to involve users with disabilities in the field of standardisation. CEN/CENELEC Guide 6–‘Guidelines for standards developers to address the needs of older persons and persons with disabilities’ is a proper tool to give representatives in standardisation a better understanding about these needs and how to implement these needs. To put this into reality, STAND4ALL develops and implements training courses for persons with disabilities to increase their effective participation in the standardisation process and for experts in standardisation to become familiar with disability issues. To fulfil this need, NEN proposes to set up and coordinate the activities of a consortium. This consortium is called STAND4ALL.This acronym includes the idea of STANDARDISATION and STANDARDS considering ALL needs, which also includes the universal principle of Design for All. STAND4ALL is about including the needs of people with disabilities, not only in the content of the standards, but also in the standardisation process. This project exists of both a collection of information and identification of good practices and a practical training for stakeholders. This contribution describes the outlines of the STAND4ALL concept.
Eye Movements in Bilingual Emergency Message Reading for Deaf People
Authors: Kamata Kazuo  , Yonemura Shunichi  , Eitoku Shin-ichiro
Published: February 2025

Eye movements for deaf people during reading Japanese/Japanese Sign Language (JSL) bilingual emergency messages are analysed, and certain typical reading characteristics are presented.
ITSE-Assessment Model – A Tool for Evaluating User Satisfaction with Assistive Technology
Authors: Lahtinen Ella  , Seppänen Sinikka  , Raninen Kastehelmi  , Puurtinen Hanna-Greta  , Ala-Uotila Esa
Published: February 2025

Service and Product Development PractiCo®Programme at Pirkanmaa University of Applied Sciences has developed a service concept, which aims at improving user involvement in the development of Assistive Technology (AT) devices and services.
Moving forward: AT in Egypt
Authors: Hoogerwerf Evert-Jan  , Mores Thabit Abd El Malak Renee  , Saroufim Mina Yousif Bassem
Published: February 2025

The poster documents progress in AT in Egypt. A new independent AT resource centre opened in 2008 in Minia, thanks to the commitment of a local community development organization and the support of an Italian NGO. The driving concept behind it is that of safeguarding the rights of the children with disabilities. The focus is on enhancing independence. Technology is functionally embedded in strategies of use that are compatible with the local context.
Effects of Lower Limb Prosthesis on Daily Living – A Systematic Review
Authors: Samuelsson Kersti  , Töytäri Outi
Published: February 2025

The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of existing research in the area of lower limb prostheses targeting adults in terms activity, participation and quality of life in real life contexts. Out of initially 435 articles, only three studies fulfilled the inclusion criterias. No general conclusions could be drawn from theese few studies. There is an abvious need for more well-designed research in this area.
Infrared Spectroscopy – Past and Present
Authors: Barth Andreas  , Haris Parvez
Published: February 2025

History of infrared spectroscopy as well as current technology and applications are reviewed.
FTIR Data Processing and Analysis Tools
Authors: Goormaghtigh Erik
Published: February 2025

The information retrieved from FTIR spectra largely depends on both the quality of the original spectra and on the correction and processing methods. This contribution reviews the entire process driving to a fine and reliable interpretation of the data.
FTIR Spectroscopy for Analysis of Protein Secondary Structure
Authors: Hering Joachim A.  , Haris Parvez I.
Published: February 2025

One of the major challenges of the post-genomic era is the rapid characterisation of protein structure. High-throughput structural genomic projects involving X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy are in progress to solve the three-dimensional structures of a large of number of proteins. These techniques have their advantages and disadvantages and cannot be applied to study all proteins, giving sufficient opportunity for other techniques to also a play significant role in proteomics research. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is one of the techniques that has gained popularity in this area since measurements on small quantities of proteins can be carried out very rapidly in various environments. However, there is a need for improvements in the interpretation of protein FTIR infrared spectra and development of methods for accurately quantifying protein secondary structure from infrared spectra of proteins. Over the years, much progress has been made in this area and here we provide an overview of the major progress made so far, along with their strengths and weaknesses. The particular focus of the Chapter is on methods used for quantitative prediction of secondary structure from infrared spectra.
Computational Linear and Nonlinear IR Spectroscopy of Amide I Vibrations in Proteins
Authors: Choi Jun-Ho  , Cho Minhaeng
Published: February 2025

Amide I vibrational spectra of proteins can provide critical information on secondary structure elements and structural inhomogeneity. Despite that there exist a number of linear and nonlinear vibrational spectroscopic studies reported, it has been quite difficult to quantitatively simulate the amide I vibrational spectra of polypeptides and proteins. To achieve this goal, we have developed theoretical and computational methods such as constrained molecular dynamics simulation, Hessian matrix reconstruction method, and fragmentation approximation to describe delocalized amide I normal modes of proteins as linear combinations of amide I local modes. By using the computational scheme, amide I IR, vibrational circular dichroism, and two-dimensional IR photon echo spectra of polypeptides and protein in solution were simulated and compared with experimental results. The structure-spectrum relationships established are discussed. It is believed that the present computational method will be of use in shedding light on the underlying vibrational dynamics of protein as well as in interpreting experimentally measured linear and nonlinear amide I spectra of proteins in the future.
Structural Analysis of Protein-DNA and Protein-RNA Interactions by FTIR Spectroscopy
Authors: Tajmir-Riahi H.A.  , N'Soukpoé-Kossi C.N.  , Joly D.
Published: February 2025

In this chapter the fundamental question of how does protein-DNA or protein-RNA interaction affect the structures and dynamics of DNA, RNA and protein is addressed. Models for calf-thymus DNA and transfer RNA interactions with human serum albumin (HSA), ribonuclease A (RNase A) and deoxyribonuclease I (DNase I) are presented here, using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in conjunction with UV-visible and CD spectroscopic methods. In the models considered, the binding sites, stability and structural aspects of protein-DNA and protein-RNA are discussed and the effects of protein interaction on the secondary structures of DNA and protein were determined.
The Use of Synchrotron Radiation for Biomedical Applications of Infrared Microscopy
Authors: Miller Lisa M.  , Tobin Mark J.  , Chio-Srichan Sirinart  , Dumas Paul
Published: February 2025

Synchrotron infrared microscopy exploits the so-called brightness (or brilliance) advantage of synchrotron radiation. The main characteristics of such a source, coupled with an infrared microscope, are reviewed. Several important applications in the biomedical field are summarized including drug effects on cancer cells, growth factor signaling in single cells, compositional changes in microdamaged bone, infectious prion protein structure in nervous tissues, human substantia nigra in Parkinson's disease and β-amyloid deposition in Alzheimer's disease.
Implementing Monitoring and Technological Interventions in Smart Homes for People with Dementia
Authors: Adlam Tim  , Carey-Smith Bruce  , Evans Nina  , Orpwood Roger  , Boger Jennifer  , Mihailidis Alex
Published: February 2025

This chapter is about the application of behaviour monitoring technology in the context of a smart home for people with dementia. It is not about the design of technology, but about the application and configuration of existing technology in a specific context: in this case, smart flats for people with dementia in London and Bristol. Technology was installed and evaluated in a year long evaluation in London by a resident tenant. He was assessed throughout his tenancy using standardized outcome measures, by clinical professionals; and through the analysis of data collected by sensors installed in his flat. It was demonstrated that the technology had a positive impact on his life, improving his sleep in particular. This improvement had a positive effect on many other aspects of his life in the extra care setting where he lived. The Bristol evaluation is in progress. It is also an evaluation of smart home technology embedded in a person's own home.
Avatar communication for a social in-home exercise system: a user study
Authors: Lacroix Joyca  , Aghajan Yasmin  , van Halteren Aart
Published: February 2025

Although many people are aware of the beneficial effects of physical exercise on health, they often experience difficulties in finding time and motivation to incorporate regular gym visits into their busy schedules. Exercising at home is a viable alternative, but lacks the human coaching and social support that is available in traditional exercise settings. Modern technology opens an enormous space of possibilities for enriching the in-home exercise experience with motivational coaching and social factors through interactive monitoring, feedback, and social connectedness. In this chapter we introduce an interactive social in-home exercise system, which enables the monitoring and sharing of exercise movements through an avatar in a social context (composed of a coach or other exercisers). We conduct a survey study in two user groups to explore to what extent users appreciate the use of avatars to visualize their exercise movements and to gain insight into preferences with respect to the level of personalization of avatars in various social contexts. Also, we examine the relationship between several user characteristics (body image, gender, and age) and these avatar preferences. The results show that individuals overall like the use of avatars to visualize exercise movements. Moreover, we find that the appreciation of visualizing exercise movements through an avatar and the preferences with respect to the level of personalization vary with the type of social context, with a greater appreciation for the avatar when exercising in private than when the avatar is communicated in a social context of unknown others. Also, in one group we find a greater appreciation to share the avatar with a coach than with friends or with unknown others. Finally, the results suggest that body image, gender, and age play an important role for avatar preferences.
Learning about preferences and common behaviours of the user in an intelligent environment
Authors: Aztiria Asier  , Izaguirre Alberto  , Basagoiti Rosa  , Augusto Juan Carlos
Published: February 2025

Intelligent Environments are supposed to act proactively anticipating the user's needs and preferences in order to provide effective support. Therefore, the capability of an Intelligent Environment to learn user's habits and common behaviors becomes an important step towards allowing an environment to provide such personalized services. In this chapter we explain and exemplify the importance of detecting patterns of behavior, we propose a system which learns patterns of behavior and also a complementary interaction system, based on speech recognition, which facilitates the use of such patterns in real applications.
Collaborating context reasoners as basis for affordable AAL Systems
Authors: Kresser Jan  , Klein Michael  , Rollwage Sebastian  , Wolf Peter
Published: February 2025

One of the goals of Ambient Assisted Living solutions is to enable elderly people to live in their established environment longer before being in need of care. To be able to support daily life sufficiently and do context reasoning, such systems need extensive amounts of context information, of which most is not immediately detectable by the non-invasive sensors commonly used in this area. Additionally, to guarantee the usability of those systems, they cannot have a static layout but have to be adaptive to the personal needs of the assisted person (AP). Hence, common Artificial Intelligence (AI) models relying on training such as Bayesian Networks, Neural Networks or Hidden Markov Models cannot easily be applied to such systems. The approach presented in this paper was developed for the SOPRANO project and solves the problem of reasoning about complex problems by distributing the AI to independent components and by using a blackboard and a light-weight ontology for communication between these components.
Support for Context-aware Monitoring in Home Healthcare
Authors: Mileo Alessandra  , Merico Davide  , Bisiani Roberto
Published: February 2025

This paper tackles the problem of supporting independent living and well-being for people that live in their homes and have no critical chronic condition. The paper assumes the presence of a monitoring system equipped with a pervasive sensor network and a nonmonotonic reasoning engine. The rich set of sensors that can be used for monitoring in home environments and their sheer number make it quite complex to provide a correct interpretation of collected data for a particular patient. For this reason, we introduce a logic-based context model and use logic programming techniques to reason about different pieces of knowledge.
Informing Customers by Means of Digital Product Memories
Authors: Kröner Alexander  , Gebhard Patrick  , Spassova Lübomira  , Kahl Gerrit  , Schmitz Michael
Published: February 2025

The continuous collection of digital information via smart labels attached to physical objects is a promising way to support information availability across all stages of a product's lifecycle. Since such “digital product memories” may contain a vast amount of heterogeneous data, we expect a strong demand for user support in tasks related to information retrieval and discovery. In this article, we focus on the interaction between consumers and digital product memories in a retail scenario. On the basis of several prototype implementations, we summarize various ways of retrieving and presenting product-related information with the goal to shed some light upon aspects of relevance for the interaction between users and object memories in general.
Privacy, security and safety in e-ticketing
Authors: Arnaud Michel
Published: February 2025

Aspects of mediation and decentralized control are discussed in this paper as principles of a code of conduct applied to e-ticketing but which could be used for other ambient intelligence tools.
Defining Ethical Guidelines for Ambient Intelligence Applications on a Mobile Phone
Authors: Ikonen Veikko  , Kaasinen Eija  , Niemelä Marketta
Published: February 2025

Ambient Intelligence applications based on information and communication technology embedded in our environment and everyday objects raise several ethical issues. Even if ethical principles tend to be easily acceptable they are not so easy to concretize for design guidance. In this paper we describe how we have defined ethical guidelines for ambient intelligence applications on a mobile phone parallel to the development of the mobile phone platform architecture. Our aim has been to define guidelines that are concrete enough to be easy to understand and easy to follow by service and application designers as well as by platform developers. Our work highlights that it is possible and beneficial to study ethical issues when developing platforms and architectures for future applications. In that way we can identify ethical concerns well before the actual commercial application development takes place and we can find solutions to the concerns together with technology developers.
Using object memory patterns to make plan-driven help systems more flexible
Authors: Cram Damien  , Kröner Alexander  , Mille Alain
Published: February 2025

There are many strategies to assist the user in pervasive environments. In some cases, the user has to achieve a goal according to a plan known by the environment. We address the issue of enabling the environment to be aware of which task of the plan is currently on-going. We present a strategy that makes use of temporal patterns called memory chronicles and that watches events that occur in object memories to recognize if they match any memory chronicle of any task of the plan. We take the example of a smart kitchen where tools and ingredients are considered as objects with memories and where the cook reproduces a recipe according to a recipe plan known by the kitchen. We explain how the kitchen makes use of memory chronicles to applying cooking task recognition and guide the cook through the recipe plan.
Design of a RFID based traceability system in a slaughterhause
Authors: López A.M.  , Pascual E.  , Salinas A.M.  , Ramos P.  , Azuara G.
Published: February 2025

The preliminary design of a RFID (radiofrequency identification) based traceability system that will work in a slaughterhouse is presented. One of the aims of this system is to guarantee the quality requirements established by the CRDO (Consejo Regulador de la Denominación de Origen or the governing board of the protected designation of origin) “Jamón de Teruel” in its regulation. The information will be uniquely attached to the meat by means of RFID tags. The special adverse environmental conditions and the economic restrictions will strongly influence our design.
Emulation platform for high accuracy failure injection in grids
Authors: Herault Thomas  , Jan Mathieu  , Largillier Thomas  , Peyronnet Sylvain  , Quetier Benjamin  , Cappello Franck
Published: February 2025

In the process of developping grid applications, people need to often evaluate the robustness of their work. Two common approaches are, simulation where one can evaluates his software and predict behaviors under conditions usually unachievable in a laboratory experiment and experimentation where the actual application is launched on an actual grid. However simulation could ignore unpredictable behaviors due to the abstraction done and experimation does not guarantee a controlled and reproducible environment.
Cloud Computing: A Viable Option for Enterprise HPC?
Authors: Dalheimer Mathias  , Pfreundt Franz-Josef
Published: February 2025

Cloud computing is an upcoming field in distributed systems. Unlike grid computing the most prominent drivers in this field come from industry. The most prominent examples of cloud computing vendors include Amazon, Google and salesforce.com. Their offerings had been developed to solve inhouse problems, such as how to simplify systems management in extremely large environments. Now, they offer their technology as a platform to the public.
Evidence for a Cost Effective Cloud Computing Implementation Based Upon the NC State Virtual Computing Laboratory Model
Authors: Dreher Patrick  , Vouk Mladen A.  , Sills Eric  , Averitt Sam
Published: February 2025

Interest in cloud computing has grown significantly over the past few years both in the commercial and non-profit sectors. In the commercial sector, various companies have advanced economic arguments for the installation of cloud computing systems to service their clients' needs. This paper focuses on non-profit educational institutions and analyzes some operational data from the Virtual Computing Laboratory (VCL) at NC State University from the past several years. The preliminary analysis from the VCL suggests a model for designing and configuring a cloud computing system to serve both the educational and research missions of the university in a very economical cost efficient manner.
Aneka: a Software Platform for .NET based Cloud Compputing
Authors: Vecchiola Christian  , Chu Xingchen  , Buyya Rajkumar
Published: February 2025

Aneka is a platform for deploying Clouds developing applications on top of it. It provides a runtime environment and a set of APIs that allow developers to build .NET applications that leverage their computation on either public or private clouds. One of the key features of Aneka is the ability of supporting multiple programming models that are ways of expressing the execution logic of applications by using specific abstractions. This is accomplished by creating a customizable and extensible service oriented runtime environment represented by a collection of software containers connected together. By leveraging on these architecture advanced services including resource reservation, persistence, storage management, security, and performance monitoring have been implemented. On top of this infrastructure different programming models can be plugged to provide support for different scenarios as demonstrated by the engineering, life science, and industry applications.
Grid Computing for Financial Applications
Authors: Beraldi Patrizia  , Grandinetti Lucio  , Violi Antonio  , Epicoco Italo
Published: February 2025

The paper investigates the potential advantages related to the adoption of grid computing technology in the financial sector. The increasing power of computational grids makes now possible to offer functionalities that were previously unimaginable. From derivative pricing, to risk management, from on-line trading to portfolio optimization, the possibility to manage huge amounts of data, solve models of seemingly limitless complexity and perform near real-time analysis may give the business a competitive edge. This contribution presents an important attempt to bring grid computing to the the financial sector. In particular, it presents a grid-based platform for portfolio optimization designed and implemented within the European funded BEinGRID project. A system demonstration from the end-user perspective together with architectural details on the grid platform are provided.
The Evolution of Research and Education Networks and their Essential Role in Modern Science
Authors: Johnston William  , Chaniotakis Evangelos  , Dart Eli  , Guok Chin  , Metzger Joe  , Tierney Brian
Published: February 2025

ESnet – the Energy Sciences Network – has the mission of enabling the aspects of the US Department of Energy's Office of Science programs and facilities that depend on large collaborations and large-scale data sharing to accomplish their science. The network requirements of this community have been explored in some detail by ESnet and a long-term plan has been developed in order to ensure adequate networking to support the science. In this paper we describe the planning process (which has been in place for several years and was the basis of a new network that is just now being completed and a new set of network services) and examine the effectiveness and adequacy of the planning process in the light of evolving science requirements.
A New Paradigm for Countering Jihadism
Authors: Monno Antonio Guido
Published: February 2025

The complex relationship that exists between Islam and the Western world makes it necessary to enlist an increasing number of people who are capable of understanding these two cultures and of mediating between them. The Islamic world, in all its variety and diversity, becomes even more complex when it enters the West through immigration, where immigrants no longer have a purely superficial physical contact with the Western world, as was the case throughout the whole of the colonial period, but live within it. It is often the case that the products of both societies do not integrate, but tend to dis-integrate, not knowing to which world they belong. People using religious symbolism to pursue political ideas, opting for terrorism as their means of struggle, are able to exploit this sense of searching for an identity. This type of exploitation avails itself of the multiplier effect of the virtual world to bolster support; but without an adequate counterweight, this can cause damage which, while not irreparable, can impair our complex societies. This paper takes a fresh approach to counter this phenomenon which could prove to be extremely effective when contrasting this quest to enlist support.
Thoughts on the Open Information Society: Does the Concept of “Privacy of an Organisation” Exist?
Authors: Ahituv Niv
Published: February 2025

It is argued that computer networks proliferate to such an extent that individuals and organisations, for the most part, might as well give up in their efforts to protect most of their databases. Moreover, most of the information required for management decision-making processes is open and readily available on the web. As for individuals, it is not certain whether privacy is what they are looking for. The virtual community networks and the global social networks (e.g., Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, and blogging) provide counter-privacy-seeking examples. Electronic information and on-line data analysis are accessible to everybody, be it an individual, a firm or a government. This eventuality heralds the dawn of a new era for society – the open information society (OIS).
Cryptography and Security: Evolutionary Information Theory and Prime Numbers Genetics
Authors: Iovane Gerardo
Published: February 2025

In this paper we will consider Evolutionary Information Theory, and pay specific attention to the application of prime numbers to cyber security and cryptography. Indeed, we will demonstrate that the sequence of prime numbers is deterministic, and not stochastic, as we have believed for several centuries. This implies that much attention must be directed toward the new scenario that has been formed of cryptosystems, encryption and ciphering in order to prevent cyber attacks and protect Critical Network Infrastructures.
A Pragmatic and Foolproof Approach for Connecting Critical/Industrial Networks to External Less Secure Networks
Authors: Peshin Esti
Published: February 2025

Critical Networks monitor and control the most valuable assets of national and homeland security and usually refer to operational, real-time networks. Ecosystems involving Critical Networks, on the other hand, often include inter-connections with external, Less Secure Networks.
Al-Qaeda's Radicalization Doctrine: Concept Execution
Authors: Schweitzer Yoram  , London Sean
Published: February 2025

Over the last two decades, AQ's worldview has led it to evolve, and to enshrine as a core capacity, the ability to induce significant numbers of Muslims, particularly youths, to adhere to its extremist path and doctrine. This has effectively rendered Bin Laden's organization into one of the foremost actors on the international terrorist stage. After a brief introduction, then, this article will explore AQ's radicalization doctrine and the manner in which it is being prosecuted. The article will close with a brief overview of the methods requisite to contain and defeat AQ's subversive campaign.
The Militant Jihad in Europe: Fighting Home-grown Terrorism
Authors: Speckhard Anne
Published: February 2025

In recent years European countries have been both the targets of, and launch pads for militant jihadi attacks. This chapter focuses on the individual psycho-social vulnerabilities of those recruited into such groups, the groups themselves, their social support, and the ideologies that fuel them. It addresses the discrimination and marginalization issues facing European Muslims of immigrant descent in Europe and proposes that the lack of equal opportunity on multifarious societal arenas is one of the main factors in the creation of individual vulnerabilities that can lead to radicalization along with the recruitment strategies and ideologies that play upon these vulnerabilities. The chapter also discusses ways to counteract the effects of all this.
The Cycle of Righteous Killing: Psychological Forces in its Prevention and the Promotion of Peace
Authors: Pyszczynski Tom  , Vail III Kenneth E.  , Motyl Matthew S.
Published: February 2025

Although many plans for peace in the Middle East have been proposed over the years, none have seriously considered the psychological needs that promote conflict and violence, and thus, far none have been successful. This chapter uses Terror Management Theory, which is a general theory of the role of culture and self-esteem in providing psychological security, to shed light on forces that motivate and perpetuate the ongoing cycle of violence in this region. From this perspective, threats to one's cultural worldviews and self-esteem promote violence because they undermine the ability of these psychological entities to provide the protection from anxiety that is needed for psychological well-being and effective functioning. Consequently, people disparage and lash out at those who threaten their worldviews and self-esteem. Research exploring the role of worldviews and self-esteem in providing security and the impact of threats to this security in promoting violence is reviewed, with special emphasis on the operation of these processes in promoting support for violence against perceived enemies in Israel, Iran, and the United States. This analysis also suggests factors that reduce support for violence; research demonstrating the impact of activating compassionate religious values, a sense of shared humanity, close interpersonal attachments, and removing the association between lofty values and violence is discussed.
Pedaling forces normalized to body weight in cyclists with a uni-lateral transtibial amputation
Authors: Childers W.L.  , Perell-Gerson K.L.  , Kistenberg R.  , Gregor R.J.
Published: February 2025

Persons with lower limb amputation may be on weight-bearing restrictions following amputation. Cycling provides a method for rehabilitation within a limited body weight environment. Pedal force data obtained from studies on intact cyclists and cyclists with uni-lateral trans-tibial amputation were used to calculate forces normalized to body weight on the shank or residual limb segment and then related to power output. Linear regression was used to develop models describing this relationship. Results show that patients operating within power outputs typical in rehabilitation will experience compressive forces below 30% body weight. Therefore, we conclude that cycling may be safely utilized as a rehabilitation modality for patients on weight-bearing restrictions.
Ambulatory measurement of the scapulohumeral rhythm: intra- and inter-rater reliability of a protocol based on inertial and magnetic sensors
Authors: Garofalo P.  , Cutti A.G.  , Parel I.  , Fiumana G.  , Porcellini G.  , Cappello A.
Published: February 2025

A new protocol has been recently proposed to measure the coordinated movement of humerus and scapula, through an inertial & magnetic measurement system, in ambulatory settings. Since the protocol requires the intervention of a rater, the aim of this study was to assess its intra- and inter-rater reliability. Results for the coefficient of multiple correlation showed a reliability of the protocol ranging from 0.84 to 1, thus supporting its use for clinical assessment.
Circumvention of suddenly appearing obstacles in young and older adults
Authors: Pijnappels M.  , Kingma I.  , van Dieën J.H.
Published: February 2025

Reduced ability to circumvent an obstacle, which is noticed only shortly before collision, could be a cause of falls and injury, especially in older adults. In this study, we investigated differences in strategies and their characteristics between young and older adults when circumventing a suddenly appearing obstacle. We measured young and older adults while walking over a platform, while in some trials an obstacle suddenly appeared halfway, blocking their passage. Obstacle appearance was timed to provide available response times (ART) of 850, 1000 or 1150 ms. Circumvention strategies could be classified as either side stepping or cross-over stepping, which were observed in both age groups. Strategy choice was affected by ART and age; older adults preferred the side step strategy, especially when ART was shorter. Peak ground reaction forces were higher for the side step strategy. Older adults performed similar circumvention strategies as young adults, with a stronger preference for side stepping. This strategy appears to be more stable, although it is more demanding in terms of force generation.
Automatic filtering and phase detection of propulsive and recovery phase during wheelchair propulsion
Authors: Aissaoui R.
Published: February 2025

The determination of propulsive and recovery phases of manual wheelchair propulsion are important in estimating the efficacy of manual propulsion. With the actual potential of collection of database by different research team, manual determination of propulsive and recovery phases of each wheelchair cycle represents a tremendous amount of time. Automatic detection with only a single threshold and low-pass filtering is insufficient to detect initial and terminal phases during propulsion. The purpose of this work is to present a new adaptive method based on short-time spectral analysis (STSA) of forces and moment acting at the handrim level. Eight able-bodied subjects were asked to propel on ergometer with 3 slopes, while forces and moments were recorded with an instrumented rear wheels. The STSA was applied to raw signal and automatic detection was based on priori and a posterior probability of absence and presence of propulsive signal. Better results are obtained with the new adaptive method when compared to the classical method with one single threshold and one cut-off frequency per signal. This method will prove useful when monitoring manual propulsion for a long term, and with different types of propulsion and classification of pattern of daily activities.
Genetics and exercise
Authors: Hopman M.T.E.
Published: February 2025

Spinal cord injured individuals are prone to inactivity and related health problems. Physical activity plays an important role in health related risk management. Exercise training in healthy individuals and in those with cardiovascular disease or risk factors improves cardiovascular function, thereby lowering the cardiovascular risk. However, current knowledge about the underlying mechanisms is limited, especially regarding the role of genes. Last decade, research possibilities in the field of physiological genomics have expanded intensively, and translational research has become highly appreciated. This presentation summarizes the current knowledge on genes that potentially play a role in vascular adaptation to exercise in healthy and spinal cord injured individuals. Specifically, I will focus on animal and human in vivo measures of exercise, inactivity and vascular function, combined with gene expression of the nitric oxide pathway, growth factors and their receptors, antioxidative enzymes and several alternative vasoactive factors. Accordingly, I aim to link activity and inactivity with gene expression to gain better insight into the mechanisms of exercise-induced adaptations. While the limited available translational research suggests a relationship between expression of certain (groups of) genes and functional adaptations of the cardiovascular and muscular system, a large gap remain to be closed between fundamental and applied functional research.
Examining community organizations' capacity to disseminate evidence-based physical activity promotion initiatives for people with spinal cord injury
Authors: Latimer A.E.  , Brawley L.R.  , Conlin C.  , Martin Ginis K.A.
Published: February 2025

To estimate the potential for systematically promoting physical activity (PA) in the spinal cord injury (SCI) population, we examined the capacity of community organizations in a large Canadian province to implement PA promotion initiatives. Representatives from 23 community PA (n=7), sports (n=8) and advocacy (n=8) organizations for people with disabilities completed a community capacity questionnaire and a follow-up telephone interview. Organizations' strategic priorities and available resources for promoting PA were obtained. Descriptive statistics for questionnaire data and recurring themes from participants' interview responses were analyzed. While 96% of organizations valued PA, only 65% had a strategic priority to promote PA. The majority (>73%) were willing to integrate PA promotion into current services (e.g., peer support programs) or link with other organizations already promoting PA (e.g., post a website ad). However, their capacity was limited; 40% indicated needing resources to foster PA promotion. Capacity building at multiple levels is needed for successful dissemination of evidence-based PA promotion initiatives for people with SCI.
Repeatability and validity of the combined arm-leg (Cruiser) ergometer
Authors: Simmelink E.K.  , Wempe J.B.  , Geertzen J.H.B.  , Dekker R.
Published: February 2025

The measurement of physical fitness of lower limb amputees is difficult as the commonly used ergometer tests have limitations. A combined arm-leg (Cruiser) ergometer might be valuable. The aim of this study was to establish the repeatability and validity of the combined arm-leg (Cruiser) ergometer. Thirty healthy volunteers performed three incremental exercise tests, once on the bicycle ergometer and twice on the Cruiser ergometer. The repeatability of the Cruiser ergometer was assessed by studying the means of the test-retest and the validity by studying the means of the bicycle and the two Cruiser ergometer tests. Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) for repeated measurements on the Cruiser ergometer was 0.84 for the maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) and 0.71 for the maximal heart rate (HR max). ICC for the measurements on the bicycle ergometer and the Cruiser ergometer was 0.86 for the VO2max and 0.73 for HR max. Bland and Altman plots for VO2max and HR max showed a bias close to zero and a great accuracy. The conclusion of this study is that the Cruiser ergometer provides a repeatable and valid measurement of the physical fitness in healthy volunteers. Its value in clinical practice for lower limb amputees needs further to be established.
Ambulatory sensing of the dynamic interaction between the human body and the environment
Authors: Veltink P.H.  , Schepers H.M.
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a method to estimate power transfer between the human body and the environment during short interactions and relatively arbitrary movements using a combination of inertial and force sensing. The work performed was estimated for varying movements with net displacement and varying loads (mass and spring), and appeared to be accurate within 4%.