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Of late there has been a growing interest and effort toward meeting the requirements of persons with special needs. However, most of the accessibility standards and guidelines that have been proposed have been developed by adopting a domain independent and often "technical" perspective. Such proposals are therefore often not sufficient to achieve accessibility goals in specific application areas such as eLearning. This paper presents a boosting approach/framework toward the development of more effective and usable accessibility indications for authors of didactic content, which are currently being fed and tested within the Italian context of the VICE project. This approach is intended to take into account the aforementioned issue and to make a step forward with respect to existing accessibility proposals and approaches in the eLearning domain. In particular, we discuss our design method for increasing the quality of eLearning materials for learners with special needs and an authoring tool, "aLearning", to support eLearning content authors in their development of didactic material matching those needs. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures.)

Video games are an established medium that provides interactive entertainment beyond pure enjoyment in many contexts. Game designers create dedicated tutorials to teach players the game mechanisms and rules, such as the conventions for interaction, control schemes, core game mechanics, etc. While effective tutorial design is considered a crucial aspect to support this learning process, the existing literature approaches focus on designing ad hoc tutorials for specific game genres rather than investigating the impact of different tutorial styles on game learnability and player engagement. In this paper, we tackle this challenge by presenting a general-purpose approach aimed at supporting game designers in the identification of the most suitable tutorial style for a specific genre of video games. The approach is evaluated in the context of a simple first-person shooter (FPS) mainstream video game built by the authors through a controlled comparative user experiment involving 46 players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phishing is the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information by disguising oneself as a trustworthy entity in digital communication. It is a type of cyber attack often successful because users are not aware of their vulnerabilities or are unable to understand the risks. This article presents a systematic literature review conducted to draw a “big picture” of the most important research works performed on human factors and phishing. The analysis of the retrieved publications, framed along the research questions addressed in the systematic literature review, helps in understanding how human factors should be considered to defend against phishing attacks. Future research directions are also highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe an approach for multiparadigmatic visual access to databases, which is proposed to achieve seamless integration of different interaction paradigms. The user is provided with an adaptive interface augmented by a user model, supporting different visual representations of both data and queries. The visual representations are characterized on the basis of the chosen visual formalisms, namely forms, diagrams, and icons. To access different databases, a unified data model, the Graph Model, is used as a common underlying formalism to which databases, expressed in the most popular data models, can be mapped. Graph Model databases are queried through the adaptive interface. The semantics of the query operations is formally defined in terms of graphical primitives. Such a formal approach permits us to define the concept of 'atomic query,' which is the minimal portion of a query that can be transferred from one interaction paradigm to another and processed by the system. Since certain interaction modalities and visual representations are more suitable for certain user classes, the system can suggest to the user the most appropriate interaction modality as well as the visual representation, according to the user model. Some results on user model construction are presented. Index Terms - Visual query system, multiparadigmatic interaction, user model, adaptive visual interface, graph-based data model, heterogeneous databases.

Several applications use algorithms for drawing k-layered networks and, in particular, 2-layered networks (i.e., bipartite graphs). Bipartite graphs are commonly drawn in the plane so that all vertices lie on two parallel vertical lines, and an important requirement in drawing such graphs is to minimize edge crossings. Such a problem is NP-complete even when the position of the vertices on one layer is held fixed. This paper presents a heuristic, called the assignment heuristic, for edge crossing minimization in bipartite graphs, which works by reducing the problem to an assignment problem. The main idea of the assignment heuristic is to position simultaneously all the vertices of one layer, so that the mutual interaction of the position of all the vertices can be taken into account. We also show that the idea underlying the assignment heuristic can be effectively applied in other cases requiring edge crossing minimization.

The arising of new technologies ranging from smartphones to social networks is constantly increasing interactions between people. In the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) community, adapting technology to human nature is the key concern of User-Centered Design (UCD). However, UCD tends to neglect the emerging social dimension of technology: users are consulted in the design process, but they do not have any direct involvement or creative control over the developed technological solutions. On the other hand, the collaborative and social nature of the design process is getting increasingly explicit in the Product Design community, where well-established participatory approaches are applied to involve stakeholders, designers, and end-users in the creative process of new products. In this paper, we first provide a deep analysis of the state of the art of participatory approaches in the research literature. Then, we investigate how their integration with UCD leads not only to empower the role of end-users as active collaborators of designers towards a more democratic crowd-based UCD process, but also to create innovation in the design process. We advocate that such innovation can be obtained by giving the right voice not only to the users who reach consensus in the design process but also to the marginals. We provide an explorative model, some experiments, and a sketch of the user interface to support our claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author(s): Martha E. Pollack [1]; Susanne E. Hambrusch [2]; Carla Schlatter Ellis [3]; Barbara J. Grosz [4]; Jessica Hodgins [5]; Ruzena Bajcsy [6]; Carla E. Brodley [7]; Luigia Carlucci Aiello [...]

The Sapienza Digital Library (SDL) was released in December 2013 as result of a research project undertaken by Sapienza University of Rome and the Cineca consortium, since 2011. The digital library has been collecting materials coming from different kind of organizations including departments, libraries, and archives, belonging or donated to Sapienza University. The main result of the project was the development of an information framework supporting multidisciplinary organizations in managing digital materials, maintaining scientific, organizational and operational responsibilities. The technical solution adopted has found a trade-off between the standardization of the digital processes and products, and the preservation of the scientific materials’ peculiarities. The automatic standard translation, and the enrichment of the digital resource's metadata have reached the main goal of providing digital resources with the essential information necessary to their management in different technological contexts. The reuse of the digital information and contents, in different application contexts, has converted the holistic vision of a digital library in the implementation of an information infrastructure, setting the foundation for the long-term access and usability of its digital assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In complex emergency scenarios, teams from various emergency-response organizations must collaborate. These teams include both first responders, such as police and fire departments, and those operators who coordinate the effort from operational centers. The Workpad architecture consists of a front- and a back-end layer. The front-end layer is composed of several front-end teams of first responders, and the back-end layer is an integrated peer-to-peer network that lets front-end teams collaborate through information exchange and coordination. Team members at the front end carry PDAs, with team leaders' PDAs equipped with gateway communication technologies that let them communicate with the back-end centers. INSET: Emergency Management in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of late there has been a growing interest and effort toward meeting the requirements of persons with special needs. However, most of the accessibility standards and guidelines that have been proposed have been developed by adopting a domain independent and often 'technical' perspective. Such proposals are therefore often not sufficient to achieve accessibility goals in specific application areas such as eLearning. This paper presents a boosting approach/framework toward the development of more effective and usable accessibility indications for authors of didactic content, which are currently being fed and tested within the Italian context of the VICE project. This approach is intended to take into account the aforementioned issue and to make a step forward with respect to existing accessibility proposals and approaches in the eLearning domain. In particular, we discuss our design method for increasing the quality of eLearning materials for learners with special needs and an authoring tool, aLearning, to support eLearning content authors in their development of didactic material matching those needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses an innovative system for traffic management that is under installation in the city of Valencia, Spain. This new traffic-management system is based on streaming video techniques over a high-speed Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol corporate network. The video-streaming application is a multicomponent distributed application whose main task is managing the distribution of video streams from the video servers to the service processes that execute at the final application servers in the traffic management center (TMC). A tree connecting the three Gigabit Ethernet switches and the L3 switch at the TMC was the core network topology. Since it uses multicast communication, the Video Stream Management Server allows the introduction of several applications and services.

This article presents a case study which explores the relationship between the writing and reading behavior of online students and the association of active participation with learning efficiency. In general, according to educational technology professor Diana Laurillard, e-learning outcomes could be greatly improved if higher-education teachers achieved three goals: developed better ways of searching for information, shared ideas and resources among learners, and improved and practiced communication techniques. The case study was designed on the basis of what is known about interaction and learning and or earlier research on lurking. The project stands on three pillars: interaction, visualization, and communication. In conclusion, a higher degree of visible interactions is not a precondition for higher learning efficiency. INSET: Previous Work.

The advent of mobile computing brings, together with advantages and exciting new opportunities, some novel challenges, among which mobile usability is a prominent one. Ensuring usability is made difficult by the presence of non-conventional aspects like: mobility, device limits, and changing contexts, which are rather peculiar of the mobile setting and that require some non-conventional and/or new knowledge to be addressed. It is necessary, in fact, to see if the tools at disposal of the interaction designer are still appropriate and, where not adequate, apply some refinements. Usability principles represent the basic knowledge of the interaction designer and are the foundation for usability evaluation methods, therefore, in this paper, we start addressing the problem by proposing a review of standard usability principles. We selected a wide set of commonly accepted principles and went over them to see how they apply in mobile computing. In this paper, we report on this activity, pointing out new requirements and interesting findings. The inquiry is also supported by a description of limits and opportunities posed by mobile devices and a short review of appropriate and new usability evaluation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents two multimedia system installations that were designed to provide information to museum and exhibit visitors through natural-interaction interfaces. The Media Integration and Communication Center at the University of Florence used natural-interaction, computer vision systems for both the Point At system in the Museum of Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, Italy and the Interactive Blackboard system at the New City Exhibition of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. The ultimate goal of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi was to use information technology to make teaching attractive and effective. The Point At system's goal is to stimulate the visitors to interact with a digital version of the fresco "The Journey of the Magi," by Benozzo Gozzoli and, at the same time, make them interact in the same way they will in the chapel, reinforcing their real experience with the fresco. The Interactive Blackboard at the Palazzo Vecchio consisted of a large rear-projected screen which displayed a colorful three-dimensional map of Florence. INSET: Editor's Note.

This article proposes a system that uses the a priori knowledge and experiences of the communicating parties and a combination of real-time and multimedia data without demanding excessive bandwidth. The receiving terminal combines the received data with the stored data based on the control signals received from the transmitting terminal, parameter set by the receiving party, and information in the personal information management database at the receiver. By using combinations of real-time and stored data and coordinating the seamless display of various media, the system provides the communicating parties with a rich communication experience. Because the system expends no transmission bandwidth for the media stored in the receiving terminal, it provides this experience without consuming excessive bandwidth. The proposed system lets the communicating parties control how the system multiplexes and transmits different types of media information between terminals and how the receiving terminals present the information. The controls could be related to the amount or kinds of information, the information source and the information quality they transmit or receive. Users can base the controls on their relationships with other communicating parties, past experience or knowledge shared between them, service options related to quality and communication costs and the communication scenario.

This article examines the life cycle of multimedia metadata. During its lifetime, multimedia content undergoes different stages or cycles from production to consumption. Content is created, processed or modified in a postproduction stage, delivered to users, and finally, consumed. Metadata, or descriptive data about the multimedia content, pass through similar stages but with different time lines. Metadata may be produced, modified, and consumed by all actors involved in the content production-consumption chain. At each step of the chain, different kinds of metadata may be produced by highly different methods and of substantially different semantic value. The CODAC Project, led by Harald Kosch, implements different multimedia processes and ties them together in the life cycle. To demonstrate metadata's lifecycle, consider a use case scenario. A user watches an interesting music video on a colleague's screen and wants to retrieve the same music video. The only information she retained was that the singer in the music was Avril Lavigne, and she remembers the song's melody. She can't ask her colleague directly, so she wants to access it from a multimedia database. A multimedia database, the Multimedia Data Cartridge (MDC) defines several application libraries for metadata production. The libraries offer a means for multimedia annotation and content-based retrieval for different media types.

This article introduces the Extended Cellular Automata with Pluggable Multimedia Elements, a prototype for generating multimedia content. The prototype acts as an open environment that lets users execute cellular automata in three dimensions and manage simultaneous rendering of cellular automata using different forms of presentation. In principle, users can attach any type of multimedia presentation as a plug-in. Prospective users include researchers and students interested in studying cellular automata dynamics. Another class of users is computer artists interested in generating visual or sound patterns for performances. It also acts as a source of parameter configurations for other applications. Its architecture follows the cooperative visual environment three-tiered organization, offering an execution layer for managing the cellular automation logic and keeping the information about the configuration, a presentation layer for managing different forms of visual- or sound-based rendering and an intermediate model layer for decoupling the cellular automata's internal organization from the different presentation forms. INSET: Cellular Automata and ExcapeMe Extensions.

The article describes a multimedia approach to the efficient implementation and use of emergency plans using the subway system of Valencia, Spain as an example. Metro Valencia is the public company that manages the railway transportation in the Valencia metropolitan area. In 1998, the Metro Valencia Safety Office began developing a system to improve its emergency plan. The Hypermedia Emergency Plan has been operational since June 2000 at the Metro Valencia's Traffic Control Office. Without the Hypermedia plan, emergency procedures are carried out manually. Its advent has greatly streamlined the execution of emergency procedures. Currently, when an emergency occurs, the safety manager interacts with the hypermedia plan instead of the paper-based plan. The solution is applicable to other public service organizations like hotels, stadiums, theaters and even whole cities in case of natural disasters. Although every situation is different, and many specific details must be taken into account, systems supporting emergency management must fulfill two basic requirements. First, they must provide multimedia storage and delivery. Second, they must support advanced, workflow-like navigation of the available information. Based on the experience gathered from the Valencia project, a number of issues have been identified that need attention and further research before safety-oriented systems are widely used. These are process, presentation, information management and retrieval, communication, collaboration and intelligence.

This article discusses the application of the mobiDENK mobile information system in modern monument conservation. MobiDENK is a location-aware system that draws the visitor's attention to historic sites of interest and provides location-dependent multimedia information. The technology runs on a personal digital assistant with an integrated global positioning system receiver. By locating the user and showing position and path on an interactive map, mobiDENK offers visual navigation support. When developing mobile applications, researchers discover that different applications often share similar requirements such as location sensing, location visualization, presentation of points of interest, and so on. User reactions to mobiDENK showed that the general public valued the system's combination of mobile hardware, location awareness and multimedia content.

Introduces the results of the Authoring 744 research initiative, which uses MPEG-7 standards to synthesize multimedia content. Areas serviced by the MPEG-4 and MPEG-7 standards; Reason for the need for complex authoring tools; Key asset for the design of any computer game. INSET: Current MPEG-7 Tools.

Defines an informal framework for user-oriented quality of service specification and enforcement. Requirement of the use of multimedia database systems; Notions foreign to conventional database management systems; Challenge posed by multimedia systems. INSETS: QoS in Multimedia Databases;Architecture to Support QoS.

Discusses the experiments that evaluated the pedagogical efficiency of the Logiocando hypermedia as compared to traditional classroom instruction. Information on Logiocando hypermedia; Details of the evaluation conducted on Logiocando; Discussion of the hypermedia's test section. INSET: Previous Research.

Describes the BilVideo video database management systems. System architecture; Description of its fact-extraction process; Functionality of its video-annotator tool; Query specification windows of its user interface. INSET: Query Types.

This contribution is the preface of the volume of post-proceedings of the 10 th Italian Research Conference on Digital Libraries, IRCDL 2014. The volume contains the reports on the invited presentations and the accepted papers. The accepted papers were initially reviewed for presentation at the conference, and after the presentation the papers were resubmitted by the authors in a revised version that included the suggestions received during the presentation at the conference. The resubmitted versions of the papers were reviewed by at least three anonymous reviewers and the accepted papers were revised by the authors taking into considerations the reviewers’ suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet revolution has made an enormous quantity of information available to a disparate variety of people. The amount of information, the typical access modality (that is, browsing), and the rapid growth of the Net, force the user, while searching for the information of interest, to dip into multiple sources, in a labyrinth of millions of links. Web-at-A-Glance (WAG) is a system allowing the user to query (instead of browsing) the Web. WAG performs this ambitious task by constructing a personalized database, pertinent to the user's interests. The system semi-automatically gleans the most relevant information from a Web site or several Web sites, stores them into a database cooperatively designed with the user, and allows her/him to query such a database through a visual interface equipped with a powerful multimedia query language. This paper presents the design philosophy, the architecture and the core of the WAG system. A prototype WAG is being implemented to test the feasibility of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]