Access to information in digital libraries : users and digital divide

Recognising the importance of information and knowledge in all spheres of human life, the recently held World Summit on Information Society came up with a plan of action for building a global information society. The goal of the world information society initiatives is the same as that of digital library research and development - to make information and knowledge accessibleto everyone in the world. Digital libraries have progressed very rapidly over the past ten or soyears. This paper addresses the two most important aspects of the information society - information users and digital divide. Findings of some large-scale studies on human information behaviour on the web and digital libraries have been discussed. The major findings of a study on access to electronic resources by university students are the presented. Proposed that a one-stop window approach with a task-based information organisation and access system may be the way forward

SOME LEGAL AND TECHNICAL ASPECTS RELATED TO POSSIBLE INTERNET’S THREATS ON THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO PRIVATE PROPERTY

Once an individual uses the modern means of payment, the credit cards, he must be aware of the possible issue that might come out. Even more, when using these “plastic money” in the online environment provided by the omnipresent world wide web one must be aware that there are enough risk involved. The commodity and easy that came with the use of the credit card also brought us new threats, new ways in which our privacy and property might be affected.Internet, privacy, property, cybercrime, credit card frauds

All or nothing: this is the question? The application of article 3(2) Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC to the Internet

The Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (hereinafter the “Directive”) was passed in 1995 to harmonise the national data protection laws within the European Community with the aim of protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals including their privacy as set out under Art. 1 of the Data Protection Directive. The rules governing the processing of personal data are deemed to be inapplicable in the two instances outlined by Art.3(2). Processing of personal data taking place as part of activities falling outside of Community law are excluded from the DPD. The Directive is also deemed to be inapplicable if the processing of personal data is undertaken by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity. It is the second part of Art. 3(2), which is examined in more detail. The ruling by the European Court of Justice in Lindqvist provides us with a fresh opportunity to re-examine whether the policy justifications for the exclusion under Art 3(2) continue to remain relevant in the light of widespread use of new technologies such as blogs, podcasts and web pages for processing and distributing information. Greater clarity regarding the implication of new communication technologies for DPD policy is necessary if the laws on data protection are to evolve in a coherent and principled manner

Reducing risky security behaviours:utilising affective feedback to educate users

Despite the number of tools created to help end-users reduce risky security behaviours, users are still falling victim to online attacks. This paper proposes a browser extension utilising affective feedback to provide warnings on detection of risky behaviour. The paper provides an overview of behaviour considered to be risky, explaining potential threats users may face online. Existing tools developed to reduce risky security behaviours in end-users have been compared, discussing the success rate of various methodologies. Ongoing research is described which attempts to educate users regarding the risks and consequences of poor security behaviour by providing the appropriate feedback on the automatic recognition of risky behaviour. The paper concludes that a solution utilising a browser extension is a suitable method of monitoring potentially risky security behaviour. Ultimately, future work seeks to implement an affective feedback mechanism within the browser extension with the aim of improving security awareness

SMIL State: an architecture and implementation for adaptive time-based web applications

In this paper we examine adaptive time-based web applications (or presentations). These are interactive presentations where time dictates which parts of the application are presented (providing the major structuring paradigm), and that require interactivity and other dynamic adaptation. We investigate the current technologies available to create such presentations and their shortcomings, and suggest a mechanism for addressing these shortcomings. This mechanism, SMIL State, can be used to add user-defined state to declarative time-based languages such as SMIL or SVG animation, thereby enabling the author to create control flows that are difficult to realize within the temporal containment model of the host languages. In addition, SMIL State can be used as a bridging mechanism between languages, enabling easy integration of external components into the web application. Finally, SMIL State enables richer expressions for content control. This paper defines SMIL State in terms of an introductory example, followed by a detailed specification of the State model. Next, the implementation of this model is discussed. We conclude with a set of potential use cases, including dynamic content adaptation and delayed insertion of custom content such as advertisements. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Generating Music from Literature

We present a system, TransProse, that automatically generates musical pieces from text. TransProse uses known relations between elements of music such as tempo and scale, and the emotions they evoke. Further, it uses a novel mechanism to determine sequences of notes that capture the emotional activity in the text. The work has applications in information visualization, in creating audio-visual e-books, and in developing music apps

Enterprise Social Networks: The Case of CERN

Social networks are commonly seen as a global trend that allows users to search and contact others with similar interests, write a post, reply, like or share content, create groups and organize events. This said, there is much more that can be done to exploit the full potential of social media. In order to improve the business, providing employees, customers and partners the best tools to cooperate and gain value from the whole community, many organizations are taking the matter in their own hands, using Enterprise Social Networks. Close analysis of case studies and comprehensive statistics shows why it is important to pursue this path. At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where the number of employees, students and volunteers that everyday work in partnership both on site and through the network reaches the thousands, a new kind of platform has been deployed, able to exploit the social knowledge of the personnel. The thesis will describe the case study of CERN to understand not only why it is essential to become a social organization but also how a social environment can be developed. The last chapters will focus on examining my work on the platform, considering a mobile responsive design, realized to make the environment adapt to any screen size, an integrated resource planning tool, which gives the scientists the mean to easily manage the everyday work on the particle accelerators, and the platform’s Application Programming Interface, which allows anyone with the right credentials to include content from the enterprise social network into a personal or departmental webpage, giving everyone an even easier way to participate