Fine-tuning Central Banks Web Communications: Usability Tests & Content Management

Business processes especially in the Central Banks are more fully integrated and streamlined than ever before. Also, realistic system landscapes often consist of many systems. Disconnected silos of unstructured information continue to pile up for each organizational function and different interfaces are often implemented using the technology that is considered to be ideal for the respective interface. There appears to be lack of Enterprise Content Management strategy thus leading to significant business challenges such as untrustworthy business information due to inaccurate, outdated, conflicting information, longer financial cycles and generally inefficient processes, system performance degradations and poor data organization, inconsistent, confusing user interface as well as frequent context switching. There is therefore the need for an effective enterprise content management strategy. Web content management systems are often used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentations. Usability testing of web sites is an essential element of quality assurance and a true test of how people actually use Central Banks’ web site. It is a test of whether outsiders can successfully use the Banks’ Web site. Although formal usability tests are expensive, time-consuming and often prohibitive, periodic user testing is an important element in developing and maintaining a reader-friendly Website. Usability should emphasise clarity of communication, accessibility, consistency, navigation design, maintenance and good visual presentation. A solution to corporate intranet/internet chaos are Enterprise Portals. An enterprise portal is the gateway to the end user. It offers a central point of access to information, applications and services in an enterprise. It is a one-stop shopping for knowledge workers; the portal is both a gateway to and a destination on the enterprise network that provides transparent, tailored access to distributed digital resource. An Enterprise Portal provides numerous benefits to users, allowing them to interact with relevant information and application, both internal and external to the company, collaborate with others both inside and outside the Central Banks through self-service publishing customise-and-tailor a Web page with information that is easily found. This paper discusses the issue of Usability Tests and Web Content Management that enhance user productivity. Drawing from some award winning intranets some areas for best practices for the financial services such as the African Central Banks are high-lightened vis-à-vis the infrastructural problems facing the African Continen

Mashing up Visual Languages and Web Mash-ups

Research on web mashups and visual languages share an interest in human-centered computing. Both research communities are concerned with supporting programming by everyday, technically inexpert users. Visual programming environments have been a focus for both communities, and we believe that there is much to be gained by further discussion between these research communities. In this paper we explore some connections between web mashups and visual languages, and try to identify what each might be able to learn from the other. Our goal is to establish a framework for a dialog between the communities, and to promote the exchange of ideas and our respective understandings of humancentered computing.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

An improved negative selection algorithm based on the hybridization of cuckoo search and differential evolution for anomaly detection

The biological immune system (BIS) is characterized by networks of cells, tissues, and organs communicating and working in synchronization. It also has the ability to learn, recognize, and remember, thus providing the solid foundation for the development of Artificial Immune System (AIS). Since the emergence of AIS, it has proved itself as an area of computational intelligence. Real-Valued Negative Selection Algorithm with Variable-Sized Detectors (V-Detectors) is an offspring of AIS and demonstrated its potentials in the field of anomaly detection. The V-Detectors algorithm depends greatly on the random detectors generated in monitoring the status of a system. These randomly generated detectors suffer from not been able to adequately cover the non-self space, which diminishes the detection performance of the V-Detectors algorithm. This research therefore proposed CSDE-V-Detectors which entail the use of the hybridization of Cuckoo Search (CS) and Differential Evolution (DE) in optimizing the random detectors of the V-Detectors. The DE is integrated with CS at the population initialization by distributing the population linearly. This linear distribution gives the population a unique, stable, and progressive distribution process. Thus, each individual detector is characteristically different from the other detectors. CSDE capabilities of global search, and use of L´evy flight facilitates the effectiveness of the detector set in the search space. In comparison with V-Detectors, cuckoo search, differential evolution, support vector machine, artificial neural network, na¨ıve bayes, and k-NN, experimental results demonstrates that CSDE-V-Detectors outperforms other algorithms with an average detection rate of 95:30% on all the datasets. This signifies that CSDE-V-Detectors can efficiently attain highest detection rates and lowest false alarm rates for anomaly detection. Thus, the optimization of the randomly detectors of V-Detectors algorithm with CSDE is proficient and suitable for anomaly detection tasks

Mobile recommender apps with privacy management for accessible and usable technologies

The paper presents the preliminary results of an ongoing survey of the use of computers and mobile devices, interest in recommender apps and knowledge and concerns about privacy issues amongst English and Italian speaking disabled people. Participants were found to be regular users of computers and mobile devices for a range of applications. They were interested in recommender apps for household items, computer software and apps that met their accessibility and other requirements. They showed greater concerns about controlling access to personal data of different types than this data being retained by the computer or mobile device. They were also willing to make tradeoffs to improve device performance

Quality improvement of manuka honey through the application of high pressure processing

The quality of honey is known to be compromised when it goes through thermal processing due to its negative impact on the unstable and thermolabile honey components which originated from the nectar and bees themselves. This present work is undertaken to access the use of an emerging food preservation technique known as “High Pressure Processing” for treating honey, as an alternative to the conventional thermal processing. In this thesis, honey quality has been addressed by measuring the effects of high pressure processing parameters (pressure, time and temperature) on nutritional properties of honey, namely total phenolic content and antioxidant activity. Honey samples, contained in small pouches, were subjected to different pressures (200-600 MPa) at close to ambient temperatures (25-33°C) for different holding times (10 to 30 min). Thermal processing (49- 70°C) was also carried out for comparison purpose. Results demonstrated that high pressure processing operated at 600 MPa for 10 min has capability to increase significantly the total phenolic content and antioxidant activity by 47% and 30%, respectively. Besides, the result showed that high pressure processing can maintain the natural colour of honey which relates directly to consumer perception, while retaining its shear-thinning behaviour and viscosity with no significant changes (p > 0.05). High pressure processing can also control hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) concentration in honey during process within the standard limit, 16.93 to 18.76 mg/kg (which is below than the maximum allowed limit of 40 mg/kg). This work also reveals that high pressure processing can enhance antibacterial activity of Manuka honey significantly. It shows an increase in the percentage inhibition of Staphylococcus epidermidis from 64.15 ± 5.86% to 84.34 ± 7.62% when honey was subjected to 600 MPa. Storage studies for one year at room temperature (25°C) demonstrated that high pressure-treated samples have a good retention to the physicochemical, nutritional and rheological properties of honey throughout storage, which confirms that the positive effect of high pressure on honey is not a temporary effect. Whereas, an insight study on the safety part showed that the Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell varied linearly with ° Brix, indicating that food compressibility has a significant role in the microbial inactivation

Interactivity and integration in virtual courses

Web-based virtual courses focussing on content delivery only have turned out not to be as successful as expected. We will investigate reasons and suggest some remedies – using our own virtual Database course for illustration. Interactivity and integration are the two main remedies, which shall lead towards improved, learning-oriented virtual course environments. We will introduce a formalism to support their development and analysis