A Framework of Video Bit-Stream Scalability and Efficient, Secure Social Video Sharing in the Clouds

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Refinement of the English language teaching textbook evaluation checklist

The English Language Teaching (ELT) Textbook Evaluation Checklist was developed in response to the need for a reliable, valid and practical instrument to evaluate English language teaching textbooks. The checklist was qualitatively developed by a review of the literature (Mukundan & Ahour, 2010; Mukundan et al., 2011a) and was refined through qualitative (Mukundan et al., 2011b) and quantitative (Mukundan & Nimehchisalem, 2012a) methods. As the validation test results of the checklist (Mukundan & Nimehchisalem, 2012b; Nimehchisalem & Mukundan, 2013) indicated, it could be refined further to improve its validity, reliability and practicality. The present study discusses the modifications made to the checklist following the comments of a panel of experts (n=3), who were sent a copy of the old version of the checklist. They commented on the comprehensiveness, importance and clarity of the domains and items of the checklist independently. The qualitative method was used to collect and analyse the data. The checklist was refined based on the experts' comments; problematic items were removed or revised and a scoring guide was added to it. The refined instrument is more economical than its previous version, and yet further research is required to test its validity empirically

An empirical study of web interface design on small display devices

This paper reports an empirical study that explores the problem of finding a highly-efficient, user-friendly interface design method on small display devices. We compared three models using our PDA interface simulator: presentation optimization method, semantic conversion method, and zooming method. A controlled experiment has been carried out to identify the pros and cons of each method. The results show that of the three interface methods, the zooming method is slightly better than the semantic conversion method, while they both outperform the optimizing presentation method. © 2004 IEEE

A Structure of Adaptive Portable Video Streaming and Efficient Social Video Distribution in the Clouds

Recently there have been many studies on how to improve the service quality of mobile video streaming  on cloud computing. Resilience against cloud provider failure and temporary unavailabilityUse multiple cloud providers to construct a reliable cloud storage service out of unreliable components.we need Efficient proofs of file availability by interacting with cloud providers but these systems are not sufficient for this type of environments. Use multiple cloud providers to construct a reliable cloud storage service out of unreliable components. High availability and tolerance to adversarial failures.In this paper we address the problems of adaptive cloud services. Our adversaries are the cloud service provider itself, its insiders, or any third party attacks who are able to view the target data, monitor query processing on the data, obtain or infer the data and queries. – have complete access to database server While we need to provide security and privacy against these adversaries, we cannot omit functionality and performance – the most important property for a data service

The Mesoamerican Corpus of Formative Period Art and Writing

This project explores the origins and development of the first writing in the New World by constructing a comprehensive database of Formative period, 1500-400 BCE, iconography and a suite of database-driven digital tools. In collaboration with two of the largest repositories of Formative period Mesoamerican art in Mexico, the project integrates the work of archaeologists, art historians, and scientific computing specialists to plan and begin the production of a database, digital assets, and visual search software that permit the visualization of spatial, chronological, and contextual relationships among iconographic and archaeological datasets. These resources will eventually support mobile and web based applications that allow for the search, comparison, and analysis of a corpus of material currently only partially documented. The start-up phase will generate a functional prototype database, project website, wireframe user interfaces, and a report summarizing project development

Designing Children’s Interactive Pop-up Books: Creating enhanced experiences through the incorporation of animation principles and interactive design.

This thesis, Designing Children’s Interactive Pop-up Books: Creating enhanced experiences through the incorporation of animation principles and interactive design, created by Michael Begay, explores how interactive design and computer graphics can be used to create enhanced user experiences in children’s book design. Key factors taken into consideration during the creation of this thesis include children’s book design, typography, storytelling, animation principles, and interactive design principles. In order to explore the effect computer graphic design has on creating an enhanced user experience in pop-up book design, this project starts with research on writing a compelling, age appropriate story for children between the ages of three and six. After the story is complete, the next step of this project is the creation of a traditional printed pop-up book. This printed pop-up book is then used to inform design decisions around the creation of the interactive pop-up book, such as the types of interactions to use (e.g., pull tabs, drag and drops, and simple clicks) as well as how the pages animate. The interactive pop-up book uses full-screen display and sound to help further create an immersive environment and enhanced reading experience. After finishing the creation of the traditional printed pop-up book and the interactive pop-up book, both books are tested with a group of participants (consisting of parents, caretakers, older siblings, and teachers) who interact with children between the ages of three and six. The tests contain questions related to the story’s comprehensiveness, the overall aesthetic of the illustration style, ease of use, and format preference—printed versus digital. While the findings from these tests suggest that there is a still a wonderment for watching folder paper come to life in three-dimensional forms, the interactive pop-up book has more potential in creating an enhanced reading experience

Incorporating Heuristic Evaluation (HE) in the Evaluation of Visual Design of the Eco-Tourism Smartphone App

Heuristic Evaluation (HE) has proven to be important in the development of different computer systems but has not been incorporated in the development of eco-tourism smartphone applications. This results inusability issues that significantly affect user experience (UX) as discussed in literature. This study reports the HE in the design and development of Niranur Agro Farm (NAF) eco-tourism smartphone applications, which could improve UX. Eight experts participated in this study, utilizing the SMART mobile usability heuristic developed for mobile application and the severity rating scale to determine usability issues. The HE findings indicated that 22 usability issues were identified. One issue was rated 4 (catastrophe), four issues were rated 3 (major problem), twelve issues were rated 2 (minor problem) and five issues were rated 1 (cosmetics). Although there are issues rated as 4 and 3, the majority of the issues were considered to be minor (1 and 2 on the scale). Results indicated that it is crucial to incorporate HE into the design and development of the eco-tourism smartphone app to minimize the usability issues faced by users. It further validated that utilizing a specific heuristic for smartphone applications would ensure that all usability issues are correctly categorized and remedied

Human Machine Interaction

In this book, the reader will find a set of papers divided into two sections. The first section presents different proposals focused on the human-machine interaction development process. The second section is devoted to different aspects of interaction, with a special emphasis on the physical interaction