Montanan, Fall 2010

This is the magazine of the University of Montana with news about the University for UM alumni as well as current faculty, students, staff, and administrators. This is volume 27, number 3.https://scholarworks.umt.edu/montanan/1166/thumbnail.jp

What Users Want (WUW): un servicio de satisfacción de usuarios orientado a aplicaciones de distribución de contenidos

En este trabajo, se presenta el servicio WUW que permite a los usuarios expresar sus preferencias y que sean tomadas en cuenta durante el proceso de distribución. Se presenta su arquitectura e implementación. De igual forma, WUW permite medir la satisfacción de los usuarios y cómo la aplicación P2P utilizada considera las preferencias de los usuarios, proporcionando una retroalimentación inspirada en Satisfaction-Based Query Load Balancing framework (SQLB) [5], pero cuya definición formal en WUW es esencialmente diferente [6] [7]. También como parte de nuestro trabajo de investigaci´on se diseña una interfaz web, que actúa como un intermediario entre los usuarios y el servicio WUW, a través de la cual los usuarios definen sus preferencias para que WUW pueda considerarlas, y le muestra a los usuarios la retroalimentación proporcionada por WUW. Finalmente, se realiza la evaluación del servicio WUW utilizando como aplicación P2P BitTorrent, el cual utiliza uno de los protocolos más popular para el intercambio de contenidos. Los resultados de nuestra evaluación, muestran que la presencia del servicio WUW no afecta el rendimiento de BitTorrent al considerar las preferencias de los usuarios al momento de seleccionar con quienes se desea compartir el contenido. Así mismo, se presenta una demostración del uso de la interfaz web, que permite a los usuarios definir sus preferencias.Las aplicaciones Par-a-Par (P2P) se han vuelto populares debido a su alta escalabilidad, y es gracias a la participación de los usuarios que el proceso de distribución se lleva a cabo, ya que estos comparten sus recursos (como el ancho de banda, almacenamiento, etc.) e intercambian el contenido con otros usuarios. Es por ello que hoy en día, muchas aplicaciones P2P pertenecen a la categoría de distribución de contenidos, las cuales van desde el intercambio de archivos hasta los sistemas que permiten crear una infraestructura P2P para organizar, buscar, y recuperar contenido [1]. No obstante, a pesar de su éxito, aún existen diferentes problemáticas relacionadas con el procesos de distribución. La mayoría de los trabajos relacionados con este tema enfocan sus esfuerzos en mejorar la arquitectura, la robustez en escenarios de alta dinamicidad o bien de mejorar la habilidad de descubrir nuevos pares para compartir contenido. En otras palabras, el enfoque en estas propuestas se basa principalmente en la calidad de servicio ofrecida [2][3][4]. Debido a que gracias a los usuarios, la distribución de contenidos se lleva a cabo, este tipo de aplicaciones no sólo deben preocuparse por la calidad de servicio, sino también por la satisfacción de sus usuarios, ya que son los principales actores en estas aplicaciones. Por lo tanto, este tipo de aplicaciones deberían hacer que los usuarios participen más en el proceso de distribución, teniendo en cuenta sus preferencias sobre el contenido y la información que comparten. Sin embargo, ninguna de las aplicaciones P2P de distribución de contenidos estudiadas en el presente trabajo considera las preferencias de los usuarios. Por lo que, se propone la utilización de un servicio que permita a los usuarios definir sus preferencias y tomarlas en consideración para la selección de los usuarios con los que desea intercambiar el contenido

Applied formative evaluation in the webbased environment.

The use of the Internet and specifically the World, Wide Web (Web) as a media for collaboration and problem-solving is an evolving solution to the problem of increasing numbers of students in the university setting. A variety of virtual universities are appearing on the Web to address this dilemma. There are gaps, however, in these Systems which do not meet the needs of the participants. This research examines the use of applied formative evaluation (feedback) methodologies and protocols, used between the stakeholders of a web-based learning environment, to facilitate the learning process. Principles are established to guide the learning environment designer (LED), the mediator between the subject expert (SE) or teacher and the interactive multimedia web-based design team, in creating a student-centred learning space on the web. The principles and protocols developed in this research are illustrated through the D E L B E R T (Digital Environment Learning-Based Evaluation Response Theory) Tutorial system. This web-based collaborative, problem-solving seminar makes use of on-line tools such as; e-mail, H T M L forms, Javascript and video conferencing to promote communication through a guided-discovery delivery methodology. The case studies conducted with the system support the methodologies proposed in this thesis. Telecommunication in the area of educational technology is a rapidly changing field. Therefore, the focus of this research is not in the development of software or programming which may be out of date before its implementation. Instead, this research contributes to the design process of a web-based educational environment. The principles and protocols are aimed at supporting the applied formative evaluation methodology between the participants in the on-line learning process. In this way the research can be adapted to new technologies, beyond those adapted to the D E L B E RT Tutorial system, thus, not limiting itself as a contribution to the science of educational technology

Impact of the GDPR on the Development of eHealth Software

The new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became effective on May 25, 2018 and regulates how personal data may be processed by companies, government agencies and other organizations in the European Union (EU). Since prior research focused mostly on the GDPR in general, its implications and impact on the development of health software are not as intuitive as one may think. Even though our main goal was to analyze the impact of the GDPR on health software, we have simultaneously covered several other important aspects of complying with the GDPR by researching relevant literature. We have outlined the history and content of the GDPR as well as other regulations like the Federal Data Protection Act (FDPA) and put them into the context of health. As a result, we were able to identify best practices for health-app providers and possibilities on how to comply with specific key aspects of the GDPR. Several other regulations and norms have been considered and illustrated concisely in this thesis. We have subsequently applied or analysis on eSano, the health platform of the University of Ulm. Our results show that eSano is GDPR-compliant with minor room for improvement

The design of 3D cyberspace as user interface: Advantages and limitations

Virtual reality propagandists, technologists and the Internet community have long debated the issue of the usability of online three-dimensional (3D) environments. A lot of work was published about the benefits of 3D spaces for human-computer interaction and information visualisation due to their realism (Anders, Kalawsky, Crossley, Davies, McGrath, Rejman-Greene, 1998, Hamit, 1993, Heim, 1992, Aukstakalnis, Blatner, Roth, 1992). This topic also receives continuous industry support including standardisation of Virtual Reality Modeling Language ( VRML, VRML Consortium, 1997) and the more recent Macromedia & Intel alliance to bring web 3D to the mainstream (200 1, Intel Corporation). The actual implementation of this technology is, however, still challenging (McCarthy & Descartes, 1998) and minimal because 3D is too new and waiting for good design to be discovered (Nielsen, 1998). The practical aim of this project is to fulfil the niche by creating a functional 3D interface for the access of two-dimensional (2D) information, such as text, using VRML. The theoretical aim is to contribute to further research into 3D usability by describing and analysing the design process in terms of possibilities, challenges and limitations

Gesture retrieval and its application to the study of multimodal communication

Comprehending communication is dependent on analyzing the different modalities of conversation, including audio, visual, and others. This is a natural process for humans, but in digital libraries, where preservation and dissemination of digital information are crucial, it is a complex task. A rich conversational model, encompassing all modalities and their co-occurrences, is required to effectively analyze and interact with digital information. Currently, the analysis of co-speech gestures in videos is done through manual annotation by linguistic experts based on textual searches. However, this approach is limited and does not fully utilize the visual modality of gestures. This paper proposes a visual gesture retrieval method using a deep learning architecture to extend current research in this area. The method is based on body keypoints and uses an attention mechanism to focus on specific groups. Experiments were conducted on a subset of the NewsScape dataset, which presents challenges such as multiple people, camera perspective changes, and occlusions. A user study was conducted to assess the usability of the results, establishing a baseline for future gesture retrieval methods in real-world video collections. The results of the experiment demonstrate the high potential of the proposed method in multimodal communication research and highlight the significance of visual gesture retrieval in enhancing interaction with video content. The integration of visual similarity search for gestures in the open-source multimedia retrieval stack, vitrivr, can greatly contribute to the field of computational linguistics. This research advances the understanding of the role of the visual modality in co-speech gestures and highlights the need for further development in this area