Russula vinosoflavescens sp. nov., from deciduous forests of Northern Alsace, France

Based on morphological, molecular, and ecological data, a new species of Russula sect. Russula, found on several occasions under deciduous trees in Northern Alsace is described and illustrated as: Russula vinosoflavescens, belonging to R. subsect. Sardoninae

Knowledge Generation and Dissemination in Virtual Communities and Virtual Teams

In recent years, the creation of Internet-based knowledge has become increasingly significant. However, with regard to the influence and control of knowledge management processes, knowledge communities indicate specific problems for creating and distributing information. People – constantly or temporarily – without Internet access are left out of this knowledge dissemination. The CCIRP project takes problems of this kind into account, creating concepts how information generation in knowledge communities (e.g. CC-Expert) or in virtual teams, and how this knowledge can be distributed based on traditional media. The paper describes two approaches (within the context of the project CCIRP) that deal with knowledge generation and dissemination. CC-Expert is a tool for virtual communities (open user group) and VITEA for virtual teams (closed user groups), which were realised at the university of Koblenz, Germany. The approach VITEA shows how the knowledge generation and dissemination in virtual teams can be improved. It offers an environment to disseminate knowledge to team members without Internet access or with temporarily no access or even where Internet access is more inconvenient than using other media. In the VITEA-System the technologies of a reference lab and a virtual community are combined. One focus are the common aspects and differences and another the methods of knowledge generation and how to distribute knowledge by using heterogeneous media

Capturing the requirements for multiple user interfaces

non-peer-reviewedIn this paper we describe MANTRA, a model-driven approach for the development of multiple consistent user interfaces for one application. The common requirements of all these user interfaces are captured in an abstract UI model (AUI) which is annotated with constraints on the dialogue flow. We exemplify all further steps along a well known application scenario in which a user queries train connections from a simple timetable service. We consider in particular how the user interface can be adapted on the AUI level by deriving and tailoring dialogue structures which take into account constraints imposed by front-end platforms or inexperienced users. With this input we use model transformations to derive concrete, platform-specific UI models (CUI). These can be used to generate implementation code for several UI platforms including GUI applications, dynamic websites and mobile applications. The user interfaces are integrated with a multi tier application by referencing WSDL-based (Web Service Description Language) interface descriptions. Finally, we discuss how our approach can be extended to include voice interfaces. This imposes special challenges as these interfaces tend to be structurally different from visual platforms and have to be specified using speech-input grammars

A Mobile Accident Report System

Rarely performed documentation tasks usually require support for the user so that the data is recorded both completely and correctly. The broad market penetration with mobile devices like smart phones provides new possibilities for giving support for these kinds of tasks. This paper focuses on one particular widely-used instance of such a documentation task, namely the European Accident Report (aka Agreed Statement of Facts on Motor Vehicle Accident). Firstly we discuss the advantages of media-break-free processing of all the relevant data. Secondly we present the client part of the application, which allows on-site documentation by any of the parties involved. Both application parts can be used for processing claims in the back office. We highlight the possibilities of service-chain integration, the digital accident file generated by using this solution and the resultant advantages for media-break-free processing of claims

Reconsidering the Challenges of mPayments: A Roadmap to Plotting the Potential of the Future mCommerce Market

The current market penetration of mobile phones in conjunction with an expected growth of mCommerce offers a high potential for the growth of mPayment over the next few years. Research analysts have predicted that mPayments will gain a significant foothold in coming years although high-speed data services and the requisite demand will not materialize overnight. A wide variety of mPayment technologies are available today, but the value of such services is not clear. Services launched have seen both success and failure and therefore service providers need a realistic vision of the future. This paper explores the factors that affect the growth of the mPayments market and attempts to provide a roadmap for reassessing the potential success of this future market. 1

Providing Spontaneous WLAN Guest Access as a Mobile Value Added Service

In this paper we describe the design and realization of a system that allows guests to connect to a company’s internet-access channel via wireless local area network (WLAN). The core of the corporate infrastructure stays protected against unauthorized access. Although a growing number of companies provide WLAN access for their employees, guest access is rarely granted due to security concerns and substantial maintenance hurdles. Even if a network administrator might be willing to provide such access, it often would be done manually with substantial time delay. The solution we propose to solve this problem and to simplify the whole procedure is based on establishing a chain of trust. An authorized corporate user assumes the role of a host who invites and trusts his guests, thus he issues access codes together with the invitations. The system we propose is composed of two scenarios. The first scenario is called the „consultant scenario“ and uses a Spontaneous WLAN Guest Access Server (SpoGA Server). In the second scenario, the so called „congress scenario“, we describe how to support a great number of guests. Here we propose an „Extended Invitation Management System” (E– IMS) for ease of use. This system can help organizers of events not only to provide participants with wireless network access but also to support other related tasks in the preparation of larger events. The current results as described in the paper pave the way for field testing and broad enrollment. In addition some considerations on further developments are provided

Exploring e/mHealth Potential for Health Improvement: A Design Analysis for Future e/mHealth Impact

Our aging population presents a huge challenge especially to our Western (public) health care systems and costs. Recent developments in the area of e/mHealth solutions hold some promise, especially if they are used in lifestyle interventions for several of the main Western diseases. We raise the question how e/mHealth solutions can help improve health by supporting lifestyle interventions? By using a design analysis approach and based on medical literature on health interventions, we raise a number of questions, which span the problem space: Which types of lifestyle interventions are more or less effective in generating health improvements? Which contents and formats of lifestyle interventions hold promise? What could e/mHealth care solutions contribute? System Quality and Information Quality issues are illustrated by using cases. Finally, in the discussion we briefly address the integration with traditional health care provisioning. Regarding the support of health (self-)management, we argue that specific e/mHealth care approaches could offer solutions for current system quality and information quality challenges. These solutions can in turn offer opportunities for care providers to improve the success of their patient recovery programs, and for patients to improve their health significantly. We provide a list of examples for such support provided by e/mHealth care approaches, e.g. integration with the increasing range of health applications in everyday life (on iPhone, Wii, Google, Nike+ and others). A significant number of patients want to actively contribute to improve their health and fight their disease, if they see that it makes a difference. A growing range of e- and m-Health applications is helping them do so

Service Experience Design for Healthy Living Support: Comparing an In-House with an eHealth Solution

Extensive lifestyle interventions towards healthy living can help prevent, stabilize or even reverse some of the most common diseases facing our aging population (cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity, some cancers and even dementia). One promising application can be found in ‘secondary prevention’, which starts from the moment of diagnosis and is aimed at prevention or reversal of disease progression. Several studies have shown that patients who make the largest lifestyle progress gain most (long term) health benefits. An important challenge is to motivate patients to a high degree of compliance with the lifestyle guidelines. In this paper we use principles from Service Experience Design and motivation theories for designing and evaluating (e)Health lifestyle interventions. A two-tier design approach is most sensible: First use generic motivational factors (like cognition/health insights, asking explicit commitments or generating fast results). Next use service experience factors to optimize details. The eHealth solution generates quite different experience benefits compared with the inhouse solution. On the one hand this indicates that they may be used to serve different patient segments. On the other hand, our analysis suggests ways in which in-house and eHealth elements may be combined. We argue, that the level of trust a patient gains in prevention or therapy programs can be increased substantially by this combination. Some innovative examples for ICT-based eHealth approaches are mentioned for illustration