A Human-Cognitive Perspective of Users’ Password Choices in Recognition-Based Graphical Authentication

Graphical password composition is an important part of graphical user authentication which affects the strength of the chosen password. Considering that graphical authentication is associated with visual search, perception, and information retrieval, in this paper we report on an eye-tracking study (N = 109) that aimed to investigate the effects of users’ cognitive styles toward the strength of the created passwords and shed light into whether and how the visual strategy of the users during graphical password composition is associated with the passwords’ strength. For doing so, we adopted Witkin’s Field Dependence-Independence theory, which underpins individual differences in visual information and cognitive processing, as graphical password composition tasks are associated with visual search. The analysis revealed that users with different cognitive processing characteristics followed different patterns of visual behavior during password composition which affected the strength of the created passwords. The findings underpin the need of considering human-cognitive characteristics as a design factor in graphical password schemes. The paper concludes by discussing implications for improving recognition-based graphical passwords through adaptation and personalization techniques based on individual cognitive characteristics

The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale: low sensitivity for depression screening in demented and non-demented hospitalized elderly

Background: We currently use the depression subscale (HADD) of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) for depression screening in elderly inpatients. Given recent concerns about the performance of the HADD in this age group, we performed a quality-control study retrospectively comparing HADD with the diagnosis of depression by a psychiatrist. We also studied the effect of dementia on the scale's performance. Methods: HADS produces two 7-item subscales assessing depression or anxiety. The HADD was administered by a neuropsychologist. As "gold standard” we considered the psychiatrist's diagnosis based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, criteria. Patients older than 65 years, assessed by both the HADD and the psychiatrist, with a clinical dementia rating (CDR) score lower than 3, were included. The effect of dementia was assessed by forming three groups according to the CDR score (CDR0-0.5, CDR1, and CDR2). Simple and multiple logistic regression models were applied to predict the psychiatrist's depression diagnosis from HADD scores. Areas under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) were plotted and compared by χ2 tests. Results: On both univariate and multiple analyses, HADD predicted depression diagnosis but performed poorly (univariate: p = 0.009, AUC = 0.60 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.53-0.66); multiple: p = 0.007, AUC = 0.65 (95% CI = 0.58-0.71)), regardless of cognitive status. Because mood could have changed between the two assessments (they occurred at different points of the hospital stay), the multiple analyses were repeated after limiting time interval at 28, 21, and 14 days. No major improvements were noted. Conclusion: The HADD performed poorly in elderly inpatients regardless of cognitive status. It cannot be recommended in this population for depression screening without further stud

Forecasting Unemployment Rates in Greece

This paper aims to model and forecast the evolution of unemployment rate in Greece, using the Box- Jenkins methodology during the period 1980-2013. The empirical study relieves that the most adequate model for the unemployment rate for this period is ARIMA (1,2,1). Using this model, we forecast the values of unemployment rate for 2014, 2015 and 2016. We found that the unemployment rate for 2014, 2015 and 2016 are 26.39% , 25.33% and 25.27% respectively

Assessing the factorial structure of the internet addiction test in a sample of Greek adolescents

Although many studies have documented the psychometric properties of the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) in adults, its factorial structure has not adequately been investigated in adolescents. The aim of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Internet Addiction Test, specifically testing its factorial structure in a sample of adolescents. A modified version of the Greek IAT, adapted for adolescents, was administered to 725 Greek secondary-school students. To determine the factorial structure underlying the questionnaire, both traditional and bifactor modelling approaches were applied to derive the optimal measurement structure of the IAT for adolescents. The bifactor model supported the single and three distinct factors, with stronger support for the unidimensionality of the instrument. The present study supports the stability of the three-factor structure of the Greek IAT from adolescence to adulthood, yet a longitudinal study is warranted to confirm this suggestion

NICEST - Master Study Proposal on Next Generation Industrial Control Engineering for Sustainable Water System Treatment

[EN] In this paper a collaborative experience towards the development of a new joint master degree is presented. The design of the curriculum has as main pillars: a) to provide an interdisciplinary view and approach to advanced water treatment solutions, and b) the development of the curriculum is done according to the new challenges for Higher Education in Europe, therefore providing references of good practices with this respect. The experience is worth to be shared as in an immediate future the expected collaboration among Higher Education Institutions in Europe is to increase if an integrated and high quality Higher Education Area is to be developed. The ongoing reviewing/re-structuring process of higher education programmes provides the opportunity to promote new types and levels of learning new technologies and practices in and through pan-European collaboration. The proposal that is motivated by the need for a green approach to water treatment. Like many other industries, water and wastewater treatment plants also face the problem of a staffing shortage. Efficient and productive workers that are skilled in the business are necessary to properly manage water systems. Automation may be a potential solution to this shortage. Not only will it fill in the gaps of needed employment, but it will also put less stress on existing workers. To this aim the Next generation Industrial Control Engineering for Sustainable water system Treatment (NICEST) project is presented in this paper. © (2023) by ECOS 2023 All rights reserved.SICommission Erasmus+ Erasmus Mundus Design Measure ERASMUS-EDU-2022-EMJM-DESIGN 101082541 European Commission European Unio

A New Framework for the Citation Indexing Paradigm

A new citation indexing paradigm is proposed: the cascading citation indexing framework (c2IF, for short). It improves the way research publications are assessed for their impact in promoting science and technology. Given a collection of articles and their citation graph, citations are considered at the (article, author) level. Each one article is uniquely identified by means of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI, http://www.doi.org). To identify each one author uniquely, a Universal Author Identifier (UAI) scheme is established. In addition to the citations directly made to a given (article, author) pair, citation paths that target each one citing article are also considered. The granularity of the paradigm is further increased by introducing the concept of the chord, whereby a citation path of length one co-exists with paths of length two or higher, involving the same source- and target- articles. The c2IF output emerges in the form of a medal standings table, analogous to the one that ranks teams at athletic events: when two (article, author) pairs receive the same number of (direct) citations, the one that is cited by more popular articles (i.e. articles that comprise targets to a larger number of paths in the citation graph), is assigned a higher rank value

Pivoting rules for the revised simplex algorithm

Pricing is a significant step in the simplex algorithm where an improving nonbasic variable is selected in order to enter the basis. This step is crucial and can dictate the total execution time. In this paper, we perform a computational study in which the pricing operation is computed with eight different pivoting rules: (i) Bland’s Rule, (ii) Dantzig’s Rule, (iii) Greatest Increment Method, (iv) Least Recently Considered Method, (v) Partial Pricing Rule, (vi) Queue Rule, (vii) Stack Rule, and (viii) Steepest Edge Rule; and incorporate them with the revised simplex algorithm. All pivoting rules have been implemented in MATLAB. The test sets used in the computational study are a set of randomly generated optimal sparse and dense LPs and a set of benchmark LPs (Netliboptimal, Kennington, Netlib-infeasible)