Prognostic Value of Leucocyte Telomere Length in Acute Myocardial Infarction

Introduction: Leucocyte telomere length (LTL) has been described as a marker of biological age, endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis. The association between LTL and clinical characteristics of Asian patients, and their outcomes following acute myocardial infarction (AMI) have been inconclusive. Objective: To investigate the relationship between LTL and developing AMI, the association of LTL with inpatient and 30-day mortality, and the comparison to LTL with established AMI risk scores in predicting these outcomes. Methodology: 100 patients aged 30-70 years admitted with an AMI to a tertiary referral center between May-Oct 2017 were enrolled; these were matched with 100 non-AMI ('healthy') controls for gender and age (+/- 1 year). Clinical data was obtained prospectively; inpatient and 30-day outcomes documented. LTL was reflected by a well described variable called a tis ratio (TSR). The TSR was measured at enrolment using a quantitative PCR-based methods (qPCR) and results blinded to the clinician

NFC Label Tagging Smartphone Application for the Blind and Visually Impaired in IoT

This paper details a mobile labelling application for visually impaired and blind user to help them identify an object’s character in IoT. Visually impaired and blind people recognize items through their sense of touch. However, it is not very easy for them to know the object’s character, for example, the colour of clothes. NFC technology was used to develop this project, the main reason for using NFC is because it requires the least effort to scan and automatically generates information without needing to open any third-party application. Problems arise from the existing applications which are implemented with barcode and QR code, these codes are only convenient for sighted people. If we consider the perspective of the visually impaired or blind people, they need to spend more time searching for the location of the code blindly. Moreover, the existing applications only generate output if the scanner successfully captures the code in full size. Besides that, the lack of labelling feature is another problem of the existing system, which is unable to identify an object’s character which is also crucial for the visually impaired or blind users. Research testing of the usability of the mobile application was tested by 30 people, classified as sighted blindfolded participants and short-sighted users without glasses. The results show that NFC works in the simplest way and requires the least effort during the scanning process, and it is suitable for blind or visually impaired and also sighted user. NFC-enabled Smartphones will generate output when detecting any NFC tags in a range of 3 cm. Having good accessibility and usability of application not only bring benefits to sighted people, but it also helps the visually impaired and blind users enjoy this benefit

Comparison of BlindLoginV2 and AudioBlindLogin with the common textual password authentication for the blind and visually impaired using smartphones

BlindLoginV2 and AudioBlindLogin were designed as memorable and usable graphical authentication systems for the blind and visually impaired, to reduce their difficulties in authentication as compared to alphanumeric or biometric authentication. The main aim of this paper is to compare the use of these two alternative graphical authentication systems with the traditional textual-based authentication, and to encourage the blind and visually impaired to use smartphone authentication, by overcoming the difficulties of maneuvering the virtual keyboard. It compares BlindLoginV2 and AudioBlindLogin with the 4-character common traditional textual authentication system, in terms of password creation time, mean login time performance and failure rate, and identifies the factors influencing the mean login time performance of BlindLoginV2 (object picture superiority effect) and AudioBlindLogin (auditory picture superiority effect) for the blind and visually impaired. Quantitative testing results show that both proposed systems are more accessible for the visually impaired as compared with the traditional text-based authentication system because the password creation time and mean login time is significantly shorter with lower failure rates. Results also show that the type of authentication method, the visual capability and the age of the user, and the interactions between these three factors significantly influences the mean login time performance

Picture superiority effect in authentication systems for the blind and visually impaired on a smartphone platform

Pictures are more likely to be remembered than words or text. For smartphone authentication, graphical password interfaces employing both visual objects and auditory cues are more memorable than textual password interfaces among sighted people because the graphical interface evokes visual imagery in the brain. However, interfaces employing visual imagery have not been studied for the blind and visually impaired. The objective of this research is to demonstrate that graphical password interfaces, designed to evoke visual imagery among blind and visually impaired users, improve the ease of use of smartphone authentication systems. We developed and tested two graphical password systems, BlindLoginV2, which employs object picture superiority effect and AudioBlindLogin, which employs auditory cues to enrich the picture superiority effect. We collected quantitative metrics measuring login speed, configuration time and failure rates immediately after training, 1 h later, 1 day later and 1 week later and qualitative evidence through face-to-face interviews. This study shows that blind and visually impaired users benefit from the picture superiority effect and passwords are more memorable, quicker to key in with greater accuracy as compared to 4-character textual password interfaces. Using the authentication system as an example, we demonstrate that visual imagery can be evoked in blind and visually impaired users through careful design of smartphone interfaces and when paired with additional sensory cues such as audio, can significantly improve the ease-of-use and thereby enhance access among visually impaired users to the rich array of security features available in smartphones

Pilot Evaluation of BlindLoginV2 Graphical Password System for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Most of the authentication system available now is more focus on normal user. But there are some drawbacks if the targeted users were visually impaired or blind. For example, the on-screen keyboard is very difficult to use by visually impaired or blind people. The BlindLogin V2 authentication system is invented to improve the authentication process faced by the people having visual impairment by making it more user-friendly. BlindLogin V2 is a graphical-based authentication application where the password is easier to remember because it applies graphical password properties for the blind and visually impaired. The paper is going to compare two different version of BlindLogin method system in term of creation time, creation attempts, entry time, re-entry time, re-entry attempts, login success rate/failure rate and errors per attempts. The result carried out from this project prove that the proposed system is capable to help the visually impaired or blind people to login in a shorter time compare with traditional text-based authentication system

Comparison of Graphical Passwords Using ISO 9126

This article is to learn the characteristics of graphical passwords by comparing different categories of graphical passwords with the ISO 9126 model. The ISO 9126 model is divided into six parts, which are usability, reliability, functionality, maintainability, efficiency, and portability. Each part listed is sub-categorised by the standard and is used to evaluate the quality of a product. Multiple graphical passwords are chosen from different classification of graphical passwords for thirty users to test and fill in the survey. Then a survey was conducted to compare each of these five categories of graphical passwords based on the ISO 9126 model. Thirty users of different ages and gender were invited to the booth to test the graphical password systems and fill in survey. The survey results as described in the article show us which category of graphical passwords contains more of the ISO 9126 characteristics