Current Web Research Articles

Web Technology Innovations and Their Impact on Georgia’s Labor Market

The development of modern web technologies is associated with unprecedented changes in the digital world around us. This fact determines the existence of diverse software support and technologies for creating websites. The web technology ecosystem is developing fast, driven by emerging technologies, changing user expectations, and the ongoing digital transformation across industries. This article explores the most significant trends reshaped web development in the latest period of time, highlighting the technological innovations that are redefining how developers create, deploy, and optimize digital experiences. From advances in frontend frameworks to the integration of artificial intelligence, serverless architectures, and enhanced performance optimization techniques, the current web technology landscape represents a dynamic intersection of innovation, efficiency, and user-centric design. The paper also discusses the latest trends in web technologies in relation to the Georgian labor market.

ESPRESSO: A Framework to Empower Search on the Decentralized Web

The increasing centralization of the Web raises serious concerns regarding privacy, security, and user autonomy. In response, there has been a renewed interest in the development of secure personal information management systems and a movement towards decentralization. Decentralized personal online data stores (pods) represent a revolutionary example within this movement, built on the W3C’s existing guidelines – an approach exemplified by initiatives such as Solid (https://solidproject.org). In the Solid paradigm, individuals store their personal data in pods and have absolute discretion when choosing to grant access to different users and applications. A barrier to the adoption of the pod approach is the predominant reliance on centralized indexes for search functionality in current Web and Web-based systems. This paper introduces the ESPRESSO framework, which is designed to facilitate this new paradigm of large-scale searches within personal data stores while respecting the individual pod owners’ data access governance. The current ESPRESSO prototype integrates access control within pod indexes to enhance distributed keyword-based search. ESPRESSO’s unique contribution not only enhances search capabilities on the decentralized Web but also paves the way for future explorations in decentralized search technologies.

The Semantic Function of Modern Chinese “Negation + X” Modal Words Based on Communication Technology and Big Data Corpus

The semantic function of modern Chinese “negation + X” modal words based on communication technology and big data corpus has gained wide attention. As the basis of SOA architecture, Web services provide the key resources for worldwide information transfer and information sharing with their characteristics of loose coupling, platform independence, and data exchange without additional support from third-party hardware and software. However, along with the popularization and improvement of Web service technology, the number and types of Web services in the Internet are also increasing massively, and there are a large number of Web services with various functions, quality and granularity. Therefore, how to quickly and accurately discover Web services that satisfy users’ query requests from a large and complex set of services has become a critical problem to be solved in the current Web service discovery research. Based on the real corpus, this paper analyzes the similarities and differences in the semantic functions of modern Chinese “negation + X” modal words by combining lexicalization and grammatization, cognitive linguistics, systemic functional grammar and other related theories. The experimental results demonstrate that the model is designed for automatic annotation of semantic word classes, and the annotation algorithm based on the hidden horse model, combined with the Viterbi algorithm based on dynamic programming, achieves a correct rate of 94.3% in the closed test and 89.1% in the open test despite the small size of the training corpus and severe data sparsity, and the model fitting effect meets the dynamic expectations.

Digital dissemination practices: An analysis of explanatory strategies in the process of recontextualising specialised knowledge

Researchers and scientists are increasingly encouraged by their institutions, by external organizations and by societal demands to foster the global dissemination of their knowledge production. Such dissemination is nowadays very frequently carried out online through different digital practices and texts. The current Web 2.0 and Science 2.0 context requires complex discursive practices to recontextualise and communicate specialised knowledge in a way that is accessed, understood and accepted by multiple audiences. The use of explanatory strategies has been highlighted by previous research as playing a key role in the recontextualisation of scientific findings. Such strategies can be realised verbally and non-verbally through diverse semiotic modes and affordances of the digital medium. A taxonomy of verbal explanatory strategies (elaboration, explicitation, exemplification, enumeration and comparison) and non-verbal (visual representations and spatial organisation) is presented stemming from the data-driven analysis of a sub-corpus of web-hosted practices, which is part of the SciDis Database compiled by the InterGEDI research group at Universidad de Zaragoza. In particular, the sub-corpus consists of 30 texts: 10 author-generated digital texts – from the knowledge dissemination community The Conversation –, and writer-mediated digital texts – 10 feature articles and 10 research digests – on circular economy and sustainability. Results show that verbal explanatory strategies are more frequent than non-verbal ones and that within the latter exemplification and explicitation are most common across all three types of digital dissemination practices. Author-generated scientific digital texts present more non-verbal explanatory strategies than writer-mediated ones – feature articles, and especially than research digests. The findings on the strategies resorted to and their realisation can be used to design tools for researchers, scientists and scriptwriters, mediators of disciplinary knowledge, who need to communicate such knowledge through digital platforms to diversified audiences.

Artificial Intelligence for Web 3.0: A Comprehensive Survey

Web 3.0 is the next generation of the Internet built on decentralized technologies such as blockchain and cryptography. It is born to solve the problems faced by the previous generation of the Internet such as imbalanced distribution of interests, monopoly of platform resources, and leakage of personal privacy. In this survey, we discuss the latest development status of Web 3.0 and the application of emerging AI technologies in it. First, we investigate the current successful practices of Web 3.0 and various components in the current Web 3.0 ecosystem and thus propose the hierarchical architecture of the Web 3.0 ecosystem from the perspective of application scenarios. The architecture we proposed contains four layers: data management, value circulation, ecological governance, and application scenarios. We dive into the current state of development and the main challenges and issues present in each layer. In this context, we find that AI technology will have great potential. We first briefly introduce the role that artificial intelligence technology may play in the development of Web 3.0. Then, we conduct an in-depth analysis of the current application status of artificial intelligence technology in the four layers of Web 3.0 and provide some insights into its potential future development directions.

AST-DF: A New Webshell Detection Method Based on Abstract Syntax Tree and Deep Forest

Webshell is a kind of web-language-based website backdoor, which is usually used by attackers to control web servers. Due to its dangerous nature, how to detect Webshell effectively has become a hot research topic in current Web security research. With the rapid development of Webshell evasion technology, the existing Webshell detection methods have the problem of insufficient ability to detect unknown Webshells. In order to solve the above problems and achieve effective Webshell detection, this study proposes a Webshell detection method based on the abstract syntax tree (AST) and deep forest (DF) model called AST-DF. AST-DF first extracts the abstract syntax tree from the PHP code; then, the abstract syntax tree sequence is feature extracted and vectorized using N-gram and TF-IDF. Finally, the vectors are imported into the deep forest model for classification to determine whether the PHP code to be detected is a Webshell or not. The experimental results show that AST-DF achieves remarkable effects in the task of detecting PHP-type Webshells, with a 99.61% accuracy rate, and the values of precision, recall, and F1 score are more than 99%.

Designing a Website Mockup for PT. XYZ Company Profile

The advancement of digital technology has placed greater emphasis on a company's online presence, particularly through a company profile website. This research aims to design a mockup for PT XYZ's company profile website by utilizing a combined approach of primary and secondary data. Primary data will be obtained through interviews with the company management to understand the company's values, communication objectives, and desired design preferences. Meanwhile, secondary data will be used to gain insights into current design trends and best practices in website design. This research method combines qualitative and descriptive approaches, with initial steps focusing on identifying PT XYZ's needs and communication objectives.Based on the interview results, initial design concepts will be developed that reflect the company's identity and consider user needs. By integrating primary and secondary data, this research is expected to produce a mockup design for the company profile website that meets PT XYZ's communication and representation needs, while aligning with current web design standards. The findings of this research are expected to provide practical guidance for PT XYZ in enhancing the company's image through effective and engaging digital media.

APIMiner: Identifying Web Application APIs Based on Web Page States Similarity Analysis

Modern web applications offer various APIs for data interaction. However, as the number of these APIs increases, so does the potential for security threats. Essentially, more APIs in an application can lead to more detectable vulnerabilities. Thus, it is crucial to identify APIs as comprehensively as possible in web applications. However, this task faces challenges due to the increasing complexity of web development techniques and the abundance of similar web pages. In this paper, we propose APIMiner, a framework for identifying APIs in web applications by dynamically traversing web pages based on web page state similarity analysis. APIMiner first builds a web page model based on the HTML elements of the current web page. APIMiner then uses this model to represent the state of the page. Then, APIMiner evaluates each element’s similarity in the page model and determines the page state similarity based on these similarity values. From the different states of the page, APIMiner extracts the data interaction APIs on the page. We conduct extensive experiments to evaluate APIMiner’s effectiveness. In the similarity analysis, our method surpasses state-of-the-art methods like NDD and mNDD in accurately distinguishing similar pages. We compare APIMiner with state-of-the-art tools (e.g., Enemy of the State, Crawlergo, and Wapiti3) for API identification. APIMiner excels in the number of identified APIs (average 1136) and code coverage (average 28,470). Relative to these tools, on average, APIMiner identifies 7.96 times more APIs and increases code coverage by 142.72%.

Turning manual web accessibility success criteria into automatic: an LLM-based approach

AbstractWeb accessibility evaluation is a costly process that usually requires manual intervention. Currently, large language model (LLM) based systems have gained popularity and shown promising capabilities to perform tasks that seemed impossible or required programming knowledge specific to a given area or were supposed to be impossible to be performed automatically. Our research explores whether an LLM-based system would be able to evaluate web accessibility success criteria that require manual evaluation. Three specific success criteria of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) that currently require manual checks were tested: 1.1.1 Non-text Content, 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context), and 3.1.2 Language of Parts. LLM-based scripts were developed to evaluate the test cases. Results were compared against current web accessibility evaluators. While automated accessibility evaluators were unable to reliably test the three WCAG criteria, often missing or only warning about issues, the LLM-based scripts successfully identified accessibility issues the tools missed, achieving overall 87.18% detection across the test cases. Conclusion The results demonstrate LLMs can augment automated accessibility testing to catch issues that pure software testing misses today. Further research should expand evaluation across more test cases and types of content.

Nudges to Mitigate Confirmation Bias during Web Search on Debated Topics: Support vs. Manipulation

When people use web search engines to find information on debated topics, the search results they encounter can influence opinion formation and practical decision-making with potentially far-reaching consequences for the individual and society. However, current web search engines lack support for information-seeking strategies that enable responsible opinion formation, e.g., by mitigating confirmation bias and motivating engagement with diverse viewpoints. We conducted two preregistered user studies to test the benefits and risks of an intervention aimed at confirmation bias mitigation. In the first study, we tested the effect of warning labels, warning of the risk of confirmation bias, combined with obfuscations, hiding selected search results per default. We observed that obfuscations with warning labels effectively reduce engagement with search results. These initial findings did not allow conclusions about the extent to which the reduced engagement was caused by the warning label (reflective nudging element) versus the obfuscation (automatic nudging element). If obfuscation was the primary cause, this would raise concerns about harming user autonomy. We thus conducted a follow-up study to test the effect of warning labels and obfuscations separately. According to our findings, obfuscations run the risk of manipulating behavior instead of guiding it, while warning labels without obfuscations (purely reflective) do not exhaust processing capacities but encourage users to actively choose to decrease engagement with attitude-confirming search results. Therefore, given the risks and unclear benefits of obfuscations and potentially other automatic nudging elements to guide engagement with information, we call for prioritizing interventions that aim to enhance human cognitive skills and agency instead.

Are Saudi Arabian banks’ mobile applications accessible for blind or partially sighted users?: a customers’ perspective and evaluation

AbstractThis study investigated the accessibility problems and barriers faced by visually impaired Arabic speakers when using banking mobile applications. The sample included mobile applications for the top three banks in Saudi Arabia in terms of their customer base, including applications for AlRajhi, SNB, and Riyad bank. The focus was on the three most popular e-services provided by those applications. Using a mixed method approach, accessibility was inspected manually according to current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1). In addition, in-depth usability testing for those applications was conducted with 12 blind Arabic-speaking users. The results revealed that the accessibility level for all sample applications did not conform to WCAG 2.1, which reflected the low accessibility level provided by these applications. However, AlRajhi’s application was the best among the tested applications. In manual inspection, it had the lowest number of violations of success criteria compared to SNB’s and Riyad’s applications. It also achieved the best results in usability testing in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction compared to the other two applications. The overall results showed that the current situation of accessibility of Saudi banking applications is not very satisfactory in terms of number of violations to WCAG 2.1 success criteria. The most violated principle by all the applications was operable, with around 37% of total violations, followed by perceivable, then robust and understandable.

Analysis of the Possibilities of Carrying Out Attacks on the Functions of Transferring Control to Operating System Console Using Active Intelligence Methods

This paper researches the possibility of conducting attacks on the console control transfer functions using active intelligence methods. The research employs a comprehensive approach involving ports scanning, directories searching, parameters modifying, and credentials searching based on a user dictionary. Additionally, the study involves the development of a software tool designed to detect vulnerabilities in network nodes. The software developed within the framework of this study is delivered in the form of two modules, the first module contains the main program with the mechanisms implemented in it to indicate the possibility of attacks, with an emphasis on current web applications and services. Checking for the possibility of an attack for any network node is that first a list of requests is compiled, the purpose of which is to identify weaknesses of a web application running on the server, and a list of expected responses from the server is also compiled for these requests. After that request goes to the server, the program waits for responses from the server, and if the expected responses from the compiled list coincide with the actual ones, then this fact signals the possibility of an attack on the web application. The second module stores localization dictionaries responsible for the presence of two interface languages in the program – Russian and English. The result of this work is the MaxNetScanner2022 software, which identifies the possibility of an attack on the system control transfer functions using active intelligence tools.

The Official IOI Website: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This paper is an extended report from one of the discussion groups at the 35th International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) in Hungary. It looks back at the evolution of the official IOI website, provides an overview of the current web resources and reflection on their strengths and weaknesses. The report also proposes short-term and long-term suggestions for further development of the IOI web services.

DİJİTAL WEB 3.0 ORTAMINDA GERİLLA PAZARLAMA

The Semantic Internet or Web 3.0 offers increasing access to - popularly called open source programs. At the same time, the digital environment has become an unavoidable area of marketing activity, in many segments more important than the traditional analog environment.
 At the time of Web 1.0 web programmers struggled with extremely complicated computer languages (Basic, Cobalt...), Web 2.0 made the work of computer scientists easier because advanced computer languages (CSS, HTML...) were used for programming and coding; while the current Web 3.0 with semantic technologies through “open source” tools, made it possible for wide use. This change allows the digital marketer to produce web media and designs their content independently. Our research, experimenting in the controlled conditions of the semantic internet, which refers to Poper's research method “trial and error” (Poper, 1997: 157), gave a positive answer to the question of whether the currently available open source tools can be used without a special IT prior knowledge in creating content for digital guerrilla marketing in a way to successfully produce written and design content as part of a digital marketing campaign.
 The research formulated a new terms: Designer of text and visual and Producer web media. They can “guerrilla free” (or very cheap) create media on the Internet and make design content independently, without special IT knowledge. The terms was imposed as a response to today's ubiquitous “interactive image” - the combination of traditional and digital media in the global IT sphere. We also introduced the new term - web station. It is a station on the Internet where the user in multitasking consumes a web site with several scripts and applications as well, for all available digital devices. The research is intended for communicators, economists and other digital marketer as a practical aspect of independent action in a specific marketing campaign.

Equivalent experience

I87 million European citizens have some form of disability. In an ideal world, every product should be accessible to everyone through an inclusive design process that ensures an equivalent experience for all. Designing web and mobile applications with accessibility as a priority means designing interaction systems that are "interoperable", i.e. always reliable in different contexts of use and in the presence of different methods of navigation, data entry and exchange. For this reason, the UX/UI designer must acquire specific skills in the field of web standards and thus learn the basics of HTML semantics, essential for the design of accessible web components. So don't stop at the surface, but go deeper to meet everyone's needs. The article aims to address the issue of accessibility in the design of mobile applications and websites according to current Web Standards, through the analysis of case studies and best practices, in order to delineate the role of the designer within the whole development process in relation to the other figures involved.

Web3: Exploring Decentralized Technologies and Applications for the Future of Empowerment and Ownership

The emergence of the World Wide Web has revolutionized online communication, aiming to achieve global information sharing and communication. However, the current Web 2.0 architecture, which relies on centralized platforms, presents limitations such as restricted user rights, data privacy concerns, and dependence on centralized institutions. Web3, as a concept describing the next evolutionary stage of the internet, offers a solution to these issues by reshaping the internet infrastructure. Web3 provides a foundation for autonomous digital experiences and drives the advancement of the digital economy. This paper offers a thorough exploration of Web3, covering its key technologies, applications, challenges, and opportunities. We begin by introducing the core technologies behind Web3, followed by an exploration of its prominent applications. Finally, we analyze the challenges faced by Web3 and discuss potential research opportunities to address these challenges in the future. In summary, this study comprehensively elaborates on Web3 and lays a solid foundation for subsequent research work, encouraging researchers to explore new frontiers.

Design and Implementation of Power Big Data Platform

In recent years, with the advancement of the national construction of smart grid and the development of power grid enterprise integration system, the traditional power data platform has some defect, such as insufficient scalability, repeated implementation of two sets of logic of off-line data warehouse and real-time data warehouse, highly correlated storage of data warehouse during computation, and difficulty in platform migration, which restrict the deeper mining and analysis of power big data. Therefore, this paper adopts a technical architecture incorporating distributed calculating, micro-service, flow-batch integration and lake-warehouse integration, combining the current popular Web front-end and back-end technologies such as Vue, SpringCloud and Flask, and utilizing big data components such as Hadoop, Flink, Hudi and Kafka as well as Docker containerization technology. We explore and build a power grid system operation oriented big data platform that assembles real-time computing, multi-source heterogeneous data storage, and develop APIs for authority management, information management, data analysis and visualization, machine learning and other data supporting services that assist power enterprises in managing electrical equipment and users’ power consumption.With the help of this platform, power enterprises can intelligently track the equipment status, view the offline and real-time visual charts to analyze the power consumption by users, so as to have better basis in the power dispatching, maintenance and scheme adjustment of electrical market.

Tennessee Academy of ScienceDistinguished Secondary School Science Teacher Award 2022

Tennessee Academy of ScienceDistinguished Secondary School Science Teacher Award 2022

Web 3.0 Redefining Social Networking with Decentralization

This current web 2.0 has primarily centered on connecting people through the advent of social media platforms, with a predominant focus on the application layer. As we envision the path to web 3.0, various perspectives emerge some advocate for a semantic web, while others emphasize the significance of the virtual web. This paper introduces an alternative perspective, which centers on the decentralized web as the future of the internet. To advance the web, it is imperative to address both existing issues and the challenges that have arisen from these platforms. The decentralized web concentrates on the development of underlying protocols and technologies, often transparent to end users. In the context of this paper, we examine the contemporary issues of web 2.0, introduce the DappMint project, and explore the innovative technologies currently under development to redefine the web landscape. As we envision the path to web 3.0, DappMint reimagines a decentralized web, addressing existing issues and introducing emerging technologies, thus redefining the web landscape for the future. This transformation aims to create a web ecosystem that empowers users while ensuring privacy, security, and resilience in the digital age.

The Impact of Web Analytics Tools on the Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises

In the era of data analytics, the use of web analytics tools is widely spread among Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), especially in the e-commerce sector, to analyze web usage data and measure website performance due to the several features it provides. Most web analytics studies were conducted based on marketing rather than a managerial point of view. Therefore, there is a necessity to study the impact from a managerial perspective by exploring the impact on financial and non-financial performance and the decision-making process. This study assessed the impact of web analytics tools on the overall performance of SMEs, targeting Saudi SMEs and considering the lack of web analytics studies in this sector in Saudi Arabia. The sample involved eight Saudi SMEs who participated by answering interview questions, which were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings demonstrated four main themes: the current web analytics tools used by Saudi SMEs, the motivations behind their use, and their impact on SMEs' performance and decision-making. The results showed that these tools positively affect the overall performance of SMEs. Google Analytics (GA) was the tool most used by the sample. Seven motives were discovered that encourage SMEs to use web analytics tools. This study also addressed the common Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) used by the participants. Concerning decision-making, it was found that web analytics tools affected and supported SMEs' decisions. Furthermore, this study evaluated the role of Zid, the Saudi e-commerce platform for data analytics and performance measurement.