Hypermedia Information Research Articles

Effects of a nurse-led eHealth cardiac rehabilitation programme on health outcomes of patients with coronary heart disease: A randomised controlled trial

The uptake of and adherence to cardiac rehabilitation remain suboptimal despite its apparent health benefits in modifying risk factors and slowing disease progression. eHealth refers to the use of information and communication technologies for health-related purposes. It is a promising approach for improving participation in cardiac rehabilitation by enabling instant contact, hypermedia information delivery, technology-monitored functionalities and individualised progress monitoring. To evaluate the effects of a nurse-led eHealth cardiac rehabilitation (NeCR) system on health behaviours, cardiac self-efficacy, anxiety and depression, health-related quality of life, risk parameters and unplanned use of care services for people with coronary heart disease. A single-blinded randomised controlled trial design was used. The study randomly assigned 146 patients hospitalised for coronary heart disease to receive either the NeCR intervention or the usual care. Underpinned by social cognitive theory, the intervention commenced before hospital discharge with an in-person session by the nurse to identify individualised self-care needs, set goals and develop an action plan to enhance behavioural risk factor modification and orientate the patient to the use of the information and communication technology platform for cardiac rehabilitation. After discharge, the e-platform helped patients gain knowledge of disease management and monitor goal attainment for health behavioural changes. The nurse provided feedback on the patients' goal attainment and lifestyle modifications on a weekly basis in a small group format through the WeChat platform, thus also mobilising peer influence. Data for lifestyle behaviours, physiological risk parameters and clinical outcomes were collected at baseline and at 6 and 12 weeks post-intervention. At 6 weeks post-intervention, participants in the intervention group showed significant improvement in the number of steps/day (β=2628.48, p=.022), the number of minutes/week sitting (β=-640.30, p=.006) and their health-promoting lifestyle profile (β=25.17, p<.001) compared with the control group. Improvements in the number of steps/day (β=2520.00, p=.006), the number of minutes/week sitting (β=-719.73, p=.004) and health-promoting lifestyle (β=16.09, p<.001) were sustained until the 12-week post-intervention endpoint. Moreover, participants showed significantly greater improvement in self-efficacy (β=0.61, p=.005) and health-related quality of life (mean difference=0.56, p<.001) than the control group at the study endpoint. The findings of this study demonstrate the effectiveness of the NeCR intervention in modifying behavioural risk factors and improving health-related quality of life. These findings also provide insights into the application of eHealth nursing interventions to enhance the rehabilitation of patients with coronary heart disease. ChiCTR1800020411.

INTERACTIVE MAP MULTIMEDIA INFORMATION TO THE GEOPORTAL

The article presents a study of the role of interactive map multimedia information for a geoportal. The urgency of the development of interactive map multimedia is shown. The developed technological scheme to create an interactive map with multimedia information is offered.

An English-language Multimedia Teaching Model Based on Krashen’s Theory

Traditional English teaching practice often centers on the teacher and implements the teaching mode of “exemplifying by the teacher-answering by students-evaluating by the teacher”. This inflexible teaching mode fails to fully exert student’s subjective function; at the same time, due to the lack of necessary guidance and help from teachers, students are more likely to suffer from learning burnout and low self-confidence. With this regard, an English multimedia teaching mode was proposed in this study based on Krashen’s “Language Input Theory”. The theory is characterized by emphasizing the analysis of English language learning from the perspectives of “acquisition” and “learning”, advocating “understanding” of knowledge and using student-centered teaching methods. In this study, Krashen’s theory was combined with interactive learning methods and multimedia information technology to form an English teaching mode focused on “teacher-student”, “student-student” and “student-computer” interactions and build an “in class- after class” and “online-offline” English learning environment. This mode was practically applied in the teaching of “College English” at Hohai University in Jiangsu Province, China. The results show that the English multimedia teaching mode based on Krashen’s theory is more effective than the traditional teaching mode in improving students’ interest and self-confidence in learning.

Data Security Framework for Electric Company Mobile Apps to Prevent Information Leakage

This paper focuses on the management mechanism of internal message transmission and address book to ensure the security of enterprise information and communication. We study the information storage of instant messaging applications, including interactive multimedia information such as pictures, videos, and voices during the communication process. Stable, efficient, and flexible Database is chosen to store the message data. Meanwhile, the historical record keeping strategy of instant messaging applications are analyzed for the on-time destruction of mobile communication records, and the query of historical communication records of the application background. By encrypting the transmission process of the communication record of the instant messaging application, we realize the end-to-end communication encryption and prevents the communication information from being intercepted by the third party. According to the experiment results, the proposed framework can effectively prevent the information leakage in the mobile message system.

Standards column

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 area of work comprises the standardization of coded representation of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information and sets of compression and control functions for use with such information. SC29 basically hosts two working groups responsible for the development of international standards for the compression, decompression, processing, and coded representation of media content, in order to satisfy a wide variety of applications", specifically WG1 targeting "digital still pictures" - also known as JPEG - and WG11 targeting "moving pictures, audio, and their combination" - also known as MPEG. The earlier SC29 standards, namely JPEG, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, received the technology &amp; engineering Emmy award in 1995-96. The standards columns within ACM SIGMM Records provide timely updates about the most recent developments within JPEG and MPEG respectively. The JPEG column is edited by Antonio Pinheiro and the MPEG column is edited by Christian Timmerer. The editors and an overview of recent JPEG and MPEG achievements as well as future plans are highlighted in this article.

Smartwatch-Enhanced Interaction with an Advanced Troubleshooting System for Industrial Machines

Smartwatches are unobtrusive everyday devices which can be also exploited for effective gesture-based human-machine interaction. In this paper, we propose the use of a smartwatch to interact with an advanced troubleshooting application to be used in industrial environment. The application is a hypermedia information system aiming at assisting workers in performing preventive and corrective machine maintenance. The smartwatch allows a handsfree interaction, thus facilitating the use of the whole system when wearing personal protective equipment such as gloves or having fingers greased with oil or dust, which prevent operating touch screens. The algorithm for gesture recognition we have devised, which is based on template matching, is described in the paper, together with its experimental validation. Finally, we present a preliminary usability assessment of the overall system, meant as integration of the smartwatch with the hypermedia system.

MyAID: a Troubleshooting Application for Supporting Human Operators in Industrial Environment

Nowadays manufacturing systems are increasing in sophistication and complexity. In this scenario, human operators experience many diffculties to interact effciently with the machine. To tackle this problem, in this paper we present a novel interactive troubleshooting tool to be used in industrial environment. The application, called MyAID, relies on a hypermedia information system and aims at assisting shopoor workers in a factory to perform preventive and corrective machine maintenance. The main advantages of MyAID are the following. First, it overcomes limitations of conventional printed documentation. Second, it can be easily updated and adapted to other machines or uses, other than troubleshooting, since it enjoys a modular structure. Third, it can be connected directly to the control unit of the machine to read active alarms or verify whether the user is following correctly the troubleshooting procedure. Finally, the plan for usability assessment of the proposed application, which is organized in a preliminary heuristic evaluation according to Nielsen's heuristics and field tests with users, is introduced.

An axiomatic approach to maintaining the consistency of a hypermedia information system based on the SEM-HP model

Maintenance is considered a key issue in hypermedia systems. Common sense indicates that it might be possible to understand the web’s content without any knowledge representation, but not to automatically manage and support it. Assuming that the development and maintenance of hypermedia systems is dynamic and evolutionary, this implies a continuous process of change throughout their life cycles. Here, we review a conceptual hypermedia system model, the Semantic and Evolutionary Model for HyPermedia systems, tomaintain its consistency during its life cycle. Thismodelmakes a semantic representation of the information system, offering an architecture whose components are formally defined by using the underlying semantics. In this article, we focus on formalizing the building of hypermedia information systems. To do so, we propose a novel axiomatic approach based on the graph theory that ensures their consistency. The major objective of this contribution is to describe a computational and mathematical proof that determines the set of axioms that are valid to keep the integrity of the information system. These axioms are able to generate the combinations that are valid by means of logical deduction.

Session details: MPEG column: 105th MPEG meeting

At the 105th MPEG meeting in Vienna, Austria, a lot of interesting things happened. First, this was not only the 105th MPEG meeting but also the 48th VCEG meeting, 14th JCT-VC meeting, 5th JCT-3V meeting, and 26th SC29 meeting bringing together more than 400 experts from more than 20 countries to discuss technical issues in the domain of coding of audio, [picture (SC29 only),] multimedia and hypermedia information. Second, it was the 3rd meeting hosted in Austria after the 62nd in July 2002 and 77th in July 2006. In 2002, "the new video coding standard being developed jointly with the ITU-T VCEG organization was promoted to Final Committee Draft (FCD)" and in 2006 "MPEG Surround completed its technical work and has been submitted for final FDIS balloting" as well as "MPEG has issued a Final Call for Proposals on MPEG-7 Query Format (MP7QF)".

Evolutionary authoring tool for adaptive hypermedia with multimodal navigation

This paper discusses the importance of user adaptation and software evolution in hypermedia applications, and reviews some of the most relevant approaches to both fields. The paper describes a model that has been conceived for the development, maintenance and navigation of adaptive hypermedia systems. This model, called SEMantic, systemic and evolutionary model to develop HyPermedia systems (SEM-HP), includes an incremental design process, a layered architecture and an authoring tool integrated with a navigation tool. SEM-HP architecture is composed of four subsystems, which allow the separation of aspects related to knowledge representation, presentation, navigation and user adaptation. In addition, SEM-HP has a higher layer, which acts as a meta-system and allows a consistent evolution of the elements defined in each of the four subsystems, as well as their automatic co-evolution. Regarding user interaction, four alternative ways of navigating hypermedia information are supported. Finally, the paper shows the main results of two case studies carried out with the authoring and navigation tool, JSEM-HP, at the University of Granada, Spain.

Providing TPC-W with web user dynamic behavior

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; The evolution of the World Wide Web from hypermedia information repositories to web applications such as social networking, wikis or blogs has introduced a new paradigm where users are no longer passive web consumers. Instead, users have become active con- tributors to web applications, so introducing a high level of dynamism in their behavior. Moreover, this trend is even expected to rise in the incoming Web.&#x0D; As a consequence, there is a need to develop new software tools that consider user dynamism in an appropiate and accurate way when generating dynamic workload for evaluating the performance of the current and incoming web. This paper presents a new testbed with the ability of defining and generating web dy- namic workload for e-commerce. For this purpose, we integrated a dynamic workload generator (GUERNICA) with a widely used benchmark for e-commerce (TPC-W).&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

A hybrid user authentication protocol for mobile IPTV service

IPTV, a technological convergence that combines communication and broadcasting technologies, delivers customized, interactive TV content and other multimedia information over wired and wireless connections. Providing secure access to IPTV services calls for authentication, without proper and secure authentication mechanisms, an individual impersonating a subscriber could steal a service. This paper proposes a new authentication protocol to authenticate IPTV users. The authors based the proposed protocol, a hybrid authentication protocol providing lightweight, personalized user authentication, on RFID (radio-frequency identification) and USIM (Universal Subscriber Identity Module) technologies. In the proposed protocol, USIM performs highly personalized authentication, and the authenticated subscriber's RFID tags can have a temporary authority to execute authentication. These RFID tags become Agent Tags authorized to authenticate subscribers. Agent Tags identify and authenticate themselves to RFID readers in the set-top box, thus, simplifying the authentication process.

Interpretation of a cross-cultural usability evaluation: A case study based on a hypermedia system for rare species management in Namibia

We present the results of a usability evaluation of a locally developed hypermedia information system aiming at conservation biologists and wildlife managers in Namibia. Developer and end user come from different ethnic backgrounds, as is common to software development in Namibia and many developing countries. To overcome both the cultural and the authoritarian gap between usability evaluator and user, the evaluation was held as a workshop with usability evaluators who shared the target users’ ethnic and social backgrounds. Different data collection methods were used and results as well as specific incidences recorded. Results suggest that it is difficult for Namibian computer users to evaluate functionality independently from content. Users displayed evidence of a passive search strategy and an expectation that structure is provided rather than self generated. The comparison of data collection methods suggests that questionnaires are inappropriate in Namibia because they do not elicit a truthful response from participants who tend to provide answers they think are “expected”. The paper concludes that usability goals and methods have to be determined and defined within the target users’ cultural context.

NCSA Mosaic: a global hypermedia system

PurposeThis paper seeks to report on an Internet‐based system for hypermedia information discovery and retrieval and wide‐area distributed asynchronous collaboration designed and built at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).Design/methodology/approachThe NCSA is developing Mosaic clients – user‐friendly information browsers – for the three most popular desktop computing environments of the mid‐1990s: the Unix‐based X Window System, the Apple Macintosh, and Microsoft Windows 3.1. This paper primarily discusses the X client, as it has the most advanced functionality of the three at this time.FindingsThe system, called NCSA Mosaic, integrates cleanly into existing Internet protocols, formats, data sources, and environments, and provides powerful new capabilities for using and sharing information across the Internet.Originality/valueNCSA is making the complete Mosaic system freely available and distributable for all academic and research organizations and purposes.

A knowledge-based approach to wildlife management

We present a method for developing a knowledge base to give wildlife managers timely access to pertinent information. This knowledge-based approach to species management in Namibia focuses on anthologies and management strategies for high-value mammal species. To manage wildlife resources sustainably access to an appropriate knowledge base is essential. The strategic species management approach promotes planning on local, national, and international levels. A hypermedia Information System for Rare Species Management (IRAS) and a decision support system (Wildlife Introduction Advisor) are described. Unlike print media, which become dated, hypermedia is easily updated. The non-sequential nature of hypermedia allows information extraction according to the readers needs. Due to this flexibility hypermedia supports adaptive management and information sharing. Usability evaluation of the IRAS system disproved our assumption that established wildlife conservation categories such as habitat, distribution, and numbers are appropriate and sufficient to structure species information. This result led to a restructuring of the infor- mation according to management objectives. Evaluation of the Wildlife Introduction Advisor indicates that the model performs reliably and is robust towards input error. Human experts seem to be susceptible to bias. The economic benefits associated with wildlife trans- locations demand accountability through a well-defined, transparent distribution process. In Namibia this demand is achieved through the use of a knowledge-based decision support tool.

Multimedia visualization and interactive systems

PurposeThis paper aims to present the schematic for building a multimedia information visualization system and digital archive which takes advantage of a wider spectrum of media elements (images, sound, datasets) and interactivity with regards to research level historical body of knowledge.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology for this interactive multimedia visualized system was based on create a digital environment to explore larger bodies of research that expand on simple text‐based Information Retrieval Database systems. Through photos, videos, interactive maps, digital audio interviews, primary documents and narrative structures the system presents new methodologies for building digital libraries. The “educational” objective of this project was to present a stylistically elegant yet intellectually robust interactive multimedia information system for academic libraries.FindingsBuilding new online digital libraries must involve robust interactivity to take advantage of the computer's intrinsic specificity and the wider set of choices open to the human perceptual apparatus. Instead of text‐based navigation systems, a more creative set of visual “tools” should be explored for digital libraries including interactivity and cognitive cartographies. Key here are the terms “visual metaphor” and innovatively structuring visually intuitive “narratives” into non‐linear dynamic but humanly usable information systems.Research limitations/implicationsIn expanding the range of “allowable” “historical archival media” (audio, video, images, datasets, databases) in digital libraries and keeping research level academic integrity, future questions regard what this means for historiography, information construction, and questions surrounding epistemology and “archives” of the future.Practical implicationsTechnically, the successes in building this digital library information system solve the question of how to present a large robust amount of information indifferent rich media formats in an interesting and engaging manner. The project points to methodologies to present a research spectrum depth structure of textual material that can seamlessly be incorporated through wider spectrum of media elements: images, video, audio, music, datasets and interactivity.Originality/valueThis paper provides a methodology for marrying a textual body of academic research with a wider spectrum of media elements (sound, images, datasets, music) and incorporating them into a digital library through an innovative methodology. It will be valuable to anyone needing guidelines and specific algorithmic recipes and suggestions for building new millennia digital libraries which take advantage of a wider spectrum of media elements.

Information systems support for CNC machinists: Evaluating the impact of information technology at the shop floor

AbstractAs information technology (IT) capabilities increase, manufacturing businesses are realigning their information systems infrastructure to remain competitive. This has resulted in substantial increases in IT use in technical areas of the business. Nevertheless, conventional paper‐based information systems are still common at the shop floor. Hence, manufacturers need to understand whether there is benefit in extending IT functionality to the shop floor. By evaluating the impact of hypermedia information systems on the independent decision‐making and communication capabilities of computer numerical control (CNC) machinists, this research aims to identify the shop floor benefits of replacing existing paper‐based systems with this relatively new technology in this context. The research findings have wide‐ranging implications for further research into the strategic implementation of shop floor IT and for future work structures in the metal cutting industry. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 17: 299–314, 2007.

Task Complexity, Epistemological Beliefs and Metacognitive Calibration: An Exploratory Study

This article presents an explorative study, which is part of a comprehensive project to examine the impact of epistemological beliefs on metacognitive calibration during learning processes within a complex hypermedia information system. More specifically, this study investigates: 1) if learners differentiate between tasks of different complexity, and set goals and plan their learning behavior accordingly; and 2) whether such adaptive learning behavior is influenced by their epistemological beliefs. Students ( n = 72) inspected a set of six learning tasks and answered multiple questions derived from the COPES-model of self-regulated learning (Winne &amp; Hadwin, 1998)—e.g., they judged the importance of specific learning strategies for a particular learning task. Furthermore, they filled in inventories measuring their epistemological beliefs. Results confirmed significant relationships between task complexity and epistemological beliefs on the one hand and students' judgments on the other.

The effects of spatial layout on relationships between performance, path patterns and mental representation in a hypermedia information search task

The purpose of this study is to build on previous research in hypermedia by including an investigation of the relationships between navigation tools, path patterns and mental representations with traditional measures of navigation outcomes. We examined the effects of four different spatial layouts on three facets of hypermedia use, performance, path patterns and mental representation, during an information search task. Typically, such measures are evaluated independently. We have sought to reveal what types of information in a navigation tool might mediate links between these three aspects of hypermedia use. The performance measures indicated that providing certain types of spatial information does not enhance speed, accuracy or economy but does enhance recall of page titles. Reference is then made to an earlier analysis on the dataset of path patterns using Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) which indicated that users’ paths reflected the most prominent type of information provided in the navigation tool. The MDS configurations were then compared to the results of a distance‐like ratings task using correlation and regression methods. Only users given explicit spatial cues in the navigation tool exhibited ratings that reflected the paths they had actually taken. Although spatial information may not impact surface performance measures such as speed and economy, spatial information does play a role in influencing where users go and the development of their mental representations of the material in a hyper document.

MECCA: Hypermedia Capturing of Collaborative Scientific Discourses about Movies

Introduction Foucault defines 'discourse' as the medium by which ideas are exchanged (Wikipedia, 2004). Scholarly communication in the Humanities and the Cultural Studies heavily depend on the discursive nature of knowledge creation. changes over the centuries altered not only the communicational culture of scholars regarding their archives and text production strategies but also the communication situation in society, thus causing scientific, artistic, and societal paradigm shifts. The DFG-funded interdisciplinary Collaborative Research Center Media and Cultural Communication was founded in 1999 to study the nature and impact of media use and change on the discourses in cultural and scientific communication. Supported by historical analysis of media use, our project within this Center intends to create new workplaces for scientists in the 21st century. These interdisciplinary workplaces will influence the way scientists organize knowledge and cooperation within networked hypermedia information systems. Research and results will also have impact on the organization of social, economic and politic knowledge organization and cooperation patterns like the organization of public debates. Supporting communication and knowledge creation in digitally networked cultural science communities represents a specific challenge for the development and organizational structure of hypermedia information systems. Several years of cooperation with scientists from different disciplines in the humanities and the cultural studies have revealed at least three main requirements: 1. Semantic Freedom: The discursive nature of knowledge creation in the humanities, based on an intense exposure to hypermedia artifacts and underlying theories, requires support of different digital media to be combined with (almost) arbitrary metadata which characterize the situational background of an artifact. These digital artifacts are reifications of actual discourses and have special semantics for each user and each community of practice (Wenger, 1998). The situational backgrounds belonging to an artifact can be quite different depending on the scholar, her role in the community and her educational background. Concepts for dynamic hypermedia context management with a high degree of semantic freedom are thus needed for scholarly communications in the humanities. 2. Openness of repositories: This is an indispensable prerequisite for scaling such systems beyond the purposes of one community of practice. Scientific discourses in an informed society could not be isolated in the ivory tower anymore. Interdisciplinary and networked work settings lead to more exchange within the scientific community as well with society, industry and the political system. Modern information system should allow scholars of any kind to check out and modify archives, and bring them back into the discussion, again fostering discourses by simultaneously assuring intellectual property. We are aware that this is not only a requirement of a class of systems but is accompanied by the transformation of the humanities themselves. 3. Fluidity of archives: A naive multimedia understanding--e.g. that hypermedia can transport knowledge--is insufficient, since complex interrelations between media exist as well as complex cultural interfaces to these media (Manovich, 2001). Multimedia repositories are a big advantage but the contextualized and meaningful management of hypermedia artifacts needs more advanced hypermedia management strategies (fluid archives) than the usual basic support for storage and retrieval on the basis of low-level feature descriptors implementing old-fashioned de-contextualization strategies propagated in state-of-the-art information systems for scholarly communications. In the remainder of this paper, we discuss related literature first. We introduce a theoretical reflection on knowledge creation processes in the humanities related to the use of different media. …