User's Situation Research Articles

An Ontology for In‐Depth Description of User Situations in Connected Environments

ABSTRACTContext‐awareness is increasingly recognised as a fundamental principle in the development of ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence. By leveraging contextual data about users and their environments, systems can gain a deeper understanding of the evolving user situation. This empowers them to dynamically adapt their operations, leading to optimised resource utilisation, enhanced decision‐making, and ultimately, greater user satisfaction. However, a critical challenge lies in effectively representing user situations with a high degree of expressiveness. While ontology‐based data models have emerged as a promising approach due to their ability to handle the inherent heterogeneity of context information, existing ontologies have limitations in terms of information coverage, data heterogeneity and uncertainties consideration, and reusability across various application domains. This paper addresses these limitations by proposing uCSN, an ontology that builds upon and extends the Data Privacy Vocabulary (DPV), Semantic Sensor Network (SSN) and W3C Uncertainty ontologies, to provide a rich and expressive vocabulary for representing diverse user situations. We evaluate uCSN based on its consistency, accuracy, clarity and performance.

Which Diversity? Expanding the Gap Model of Disability for Digital Information Systems.

In this paper, we extend the gap model of disability that supports digital equipment and cyber-physical situational variations. We explore an alternative approach to visualizing and understanding disability that takes into account the diversity of personal abilities, the diversity of digital equipment and equally important, the situation (environmental, psychological, and digital) in which the information system is used. The most important implications of this work are twofold. First, this work will contribute to the need for Universal Design to take into account not only the diversity of abilities and impairments of the users that are tangible and recognizable in the physical environment, but also the diversity of digital equipment and usage situations. Second, as part of the systems development cycle, in user testing of digital services, this work highlights the essential need to not only involve a diverse set of users, but also to conduct testing in diverse digital environments (smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop PCs), and in diverse realistic usage scenarios, including strong sunlight or low light situation, as well as tired, alert, stressed or distracted, and slow network. The proposed model attempts to give a more holistic view and promote a more comprehensive understanding of the disabilities that can occur during use of digital services or mediated communication in daily life.

Are public disease outbreaks still relevant to tourists’ decisions about using shared mobility?

ABSTRACT This research note investigates how potential public health crises affect shared mobility use by tourists. Using mixed methods, it extends the Protection Motivation Theory and Usage Situation Theory by exploring how trust and risk management influence usage intentions among current users and non-users of shared mobility services. Its qualitative analysis reveals the importance of tailored communication and transparency from service providers to foster trust and encourage adoption. Its quantitative ones indicate that experienced users emphasise coping mechanisms, whilst non-users are more swayed by perceived threats. Although COVID-19 restrictions have eased, work of this kind will remain relevant as the tourism sector adapts to enduring changes and prepares for potential future crises. By offering strategies to enhance shared mobility resilience during health emergencies, this study provides valuable guidance for tourism, hospitality and mobility stakeholders navigating an uncertain time.

Nothing Comes Without Its World – Practical Challenges of Aligning LLMs to Situated Human Values through RLHF

Work on value alignment aims to ensure that human values are respected by AI systems. However, existing approaches tend to rely on universal framings of human values that obscure the question of which values the systems should capture and align with, given the variety of operational situations. This often results in AI systems that privilege only a selected few while perpetuating problematic norms grounded on biases, ultimately causing equity and justice issues. In this perspective paper, we unpack the limitations of predominant alignment practices of reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) for LLMs through the lens of situated values. We build on feminist epistemology to argue that at the design-time, RLHF has problems with representation in the subjects providing feedback and implicitness in the conceptualization of values and situations of real-world users while lacking system adaptation to real user situations at the use time. To address these shortcomings, we propose three research directions: 1) situated annotation to capture information about the crowdworker’s and user’s values and judgments in relation to specific situations at both the design and use-time, 2) expressive instruction to encode plural values for instructing LLMs systems at design-time, and 3) reflexive adaptation to leverage situational knowledge for system adaption at use-time. We conclude by reflecting on the practical challenges of pursuing these research directions and situated value alignment of AI more broadly.

Exploring identity building, language transmission and educational strategies for immigrant d/Deaf multilingual learners

ABSTRACT This article, grounded in sociolinguistics, examines the identity building, language transmission and educational strategies of immigrant d/Deaf multilingual learners (IDML). The scientific literature mainly focuses on a single pair of languages – the national spoken language and the national signed one. For example, Deaf Studies traditionally analyse the situation of the White Deaf user of English and American Sign Language (ASL). A major change has recently occurred with the emergence of multilingual, multicultural and inclusive Deaf Studies. At the same time, professionals and members of the school community regularly have to face the increasing diversity of d/Deaf students’ profiles. Qualitative data were collected on an IDML cohort residing in and attending primary or secondary schools in France from families who use a spoken or signed language other than French or French Sign Language (LSF) at home. The main results reveal how the building of d/Deaf identity depends on linguistic and cultural transmission within families and to what extent the diversity of IDML is considered in educational strategies at school. The goal of the present paper is to stress the urgent need for this new and crucial research area on IDML to be developed in the French context and beyond.

Do Users Prefer Particular Public Bus Transport Operators in Bhopal, India?

This paper focuses on the unique situation of users’ preferences when choosing between different Public Bus Transport Operators (PBTOs) in Bhopal. While many studies have examined the choice between different modes of transport (such as choosing a car over a bus), the factors that lead users to prefer one PBTO over another—despite similar characteristics—have not been studied. This paper analyzes these differences in preference through travel behavior attributes. It also explores how the three PBTOs in Bhopal serve the daily mobility needs of different segments of the population and reveals the factors influencing users’ choice of one PBTO over another.

An etymologically based lexicographic approach for developing encyclopaedic pedagogical dictionaries in African languages

Bilingual dictionaries in previously marginalised indigenous African languages often provide lemmata equivalents without definitions as is the nature of most bilingual dictionaries. The structure of bilingual dictionaries needs to be improved to include definitions and etymological information. To this end, this paper investigates how bilingual dictionaries can be enhanced through a qualitative content analysis of lemmata from the Scholar’s IsiZulu Dictionary by G.R Dent and C.L.S. Nyembezi (2009). A simple random sampling strategy was employed to select subject-specific lemmata that would contribute to the data analysed for the study. The microstructure of the resource was analysed using the Theory of Lexicographic Functions (Bergenholzt & Tarp, 2003) which considers the user profile, user needs, user situation, and lexicographic function. The element of user needs from this theory was used for this study, postulating that etymological data can enhance the acquisition of epistemological knowledge of users who speak African languages. This study revealed that an etymology-based dictionary structure does not only clarify scientific terminology to the user but also enhances the intellectual power of languages in education, thus increasing their potential of producing better education outcomes for students.

Analisis Kualitas Bahasa pada Teks Berita di Website Koran Tempo Edisi Februari 2024 sebagai Kelayakan Bahan Ajar Membaca Kritis bagi Mahasiswa

Currently, there are many platforms used by writers to publish news, one of which is through mass media. In publishing news, a writer must pay attention to good and correct language quality in order to meet the requirements of linguistic quality. Thus, there needs to be more understanding from a writer in order to write spelling correctly and correctly according to writing guidelines. The purpose of this research is to check the correctness of news text writing has fulfilled the rules of good and correct language and in accordance with the user situation in a mass media. If a mass media does not present news text writing using good and correct language rules, its competence needs to be doubted. The approach used in this research is a syntactic approach using a qualitative descriptive method. This method is used to investigate and explain things related to a reality that occurs in the surrounding environment. The results of the analysis and discussion of the research prove that in the news text on the February 2024 edition of Koran Tempo website there are still errors in word writing, errors in the use of punctuation marks, and errors in the use of letters. The quality of language in the news text is classified as good if it meets the requirements of no errors in writing words, punctuation, letters, and spelling. With this research, it is hoped that it can increase knowledge about language and can improve the ability to read news texts, analyze language quality, and provide guidance to writers to pay attention to linguistic rules or use standard language in writing so that it is easily understood by the public.

The Potential of Artificial Intelligence in Teaching a Foreign Language at a University

The rapid development of artificial intelligence, neural networks, naturally gives impetus to the development and modernization of the education sector. New technologies practically affect the processes of teaching. The purpose of the study is to test the practical effect of the technology of interaction between a teacher, students and artificial intelligence. The task is solved to develop and describe the techniques, algorithm and results of the work of a teacher and students with the integration of the artificial intelligence technologies into the educational process. This shows the theoretical and practical significance of this study. To eliminate negative situations of uncontrolled usage of neural networks in the educational process, to prevent the situations of academic deception, unethical usage of artificial intelligence, it is proposed to develop the techniques of a teacher’s work with a study group that will transform negative factors of the usage of artificial intelligence by students into positive ones, bringing situations of recourse to artificial intelligence into a teacher-controlled format of its use. The technique is proposed that prevents academic deception: the use of artificial intelligence for educational purposes through a teacher-supervision when using artificial intelligence by a student. This is the novelty of the study presented. The research methods are: the analysis of special literature and methodological foundations of teaching AI, as well as verbal-communicative and empirical methods. As a result of the research, the author proposed the list of principles of using artificial intelligence in the educational process is proposed, two functions of artificial intelligence while learning and teaching foreign languages are identified. It is stated, that the phenomenon of the emergence of a new subject of educational process – artificial intelligence – can be observed and the triad of the subjects of educational process has been defined – “Teacher – Artificial Intelligence – Student”. Moreover, the author describes the experience of testing the use of artificial intelligence technologies and gives practical recommendations on their use in the educational process at the university, describes the techniques and formats of tasks given for students. This will further enhance the tools and functionality of digital platforms used in the educational process based on artificial intelligence in general and on the mechanism of neural networks in particular. Keywords: artificial intelligence, English language, principles of teaching, techniques of teaching, artificial intelligence functions, the triad of the educational process

Affective evaluation and exposure perception of everyday mobile phone usage situations.

To understand citizens' reactions to the 5G rollout, their affective reaction and perception of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) exposure are of interest. Although precursor studies on 2G-4G have investigated exposure perception mostly quantitatively, the present study applied a qualitative exploratory approach. A number of 35 individual interviews and 6 focus groups with the same participants were conducted in December 2022. Participants were recruited from several locations in Germany, where 5G rollout was at different stages. Interactive tasks, particularly an affective evaluation task and a ranking task, encouraged participants to consider their affect regarding mobile communications and their exposure perception. This approach allowed the participants to first engage with the topic of mobile communications/5G in an intuitive way, before talking about their specific beliefs on RF-EMF exposure. Several pictures showing a person (1) interacting with a mobile phone, (2) surrounded by other peoples' mobile phones, or (3) in the vicinity of mobile phone base stations (antennas) were used as stimulus materials. Data were analyzed using an exploratory content analysis. In the affective evaluation task participants revealed more negative associations with base stations than with mobile phones. The analysis showed that the reasons for their evaluation were very diverse, whereby exposure to RF-EMF only played a subordinate role. Further, the ranking task indicated that most participants (n=20) felt more exposed from base stations than from mobile devices. Results are mostly in-line with the literature on 2G-4G and do not indicate a substantially different exposure perception for 5G.

A Study of Multimodal Communicative Acts in Selected Nollywood Film Advertisement Posters

Movie posters employ multiple modes of communication in their display to communicate with the audience. Identifying the modes and the meanings realised through them as projected in most scholarly works on film posters are not sufficient in interpreting the intentional goals of the image designers or advertisers. It is against this backdrop that this article articulates the pragmatic functions of Nollywood film posters’ advertising language as a form of language in action and intention in the situational context of users. Eight (8) Nollywood film advertisement posters which were purposively selected were analysed using insights from van Leeuwen’s (2005) theory of multimodal communicative acts and Bach and Harnish’s (1979) speech acts theory. The findings from the analysis reveal that communicative acts of informing, stating, expressing, describing and asserting are frequently demonstrated via visual and verbal modes in the advertisement posters. The less employed multimodal communicative acts are questioning and ordering. These multimodal communicative acts utilised demonstrate the persuasive illocutionary and communicative intentions of Nollywood film advertisers which is primarily aimed at enhancing viewing patronage. The article concludes that the adaptability of Nollywood advertisement posters to the context and situation of users is considered pertinent to the appropriate interpretation of meanings realised from the complex modes of communication employed in them.

AI-Vision: A Three-Layer Accessible Image Exploration System for People with Visual Impairments in China

Accessible image exploration systems are able to help people with visual impairments (PVI) to understand image content by providing different types of interactions. With the development of computer vision technologies, image exploration systems are supporting more fine-grained image content processing, including image segmentation, description and object recognition. However, in developing countries like China, it is still rare for PVI to widely rely on such accessible system. To better understand the usage situation of accessible image exploration system in China and improve the image understanding of PVI in China, we developed AI-Vision, an Android based hierarchical accessible image exploration system supporting the generations of image general description, local object description and metadata information. Our 7-day diary study with 10 PVI verified the usability of AI-Vision and also revealed a series of design implications for improving accessible image exploration systems similar to AI-Vision.

Makeup Usage in Women Is Positively Associated to Narcissism and Extraversion but Negatively to Psychopathy.

Appearance modification practices are ubiquitous, serving to enhance physical attractiveness and accrue social advantages, including increased desirability as a potential mate. Facial cosmetics are frequently used for appearance modification, yet individual differences in makeup usage remain understudied. While makeup usage in women has been linked to traits like narcissism and extraversion, the broader association with Dark Triad traits and how personality influences makeup application across diverse social contexts were less explored. Here we examined these relationships in 1,410 Brazilian women (Mage = 29.9, SD = 10.35), who completed online Big Five and Dark Triad personality measures, reported their usual makeup usage habits, and detailed their makeup usage across different social scenarios. Results revealed makeup usage was positively associated with narcissism and extraversion, and negatively with psychopathy. Additionally, women used less makeup when alone (at home, exercises) and more in social settings, particularly for the first date. However, women with higher narcissism and neuroticism showed larger differences among low and high makeup usage situations, while individuals with higher psychopathy used makeup in similar frequencies among different situations. Further, (1) overall greater users of makeup scored higher on narcissism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness; (2) average users displayed lower psychopathy; and (3) lesser users reported lower narcissism and higher psychopathy. These findings underscore the nuanced relationship between makeup usage and personality, particularly highlighting the influence of narcissism. These findings contribute to the interplay between personality traits and makeup usage, considering interindividual differences and intraindividual variation in understanding cosmetic behaviors among women.

Asbestos in Vietnam: Current situation of usage, waste handling, disposal, and related legislation and policy

Asbestos in Vietnam: Current situation of usage, waste handling, disposal, and related legislation and policy

The impact of self-conscious emotions on the continuance intention of digital voice assistants in private and public contexts

Digital voice assistants (DVAs) are application programs that can understand and interpret natural language voice commands. They are embedded in various products like smartphones and smart speakers and have thus become integral in everyday life, interpersonal communications, and social relationships. Despite users tend to humanize DVAs, emotions that arise in interpersonal interactions such as self-conscious emotions (i.e., pride, shame, guilt, and vicarious embarrassment) and their influence on human-machine interaction remain unstudied. Grounding on regulatory focus theory, we argue that these emotions are fundamental for promoting or preventing future DVA use. Additionally, drawing on social influence theory, we contend that the influence of self-conscious emotions on continuous DVA use varies across specific usage situations. Thus, we extend the expectation-confirmation model with self-conscious emotions and empirically compare user reactions between different social scenarios (alone and with friends in private vs. public places). Analyzing 860 DVA user responses through structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis, our findings reveal that pride consistently positively influences continuance intention across all social contexts. Furthermore, shame acts as an important inhibitor of continuance intentions in public, while guilt inhibits continuance intentions in private places. Vicarious embarrassment, however, does not exhibit significant effects in any scenario. These results carry valuable implications for both research and management in understanding and optimizing DVA user experiences.

Effects of SiC/ZrO2 ratio on the key service performance of BN-ZrO2-SiC composites

BN-ZrO2-SiC composites have excellent comprehensive performance, which can be used in iron and steel metallurgy, such as side dams for thin strip continuous casting. In this paper, the influence of SiC/ZrO2 ratio on the structure and properties for BN-ZrO2-SiC composites was investigated, and the atmosphere used for corrosion tests was more closely to the real usage situation. The results show that with the increase of SiC/ZrO2 ratio, the thermal shock resistance of BN-ZrO2-SiC composites increases, as well as the corrosion resistance by molten steel decrease. When the SiC/ZrO2 ratio is 35:15, the BN-ZrO2-SiC composites present the best comprehensive performance, and its hardness and modulus of elasticity are higher than those of other samples, which are 165.8 MPa and 101.9 GPa, respectively.

Culturally-Situated Emoji as a Non-verbal Communication Created for Naxi Community, Lijiang, China

The Naxi ethnic group is one of the ancient ethnic groups in China with the richest cultural legacy, comparatively the most distinctive cultures, and comparatively the most endangered cultural characteristics. Although there are many culturally distinctive aspects of the Naxi community, most of them are at risk of Sinicization and are currently on the edge of extinction. According to Palmer (1989), the meta-communicative value of non-verbal cues is higher than verbal cues in receiving information during conversation. As for efficiency, non-verbal signals amount to a more effective way of communicating than verbal signals. Accordingly, emojis as non-verbal signals on the Internet have been dramatically popular globally. This study aims to progressively figure out the situation of usage of non-verbal communication within the Naxi community, the habits of members within the Naxi community use emoji to interact online, the reason why creating a new set of emoji for the Naxi community is of great significance based on semi-structured interviews. In this study, exclusive emoji designs for the Naxi community are initially developed. The pictorial properties of emoji can facilitate the acquisition of more Naxi cultural knowledge by the general public, regardless of whether they are in-group or out-group members. In addition to its extraordinary disseminating capacity, akin to a swift vehicle, the Naxi culture can go viral on a global scale. This is the first study on the emoji designed for Naxi culture that contains culturally specific elements such as the Dongba Funerary Scroll, featured costumes for women, etc.

Advancements and forecasts of digital taxation information systems usage and its impact on tax compliance: does trust and awareness make difference?

Purpose The main purpose of the current study was to develop a new research model in the hope of providing a further understanding of Digital Taxation Information Systems (DTIS) usage and its impact on tax compliance by investigating the mediating role of trust in e-government services (TIE) and the moderating role of awareness (AW) toward these systems. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative research method approach with Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was employed to analyze the data collected. Findings The results indicated that DTIS usage is influenced by perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEU), attitude (ATT), knowledge (KN), subjective norm (SN), AW and TIE. Contrary to what is expected, AW does not moderate the association between SN and DTIS usage. Eventually, the results also revealed that TIE has mediated the association between trust in government (TIG) and DTIS usage. Originality/value This study provides thought-provoking empirical pieces of evidence about understanding the situation of DTIS usage and its impact on tax compliance among academic professors in Jordan. Furthermore, the study outcomes and discussion presented will help the Jordanian government improve and comprehensively formulate strategies to increase the tax compliance procedure.

Stop blaming the farmer: Dispelling the myths of ‘misuse’ and ‘safe’ use of pesticides to protect health and human rights

The negative effects of pesticide use in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are often blamed on the “misuse” of pesticides. The industry and government narrative is that the use of highly hazardous pesticides is safe when instructions are followed, and that harm occurs due to “irrational” and “improper” human behavior, linked to lack of knowledge by farmers. This assumption does not consider the real-life situations of pesticide users in LMICs, including structural, economic, and social barriers that make it impossible to follow “safety practices.” This “blame the farmer” narrative leads to ineffective risk mitigation measures, perpetuating and increasing people’s exposure to pesticide harms and endangering their lives. It is governments that allow the use of highly hazardous pesticides in their jurisdictions, and pesticide companies that produce them—not individual pesticide users in LMICs—who should bear the main responsibility for the prevention of the negative impact of these products. A human rights-based approach to pesticide management and the interpretation of international guidance that avoids the blaming narrative but puts real people, their health, and human rights first is needed to reduce and eliminate toxic exposure and save lives and health.

Context-Aware Music Recommendation Algorithm Combining Classification and Collaborative Filtering

As an effective solution to the problem of information overload, personalized recommendations have received widespread attention in the music field. A context-aware music recommendation algorithm combining classification and collaborative filtering is proposed based on user context information. Firstly, the similarity analysis of the user situation is carried out. A preliminary list of recommended songs is obtained by collaborative filtering. The machine learning method is used to classify music in different scenes to get the preferences of music types in different situations. Finally, the recommendation list obtained by collaborative filtering is combined with the music type preference obtained by the classification model and personalized music recommendations for users in different situations. This algorithm not only effectively reduces the complexity of the recommendation process. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm can effectively improve the accuracy of users' music recommendations.