Search results for: usability performance metrics

Authors: Cesar Hernández, Diego Giral, Ingrid Páez

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This article proposes a hybrid algorithm for spectrum allocation in cognitive radio networks based on the algorithms Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to improve the performance of the spectrum mobility of secondary users in cognitive radio networks. To calculate the level of performance of the proposed algorithm a comparative analysis between the proposed AHP-TOPSIS, Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) and Multiplicative Exponent Weighting (MEW) algorithm is performed. Four evaluation metrics is used. These metrics are the accumulative average of failed handoffs, the accumulative average of handoffs performed, the accumulative average of transmission bandwidth, and the accumulative average of the transmission delay. The results of the comparison show that AHP-TOPSIS Algorithm provides 2.4 times better performance compared to a GRA Algorithm and, 1.5 times better than the MEW Algorithm.

Keywords: cognitive radio, decision making, hybrid algorithm, spectrum handoff, wireless networks

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Authors: Manel Brichni, Abdelhak-Djamel Seriai

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Systems are increasingly complex. To reduce their complexity, an abstract view of the system can simplify its development. To overcome this problem, we propose a method to decompose systems into subsystems while reducing their coupling. These subsystems represent components. Consisting of an existing object-oriented systems, the main idea of our approach is based on modelling as graphs all entities of an oriented object source code. Such modelling is easy to handle, so we can apply restructuring algorithms based on graph metrics. The particularity of our approach consists in integrating in addition to standard metrics, such as coupling and cohesion, some graph metrics giving more precision during the components identication. To treat this problem, we relied on the ROMANTIC approach that proposed a component-based software architecture recovery from an object oriented system.

Keywords: software reengineering, software component and interfaces, metrics, graphs

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Authors: Ace Mari S. Simbajon, Rhaella J. Ybañez, Mae G. Nadela, Cherry E. Sagun, Nera Mae A. Puyo

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This study determined the usability of the Philippine banknotes. An experimental design was used in the study involving twenty (n=20) randomly selected blind participants. The three aspects of usability were measured: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. It was found out that the effectiveness rate of the current Philippine Banknotes ranges from 20 percent to 35 percent which means it is not effective basing from Cauro’s threshold of average effectiveness rate which is 78 percent. Its efficiency rate is ranging from 18.06 to 26.22 seconds per denomination. The average satisfaction rate is 1.45 which means the blind are very dissatisfied. These results were used as a guide in making the proposed tactile codification using embossed dots or embossed lines. A round of simulation was conducted with the blind to assess the usability of the two proposals. Results were then statistically treated using t-test. Results show statistically significant difference between the usability of the current banknotes versus the proposed designs. Moreover, it was found out that the use of embossed dots is more effective, more efficient, and more satisfying than the embossed lines with an effectiveness rate ranging from 90 percent to 100 percent, efficiency rate ranging from 6.73 seconds to 12.99 seconds, and satisfaction rate of 3.4 which means the blind are very satisfied.

Keywords: blind, Philippine banknotes, tactile codification, usability

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Authors: C. Rana, S. K. Jain

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The enormous amount of Web data has challenged its usage in efficient manner in the past few years. As such, a range of techniques are applied to tackle this problem; prominent among them is personalization and recommender system. In fact, these are the tools that assist user in finding relevant information of web. Most of the e-commerce websites are applying such tools in one way or the other. In the past decade, a large number of recommendation algorithms have been proposed to tackle such problems. However, there have not been much research in the evaluation criteria for these algorithms. As such, the traditional accuracy and classification metrics are still used for the evaluation purpose that provides a static view. This paper studies how the evolution of user preference over a period of time can be mapped in a recommender system using a new evaluation methodology that explicitly using time dimension. We have also presented different types of experimental set up that are generally used for recommender system evaluation. Furthermore, an overview of major accuracy metrics and metrics that go beyond the scope of accuracy as researched in the past few years is also discussed in detail.

Keywords: collaborative filtering, data mining, evolutionary, clustering, algorithm, recommender systems

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Authors: Lynmar M. Didal, Ramises G. Manzano Jr., Jacque Bon-Isaac C. Aboy

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This study analyzes the performance of global minimum variance and naive portfolios across different economic periods, using monthly stock returns from the Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEI), S&P 500, and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DOW). The performance is evaluated through the Sharpe ratio, Sortino ratio, Jensen’s Alpha, Treynor ratio, and Information ratio. Additionally, the study investigates the impact of short selling on portfolio performance. Six-time periods are defined for analysis, encompassing events such as the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings indicate that the Naive portfolio generally outperforms the GMV portfolio in the S&P 500, signifying higher returns with increased volatility. Conversely, in the PSEI and DOW, the GMV portfolio shows more efficient risk-adjusted returns. Short selling significantly impacts the GMV portfolio during mid-GFC and mid-COVID periods. The study offers insights for investors, suggesting the Naive portfolio for higher risk tolerance and the GMV portfolio as a conservative alternative.

Keywords: portfolio performance, global minimum variance, naïve portfolio, risk-adjusted metrics, short-selling

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Authors: Kai Liua, Hongbo Sua, Weimin Wangb, Hong Liangb

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Urban heat island (UHI) has attracted attention around the world since they profoundly affect human life and climatological. Better understanding the effects of landscape pattern on UHI is crucial for improving the ecological security and sustainability of cities. This study aims to investigate how landscape composition and configuration would affect UHI in Shenzhen, China, based on the analysis of land surface temperature (LST) in relation landscape metrics, mainly with the aid of three new satellite sensors launched by China. HJ-1B satellite system was utilized to estimate surface temperature and comprehensively explore the urban thermal spatial pattern. The landscape metrics of the high spatial resolution remote sensing satellites (GF-1 and ZY-3) were compared and analyzed to validate the performance of the new launched satellite sensors. Results show that the mean LST is correlated with main landscape metrics involving class-based metrics and landscape-based metrics, suggesting that the landscape composition and the spatial configuration both influence UHI. These relationships also reveal that urban green has a significant effect in mitigating UHI in Shenzhen due to its homogeneous spatial distribution and large spatial extent. Overall, our study not only confirm the applicability and effectiveness of the HJ-1B, GF-1 and ZY-3 satellite system for studying UHI but also reveal the impacts of the urban spatial structure on UHI, which is meaningful for the planning and management of the urban environment.

Keywords: urban heat island, Shenzhen, new remote sensing sensor, remote sensing satellites

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Authors: Sofia Meacham

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In this abstract paper, the Domain-Specific Languages (DSL) evaluation will be presented based on existing literature and years of experience developing DSLs for several domains. The domains we worked on ranged from AI, business applications, and finances/accounting to health. In general, DSLs have been utilised in many domains to provide tailored and efficient solutions to address specific problems. Although they are a reputable method among highly technical circles and have also been used by non-technical experts with success, according to our knowledge, there isn’t a commonly accepted method for evaluating them. There are some methods that define criteria that are adaptations from the general software engineering quality criteria. Other literature focuses on the DSL usability aspect of evaluation and applies methods such as Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and goal modeling. All these approaches are either hard to introduce, such as the goal modeling, or seem to ignore the domain-specific focus of the DSLs. From our experience, the DSLs have domain-specificity in their core, and consequently, the methods to evaluate them should also include domain-specific criteria in their core. The domain-specific criteria would require synergy between the domain experts and the DSL developers in the same way that DSLs cannot be developed without domain-experts involvement. Methods from agile and other software engineering practices, such as co-creation workshops, should be further emphasised and explored to facilitate this direction. Concluding, our latest experience and plans for DSLs evaluation will be presented and open for discussion.

Keywords: domain-specific languages, DSL evaluation, DSL usability, DSL quality metrics

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Authors: Peter Tabatt, Christian Siemers

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Using FPGA devices to improve the behavior of time-critical parts of embedded systems is a proven concept for years. With reconfigurable FPGA devices, the logical blocks can be partitioned and grouped into static and dynamic parts. The dynamic parts can be reloaded 'on demand' at runtime. This work uses cellular automata, which are constructed through compilation from (partially restricted) ANSI-C sources, to determine the suitability of various metrics for optimal partitioning. Significant metrics, in this case, are for example the area on the FPGA device for the partition, the pass count for loop constructs and communication characteristics to other partitions. With successful partitioning, it is possible to use smaller FPGA devices for the same requirements as with not reconfigurable FPGA devices or – vice versa – to use the same FPGAs for larger programs.

Keywords: reconfigurable FPGA, cellular automata, partitioning, metrics, parallel computing

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Authors: Ruchika Malhotra, Megha Khanna

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The development of change prediction models can help the software practitioners in planning testing and inspection resources at early phases of software development. However, a major challenge faced during the training process of any classification model is the imbalanced nature of the software quality data. A data with very few minority outcome categories leads to inefficient learning process and a classification model developed from the imbalanced data generally does not predict these minority categories correctly. Thus, for a given dataset, a minority of classes may be change prone whereas a majority of classes may be non-change prone. This study explores various alternatives for adeptly handling the imbalanced software quality data using different sampling methods and effective MetaCost learners. The study also analyzes and justifies the use of different performance metrics while dealing with the imbalanced data. In order to empirically validate different alternatives, the study uses change data from three application packages of open-source Android data set and evaluates the performance of six different machine learning techniques. The results of the study indicate extensive improvement in the performance of the classification models when using resampling method and robust performance measures.

Keywords: change proneness, empirical validation, imbalanced learning, machine learning techniques, object-oriented metrics

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Authors: Volkan Uygun, H. Birkan Yilmaz, Tuna Tugcu

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This study focuses on the development and use of algorithms that address the issue of resource management in response to emergency and disaster situations. The presented system, named Disaster Management Platform (DMP), takes the data from the data sources of service providers and distributes the incoming requests accordingly both to manage load balancing and minimize service time, which results in improved user satisfaction. Three different resource management algorithms, which give different levels of importance to load balancing and service time, are proposed for the study. The first one is the Minimum Distance algorithm, which assigns the request to the closest resource. The second one is the Minimum Load algorithm, which assigns the request to the resource with the minimum load. Finally, the last one is the Hybrid algorithm, which combines the previous two approaches. The performance of the proposed algorithms is evaluated with respect to waiting time, success ratio, and maximum load ratio. The metrics are monitored from simulations, to find the optimal scheme for different loads. Two different simulations are performed in the study, one is time-based and the other is lambda-based. The results indicate that, the Minimum Load algorithm is generally the best in all metrics whereas the Minimum Distance algorithm is the worst in all cases and in all metrics. The leading position in performance is switched between the Minimum Distance and the Hybrid algorithms, as lambda values change.

Keywords: emergency and disaster response, resource management algorithm, disaster situations, disaster management platform

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Authors: Patrik Johansson, Selina Mardh

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The present study proposes a usability test method, Atmosphere, to assess the fitness of components and interaction patterns of design systems. The method covers the user’s perception of the components of the system, the efficiency of the logic of the interaction patterns, perceived ease of use as well as the user’s understanding of the intended outcome of interactions. These aspects are assessed by combining measures of first impression, visual affordance and expectancy. The method was applied to a design system developed for the design of an electronic health record system. The study was conducted involving 15 healthcare personnel. It could be concluded that the Atmosphere method provides tangible data that enable human-computer interaction practitioners to analyze and categorize components and patterns based on perceived usability, success rate of identifying interactive components and success rate of understanding components and interaction patterns intended outcome.

Keywords: atomic design, atmosphere methodology, design system, expectancy testing, first impression testing, usability testing, visual affordance testing

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Authors: Satya Pradhan, Venky Nanniyur

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As the software industry transitions from a license-based model to a subscription-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, many software development groups are using a hybrid development model that incorporates Agile and Waterfall methodologies in different parts of the organization. The traditional metrics used for measuring software quality in Waterfall or Agile paradigms do not apply to this new hybrid methodology. In addition, to respond to higher quality demands from customers and to gain a competitive advantage in the market, many companies are starting to prioritize quality as a strategic differentiator. As a result, quality metrics are included in the decision-making activities all the way up to the executive level, including board of director reviews. This paper presents key challenges associated with measuring software quality in organizations using the hybrid development model. We introduce a framework called Prevention-Inspection-Evaluation-Removal (PIER) to provide a comprehensive metric definition for hybrid organizations. The framework includes quality measurements, quality enforcement, and quality decision points at different organizational levels and project milestones. The metrics framework defined in this paper is being used for all Cisco systems products used in customer premises. We present several field metrics for one product portfolio (enterprise networking) to show the effectiveness of the proposed measurement system. As the results show, this metrics framework has significantly improved in-process defect management as well as field quality.

Keywords: quality management system, quality metrics framework, quality metrics, agile, waterfall, hybrid development system

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Authors: Rawan A. Abdelrazeq, Ahmed M. Khalafallah, Nabil A. Kartam

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Selection of competent contractors for construction projects is usually accomplished through competitive bidding or negotiated contracting in which the contract bid price is the basic criterion for selection. The evaluation of contractor’s safety performance is still not a typical criterion in the selection process, despite the existence of various safety prequalification procedures. There is a critical need for practical and automated systems that enable owners and decision makers to evaluate contractor safety performance, among other important contractor selection criteria. These systems should ultimately favor safety-conscious contractors to be selected by the virtue of their past good safety records and current safety programs. This paper presents an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach to develop a framework for an automated decision support system that evaluates contractor safety performance based on a multitude of indicators and metrics that have been identified through a comprehensive review of construction safety research, and a survey distributed to domain experts. The framework is developed in three phases: (1) determining the indicators that depict contractor current and past safety performance; (2) soliciting input from construction safety experts regarding the identified indicators, their metrics, and relative significance; and (3) designing a decision support system using relational database models to integrate the identified indicators and metrics into a system that assesses and rates the safety performance of contractors. The proposed automated system is expected to hold several advantages including: (1) reducing the likelihood of selecting contractors with poor safety records; (2) enhancing the odds of completing the project safely; and (3) encouraging contractors to exert more efforts to improve their safety performance and practices in order to increase their bid winning opportunities which can lead to significant safety improvements in the construction industry. This should prove useful to decision makers and researchers, alike, and should help improve the safety record of the construction industry.

Keywords: construction safety, contractor selection, decision support system, relational database

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Authors: M. Velasco, D. While, P. Raju, J. Krasniewicz, A. Amini, L. Hernandez-Munoz

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Web service adaptation involves the creation of adapters that solve Web services incompatibilities known as mismatches. Since the importance of Web services adaptation is increasing because of the frequent implementation and use of online Web services, this paper presents a literature review of web services to investigate the main methods of adaptation, their theoretical underpinnings and the metrics used to measure adapters performance. Eighteen publications were reviewed independently by two researchers. We found that adaptation techniques are needed to solve different types of problems that may arise due to incompatibilities in Web service interfaces, including protocols, messages, data and semantics that affect the interoperability of the services. Although adapters are non-invasive methods that can improve Web services interoperability and there are current approaches for service adaptation; there is, however, not yet one solution that fits all types of mismatches. Our results also show that only a few research projects incorporate theoretical frameworks and that metrics to measure adapters’ performance are very limited. We conclude that further research on software adaptation should improve current adaptation methods in different layers of the service interoperability and that an adaptation theoretical framework that incorporates a theoretical underpinning and measures of qualitative and quantitative performance needs to be created.

Keywords: Web Services Adapters, software adaptation, web services mismatches, web services interoperability

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Authors: Emin Gundogar, Burak Erkayman, Nusret Sazak

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Providing effective management performance through the whole supply chain is critical issue and hard to applicate. The proper evaluation of integrated data may conclude with accurate information. Analysing the supply chain data through OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) technologies may provide multi-angle view of the work and consolidation. In this study, association rules and classification techniques are applied to measure the supply chain performance metrics of an automotive manufacturer in Turkey. Main criteria and important rules are determined. The comparison of the results of the algorithms is presented.

Keywords: supply chain performance, performance measurement, data mining, automotive

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Authors: Nikhil Byanna, Abdolghani Ebrahimi, Diego Klabjan

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How does one objectively measure the performance of an individual offensive lineman in the NFL? The existing literature proposes various measures that rely on subjective assessments of game film, but has yet to develop an objective methodology to evaluate performance. Using a variety of statistics related to an offensive lineman’s performance, we develop a framework to objectively analyze the overall performance of an individual offensive lineman and determine specific linemen who are overvalued or undervalued relative to their salary. We identify eight players across the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 NFL seasons that are considered to be overvalued or undervalued and corroborate the results with existing metrics that are based on subjective evaluation. To the best of our knowledge, the techniques set forth in this work have not been utilized in previous works to evaluate the performance of NFL players at any position, including offensive linemen.

Keywords: offensive lineman, player performance, NFL, machine learning

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Authors: Soheila Sadeghi

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Accurate forecasting of project performance metrics is crucial for successfully managing and delivering urban road reconstruction projects. Traditional methods often rely on static baseline plans and fail to consider the dynamic nature of project progress and external factors. This research proposes a machine learning-based approach to forecast project performance metrics, such as cost variance and earned value, for each Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) category in an urban road reconstruction project. The proposed model utilizes time series forecasting techniques, including Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, to predict future performance based on historical data and project progress. The model also incorporates external factors, such as weather patterns and resource availability, as features to enhance the accuracy of forecasts. By applying the predictive power of machine learning, the performance forecasting model enables proactive identification of potential deviations from the baseline plan, which allows project managers to take timely corrective actions. The research aims to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach using a case study of an urban road reconstruction project, comparing the model's forecasts with actual project performance data. The findings of this research contribute to the advancement of project management practices in the construction industry, offering a data-driven solution for improving project performance monitoring and control.

Keywords: project performance forecasting, machine learning, time series forecasting, cost variance, earned value management

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Authors: Nighat Ayub, Masood Ahmad

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In this paper, a new voting system is developed and its usability is evaluated. The main feature of this system is the biometric verification of the voter and then a few easy steps to cast a vote. As compared to existing systems available, e.g dual vote, the new system requires no training in advance. The security is achieved via multiple key concept (another part of this project). More than 100 student voters were participated in the election from University of Malakanad, Chakdara, PK. To achieve the reliability, the voters cast their votes in two ways, i.e. paper based and electronic based voting using our new system. The results of paper based and electronic voting system are compared and it is concluded that the voters cast their votes for the intended candidates on the electronic voting system. The voters were requested to fill a questionnaire and the results of the questionnaire are carefully analyzed. The results show that the new system proposed in this paper is more secure and usable than other systems.

Keywords: e-voting, security, usability, authentication

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Authors: Debarag Banerjee, Pooja Singh, Arjun Avadhanam, Saksham Srivastava

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Autonomous conversational agents, i.e., chatbots, are becoming an increasingly common mechanism for enterprises to provide support to customers and partners. In order to rate chatbots, especially ones powered by Generative AI tools like Large Language Models (LLMs), we need to be able to accurately assess their performance. This is where chatbot benchmarking becomes important. In this paper, authors propose the use of a benchmark that they call the E2E (End to End) benchmark and show how the E2E benchmark can be used to evaluate the accuracy and usefulness of the answers provided by chatbots, especially ones powered by LLMs. The authors evaluate an example chatbot at different levels of sophistication based on both our E2E benchmark as well as other available metrics commonly used in the state of the art and observe that the proposed benchmark shows better results compared to others. In addition, while some metrics proved to be unpredictable, the metric associated with the E2E benchmark, which uses cosine similarity, performed well in evaluating chatbots. The performance of our best models shows that there are several benefits of using the cosine similarity score as a metric in the E2E benchmark.

Keywords: chatbot benchmarking, end-to-end (E2E) benchmarking, large language model, user centric evaluation.

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Authors: Cherry Yieng Siang Ling, Joong Hee Lee, Myung Hwan Yun

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The quality of a product to be usable has become the basic requirement in consumer’s perspective while failing the requirement ends up the customer from not using the product. Identifying usability issues from analyzing quantitative and qualitative data collected from usability testing and evaluation activities aids in the process of product design, yet the lack of studies and researches regarding analysis methodologies in qualitative text data of usability field inhibits the potential of these data for more useful applications. While the possibility of analyzing qualitative text data found with the rapid development of data analysis studies such as natural language processing field in understanding human language in computer, and machine learning field in providing predictive model and clustering tool. Therefore, this research aims to study the application capability of text processing algorithm in analysis of qualitative text data collected from usability activities. This research utilized datasets collected from LG neckband headset usability experiment in which the datasets consist of headset survey text data, subject’s data and product physical data. In the analysis procedure, which integrated with the text-processing algorithm, the process includes training of comments onto vector space, labeling them with the subject and product physical feature data, and clustering to validate the result of comment vector clustering. The result shows 'volume and music control button' as the usability feature that matches best with the cluster of comment vectors where centroid comments of a cluster emphasized more on button positions, while centroid comments of the other cluster emphasized more on button interface issues. When volume and music control buttons are designed separately, the participant experienced less confusion, and thus, the comments mentioned only about the buttons' positions. While in the situation where the volume and music control buttons are designed as a single button, the participants experienced interface issues regarding the buttons such as operating methods of functions and confusion of functions' buttons. The relevance of the cluster centroid comments with the extracted feature explained the capability of text processing algorithms in analyzing qualitative text data from usability testing and evaluations.

Keywords: usability, qualitative data, text-processing algorithm, natural language processing

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Authors: Joanne Moyer

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El Paso, Texas is a southwest border city that has experienced continuous growth within the last 15-years. Understanding the urban growth trends and patterns using data from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) and landscape metrics, provides a quantitative description of growth. Past urban growth provided a basis to predict 2031 future land-use for El Paso using the CA-Markov model. As a consequence of growth, an increase in demand of resources follows. Using panel data analysis, an understanding of the relation between landscape metrics and electricity consumption is further analyzed. The studies’ findings indicate that past growth focused within three districts within the City of El Paso. The landscape metrics suggest as the city has grown, fragmentation has decreased. Alternatively, the landscape metrics for the projected 2031 land-use indicates possible fragmentation within one of these districts. Panel data suggests electricity consumption and mean patch area landscape metric are positively correlated. The study provides local decision makers to make informed decisions for policies and urban planning to ensure a future sustainable community.

Keywords: landscape metrics, CA-Markov, El Paso, Texas, panel data

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Authors: Benson Ade Eniola Afere

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This paper introduces a family of fourth-order hybrid beta polynomial kernels developed for statistical analysis. The assessment of these kernels' performance centers on two critical metrics: asymptotic mean integrated squared error (AMISE) and kernel efficiency. Through the utilization of both simulated and real-world datasets, a comprehensive evaluation was conducted, facilitating a thorough comparison with conventional fourth-order polynomial kernels. The evaluation procedure encompassed the computation of AMISE and efficiency values for both the proposed hybrid kernels and the established classical kernels. The consistently observed trend was the superior performance of the hybrid kernels when compared to their classical counterparts. This trend persisted across diverse datasets, underscoring the resilience and efficacy of the hybrid approach. By leveraging these performance metrics and conducting evaluations on both simulated and real-world data, this study furnishes compelling evidence in favour of the superiority of the proposed hybrid beta polynomial kernels. The discernible enhancement in performance, as indicated by lower AMISE values and higher efficiency scores, strongly suggests that the proposed kernels offer heightened suitability for statistical analysis tasks when compared to traditional kernels.

Keywords: AMISE, efficiency, fourth-order Kernels, hybrid Kernels, Kernel density estimation

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Authors: M. K. Benhaoua, A. E. H. Benyamina, T. Djeradi, P. Boulet

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In this paper, we propose adaptive routing that considers the routing of communications in order to optimize the overall performance. The routing technique uses a newly proposed Algorithm to route communications between the tasks. The routing we propose of the communications leads to a better optimization of several performance metrics (time and energy consumption). Experimental results show that the proposed routing approach provides significant performance improvements when compared to those using static routing.

Keywords: multi-processor systems-on-chip (mpsocs), network-on-chip (noc), heterogeneous architectures, adaptive routin

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Authors: Nuray Baltaci, Kursat Cagiltay

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University rankings which can be seen as nouveau topic are at the center of focus and followed closely by different parties. Students are interested in university rankings in order to make informed decisions about the selection of their candidate future universities. University administrators and academicians can utilize them to see and evaluate their universities’ relative performance compared to other institutions in terms of including but not limited to academic, economic, and international outlook issues. Local institutions may use those ranking systems, as TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) and YOK (Council of Higher Education) do in Turkey, to support students and give scholarships when they want to apply for undergraduate and graduate studies abroad. When it is considered that the ranking systems are concerned by this many different parties, the importance of having clear, easy to use and well-designed websites by ranking institutions will be apprehended. In this paper, a usability study for the websites of four different global university ranking institutions, namely Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Times Higher Education, QS and University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP), was conducted. User-based approach was adopted and usability tests were conducted with 10 graduate students at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Before performing the formal usability tests, a pilot study had been completed to reflect the necessary changes to the settings of the study. Participants’ demographics, task completion times, paths traced to complete tasks, and their satisfaction levels on each task and website were collected. According to the analyses of the collected data, those ranking websites were compared in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction dimensions of usability as pointed in ISO 9241-11. Results showed that none of the selected ranking websites is superior to other ones in terms of overall effectiveness and efficiency of the website. However the only remarkable result was that the highest average task completion times for two of the designed tasks belong to the Times Higher Education Rankings website. Evaluation of the user satisfaction on each task and each website produced slightly different but rather similar results. When the satisfaction levels of the participants on each task are examined, it was seen that the highest scores belong to ARWU and URAP websites. The overall satisfaction levels of the participants for each website showed that the URAP website has highest score followed by ARWU website. In addition, design problems and powerful design features of those websites reported by the participants are presented in the paper. Since the study mainly tackles about the design problems of the URAP website, the focus is on this website. Participants reported 3 main design problems about the website which are unaesthetic and unprofessional design style of the website, improper map location on ranking pages, and improper listing of the field names on field ranking page.

Keywords: university ranking, user-based approach, website usability, design

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Authors: Randolf Von N. Salindo

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The study was conducted to measure the logistics integration capabilities of selected companies in the Bahrain construction industry using the Supply Chain 2000 framework; and, determine the extent and direction of influence of these logistics capabilities and integration competencies on the supply chain performance of the firm. A total of 50 executive respondents (from supervisor to managing director level) from 22 construction and construction supplier firms participated in the study from September to November 2014. The results reveal that respondent Bahraini construction firms have significantly lower levels of logistics capabilities, but higher levels of logistics integration competencies compared to international benchmarks. Using stepwise multiple regression analysis, eight logistics capabilities of Bahraini constructions firms were identified to be positively associated with firm performance; with comprehensive metrics as the most positively dominant influential logistics capability. Activity based and total cost methodology is found to be the most negatively dominant influential logistics capability. In terms of logistics integration competencies, the study revealed that that customer integration, internal integration, and, measurement integration are negatively associated with firm performance. There was no logistics integration competency found to be positively associated with the supply chain performance among the companies who participated in the study. The research reveals that there are areas for improvement in supply chain capabilities and logistics integration competencies of the construction firms in the Kingdom of Bahrain to improve their supply chain performance to a global level.

Keywords: comprehensive metrics, customer integration, logistics integration capabilities, logistics integration competencies

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Authors: Lillian M. Seo, Curtis L. Petersen, Ryan J. Halter, David Kotz, John A. Batsis

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Background: Resistance-based exercises effectively enhance muscle strength, which is especially important in older populations as it reduces the risk of disability. Our group developed a Bluetooth-enabled handle for resistance exercise bands that wirelessly transmits relative force data through low-energy Bluetooth to a local smartphone or similar device. The system has the potential to measure home-based exercise interventions, allowing health professionals to monitor compliance. Its feasibility has already been demonstrated in both clinical and field-based settings, but it remained unclear whether the system’s usability persisted upon repeated use. The current study sought to assess the usability of this system and its users’ satisfaction with repeated use by deploying the device among younger adults to gather formative information that can ultimately improve the device’s design for older adults. Methods: A usability study was conducted in which 32 participants used the above system. Participants executed 10 repetitions of four commonly performed exercises: bicep flexion, shoulder abduction, elbow extension, and triceps extension. Each completed three exercise sessions, separated by at least 24 hours to minimize muscle fatigue. At its conclusion, subjects completed an adapted version of the usefulness, satisfaction, and ease (USE) questionnaire – assessing the system across four domains: usability, satisfaction, ease of use, and ease of learning. The 20-item questionnaire examined how strongly a participant agrees with positive statements about the device on a seven-point Likert scale, with one representing ‘strongly disagree’ and seven representing ‘strongly agree.’ Participants’ data were aggregated to calculate mean response values for each question and domain, effectively assessing the device’s performance across different facets of the user experience. Summary force data were visualized using a custom web application. Finally, an optional prompt at the end of the questionnaire allowed for written comments and feedback from participants to elicit qualitative indicators of usability. Results: Of the n=32 participants, 13 (41%) were female; their mean age was 32.4 ± 11.8 years, and no participants had a physical impairment. No usability questions received a mean score < 5 of seven. The four domains’ mean scores were: usefulness 5.66 ± 0.35; satisfaction 6.23 ± 0.06; ease of use 6.25 ± 0.43; and ease of learning 6.50 ± 0.19. Representative quotes of the open-ended feedback include: ‘A non-rigid strap-style handle might be useful for some exercises,’ and, ‘Would need different bands for each exercise as they use different muscle groups with different strength levels.’ General impressions were favorable, supporting the expectation that the device would be a useful tool in exercise interventions. Conclusions: A simple usability assessment of a Bluetooth-enabled resistance exercise band supports a consistent and positive user experience among young adults. This study provides adequate formative data, assuring the next steps can be taken to continue testing and development for the target population of older adults.

Keywords: Bluetooth, exercise, mobile health, mHealth, usability

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Authors: M. Chobotová, Ž. Rylková

Abstract:

Time full of changes which is associated with globalization, tougher competition, changes in the structures of markets and economic downturn, that all force companies to think about their competitive advantages. These changes can bring the company a competitive advantage and that can help improve competitive position in the market. Policy of the European Union is focused on the fast growing innovative companies which quickly respond to market demands and consequently increase its competitiveness. To meet those objectives companies need the right conditions and support of their state.

Keywords: innovation, performance, measurements metrics, indices

Procedia PDF Downloads 376

Authors: Silvio Ricardo Rodrigues Sanches, Bianca Cogo Barbosa, Beatriz Regina Brum, Cléber Gimenez Corrêa

Abstract:

To evaluate the quality of a segmentation algorithm, the authors use subjective or objective metrics. Although subjective metrics are more accurate than objective ones, objective metrics do not require user feedback to test an algorithm. Objective metrics require subjective experiments only during their development. Subjective experiments typically display to users some videos (generated from frames with segmentation errors) that simulate the environment of an application domain. This user feedback is crucial information for metric definition. In the subjective experiments applied to develop some state-of-the-art metrics used to test segmentation algorithms, the videos displayed during the experiments did not contain audio. Audio is an essential component in applications such as videoconference and augmented reality. If the audio influences the user’s perception, using only videos without audio in subjective experiments can compromise the efficiency of an objective metric generated using data from these experiments. This work aims to identify if the audio influences the user’s perception of segmentation quality in background substitution applications with audio. The proposed approach used a subjective method based on formal video quality assessment methods. The results showed that audio influences the quality of segmentation perceived by a user.

Keywords: background substitution, influence of audio, segmentation evaluation, segmentation quality

Procedia PDF Downloads 118

Authors: M. K. Benhaoua, A. K. Singh, A. E. H. Benyamina

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose heuristic for dynamic communications mapping that considers the placement of communications in order to optimize the overall performance. The mapping technique uses a newly proposed Algorithm to place communications between the tasks. The placement we propose of the communications leads to a better optimization of several performance metrics (time and energy consumption). Experimental results show that the proposed mapping approach provides significant performance improvements when compared to those using static routing.

Keywords: Multi-Processor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoCs), Network-on-Chip (NoC), heterogeneous architectures, dynamic mapping heuristics

Procedia PDF Downloads 536

Authors: Seyedehfatemeh Golrizgashti, Seyedali Dalil

Abstract:

The goal of this paper is proposing a supply chain value dashboard in home appliance manufacturing firms to create more value for all stakeholders via balanced scorecard approach. Balanced scorecard is an effective approach that managers have used to evaluate supply chain performance in many fields but there is a lack of enough attention to all supply chain stakeholders, improving value creation and, defining correlation between value indicators and performance measuring quantitatively. In this research the key stakeholders in home appliance supply chain, value indicators with respect to create more value for stakeholders and the most important metrics to evaluate supply chain value performance based on balanced scorecard approach have been selected via literature review. The most important indicators based on expert’s judgment acquired by in survey focused on creating more value for. Structural equation modelling has been used to disclose relations between value indicators and balanced scorecard metrics. The important result of this research is identifying effective value dashboard to create more value for all stakeholders in the supply chain via balanced scorecard approach and based on an empirical study covering ten home appliance manufacturing firms in Iran. Home appliance manufacturing firms can increase their stakeholder's satisfaction by using this value dashboard.

Keywords: supply chain management, balanced scorecard, value, structural modeling, stakeholders

Procedia PDF Downloads 351