Quality of feedback to e-mail requests - an explorative study in alpine tourism destinations

The central aim of our project is to explore the handling of e-mail request from customers by tourist organisations and to explain the perceived behaviour. For this purpose, we designed a qualitative empirical study which consists basically of two stages. The first stage consists of a black-box test where we employ the setting of a qualitative experiment to measure the behaviour of the organisation to an e-mail request. The second stage comprises a with-box test where we want to look into the tourist organizations and analyse the relevant information processes. This study should give as some insight in the internal processing of e-mail requests and thus should help to explain the reactions that we registered.

Internet based health promotion campaign against skin cancer - Results of www.skincheck.ch in Switzerland

Conventional skin cancer prevention programs appeal to limited populations, and the middle aged male population responds less frequently. Our objective was to establish a complementary health promotion campaign tool for skin cancer prevention. Internet-based education, instruction for self assessment and teledermatological evaluation of skin lesions by an expert commission of dermatologists was used. Compliance and clinical diagnosis was assessed in a subgroup. 12,000 users visited the educational website. There was strong interest among the middle aged male population (53% (N = 262): male; mean age: 42). 28.5% of examined lesions (N = 494) were considered suspicious. Email requests, sent to the group whose lesions where considered suspicious, were answered by 46.0% of females (N = 29) and 59.7% of males (N = 46) with a female distribution predominantly in younger ages (52.6% of females with known age: < 30 years). Males were predominantly represented over 30 years (86.2% of all males). According to user's declarations, at least 8 (8.5%) malignant lesions (1 melanoma in situ, 1 squamous cell carcinoma, 4 basal cell carcinomas, 2 malignant lesions without declared diagnosis) were finally diagnosed by physicians. We conclude that internet-based, interactive, educational programs, in addition to existing health promotion campaigns, can enhance public participation in the middle aged male population in skin cancer prevention.

Comparison between two caller groups of a medical call centre in Switzerland

OBJECTIVES: The incidence distribution of triage advice in the medical call centre Medi24 and the pattern of service utilisation were analysed with respect to two groups of callers with different insurance schemes. Individuals having contracted insurance of the Medi24 model could use the telephone consultation service of the medical call centre Medi24 (mainly part of the mandatory basic health insurance) voluntarily and free of charge whereas individuals holding an insurance policy of the Telmed model (special contract within the mandatory basic health insurance with a premium discount ranging from 8% to 12%) were obliged to have a telephone consultation before arranging an appointment with a medical doctor. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the medical call centre Medi24 based on all triage datasets of the Medi24 and Telmed groups collected during the one year period from July 1st 2005 to June 30th 2006. The distribution of the six different urgency levels within the two groups and their respective pattern of service utilisation was determined. In a multivariable logistic regression model the Odds Ratio for every enquiry originating from the Telmed group versus those originating from the Medi24 group was calculated. RESULTS: During a one-year period 48 388 triage requests reached the medical call centre Medi24, 56% derived from the Telmed group and 44% from the Medi24 group. Within the Medi24 group more than 25% of the individuals received self-care advice, within the Telmed group, on the other hand, only about 18% received such advice. In contrast, 27% of the Telmed triage requests but only 18% of the Medi24 triage requests resulted in the advice to make a routine appointment with a medical doctor. The probability that an individual of the Telmed group obtained the advice to go to the accident and emergency department was lower than for an individual of the Medi24 group (OR 0.77, 95% CI 0.60-0.99). Likewise, the probability of self-care advice was decreased in regard to the Medi24 group (OR 0.80, 95% CI 0.75-0.85). However, regarding the advice to make a routine appointment with a medical doctor, the Telmed group was represented more frequently than the Medi24 group (OR 1.36, 95% CI 1.28-1.44). CONCLUSION: In respect of the triage advice, the Telmed group differed significantly from the Medi24 group within all urgency levels. The differences between the two groups in respect of the advice given were still less pronounced than expected against the background of their different contract conditions and the disparate temporal pattern of utilisation. We interprete this finding with the fact that appraising the urgency of health problems appropriately seems to be very difficult for the majority of people seeking advice.

Learning software-maintenance tasks in offshoring projects: a cognitive-load perspective

Individual learning is central to the success of the transition phase in software mainte-nance offshoring projects. However, little is known on how learning activities, such as on-the-job training and formal presentations, are effectively combined during the tran-sition phase. In this study, we present and test propositions derived from cognitive load theory. The results of a multiple-case study suggest that learning effectiveness was highest when learning tasks such as authentic maintenance requests were used. Con-sistent with cognitive load theory, learning tasks were most effective when they imposed moderate cognitive load. Our data indicate that cognitive load was influenced by the expertise of the onsite coordinator, by intrinsic task complexity, by the degree of specifi-cation of tasks, and by supportive information. Cultural and semantic distances may in-fluence learning by inhibiting supportive information, specification, and the assignment of learning tasks.

Service-centric Networking Extensions

This paper discusses several issues of Service-Centric Networking (SCN) as an extension of the Information-Centric Networking (ICN) paradigm. SCN allows extended caching, where not exactly the same content as requested can be read from caches, but similar content can be used to produce the content requested, e.g., by filtering or transcoding. We discuss the issue of naming and routing for general dynamic services for both tightly coupled and decoupled ICN approaches. Challenges and solutions for service management are identified, in particular for composed services, which allow distributed in-network processing of service requests. We introduce the term Software-Defined Service-Centric Networking as an extension of Software-Defined Networking. A prototype implementation for SCN proofs its validity and feasibility and underlines its potential benefits.

Investigation of the Network Construction Behaviour on Social Networking Sites

By enabling connections between individuals, Social Networking Sites, such as Facebook, promise to create significant individual as well as social value. Encouraging connections between users is also crucial for service providers who increasingly rely on social advertising and viral marketing campaigns as important sources of their revenue. Consequently, understanding user’s network construction behavior becomes critical. However, previous studies offer only few scattered insights into this research question. In order to fill this gap, we employ Grounded Theory methodology to derive a comprehensive model of network construction behavior on social networking sites. In the following step we assess two Structural Equation Models to gain refined insights into the motivation to send and accept friendship requests – two network expansion strategies. Based on our findings, we offer recommendations for social network providers.

Swiss Patent Jurisprudence 2012

The new Swiss Federal Patent Court, with nationwide first-instance jurisdiction over all civil patent matters, has been operating since January 1, 2012. This article reviews and contextualizes the most important patent cases published in 2012 by the Swiss Federal Patent Court and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. More specifically, the article covers cases on issues such as the evidentiary status of party expert opinions, the formal requirements for requests for injunctive relief, the infringement and non-obviousness tests employed by the Swiss Federal Patent Court, the use of reports and statements from technical judges in lieu of expert opinions, and the procedural devices for the pre-trial taking of evidence, in particular the new patent-specific device of precise description. The author suggests that designing the Federal Patent Court to include technically trained judges may lead to a more automatic adoption of the practices and case law of the European Patent Office. The article concludes that the revamped Swiss patent litigation system has the potential of turning Switzerland into a competitive venue for the adjudication of patent matters in Europe.

Virtual Infrastructures as a Service enabling Converged Optical Networks and Data Centres

Abstract Cloud computing service emerged as an essential component of the Enterprise {IT} infrastructure. Migration towards a full range and large-scale convergence of Cloud and network services has become the current trend for addressing requirements of the Cloud environment. Our approach takes the infrastructure as a service paradigm to build converged virtual infrastructures, which allow offering tailored performance and enable multi-tenancy over a common physical infrastructure. Thanks to virtualization, new exploitation activities of the physical infrastructures may arise for both transport network and Data Centres services. This approach makes network and Data Centres’ resources dedicated to Cloud Computing to converge on the same flexible and scalable level. The work presented here is based on the automation of the virtual infrastructure provisioning service. On top of the virtual infrastructures, a coordinated operation and control of the different resources is performed with the objective of automatically tailoring connectivity services to the Cloud service dynamics. Furthermore, in order to support elasticity of the Cloud services through the optical network, dynamic re-planning features have been provided to the virtual infrastructure service, which allows scaling up or down existing virtual infrastructures to optimize resource utilisation and dynamically adapt to users’ demands. Thus, the dynamic re-planning of the service becomes key component for the coordination of Cloud and optical network resource in an optimal way in terms of resource utilisation. The presented work is complemented with a use case of the virtual infrastructure service being adopted in a distributed Enterprise Information System, that scales up and down as a function of the application requests.

Distributed Rate Allocation in Inter-Session Network Coding

In this work, we propose a distributed rate allocation algorithm that minimizes the average decoding delay for multimedia clients in inter-session network coding systems. We consider a scenario where the users are organized in a mesh network and each user requests the content of one of the available sources. We propose a novel distributed algorithm where network users determine the coding operations and the packet rates to be requested from the parent nodes, such that the decoding delay is minimized for all clients. A rate allocation problem is solved by every user, which seeks the rates that minimize the average decoding delay for its children and for itself. Since this optimization problem is a priori non-convex, we introduce the concept of equivalent packet flows, which permits to estimate the expected number of packets that every user needs to collect for decoding. We then decompose our original rate allocation problem into a set of convex subproblems, which are eventually combined to obtain an effective approximate solution to the delay minimization problem. The results demonstrate that the proposed scheme eliminates the bottlenecks and reduces the decoding delay experienced by users with limited bandwidth resources. We validate the performance of our distributed rate allocation algorithm in different video streaming scenarios using the NS-3 network simulator. We show that our system is able to take benefit of inter-session network coding for simultaneous delivery of video sessions in networks with path diversity.

Dynamic Transmission Modes to Support Opportunistic Information-Centric Networks

In this paper, we describe dynamic unicast to increase communication efficiency in opportunistic Information-centric networks. The approach is based on broadcast requests to quickly find content and dynamically creating unicast links to content sources without the need of neighbor discovery. The links are kept temporarily as long as they deliver content and are quickly removed otherwise. Evaluations in mobile networks show that this approach maintains ICN flexibility to support seamless mobile communication and achieves up to 56.6% shorter transmission times compared to broadcast in case of multiple concurrent requesters. Apart from that, dynamic unicast unburdens listener nodes from processing unwanted content resulting in lower processing overhead and power consumption at these nodes. The approach can be easily included into existing ICN architectures using only available data structures.

Cochlear implant candidates with psychogenic hearing loss.

Abstract Conclusions: Specific requests for cochlear implantations by persons with psychogenic hearing loss are a relatively new phenomenon. A number of features seems to be over-represented in this group of patients. The existence of these requests stresses the importance of auditory brainstem response (ABR) measurements before cochlear implantation. Objective: To describe the phenomenon of patients with psychogenic hearing losses specifically requesting cochlear implantation, and to gain first insights into the characteristics of this group. Methods: Analysis of all cases seen between 2004 and 2013 at the University Hospital of Bern, Switzerland. Results: Four cochlear implant candidates with psychogenic hearing loss were identified. All were female, aged 23-51 years. Hearing thresholds ranged from 86 dB to 112 dB HL (pure-tone average 500-4000 Hz). ABRs and otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) showed bilaterally normal hearing in two subjects, and hearing thresholds between 30 and 50 dB in the other two subjects. Three subjects suffered from depression and one from a pathologic fear of cancer. Three had a history of five or more previous surgeries. Three were smokers and three reported other close family members with hearing losses. All four were hearing aid users at the time of presentation.

Predicting dependencies using domain-based coupling

Software dependencies play a vital role in programme comprehension, change impact analysis and other software maintenance activities. Traditionally, these activities are supported by source code analysis; however, the source code is sometimes inaccessible or difficult to analyse, as in hybrid systems composed of source code in multiple languages using various paradigms (e.g. object-oriented programming and relational databases). Moreover, not all stakeholders have adequate knowledge to perform such analyses. For example, non-technical domain experts and consultants raise most maintenance requests; however, they cannot predict the cost and impact of the requested changes without the support of the developers. We propose a novel approach to predicting software dependencies by exploiting the coupling present in domain-level information. Our approach is independent of the software implementation; hence, it can be used to approximate architectural dependencies without access to the source code or the database. As such, it can be applied to hybrid systems with heterogeneous source code or legacy systems with missing source code. In addition, this approach is based solely on information visible and understandable to domain users; therefore, it can be efficiently used by domain experts without the support of software developers. We evaluate our approach with a case study on a large-scale enterprise system, in which we demonstrate how up to 65 of the source code dependencies and 77% of the database dependencies are predicted solely based on domain information.

Dangers of ‘Facebook Login’ for Mobile Apps: Is There a Price Tag for Social Information?

Social networks offer horizontal integration for any mobile platform providing app users with a convenient single sign-on point. Nonetheless, there are growing privacy concerns regarding its use. These vulnerabilities trigger alarm among app developers who fight for their user base: While they are happy to act on users’ information collected via social networks, they are not always willing to sacrifice their adoption rate for this goal. So far, understanding of this trade-off has remained ambiguous. To fill this gap, we employ a discrete choice experiment to explore the role of Facebook Login and investigate the impact of accompanying requests for different information items / actions in the mobile app adoption process. We quantify users’ concerns regarding these items in monetary terms. Beyond hands-on insights for providers, our study contributes to the theoretical discourse on the value of privacy in the growing world of Social Media and mobile web.

Early Improvement As a Predictor of Later Response to Antipsychotics in Schizophrenia: A Diagnostic Test Review

OBJECTIVE How long clinicians should wait before considering an antipsychotic ineffective and changing treatment in schizophrenia is an unresolved clinical question. Guidelines differ substantially in this regard. The authors conducted a diagnostic test meta-analysis using mostly individual patient data to assess whether lack of improvement at week 2 predicts later nonresponse. METHOD The search included EMBASE, MEDLINE, BIOSIS, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and reference lists of relevant articles, supplemented by requests to authors of all relevant studies. The main outcome was prediction of nonresponse, defined as <50% reduction in total score on either the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) or Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) (corresponding to at least much improved) from baseline to endpoint (4-12 weeks), by <20% PANSS or BPRS improvement (corresponding to less than minimally improved) at week 2. Secondary outcomes were absent cross-sectional symptomatic remission and <20% PANSS or BPRS reduction at endpoint. Potential moderator variables were examined by meta-regression. RESULTS In 34 studies (N=9,460) a <20% PANSS or BPRS reduction at week 2 predicted nonresponse at endpoint with a specificity of 86% and a positive predictive value (PPV) of 90%. Using data for observed cases (specificity=86%, PPV=85%) or lack of remission (specificity=77%, PPV=88%) yielded similar results. Conversely, using the definition of <20% reduction at endpoint yielded worse results (specificity=70%, PPV=55%). The test specificity was significantly moderated by a trial duration of <6 weeks, higher baseline illness severity, and shorter illness duration. CONCLUSIONS Patients not even minimally improved by week 2 of antipsychotic treatment are unlikely to respond later and may benefit from a treatment change.

Information-Centric Content Retrieval for Delay-Tolerant Networks

The shift from host-centric to information-centric networking (ICN) promises seamless communication in mobile networks. However, most existing works either consider well-connected networks with high node density or introduce modifications to {ICN} message processing for delay-tolerant Networking (DTN). In this work, we present agent-based content retrieval, which provides information-centric {DTN} support as an application module without modifications to {ICN} message processing. This enables flexible interoperability in changing environments. If no content source can be found via wireless multi-hop routing, requesters may exploit the mobility of neighbor nodes (called agents) by delegating content retrieval to them. Agents that receive a delegation and move closer to content sources can retrieve data and return it back to requesters. We show that agent-based content retrieval may be even more efficient in scenarios where multi-hop communication is possible. Furthermore, we show that broadcast communication may not be necessarily the best option since dynamic unicast requests have little overhead and can better exploit short contact times between nodes (no broadcast delays required for duplicate suppression).