15 resultados para Android, PayPal, pagamenti, smartphone

em Aston University Research Archive


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For the last several years, mobile devices and platform security threats, including wireless networking technology, have been top security issues. A departure has occurred from automatic anti-virus software based on traditional PC defense: risk management (authentication and encryption), compliance, and disaster recovery following polymorphic viruses and malware as the primary activities within many organizations and government services alike. This chapter covers research in Turkey as a reflection of the current market – e-government started officially in 2008. This situation in an emerging country presents the current situation and resistances encountered while engaging with mobile and e-government interfaces. The authors contend that research is needed to understand more precisely security threats and most of all potential solutions for sustainable future intention to use m-government services. Finally, beyond m-government initiatives' success or failure, the mechanisms related to public administration mobile technical capacity building and security issues are discussed.

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FULL TEXT: Like many people one of my favourite pastimes over the holiday season is to watch the great movies that are offered on the television channels and new releases in the movie theatres or catching up on those DVDs that you have been wanting to watch all year. Recently we had the new ‘Star Wars’ movie, ‘The Force Awakens’, which is reckoned to become the highest grossing movie of all time, and the latest offering from James Bond, ‘Spectre’ (which included, for the car aficionados amongst you, the gorgeous new Aston Martin DB10). It is always amusing to see how vision correction or eye injury is dealt with by movie makers. Spy movies and science fiction movies have a freehand to design aliens with multiples eyes on stalks or retina scanning door locks or goggles that can see through walls. Eye surgery is usually shown in some kind of day case simplified laser treatment that gives instant results, apart from the great scene in the original ‘Terminator’ movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger's android character encounters an injury to one eye and then proceeds to remove the humanoid covering to this mechanical eye over a bathroom sink. I suppose it is much more difficult to try and include contact lenses in such movies. Although you may recall the film ‘Charlie's Angels’, which did have a scene where one of the Angels wore a contact lens that had a retinal image imprinted on it so she could by-pass a retinal scan door lock and an Eddy Murphy spy movie ‘I-Spy’, where he wore contact lenses that had electronic gadgetry that allowed whatever he was looking at to be beamed back to someone else, a kind of remote video camera device. Maybe we aren’t quite there in terms of devices available but these things are probably not the behest of science fiction anymore as the technology does exist to put these things together. The technology to incorporate electronics into contact lenses is being developed and I am sure we will be reporting on it in the near future. In the meantime we can continue to enjoy the unrealistic scenes of eye swapping as in the film ‘Minority Report’ (with Tom Cruise). Much more closely to home, than in a galaxy far far away, in this issue you can find articles on topics much nearer to the closer future. More and more optometrists in the UK are becoming registered for therapeutic work as independent prescribers and the number is likely to rise in the near future. These practitioners will be interested in the review paper by Michael Doughty, who is a member of the CLAE editorial panel (soon to be renamed the Jedi Council!), on prescribing drugs as part of the management of chronic meibomian gland dysfunction. Contact lenses play an active role in myopia control and orthokeratology has been used not only to help provide refractive correction but also in the retardation of myopia. In this issue there are three articles related to this topic. Firstly, an excellent paper looking at the link between higher spherical equivalent refractive errors and the association with slower axial elongation. Secondly, a paper that discusses the effectiveness and safety of overnight orthokeratology with high-permeability lens material. Finally, a paper that looks at the stabilisation of early adult-onset myopia. Whilst we are always eager for new and exciting developments in contact lenses and related instrumentation in this issue of CLAE there is a demonstration of a novel and practical use of a smartphone to assisted anterior segment imaging and suggestions of this may be used in telemedicine. It is not hard to imagine someone taking an image remotely and transmitting that back to a central diagnostic centre with the relevant expertise housed in one place where the information can be interpreted and instruction given back to the remote site. Back to ‘Star Wars’ and you will recall in the film ‘The Phantom Menace’ when Qui-Gon Jinn first meets Anakin Skywalker on Tatooine he takes a sample of his blood and sends a scan of it back to Obi-Wan Kenobi to send for analysis and they find that the boy has the highest midichlorian count ever seen. On behalf of the CLAE Editorial board (or Jedi Council) and the BCLA Council (the Senate of the Republic) we wish for you a great 2016 and ‘may the contact lens force be with you’. Or let me put that another way ‘the CLAE Editorial Board and BCLA Council, on behalf of, a great 2016, we wish for you!’

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Background: Remote, non-invasive and objective tests that can be used to support expert diagnosis for Parkinson's disease (PD) are lacking. Methods: Participants underwent baseline in-clinic assessments, including the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), and were provided smartphones with an Android operating system that contained a smartphone application that assessed voice, posture, gait, finger tapping, and response time. Participants then took the smart phones home to perform the five tasks four times a day for a month. Once a week participants had a remote (telemedicine) visit with a Parkinson disease specialist in which a modified (excluding assessments of rigidity and balance) UPDRS performed. Using statistical analyses of the five tasks recorded using the smartphone from 10 individuals with PD and 10 controls, we sought to: (1) discriminate whether the participant had PD and (2) predict the modified motor portion of the UPDRS. Results: Twenty participants performed an average of 2.7 tests per day (68.9% adherence) for the study duration (average of 34.4 days) in a home and community setting. The analyses of the five tasks differed between those with Parkinson disease and those without. In discriminating participants with PD from controls, the mean sensitivity was 96.2% (SD 2%) and mean specificity was 96.9% (SD 1.9%). The mean error in predicting the modified motor component of the UPDRS (range 11-34) was 1.26 UPDRS points (SD 0.16). Conclusion: Measuring PD symptoms via a smartphone is feasible and has potential value as a diagnostic support tool.

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M-Government services are now at the forefront of both user expectations and technology capabilities. Within the current setting, there is growing evidence that interoperability is becoming a key issue towards service sustainability. Thus, the objective of this chapter is to highlight the case of "Beyas Masa" - a Turkish application for infrastructure repair services. This application requires different stakeholders from different cultural background and geographically dispersed regions to work together. The major aim of this chapter to showcase experiences in as far as implementation and adoption of m-Government is concerned in the case of Turkey. The study utilizes the co-creation literature to investigate the factors influencing successful implementation of the Beyas Masa. This study reveals that initiatives are fragmented due to differences in the characteristics of the targeted audience, the marketing strategy, technology supply, distribution, and media utilized to promote its awareness. The chapter posits that in order to have affluent m-Government implementation in Turkey, it is important that many of the standalone applications are integrated to encourage interoperability and that socio-cultural behaviours should be re-shaped to encourage active engagement and interactive government service provisions that unlock the power of ICT.

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Purpose - Chronic consumption practice has been greatly accelerated by mobile, interactive and smartphone gaming technology devices. This study explores how chronic consumption of smartphone gaming produces positive coping practice. Design/methodology/approach - Underpinned by cognitive framing theory, empirical insights from eleven focus groups (n=62) reveal how smartphone gaming enhances positive coping amongst gamers and non-gamers. Findings - The findings reveal how the chronic consumption of games allows technology to act with privileged agency that resolves tensions between individuals and collectives. Consumption narratives of smartphone games, even when play is limited, lead to the identification of three cognitive frames through which positive coping processes operate: (a) the market generated frame, (b) the social being frame, and (c) the citizen frame. Research limitations/implications – This paper adds to previous research by providing an understanding of positive coping practice in the smartphone chronic gaming consumption. Originality/value - In smartphone chronic gaming consumption, cognitive frames enable positive coping by fostering appraisal capacities in which individuals confront, hegemony, culture and alterity-morality concerns.

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Despite their generally increasing use, the adoption of mobile shopping applications often differs across purchase contexts. In order to advance our understanding of smartphone-based mobile shopping acceptance, this study integrates and extends existing approaches from technology acceptance literature by examining two previously underexplored aspects. Firstly, the study examines the impact of different mobile and personal benefits (instant connectivity, contextual value and hedonic motivation), customer characteristics (habit) and risk facets (financial, performance, and security risk) as antecedents of mobile shopping acceptance. Secondly, it is assumed that several acceptance drivers differ in relevance subject to the perception of three mobile shopping characteristics (location sensitivity, time criticality, and extent of control), while other drivers are assumed to matter independent of the context. Based on a dataset of 410 smartphone shoppers, empirical results demonstrate that several acceptance predictors are associated with ease of use and usefulness, which in turn affect intentional and behavioral outcomes. Furthermore, the extent to which risks and benefits impact ease of use and usefulness is influenced by the three contextual characteristics. From a managerial perspective, results show which factors to consider in the development of mobile shopping applications and in which different application contexts they matter.

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Since the early days of cinema the creation of artificial life with its various implications has been a popular topic on screen. Amongst the large number of films that deal with the theme of androids Bryan Forbes’ "The Stepford Wives" (1975) is noticeable for its focus on questions of gender and the relationship between the sexes. The film is set in a contemporary small suburban town where frustrated husbands have found a special way of dealing with their emancipated wives by replacing them with docile life-like robots. Mixing elements of the thriller and horror genres with farce and comedy "The Stepford Wives" was the first American mainstream film to deal explicitly with Women’s Lib. Unlike Ira Levin in his much more ambivalent novel that the film was based on, Forbes and his actors deliberately set out to make a feminist satire, and according to some critics succeeded in producing an important document of second wave feminism which soon acquired cult status. However, it also provoked a number of negative reactions from feminists who were very uncomfortable with a film in which men get away with murdering the female population of an entire town. A closer inspection reveals that the satirical element of the film is indeed not prominent and frequently counteracted, at times facilitating a misogynist rather than a feminist interpretation. This is mainly due to the ending of the film which implies the murderous elimination of the female protagonist. Unlike all other cinematic and literary works that feature androids "The Stepford Wives" shows the successful creation of artificial life which does not backfire. In addition, the film which clearly categorises itself as a thriller and horror movie, and specifically alludes to the tradition of threatened yet strong female characters in these genres, at the same time defies this convention in favour of a seemingly misogynist ending. Thus the way in which "The Stepford Wives" refuses to comply with the traditions of both the android theme and the horror genre, involuntarily serves to undermine its intention as a feminist social satire.

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A sizeable amount of the testing in eye care, requires either the identification of targets such as letters to assess functional vision, or the subjective evaluation of imagery by an examiner. Computers can render a variety of different targets on their monitors and can be used to store and analyse ophthalmic images. However, existing computing hardware tends to be large, screen resolutions are often too low, and objective assessments of ophthalmic images unreliable. Recent advances in mobile computing hardware and computer-vision systems can be used to enhance clinical testing in optometry. High resolution touch screens embedded in mobile devices, can render targets at a wide variety of distances and can be used to record and respond to patient responses, automating testing methods. This has opened up new opportunities in computerised near vision testing. Equally, new image processing techniques can be used to increase the validity and reliability of objective computer vision systems. Three novel apps for assessing reading speed, contrast sensitivity and amplitude of accommodation were created by the author to demonstrate the potential of mobile computing to enhance clinical measurement. The reading speed app could present sentences effectively, control illumination and automate the testing procedure for reading speed assessment. Meanwhile the contrast sensitivity app made use of a bit stealing technique and swept frequency target, to rapidly assess a patient’s full contrast sensitivity function at both near and far distances. Finally, customised electronic hardware was created and interfaced to an app on a smartphone device to allow free space amplitude of accommodation measurement. A new geometrical model of the tear film and a ray tracing simulation of a Placido disc topographer were produced to provide insights on the effect of tear film breakdown on ophthalmic images. Furthermore, a new computer vision system, that used a novel eye-lash segmentation technique, was created to demonstrate the potential of computer vision systems for the clinical assessment of tear stability. Studies undertaken by the author to assess the validity and repeatability of the novel apps, found that their repeatability was comparable to, or better, than existing clinical methods for reading speed and contrast sensitivity assessment. Furthermore, the apps offered reduced examination times in comparison to their paper based equivalents. The reading speed and amplitude of accommodation apps correlated highly with existing methods of assessment supporting their validity. Their still remains questions over the validity of using a swept frequency sine-wave target to assess patient’s contrast sensitivity functions as no clinical test provides the range of spatial frequencies and contrasts, nor equivalent assessment at distance and near. A validation study of the new computer vision system found that the authors tear metric correlated better with existing subjective measures of tear film stability than those of a competing computer-vision system. However, repeatability was poor in comparison to the subjective measures due to eye lash interference. The new mobile apps, computer vision system, and studies outlined in this thesis provide further insight into the potential of applying mobile and image processing technology to enhance clinical testing by eye care professionals.

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As we settle into a new year, this second issue of Contact Lens and Anterior Eye allows us to reflect on how new research in this field impacts our understanding, but more importantly, how we use this evidence basis to enhance our day to day practice, to educate the next generation of students and to construct the research studies to deepen our knowledge still further. The end of 2014 saw the publication of the UK governments Research Exercise Framework (REF) which ranks Universities in terms of their outputs (which includes their paper, publications and research income), environment (infrastructure and staff support) and for the first time impact (defined as “any effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia” [8]). The REF is a process of expert review, carried out in 36 subject-based units of assessment, of which our field is typically submitted to the Allied Health, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy panel. Universities that offer Optometry did very well with Cardiff, Manchester and Aston in the top 10% out of the 94 Universities that submitted to this panel (Grade point Average ranked order). While the format of the new exercise (probably in 2010) to allocate the more than £2 billion of UK government research funds is yet to be determined, it is already rumoured that impact will contribute an even larger proportion to the weighting. Hence it is even more important to reflect on the impact of our research. In this issue, Elisseef and colleagues [5] examine the intriguing potential of modifying a lens surface to allow it to bind to known wetting agents (in this case hyaluronic acid) to enhance water retention. Such a technique has the capacity to reduced friction between the lens surface and the eyelids/ocular surface, presumably leading to higher comfort and less reason for patients to discontinue with lens wear. Several papers in this issue report on the validity of new high precision, fast scanning imaging and quantification equipment, utilising techniques such as Scheimpflug, partial coherence interferometry, aberrometry and video allowing detailed assessment of anterior chamber biometry, corneal topography, corneal biomechanics, peripheral refraction, ocular aberrations and lens fit. The challenge is how to use this advanced instrumentation which is becoming increasingly available to create real impact. Many challenges in contact lenses and the anterior eye still prevail in 2015 such as: -While contact lens and refractive surgery complications are relatively rare, they are still too often devastating to the individual and their quality of life (such as the impact and prognosis of patients with Acanthmoeba Keratitis reported by Jhanji and colleagues in this issue [7]). How can we detect those patients who are going to be affected and what modifications do we need to make to contact lenses and patient management prevent this occurring? -Drop out from contact lenses still occurs at a rapid rate and symptoms of dry eye seem to be the leading cause driving this discontinuation of wear [1] and [2]. What design, coating, material and lubricant release mechanism will make a step change in end of day comfort in particular? -Presbyopia is a major challenge to hassle free quality vision and is one of the first signs of ageing noticed by many people. As an emmetrope approaching presbyopia, I have a vested interest in new medical devices that will give me high quality vision at all distances when my arms won’t stretch any further. Perhaps a new definition of presbyopia could be when you start to orientate your smartphone in the landscape direction to gain the small increase in print size needed to read! Effective accommodating intraocular lenses that truly mimic the pre-presbyopic crystalline lenses are still a way off [3] and hence simultaneous images achieved through contact lenses, intraocular lenses or refractive surgery still have a secure future. However, splitting light reaching the retina and requiring the brain to supress blurred images will always be a compromise on contrast sensitivity and is liable to cause dysphotopsia; so how will new designs account for differences in a patient's task demands and own optical aberrations to allow focused patient selection, optimising satisfaction? -Drug delivery from contact lenses offers much in terms of compliance and quality of life for patients with chronic ocular conditions such as glaucoma, dry eye and perhaps in the future, dry age-related macular degeneration; but scientific proof-of-concept publications (see EIShaer et al. [6]) have not yet led to commercial products. Part of this is presumably the regulatory complexity of combining a medical device (the contact lens) and a pharmaceutical agent. Will 2015 be the year when this innovation finally becomes a reality for patients, bringing them an enhanced quality of life through their eye care practitioners and allowing researchers to further validate the use of pharmaceutical contact lenses and propose enhancements as the technology matures? -Last, but no means least is the field of myopia control, the topic of the first day of the BCLA's Conference in Liverpool, June 6–9th 2015. The epidemic of myopia is a blight, particularly in Asia, with significant concerns over sight threatening pathology resulting from the elongated eye. This is a field where real impact is already being realised through new soft contact lens optics, orthokeratology and low dose pharmaceuticals [4], but we still need to be able to better predict which technique will work best for an individual and to develop new techniques to retard myopia progression in those who don’t respond to current treatments, without increasing their risk of complications or the treatment impacting their quality of life So what will your New Year's resolution be to make 2015 a year of real impact, whether by advancing science or applying the findings published in journals such as Contact Lens and Anterior Eye to make a real difference to your patients’ lives?

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METPEX is a 3 year, FP7 project which aims to develop a PanEuropean tool to measure the quality of the passenger's experience of multimodal transport. Initial work has led to the development of a comprehensive set of variables relating to different passenger groups, forms of transport and journey stages. This paper addresses the main challenges in transforming the variables into usable, accessible computer based tools allowing for the real time collection of information, across multiple journey stages in different EU countries. Non-computer based measurement instruments will be used to gather information from those who may not have or be familiar with mobile technology. Smartphone-based measurement instruments will also be used, hosted in two applications. The mobile applications need to be easy to use, configurable and adaptable according to the context of use. They should also be inherently interesting and rewarding for the participant, whilst allowing for the collection of high quality, valid and reliable data from all journey types and stages (from planning, through to entry into and egress from different transport modes, travel on public and personal vehicles and support of active forms of transport (e.g. cycling and walking). During all phases of the data collection and processing, the privacy of the participant is highly regarded and is ensured. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.

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Objective: To test the practicality and effectiveness of cheap, ubiquitous, consumer-grade smartphones to discriminate Parkinson’s disease (PD) subjects from healthy controls, using self-administered tests of gait and postural sway. Background: Existing tests for the diagnosis of PD are based on subjective neurological examinations, performed in-clinic. Objective movement symptom severity data, collected using widely-accessible technologies such as smartphones, would enable the remote characterization of PD symptoms based on self-administered, behavioral tests. Smartphones, when backed up by interviews using web-based videoconferencing, could make it feasible for expert neurologists to perform diagnostic testing on large numbers of individuals at low cost. However, to date, the compliance rate of testing using smart-phones has not been assessed. Methods: We conducted a one-month controlled study with twenty participants, comprising 10 PD subjects and 10 controls. All participants were provided identical LG Optimus S smartphones, capable of recording tri-axial acceleration. Using these smartphones, patients conducted self-administered, short (less than 5 minute) controlled gait and postural sway tests. We analyzed a wide range of summary measures of gait and postural sway from the accelerometry data. Using statistical machine learning techniques, we identified discriminating patterns in the summary measures in order to distinguish PD subjects from controls. Results: Compliance was high all 20 participants performed an average of 3.1 tests per day for the duration of the study. Using this test data, we demonstrated cross-validated sensitivity of 98% and specificity of 98% in discriminating PD subjects from healthy controls. Conclusions: Using consumer-grade smartphone accelerometers, it is possible to distinguish PD from healthy controls with high accuracy. Since these smartphones are inexpensive (around $30 each) and easily available, and the tests are highly non-invasive and objective, we envisage that this kind of smartphone-based testing could radically increase the reach and effectiveness of experts in diagnosing PD.

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Human-computer interaction is a growing field of study in which researchers and professionals aim to understand and evaluate the impact of new technologies on human behavior. With the integration of smart phones, tablets, and other portable devices into everyday life, there is a greater need to understand the influence of such technology on the human experience. Emerging Perspectives on the Design, Use, and Evaluation of Mobile and Handheld Devices is an authoritative reference source consisting of the latest scholarly research and theories from international experts and professionals on the topic of human-computer interaction with mobile devices. Featuring a comprehensive collection of chapters on critical topics in this dynamic field, this publication is an essential reference source for researchers, educators, students, and practitioners interested in the use of mobile and handheld devices and their impact on individuals and society as a whole. This publication features timely, research-based chapters pertaining to topics in the design and evaluation of smart devices including, but not limited to, app stores, category-based interfaces, gamified mobility applications, mobile interaction, mobile learning, pervasive multimodal applications, smartphone interaction, and social media use.

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The global population of people aged 60 years and older is growing rapidly. In the UK, there are currently around 10 million people aged 65 and over, and the number is projected to rise by 50% in the next 20 years (RNIB, 2013). While ongoing advances in information technology (IT) are undoubtedly increasing the scope for IT to enhance and support older adults' daily living, the digital divide between older and younger adults - 43% of people below the age of 55 own and use a smartphone, compared to only 3% of people aged 65 and over (AgeUK, 2013) - raises concerns about the suitability of technological solutions for older adults, especially for older adults with impairments. Evidence suggests that sympathetic design of mobile technology does render it useful and acceptable to older adults: the key issue is, however, how best to achieve such sympathetic design when working with impaired older adults. We report here on a case study in order to outline the practicalities and highlight the benefits of participatory research for the design of sympathetic technology for (and importantly with) older adults with impairments.

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The global population of people aged 60 years and older is growing rapidly. In the UK, there are currently around 10 million people aged 65 and over, and the number is projected to rise by 50% in the next 20 years (RNIB, 2013). While ongoing advances in information technology (IT) are undoubtedly increasing the scope for IT to enhance and support older adults’ daily living, the digital divide between older and younger adults – 43% of people below the age of 55 own and use a smartphone, compared to only 3% of people aged 65 and over (AgeUK, 2013) – raises concerns about the suitability of technological solutions for older adults, especially for older adults with impairments. Evidence suggests that sympathetic design of mobile technology does render it useful and acceptable to older adults: the key issue is, however, how best to achieve such sympathetic design when working with impaired older adults. We report here on a case study in order to outline the practicalities and highlight the benefits of participatory research for the design of sympathetic technology for (and importantly with) older adults with impairments.

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Background: Information seeking is an important coping mechanism for dealing with chronic illness. Despite a growing number of mental health websites, there is little understanding of how patients with bipolar disorder use the Internet to seek information. Methods: A 39 question, paper-based, anonymous survey, translated into 12 languages, was completed by 1222 patients in 17 countries as a convenience sample between March 2014 and January 2016. All patients had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder from a psychiatrist. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and generalized estimating equations to account for correlated data. Results: 976 (81 % of 1212 valid responses) of the patients used the Internet, and of these 750 (77 %) looked for information on bipolar disorder. When looking online for information, 89 % used a computer rather than a smartphone, and 79 % started with a general search engine. The primary reasons for searching were drug side effects (51 %), to learn anonymously (43 %), and for help coping (39 %). About 1/3 rated their search skills as expert, and 2/3 as basic or intermediate. 59 % preferred a website on mental illness and 33 % preferred Wikipedia. Only 20 % read or participated in online support groups. Most patients (62 %) searched a couple times a year. Online information seeking helped about 2/3 to cope (41 % of the entire sample). About 2/3 did not discuss Internet findings with their doctor. Conclusion: Online information seeking helps many patients to cope although alternative information sources remain important. Most patients do not discuss Internet findings with their doctor, and concern remains about the quality of online information especially related to prescription drugs. Patients may not rate search skills accurately, and may not understand limitations of online privacy. More patient education about online information searching is needed and physicians should recommend a few high quality websites.