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.

Prevention of vascular dysfunction and arterial hypertension in mice generated by assisted reproductive technologies by addition of melatonin to culture media.

Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) induce vascular dysfunction in humans and mice. In mice, ART-induced vascular dysfunction is related to epigenetic alteration of the endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) gene, resulting in decreased vascular eNOS expression and nitrite/nitrate synthesis. Melatonin is involved in epigenetic regulation, and its administration to sterile women improves the success rate of ART. We hypothesized that addition of melatonin to culture media may prevent ART-induced epigenetic and cardiovascular alterations in mice. We, therefore, assessed mesenteric-artery responses to acetylcholine and arterial blood pressure, together with DNA methylation of the eNOS gene promoter in vascular tissue and nitric oxide plasma concentration in 12-wk-old ART mice generated with and without addition of melatonin to culture media and in control mice. As expected, acetylcholine-induced mesenteric-artery dilation was impaired (P = 0.008 vs. control) and mean arterial blood pressure increased (109.5 ± 3.8 vs. 104.0 ± 4.7 mmHg, P = 0.002, ART vs. control) in ART compared with control mice. These alterations were associated with altered DNA methylation of the eNOS gene promoter (P < 0.001 vs. control) and decreased plasma nitric oxide concentration (10.1 ± 11.1 vs. 29.5 ± 8.0 μM) (P < 0.001 ART vs. control). Addition of melatonin (10(-6) M) to culture media prevented eNOS dysmethylation (P = 0.005, vs. ART + vehicle), normalized nitric oxide plasma concentration (23.1 ± 14.6 μM, P = 0.002 vs. ART + vehicle) and mesentery-artery responsiveness to acetylcholine (P < 0.008 vs. ART + vehicle), and prevented arterial hypertension (104.6 ± 3.4 mmHg, P < 0.003 vs. ART + vehicle). These findings provide proof of principle that modification of culture media prevents ART-induced vascular dysfunction. We speculate that this approach will also allow preventing ART-induced premature atherosclerosis in humans.

Coherence and Historical understanding in children's Biography and Historical Nonfiction Literature: A Content Analysis of Selected Orbis Pictus Books

The purpose of this study was to investigate a selection of children's historical nonfiction literature for evidence of coherence. Although research has been conducted on coherence of textbook material and its influences on comprehension there has been limited study on coherence in children's nonfiction literature. Generally, textual coherence has been seen as critical in the comprehensibility of content area textbooks because it concerns the unity of connections among ideas and information. Disciplinary coherence concerns the extent to which authors of historical text show readers how historians think and write. Since young readers are apprentices in learning historical content and conventions of historical thinking, evidence of disciplinary coherence is significant in nonfiction literature for young readers. The sample of the study contained 32 books published between 1989 and 2000 ranging in length from less than 90 pages to more than 150 pages. Content analysis was the quantitative research technique used to measure 84 variables of textual and disciplinary coherence in three passages of each book, as proportions of the total number of words for each book. Reliability analyses and an examination of 750 correlations showed the extent to which variables were related in the books. Three important findings emerged from the study that should be considered in the selection and use of children's historical nonfiction literature in classrooms. First, characteristics of coherence are significantly related together in high quality nonfiction literature. Second, shorter books have a higher proportion of textual coherence than longer books as measured in three passages. Third, presence of the author is related to characteristics of coherence throughout the books. The findings show that nonfiction literature offers students content that researchers have found textbooks lack. Both younger and older students have the opportunity to learn the conventions of historical thinking as they learn content through nonfiction literature. Further, the children's literature, represented in the Orbis Pictus list, shows students that authors select, interpret, and question information, and give other interpretations. The implications of the study for teaching history, teacher preparation in content and literacy, school practices, children's librarians, and publishers of children's nonfiction are discussed.

Asymmetric Information, Tax Evasion and Alternative Instruments of Government Revenue

Using a pure-exchange overlapping generations model, characterized with tax evasion and information asymmetry between the government (the social planner) and the financial intermediaries, we try and seek for the optimal tax and seigniorage plans, derived from the welfare maximizing objective of the social planner. We show that irrespective of whether the economy is characterized by tax evasion, or asymmetric information, a benevolent social planner, maximizing welfare and simultaneously financing the budget constraint, should optimally rely on explicit rather than implicit taxation.

Adherence to HIV /AIDS therapies among low -literacy populations: The ALP project

Adherence to HIV/AIDS therapies has been an important health problem since the early 1980s when AZT was first prescribed as a therapy for HIV/AIDS. It became particularly important between 1995 and 1997 with the advent of protease inhibitors (Chesney, Ickovics, Hecht, Sikipa, & Rabkin J., 1999) and became even more significant as persons with HIV/AIDS began to develop resistance to medications. Low-literacy populations have poorer health (Brez & Taylor, 1997) and higher AIDS rates (Simon, Hu, Diaz, & Kerndt, 1995), than their higher literacy counterparts due to delayed treatment (Baker, Parker, Williams, Clark, & Nurss, 1997), shame of literacy skills (Parikh, 1996), and poor access to care (Williams, et al., 1995). Poorer health and higher AIDS rates can also be attributed to poor patient-provider relationships (Crespo-Fierro, 1997; Eldred, Wu, Chaisson, & Moore, 1998) to a poorer understanding of medical protocols (Murphy, 1997), and inadequate patient education (Ungvarski, 1997; Davis, Michielutte, Askov, Williams, & Weiss, 1998, Doak, Doak, & Root, 1996). ^ The ALP intervention was developed for HIV positive low-literacy populations of African American women in Houston, Texas. The intervention was based on a needs assessment, using the PRECEDE model, an innovative process referred to as Intervention Mapping, and validated using formative evaluation methods with 54 individuals. The needs assessment resulted in a list of behavioral, environmental, predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing determinants of adherence. The Intervention Mapping framework was used to refine these determinants and develop a list of objectives describing what must be learned or changed to for the target population to adhere to HIV/AIDS therapies. Methods and strategies, were developed using theoretical constructs from the Health Belief Model (Rosenstock, 1974) and Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986). These theories, empirical evidence, and information from the target population indicated that perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, outcome expectations, and self-efficacy were important and changeable determinants of adherence to HIV/AIDS therapies for this population. ^ These components were brought together in the form of a theory-based color cartoon book and 10-minute cassette tape. The book was developed for people with 2.9 years of U.S. education as measured with the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level method and the script was recorded onto a cassette tape to make it suitable for populations with even lower-literacy skills. A formative evaluation was conducted to ensure that the content and structure were accurate, clear, realistic, readable, appropriate, and likely to be used as intended. ^

Master's and Doctoral Thesis Citations: Analysis and Trends of a Longitudinal Study

http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/libaccess_workshops/1001/thumbnail.jpg

Las NTIC como herramienta en la enseñanza de la historia : Propuestas para abordar la Edad Media

El presente trabajo pretende reflexionar sobre los desafíos que la sociedad atravesada por las tecnologías le presenta a las prácticas educativas. Para esto nos introduciremos en el contexto uruguayo y en el Plan CEIBAL específicamente, como ejemplo de una política educativa que busca acompasar la educación con la realidad actual. Como futuros docentes de Historia, nos interesa profundizar en la educación en y con las tecnologías como alternativa didáctica para superar las dificultades pedagógicas que se plantean a partir de los obstáculos historiográficos que presenta la Edad Media

Information Management and Mediation in a Digital Reference Service Focused in Social Sciences

This paper investigates the current relationship between information management and information mediation along with the digital reference service through a case study which took place in an academic library. The concept of information mediation is herein analyzed, since a conceptual examination provides elements that will help people to comprehend and evaluate the concerned service. The information professional plays a very important role in the mediation aforementioned, which may be directly or indirectly; consciously or unconsciously; by himself/herself or plurally; individually or inserted into a group ? in all such manners that mediator facilitates the acquisition of information, fully or partially satisfying a user?s need of all sorts of knowledge. Meanwhile, we here approach information management from a scope that points out a description over performed activities concerned to policies and procedures put into effect until the service evaluation by proposing a criterion for such point. Finally, we outline a few actions to be implemented in long-term perspective, which goal is to continually ameliorate such assistance, taking in account the human factor

Las NTIC como herramienta en la enseñanza de la historia : Propuestas para abordar la Edad Media

El presente trabajo pretende reflexionar sobre los desafíos que la sociedad atravesada por las tecnologías le presenta a las prácticas educativas. Para esto nos introduciremos en el contexto uruguayo y en el Plan CEIBAL específicamente, como ejemplo de una política educativa que busca acompasar la educación con la realidad actual. Como futuros docentes de Historia, nos interesa profundizar en la educación en y con las tecnologías como alternativa didáctica para superar las dificultades pedagógicas que se plantean a partir de los obstáculos historiográficos que presenta la Edad Media

Information Management and Mediation in a Digital Reference Service Focused in Social Sciences

This paper investigates the current relationship between information management and information mediation along with the digital reference service through a case study which took place in an academic library. The concept of information mediation is herein analyzed, since a conceptual examination provides elements that will help people to comprehend and evaluate the concerned service. The information professional plays a very important role in the mediation aforementioned, which may be directly or indirectly; consciously or unconsciously; by himself/herself or plurally; individually or inserted into a group ? in all such manners that mediator facilitates the acquisition of information, fully or partially satisfying a user?s need of all sorts of knowledge. Meanwhile, we here approach information management from a scope that points out a description over performed activities concerned to policies and procedures put into effect until the service evaluation by proposing a criterion for such point. Finally, we outline a few actions to be implemented in long-term perspective, which goal is to continually ameliorate such assistance, taking in account the human factor

Las NTIC como herramienta en la enseñanza de la historia : Propuestas para abordar la Edad Media

El presente trabajo pretende reflexionar sobre los desafíos que la sociedad atravesada por las tecnologías le presenta a las prácticas educativas. Para esto nos introduciremos en el contexto uruguayo y en el Plan CEIBAL específicamente, como ejemplo de una política educativa que busca acompasar la educación con la realidad actual. Como futuros docentes de Historia, nos interesa profundizar en la educación en y con las tecnologías como alternativa didáctica para superar las dificultades pedagógicas que se plantean a partir de los obstáculos historiográficos que presenta la Edad Media

Information Management and Mediation in a Digital Reference Service Focused in Social Sciences

This paper investigates the current relationship between information management and information mediation along with the digital reference service through a case study which took place in an academic library. The concept of information mediation is herein analyzed, since a conceptual examination provides elements that will help people to comprehend and evaluate the concerned service. The information professional plays a very important role in the mediation aforementioned, which may be directly or indirectly; consciously or unconsciously; by himself/herself or plurally; individually or inserted into a group ? in all such manners that mediator facilitates the acquisition of information, fully or partially satisfying a user?s need of all sorts of knowledge. Meanwhile, we here approach information management from a scope that points out a description over performed activities concerned to policies and procedures put into effect until the service evaluation by proposing a criterion for such point. Finally, we outline a few actions to be implemented in long-term perspective, which goal is to continually ameliorate such assistance, taking in account the human factor

Mutual Information and Perplexity based Clustering of Dialogue Information for Dynamic Adaptation of Language Models

We present two approaches to cluster dialogue-based information obtained by the speech understanding module and the dialogue manager of a spoken dialogue system. The purpose is to estimate a language model related to each cluster, and use them to dynamically modify the model of the speech recognizer at each dialogue turn. In the first approach we build the cluster tree using local decisions based on a Maximum Normalized Mutual Information criterion. In the second one we take global decisions, based on the optimization of the global perplexity of the combination of the cluster-related LMs. Our experiments show a relative reduction of the word error rate of 15.17%, which helps to improve the performance of the understanding and the dialogue manager modules.

The dicode workbench: A flexible framework for the integration of information and web services

Aiming to address requirements concerning integration of services in the context of ?big data?, this paper presents an innovative approach that (i) ensures a flexible, adaptable and scalable information and computation infrastructure, and (ii) exploits the competences of stakeholders and information workers to meaningfully confront information management issues such as information characterization, classification and interpretation, thus incorporating the underlying collective intelligence. Our approach pays much attention to the issues of usability and ease-of-use, not requiring any particular programming expertise from the end users. We report on a series of technical issues concerning the desired flexibility of the proposed integration framework and we provide related recommendations to developers of such solutions. Evaluation results are also discussed.