Institutional Repository of Academic Research University of Macedonia
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2215 research outputs found
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Factors Influencing Intention of Greek Consumers to Use Smart Home Technology
No full textNew technologies’ advances offer innovative automations to people’s daily lives. More andmore devices are continuously connected to the internet allowing people to control them remotely.The smart home is such a technological development. However, it is uncertain whether and to whatextent the average consumer will accept smart home technology. The purpose of this study is toinvestigate the factors that affect the intention of Greek consumers to use smart home technology.The results of this study show that Greek consumers are beginning to have a positive attitudetowards smart home technology. Important factors that contribute to their intention to use smarthome technology include their perceived usefulness, compatibility, and ease of use of smart hometechnology. On the contrary, they do not think that they are influenced by their social environmentregarding their intention to use smart home technology. Finally, they think that the major benefits ofusing smart home technology include the health monitoring, home security, and cost savings.512
Forecasting the Principal of Code Technical Debt in JavaScript Applications
No full textJavaScript (JS) is one of the most popular programming languages for developing client-side applications mainly due to allowing the adoption of different programming styles, not having strict syntax rules, and supporting a plethora of frameworks. The flexibility that the language provides may accelerate the development of application, but also pose threats to the quality of the final software product, e.g., introducing Technical Debt (TD). TD reflects the additional cost of software maintenance activities to implement new features, occurring due to poorly developed solutions. Being able to forecast the levels of TD in the future can be extremely valuable in managing TD, since it can contribute to informed decision making when designating future repayments and refactoring budget among a company's projects. Despite the popularity of JS and the undoubtful benefits of accurate TD forecasting, in the literature, there is available only a limited number of tools and methodologies that are able to: (a) forecast TD during software evolution, (b) provide a ground-truth TD quantifications to train forecasting, since TD tools that are available are based on different rulesets and none is recognized as a state-of-the-art solution, (c) take into consideration the language-specific characteristics of JS. As a main contribution for this study, we propose a methodology (along with a supporting tool) that supports the aforementioned goals based on the Backward Stepwise Regression and Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA). We evaluate the proposed approach through a case study on 19,636 releases of 105 open-source applications. The results point out that: (a) the proposed model can lead to an accurate prediction of TD, and (b) the Number of appearances of the "new" and "eval" keyword along with the number of "anonymous" and "arrow" functions are among the features of JavaScript language that are related to high levels of TD.11
Gamification of MOOCs and Security Awareness in Corporate Training
No full textThe rapid development of digital technology in today's times can enrich distance learning in the corporate sector, in a variety of ways. Nowadays, instructors have the capability to incorporate gamification into their teaching and make use of digital tools to create powerful online learning environments for research and problem analysis and simulation projects to improve training. Gamified MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) can enhance the motivation and engagement of trainees in a meaningful way to achieve learning goals. This paper aims to present innovative insights on the content of gamified MOOCs in the corporate training context, to enhance Security Awareness Training. Our methodology is based on Deterding’s 2015 framework for gameful design, the lens of intrinsic skill atoms and we go a step further in our paper to propose a new approach, that is a structural model as a variation to Deterding's framework, that can find practical implementation in Integrated Development Enviro nments (IDE) for gamified MOOCs. Gamified MOOCs when used as part of a cyber security awareness program, can play a significant role in the improvement of the overall training program as we describe in our case studies for Security Awareness Training.1547555Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Educatio
Ingame Worked Examples Support as an Alternative to Textual Instructions in Serious Games About Programming
No full textSerious games are considered an effective method to engage students in programming education and have been increasingly used in classrooms. An important part of the learning process with serious games involves the presentation of the new concepts and the provided support to encounter student difficulties. Although the most common approach is the use of instructional text, it comes with some drawbacks. This paperproposes an alternative method for user support in serious games about programming which mitigates current problems and provides improved learning efficiency. An experiment was conducted (N = 291) to test textual instructions learning efficiency compared to in-game worked examples. Two randomly assigned groups used different types of support in a block-based game, developed for the study. Our implementation provided support through a non-player character who executed worked examples inside the game world. The analysis showed a significant statistical difference in score performance between the two supports on both novice and experienced students. The results point to increased learning efficiency by students, when in-game worked examplesand problem-solving are combined. We further argue that the Cognitive load theory can provide adequate justification for the outcomes.6071615163
In-Home Service Consumption: A Systematic Review, Integrative Framework, and Future Research Agenda
No full textGiven the increasing academic interest in in-home consumption and the fragmented, multidisciplinary scholarly knowledge in this area, this study provides a first systematic effort to review and organize the literature on in-home service consumption. Using a hybrid systematic review, combining bibliometric and framework-based literature reviews, we identify four major thematic clusters (i.e., the meaning of home, home as a consumption hub, home healthcare services, and serving the elderly), critically analyze, and discuss. We draw on Actor-Antecedents-Decisions-Outcomes (AADO) and Theories-Contexts-Methods (TCM) frameworks to synthesize our findings into an integrative framework of in-home service consumption, namely InHoServ. InHoServ provides a comprehensive understanding of the main actors involved in in-home service consumption and delineates their changing role. Finally, we provide a future research agenda highlighting four fruitful areas for researchers (i.e., theorizing in-home service consumption, the changing role of service providers, technology and service consumption at home, and the dark side of in-home consumption).145496
Mobile Sensing for Emotion Recognition in Smartphones: A Literature Review on Non-Intrusive Methodologies
No full textThis paper aims to provide the reader with a comprehensive background for understanding current knowledge on the use of non-intrusive Mobile Sensing methodologies for emotion recognition in Smartphone devices. We examined the literature on experimental case studies conducted in the domain during the past six years (2015–2020). Search terms identified 95 candidate articles, but inclusion criteria limited the key studies to 30. We analyzed the research objectives (in terms of targeted emotions), the methodology (in terms of input modalities and prediction models) and the findings (in terms of model performance) of these published papers and categorized them accordingly. We used qualitative methods to evaluate and interpret the findings of the collected studies. The results reveal the main research trends and gaps in the field. The study also discusses the research challenges and considers some practical implications for the design of emotion-aware systems within the context of Distance Education.38111037105
On using CPSV-AP to publish public service descriptions as linked open data
No full textPublic authorities worldwide provide a large number of Public Services (PS) to citizens, businesses and other authorities. In this context, they publish PS catalogues containing descriptions of these services, e.g. about cost, required documents, contact details, etc. Two main challenges in the design of PS catalogues are standardisation and interoperability. To address these challenges, the European Union (EU) has developed the Core Public Service Vocabulary (CPSV), as the proposed EU standard for PS modelling. CPSV-AP is an application profile of CPSV that uses linked data as an underpinning technology to exploit its benefits, e.g. interlinking PS descriptions with each other and with other web of data resources. Despite its potential however, there is only limited research on CPSV-AP use in practice. The aim of this paper is to devise a process for using CPSV-AP and conduct a pilot implementation, using this process, to investigate potential benefits or challenges from CPSV-AP practical usage. In the framework of this pilot implementation, we publish a set of PS descriptions, included in an official PS catalogue, as CPSV-AP compliant linked data. The contribution of this paper is a detailed process for CPSV-AP use in practice and relevant lessons learnt. We anticipate this research will be beneficial to both academics working on PS semantic interoperability and practitioners aiming to migrate existing PS catalogues exploiting CPSV-AP
Online Teaching in the Age of Covid-19: A Case Study at the Merchant Marine Academy’s Engineering School of Macedonia, Seated in Nea Michaniona
No full textThe coronavirus pandemic has affected educational systems around the world, leading most universities to implement distance education. The aim of this research is to investigate the application of online education at the School of Engineering in Michaniona, Thessaloniki during the covid-19 pandemic, according to the attitudes and views of its educators. The survey was conducted at the end of the spring semester of 2020. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used with the tool of a questionnaire with closed and open-ended questions to 32 educators. The findings of the study revealed the problems faced by educators, the modifications they had to make, their view on the quality of the teaching they provided, the limitations of a technical school and their future intentions regarding distance learning.Special Issue: CIE 202191
Pandora’s Rules in the Laboratory
No full textIn theory, search conditions are a key determinant of Pandora’s rule (i.e. of the optimal search pattern), and of the eventual payoffs (Weitzman, 1979; Doval, 2018). We compare different search conditions in the laboratory and find strong evidence that they affect subjects’ order of inspection and payoffs greatly. Subjects are more conservative at the beginning of the search, and earn less if they are constrained to choose only among the inspected alternatives, than if they are not. These findings reinforce the empirical pertinence of the formal search literature, and generate novel insights regarding relevant settings of applied interest (e.g. the impact of market digitization on consumer behavior)25251492151