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- Quantitative analysis of PIN choices: a contribution to the establishment of authentication requirementsPublication . Carvalho, José Carlos; Sá, Vítor; Magalhães, Maria José; Magalhães, Sérgio Tenreiro deThe authentication using a PIN number remains one of the most used ways to enter a system (mobile phone, ATM, etc.). Many people seem to dislike this form of authentication because they simply despise their use, placing unsafe PINs just because they have to put some. Some relevant results are the combination 1234, thecombinations using only one digit (example: 1111), or the central line of the numerical keypad. On the other hand there is some understanding because it is proven that remember strong passwords is a difficult task for humans, and the tendency is to choose the simplest ones. This research had a sample of 497 participants and aimed to understand the preferred choice of the participants in relation to the number of digits used for a PIN number (a choice between four and/or six digits) and realized the amount of times that each of the available digits was used. To this end it was developed a web-based tool for entering the data. This application was intended only to the data collection process, being the information processed further. Through this application, the user was asked to enter four and/or six-digit PINs. The method does not raise any doubt on the participants, which were informed about the anonymity and confidentiality of the data, and never they were asked to identify themselves. Participants were asked to use the PINs that they normally use in other contexts. With the analysis of the data it was possible to understand the distribution of digits per position in a PIN, check which digits is more/less used in each position, and check which digit is more/less used regardless of its position. Among the conclusions it appears that the layout of the numeric keypad of the system influence the PIN choice.
- Establishment of automatization as a requirement for time management input modules in project management information systems for academic activities – a game theory approachPublication . Magalhães, Sérgio Tenreiro de; Magalhães, Maria José; Sá, Vítor J.Academics are expected to engage in several works in several different domains, namely research and development, general management and services to the community, while lecturing a set of courses. Academics might differ in their preference for some of these activities and also in their corresponding performance. Quality assurance in academic institutions implies monitoring performance, what is frequently done by measuring a set of quantitative results at the end of a certain period. Project Management best practices can change this frequent practice, introducing, for instance, the concept of cost efficiency, allowing for objective comparisons between different types of activities. For this to happen there is a need to monitor the time spent by each academic in each activities or, at least, in each set of activities of the same type. The challenge is to know how to do that. Game Theory has been studying decision making in competitive environment, which is increasingly the case in academic institutions. Therefore, there is a primary need to verify if a relevant percentage of the academics have a perception that there is an incentive to lie in their timesheets, due to competitive thinking. This paper presents a pilot study that allowed concluding that time management input modules in project management information systems for academic activities must be automated, eliminating the human factor in timesheet fillings.
- Enrollment time as a requirement for biometric hand recognition systemsPublication . Carvalho, João; Sá, Vítor J.; Magalhães, Sérgio Tenreiro de; Santos, HenriqueBiometric systems are increasingly being used as a means for authentication to provide system security in modern technologies. The performance of a biometric system depends on the accuracy, the processing speed, the template size, and the time necessary for enrollment. While much research has focused on the first three factors, enrollment time has not received as much attention. In this work, we present the findings of our research focused upon studying user’s behavior when enrolling in a biometric system. Specifically, we collected information about the user’s availability for enrollment in respect to the hand recognition systems (e.g., hand geometry, palm geometry or any other requiring positioning the hand on an optical scanner). A sample of 19 participants, chosen randomly apart their age, gender, profession and nationality, were used as test subjects in an experiment to study the patience of users enrolling in a biometric hand recognition system.
- Evaluation of the Armed Forces Websites of the European CountriesPublication . Pedro, Cunha; Parcídio, Gonçalves; Sá, Vítor J.; Magalhães, Sérgio Tenreiro de; Miguel, PimentaThe armed forces are a critical component of the national security strategy of several European countries. Despite the peace that has succeeded the cold war, several armies, in peacetime, have elements recruited with promises of individual opportunities. The countries have two forms of recruitment of their troops: by volunteering or by mandatory incorporation. Following the trends of the modern world, interconnected in a network, it becomes essential to the institutions to mark their presence on the Internet. The Armed Forces in their various branches are no exception; there are numerous sites with relevant information, being used as a channel for dissemination and fundraising. Since young people represent a large share of the population using the Internet, and this is the target population for recruitment, it becomes mandatory to use the internet as a communication channel between them. It was carried out a qualitative study of all sites of European armed forces, and their branches, in order to assess their quality and differences. The approach focused on the evaluation of sites for their ability to inform, update, quantity and quality of content, service availability, use and visual attractiveness, and ease of communication. The study has also tried to verify if the countries with volunteer incorporation were producing websites with higher levels of quality, reflecting the need to invest in order to recruit. On the other hand, countries with compulsive incorporation could have lower investments in their websites, once the satisfaction of the need for staff is guarantied. We considered 38 countries, with an initial usability study where data about the characteristics considered important for proper construction of a website as well as for a good and easy relationship with the user of this type of site were collected. This research defined the parameters to evaluate the sites and groups were created with the parameters of the different areas of analysis of those sites. The evaluation shows that there are differences in quality of sites for each of the countries evaluated in terms of graphics, usability and content, and that where there is a greater difference between the countries is on the number of existing sites by country. It is clear that there are countries that invest strategically in this area while others do not. It was also clear that there is a difference between Eastern and Western Europe in the quality and investment made in the sites of their armed forces. Dividing the countries by their incorporation system, the differences are smaller, both in terms of number of sites for the military, either as to the average assessment of each scheme. In countries where the incorporation is mandatory, investment in independent sites for each branch has not been neglected for a considerable part of the countries, a little more than half. But it is in countries where recruitment is made on a voluntary basis that there are more sites for the different branches, which may indicate an existing competitiveness for staff recruitment.