The current development of the Internet and its growing use make it necessary to satisfy the needs of users with disabilities. The primary objective of this study is to examine healthcare-related websites in nine European countries in order to evaluate the status of their accessibility. Such a detailed statistical comparison has not yet been made in Europe, especially as the present study offers a dual measurement system combining both the application of automated testing software and statistical analysis of user feedback. The study compares 48 websites from Eastern Europe with 51 sites from Western and Northern Europe. The research phase was performed in three steps: firstly by using AChecker, secondly by Nibbler and subsequently followed by user feedback questionnaires evaluated by a group of experts. The overall goal of this study is to determine the most common accessibility problems and to draw site owners’ attention to shortcomings so that they can improve the quality of service of their healthcare-related sites in the future. The investigated European websites are grouped into Eastern and Western–Northern countries. We compared our results from different perspectives and ascertained that no significant differences can be established between the two groups predicated on their respective economic situations. Equally, no correlations were observed while comparing the sizes of web pages in Kbytes, the number of barriers and their Nibbler accessibility scores. Furthermore, there appears to be no correlation between the results of the software tests and the percentage of the elderly population in the respective country.
24 July 2018 in Central European Journal of Operations Research
In this study, the effectiveness and characteristics of three ranking methods were investigated based on their performance in ranking European football teams. The investigated methods were the Thurstone method with ties, the analytic hierarchy process with logarithmic least squares method, and the RankNet neural network. The methods were analyzed in both complete and incomplete comparison tasks. The ranking based on complete comparison was performed on match results of national leagues, where each team had match results against all the other teams. In the incomplete comparison case, in addition to the national league results, only a few match results from international cups were available to determine the aggregated ranking of the teams playing in the top five European leagues. The rankings produced by the ranking methods were compared with each other, with the official national rankings, and with the UEFA club coefficient rankings. In addition, the correlation between the aggregated rankings and the Transfermarkt financial ranking was also examined for the sake of interest.
The interaction time of students who did spatial ability tests in a virtual reality environment is analyzed. The spatial ability test completion times of 240 and 61 students were measured. A desktop display as well as the Gear VR were used by the former group and by the latter one, respectively. Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the relationship between the probability of correct answers and completion times, while linear regression was used to evaluate effects and interactions of following factors on test completion times: the users’ gender and primary hand, test type and device used. The findings were that while the completion times are not significantly affected by the users’ primary hand, other factors have significant effects on them: they are decreased by the male gender in itself, while they are increased by solving Mental Rotation Tests or by using the Gear VR. The largest significant increment in interaction time in virtual reality during spatial ability tests is when Mental Rotation Tests are accomplished by males with the Gear VR, while the largest significant decrease in interaction time is when Mental Cutting Tests are completed with a desktop display.