Forensic examination of electronic signatures: A comparative study

The writing of names or signatures has great importance due to its use in authentication, validation, and authorization of documents. Moreover, handwritten signatures present an aura of personality and make an impression on many people. But now, with the emergence of new technologies, a variety of electronic writing media such as digital tablets and pens are being used to produce writings and signatures; and the conventional way to produce the writing using pen and paper is waning. With the changing ways of writing and signature production, the means of producing forged writing or signature are also bound to change. This has brought new challenges for handwriting examiners. In the present study, a comparative analysis of electronically captured signatures with pen-paper signatures has been performed to study the effect of changes in writing media. Signature samples were taken from the same subjects on paper and electronic pads. The similarities and differences with respect to class and line quality features between both signatures were analysed. It was observed that despite differences between the signatures produced by the same author, it is still possible to establish the authorship of signatures in the case of electronic signatures.

Texting Behaviors of Individuals With Chronic Aphasia: A Descriptive Study

Purpose In today's digital world, text messaging is one of the most widely used ways that people stay connected. Although it is reported that people with aphasia experience difficulties with texting, little information is available about how they actually do text. This study reports texting behaviors, such as the number and type of messages sent and contacts individuals with aphasia have. The relationships between texting behaviors and aphasia severity, including writing impairments, and social connectedness are explored. Method Twenty participants were sampled from an ongoing randomized clinical trial investigating an electronic writing treatment for aphasia (Clinical Trials Identifier: NCT03773419). Participants provided consent for researchers to view and analyze texts sent and received over a 7-day period immediately prior to the assessment. Participants' text messages were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded. Results Over the 7-day period, the number of contacts with whom participants texted ranged from one to 18. The mean number of text messages exchanged was 40.3 ( SD = 48.24), with participants sending an average of 15.4 ( SD = 23.45) texts and receiving an average of 24.9 ( SD = 29.44) texts. Participants varied in the types of texts sent; some had a larger proportion of initiated texts, while others drafted more responses, either simple or elaborative in nature. There was no correlation between the total number of texting exchanges and the Western Aphasia Battery–Revised Aphasia Quotient ( r s = .13, p = . 29) or the Western Aphasia Battery–Revised Writing subtest ( r s = .05, p = .42). There was also no correlation between the total number of texting exchanges and scores on measures of social connectedness. Conclusions Texting behaviors of individuals with aphasia are widely variable. Demographics, severity of aphasia and writing, and social connectedness may not predict texting behaviors. Therefore, it is clinically important to explore the unique texting abilities and preferences of each individual to meet their communication and social participation goals. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14669664

Electronic Writing System in the Karelian Language

Karelian writing is developing not only in writing and print, but also in electronic space. The paper is devoted to Karelian writing developing in electronic space at the present time. Research suggests that the use of the Karelian language on the Internet contributes to the development of its functionality and increases the interest to the language on all network users.

Matrices and Metaverses

The final chapter examines post-War American fiction and the imaginative connection forged, in theory and in fiction, between hieroglyphs and code, computers, and electronic writing. It contends that the association of hieroglyphs with universal languages and mixtures of media gets passed down to the newest of new media, digital code. From the postmodern novels of Thomas Pynchon through the literary-inflected sci-fi of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, from the Afro-Futurist works of Ishmael Reed to the mass market novels of Dan Brown, this pairing of hieroglyphs and digital code recurs across genre and style. By linking code with Egyptian writing, these writers emphasize the performativity of their language; just as code can create a simulation of reality, so words can call characters and settings into being.

Machines of Disquiet: Textual Experience in the LdoD Archive

The work Machines of Disquiet (http://mofd.dei.uc.pt) has been developed in the context of an ongoing research project whose goal is to create a dynamic digital archive of the Book of Disquiet, an unfinished work written by Fernando Pessoa between 1913 and 1935 (LdoD Archive, 2017, https://ldod.uc.pt/). This paper intends to show the workings of Machines of Disquiet in experiencing Fernando Pessoa’s text as electronic literature. We start by showing the rationale of the LdoD Archive, followed by a discussion of the Machines of Disquiet as both electronic writing and gameplay experiment, before moving on to a demonstration of the various types of machines. We conclude by describing these textual experiments as an opening up of the Book of Disquiet to further acts of writing.