Search results for: Information & Communication

Authors: Soumia Hebbri

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English language has become a major medium for communication across borders. Nowadays, it is seen as a communicative medium not only for business but also for academic purposes. Some scientists describe English language as a way to enjoy an admired position in many countries. It is neither a national nor an official language in North Africa; it is considered as the most widely taught foreign language at the educational system. In order to achieve mastery of a foreign language, learners must develop the four principal language skills: Reading, writing, listening and speaking. However, being able to interact orally with others, using effectively the target language, is nowadays very important. People who cannot speak a foreign language cannot be considered effective language users, even if they can read and understand it. The teachers’ role in promoting foreign language acquisition is very important, as they are responsible for providing students appropriate contexts to foster communicative situations that allow students to express themselves and interact in the target language. So, we should understand the student’s reasons of their reluctance in oral participation when dealing with oral communicative tasks, in order to get insights about the possible motivating factors that may improve their involvement and participation in the classroom.

Keywords: EL, EFL, ET, TEFL, communication

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Authors: Haowei Chen, Kaiqi Xiong

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This paper aims to answer how malware will propagate in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) and how communication radius and distributed density of nodes affects the process of spreading. The above analysis is essential for devising network-wide strategies to counter malware. We answer these questions by developing an improved dynamical system that models malware propagation in the area where nodes were uniformly distributed. The proposed model captures both the spatial and temporal dynamics regarding the malware spreading process. Equilibrium and stability are also discussed based on the threshold of the system. If the threshold is less than one, the infected nodes disappear, and if the threshold is greater than one, the infected nodes asymptotically stabilize at the endemic equilibrium. Numerical simulations are investigated about communication radius and distributed density of nodes in WMNs, which allows us to draw various insights that can be used to guide security defense.

Keywords: Bluetooth security, malware propagation, wireless mesh networks, stability analysis

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Authors: Gueidi Afef, Gharsellaoui Hamza, Ben Ahmed Samir

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This paper deals with the secret of the continual progression data that new data management solutions have been emerged: The NoSQL databases. They crossed several areas like personalization, profile management, big data in real-time, content management, catalog, view of customers, mobile applications, internet of things, digital communication and fraud detection. Nowadays, these database management systems are increasing. These systems store data very well and with the trend of big data, a new challenge’s store demands new structures and methods for managing enterprise data. The new intelligent machine in the e-learning sector, thrives on more data, so smart machines can learn more and faster. The robotics are our use case to focus on our test. The implementation of NoSQL for Robotics wrestle all the data they acquire into usable form because with the ordinary type of robotics; we are facing very big limits to manage and find the exact information in real-time. Our original proposed approach was demonstrated by experimental studies and running example used as a use case.

Keywords: NoSQL databases, database management systems, robotics, big data

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Authors: Orestis Κ. Efthymiou, Stavros T. Ponis

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In the last decade, a new industrial revolution seems to be emerging, supported -once again- by the rapid advancements of Information Technology in the areas of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication permitting large numbers of intelligent devices, e.g. sensors to communicate with each other and take decisions without any or minimum indirect human intervention. The advent of these technologies have triggered the emergence of a new category of hybrid (cyber-physical) manufacturing systems, combining advanced manufacturing techniques with innovative M2M applications based on the Internet of Things (IoT), under the umbrella term Industry 4.0. Even though the topic of Industry 4.0 has attracted much attention during the last few years, the attempts of providing a systematic literature review of the subject are scarce. In this paper, we present the authors’ initial study of the field with a special focus on the use and applications of Industry 4.0 principles in material handling automations and in-house logistics. Research shows that despite the vivid discussion and attractiveness of the subject, there are still many challenges and issues that have to be addressed before Industry 4.0 becomes standardized and widely applicable.

Keywords: Industry 4.0, internet of things, manufacturing systems, material handling, logistics

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Authors: Sepideh Mohammadi

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Iran is a country that boasts of ethnic diversity, comprising various groups such as Turks, Lors, Arabs, Baluchs, Persians, Kurds, Gliks, Azaris, and Tabaris. The majority of people in Iran are Persians and as such, the Persian language is the official language of the country. However, it is also a common language among different ethnic groups. It is worth noting that there is a longstanding history of coexistence and cultural relations between the Turkic and Lor ethnic groups. The purpose of this article is to study the range of intercultural sensitivities of Turks and Lor peoples to identify the state of intercultural competence and reduce conflicts in the direction of cultural policy. It is important to gain insight into the mutual perceptions of Lor and Turkic people towards each other. Understanding these perceptions can greatly aid in fostering stronger relationships and promoting effective communication between the two ethnic groups. The study employed a qualitative content analysis approach to gather data using a semi-structured interview tool. The participants consisted of ten individuals from the Lor ethnic and ten individuals from the Turk ethnic. According to Milton Bennett's six-stage model, our findings reveal that the Turkish and Lor ethnic groups tend to exhibit higher intercultural sensitivity in the second stage, which consists of defense against differences. Both groups tend to emphasize the differences between them, and the notion of "us and the other" holds significant importance for them. It is important to acknowledge that both the Turk and Lor ethnicities consist of various clans, which significantly shape intercultural relations between them. A common stereotype in this regard is that the Turks of Tabriz province often do not recognize the Turks of other provinces of the country as their own. Moreover, our study indicates that an increase in interaction and communication between the Lor and Turk ethnic groups may lead to a reduction in cultural sensitivities between them.

Keywords: intercultural communication, intercultural sensitivity, Iran, Lor, Turk

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Authors: Rachel S. E. Lim, Winnie L. C. Tan

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Visual literacy is about making meaning through the interaction of images, words, and sounds. Graphic communication students typically develop visual literacy through critique and production of studio-based projects for their portfolios. However, the abrupt switch to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has made it necessary to consider new strategies of visualization and planning to scaffold teaching and learning. This study, therefore, investigated how MIRO, a cloud-based visual collaboration platform, could be used to develop the visual literacy confidence of 30 diploma in graphic communication students attending a graphic design course at a Singapore arts institution. Due to COVID-19, the course was taught fully online throughout a 16-week semester. Guided by Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle, the two lecturers developed students’ engagement with visual literacy concepts through different activities that facilitated concrete experiences, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. Throughout the semester, students create, collaborate, and centralize communication in MIRO with infinite canvas, smart frameworks, a robust set of widgets (i.e., sticky notes, freeform pen, shapes, arrows, smart drawing, emoticons, etc.), and powerful platform capabilities that enable asynchronous and synchronous feedback and interaction. Students then drew upon these multimodal experiences to brainstorm, research, and develop their motion design project. A survey was used to examine students’ perceptions of engagement (E), confidence (C), learning strategies (LS). Using multiple regression, it¬ was found that the use of MIRO helped students develop confidence (C) with visual literacy, which predicted performance score (PS) that was measured against their application of visual literacy to the creation of their motion design project. While students’ learning strategies (LS) with MIRO did not directly predict confidence (C) or performance score (PS), it fostered positive perceptions of engagement (E) which in turn predicted confidence (C). Content analysis of students’ open-ended survey responses about their learning strategies (LS) showed that MIRO provides organization and structure in documenting learning progress, in tandem with establishing standards and expectations as a preparatory ground for generating feedback. With the clarity and sequence of the mentioned conditions set in place, these prerequisites then lead to the next level of personal action for self-reflection, self-directed learning, and time management. The study results show that the affordances of MIRO can develop visual literacy and make up for the potential pitfalls of student isolation, communication, and engagement during online learning. The context of how MIRO could be used by lecturers to orientate students for learning in visual literacy and studio-based projects for future development are discussed.

Keywords: design education, graphic communication, online learning, visual literacy

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Authors: Jacopo Baboni Schilingi

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We here describe the theoretical and philosophical understanding of a long term use and development of algorithmic computer-based tools applied to music composition. The findings of our research lead us to interrogate some specific processes and systems of communication engaged in the discovery of specific cultural artworks: artistic creation in the sono-musical domain. Our hypothesis is that the patterns of auditory learning cannot be only understood in terms of social transmission but would gain to be questioned in the way they rely on various ranges of acoustic stimuli modes of consciousness and how the different types of memories engaged in the percept-action expressive systems of our cultural communities also relies on these shadowy conscious entities we named “Reduced Descriptive Structures”.

Keywords: algorithmic sonic computation, corrected and self-correcting learning patterns in acoustic perception, morphological derivations in sensorial patterns, social unconscious modes of communication

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Authors: M. S. Jimah, A. C. Achuenu, M. Momodu

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Group communications over public infrastructure are prone to a lot of security issues. Existing network protocols like Protocol Independent Multicast Sparse Mode (PIM SM) and Protocol Independent Multicast Dense Mode (PIM DM) do not have inbuilt security features. Therefore, any user or node can easily access the group communication as long as the user can send join message to the source nodes, the source node then adds the user to the network group. In this research, a hybrid method of salting and hashing to encrypt information in the source and stub node was designed, and when stub nodes need to connect, they must have the appropriate key to join the group network. Object oriented analysis design (OOAD) was the methodology used, and the result shows that no extra controlled bandwidth overhead cost was added by encrypting and the hybrid model was more securing than the existing PIM SM, PIM DM and Zhang secure PIM SM.

Keywords: group communications, multicast, PIM SM, PIM DM, encryption

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Authors: Mahdi Alkaeed, Adeel Ehsan

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Enterprise information systems (EIS) act as the backbone of organizations that belong to different domains. These systems not only play a major role in the efficient usage of resources and time but also throw light on the future roadmap for the enterprise. In today's rapidly expanding world of business and technology, enterprise systems from various heterogenous environments have to exchange information at some point, be it within the same organization or between different organizations. This reality strengthens the importance of interoperability between these systems, which is one of the key enablers of systems collaboration. Both information technology infrastructure and business processes have to be aligned with each other to achieve this effect. This will be difficult to attain if traditional tightly coupled architecture is used. Instead, a more loosely coupled service-oriented architecture has to be used. That would enable an effective interoperability level between different EIS. This paper discusses and presents the current work that has been done in the field of EIS interoperability. Along the way, it also discusses the challenges, solutions to tackle those challenges presented in the studied literature, and limitations, if any.

Keywords: enterprise systems interoperability, collaboration and integration, service-based architecture, open system architecture

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Authors: Zhan Panpan, Lu Lan, Sun Yong, He Xiongwen, Yan Dong, Gu Ming

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The function of the two spacecraft docking network, the communication and control of a docking target with various spacecrafts is realized in the space lab data management system. In order to solve the problem of the complex data communication mode between the space lab and various spaceships, and the problem of software reuse caused by non-standard protocol, a data management software system supporting rendezvous and docking with various spaceships has been designed. The software system is based on CCSDS Spcecraft Onboard Interface Service(SOIS). It consists of Software Driver Layer, Middleware Layer and Appliaction Layer. The Software Driver Layer hides the various device interfaces using the uniform device driver framework. The Middleware Layer is divided into three lays, including transfer layer, application support layer and system business layer. The communication of space lab plaform bus and the docking bus is realized in transfer layer. Application support layer provides the inter tasks communitaion and the function of unified time management for the software system. The data management software functions are realized in system business layer, which contains telemetry management service, telecontrol management service, flight status management service, rendezvous and docking management service and so on. The Appliaction Layer accomplishes the space lab data management system defined tasks using the standard interface supplied by the Middleware Layer. On the basis of layered architecture, rendezvous and docking tasks and the rendezvous and docking management service are independent in the software system. The rendezvous and docking tasks will be activated and executed according to the different spaceships. In this way, the communication management functions in the independent flight mode, the combination mode of the manned spaceship and the combination mode of the cargo spaceship are achieved separately. The software architecture designed standard appliction interface for the services in each layer. Different requirements of the space lab can be supported by the use of standard services per layer, and the scalability and flexibility of the data management software can be effectively improved. It can also dynamically expand the number and adapt to the protocol of visiting spaceships. The software system has been applied in the data management subsystem of the space lab, and has been verified in the flight of the space lab. The research results of this paper can provide the basis for the design of the data manage system in the future space station.

Keywords: space lab, rendezvous and docking, data management, software system

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Authors: Muhadam Labolo, Afdal R. Anwar, Sucia Miranti Sipisang

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Electronic Local Finance Management Information System (ELFMIS) is integrated application that was used as a tool for local governments to improve the effectiveness of the implementation of the various areas of financial management regulations. Appropriate With Exceptions Opinion (WDP) of Indonesia Audit Agency (BPK) for local governments Mempawah is a financial management problem that must be improved to avoid mistakes in decision-making. The use of Electronic Local Finance Management Information System (ELFMIS) by Mempawah authority has not yet performed maximally. These problems became the basis for research in measuring the effectiveness LFMIS in Mempawah regency. This research uses an indicator variable for measuring information systems effectiveness proposed by Bodnar. This research made use descriptive with inductive approach. Data collection techniques were mixed from qualitative and quantitative techniques, used questionnaires, interviews and documentation. The obstacles in Local Finance Board (LFB) for the application of ELFMIS such as connection, the quality and quantity of human resources, realization of financial resources, absence of maintenance and another facilities of ELFMIS and verification for financial information.

Keywords: effectiveness, E-LFMIS, finance, local government, system

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Authors: Kuniyoshi Abe

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Bi-conjugate gradient (Bi-CG) is a well-known method for solving linear equations Ax = b, for x, where A is a given n-by-n matrix, and b is a given n-vector. Typically, the dimension of the linear equation is high and the matrix is sparse. A number of hybrid Bi-CG methods such as conjugate gradient squared (CGS), Bi-CG stabilized (Bi-CGSTAB), BiCGStab2, and BiCGstab(l) have been developed to improve the convergence of Bi-CG. Bi-CGSTAB has been most often used for efficiently solving the linear equation, but we have seen the convergence behavior with a long stagnation phase. In such cases, it is important to have Bi-CG coefficients that are as accurate as possible, and the stabilization strategy, which stabilizes the computation of the Bi-CG coefficients, has been proposed. It may avoid stagnation and lead to faster computation. Motivated by a large number of processors in present petascale high-performance computing hardware, the scalability of Krylov subspace methods on parallel computers has recently become increasingly prominent. The main bottleneck for efficient parallelization is the inner products which require a global reduction. The resulting global synchronization phases cause communication overhead on parallel computers. The parallel variants of Krylov subspace methods reducing the number of global communication phases and hiding the communication latency have been proposed. However, the numerical stability, specifically, the convergence speed of the parallel variants of Bi-CGSTAB may become worse than that of the standard Bi-CGSTAB. In this paper, therefore, we compare the convergence speed between the standard Bi-CGSTAB and the parallel variants by numerical experiments and show that the convergence speed of the standard Bi-CGSTAB is faster than the parallel variants. Moreover, we propose the stabilization strategy for the parallel variants.

Keywords: bi-conjugate gradient stabilized method, convergence speed, Krylov subspace methods, linear equations, parallel variant

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Authors: Xueqing Ivy Chen, Christo De Coning

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It is clear from practice that a gap exists between Result-Based Monitoring and Evaluation (RBME) as a discipline, and Knowledge Management (KM) on the other hand. Whereas various government departments have institutionalised these functions, KM and M&E has functioned in isolation from each other in a practical sense in the public sector. It’s therefore necessary to explore the relationship between KM and M&E and the necessity for integration, so that a convergence of these disciplines can be established. An integration of KM and M&E will lead to integration and improvement of evidence-based information and policy decision-making. M&E and KM process models are available but the complementarity between specific process steps of these process models are not exploited. A need exists to clarify the relationships between these functions in order to ensure evidence based information and policy decision-making. This paper will depart from the well-known policy process models, such as the generic model and consider recent on the interface between policy, M&E and KM.

Keywords: result-based monitoring and evaluation, RBME, knowledge management, KM, evident based decision making, public policy, information systems, institutional arrangement

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Authors: Patricia Jiménez, Rafael Corchuelo, Hassan A. Sleiman

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Web mining is gaining importance at an increasing pace. Currently, there are many complementary research topics under this umbrella. Their common theme is that they all focus on applying knowledge discovery techniques to data that is gathered from the Web. Sometimes, these data are relatively easy to gather, chiefly when it comes from server logs. Unfortunately, there are cases in which the data to be mined is the data that is displayed on a web document. In such cases, it is necessary to apply a pre-processing step to first extract the information of interest from the web documents. Such pre-processing steps are performed using so-called information extractors, which are software components that are typically configured by means of rules that are tailored to extracting the information of interest from a web page and structuring it according to a pre-defined schema. Paramount to getting good mining results is that the technique used to extract the source information is exact, which requires to evaluate and compare the different proposals in the literature from an empirical point of view. According to Google Scholar, about 4 200 papers on information extraction have been published during the last decade. Unfortunately, they were not evaluated within a homogeneous framework, which leads to difficulties to compare them empirically. In this paper, we report on an original information extraction evaluation method. Our contribution is three-fold: a) this is the first attempt to provide an evaluation method for proposals that work on semi-structured documents; the little existing work on this topic focuses on proposals that work on free text, which has little to do with extracting information from semi-structured documents. b) It provides a method that relies on statistically sound tests to support the conclusions drawn; the previous work does not provide clear guidelines or recommend statistically sound tests, but rather a survey that collects many features to take into account as well as related work; c) We provide a novel method to compute the performance measures regarding unsupervised proposals; otherwise they would require the intervention of a user to compute them by using the annotations on the evaluation sets and the information extracted. Our contributions will definitely help researchers in this area make sure that they have advanced the state of the art not only conceptually, but from an empirical point of view; it will also help practitioners make informed decisions on which proposal is the most adequate for a particular problem. This conference is a good forum to discuss on our ideas so that we can spread them to help improve the evaluation of information extraction proposals and gather valuable feedback from other researchers.

Keywords: web information extractors, information extraction evaluation method, Google scholar, web

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Authors: Karla Hrbackova, Anna Petr Safrankova, Jakub Hladik

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Machiavellianism as social phenomenon reveals certain methods of communication that man puts in contact with other people in both personal and working life (and work with clients). Especially at the helping-profession students is honesty, openness or low motivation for personal benefit important part of the profession. The aim of a study is to expose intercultural differences influence of Machiavellianism between Czech and Slovak university students and to determine whether these differences manifest themselves differently among students focusing on management and social profession (by helping degrees). The research involved 1120 university students from the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The measurement of Machiavellianism used a test Mach IV. The test contained 20 statements divided into four central dimensions of Machiavellianism: flattery, deception and falsehood, immorality and cynicism. We found out, that Czech and Slovak's student expressed a similar attitude toward Machiavellianism as a means of manipulation in the interpersonal relationship, but this is not true in all dimensions. Czech and Slovak's students perceive differently flattery, deception and falsehood and cynicism too. In addition to specific features of cultural conditionality, we found out differences depending on the helping profession. Students focusing on managerial occupation (lower level of helping) tend towards greater acceptance of the use flattery as a means of communication than students specializing in the social profession (high-grade assisting). If they are an intercultural and interdisciplinary influences combined and effect on the perception of Machiavellianism together, then their significant importance for the perception of flattery and cynicism. The result will help us to reveal certain specific traits that students apply communication and with whom we can continue to work during their training.

Keywords: use of manipulative strategies, Machiavellianism, helping-profession students, professional training of students

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Authors: Djelloul Benatiallah, Ali Benatiallah, Abdelkader Harouz

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Geographic Information Systems (GIS) include various methods and computer techniques to model, capture digitally, store, manage, view and analyze. Geographic information systems have the characteristic to appeal to many scientific and technical field, and many methods. In this article we will present a complete and operational geographic information system, following the theoretical principles of data management and adapting to spatial data, especially data concerning the monitoring of drinking water supply wells (DWS) Adrar region. The expected results of this system are firstly an offer consulting standard features, updating and editing beneficiaries and geographical data, on the other hand, provides specific functionality contractors entered data, calculations parameterized and statistics.

Keywords: GIS, DWS, drilling, Adrar

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Authors: Eyosiyas Aga

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The development of information communication technology has transformed the paper-based mapping and land registration processes to a computerized and networked system. The computerization and networking of real property information system play a vital role in good governance and sustainable development of emerging countries through cost effective, easy and accessible service delivery for the customer. The efficient, transparent and sustainable real property system is becoming the basic infrastructure for the urban development thus improve the data management system and service delivery in the organizations. In Ethiopia, the real property administration is paper based as a result, it confronted problems of data management, illegal transactions, corruptions, and poor service delivery. In order to solve this problem and to facilitate real property market, the implementation of web-based real property updating system is crucial. A web-based real property updating is one of the automation (computerizations) methods to facilitate data sharing, reduce time and cost of the service delivery in real property administration system. In additions, it is useful for the integration of data onto different information systems and organizations. This system is designed by combining open source software which supported by open Geo-spatial consortium. The web-based system is mainly designed by using open source software with the help of open Geo-spatial Consortium. The Open Geo-spatial Consortium standards such as the Web Feature Service and Web Map Services are the most widely used standards to support and improves web-based real property updating. These features allow the integration of data from different sources, and it can be used to maintain consistency of data throughout transactions. The PostgreSQL and Geoserver are used to manage and connect a real property data to the flex viewer and user interface. The system is designed for both internal updating system (municipality); which is mainly updating of spatial and textual information, and the external system (customer) which focus on providing and interacting with the customer. This research assessed the potential of open source web applications and adopted this technology for real property updating system in Ethiopia through simple, cost effective and secured way. The system is designed by combining and customizing open source software to enhance the efficiency of the system in cost effective way. The existing workflow for real property updating is analyzed to identify the bottlenecks, and the new workflow is designed for the system. The requirement is identified through questionnaire and literature review, and the system is prototype for the study area. The research mainly aimed to integrate human resource with technology in designing of the system to reduce data inconsistency and security problems. In additions, the research reflects on the current situation of real property administration and contributions of effective data management system for efficient, transparent and sustainable urban development in Ethiopia.

Keywords: cadaster, real property, sustainable, transparency, web feature service, web map service

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Authors: Yiyang Su, Jörg Neumann, Jan Wetzlich, Florian Thiel

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Smart grid is a term used to describe the next generation power grid. New challenges such as integration of renewable and decentralized energy sources, the requirement for continuous grid estimation and optimization, as well as the use of two-way flows of energy have been brought to the power gird. In order to achieve efficient, reliable, sustainable, as well as secure delivery of electric power more and more information and communication technologies are used for the monitoring and the control of power grids. Consequently, the need for cybersecurity is dramatically increased and has converged into several standards which will be presented here. These standards for the smart grid must be designed to satisfy both performance and reliability requirements. An in depth investigation of the effect of retrospectively embedded security in existing grids on it’s dynamic behavior is required. Therefore, a retrofitting plan for existing meters is offered, and it’s performance in a test low voltage microgrid is investigated. As a result of this, integration of security measures into measurement architectures of smart grids at the design phase is strongly recommended.

Keywords: cyber security, performance, protocols, security standards, smart grid

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Authors: Ana Julia Acevedo Urquiaga, Jose A. Acevedo Suarez, Ana Julia Urquiaga Rodriguez, Neyfe Sablon Cossio

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Despite the progress made in logistics and supply chains fields, it is unavoidable the development of business models that use efficiently information to facilitate the integrated logistics flows management between partners. Collaborative management is an important tool for materializing the cooperation between companies, as a way to achieve the supply chain efficiency and effectiveness. The first face of this research was a comprehensive analysis of the collaborative planning on the Cuban companies. It is evident that they have difficulties in supply chains planning where production, supplies and replenishment planning are independent tasks, as well as logistics and distribution operations. Large inventories generate serious financial and organizational problems for entities, demanding increasing levels of working capital that cannot be financed. Problems were found in the efficient application of Information and Communication Technology on business management. The general objective of this work is to develop a methodology that allows the deployment of a planning and control system in a coordinated way on the medicine’s logistics system in Cuba. To achieve these objectives, several mechanisms of supply chain coordination, mathematical programming models, and other management techniques were analyzed to meet the requirements of collaborative logistics management in Cuba. One of the findings is the practical and theoretical inadequacies of the studied models to solve the current situation of the Cuban logistics systems management. To contribute to the tactical-operative management of logistics, the Collaborative Logistics Flow Management Model (CLFMM) is proposed as a tool for the balance of cycles, capacities, and inventories, always to meet the final customers’ demands in correspondence with the service level expected by these. The CLFMM has as center the supply chain planning and control system as a unique information system, which acts on the processes network. The development of the model is based on the empirical methods of analysis-synthesis and the study cases. Other finding is the demonstration of the use of a single information system to support the supply chain logistics management, allows determining the deadlines and quantities required in each process. This ensures that medications are always available to patients and there are no faults that put the population's health at risk. The simulation of planning and control with the CLFMM in medicines such as dipyrone and chlordiazepoxide, during 5 months of 2017, permitted to take measures to adjust the logistic flow, eliminate delayed processes and avoid shortages of the medicines studied. As a result, the logistics cycle efficiency can be increased to 91%, the inventory rotation would increase, and this results in a release of financial resources.

Keywords: collaborative management, medicine logistic system, supply chain planning, tactical-operative planning

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Authors: Ayesha Akbar

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Public service delivery has witnessed a significant improvement with the integration of information communication technology (ICT). It not only improves management structure with advanced technology for surveillance of service delivery but also provides evidence for informed decisions and policy. Pakistan’s public sector organizations have not been able to produce some good results to ensure service delivery. Notwithstanding, some of the public sector organizations in Pakistan has diffused modern technology and proved their credence by providing better service delivery standards. These good indicators provide sound basis to integrate technology in public sector organizations and shift of policy towards evidence based policy making. Rescue-1122 is a public sector organization which provides emergency services and proved to be a successful model for the provision of service delivery to save human lives and to ensure human development in Pakistan. The information about the organization has been received by employing qualitative research methodology. The information is broadly based on primary and secondary sources which includes Rescue-1122 website, official reports of organizations; UNDP (United Nation Development Program), WHO (World Health Organization) and by conducting 10 in-depth interviews with the high administrative staff of organizations who work in the Lahore offices. The information received has been incorporated with the study for the better understanding of the organization and their management procedures. Rescue-1122 represents a successful model in delivering the services in an efficient way to deal with the disaster management. The management of Rescue has strategized the policies and procedures in such a way to develop a comprehensive model with the integration of technology. This model provides efficient service delivery as well as maintains the standards of the organization. The service delivery model of rescue-1122 works on two fronts; front-office interface and the back-office interface. Back-office defines the procedures of operations and assures the compliance of the staff whereas, front-office equipped with the latest technology and good infrastructure handles the emergency calls. Both ends are integrated with satellite based vehicle tracking, wireless system, fleet monitoring system and IP camera which monitors every move of the staff to provide better services and to pinpoint the distortions in the services. The standard time of reaching to the emergency spot is 7 minutes, and during entertaining the case; driver‘s behavior, traffic volume and the technical assistance being provided to the emergency case is being monitored by front-office. Then the whole information get uploaded to the main dashboard of Lahore headquarter from the provincial offices. The latest technology is being materialized by Rescue-1122 for delivering the efficient services, investigating the flaws; if found, and to develop data to make informed decision making. The other public sector organizations of Pakistan can also develop such models to integrate technology for improving service delivery and to develop evidence for informed decisions and policy making.

Keywords: data, e-governance, evidence, policy

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Authors: Sabri Serkan Güllüoğlu

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Analysis can be defined as the process of gathering, recording and researching data related to products and services, in order to learn something. But for marketers, analyses are not only used for learning but also an essential and critical part of the business, because this allows companies to offer products or services which are focused and well targeted. Market analysis also identify market trends, demographics, customer’s buying habits and important information on the competition. Data mining is used instead of traditional research, because it extracts predictive information about customer and sales from large databases. In contrast to traditional research, data mining relies on information that is already available. Simply the goal is to improve the efficiency of supermarkets. In this study, the purpose is to find dependency on products. For instance, which items are bought together, using association rules in data mining. Moreover, this information will be used for improving the profitability of customers such as increasing shopping time and sales of fewer sold items.

Keywords: data mining, association rule mining, market basket analysis, purchasing

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Authors: Abdullahi Marshal Idris, Murtala Mohammed Alamai, Adama Jummai Idris, Bello Mohammed Gwagwada

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The technological revolution of the 1990s have brought about many new opportunities and challenges for the tourism and hospitality industries mostly in Nigeria and with tourism having global industry information as its life-blood and technology becoming fundamental to the ability of the industry to operate effectively and competitively. The whole system of information technologies is being rapidly diffused throughout the tourism industry and no player will escape information technologies impacts. The paper gives an insight into the importance of destination branding and the application of information technologies and the use of Internet in tourism and hospitality industries in Nigeria giving strategic frameworks, providing analysis of the Internet and its impact on these sectors. It also aims to show how technological innovations and information system can be beneficial for destinations companies like game reserves national parks, and other resorts by using the literature of existing efforts in global industry players as well as documented evidences where recommendations for destinations and companies is made to seek to foster the development of this connection by investing considerable resources in marketing activities on social networks and by reinforcing the trust of users, because credibility and reliability are still critical in this area.

Keywords: branding, marketing, technology, tourism product

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Authors: Michael Lekan-Kehinde, Abimbola Asojo, Bonnie Sanborn

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Good acoustic performance has been identified as one of the critical Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) factors for student learning and development by the National Research Council. Childhood presents the opportunity for children to develop lifelong skills that will support them throughout their adult lives. Acoustic performance of a space has been identified as a factor that can impact language acquisition, concentration, information retention, and general comfort within the environment. Increasingly, students learn by communication between both teachers and fellow students, making speaking and listening crucial. Neurodiversity - while initially coined to describe individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) - widely describes anyone with a different brain process. As the understanding from cognitive and neurosciences increases, the number of people identified as neurodiversity is nearly 30% of the population. This research looks at guidelines and standard for spaces with good acoustical quality and relates it with the experiences of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), their parents, teachers, and educators through a mixed methods approach, including selected case studies interviews, and mixed surveys. The information obtained from these sources is used to determine if selected materials, especially properties relating to sound absorption and reverberation reduction, are equally useful in small, medium sized, and large learning spaces and methodologically approaching. The results describe the potential impact of acoustics on Neurodiverse students, considering factors that determine the complexity of sound in relation to the auditory processing capabilities of ASD students. In conclusion, this research extends the knowledge of how materials selection influences the better development of acoustical environments for autism students.

Keywords: acoustics, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), children, education, learning, learning spaces, materials, neurodiversity, sound

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Authors: Rodríguez Sánchez Carla, Sancho-Esper Franco, Guillen-Davo Marina

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Tourism is one of the most important sectors worldwide since it is an important economic engine for today's society. It is also one of the sectors that most negatively affect the environment in terms of CO₂ emissions due to this expansion. In light of this, airlines are developing Voluntary Carbon Offset (VCO). There is important evidence focused on analyzing the features of these VCO programs and their efficacy in reducing CO₂ emissions, and findings are mixed without a clear consensus. Different research approaches have centered on analyzing factors and consequences of VCO programs, such as economic modelling based on panel data, survey research based on traveler responses or experimental research analyzing customer decisions in a simulated context. This study belongs to the latter group because it tries to understand how different characteristics of an online ticket purchase website affect the willingness of a traveler to choose a sustainable one. The proposed behavioral model is based on several theories, such as the nudge theory, the dual processing ELM and the cognitive dissonance theory. This randomized experiment aims at overcoming previous studies based on self-reported measures that mainly study sustainable behavioral intention rather than actual decision-making. It also complements traditional self-reported independent variables by gathering objective information from an eye-tracking device. This experiment analyzes the influence of two characteristics of the online purchase website: i) the type of information regarding flight CO₂ emissions (quantitative vs. qualitative) and the comparison framework related to the sustainable purchase decision (negative: alternative with more emissions than the average flight of the route vs. positive: alternative with less emissions than the average flight of the route), therefore it is a 2x2 experiment with four alternative scenarios. A pretest was run before the actual experiment to refine the experiment features and to check the manipulations. Afterward, a different sample of students answered the pre-test questionnaire aimed at recruiting the cases and measuring several pre-stimulus measures. One week later, students came to the neurolab at the University setting to be part of the experiment, made their decision regarding online purchases and answered the post-test survey. A final sample of 21 students was gathered. The committee of ethics of the institution approved the experiment. The results show that qualitative information generates more sustainable decisions (less contaminant alternative) than quantitative information. Moreover, evidence shows that subjects are more willing to choose the sustainable decision to be more ecological (comparison of the average with the less contaminant alternative) rather than to be less contaminant (comparison of the average with the more contaminant alternative). There are also interesting differences in the information processing variables from the eye tracker. Both the total time to make the choice and the specific times by area of interest (AOI) differ depending on the assigned scenario. These results allow for a better understanding of the factors that condition the decision of a traveler to be part of a VCO program and provide useful information for airline managers to promote these programs to reduce environmental impact.

Keywords: voluntary carbon offset, airline, online purchase, carbon emission, sustainability, randomized experiment

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Authors: Shankaran Sitarama

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New Product Development involves team members coming together and working in teams to come up with innovative solutions to problems, resulting in new products. Thus, a core attribute of a successful NPD team is their creativity and innovation. They need to be creative as a group, generating a breadth of ideas and innovative solutions that solve or address the problem they are targeting and meet the user’s needs. They also need to be very efficient in their teamwork as they work through the various stages of the development of these ideas, resulting in a POC (proof-of-concept) implementation or a prototype of the product. There are two distinctive traits that the teams need to have, one is ideational creativity, and the other is effective and efficient teamworking. There are multiple types of tensions that each of these traits cause in the teams, and these tensions reflect in the team dynamics. Ideational conflicts arising out of debates and deliberations increase the collective knowledge and affect the team creativity positively. However, the same trait of challenging each other’s viewpoints might lead the team members to be disruptive, resulting in interpersonal tensions, which in turn lead to less than efficient teamwork. Teams that foster and effectively manage these creative tensions are successful, and teams that are not able to manage these tensions show poor team performance. In this paper, it explore these tensions as they result in the team communication social network and propose a Creative Tension Balance index along the lines of Degree of Balance in social networks that has the potential to highlight the successful (and unsuccessful) NPD teams. Team communication reflects the team dynamics among team members and is the data set for analysis. The emails between the members of the NPD teams are processed through a semantic analysis algorithm (LSA) to analyze the content of communication and a semantic similarity analysis to arrive at a social network graph that depicts the communication amongst team members based on the content of communication. This social network is subjected to traditional social network analysis methods to arrive at some established metrics and structural balance analysis metrics. Traditional structural balance is extended to include team interaction pattern metrics to arrive at a creative tension balance metric that effectively captures the creative tensions and tension balance in teams. This CTB (Creative Tension Balance) metric truly captures the signatures of successful and unsuccessful (dissonant) NPD teams. The dataset for this research study includes 23 NPD teams spread out over multiple semesters and computes this CTB metric and uses it to identify the most successful and unsuccessful teams by classifying these teams into low, high and medium performing teams. The results are correlated to the team reflections (for team dynamics and interaction patterns), the team self-evaluation feedback surveys (for teamwork metrics) and team performance through a comprehensive team grade (for high and low performing team signatures).

Keywords: team dynamics, social network analysis, new product development teamwork, structural balance, NPD teams

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Authors: Jong-Hwa Kim, Mu-Wook Pyeon, Yang-dam Eo, Ill-Woong Jang

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Construction of geo-spatial information recently tends to develop as multi-dimensional geo-spatial information. People constructing spatial information is also expanding its area to the general public from some experts. As well as, studies are in progress using a variety of devices, with the aim of near real-time update. In this paper, getting the stereo images using GoPro device used widely also to the general public as well as experts. And correcting the distortion of the images, then by using SIFT, DLT, is acquired the point clouds. It presented a possibility that on the basis of this experiment, using a video device that is readily available in real life, to create a real-time digital map.

Keywords: GoPro, SIFT, DLT, point clouds

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Authors: Diane Prorak, Perri Moreno

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University students may have been born in the digital age, but they need to be taught the critical thinking skills to detect misinformation and social media manipulation online. In recent years, librarians have been active in designing instructional methods to help students learn information evaluation skills. At the University of Idaho Library (USA), librarians have developed new teaching methods for these skills. Last academic year, when classes were taught via Zoom, librarians taught these skills to an online session of each first-year rhetoric and composition course. In the Zoom sessions, students were placed in breakout groups where they practiced using an evaluation method known as lateral reading. Online collaborative software was used to give each group an evaluative task and break the task into steps. Groups reported back to the full class. Students learned to look at an information source, then search outside the source to find information about the organization, publisher or author, before evaluating the source itself. Class level pre-and post-test comparison results showed students learned better techniques for evaluation than they knew before instruction.

Keywords: critical thinking, information evaluation, information literacy instruction, lateral reading.

Procedia PDF Downloads 181

Authors: Prashanth Pillai, Purnaprajna Mangsuli

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Oil exploration and production companies invest considerable time and efforts to extract essential well attributes (like well status, surface, and target coordinates, wellbore depths, event timelines, etc.) from unstructured data sources like technical reports, which are often non-standardized, multimodal, and highly domain-specific by nature. It is also important to consider the context when extracting attribute values from reports that contain information on multiple wells/wellbores. Moreover, semantically similar information may often be depicted in different data syntax representations across multiple pages and document sources. We propose a hierarchical multi-source fact extraction workflow based on a deep learning framework to extract essential well attributes at scale. An information retrieval module based on the transformer architecture was used to rank relevant pages in a document source utilizing the page image embeddings and semantic text embeddings. A question answering framework utilizingLayoutLM transformer was used to extract attribute-value pairs incorporating the text semantics and layout information from top relevant pages in a document. To better handle context while dealing with multi-well reports, we incorporate a dynamic query generation module to resolve ambiguities. The extracted attribute information from various pages and documents are standardized to a common representation using a parser module to facilitate information comparison and aggregation. Finally, we use a probabilistic approach to fuse information extracted from multiple sources into a coherent well record. The applicability of the proposed approach and related performance was studied on several real-life well technical reports.

Keywords: natural language processing, deep learning, transformers, information retrieval

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Authors: R. M. Bashir, Sabo Elizabeth

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Electronic learning is an increasingly popular learning approach in higher educational institutions due to vast growth of internet technology. An investigation on the assessment of e-learning facilities and information need by open and distance learning students in Jalingo, Nigeria was conducted. Structured questionnaires were administered to 70 students of the university. Information sourced from the respondents covered demographic, economic and institutional variables. Data collected for demographic variables were computed as frequency count and percentages. Information on assessment of e-learning facilities and information need among open and distance learning students was computed on a three or four point Likert Rating Scale. Findings indicated that there are more men compared to women, a large proportion of the respondents are married and there are more matured students. A high proportion of the students obtained qualifications higher than the secondary school certificate. The proportion of computer literate students was higher compared with those students that owned a computer. Inadequate e-books and reference materials, internet gadgets and inadequate books (hard copies) and reference material are factors that limit utilization of e-learning facilities. Inadequate computer facilities caused delay in examination schedule at the study center. Open and distance learning students required to a high extent information on university timetable and schedule of activities, books (hard and e-books) and reference materials and contact with course coordinators via internet for better learning and academic performance.

Keywords: open and distance learning, information required, electronic books, internet gadgets, Likert scale test

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Authors: Asma Moomal, Maslin Masrom

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The literature has identified that the competition among the business firms has been intensified due to the change in operating environment such as; knowledge diffusion, amount of R&D investments, and the adoption of technological innovation. Correspondingly, the E-business has potential to add a higher value to business and consumers in developed countries than in developing countries. However, the technological innovation (such as e-readiness) also considered as the major influential element on the firms competitiveness and development, Yet most of the developing countries including Pakistan failed to reap the benefits offered by modern information and communication technologies adoption (e-readiness), e-business and other innovative technologies. Thus, this paper reviewed the relevant literature in order to examine the barriers to the adoption of e-readiness and e-business in the organizations of Pakistan. The data collection technique used in this study was done through the secondary data resources (i.e. the existing literature analysis). The result of the study reveals that the most of the organizations of Pakistan like other developing countries are lagging behind in terms of adoption of e-readiness and e-business as compared to the developed countries of the world.

Keywords: e-readiness, e-business, potential, technological innovation

Procedia PDF Downloads 523