Further Quests for Value Added Products and Services in Mobile Commerce

The introduction and the development of m-commerce will be a major challenge, as the cost of 3G licenses in several EU countries appears already in the initial stages to be out of proportion. And it seems clear that without real substance in m-commerce products and services the investments in the new mobile technology may still fail. Yet, not much is known about what actually will be the m-commerce products and services. Here we will propose to build them around value-added product and service modules, some of which are going to be completely new as we can take advantage of the new mobile technology. We will argue that value-added products and services can (should) be built around smart/intelligent technologies, which would be part of the products and/or services themselves or form support systems for (i) the users, (ii) the producers and (iii) the management of m-commerce products and services. Some of the needed technologies are already available, and we can readily implement them for the coming prototypes of the new 3G-based systems

The business Challenges In Communicating, Mobile Or Otherwise

This survey paper analyses some of the fundamental economic and management science issues concerning the communications and information economy ,with special emphasis on mobile communications. Are first highlighted major trends such as the balkanisation of the communications networks , and the advent of competitive tariffs. This leads to a move away from time and distance based charges to tariffs covering bandwidth, service , and contents use. It is noted that very few resources have gone into the analysis of that sector and its inter-relations with others. The paper advocates for more visibility and research into the unique aspects of the communications and information sector. It does so by making an inventory of key economics ,management, and computational economics research issues in need of contributions, selected from the following areas: public communications infrastructure and tariffing principles, sales of communications services, public access and equal access policies, competitive access pricing, communications industry finance, engineering-economic studies, information contents and macroeconomic issues. Finally , the specific aspects of models of the communications and media sector are addressed in view of modelling work. This includes variables, pricing and production models for both communications and information contents . The most unique contribution is here a formal model for quantifying and pricing knowledge , both for consumption and for assets building .telecommunications;mobile communications;tariffs;knowledge bases;public access;content

The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019

An inclusive, digitally-enabled agricultural transformation could help achieve meaningful livelihood improvements for Africa’s smallholder farmers and pastoralists. It could drive greater engagement in agriculture from women and youth and create employment opportunities along the value chain. At CTA we staked a claim on this power of digitalisation to more systematically transform agriculture early on. Digitalisation, focusing on not individual ICTs but the application of these technologies to entire value chains, is a theme that cuts across all of our work. In youth entrepreneurship, we are fostering a new breed of young ICT ‘agripreneurs’. In climate-smart agriculture multiple projects provide information that can help towards building resilience for smallholder farmers. And in women empowerment we are supporting digital platforms to drive greater inclusion for women entrepreneurs in agricultural value chains

Resource Allocation and Service Management in Next Generation 5G Wireless Networks

The accelerated evolution towards next generation networks is expected to dramatically increase mobile data traffic, posing challenging requirements for future radio cellular communications. User connections are multiplying, whilst data hungry content is dominating wireless services putting significant pressure on network's available spectrum. Ensuring energy-efficient and low latency transmissions, while maintaining advanced Quality of Service (QoS) and high standards of user experience are of profound importance in order to address diversifying user prerequisites and ensure superior and sustainable network performance. At the same time, the rise of 5G networks and the Internet of Things (IoT) evolution is transforming wireless infrastructure towards enhanced heterogeneity, multi-tier architectures and standards, as well as new disruptive telecommunication technologies. The above developments require a rethinking of how wireless networks are designed and operate, in conjunction with the need to understand more holistically how users interact with the network and with each other. In this dissertation, we tackle the problem of efficient resource allocation and service management in various network topologies under a user-centric approach. In the direction of ad-hoc and self-organizing networks where the decision making process lies at the user level, we develop a novel and generic enough framework capable of solving a wide array of problems with regards to resource distribution in an adaptable and multi-disciplinary manner. Aiming at maximizing user satisfaction and also achieve high performance - low power resource utilization, the theory of network utility maximization is adopted, with the examined problems being formulated as non-cooperative games. The considered games are solved via the principles of Game Theory and Optimization, while iterative and low complexity algorithms establish their convergence to steady operational outcomes, i.e., Nash Equilibrium points. This thesis consists a meaningful contribution to the current state of the art research in the field of wireless network optimization, by allowing users to control multiple degrees of freedom with regards to their transmission, considering mobile customers and their strategies as the key elements for the amelioration of network's performance, while also adopting novel technologies in the resource management problems. First, multi-variable resource allocation problems are studied for multi-tier architectures with the use of femtocells, addressing the topic of efficient power and/or rate control, while also the topic is examined in Visible Light Communication (VLC) networks under various access technologies. Next, the problem of customized resource pricing is considered as a separate and bounded resource to be optimized under distinct scenarios, which expresses users' willingness to pay instead of being commonly implemented by a central administrator in the form of penalties. The investigation is further expanded by examining the case of service provider selection in competitive telecommunication markets which aim to increase their market share by applying different pricing policies, while the users model the selection process by behaving as learning automata under a Machine Learning framework. Additionally, the problem of resource allocation is examined for heterogeneous services where users are enabled to dynamically pick the modules needed for their transmission based on their preferences, via the concept of Service Bundling. Moreover, in this thesis we examine the correlation of users' energy requirements with their transmission needs, by allowing the adaptive energy harvesting to reflect the consumed power in the subsequent information transmission in Wireless Powered Communication Networks (WPCNs). Furthermore, in this thesis a fresh perspective with respect to resource allocation is provided assuming real life conditions, by modeling user behavior under Prospect Theory. Subjectivity in decisions of users is introduced in situations of high uncertainty in a more pragmatic manner compared to the literature, where they behave as blind utility maximizers. In addition, network spectrum is considered as a fragile resource which might collapse if over-exploited under the principles of the Tragedy of the Commons, allowing hence users to sense risk and redefine their strategies accordingly. The above framework is applied in different cases where users have to select between a safe and a common pool of resources (CPR) i.e., licensed and unlicensed bands, different access technologies, etc., while also the impact of pricing in protecting resource fragility is studied. Additionally, the above resource allocation problems are expanded in Public Safety Networks (PSNs) assisted by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), while also aspects related to network security against malign user behaviors are examined. Finally, all the above problems are thoroughly evaluated and tested via a series of arithmetic simulations with regards to the main characteristics of their operation, as well as against other approaches from the literature. In each case, important performance gains are identified with respect to the overall energy savings and increased spectrum utilization, while also the advantages of the proposed framework are mirrored in the improvement of the satisfaction and the superior Quality of Service of each user within the network. Lastly, the flexibility and scalability of this work allow for interesting applications in other domains related to resource allocation in wireless networks and beyond

Towards personalized data-driven bundle design with QoS constraint

Singapore National Research Foundation under its International Research Centre @ Singapore Funding Initiativ

The business Challenges In Communicating, Mobile Or Otherwise

This survey paper analyses some of the fundamental economic and management science issues concerning the communications and information economy ,with special emphasis on mobile communications. Are first highlighted major trends such as the balkanisation of the communications networks , and the advent of competitive tariffs. This leads to a move away from time and distance based charges to tariffs covering bandwidth, service , and contents use. It is noted that very few resources have gone into the analysis of that sector and its inter-relations with others. The paper advocates for more visibility and research into the unique aspects of the communications and information sector. It does so by making an inventory of key economics ,management, and computational economics research issues in need of contributions, selected from the following areas: public communications infrastructure and tariffing principles, sales of communications services, public access and equal access policies, competitive access pricing, communications industry finance, engineering-economic studies, information contents and macroeconomic issues. Finally , the specific aspects of models of the communications and media sector are addressed in view of modelling work. This includes variables, pricing and production models for both communications and information contents . The most unique contribution is here a formal model for quantifying and pricing knowledge , both for consumption and for assets building

A theoretical and computational basis for CATNETS

The main content of this report is the identification and definition of market mechanisms for Application Layer Networks (ALNs). On basis of the structured Market Engineering process, the work comprises the identification of requirements which adequate market mechanisms for ALNs have to fulfill. Subsequently, two mechanisms for each, the centralized and the decentralized case are described in this document. These build the theoretical foundation for the work within the following two years of the CATNETS project. --Grid Computing

Investigating the roles of Fascin and Rac1 in cell migration, invasion and metastasis

Cell migration and invasion is a central process in embryonic development, wound healing and immune responses. Errors during this process have serious consequences, including mental retardation, vascular disease, tumor formation and metastasis. An understanding of the mechanism by which cells migrate and invade may lead to the development of novel therapeutic strategies for controlling, for example, cancer metastasis. Fascin is an actin-bundling protein involved in filopodia assembly and cancer invasion and metastasis of multiple epithelial cancer types. In this thesis, I have investigated the role of fascin in invadopodia formation, which are invasive finger-like protrusions that cancer cells use to invade into and degrade extracellular matrix. I demonstrated that fascin and its actin bundling activity are required for the assembly of the actin cytoskeleton at invadopodia as well as for the degradation of matrix. Fascin is a very stable component of invadopodia and its presence enhance the stability of actin structures at invadopodia. Furthermore, fascin is required for invasive migration into collagen I-Matrigel gels particularly in cell types that use an elongated mesenchymal type of motility in 3D. These data provide a potential molecular mechanism for how fascin increases the invasiveness of cancer cells. During embryogenesis, melanoblasts proliferate and migrate ventrally through the developing dermis and epidermis as single cells. In the second part of this thesis, I examined the importance of small Rho GTPase Rac1 on melanoblast migration during development. I demonstrate that targeted deletion of Rac1 in the melanoblasts of developing mice causes defects in migration, cell cycle progression and cytokinesis. Rac1 null cells migrate markedly less efficiently, but surprisingly global steering, crossing the dermal/epidermal junction andhoming to hair follicles are normal. Melanoblasts navigate in the epidermis using two classes of protrusion: short stubs and long pseudopods. Short stubs are driven by actin assembly, but unexpectedly are independent of Rac1, Arp2/3 complex, myosin or microtubules. Rac1 positively regulates the frequency of initiation of long pseudopods, which promote migration speed and directional flexibility. Scar/WAVE and Arp2/3 complex drive actin assembly for long pseudopod extension, which is also microtubule dependent. Myosin contractility balances the extension of long pseudopods by effecting retraction and allowing force generation for movement through the complex 3D epidermal environment. In addition, I demonstrated that expression of activated N-Ras did not affect migration and proliferation of melanoblast during embryogensis. However, Rac1 is required for constitutively active N- Ras induced dermal melanocytes survival in mice