16,131 research outputs found

    The Metaverse: Survey, Trends, Novel Pipeline Ecosystem & Future Directions

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    The Metaverse offers a second world beyond reality, where boundaries are non-existent, and possibilities are endless through engagement and immersive experiences using the virtual reality (VR) technology. Many disciplines can benefit from the advancement of the Metaverse when accurately developed, including the fields of technology, gaming, education, art, and culture. Nevertheless, developing the Metaverse environment to its full potential is an ambiguous task that needs proper guidance and directions. Existing surveys on the Metaverse focus only on a specific aspect and discipline of the Metaverse and lack a holistic view of the entire process. To this end, a more holistic, multi-disciplinary, in-depth, and academic and industry-oriented review is required to provide a thorough study of the Metaverse development pipeline. To address these issues, we present in this survey a novel multi-layered pipeline ecosystem composed of (1) the Metaverse computing, networking, communications and hardware infrastructure, (2) environment digitization, and (3) user interactions. For every layer, we discuss the components that detail the steps of its development. Also, for each of these components, we examine the impact of a set of enabling technologies and empowering domains (e.g., Artificial Intelligence, Security & Privacy, Blockchain, Business, Ethics, and Social) on its advancement. In addition, we explain the importance of these technologies to support decentralization, interoperability, user experiences, interactions, and monetization. Our presented study highlights the existing challenges for each component, followed by research directions and potential solutions. To the best of our knowledge, this survey is the most comprehensive and allows users, scholars, and entrepreneurs to get an in-depth understanding of the Metaverse ecosystem to find their opportunities and potentials for contribution

    Success factors in IT Outsourcing

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    Abstract. To survive and respond to the everchanging business world companies are seeking new ways to concentrate and improve core competencies, as well as improve their competitive status against the market. Companies are exploring how to exploit the core competencies of other companies. The goals of the partnership might differ depending on the scope of the partnership. The goal might be one or many of the following: cost reduction, access to higher quality service, access to technology and/or know-how. Even if the first IT outsourcing was done around 30 years ago by Eastman Kodak and General Dynamics and the area has been studied quite heavily, the topic seems to be still difficult for companies to grasp the wanted benefits. As the IT outsourcing is widely used option in the business world and the results are not firm, I feel the topic is still relevant to study. The research question for the study is: “What factors affect the success of IT outsourcing relationship?” The research question is answered through the literature review. From the literature review eleven high level success factors can be identified. In some cases, some factors are combined. The success factors are Cost and Quality, Trust, Alignment to business strategy, Culture, Communication, Contracts, Strategic Partnership, Governance, Management support, Infrastructure, and Know-how. How important each individual factors are in outsourcing engagement in question depends on the sort of the partnership. The theoretical implications are very limited, but the practical implications regarding communication, trust and governance should be considered when companies enter IT outsourcing partnerships. Putting an emphasis on setting up proper governance functions and people who are good at communicating with the other party will pay the efforts back in success of the relationship

    Implementing Health Impact Assessment as a Required Component of Government Policymaking: A Multi-Level Exploration of the Determinants of Healthy Public Policy

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    It is widely understood that the public policies of ‘non-health’ government sectors have greater impacts on population health than those of the traditional healthcare realm. Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a decision support tool that identifies and promotes the health benefits of policies while also mitigating their unintended negative consequences. Despite numerous calls to do so, the Ontario government has yet to implement HIA as a required component of policy development. This dissertation therefore sought to identify the contexts and factors that may both enable and impede HIA use at the sub-national (i.e., provincial, territorial, or state) government level. The three integrated articles of this dissertation provide insights into specific aspects of the policy process as they relate to HIA. Chapter one details a case study of purposive information-seeking among public servants within Ontario’s Ministry of Education (MOE). Situated within Ontario’s Ministry of Health (MOH), chapter two presents a case study of policy collaboration between health and ‘non-health’ ministries. Finally, chapter three details a framework analysis of the political factors supporting health impact tool use in two sub-national jurisdictions – namely, Québec and South Australia. MOE respondents (N=9) identified four components of policymaking ‘due diligence’, including evidence retrieval, consultation and collaboration, referencing, and risk analysis. As prospective HIA users, they also confirmed that information is not routinely sought to mitigate the potential negative health impacts of education-based policies. MOH respondents (N=8) identified the bureaucratic hierarchy as the brokering mechanism for inter-ministerial policy development. As prospective HIA stewards, they also confirmed that the ministry does not proactively flag the potential negative health impacts of non-health sector policies. Finally, ‘lessons learned’ from case articles specific to Québec (n=12) and South Australia (n=17) identified the political factors supporting tool use at different stages of the policy cycle, including agenda setting (‘policy elites’ and ‘political culture’), implementation (‘jurisdiction’), and sustained implementation (‘institutional power’). This work provides important insights into ‘real life’ policymaking. By highlighting existing facilitators of and barriers to HIA use, the findings offer a useful starting point from which proponents may tailor context-specific strategies to sustainably implement HIA at the sub-national government level

    Traffic Generation using Containerization for Machine Learning

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    Strategies for Early Learners

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    Welcome to learning about how to effectively plan curriculum for young children. This textbook will address: • Developing curriculum through the planning cycle • Theories that inform what we know about how children learn and the best ways for teachers to support learning • The three components of developmentally appropriate practice • Importance and value of play and intentional teaching • Different models of curriculum • Process of lesson planning (documenting planned experiences for children) • Physical, temporal, and social environments that set the stage for children’s learning • Appropriate guidance techniques to support children’s behaviors as the self-regulation abilities mature. • Planning for preschool-aged children in specific domains including o Physical development o Language and literacy o Math o Science o Creative (the visual and performing arts) o Diversity (social science and history) o Health and safety • Making children’s learning visible through documentation and assessmenthttps://scholar.utc.edu/open-textbooks/1001/thumbnail.jp

    Understanding interactions between Ramularia collo-cygni and barley leaf physiology to target improvements in host resistance and disease control strategy

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    Ramularia Leaf Spot (RLS) is an increasingly problematic disease of barley. Control options are limited as the causal fungus, Ramularia collo-cygni, has developed resistance to several of the major fungicide groups. Developing new methods for controlling this disease is therefore a priority. R. collo-cygni can grow systemically in barley plants from infected seed, without inducing visible symptoms. In the field, visible symptoms normally only appear after flowering. The relative contribution of the latent and symptomatic stages of the fungal lifecycle to reduction in barley yield is not currently known with any certainty. Two possibilities are that the effect of asymptomatic infection on pre-flowering photosynthetic activity, and the development of grain sink capacity, plays an important role; or that reduction in photosynthetic activity during grain filling, resulting from lesion development and loss of green leaf area, is the predominant factor. This research aimed to increase our understanding of the impact of different phases of the fungal lifecycle on barley photosynthesis and yield formation, to better target host resistance and disease control strategies. Controlled environment and field experiments were used to determine the relative effects of asymptomatic and symptom-expressing phases of R. collo-cygni infection on photosynthesis and yield formation in spring barley. In controlled environment experiments leaf photosynthetic activity was measured in seedlings inoculated with suspensions of R. collo-cygni mycelia. Measurements were made before and after visible symptom development using Infra-Red Gas Analysis (IRGA), chlorophyll fluorescence analysis and chlorophyll fluorescence imaging. No reduction in photosynthetic activity was observed in leaves infected with R. collo-cygni, compared to those of non- infected leaves, during the latent phase of infection. After the appearance of visible symptoms, photosynthetic activity within lesions reduced as the lesions developed. However, this did not lead to reductions in photosynthetic activity when measured across the whole leaf area, suggesting that for there to be a significant effect of disease on whole leaf photosynthetic activity, visible symptoms must develop into mature lesions and coalesce to cover larger areas of the leaf surface. In field experiments plots were treated with a full fungicide regime, left untreated, or inoculated with R. collo-cygni and treated with fungicide to which R. collo-cygni is resistant (the latter as a precaution against lack of natural RLS disease that year and/or other diseases developing on untreated plots). RLS was the only disease of significance that developed in untreated or inoculated plots. Symptoms first appeared after flowering, around Zadoks Growth Stage 72. Fungicide-treated plots remained free of disease. Chlorophyll fluorescence analysis of field plants showed no effect of infection on the maximum quantum efficiency of Photosystem II (Fv/Fm) before visible symptom development, consistent with results from controlled environment experiments. Grain yield of untreated and fungicide-treated plots was predicted from fixed common values of radiation use efficiency (RUE) and utilisation of soluble sugar reserves, and measured values of post-flowering healthy (green) leaf area light interception. Grain yields predicted from the difference in post-flowering light interception between fungicide-treated plants and untreated or inoculated plants displaying symptoms of RLS were comparable with the measured yield response to fungicide. This suggests that yield loss to RLS is primarily associated with a reduction in light capture during grain filling, resulting from lesion development and loss of green leaf area. Results from controlled environment and field experiments suggested that symptom expression was associated with leaf senescence. Further controlled environment experiments tested this relationship by using treatments to vary the onset and rate of leaf senescence. Seedlings that were treated with cytokinin to delay senescence after inoculation with suspensions of R. collo-cygni mycelia developed fewer lesions than control plants. Fungal growth, as measured by quantification of R. collo-cygni DNA in leaves, was also restricted in plants treated with cytokinin. Collectively these results suggest that prevention of visible symptom development, rather than prevention of asymptomatic growth, is the most important target for management of this disease. Control methods targeted at delaying senescence could be a useful avenue for further investigation

    Embodying entrepreneurship: everyday practices, processes and routines in a technology incubator

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    The growing interest in the processes and practices of entrepreneurship has been dominated by a consideration of temporality. Through a thirty-six-month ethnography of a technology incubator, this thesis contributes to extant understanding by exploring the effect of space. The first paper explores how class structures from the surrounding city have appropriated entrepreneurship within the incubator. The second paper adopts a more explicitly spatial analysis to reveal how the use of space influences a common understanding of entrepreneurship. The final paper looks more closely at the entrepreneurs within the incubator and how they use visual symbols to develop their identity. Taken together, the three papers reject the notion of entrepreneurship as a primarily economic endeavour as articulated through commonly understood language and propose entrepreneuring as an enigmatic attractor that is accessed through the ambiguity of the non-verbal to develop the ‘new’. The thesis therefore contributes to the understanding of entrepreneurship and proposes a distinct role for the non-verbal in that understanding
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