Bibliopedia

Bibliopedia is a tool that will perform advanced data-mining & cross-referencing between secondary literature & primary texts & original documents. It will search repositories like JSTOR, Google Scholar, & Project MUSE for full-text citations that mention an original document, analyze the articles & books found, and save the results in a publicly accessible database that will form the basis of an online research collaboratory. The platform will also allow for human-machine collaboration to correct errors in metadata. Bibliopedia will also allow users to create browsable & customizable bibliographies of all the works cited by each article & book. Most importantly, it will perform automated textual analysis, data extraction, cross-referencing, & visualizations of the relationships between texts & authors. Our aim is to serve the research and pedagogical needs of the broadest possible range of humanities scholars

Using formal methods to develop WS-BPEL applications

In recent years, WS-BPEL has become a de facto standard language for orchestration of Web Services. However, there are still some well-known difficulties that make programming in WS-BPEL a tricky task. In this paper, we firstly point out major loose points of the WS-BPEL specification by means of many examples, some of which are also exploited to test and compare the behaviour of three of the most known freely available WS-BPEL engines. We show that, as a matter of fact, these engines implement different semantics, which undermines portability of WS-BPEL programs over different platforms. Then we introduce Blite, a prototypical orchestration language equipped with a formal operational semantics, which is closely inspired by, but simpler than, WS-BPEL. Indeed, Blite is designed around some of WS-BPEL distinctive features like partner links, process termination, message correlation, long-running business transactions and compensation handlers. Finally, we present BliteC, a software tool supporting a rapid and easy development of WS-BPEL applications via translation of service orchestrations written in Blite into executable WS-BPEL programs. We illustrate our approach by means of a running example borrowed from the official specification of WS-BPEL

A LoRa-based protocol for connecting IoT edge computing nodes to provide small-data-based services

[EN] Data is becoming increasingly personal. Individuals regularly interact with a variety of structured data, ranging from SQLite databases on the phone to personal sensors and open government data. The ¿digital traces left by individuals through these interactions¿ are sometimes referred to as ¿small data¿. Examples of ¿small data¿ include driving records, biometric measurements, search histories, weather forecasts and usage alerts. In this paper, we present a flexible protocol called LoRaCTP, which is based on LoRa technology that allows data ¿chunks¿ to be transferred over large distances with very low energy expenditure. LoRaCTP provides all the mechanisms necessary to make LoRa transfer reliable by introducing a lightweight connection setup and allowing the ideal sending of an as-long-as necessary data message. We designed this protocol as communication support for small-data edge-based IoT solutions, given its stability, low power usage, and the possibility to cover long distances. We evaluated our protocol using various data content sizes and communication distances to demonstrate its performance and reliability.This work was partially supported by the "Conselleria de Innovacion, Universidades, Ciencia y Sociedad Digital", Proyectos AICO/2020, Spain, under Grant AICO/2020/302 and "Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades, Programa Estatal de Investigacion, Desarrollo e Innovacion Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad, Proyectos IDI 2018", Spain, under Grant RTI2018-096384-B-I00.Nakamura, K.; Manzoni, P.; Redondi, A.; Longo, E.; Zennaro, M.; Cano, J.; Tavares De Araujo Cesariny Calafate, CM. (2022). A LoRa-based protocol for connecting IoT edge computing nodes to provide small-data-based services. Digital Communications and Networks. 8(3):257-266. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcan.2021.08.0072572668

DEVELOPING THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATION COMPETENCE OF TEACHERS IN ONLINE TEACHING

Developing the competence to use information technology in teaching is one of the important occupational competencies for teachers in the digital age. Information technology application development has many implications in promoting the training process to train and develop students, in accordance with the actual conditions of education in Vietnam and the general trend of the world is essential.Research paper on needs assessment using information technology of teachers in online teaching, proposing the process of identifying the structure of information technology competencies and requirements for capacity development to use information technology in online teaching of training institutions. The parameters in this paper present an empirical research result to address the need to develop the information technology application competence in online teaching, necessary to successful organize online teaching with a variety of theoretical and practical pedagogies in technology in education

The Concept of Social Business: Oxymoron or Sign of a Changing Work Culture?

The article discusses the source and pertinence of the term “Social Business”. We present the findings from a study of projects that are in the early stages of adoption of Social Software in organisations. Using a qualitative research approach we examine real-world cases of implementations of integrated Enterprise Collaboration Systems. 16 existing cases (desk research) and three new cases (field research) are analysed and the findings are compared and aggregated. We apply the 8C Model as an analytical lens to guide the coding of the case data. The study’s results reveal the relations between the different concepts (features, components, collaboration scenarios) that can be identified in the cases. The findings show that the most popular usage scenarios of the software are not very “social” but support people in their daily joint work with a focus on getting the job done. The study also reveals possible beneficial factors for the adoption of Social Software such as improved personal information management, mobile devices and unified communication, and better workspace and presence awareness

Building Accessible Cyberinfrastructure in the Global Disability Community: Evaluating Collaboration Readiness and Use of the DID Policy Collaboratory

This study is focused on better understanding the socio-technical infrastructure required to enhance participation of the global disability community in key global governance processes. It explores the impact of a virtual organizational platform, called the Disability Inclusive Development (DID) Policy Collaboratory on the participation of the UN Disability Inclusive and Accessible Urban Development (DIAUD) Network in the preparatory processes for the UN Habitat III Conference. This paper asks four broad questions about the DIAUD network: (1) what is its origin, composition, and structure; (2) to what degree does it represent a transnational advocacy network; (3); what is its baseline “collaboration readiness”; and (4) how effectively does it use the Collaboratory? Data are drawn from surveys and participant observation at virtual and face-to-face network meetings. Key findings include: (1) DIAUD is organized as a TAN; (2) has important linkages with epistemic communities; and (3) has made substantive and sustained policy contributions

Determinants of the Locus of Global E-commerce

Internet and e-commerce are experiencing hyperbolic growth rates and highly asymmetric global distribution. There is also a significant variation worldwide in the means used to access the Internet and the e-commerce models adopted. This paper attempts to identify and synthesize the available evidence on predictors of mag-nitude, global distribution and forms of e-commerce. The analysis indicates that the twin forces of globalization and major revolutions in ICT are fuelling the rapid growth of global e-commerce. On the other hand, economic and infrastructure-related factors, cultural factors, political and legal factors and the activities of supranational institutions determine the proportion of the global e-commerce a country is likely to receive and the forms in which it is implemented. The success of a company is a function of its ability to understand how various environmental factors influence the optimum combination of fixed and mobile telecommunications networks in a country; appropriateness of a product to be sold online; website design; payment mechanism; delivery means; etc

Cultural Diversity in Massive Open Online Courses: The Correlation between Cultural Indicators and Students\u27 Attrition

Massive open online courses (MOOC) have become one of the recent innovations in the field of higher education. These courses are distributed via the Internet and free, attracting thousands of students in a course from all over the world. However, there is a serious issue concerning MOOC students’ completion rates. Previous research studies have explored a variety of factors that might lead to low completion rates for MOOCs. However, students involvement from various culture and language backgrounds was a factor not investigated in the literature a factor that could have affected students’ completion rates. This study redesigned an activity theory model to reflect cultural factors and examined several cultural indictors related to communication, self-efficacy, technology, and Anglo-American context to determine whether these factors predicted MOOC student completion rates. The sample of this current study consisted of 133 MOOC students from 52 different countries who were enrolled at a Midwest American university. Logistic regression was applied to identify if any of the selected cultural indictors predicted MOOC students completion. The findings suggested other cultural factors than the ones selected in this study need to be explored. Moreover, the findings of this study might enhance the research area in the MOOC field to improve students’ attrition. The potential of the redesigned activity model for investigating cultural influences in other domains was presented as a way to increase understanding of these factors

PROPOSED MIDDLEWARE SOLUTION FOR RESOURCE-CONSTRAINED DISTRIBUTED EMBEDDED NETWORKS

The explosion in processing power of embedded systems has enabled distributed embedded networks to perform more complicated tasks. Middleware are sets of encapsulations of common and network/operating system-specific functionality into generic, reusable frameworks to manage such distributed networks. This thesis will survey and categorize popular middleware implementations into three adapted layers: host-infrastructure, distribution, and common services. This thesis will then apply a quantitative approach to grading and proposing a single middleware solution from all layers for two target platforms: CubeSats and autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). CubeSats are 10x10x10cm nanosatellites that are popular university-level space missions, and impose power and volume constraints. Autonomous UAVs are similarly-popular hobbyist-level vehicles that exhibit similar power and volume constraints. The MAVLink middleware from the host-infrastructure layer is proposed as the middleware to manage the distributed embedded networks powering these platforms in future projects. Finally, this thesis presents a performance analysis on MAVLink managing the ARM Cortex-M 32-bit processors that power the target platforms