514,364 research outputs found

    An Economic Framework for Information Platform

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    Abstract-Information platform is managed by IPSPs (Information Platform Service Providers) who aggregate and compile information from a large pool of source websites supported by Source Service Providers (SSPs). While information platform makes it much more convenient for users to browse information, there exists such an economic dilemma: Information platform may send extra user clicks to source websites (thus increasing SSPs' advertising revenue), some users get stuck on the information platform since information excerpts are presented. In this case, SSPs tend to accuse IPSPs of intellectual property infringement. To boost the development of information platform, it is better to make IPSPs and SSPs allies rather than enemies. In this paper, we propose a business framework which involves a single IPSP and multiple SSPs. Within the framework, IPSP gets paid for the user clicks sent from information platform to the source websites and SSPs donate certain amount of information to information platform. We formulate the framework as a twostage game, assuming that IPSP and SSPs are selfish and rational players who target at utility maximization. We use backward induction to get Nash Equilibrium of the game and give the best strategies for IPSP and SSPs. The numerical results have shown that the enhancement of information quality provided by source websites and increased non-material profit of information platform will improve IPSP's utility. In addition, the price charged by IPSP for user clicks and aggregated information contributed by SSPs are also affected by these factors

    Property and the Construction of the Information Economy: A Neo-Polanyian Ontology

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    This chapter considers the changing roles and forms of information property within the political economy of informational capitalism. I begin with an overview of the principal methods used in law and in media and communications studies, respectively, to study information property, considering both what each disciplinary cluster traditionally has emphasized and newer, hybrid directions. Next, I develop a three-part framework for analyzing information property as a set of emergent institutional formations that both work to produce and are themselves produced by other evolving political-economic arrangements. The framework considers patterns of change in existing legal institutions for intellectual property, the ongoing dematerialization and datafication of both traditional and new inputs to economic production, and the emerging logics of economic organization within which information resources (and property rights) are mobilized. Finally, I consider the implications of that framing for two very different contemporary information property projects, one relating to data flows within platform-based business models and the other to information commons

    Sustainable urban development in practice:the SAVE concept

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    The need for sustainable development of the urban environment presents the research community with a number of challenges and opportunities. A considerable volume of research has been undertaken into the constituent parts of this complex problem and a number of tool kits and methodologies have been developed to enable and encourage the application of specific aspects of research in practice. However, there is limited evidence of the holistic integration of the body of knowledge arising from the research within real-life decision-making practices. In this paper we present an overview of the existing body of knowledge relating to sustainable development of the urban environment and propose a generic framework for its integration within current practices. This framework recognises the need to: understand social, economic, and environmental issues; understand the decision-making processes; provide a means of measurement, assessment, or valuation of the issues; provide analytical methods for the comparative assessment of complex data to enable an evaluation of strategies and design options and to communicate effectively throughout the process with a wide range of stakeholders. The components of a novel sustainability assessment, visualisation and enhancement (SAVE) framework, developed by the authors to ‘operationalise’ the body of knowledge are presented and justified. These include: decision-mapping methods to identify points of intervention; indicator identification and measurement approaches; appropriate mathematical and analytical tools and an interactive simulation and visualisation platform which integrates and communicates complex multivariate information to diverse stakeholder groups. We report on the application of the SAVE framework to a major urban development project and reflect on its current and potential impact on the development. Conclusions are also drawn about its general applicability

    Repurpose 2D Character Animations for a VR Environment Using BDH Shape Interpolation.

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    Virtual Reality technology has spread rapidly in recent years. However, its growth risks ending soon due to the absence of quality content, except for few exceptions. We present an original framework that allows artists to use 2D characters and animations in a 3D Virtual Reality environment, in order to give an easier access to the production of content for the platform. In traditional platforms, 2D animation represents a more economic and immediate alternative to 3D. The challenge in adapting 2D characters to a 3D environment is to interpret the missing depth information. A 2D character is actually flat, so there is not any depth information, and every body part is at the same level of the others. We exploit mesh interpolation, billboarding and parallax scrolling to simulate the depth between each body segment of the character. We have developed a prototype of the system, and extensive tests with a 2D animation production show the effectiveness of our framework

    Repurpose 2D Animations for a VR Environment using BDH Shape Interpolation

    Get PDF
    Virtual Reality technology has spread rapidly in recent years. However, its growth risks ending soon due to the absence of quality content, except for few exceptions. We present an original framework that allows artists to use 2D characters and animations in a 3D Virtual Reality environment, in order to give an easier access to the production of content for the platform. In traditional platforms, 2D animation represents a more economic and immediate alternative to 3D. The challenge in adapting 2D characters to a 3D environment is to interpret the missing depth information. A 2D character is actually flat, so there is not any depth information, and every body part is at the same level of the others. We exploit mesh interpolation, billboarding and parallax scrolling to simulate the depth between each body segment of the character. We have developed a prototype of the system, and extensive tests with a 2D animation production show the effectiveness of our framework

    Automatic information retrieval through text-mining

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    The dissertation presented for obtaining the Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de CiĂȘncias e TecnologiaNowadays, around a huge amount of firms in the European Union catalogued as Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), employ almost a great portion of the active workforce in Europe. Nonetheless, SMEs cannot afford implementing neither methods nor tools to systematically adapt innovation as a part of their business process. Innovation is the engine to be competitive in the globalized environment, especially in the current socio-economic situation. This thesis provides a platform that when integrated with ExtremeFactories(EF) project, aids SMEs to become more competitive by means of monitoring schedule functionality. In this thesis a text-mining platform that possesses the ability to schedule a gathering information through keywords is presented. In order to develop the platform, several choices concerning the implementation have been made, in the sense that one of them requires particular emphasis is the framework, Apache Lucene Core 2 by supplying an efficient text-mining tool and it is highly used for the purpose of the thesis

    Simulating social relations in multi-agent systems

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    Open distributed systems are comprised of a large number of heterogeneous nodes with disparate requirements and objectives, a number of which may not conform to the system specification. This thesis argues that activity in such systems can be regulated by using distributed mechanisms inspired by social science theories regarding similarity /kinship, trust, reputation, recommendation and economics. This makes it possible to create scalable and robust agent societies which can adapt to overcome structural impediments and provide inherent defence against malicious and incompetent action, without detriment to system functionality and performance. In particular this thesis describes: ‱ an agent based simulation and animation platform (PreSage), which offers the agent developer and society designer a suite of powerful tools for creating, simulating and visualising agent societies from both a local and global perspective. ‱ a social information dissemination system (SID) based on principles of self organisation which personalises recommendation and directs information dissemination. ‱ a computational socio-cognitive and economic framework (CScEF) which integrates and extends socio-cognitive theories of trust, reputation and recommendation with basic economic theory. ‱ results from two simulation studies investigating the performance of SID and the CScEF. The results show the production of a generic, reusable and scalable platform for developing and animating agent societies, and its contribution to the community as an open source tool. Secondly specific results, regarding the application of SID and CScEF, show that revealing outcomes of using socio-technical mechanisms to condition agent interactions can be demonstrated and identified by using Presage.Open Acces

    EXAMINING THE UTILITY OF BEHAVIORAL ECONOMIC DEMAND IN ADDICTION SCIENCE

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    The marriage of perspectives from behavioral economic theory and learning theory has the potential to advance an understanding of substance use and substance use disorder. Behavioral economic demand is a central concept to this interdisciplinary approach. Evaluating demand in the laboratory and clinic can improve previous research on the relative reinforcing effects of drugs by accounting for the multi-dimensional nature of reinforcement rather than viewing reinforcement as a unitary construct. Recent advances in the commodity purchase task methodology have further simplified the measurement of demand values in human participants. This dissertation project presents a programmatic series of studies designed to demonstrate the utility of using a behavioral economic demand framework and the purchase task methodology for understanding substance use disorder through basic and applied science research. Experiments are presented spanning a continuum from theoretical and methodological development to longitudinal work and clinical application. These experiments demonstrate three key conclusions regarding behavioral economic demand. First, behavioral economic demand provides a reliable and valid measure of drug valuation that is applicable to varied drug types and participant populations. Second, behavioral economic demand is a stimulus-selective measure specifically reflecting valuation for the commodity under study. Third, behavioral economic demand provides incremental information about substance use in the laboratory and clinical setting above and beyond traditional measures of reinforcer valuation and other behavioral economic variables. These findings collectively highlight the benefits of behavioral economic demand and provide an important platform for future work in addiction science

    Design science research towards resilient cyber-physical eHealth systems

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    Most eHealth systems are cyber-physical systems (CPSs) making safety-critical decisions based on information from other systems not known during development. In this design science research, a conceptual resilience governance framework for eHealth CPSs is built utilizing 1) cybersecurity initiatives, standards and frameworks, 2) science of design for software-intensive systems and 3) empowering cyber trust and resilience. According to our study, a resilient CPS consists of two sub-systems: the proper resilient system and the situational awareness system. In a system of CPSs, three networks are composed: platform, software and social network. The resilient platform network is the basis on which information sharing between stakeholders could be created via software layers. However, the trust inside social networks quantifies the pieces of information that will be shared - and with whom. From citizens’ point of view, eHealth is wholeness in which requirements of information security hold true. Present procedures emphasize confidentiality at the expense of integrity and availability, and regulations/instructions are used as an excuse not to change even vital information. The mental-picture of cybersecurity should turn from “threat, crime, attack” to “trust” and “resilience”. Creating confidence in safe digital future is truly needed in the integration of the digital and physical world’s leading to a new digital revolution. The precondition for the exchange of information “trust” must be systematically built at every CPS’ level. In health sector, increasingly interconnected social, technical and economic networks create large complex CPSs, and risk assessment of many individual components becomes cost and time prohibitive. When no-one can control all aspects of CPSs, protection-based risk management is not enough to help prepare for and prevent consequences of foreseeable events, but resilience must be built into systems to help them quickly recover and adapt when adverse events do occur.Most eHealth systems are cyber-physical systems (CPSs) making safety-critical decisions based on information from other systems not known during development. In this design science research, a conceptual resilience governance framework for eHealth CPSs is built utilizing 1) cybersecurity initiatives, standards and frameworks, 2) science of design for software-intensive systems and 3) empowering cyber trust and resilience. According to our study, a resilient CPS consists of two sub-systems: the proper resilient system and the situational awareness system. In a system of CPSs, three networks are composed: platform, software and social network. The resilient platform network is the basis on which information sharing between stakeholders could be created via software layers. However, the trust inside social networks quantifies the pieces of information that will be shared - and with whom. From citizens’ point of view, eHealth is wholeness in which requirements of information security hold true. Present procedures emphasize confidentiality at the expense of integrity and availability, and regulations/instructions are used as an excuse not to change even vital information. The mental-picture of cybersecurity should turn from “threat, crime, attack” to “trust” and “resilience”. Creating confidence in safe digital future is truly needed in the integration of the digital and physical world’s leading to a new digital revolution. The precondition for the exchange of information “trust” must be systematically built at every CPS’ level. In health sector, increasingly interconnected social, technical and economic networks create large complex CPSs, and risk assessment of many individual components becomes cost and time prohibitive. When no-one can control all aspects of CPSs, protection-based risk management is not enough to help prepare for and prevent consequences of foreseeable events, but resilience must be built into systems to help them quickly recover and adapt when adverse events do occur

    The Potential of Digitalisation and Social Dialogue in Ensuring Post-Pandemic Labour Market Sustainability: Priorities for Ukraine

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    The article substantiates promising areas of resource mobilisation to counter the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic ĐŸn the labour market, namely, through the involvement of the potential of digital, information and communication technologies and the introduction of innovative mechanisms into the system of social dialogue in the labour field at the national level. The conceptual basis of the research is the four-pillar policy framework for tackling the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis, developed by the International Labour Organization as a basic tool to address the risks and threats of the COVID-19 pandemic for global and national labour markets. This framework was used as a cross-cutting analytical scheme to analyse Ukrainian realities and further to structure the potential of digitalisation and social dialogue for overcoming the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Ukrainian labour market and for further post-pandemic recovery.Based on the modern platform approach, the authors propose a social innovation – a 3-element model of socially responsible partnership (SRP Platform), which allows significantly updating (or even rebooting) the system of communication and interaction between the social dialogue participants in Ukraine using the potential of modern network, information and communication technologies. Implementating such a model will contribute to the renewal of the social dialogue system in Ukraine and, thus, further effective counteraction against the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring the sustainable functioning of the Ukrainian labour market, and to the formation of an effective anti-pandemic state policy. Both the conceptual basis and general mechanism for implementing the SRP platform are (to a large extent) universal and can be adapted to renew social dialogue systems not only in Ukraine but also in other post-Soviet countries with a tripartite system
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