Cultural capital of IT developers in Ukraine: exploratory case study

Article focuses on the analysis of approaches to studying cultural capital of IT developers. Exploratory case study refers to the IT developers’ activity and focuses the cultural capital (CC) of the Ukrainian IT sector. Theoretical foundation of the study is based on the cultural capital theory referring to the value of social relations and networks. Research results demonstrate that Ukrainian IT developers accumulate CC through education: individual, in family, at school and with peers. Cultural capital could be transformed into other forms of capital: economic and social ones

Creative idea exploration within the structure of a guiding framework : the card brainstorming game

I present a card brainstorming exercise that transforms a conceptual tangible interaction framework into a tool for creative dialogue and discuss the experiences made in using it. Ten sessions with this card game demonstrate the frameworks' versatility and utility. Observation and participant feedback highlight the value of a provocative question format and of the metaphor of a card game

Extending sensor networks into the cloud using Amazon web services

Sensor networks provide a method of collecting environmental data for use in a variety of distributed applications. However, to date, limited support has been provided for the development of integrated environmental monitoring and modeling applications. Specifically, environmental dynamism makes it difficult to provide computational resources that are sufficient to deal with changing environmental conditions. This paper argues that the Cloud Computing model is a good fit with the dynamic computational requirements of environmental monitoring and modeling. We demonstrate that Amazon EC2 can meet the dynamic computational needs of environmental applications. We also demonstrate that EC2 can be integrated with existing sensor network technologies to offer an end-to-end environmental monitoring and modeling solution

The effect of decoupling on farming in Ireland: A regional analysis

peer-reviewedData from the Irish National Farm Survey and Census of Agriculture were used to analyse the regional implications of the decoupling of direct payments for farmers in Ireland. A mathematical programming model was used to estimate the regional effects of decoupling while a micro-simulation model was exploited to map the geographic distribution of decoupled payments. The results show that under the historical decoupling scheme, milk quota will shift from less efficient to larger more efficient farms in all regions. Beef cattle numbers are projected to decrease on all farms, with the exception of the Mideast and Southeast regions where numbers are projected to increase. The regional effect of decoupling on sheep farming was marginal with all regions projected to benefit from the policy change. The analysis also shows, using a static micro-simulation model that a shift to a flat rate national calculation of the decoupled payment would result in a significant movement of revenues from the southern regions to the northwestern regions of the country. In particular, large beef and dairy farmers in the southern regions would lose out while small dairy and sheep farmers in the western and northern regions would be most likely to gain

Living lab approach for developing massmarket IoT products and services

Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged as a central concept in both the industrial as in the academic world. In this context, Living Lab research has been shown as an effective means for the design, implementation, development, testing and validation of Internet of Things system’s pervasiveness. However, IoT products are not yet designed based on the needs of a larger, non-technical group of end-users. Therefore, in this paper we describe the AllThingsTalk Living Lab research track in which tangible end-user products are defined to be implemented on an online IoT platform. More specifically, by using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies (i.e., desk research, online survey, probe research and co-creation) and by selecting different types of users (i.e., based on Rogers’ adoption profiles) for these interaction moments, we were able to combine the input of these users to define tangible products that meet the needs of a heterogeneous group of end-users