Developing information services for special library users by designing a low cost digital library : the experiment of NOC-Digital Library

This research originates from a belief that special libraries in developing countries need to modernise and implement their ICT infrastructure and articulate information policies that will facilitate the exploitation of information resources to the optimum to increase national productivity. Special libraries and information centres in developing countries in general and in the Arab world in particular should start building their local digital libraries, as the benefit of establishing such electronic services is considerably massive and well known for expansion of research activities and for delivering services that satisfy the needs of targeted users. The aim of this paper is to provide general guideline for design a low cost digital library providing services that are most frequently required by various categories of special library users in developing countries. This paper also aims at illustrating strategies and method approaches that can be adopted for building such projects. The paper intends to describe the phases and stages implemented for building a low cost digital library services for the NOC. It also aims at highlighting the barriers and obstacles facing Arabic content in the digitization stage

Contextual impacts on industrial processes brought by the digital transformation of manufacturing: a systematic review

The digital transformation of manufacturing (a phenomenon also known as "Industry 4.0" or "Smart Manufacturing") is finding a growing interest both at practitioner and academic levels, but is still in its infancy and needs deeper investigation. Even though current and potential advantages of digital manufacturing are remarkable, in terms of improved efficiency, sustainability, customization, and flexibility, only a limited number of companies has already developed ad hoc strategies necessary to achieve a superior performance. Through a systematic review, this study aims at assessing the current state of the art of the academic literature regarding the paradigm shift occurring in the manufacturing settings, in order to provide definitions as well as point out recurring patterns and gaps to be addressed by future research. For the literature search, the most representative keywords, strict criteria, and classification schemes based on authoritative reference studies were used. The final sample of 156 primary publications was analyzed through a systematic coding process to identify theoretical and methodological approaches, together with other significant elements. This analysis allowed a mapping of the literature based on clusters of critical themes to synthesize the developments of different research streams and provide the most representative picture of its current state. Research areas, insights, and gaps resulting from this analysis contributed to create a schematic research agenda, which clearly indicates the space for future evolutions of the state of knowledge in this field

The value relevance of digitalization disclosure in integrated reports: A South African perspective

The inevitable disruptions in the Fourth Industrial Revolution necessitates that companies provide investors with digitalization disclosure in integrated reports. This paper investigated whether digitalization disclosure in integrated reports affects the share prices of South African listed companies. The relationship between digitalization disclosure and share prices is examined using the Ohlson (1995) Model through the application of panel data. A new proxy for the “other information” variable in the Ohlson (1995) Model was created for digitalization disclosure by developing a disclosure index to measure the scope of digitalization disclosure in integrated reports. The disclosure index was incorporated into a new text analysis software named the Fourth Industrial Revolution Disclosure Analysis Tool (4IRDAT), which uses algorithms based on natural language processing techniques to facilitate the content analysis of digitalization disclosure in integrated reports. Two scenarios were evaluated: including loss-making companies and excluding loss-making companies. The sample size, including loss-making companies and excluding loss-making companies, was 90 (270 observations) and 72 (216 observations), respectively, for three years from 2018 to 2020. It was established that there was an increase in digitalization disclosure over three years. The results indicated that digitalization disclosure had yet to be incorporated in the share price of South African listed companies for both scenarios. This study is indispensable to regulators, practitioners, standard setters, and academics because it provides empirical evidence on the value relevance of digitalization disclosure in integrated reports. This area has not been interrogated in a South African context

CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research