7,950 research outputs found
Pervasive Technologies and Support for Independent Living
A broad range of pervasive technologies are used in many domains, including healthcare: however, there appears to be little work examining the role of such technologies in the home, or the different wants and needs of elderly users. Additionally, there exist ethical issues surrounding the use of highly personal healthcare-related data, and interface issues centred on the novelty of the technologies and the disabilities experienced by the users. This report examines these areas, before considering the ways in which they might come together to help support independent-living users with disabilities which may be age-related
Impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on trust and information sharing in South African automotive supply chains
The Internet has made a considerable impact on how business is conducted. Empowered by technology consumers are using the Internet as a tool to communicate and transact online. E-commerce (electronic commerce) presents opportunities for business to gain a competitive advantage, however it also posses certain challenges. Small and Medium Hospitality Enterprises (SMHEs) sector within the tourism industry, is one of the sectors which stands to benefit from using the Internet for business. Researchers agree that the contribution made by the tourism sector in developing economies is substantial. However, SMHEs are noted for their failure to derive optimal benefits from using the Internet for business to improve their competitiveness. This study which seeks to develop a model for use by SMHEs as a guide when making the decision to adopt technology was necessitated by the importance of SMHE’s contribution in the economy of developing countries. This model is based on the examination of existing theories and models such as; the Delone and McLean IS success model (2004), and the ITGI’s (2007) IT governance focus areas model. To elicit the desired outcomes, additional data was collected using questionnaires, interviews, and observations. The collected data was analysed and resulted in the development of a model that can be used by SMHEs in order to derive value from IT and to gain a competitive advantage
Volume 14, Nos. 1 and 2
Editors introduction.PapersHow are we to grow old? Robin Burley.The social and psychological aspects of smart home technology within the care sector, Guy Dewsbury.From caring home to smart house - a needs led evolution, D A Bradley, S Levy and S J Brownsell.Frankenstein homes: would you want to live in one? Bruce J Taylor.Design with care, Keith Cheverst, Karen Clarke, Sue Cobb, Terry Hemmings, Stewart Kember, Keith Mitchell, Peter Phillips, Rob Procter, Tom Rodden and Mark Rouncefield.Hospital managers closely observed: some features of new technology and everyday managerial work, Karen Clarke, Mark Hartswood, Rob Procter and Mark Rouncefield
Selling packaged software: an ethical analysis
Within the IS literature there is little discussion on selling software products in general and especially
from the ethical point of view. Similarly, within computer ethics, although there is much interest in
professionalism and professional codes, in terms of accountability and responsibility, the spotlight
tends to play on safety-critical or life-critical systems, rather than on software oriented towards the
more mundane aspects of work organisation and society. With this research gap in mind, we offer a
preliminary ethical investigation of packaged software selling. Through an analysis of the features of
competition in the market, the global nature of the packaged software market and the nature of
product development we conclude that professionalism, as usually conceived in computer ethics, does
not apply particularly well to software vendors. Thus, we call for a broader definition of
professionalism to include software vendors, not just software developers. Moreover, we acknowledge
that with intermediaries, such as implementation consultants, involved in software selling, and the
packaged software industry more generally, there are even more “hands” involved. Therefore, we
contend that this is an area worthy of further study, which is likely to yield more on the question of
accountability
Architectural requirements for an open source component and artefact repository system within GENESIS
When software is being created by distributed teams of software
engineers, it is necessary to manage the
work-flow, processes, and artefacts which are involved in the
engineering process. The GENESIS project aims to address some of the
technical issues involved by providing a software system to support
distributed development. One of the parts of the system will be known
as OSCAR, a repository for managing distributed artefacts. Artefacts
can be process models, software components, design documents, or any
other kind of entity associated with the software engineering
process. OSCAR will be designed as a light-weight distributed system,
managing the storage and access to a distributed repository of
artefacts.
This paper presents and discusses the requirements for OSCAR, and
suggests a possible architecture for a software system which will meet
those requirements. OSCAR will be a reliable and light-weight
distributed system, managing both artefacts and meta-data
corresponding to the artefacts. Users of OSCAR will be able to access
the distributed repository through a local interface, using the
searching and indexing capabilities of the system to locate and
retrieve components. OSCAR must be able to store and retrieve both
artefacts and meta-data efficiently. It must be possible for OSCAR to
inter-operate with existing artefact management systems (such as CVS)
and to collect metrics about the contents of and accesses to the
repository.
The next stage in the GENESIS project is to complete the requirements
for the whole of the system (in addition to the OSCAR sub-system) and
then to design the software. The software will initially be developed
in a traditional closed-source fashion until the first release is
finished. After the first release, the GENESIS software will become
open source, and will be developed accordingly
An analysis into the impact of globalization on the clothing industry in conjunction with the clothing industry in South Africa
The clothing industry in South Africa is seen as a conventional industry with characteristics such as: labour intensive with low levels of qualification; low salaries; low potential for investment in research and development and innovation; flexible labour legislation and powerful labour unions. However, it continues to be an important sector in terms of the South African labour market with regards to job creation. The strong impact of globalisation and delocalization in the organization of work is pressurizing the industry in terms of its competitiveness. Global competitiveness in terms of quality, price and supply chain management are reducing the viability of the industry. Few organisations are able to keep their positions in the marketplace without changes in the organisation of work and workers. Organisations that respond to the challenges have positioned themselves for economic stability. Organisations have found different methodologies in dealing with the reality of the situation. Two distinctive paths can be identified: outsourcing production with dismissal of workers and relocation of facilities; and skilling the workforce through continual improvement. The aim of the paper is to highlight the predicament faced by the clothing industry and what could be done to change the levels of productivity in the industry. This paper presents results through qualitative research analysis from the case study conducted in Kwa-Zulu Natal on several clothing organisations in comparison to international experiences
Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms
The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications
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