ICT for Economic Development in Rwanda: Fostering E-Commerce Adoption in Tourism SMEs

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Rwandan tourism sector are slow in adopting information and communication technology (ICT) and especially e-commerce applications (Nibigira 2014). In the effort to pinpoint the drivers promising more extensive EC roll-out and thus economic and societal ICT-driven improvements in Rwanda, we firstly show some ongoing initiatives that of deploying ICT and e-commerce Rwanda. We then investigate more specifically the key determinants of EC adoption in the context of Rwanda. To that end, we adopt the Perceived E-Readiness Model (PERM) developed by Molla and Licker (2005) and apply it to ecommerce adoption in Rwandan tourism SMEs. From better understanding what accelerates or impedes ICT and e-commerce adoption in the Rwandan tourism sector, we hope to derive arguments for further fostering ICT roll-out in general and the e-commerce roll-out in particular in Rwanda – first throughout the Rwandan tourism sector and subsequently throughout other SME-based business sectors – and thus to contribute to the country\u27s economic and societal development along the lines of many Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) studies (Heeks 2006, Heeks and Molla 2007, Zelenika and Pearce 2013)

Survey on 6G Frontiers: Trends, Applications, Requirements, Technologies and Future Research

Emerging applications such as Internet of Everything, Holographic Telepresence, collaborative robots, and space and deep-sea tourism are already highlighting the limitations of existing fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. These limitations are in terms of data-rate, latency, reliability, availability, processing, connection density and global coverage, spanning over ground, underwater and space. The sixth-generation (6G) of mobile networks are expected to burgeon in the coming decade to address these limitations. The development of 6G vision, applications, technologies and standards has already become a popular research theme in academia and the industry. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the current developments towards 6G. We highlight the societal and technological trends that initiate the drive towards 6G. Emerging applications to realize the demands raised by 6G driving trends are discussed subsequently. We also elaborate the requirements that are necessary to realize the 6G applications. Then we present the key enabling technologies in detail. We also outline current research projects and activities including standardization efforts towards the development of 6G. Finally, we summarize lessons learned from state-of-the-art research and discuss technical challenges that would shed a new light on future research directions towards 6G

The First 25 Years of the Bled eConference: Themes and Impacts

The Bled eConference is the longest-running themed conference associated with the Information Systems discipline. The focus throughout its first quarter-century has been the application of electronic tools, migrating progressively from Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) via Inter-Organisational Systems (IOS) and eCommerce to encompass all aspects of the use of networking facilities in industry and government, and more recently by individuals, groups and society as a whole. This paper reports on an examination of the conference titles and of the titles and abstracts of the 773 refereed papers published in the Proceedings since 1995. This identified a long and strong focus on categories of electronic business and corporate perspectives, which has broadened in recent years to encompass the democratic, the social and the personal. The conference\u27s extend well beyond the papers and their thousands of citations and tens of thousands of downloads. Other impacts have included innovative forms of support for the development of large numbers of graduate students, and the many international research collaborations that have been conceived and developed in a beautiful lake-side setting in Slovenia

Ecosystemic Evolution Feeded by Smart Systems

Information Society is advancing along a route of ecosystemic evolution. ICT and Internet advancements, together with the progression of the systemic approach for enhancement and application of Smart Systems, are grounding such an evolution. The needed approach is therefore expected to evolve by increasingly fitting into the basic requirements of a significant general enhancement of human and social well-being, within all spheres of life (public, private, professional). This implies enhancing and exploiting the net-living virtual space, to make it a virtuous beneficial integration of the real-life space. Meanwhile, contextual evolution of smart cities is aiming at strongly empowering that ecosystemic approach by enhancing and diffusing net-living benefits over our own lived territory, while also incisively targeting a new stable socio-economic local development, according to social, ecological, and economic sustainability requirements. This territorial focus matches with a new glocal vision, which enables a more effective diffusion of benefits in terms of well-being, thus moderating the current global vision primarily fed by a global-scale market development view. Basic technological advancements have thus to be pursued at the system-level. They include system architecting for virtualization of functions, data integration and sharing, flexible basic service composition, and end-service personalization viability, for the operation and interoperation of smart systems, supporting effective net-living advancements in all application fields. Increasing and basically mandatory importance must also be increasingly reserved for human–technical and social–technical factors, as well as to the associated need of empowering the cross-disciplinary approach for related research and innovation. The prospected eco-systemic impact also implies a social pro-active participation, as well as coping with possible negative effects of net-living in terms of social exclusion and isolation, which require incisive actions for a conformal socio-cultural development. In this concern, speed, continuity, and expected long-term duration of innovation processes, pushed by basic technological advancements, make ecosystemic requirements stricter. This evolution requires also a new approach, targeting development of the needed basic and vocational education for net-living, which is to be considered as an engine for the development of the related ‘new living know-how’, as well as of the conformal ‘new making know-how’

SHELDON Smart habitat for the elderly.

An insightful document concerning active and assisted living under different perspectives: Furniture and habitat, ICT solutions and Healthcare

Telemedicine for Kidney Transplant Recipients:Current State, Advantages, and Barriers

Telemedicine is defined as the use of electronic information and communication technologies to provide and support healthcare at a distance. In kidney transplantation, telemedicine is limited but is expected to grow markedly in the coming y. Current experience shows that it is possible to provide transplant care at a distance, with benefits for patients like reduced travel time and costs, better adherence to medication and appointment visits, more self-sufficiency, and more reliable blood pressure values. However, multiple barriers in different areas need to be overcome for successful implementation, such as recipients' preferences, willingness, skills, and digital literacy. Moreover, in many countries, limited digital infrastructure, legislation, local policy, costs, and reimbursement issues could be barriers to the implementation of telemedicine. Finally, telemedicine changes the way transplant professionals provide care, and this transition needs time, training, willingness, and acceptance. This review discusses the current state and benefits of telemedicine in kidney transplantation, with the aforementioned barriers, and provides an overview of future directions on telemedicine in kidney transplantation.</p

DHRS 2009 Proceedings of the Ninth Danish Human-Computer Interaction Research Symposium.

Since 2001 the annual Danish Human-Computer Interaction Research Symposium has been a platform for networking, and provided an opportunity to get an overview across the various parts of the Danish HCI research scene. This years symposium was held in Aarhus, Denmark on December 14, 200

Process of change in organisations through eHealth: 2nd International eHealth Symposium 2010, Stuttgart, Germany, June 7 - 8, 2010 ; Proceedings edited by Stefan Kirn

Foreword: On behalf of the Organizing Committee, it is my pleasure to welcome you to Hohenheim, Stuttgart for the 2nd International eHealth Symposium which is themed 'Process of change in organisations through eHealth'. Starting with the inaugural event in 2009, which took place in Turku, Finland, we want to implement a tradition of international eHealth symposia. The presentations and associated papers in this proceedings give a current and representative outline of technical options, application potentials, usability, acceptance and potential for optimization in health care by ICT. We are pleased to present a high-quality program. This year we convey a unique opportunity for academic researchers and industry practitioners to report their state-of-the-art research findings in the domain of eHealth. The symposium aims to foster the international community by gathering experts from various countries such as Australia, Great Britain, Finland and Germany. A first step is done by this symposium which considers this interaction and delivers an insight into current advances made and open research questions. The organizers would like to take the opportunity to thank all the people which made the Symposium possible. We are pleased if both attendance to the 2nd International eHealth Symposium 2010 and reading of this proceedings give you answers to urging questions, a basis for critical discussions, references on interesting tasks and stimulations for new approaches. Table of Contents: Martin Sedlmayr, Andreas Becker, Hans-Ulrich Prokosch, Christian Flügel, Fritz Meier: OPAL Health - A Smart Object Network for Hospital Logistics // Rajeev K. Bali, M. Chris Gribbons, Vikraman Baskaran, Raouf NG Naguib: Perspectives on E-Health: the human touch // Falk Zwicker, Torsten Eymann: Why RFID projects in hospitals (necessarily) fail. Lesson from comparative studies // Nilmin Wickramasinghe, F. Moghimi, J. Schaffer: Designing an intelligent risk detection framework using knowledge discovery techniques to improve efficiency and accuracy of healthcare care decision making // Volker Viktor, Heiko Schellhorn: In search of an appropriate service model for telehealth in Germany // Simone Schillings, Julia Fernandes: Towards a reference model for telemedicine // Reima Suomi: Towards rewards awareness in health care information systems // Manuel Zwicker, Jürgen Seitz, Nilmini Wickramasingh: Adaptions for e-kiosk systems to develop barrier-free terminals for handicapped persons --