Factors related to gender cyber-victimization in social networks among Spanish youth

The goal of this study was to identify factors associated with gender cyber-victimization in social networks: technological factors (participants’ use of virtual environments and digital competences), cognitive factors (participants’ concept of gender cyber-violence and perception of risk in online activities) and behavioural factors (participants’ responses to cyber-violence). This is a innovatory approach to measuring the phenomenon (identifying predictive factors), since previous studies have measured generalised cyber-violence through types of conduct found in the internet, the sex differences or studies focused in the sphere of partner relationships. The study was carried out with a sample of 4,536 adolescents aged from 12 to 14, all in compulsory secondary education in six different regions of Spain. An instrument consisting of different scales, was applied, and the data were analysed using descriptive, predictive and classifying techniques. The variables identified as predictors, in the regression analysis and as characterizers of cyber-victims in the clusters are: wider and more intensive use of social networks; more proactive responses to cyber-violence; lower competences in digital self-protection; a more limited concept of gender cyber-violence; and less awareness of risk in some online behaviours. These results suggest a need to intervene in education in order to minimize the risks revealed.  El objetivo de este estudio fue identificar los factores asociados a la cibervictimización de género en las redes sociales: factores tecnológicos (uso de entornos virtuales y competencias digitales por parte de los participantes), factores cognitivos (concepto de ciberviolencia de género de los participantes y percepción de riesgo en línea). actividades) y factores de comportamiento (respuestas de los participantes a la ciberviolencia). Se trata de una aproximación innovadora a la medición del fenómeno (identificación de factores predictivos), ya que estudios previos han medido la ciberviolencia generalizada a través de las conductas encontradas en internet, las diferencias sexuales o estudios enfocados en el ámbito de las relaciones de pareja. El estudio se llevó a cabo con una muestra de 4.536 adolescentes de 12 a 14 años, todos en educación secundaria obligatoria en seis comunidades autónomas de España. Se aplicó un instrumento compuesto por diferentes escalas y los datos se analizaron mediante técnicas descriptivas, predictivas y clasificatorias. Las variables identificadas como predictoras, en el análisis de regresión y como características de las cibervíctimas en los clústeres son: uso más amplio e intensivo de las redes sociales; respuestas más proactivas a la ciberviolencia; menores competencias en autoprotección digital; un concepto más limitado de ciberviolencia de género; y menos conciencia del riesgo en algunos comportamientos en línea. Estos resultados sugieren la necesidad de intervenir en educación para minimizar los riesgos revelados

Epidemic Spreading with External Agents

We study epidemic spreading processes in large networks, when the spread is assisted by a small number of external agents: infection sources with bounded spreading power, but whose movement is unrestricted vis-\`a-vis the underlying network topology. For networks which are `spatially constrained', we show that the spread of infection can be significantly speeded up even by a few such external agents infecting randomly. Moreover, for general networks, we derive upper-bounds on the order of the spreading time achieved by certain simple (random/greedy) external-spreading policies. Conversely, for certain common classes of networks such as line graphs, grids and random geometric graphs, we also derive lower bounds on the order of the spreading time over all (potentially network-state aware and adversarial) external-spreading policies; these adversarial lower bounds match (up to logarithmic factors) the spreading time achieved by an external agent with a random spreading policy. This demonstrates that random, state-oblivious infection-spreading by an external agent is in fact order-wise optimal for spreading in such spatially constrained networks

Near Field Communication: From theory to practice

This book provides the technical essentials, state-of-the-art knowledge, business ecosystem and standards of Near Field Communication (NFC)by NFC Lab - Istanbul research centre which conducts intense research on NFC technology. In this book, the authors present the contemporary research on all aspects of NFC, addressing related security aspects as well as information on various business models. In addition, the book provides comprehensive information a designer needs to design an NFC project, an analyzer needs to analyze requirements of a new NFC based system, and a programmer needs to implement an application. Furthermore, the authors introduce the technical and administrative issues related to NFC technology, standards, and global stakeholders. It also offers comprehensive information as well as use case studies for each NFC operating mode to give the usage idea behind each operating mode thoroughly. Examples of NFC application development are provided using Java technology, and security considerations are discussed in detail. Key Features: Offers a complete understanding of the NFC technology, including standards, technical essentials, operating modes, application development with Java, security and privacy, business ecosystem analysis Provides analysis, design as well as development guidance for professionals from administrative and technical perspectives Discusses methods, techniques and modelling support including UML are demonstrated with real cases Contains case studies such as payment, ticketing, social networking and remote shopping This book will be an invaluable guide for business and ecosystem analysts, project managers, mobile commerce consultants, system and application developers, mobile developers and practitioners. It will also be of interest to researchers, software engineers, computer scientists, information technology specialists including students and graduates.Publisher's Versio

Context-aware collaborative storage and programming for mobile users

Since people generate and access most digital content from mobile devices, novel innovative mobile apps and services are possible. Most people are interested in sharing this content with communities defined by friendship, similar interests, or geography in exchange for valuable services from these innovative apps. At the same time, they want to own and control their content. Collaborative mobile computing is an ideal choice for this situation. However, due to the distributed nature of this computing environment and the limited resources on mobile devices, maintaining content availability and storage fairness as well as providing efficient programming frameworks are challenging. This dissertation explores several techniques to improve these shortcomings of collaborative mobile computing platforms. First, it proposes a medley of three techniques into one system, MobiStore, that offers content availability in mobile peer-to-peer networks: topology maintenance with robust connectivity, structural reorientation based on the current state of the network, and gossip-based hierarchical updates. Experimental results showed that MobiStore outperforms a state-of-the-art comparison system in terms of content availability and resource usage fairness. Next, the dissertation explores the usage of social relationship properties (i.e., network centrality) to improve the fairness of resource allocation for collaborative computing in peer-to-peer online social networks. The challenge is how to provide fairness in content replication for P2P-OSN, given that the peers in these networks exchange information only with one-hop neighbors. The proposed solution provides fairness by selecting the peers to replicate content based on their potential to introduce the storage skewness, which is determined from their structural properties in the network. The proposed solution, Philia, achieves higher content availability and storage fairness than several comparison systems. The dissertation concludes with a high-level distributed programming model, which efficiently uses computing resources on a cloud-assisted, collaborative mobile computing platform. This platform pairs mobile devices with virtual machines (VMs) in the cloud for increased execution performance and availability. On such a platform, two important challenges arise: first, pairing the two computing entities into a seamless computation, communication, and storage unit; and second, using the computing resources in a cost-effective way. This dissertation proposes Moitree, a distributed programming model and middleware that translates high-level programming constructs into events and provides the illusion of a single computing entity over the mobile-VM pairs. From programmers’ viewpoint, the Moitree API models user collaborations into dynamic groups formed over location, time, or social hierarchies. Experimental results from a prototype implementation show that Moitree is scalable, suitable for real-time apps, and can improve the performance of collaborating apps regarding latency and energy consumption

Distributed Matrix Multiplication on a Mobile Sensor Network

Eine der häufigsten Operationen im Bereich der digitalen Bildverarbeitung ist die Matrix Multiplikation. Parallele Algorithmen und Konzepte sind allgemein bekannt und gut entwickelt, aber im Falle von dezentralisierten Systemen gibt es immer noch einen Mangel an neuen Ansätzen. Wir haben in dieser Arbeit verschiedene Ansätze der Matrix Multiplikation auf einem mobilen Sensornetzwerk vorgeschlagen. Der Aggregationsprozess über die Knoten basiert auf dem Push Sum Algorithmus. Wir haben 4 Strategien zur Matrix Multiplikation auf einem mobilen Sensornetzwerk eingeführt. Die Ergebnisse haben gezeigt das es verhältnismäßig schwer ist, für zufällige Topologien und ständige Mobilität eine hohe Genauigkeit zu erreichen. Deshalb haben wir verschiedene deterministische Topologien, mit hohen Perioden der Bewegungslosigkeit in der transienten Phase des Aggregationsprozesses untersucht. Unter bestimmten Bedingungen, konnten wir den Nachrichtenverlust minimieren und fast die Hälfte der Double Precision erreichen.One of the most frequent operations in the field of image processing is the matrix multiplication. Parallel algorithms and concepts are well known and developed, but in case of decentralized systems there is still a lack of new approaches. In this thesis we proposed different approaches of performing a matrix multiplication on a decentralized mobile sensor network. The aggregation process over the nodes is based on the Push Sum algorithm. We introduced four strategies for the matrix multiplication on a mobile sensor network. Results have shown that it is relatively hard for a random node distribution and constant mobility to achieve high accuracy. Therefore, we considered different deterministic topologies with high immobility periods, particularly in the transient phase of the aggregation process. Under certain circumstances, we reduced the message loss and achieved nearly half of double precision

Humiliation in the virtual world: Definitions and conceptualization

The cyberspace represents a platform for social relations which permit to be in touch with the World, to be “seen” by others and to “see” others. As new technologies emerge, ways of viewing are revised, especially through screens: though it has facilitated communication, the main innovation of the virtual world has been seeing, hearing and showing everything with the individual at the center of permanent interactions. But this overexposure can be dangerous: in attempting to be as much a part of the virtual world through self-exposition, individuals expose themselves to potential sources of humiliation. This exploratory analysis will outline the main literature concerning humiliation in the virtual world. By looking at the interaction occurring in the Internet, it will be shown that a dialectic exchange between “being seen” and “seeing” others exists and that it can be a trap for the individuals which leads to humiliation, henceforth called “cyber-humiliation”. It will be also attempted to outline the differences between cyber-humiliation and humiliation in the contemporary society

Teaching case: Leading the change - ERP implementation at Keda

Recently, several disasters have affected the tourism industry. In order to mitigate the effects of disasters, increasing the level of preparedness is essential. However, despite the devastating effect disasters can have on tourism, few tourism organizations have properly developed disaster strategies as an integral part of their business plans. Emergency management systems that utilize mobile communication infrastructures can provide prompt information delivery to save human lives. Several supra-national initiatives and research projects are working on possibilities to facilitate mobile communication networks for emergency management systems. However, the success of such systems depends on users being familiar with the service, which is difficult to achieve, if the system is solely used for emergency management. Therefore, we propose a system design that allows the integration of mobile value-adding services. We also present exemplary services, which offer value to tourists and create business opportunities for the tourism industry. The central component of our proposed system design is a service platform, which communicates with mobile network operators and provides basic services for service providers from the tourism industry and the emergency manager via service interfaces

Social Media in Emergent Brazil

Since the popularisation of the internet, low-income Brazilians have received little government support to help them access it. In response, they have largely self-financed their digital migration. Internet cafés became prosperous businesses in working-class neighbourhoods and rural settlements, and, more recently, families have aspired to buy their own home computer with hire purchase agreements. As low-income Brazilians began to access popular social media sites in the mid-2000s, affluent Brazilians ridiculed their limited technological skills, different tastes and poor schooling, but this did not deter them from expanding their online presence. Young people created profiles for barely literate older relatives and taught them to navigate platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp. Based on 15 months of ethnographic research, this book aims to understand why low-income Brazilians have invested so much of their time and money in learning about social media. Juliano Spyer explores this question from a number of perspectives, including education, relationships, work and politics. He argues that social media is the way for low-income Brazilians to stay connected to the family and friends they see in person on a regular basis, which suggests that social media serves a crucial function in strengthening traditional social relation