61,604 research outputs found

    Analysing qualitative data from virtual worlds: using images and text mining

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    There is an increasing interest within both organisational and social contexts in virtual worlds and virtual reality platforms. Virtual worlds are highly graphical systems in which avatars interact with each other, and almost every event and conversation is logged and recorded. This presents new challenges for qualitative researchers in information systems. This paper addresses the challenges of analyzing the huge amounts of qualitative data that can be obtained from virtual worlds (both images and text). It addresses how images might be used in qualitative studies of virtual worlds, and proposes a new way to analyze textual data using a qualitative software tool called Leximancer. This paper illustrates these methods using a study of a social movement in a virtual world

    Informatics Research Institute (IRIS) March 2007 newsletter

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    Intelligent Management and Efficient Operation of Big Data

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    This chapter details how Big Data can be used and implemented in networking and computing infrastructures. Specifically, it addresses three main aspects: the timely extraction of relevant knowledge from heterogeneous, and very often unstructured large data sources, the enhancement on the performance of processing and networking (cloud) infrastructures that are the most important foundational pillars of Big Data applications or services, and novel ways to efficiently manage network infrastructures with high-level composed policies for supporting the transmission of large amounts of data with distinct requisites (video vs. non-video). A case study involving an intelligent management solution to route data traffic with diverse requirements in a wide area Internet Exchange Point is presented, discussed in the context of Big Data, and evaluated.Comment: In book Handbook of Research on Trends and Future Directions in Big Data and Web Intelligence, IGI Global, 201

    Multi-agent evolutionary systems for the generation of complex virtual worlds

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    Modern films, games and virtual reality applications are dependent on convincing computer graphics. Highly complex models are a requirement for the successful delivery of many scenes and environments. While workflows such as rendering, compositing and animation have been streamlined to accommodate increasing demands, modelling complex models is still a laborious task. This paper introduces the computational benefits of an Interactive Genetic Algorithm (IGA) to computer graphics modelling while compensating the effects of user fatigue, a common issue with Interactive Evolutionary Computation. An intelligent agent is used in conjunction with an IGA that offers the potential to reduce the effects of user fatigue by learning from the choices made by the human designer and directing the search accordingly. This workflow accelerates the layout and distribution of basic elements to form complex models. It captures the designer's intent through interaction, and encourages playful discovery

    Other People\u27s Money: The Effects of Ownership on Compensation Strategy and Executive Pay

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    In this paper we develop and test hypotheses based on agency theory and managerial capitalism to address the question of whether firms\u27 compensation strategies are designed to motivate actions in the interests of equity holders or those of management. We examined differences in the organizational incentive structure of lower-level executives in management-controlled, owner controlled, and owner-managed firms. We found that when managers controlled the firm, there was pervasively weak incentive alignment for managers within the hierarchy and that, beyond base pay, they were able to extract compensation premiums through bonuses and long-term incentives, in spite of the fact that their firms did not demonstrate better economic performance than other types of firms. We were also able to demonstrate that equity holders pay substantial agency costs in management-controlled firms compared with owner-controlled firms. We end with a discussion of the organizational context for rationalizing executive compensation and the role of compensation consultants

    Appreciative supervision in social work. New opportunities for changing the social work practice

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    The practice of social work focuses mainly on solving problems, on reducing dysfunctions, on diminishing deficiencies etc. More often then not, allocating resources for providing problem-centred social services does not solve the problems for which the services were designed. Our initiative consists in experimenting appreciative supervision and in identifying the potential differences between the two approaches, the one centred on problems and the appreciative one. The results we have obtained in the practice of social work through the application of appreciative supervision underscore the advantages of this approach, an approach which is capable to produce profound changes in the practice of social work. We chose a pair of similar cases in terms of the child’s risk of abandonment and we managed each of them differently, according to opposing views on supervision; the results showed that the desired changes can be brought about more easily when using appreciative supervisionAppreciative supervision; Appreciative inquiry; Social work; Parallel process; Problem-centred supervision; Appreciative case management

    A learning experience in the fields of economics and business: creation of student-managed inter-university virtual networks

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    With this article we shall describe the learning experience carried out by our students in the fields of Economics and Business at the Universities of Huelva and University of Seville within an active- and cooperative-learning framework involving creation of virtual networks between our students and others who were attending diverse universities in Spain and abroad, thus allowing us to strengthen interactions and information exchanges among students, also allowing them to apprehend on their own the characteristics of economic and business and entrepreneuring realities in which they are immersed and, very specially, the use of virtual communities in the Internet
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