Introduction to the Special Section on Social Computing and Social Internet of Things

The papers in this special section focus on social computing and the social Internet of Things (SIoT). SIoT is a new and latest paradigm that extends Internet of Things. This provides an ideal platform for interconnected devices and objects to effectively interact across social platforms for the betterment of the community on a whole. Any Social Internet of things based system means that the data is distributed in nature and focuses on the interest of a larger group of people than a particular individual. Thus social Internet of things have a wide scope and can be used to develop a wide range of applications that involves a group of people or community working towards accomplishing a common objective such as joint ventures, office setup, co-ownerships and so on. Social Computing may be defined as the study of the collaborative behavior of a group of computer users working on some common objectives

Emerging Ideas and Topics in IS: Introduction to the Special Section

This essay provides a discussion of the original and evolving notions of what constitutes an “emerging” idea and describes the processes by which we organized this special section. We also discuss each of the ten selected articles in terms of what we see that makes the article “emerging” and how we see it fitting into the larger framework of IS knowledge

Cloud computing as a new paradigm for Macedonian accounting companies

Accounting as a generator of a large amount of key information for a large number of stakeholders requires the use of reliable technology, methods and techniques for processing and storing relevant information. The unprecedented expansion of information technology of the last few years together with the emergence of the Internet, did not leave accounting immune to changes and introduced new paradigms in the way this profession is practiced. Cloud accounting and its collective impact is an example of such a new paradigm that is the focus of this paper. Cloud accounting is accounting where the accounting software, as well as the data, are located on a remote server that is not owned by a specific company. Cloud accounting software performs the same function as traditional accounting software, the only difference being its location, mobility and cost. Keywords: accounting, digitalization, cloud accounting, accounting software, efficiency

Exploring New Paradigms for Mobile Edge Computing

Edge computing has been rapidly growing in recent years to meet the surging demands from mobile apps and Internet of Things (IoT). Similar to the Cloud, edge computing provides computation, storage, data, and application services to the end-users. However, edge computing is usually deployed at the edge of the network, which can provide low-latency and high-bandwidth services for end devices. So far, edge computing is still not widely adopted. One significant challenge is that the edge computing environment is usually heterogeneous, involving various operating systems and platforms, which complicates app development and maintenance. in this dissertation, we explore to combine edge computing with virtualization techniques to provide a homogeneous environment, where edge nodes and end devices run exactly the same operating system. We develop three systems based on the homogeneous edge computing environment to improve the security and usability of end-device applications. First, we introduce vTrust, a new mobile Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), which offloads the general execution and storage of a mobile app to a nearby edge node and secures the I/O between the edge node and the mobile device with the aid of a trusted hypervisor on the mobile device. Specifically, vTrust establishes an encrypted I/O channel between the local hypervisor and the edge node, such that any sensitive data flowing through the hosted mobile OS is encrypted. Second, we present MobiPlay, a record-and-replay tool for mobile app testing. By collaborating a mobile phone with an edge node, MobiPlay can effectively record and replay all types of input data on the mobile phone without modifying the mobile operating system. to do so, MobiPlay runs the to-be-tested application on the edge node under exactly the same environment as the mobile device and allows the tester to operate the application on a mobile device. Last, we propose vRent, a new mechanism to leverage smartphone resources as edge node based on Xen virtualization and MiniOS. vRent aims to mitigate the shortage of available edge nodes. vRent enforces isolation and security by making the users\u27 android OSes as Guest OSes and rents the resources to a third-party in the form of MiniOSes

Human factors in entertainment computing: designing for diversity

Although several casual gaming systems have been developed during the past years, little research examining the impact of human factors on the design and use of digital games has been carried out, and commercially available games are only partially suitable for audiences with special needs. The research project described within this paper aims to analyze and explore design guidelines for diverse audiences and results of focus group gaming sessions to develop a research toolbox allowing for the easy creation of adaptable and accessible game scenarios. Thereby, a controllable environment for the detailed evaluation of the interrelations between human factors and entertainment systems is provided. Results obtained by further testing will be integrated in the toolbox, and may foster the development of accessible games, thus opening up new opportunities for diverse audiences and allowing them to further engage in digital games. Copyright 2011 ACM