Sensory semantic user interfaces (SenSUI)

Rapid evolution of the World Wide Web with its underlying sources of data, knowledge, services and applications continually attempts to support a variety of users, with different backgrounds, requirements and capabilities. In such an environment, it is highly unlikely that a single user interface will prevail and be able to fulfill the requirements of each user adequately. Adaptive user interfaces are able to adapt information and application functionalities to the user context. In contrast, pervasive computing and sensor networks open new opportunities for context aware platforms, one that is able to improve user interface adaptation reacting to environmental and user sensors. Semantic web technologies and ontologies are able to capture sensor data and provide contextual information about the user, their actions, required applications and environment. This paper investigates the viability of an approach where semantic web technologies are used to maximize the efficacy of interface adaptation through the use of available ontology

The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002: A Potemkin Village

Due to the daunting possibilities of cyberwarfare, and the ease with which cyberattacks may be conducted, the United Nations has warned that the next world war could be initiated through worldwide cyberattacks between countries. In response to the growing threat of cyberwarfare and the increasing importance of information security, Congress passed the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA). FISMA recognizes the importance of information security to the national economic and security interests of the United States. However, this Note argues that FISMA has failed to significantly bolster information security, primarily because FISMA treats information security as a technological problem and not an economic problem. This Note analyzes existing proposals to incentivize heightened software quality assurance, and proposes a new solution designed to strengthen federal information security in light of the failings of FISMA and the trappings of Congress’s 2001 amendment to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Big Data and the Internet of Things

Advances in sensing and computing capabilities are making it possible to embed increasing computing power in small devices. This has enabled the sensing devices not just to passively capture data at very high resolution but also to take sophisticated actions in response. Combined with advances in communication, this is resulting in an ecosystem of highly interconnected devices referred to as the Internet of Things - IoT. In conjunction, the advances in machine learning have allowed building models on this ever increasing amounts of data. Consequently, devices all the way from heavy assets such as aircraft engines to wearables such as health monitors can all now not only generate massive amounts of data but can draw back on aggregate analytics to "improve" their performance over time. Big data analytics has been identified as a key enabler for the IoT. In this chapter, we discuss various avenues of the IoT where big data analytics either is already making a significant impact or is on the cusp of doing so. We also discuss social implications and areas of concern.Comment: 33 pages. draft of upcoming book chapter in Japkowicz and Stefanowski (eds.) Big Data Analysis: New algorithms for a new society, Springer Series on Studies in Big Data, to appea

When Sales Becomes Service: The Evolution of the Professional Selling Role and an Organic Model of Frontline Ambidexterity

Building on new theoretical foundations in the professional selling domain, growing bodies of research on frontline ambidexterity, and an increasingly demanding and dynamic frontline role, this article advances frontline ambidexterity through three focal goals. We first provide an in-depth discussion of the evolution of the professional selling role. This foundation allows us to identify and explore the implications of a market-driven model of ambidexterity that can manifest organically within certain professional selling contexts. In so doing, we espouse a new model of individual-level ambidexterity—organic frontline ambidexterity. Next, we discern existing models of frontline ambidexterity (characterized as inorganic) and compare these to the organic model proposed. Finally, we provide an organizational framework of frontline ambidexterity enablement to provide context for organizations to best align and enable ambidexterity as a dynamic capability. We provide corresponding research questions in an effort to aid in the systematic expansion of frontline ambidexterity research

Internet of things

Manual of Digital Earth / Editors: Huadong Guo, Michael F. Goodchild, Alessandro Annoni .- Springer, 2020 .- ISBN: 978-981-32-9915-3Digital Earth was born with the aim of replicating the real world within the digital world. Many efforts have been made to observe and sense the Earth, both from space (remote sensing) and by using in situ sensors. Focusing on the latter, advances in Digital Earth have established vital bridges to exploit these sensors and their networks by taking location as a key element. The current era of connectivity envisions that everything is connected to everything. The concept of the Internet of Things(IoT)emergedasaholisticproposaltoenableanecosystemofvaried,heterogeneous networked objects and devices to speak to and interact with each other. To make the IoT ecosystem a reality, it is necessary to understand the electronic components, communication protocols, real-time analysis techniques, and the location of the objects and devices. The IoT ecosystem and the Digital Earth (DE) jointly form interrelated infrastructures for addressing today’s pressing issues and complex challenges. In this chapter, we explore the synergies and frictions in establishing an efficient and permanent collaboration between the two infrastructures, in order to adequately address multidisciplinary and increasingly complex real-world problems. Although there are still some pending issues, the identified synergies generate optimism for a true collaboration between the Internet of Things and the Digital Earth

Pervasive Monitoring - An Intelligent Sensor Pod Approach for Standardised Measurement Infrastructures

Geo-sensor networks have traditionally been built up in closed monolithic systems, thus limiting trans-domain usage of real-time measurements. This paper presents the technical infrastructure of a standardised embedded sensing device, which has been developed in the course of the Live Geography approach. The sensor pod implements data provision standards of the Sensor Web Enablement initiative, including an event-based alerting mechanism and location-aware Complex Event Processing functionality for detection of threshold transgression and quality assurance. The goal of this research is that the resultant highly flexible sensing architecture will bring sensor network applications one step further towards the realisation of the vision of a “digital skin for planet earth”. The developed infrastructure can potentially have far-reaching impacts on sensor-based monitoring systems through the deployment of ubiquitous and fine-grained sensor networks. This in turn allows for the straight-forward use of live sensor data in existing spatial decision support systems to enable better-informed decision-making.Seventh Framework Programme (European Commission) (FP7 project GENESIS no. 223996)Austria. Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and TechnologyERA-STAR Regions Project (G2real)Austria. Federal Ministry of Science and Researc

From Sensor to Observation Web with Environmental Enablers in the Future Internet

This paper outlines the grand challenges in global sustainability research and the objectives of the FP7 Future Internet PPP program within the Digital Agenda for Europe. Large user communities are generating significant amounts of valuable environmental observations at local and regional scales using the devices and services of the Future Internet. These communities’ environmental observations represent a wealth of information which is currently hardly used or used only in isolation and therefore in need of integration with other information sources. Indeed, this very integration will lead to a paradigm shift from a mere Sensor Web to an Observation Web with semantically enriched content emanating from sensors, environmental simulations and citizens. The paper also describes the research challenges to realize the Observation Web and the associated environmental enablers for the Future Internet. Such an environmental enabler could for instance be an electronic sensing device, a web-service application, or even a social networking group affording or facilitating the capability of the Future Internet applications to consume, produce, and use environmental observations in cross-domain applications. The term ?envirofied? Future Internet is coined to describe this overall target that forms a cornerstone of work in the Environmental Usage Area within the Future Internet PPP program. Relevant trends described in the paper are the usage of ubiquitous sensors (anywhere), the provision and generation of information by citizens, and the convergence of real and virtual realities to convey understanding of environmental observations. The paper addresses the technical challenges in the Environmental Usage Area and the need for designing multi-style service oriented architecture. Key topics are the mapping of requirements to capabilities, providing scalability and robustness with implementing context aware information retrieval. Another essential research topic is handling data fusion and model based computation, and the related propagation of information uncertainty. Approaches to security, standardization and harmonization, all essential for sustainable solutions, are summarized from the perspective of the Environmental Usage Area. The paper concludes with an overview of emerging, high impact applications in the environmental areas concerning land ecosystems (biodiversity), air quality (atmospheric conditions) and water ecosystems (marine asset management)

Towards a model of transformation: Manager's perceptions of transformation in an e-business environment

In the Entrepreneurial Millennium, companies and industries must come to terms with change. When change is radical, they must manage a metamorphosis by way of transformation. Here industry structures and relationships may change radically where new rules and guidelines are needed to manage the business and its customers in the transformed dimension. Some studies have conducted research and analysed findings according to the transformational impact on the organisations showing that early adopters of e-business show a trend towards cost reductions and administrative efficiencies while more mature users focus on strategic level change and advantage (Ash and Burn, 2003). Other researchers have studied the challenges that major organisations have encountered while expanding their ebusiness transformation strategy (Ranganathan, Shetty and Muthukumaran, 2004). Managers therefore need to develop a better understanding of the theory and processes associated with the transformation in an e-business context. This paper reviews the findings of field research and uses it as a basis to propose a new model of transformation which may guide future research and lead to a better understanding of what is involved in the process. © 2008 iKMS & World Scientific Publishing Co

Devising and testing an instrument designed to mitigate the paradox between the traditional disconnected world and the evolution in collaborative ICT

This paper begins by defining ontology of ICT concepts including virtual organisations, living labs and digital ecosystems in an effort to identify practical answers to the paradox between the traditional disconnected world and collaboratively networked, open, loosely coupled environments. The paper then introduces a framework and case study that devises a new instrument designed to enable organisations in unleashing the power of their ICT infrastructure to take advantage of the values of the globally competitive networks in the 21st Century. The pervasive use of modern infrastructure and collaborative ICT frameworks have the potential to create sustainable multi-organisation, multi-institution, multi-linkage industry and research and development collectives to open up opportunities for the design and development of revolutionary products and services

Bootstrapping

Virtually every action depends on some conditions precedent. Law is no exception. The common law and precedent involve reliance on earlier developments, as do more particularized phenomena like slippery slopes and path dependence. In some situations, an actor undertakes permissible action Y and thereby renders its action Z legally permissible, a phenomenon I refer to as bootstrapping. Some commentators have raised concerns about the consequences of allowing bootstrapping, notably in the context of the individual mandate in the 2010 health care act. In this article I consider whether we, as citizens, should find bootstrapping, or a particular category of bootstrapping, particularly troubling. Bootstrapping is ubiquitous, so disallowing all bootstrapping by government actors would render the government unable to act. And I find that most possible distinctions are not useful. The one possible exception is a distinction between simultaneous and nonsimultaneous bootstrapping, as the former presents a situation in which the bootstrap is certain. Disfavoring simultaneous bootstrapping will do both too little (to the President) and too much (to Congress). I conclude that the costs of disfavoring some bootstrapping outweigh the benefits