The Relationship between Nonprofit Organizations and Cloud Adoption Concerns

Many leaders of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in the United States do not have plans to adopt cloud computing. However, the factors accounting for their decisions is not known. This correlational study used the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) to examine whether performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, price value, and habit can predict behavioral intention (BI) and use behavior (UB) of NPO information technology (IT) managers towards adopting cloud computing within the Phoenix metropolitan area of Arizona of the U.S. An existing UTAUT2 survey instrument was used with a sample of IT managers (N = 106) from NPOs. A multiple regression analysis confirmed a positive statistically significant relationship between predictors and the dependent variables of BI and UB. The first model significantly predicted BI, F (7,99) =54.239, p -?¤ .001, R^2=.795. Performance expectancy (β = .295, p = .004), social influence (β = .148, p = .033), facilitating conditions (β = .246, p = .007), and habit (β = .245, p = .002) were statistically significant predictors of BI at the .05 level. The second model significantly predicted UB, F (3,103) = 37.845, p -?¤ .001, R^2 = .527. Habit (β = .430, p = .001) was a statistically significant predictor for UB at a .05 level. Using the study results, NPO IT managers may be able to develop strategies to improve the adoption of cloud computing within their organization. The implication for positive social change is that, by using the study results, NPO leaders may be able to improve their IT infrastructure and services for those in need, while also reducing their organization\u27s carbon footprint through use of shared data centers for processing

Systems Engineering: Availability and Reliability

Current trends in Industry 4.0 are largely related to issues of reliability and availability. As a result of these trends and the complexity of engineering systems, research and development in this area needs to focus on new solutions in the integration of intelligent machines or systems, with an emphasis on changes in production processes aimed at increasing production efficiency or equipment reliability. The emergence of innovative technologies and new business models based on innovation, cooperation networks, and the enhancement of endogenous resources is assumed to be a strong contribution to the development of competitive economies all around the world. Innovation and engineering, focused on sustainability, reliability, and availability of resources, have a key role in this context. The scope of this Special Issue is closely associated to that of the ICIE’2020 conference. This conference and journal’s Special Issue is to present current innovations and engineering achievements of top world scientists and industrial practitioners in the thematic areas related to reliability and risk assessment, innovations in maintenance strategies, production process scheduling, management and maintenance or systems analysis, simulation, design and modelling

Advanced Modeling and Research in Hybrid Microgrid Control and Optimization

This book presents the latest solutions in fuel cell (FC) and renewable energy implementation in mobile and stationary applications. The implementation of advanced energy management and optimization strategies are detailed for fuel cell and renewable microgrids, and for the multi-FC stack architecture of FC/electric vehicles to enhance the reliability of these systems and to reduce the costs related to energy production and maintenance. Cyber-security methods based on blockchain technology to increase the resilience of FC renewable hybrid microgrids are also presented. Therefore, this book is for all readers interested in these challenging directions of research

ICSEA 2022: the seventeenth international conference on software engineering advances

The Seventeenth International Conference on Software Engineering Advances (ICSEA 2022), held between October 16th and October 20th, 2022, continued a series of events covering a broad spectrum of software-related topics. The conference covered fundamentals on designing, implementing, testing, validating and maintaining various kinds of software. Several tracks were proposed to treat the topics from theory to practice, in terms of methodologies, design, implementation, testing, use cases, tools, and lessons learned. The conference topics covered classical and advanced methodologies, open source, agile software, as well as software deployment and software economics and education. Other advanced aspects are related to on-time practical aspects, such as run-time vulnerability checking, rejuvenation process, updates partial or temporary feature deprecation, software deployment and configuration, and on-line software updates. These aspects trigger implications related to patenting, licensing, engineering education, new ways for software adoption and improvement, and ultimately, to software knowledge management. There are many advanced applications requiring robust, safe, and secure software: disaster recovery applications, vehicular systems, biomedical-related software, biometrics related software, mission critical software, E-health related software, crisis-situation software. These applications require appropriate software engineering techniques, metrics and formalisms, such as, software reuse, appropriate software quality metrics, composition and integration, consistency checking, model checking, provers and reasoning. The nature of research in software varies slightly with the specific discipline researchers work in, yet there is much common ground and room for a sharing of best practice, frameworks, tools, languages and methodologies. Despite the number of experts we have available, little work is done at the meta level, that is examining how we go about our research, and how this process can be improved. There are questions related to the choice of programming language, IDEs and documentation styles and standard. Reuse can be of great benefit to research projects yet reuse of prior research projects introduces special problems that need to be mitigated. The research environment is a mix of creativity and systematic approach which leads to a creative tension that needs to be managed or at least monitored. Much of the coding in any university is undertaken by research students or young researchers. Issues of skills training, development and quality control can have significant effects on an entire department. In an industrial research setting, the environment is not quite that of industry as a whole, nor does it follow the pattern set by the university. The unique approaches and issues of industrial research may hold lessons for researchers in other domains. We take here the opportunity to warmly thank all the members of the ICSEA 2022 technical program committee, as well as all the reviewers. The creation of such a high-quality conference program would not have been possible without their involvement. We also kindly thank all the authors who dedicated much of their time and effort to contribute to ICSEA 2022. We truly believe that, thanks to all these efforts, the final conference program consisted of top-quality contributions. We also thank the members of the ICSEA 2022 organizing committee for their help in handling the logistics of this event. We hope that ICSEA 2022 was a successful international forum for the exchange of ideas and results between academia and industry and for the promotion of progress in software engineering advances

Resilience-Building Technologies: State of Knowledge -- ReSIST NoE Deliverable D12

This document is the first product of work package WP2, "Resilience-building and -scaling technologies", in the programme of jointly executed research (JER) of the ReSIST Network of Excellenc

RFID Technology in Intelligent Tracking Systems in Construction Waste Logistics Using Optimisation Techniques

Construction waste disposal is an urgent issue for protecting our environment. This paper proposes a waste management system and illustrates the work process using plasterboard waste as an example, which creates a hazardous gas when land filled with household waste, and for which the recycling rate is less than 10% in the UK. The proposed system integrates RFID technology, Rule-Based Reasoning, Ant Colony optimization and knowledge technology for auditing and tracking plasterboard waste, guiding the operation staff, arranging vehicles, schedule planning, and also provides evidence to verify its disposal. It h relies on RFID equipment for collecting logistical data and uses digital imaging equipment to give further evidence; the reasoning core in the third layer is responsible for generating schedules and route plans and guidance, and the last layer delivers the result to inform users. The paper firstly introduces the current plasterboard disposal situation and addresses the logistical problem that is now the main barrier to a higher recycling rate, followed by discussion of the proposed system in terms of both system level structure and process structure. And finally, an example scenario will be given to illustrate the system’s utilization

Safety and Reliability - Safe Societies in a Changing World

The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk managemen