The impact logic of mobile technology usage on job production

Research on mobile technologies has received an increasing attention. Most of the existing literature focuses on use of mobile technologies on a managerial level, with technology as a device for information and communication exchange. The impact potential and their corresponding functionalities at the worker level has not yet been analyzed. This study tries to address this gap. It is the key objective to develop a theoretical model how mobile technologies impact business processes in job production (construction industry) on the operational level. Thus, a generic model will be developed on the basis of existing literature, especially the concept of Task-Technology-Fit. It emphasizes how task complexity affects the required effort of individual information access, information capturing as well as the timeliness of information. These mediators will influence the utilization of information for resource planning and coordination which in turn will affect the performance of operational processes. Then, it will be deduced how mobile technologies affect the forces and relationships in this model. There exists a trade-off between the increasing effort to capture information and the reduced effort for accessing information. Moreover, the way how the captured information is utilized for status tracking, resource utilization and resource coordination is considered to be the key factor in improving operational process performance

Single-Board-Computer Clusters for Cloudlet Computing in Internet of Things

The number of connected sensors and devices is expected to increase to billions in the near future. However, centralised cloud-computing data centres present various challenges to meet the requirements inherent to Internet of Things (IoT) workloads, such as low latency, high throughput and bandwidth constraints. Edge computing is becoming the standard computing paradigm for latency-sensitive real-time IoT workloads, since it addresses the aforementioned limitations related to centralised cloud-computing models. Such a paradigm relies on bringing computation close to the source of data, which presents serious operational challenges for large-scale cloud-computing providers. In this work, we present an architecture composed of low-cost Single-Board-Computer clusters near to data sources, and centralised cloud-computing data centres. The proposed cost-efficient model may be employed as an alternative to fog computing to meet real-time IoT workload requirements while keeping scalability. We include an extensive empirical analysis to assess the suitability of single-board-computer clusters as cost-effective edge-computing micro data centres. Additionally, we compare the proposed architecture with traditional cloudlet and cloud architectures, and evaluate them through extensive simulation. We finally show that acquisition costs can be drastically reduced while keeping performance levels in data-intensive IoT use cases.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2017-82113-C2-1-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad RTI2018-098062-A-I00European Union’s Horizon 2020 No. 754489Science Foundation Ireland grant 13/RC/209

Active learning based laboratory towards engineering education 4.0

Universities have a relevant and essential key role to ensure knowledge and development of competencies in the current fourth industrial revolution called Industry 4.0. The Industry 4.0 promotes a set of digital technologies to allow the convergence between the information technology and the operation technology towards smarter factories. Under such new framework, multiple initiatives are being carried out worldwide as response of such evolution, particularly, from the engineering education point of view. In this regard, this paper introduces the initiative that is being carried out at the Technical University of Catalonia, Spain, called Industry 4.0 Technologies Laboratory, I4Tech Lab. The I4Tech laboratory represents a technological environment for the academic, research and industrial promotion of related technologies. First, in this work, some of the main aspects considered in the definition of the so called engineering education 4.0 are discussed. Next, the proposed laboratory architecture, objectives as well as considered technologies are explained. Finally, the basis of the proposed academic method supported by an active learning approach is presented.Postprint (published version

Will Broadband Networks Make the World Greener? Evaluating Pros and Cons of Broadband Development

The environmental issue has generally received much attention from the public for decades, especially as a result of heavy industry - electrical energy, oil and gas, mining, steel and metals. Recently, attention has been paid to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and its effect on the knowledge and related industries. Broadband, both fixed and mobile, is not an exception. Even though it has been recognized as a factor that has contributed to social and economic development, anegative effect can also be seen in particular regarding the environment. This paper provides a review of how government policy, in particular by the EU and Japan, are moving towards the transition to sustainability by utilizing ICT, as well as an evaluation of the pros and cons of broadband development. There are many complex effects on sustainability due to ICT. Since ICT can have environmental effects both as enabling energy efficiency and causing rebound effects, the policies should respond to both direct and indirect effects. To facilitate policy analysis and recommendations, this paper categorizes ICT impacts by five orders of aggregation. These five orders of aggregation may contribute both positively and negatively to sustainability, and each level will need targeted policies. The five orders of aggregation suggest a comprehensive and long term view of policy development, encompassing even policies that seek to improve the quality of decision making in our societies, by utilizing ICTs.broadband, sustainable development, green ICT.

Power efficient job scheduling by predicting the impact of processor manufacturing variability

Modern CPUs suffer from performance and power consumption variability due to the manufacturing process. As a result, systems that do not consider such variability caused by manufacturing issues lead to performance degradations and wasted power. In order to avoid such negative impact, users and system administrators must actively counteract any manufacturing variability. In this work we show that parallel systems benefit from taking into account the consequences of manufacturing variability when making scheduling decisions at the job scheduler level. We also show that it is possible to predict the impact of this variability on specific applications by using variability-aware power prediction models. Based on these power models, we propose two job scheduling policies that consider the effects of manufacturing variability for each application and that ensure that power consumption stays under a system-wide power budget. We evaluate our policies under different power budgets and traffic scenarios, consisting of both single- and multi-node parallel applications, utilizing up to 4096 cores in total. We demonstrate that they decrease job turnaround time, compared to contemporary scheduling policies used on production clusters, up to 31% while saving up to 5.5% energy.Postprint (author's final draft

New Media, Professional Sport and Political Economy

New media technologies are seen to be changing the production, delivery and consumption of professional sports and creating a new dynamic between sports fans, athletes, clubs, governing bodies and the mainstream media. However, as Bellamy and McChesney (2011) have pointed out, advances in digital technologies are taking place within social, political, and economic contexts that are strongly conditioning the course and shape of this communication revolution. This essay assesses the first wave of research on professional sport and new media technologies and concludes that early trends indicate the continuation of existing neoliberal capitalist tendencies within professional sport. Using the concept of political economy, the essay explores issues of ownership, structure, production and delivery of sport. Discussion focuses on the opportunities sports fans now have available to them and how sports organization and media corporations shifted from an initial position of uncertainty, that bordered on hostility, to one which has seen them embrace new media technologies as powerful marketing tools. The essay concludes by stating as fundamental the issues of ownership and control and advocates that greater cognizance be accorded to underlying economic structures and the enduring, all-pervasive power of neoliberal capitalism and its impact in professional sport

From Measurement to Management: the Influence of IT on Service Operations

The state of service management practice and the developments in IT-efficiency research prompt the call for managerial relevance, normative theory building and the conceptualization and measurement of the impact of Information Technology (IT) on service efficiency. Drawing on theoretical insights from economic and behavioral literature, this article deduces a work system centered model of the service outlet and proposes a measurement methodology (ITIMPACT) geared towards the development of a business intelligence tool. The measurement follows a two-step methodology that first assesses compared-to-best efficiency, using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and subsequently explains efficiency differences using a regression framework. An inter-disciplinary approach bases the first step on econometric logic, while the second takes its foundation in behavioral sciences, and information system research.Service industry;