Performance evaluation of MPEG-4 video streaming over UMTS networks using an integrated tool environment

Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third-generation mobile communications system that supports wireless wideband multimedia applications. This paper investigates the video quality attained in streaming MPEG-4 video over UMTS networks using an integrated tool environment, which comprises an MPEG-4 encoder/decoder, a network simulator and video quality evaluation tools. The benefit of such an integrated tool environment is that it allows the evaluation of real video sources compressed using an MPEG-4 encoder. Simulation results show that UMTS Radio Link Control (RLC) outperforms the unacknowledged mode. The latter mode provides timely delivery but no error recovery. The acknowledged mode can deliver excellent perceived video quality for RLC block error rates up to 30% utilizing a playback buffer at the streaming client. Based on the analysis of the performance results, a self-adaptive RLC acknowledged mode protocol is proposed

“Open” initiatives in higher education. Developing a coherent strategy

“Open” approaches have the potential to enhance research, learning, and global knowledge sharing, and contribute to social justice. The open movement in higher education now extends beyond open access to content through a vision of transparent collaborative processes. We use an inclusive definition of Open, considering activity alongside content, and also incorporating infrastructures. We propose a high-level typology and model of Open to inform policy design and strategy delivery. Our preliminary work (2014) categorizes 12 domains of open as 3 broad types, elaborated in a relational model depicting interactions and reciprocal influences in an evolving open culture and worldview. Our emerging findings reveal important commonalities in the theoretical bases and practical benefits of the multiple open domains, supporting the case for promoting a unified policy agenda. Some guides exist for atomistic policies, but few studies have explored what a coherent holistic open strategy might look like for higher education institutions. Our goal is to fill this gap with a multi-country survey and policy analysis

A genealogy of open access: negotiations between openness and access to research

Open access (OA) is a contested term with a complicated history and a variety of understandings. This rich history is routinely ignored by institutional, funder and governmental policies that instead enclose the concept and promote narrow approaches to OA. This article presents a genealogy of the term open access, focusing on the separate histories that emphasise openness and reusability on the one hand, as borrowed from the open-source software and free culture movements, and accessibility on the other hand, as represented by proponents of institutional and subject repositories. This genealogy is further complicated by the publishing cultures that have evolved within individual communities of practice: publishing means different things to different communities and individual approaches to OA are representative of this fact. From analysing its historical underpinnings and subsequent development, I argue that OA is best conceived as a boundary object, a term coined by Star and Griesemer (1989) to describe concepts with a shared, flexible definition between communities of practice but a more community-specific definition within them. Boundary objects permit working relationships between communities while allowing local use and development of the concept. This means that OA is less suitable as a policy object, because boundary objects lose their use-value when ‘enclosed’ at a general level, but should instead be treated as a community-led, grassroots endeavour

How scientific research changes the Vietnamese higher education landscape: Evidence from social sciences and humanities between 2008 and 2019

Background: In the context of globalization, Vietnamese universities, whose primary function is teaching, there is a need to improve research performance. Methods: Based on SSHPA data, an exclusive database of Vietnamese social sciences and humanities researchers’ productivity, between 2008 and 2019 period, this study analyzes the research output of Vietnamese universities in the field of social sciences and humanities. Results: Vietnamese universities have been steadily producing a high volume of publications in the 2008-2019 period, with a peak of 598 articles in 2019. Moreover, many private universities and institutions are also joining the publication race, pushing competitiveness in the country. Conclusions: Solutions to improve both quantity and quality of Vietnamese universities’ research practice in the context of the industrial revolution 4.0 could be applying international criteria in Vietnamese higher education, developing scientific and critical thinking for general and STEM education, and promoting science communication

The Open Movement: What Libraries Can Do

Open approaches have moved beyond open access, open source software, and open courseware to developments with open infrastructure and open processes. Open initiatives are gaining momentum as a result of both bottom‐up grassroots activism and top‐down policy agenda. In a few instances, they have already reached a tipping point; but in many cases they are being pursued separately by specialist groups, suffering from fragmentation, and not always having their expected outcomes or impacts. Our study of open initiatives uses a simple overarching definition of open resources, and introduces a convenient framework enabling shared understanding of three different types of openness—open content, open process, and open infrastructure—illustrated by a dozen examples of open domains relevant to libraries and information services. We explain the common attributes, existing synergies, mutual benefits, and natural limits of open approaches that need to be taken into account when developing and implementing policies and strategies to advance openness in organizations. We argue that librarians and other information specialists can make important contributions in promoting a holistic open culture in education, workplaces, communities, and society; and we identify a continuum of nine potential roles as recommended operational, tactical, and strategic interventions for information professionals, individually and collectively. Practitioners can use the models and tools presented to gain a fuller understanding of the concept of openness and its implications for libraries and their parent institutions; and, more significantly, to review, evaluate, and determine their own current and future roles as advocates, collaborators, and leaders of the open movement

Open access scholarly publishing and the problem of networks and intermediaries in the academic commons

Der Vortrag wurde am 5th Frankfurt Scientific Symposium gehalten (22-23 Oktober 2005)

Crisis communication capacity for disaster resilience: community participation of information providing and verifying in Indonesian volcanic eruption

This study investigates information networks during the 2010 Merapi volcanic eruption, as a well-proven representative case to capture the capacity of local communities to provide, share, and verify information. Abstract Strengthening community capacities is important to significantly increase community resilience after a shock. In the phase of disaster resilience, relief activities generally are focused on aid distribution, physical and economic recovery to stabilize the affected community. Yet, building the community capacity for crisis communication has not been prioritized; meanwhile it can accelerate the social capital in disaster resilience. By selecting Jalin Merapi (Merapi Circle Information Networks) in the 2010 Merapi eruption as a case study; this study captures how local communities can empower themselves through participation in providing, sharing, and verifying the information within their social network. Data has been collected by in-depth interviews with the local communities‟ members and focus-groups with appointed officials in Merapi volcano. Jalin Merapi has developed a collaborative system with community radio stations and local communities as reliable information sources and direct verifiers. A media convergence of 14 communication technologies enables a broad spread of information about refugees‟ real needs within and beyond the local communities. As the result, the refugees could receive adequate aid based on their current situation and culture. Hence, they can quickly recover themselves and furthermore foster the resilience process within the affected communities in general. Finally, this study is trying to acknowledge the challenges for strengthening the community capacity for crisis communication with bottom-up approaches, based on their knowledge and vulnerabilities in disaster resilience

How Does One “Open” Science? Questions of Value in Biological Research

Open Science policies encourage researchers to disclose a wide range of outputs from their work, thus codifying openness as a specific set of research practices and guidelines, which can be interpreted and applied consistently across disciplines and geographical settings. In this paper, we argue that this “one-size-fits-all” view of openness sidesteps key questions about the forms, implications, and goals of openness for research practice. We propose instead to interpret openness as a dynamic and highly situated mode of valuing the research process and its outputs, which encompasses economic as well as scientific, cultural, political, ethical and social considerations. This interpretation sets up a critical space for moving beyond the economic definitions of value embedded in the contemporary biosciences landscape and Open Science policies, and stress the diversity of interests and commitments that affect research practices in the life sciences. To illustrate these claims, we use three case studies that highlight the challenges surrounding decisions about how – and how best – to make things open. These cases, which are drawn from interviews carried out with UK-based biologists and bioinformaticians in 2013 and 2014, show how the enactment of openness reveals judgments about what constitutes a legitimate intellectual contribution, for whom, and with what implications