Moderating Effect of Environment on Software Piracy: Exploring Determinants of Softlifting Attitude and Intention

Software piracy is a persistent and serious problem. In recent years, progress has been made to reduce software piracy. However, computer software is greatly susceptible to theft and market influences have recently contributed to a staggering $48 billion worldwide loss due to piracy (BSA, 2008). This paper outlines research in progress that will provide insight into software piracy attitude and intention. The purpose of the research is to investigate the moderating effect of environment on the relationship between behavioral beliefs and attitudes toward softlifting (i.e. the illegal duplication of copyrighted software by individuals) in three unique settings work, home, and school. This study promises to make several important contributions. The work should demonstrate the importance of including environment in theoretical models of the antecedents that influence softlifting attitude and intention. Results may also prove helpful to information systems professionals and educators in implementing measures to discourage software piracy

Business Intelligence, Analytics And Data Visualization: A Heat Map Project Tutorial

Business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) initiatives are helping countless organizations harness and interpret the vast amount of information available in the world today. The explosion of BI&A in industry has fueled the high demand for knowledge workers with advanced analytical skills. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a data visualization project tutorial for Information Systems (IS) education. The applied BI&A tutorial was designed to help students learn how to create and analyze a heat map using SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Students learn how to make decisions based on large amounts of data by presenting it in visual form. This tutorial exposes students to the decision-making power derived from data visualization. Utilizing the 5E Instructional Model, the tutorial assists in the development of BI&A professionals who can quickly make sense of mass amounts of data, identify trends buried within data sets, and are skilled in making sound decisions that add value to organizations

Combining Business Intelligence And Stock Market Data: A Primer For Data Analytics And Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) has become indispensible to modern business decision-making. Organizations rely on BI to interpret the mass amounts of data circulating throughout the world. However, integration of BI into university business programs does not parallel industry demands. The purpose of this paper is to introduce an innovative business intelligence project tutorial for Information Systems (IS) education. The applied tutorial was designed to help students learn how to design and publish a report using SQL Server Reporting Services to analyze current stock market data. This tutorial exposes students to the decision-making power derived from raw data analysis and assists in development of business professionals who can maximize profitability through effective use of business intelligence

Integrating Data Cleansing With Popular Culture: A Novel SQL Character Data Tutorial

Big data and data science have experienced unprecedented growth in recent years.  The big data market continues to exhibit strong momentum as countless businesses transform into data-driven companies. From salary surges to incredible growth in the number of positions, data science is one of the hottest areas in the job market. Significant demand and limited supply of professionals with data competencies has greatly affected the hiring market and this demand/supply imbalance will likely continue in the future. A major key in supplying the market with qualified big data professionals, is bridging the gap from traditional Information Systems (IS) learning outcomes to those outcomes requisite in this emerging field. The purpose of this paper is to share an SQL Character Data Tutorial.  Utilizing the 5E Instructional Model, this tutorial helps students (a) become familiar with SQL code, (b) learn when and how to use SQL string functions, (c) understand and apply the concept of data cleansing, (d) gain problem solving skills in the context of typical string manipulations, and (e) gain an understanding of typical needs related to string queries. The tutorial utilizes common, recognizable quotes from popular culture to engage students in the learning process and enhance understanding. This tutorial should prove helpful to educators who seek to provide a rigorous, practical, and relevant big data experience in their courses

Sensorimotor signals underlying space perception: An investigation based on self-touch

Perception of space has puzzled scientists since antiquity, and is among the foundational questions of scientific psychology. Classical “local sign” theories assert that perception of spatial extent ultimately derives from efferent signals specifying the intensity of motor commands. Everyday cases of self-touch, such as stroking the left forearm with the right index fingertip, provide an important platform for studying spatial perception, because of the tight correlation between motor and tactile extents. Nevertheless, if the motor and sensory information in self-touch were artificially decoupled, these classical theories would clearly predict that motor signals – especially if self-generated rather than passive – should influence spatial perceptual judgements, but not vice versa. We tested this hypothesis by quantifying the contribution of tactile, kinaesthetic, and motor information to judgements of spatial extent. In a self-touch paradigm involving two coupled robots in master-slave configuration, voluntary movements of the right-hand produced simultaneous tactile stroking on the left forearm. Crucially, the coupling between robots was manipulated so that tactile stimulation could be shorter, equal, or longer in extent than the movement that caused it. Participants judged either the extent of the movement, or the extent of the tactile stroke. By controlling sensorimotor gains in this way, we quantified how motor signals influence tactile spatial perception, and vice versa. Perception of tactile extent was strongly biased by the amplitude of the movement performed. Importantly, touch also affected the perceived extent of movement. Finally, the effect of movement on touch was significantly stronger when movements were actively-generated compared to when the participant's right hand was passively moved by the experimenter. Overall, these results suggest that motor signals indeed dominate the construction of spatial percepts, at least when the normal tight correlation between motor and sensory signals is broken. Importantly, however, this dominance is not total, as classical theory might suggest

Interhemispheric communication during haptic self-perception

During the haptic exploration of a planar surface, slight resistances against the hand's movement are illusorily perceived as asperities (bumps) in the surface. If the surface being touched is one's own skin, an actual bump would also produce increased tactile pressure from the moving finger onto the skin. We investigated how kinaesthetic and tactile signals combine to produce haptic perceptions during self-touch. Participants performed two successive movements with the right hand. A haptic force-control robot applied resistances to both movements, and participants judged which movement was felt to contain the larger bump. An additional robot delivered simultaneous but task-irrelevant tactile stroking to the left forearm. These strokes contained either increased or decreased tactile pressure synchronized with the resistance-induced illusory bump encountered by the right hand. We found that the size of bumps perceived by the right hand was enhanced by an increase in left tactile pressure, but also by a decrease. Tactile event detection was thus transferred interhemispherically, but the sign of the tactile information was not respected. Randomizing (rather than blocking) the presentation order of left tactile stimuli abolished these interhemispheric enhancement effects. Thus, interhemispheric transfer during bimanual self-touch requires a stable model of temporally synchronized events, but does not require geometric consistency between hemispheric information, nor between tactile and kinaesthetic representations of a single common object

Examining Learning Styles and Perceived Benefits of Analogical Problem Construction on SQL Knowledge Acquisition

The demand for Information Systems (IS) graduates with expertise in Structured Query Language (SQL) and database management is vast and projected to increase as ‘big data’ becomes ubiquitous. To prepare students to solve complex problems in a data-driven world, educators must explore instructional strategies to help link prior knowledge to new knowledge. This study examined learning styles and the perceived benefits of analogical problem construction on SQL knowledge acquisition. The data collected from 80 participants suggests there is a perceived positive benefit to using analogical problem construction for learning introductory database concepts. The learning style of the majority of students in the sample is ‘Active-Sensing-Visual-Sequential.’ However, learning styles were not related to student perceived impact of analogical problem construction to understand database concepts. Student analogies were collected for a variety of SQL concepts; noteworthy examples are highlighted. While results related to learning styles are intriguing, the most promising path for further exploration (for both research and practice) is the use of analogy problem construction in Information Systems educational environments

Microstructure of the Local Interstellar Cloud and the Identification of the Hyades Cloud

We analyze high-resolution UV spectra of the Mg II h and k lines for 18 members of the Hyades Cluster to study inhomogeneity along these proximate lines of sight. The observations were taken by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) instrument on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Three distinct velocity components are observed. All 18 lines of sight show absorption by the Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), ten stars show absorption by an additional cloud, which we name the Hyades Cloud, and one star exhibits a third absorption component. The LIC absorption is observed at a lower radial velocity than predicted by the LIC velocity vector derived by Lallement & Bertin (1992) and Lallement et al. (1995), (v(predicted LIC) - v(observed LIC) = 2.9 +/- 0.7 km/s), which may indicate a compression or deceleration at the leading edge of the LIC. We propose an extention of the Hyades Cloud boundary based on previous HST observations of other stars in the general vicinity of the Hyades, as well as ground-based Ca II observations. We present our fits of the interstellar parameters for each absorption component. The availability of 18 similar lines of sight provides an excellent opportunity to study the inhomogeneity of the warm, partially ionized local interstellar medium (LISM). We find that these structures are roughly homogeneous. The measured Mg II column densities do not vary by more than a factor of 2 for angular separations of < 8 degrees, which at the outer edge of the LIC correspond to physical separations of < 0.6 pc.Comment: 35 pages, 11 figures, AASTEX v.5.0 plus EPSF extensions in mkfig.sty; accepted by Ap

ОБСЛУГОВУВАННЯ ЧИТАЧІВ У БІБЛІОТЕКАХ НАВЧАЛЬНИХ ЗАКЛАДІВ ДОРЕВОЛЮЦІЙНОГО КАТЕРИНОСЛАВА

Висвітлено історичний розвиток бібліотек навчальних закладів краю, приділена увага процесу обслуговування читацького контингенту освітніх закладів, напрямкам, формам, та характерним рисам. Визначено місце і роль бібліотечних працівників-викладачів.Historical development of educational institutions libraries of Yekaterinoslav region is shown, special attentionis paidto readers’ service in national education, its trends,forms andpeculiar features. The place and role of librarian teachers is defined