Rethinking privacy in social networks: A case study of beacon

Popular online social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook and Bebo are technological platforms that are posing questions about personal privacy. This paper contributes to our understanding of the nature and form of online privacy by critically analysing the issues surrounding the failed launch of Facebook’s advertising tool Beacon. Beacon is an interesting case study because it highlighted the complexity of information ownership in an online social network. Qualitative data was gathered from 29 weblogs (blogs) representing user opinions published between 6th November 2007(when Beacon was launched) and 28th February 2008 (when commentary had dwindled). A thematic analysis of the blogs suggest that concerns such as commercialism, terms of service (TOS), lack of user control, lack of user awareness and data protection are factors that influence user perceptions of information ownership as a subset of online privacy

A heuristic evaluation of the Facebook's advertising tool beacon

Interface usability is critical to the successful adoption of information systems. The aim of this study is to evaluate interface of Facebook's advertising tool Beacon by using privacy heuristics [4]. Beacon represents an interesting case study because of the negative media and user backlash it received. The findings of heuristic evaluation suggest violation of privacy heuristics [4]. Here, analysis identified concerns about user choice and consent, integrity and security of data, and awareness and notice. Beacon was an innovative tool, therefore, its systematic evaluation was needed in order to identify privacy problems, their causes and subsequent consequences. The study provides useful insights to human computer interaction (HCI) designers of online social networks

AGENT: Alumni growth and engagement across new technologies

The AGENT project aims to use social networking technologies (LinkedIn and Facebook) to support the development of undergraduates’ employability and career development. The focus of the project is on e-mentoring by alumni to provide a ‘bridge’ between individuals whose social ties and connections are weakened by time and distance, whilst at the same time capitalising on the learning opportunities afforded by the widening of social networks. Social networking sites (SNSs) have been shown to provide students with the tools to make connections, build relationships and support personal development. From a social capital perspective, SNSs can support ‘weak ties’ by allowing students to grow a social network from which to draw resources in the form of information, knowledge, advice and expertise that an institution’s alumni can provide. Alumni are a key resource for building professional networking communities that can provide offline as well as online support to students. We report on an on-going JISC project –AGENT (Alumni Growth and Engagement across New Technologies) that explores how Web 2.0 technologies engage alumni, create the sense of belonging, develop more effective and mutually-beneficial alumni-student connections and associated positive social capital outcomes.Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) 2011-201

Mining social network data for personalisation and privacy concerns: A case study of Facebook’s Beacon

This is the post-print version of the final published paper that is available from the link below.The popular success of online social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook is a hugely tempting resource of data mining for businesses engaged in personalised marketing. The use of personal information, willingly shared between online friends' networks intuitively appears to be a natural extension of current advertising strategies such as word-of-mouth and viral marketing. However, the use of SNS data for personalised marketing has provoked outrage amongst SNS users and radically highlighted the issue of privacy concern. This paper inverts the traditional approach to personalisation by conceptualising the limits of data mining in social networks using privacy concern as the guide. A qualitative investigation of 95 blogs containing 568 comments was collected during the failed launch of Beacon, a third party marketing initiative by Facebook. Thematic analysis resulted in the development of taxonomy of privacy concerns which offers a concrete means for online businesses to better understand SNS business landscape - especially with regard to the limits of the use and acceptance of personalised marketing in social networks

Thermal entanglement and efficiency of the quantum Otto cycle for the su(1,1) Tavis-Cummings system

The influence of the dynamical Stark shift on the thermal entanglement and the efficiency of the quantum Otto cycle is studied for the su(1,1) Tavis-Cummings system. It is shown that the degree of the thermal entanglement becomes larger as the dynamical Stark shift increases. In contrast, the efficiency of the Otto cycle is degraded with an increase of the values of dynamical Stark shift. Expressions for the efficiency coefficient are derived. Using those expressions we identify the maximal efficiency of the quantum Otto cycle from the experimentally measured values of the dynamical Stark shiftComment: to appear in J.Phys.

Three-body Casimir effects and non-monotonic forces

Casimir interactions are not pair-wise additive. This property leads to collective effects that we study for a pair of objects near a conducting wall. We employ a scattering approach to compute the interaction in terms of fluctuating multipoles. The wall can lead to a non-monotonic force between the objects. For two atoms with anisotropic electric and magnetic dipole polarizabilities we demonstrate that this non-monotonic effect results from a competition between two- and three body interactions. By including higher order multipoles we obtain the force between two macroscopic metallic spheres for a wide range of sphere separations and distances to the wall.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

University Course Scheduling Using the Evolutionary Algorithm

Course scheduling problem is hard and time-consuming to solve which is commonly faced by academic administrator at least two times every year. This problem can be solved using search and optimization technique with many constraints. This problem has been well studied in the past, and still becomes favorite subject for researchers. We will briefly discuss the convergence difficulty in our initial work on this subject using a modified hill-climbing search technique[8]. In this paper, an evolutionary algorithm is applied to solve the course scheduling problem and studying mutation techniques involved in the algorithm

Analisis Pendapatan Hot Cocoa (Studi Kasus (P4S) Cahaya Duta Palili di Desa Bunga – Bunga Kecamatan Matakali Kabupaten Polewali Mandar

Penelitian ini dilaksanakan di P4s Cahaya Duta Palili Desa Bunga-bunga Kecamatan Matakali Kabupaten Polewali Mandar dari bulan Agustus sampai dengan Oktober 2016. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui besar biaya produksi USAha Hot Cocoa kemudian berapa pendapatan yang diterima, dan menentukan nilai R/C Ratio yang dicapai, tujuannya untuk mengetahui tingkat efisiensi USAhanya. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini meliputi metode observasi langsung, wawancara melalui kuesioner terhadap responden sekaligus mengambil dokumentasi penelitian dan dilanjutkan dengan metode analisis kuantitatif untuk menentukan berapa besar biaya yang dikeluarkan dan besarnya pendapatan serta kelayakan USAha. Hasil penelitian diperoleh Pendapatan yang diperoleh dari P4S Cahaya Duta Palili dari USAha pembuatan Hot Cocoa yakni sebesar Rp.37.459.650,- selama tiga bulan dari total penerimaan sebesar Rp. 74.400.000,- Dan total biaya sebesar Rp.36.940.350,-. Berdasarkan nilai R/C Ratio yang diperoleh pada USAha Hot Cocoa di P4S Cahaya Duta Palili sebesar 2,38 berarti USAha tersebut dinyatakan layak, karena setiap penambahan biaya Rp 1,- maka akan memperoleh penerimaan sebesar 2,38. Dengan demikian USAha pembuatan Hot Cocoa yang telah diproduksi oleh P4S Cahaya Duta Palili dinilai layak untuk diteruska