Sectors and Strategies of Global Communications Regulation

As the global communication network matures, the systems and procedures for regulating the growing network and its use are being challenged. The general proliferation of services or the specific demand for electronic transactions require guidance and control which the market alone cannot supply. Meanwhile, traditional regulatory regimes remain far from global or coherent. This article distinguishes between coordination and regulation to clarify areas where government intervention is unnecessary and where indispensable. It explores the current patchwork of regulatory approaches, reviews different regulatory areas and strategies, identifies trends, and highlights problem areas particular to electronic commerce and third party protection

Technology Adoption by Elderly People – An Empirical Analysis of Adopters and Non-Adopters of Social Networking Sites

This research paper analyzes the impact of attitudinal, control and normative beliefs on the intention to use social network sites (SNS) by people older than 50. Using the Model of Adoption of Technology in Households (MATH) and the data of 115 social network site adopters and 53 non-adopters it can be shown that the intention of adopters and non-adopters has been influenced by different reasons. Perceived Ease of Use and Normative Beliefs have only a significant impact for adopters. Moreover, this research paper unfolds Fear of Technology as a strong influence factor for non-adopters in regard not to use SNS in their daily routine. The paper concludes with a discussion of an age-sensitive design of SNS in order to address the digital divide

Sectors and Strategies of Global Communications Regulation

As the global communication network matures, the systems and procedures for regulating the growing network and its use are being challenged. The general proliferation of services or the specific demand for electronic transactions require guidance and control which the market alone cannot supply. Meanwhile, traditional regulatory regimes remain far from global or coherent. This article distinguishes between coordination and regulation to clarify areas where government intervention is unnecessary and where indispensable. It explores the current patchwork of regulatory approaches, reviews different regulatory areas and strategies, identifies trends, and highlights problem areas particular to electronic commerce and third party protection

Sectors and Strategies of Global Communications Regulation

Global communication networks, in particular the Internet, challenge the traditional systems and procedures of regulation, which are national or regional but not global It is evident that solely market processes will not assert the guidance and control needed to escort the growth of the network and its use for service provision and electronic transactions. Introducing the conceptual distinction of coordination and regulation we identify areas in which government intervention is unnecessary and where it is indispensable. Then, examining different areas and strategies of regulation we highlight crucial problems and regulators' responses concerning electronic commerce and the protection of third parties. This helps identify trends and specify areas of regulation with and without governments involved. It shows that global communications is governed by a patchwork of few uniform international legal rules, sparingly harmonised national regulations at the regional level, a number of laws framing schemes of self-regulation complemented by unregulated self-regulation and last but not least a growing number of legal interface solutions. They mediate between conflicting regulatory systems without affecting their autonomy

Heuristic solving of NP-complete job-shop scheduling problems by multicriteria optimisation

In this paper a decision support system (DSS) for job-shop scheduling is presented. Within the DSS evolutionary programming techniques have been applied to solve job-shop scheduling problems. The decision support system is illustrated with a numerical example and computational results are reporte

Placebo-controlled evaluation of a modified life virus vaccine against feline infectious peritonitis: safety and efficacy under field conditions

A modified live virus vaccine against feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) was evaluated in a double blind, placebo-controlled field trial in two high-risk populations. The vaccine was found to be safe and efficacious in one population of cats that had low antibody titre against feline coronavirus (FCoV) at the time of vaccination. Although clinically healthy at the time of vaccination, retrospectively some vaccinees that later came down with FIP were found to be RT-PCR positive for FCoV in plasma and showed changes in blood parameters consistent with early stage of FIP. It is concluded that vaccination can protect cats with no or low FCoV antibody titres and that in some cats vaccine failure was probably due to pre-existing infection