Microscope and spectacle : on the complexities of using new visual technologies to communicate about wildlife conservation

Acknowledgments We thank our interviewees for granting us access to data and permission to use images; dot.rural Digital Economy Hub, the University of Aberdeen, and the James Hutton Institute for funding and support; Gina Maffey, Tony James, Katrina Myrvang Brown, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of the manuscript; and JP Vargheese for technical assistance.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Technostress Research: A Nurturing Ground for Measurement Pluralism?

Because technostress research is multidisciplinary in nature and, therefore, benefits from insights gained from various research disciplines, we expected a high degree of measurement pluralism in technostress studies published in the information systems (IS) literature. However, because IS research mostly relies on self-report measures in general, reasons exist to also assume that technostress research has largely neglected multi-method research designs. To assess the status quo of technostress research with respect to the application of multi-method approaches, we analyzed 103 empirical studies. Specifically, we analyzed the types of data-collection methods used and the investigated components of the technostress process (person, environment, stressors, strains, and coping). The results indicate that multi-method research is more prevalent in the IS technostress literature (approximately 37% of reviewed studies) than in the general IS literature (approximately 20% as reported in previous reviews). However, our findings also show that IS technostress studies significantly rely on self-report measures. We argue that technostress research constitutes a nurturing ground for the application of multi-method approaches and multidisciplinary collaboration

Is the Technostress Creators Inventory Still an Up-To-Date Measurement Instrument? Results of a Large-Scale Interview Study

Self-report measures are of great importance for technostress research and particularly the Technostress Creators Inventory has been amongst the most frequently applied measurement instruments since its inception in 2008. As the technological environment has progressed since then, we investigated whether this inventory still completely represents the phenomenon of technostress today. We conducted interviews with 75 individuals in four companies on their technostress experiences. We asked them about their personal experiences with eight stressor categories in the workplace, the original five dimensions of the Technostress Creators Inventory (techno-overload, techno-invasion, techno-complexity, techno-insecurity, and techno-uncertainty) and additional three categories (techno-unreliability, IT-based monitoring, and cyberbullying). We found that techno-insecurity was the least prevalent stressor category throughout all companies, while techno-unreliability, one of our new categories, was the most prevalent stressor. Based on this evidence, we argue that a revised inventory is urgently needed to guarantee content validity of technostress measurement in future studies

Coping with Rapid Changes in IT: An Update

Dealing with rapid changes in technology within and outside of their company is a constant challenge for IT managers. About two decades ago, a series of studies and in particular Benamati & Lederer (2001) showed that a range of coping strategies to deal with such rapid changes exists. These coping strategies range from the use of external support by consultants or vendors, or IT education and training to keep up with the demands of new technologies, to simply enduring change and trying to weather technological trends in the belief that they may not have a substantial impact on the company\u27s business. We argue that the current trend towards digital transformation further accelerates technological change in many companies. In this study, we therefore present a conceptual replication of the original series of studies on coping mechanisms and strategies to deal with the challenges of rapid technological change. Our findings indicate that the variety of coping strategies and mechanisms employed by IT managers has become more diverse. In particular, we find that today IT managers try to prepare their companies more proactively for technological change by providing the necessary resources and by creating an appropriate organizational environment, rather than by relying on external support by consultants or vendors, or even by simply ignoring technological developments altogether

Composite pillars with a tunable interface for adhesion to rough substrates

The benefits of synthetic fibrillar dry adhesives for temporary and reversible attachment to hard objects with smooth surfaces have been successfully demonstrated in previous studies. However, surface roughness induces a dramatic reduction in pull-off stresses and necessarily requires revised design concepts. Toward this aim, we introduce cylindrical two-phase single pillars, which are composed of a mechanically stiff stalk and a soft tip layer. Adhesion to smooth and rough substrates is shown to exceed that of conventional pillar structures. The adhesion characteristics can be tuned by varying the thickness of the soft tip layer, the ratio of the Young’s moduli and the curvature of the interface between the two phases. For rough substrates, adhesion values similar to those obtained on smooth substrates were achieved. Our concept of composite pillars overcomes current practical limitations caused by surface roughness and opens up fields of application where roughness is omnipresent

Retrieval of Daytime Total Column Water Vapour from OLCI Measurements over Land Surfaces

A new retrieval of total column water vapour (TCWV) from daytime measurements over land of the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) on-board the Copernicus Sentinel-3 missions is presented. The Copernicus Sentinel-3 OLCI Water Vapour product (COWa) retrieval algorithm is based on the differential absorption technique, relating TCWV to the radiance ratio of non-absorbing band and nearby water vapour absorbing band and was previously also successfully applied to other passive imagers Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). One of the main advantages of the OLCI instrument regarding improved TCWV retrievals lies in the use of more than one absorbing band. Furthermore, the COWa retrieval algorithm is based on the full Optimal Estimation (OE) method, providing pixel-based uncertainty estimates, and transferable to other Near-Infrared (NIR) based TCWV observations. Three independent global TCWV data sets, i.e., Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) and U.S. SuomiNet, and a German Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) TCWV data set, all obtained from ground-based observations, serve as reference data sets for the validation. Comparisons show an overall good agreement, with absolute biases between 0.07 and 1.31 kg/m2 and root mean square errors (RMSE) between 1.35 and 3.26 kg/m2. This is a clear improvement in comparison to the operational OLCI TCWV Level 2 product, for which the bias and RMSEs range between 1.10 and 2.55 kg/m2 and 2.08 and 3.70 kg/m2, respectively. A first evaluation of pixel-based uncertainties indicates good estimated uncertainties for lower retrieval errors, while the uncertainties seem to be overestimated for higher retrieval errors

Správa a vizualizace ontologií

Moderní informační technologie se neustále vyvíjejí a jejich vývoj je neoddělitelně spjat s vývojem internetu. Množství dat a informací publikovaných a dostupných na internetu každoročně roste v jednotkách Exa-bajtů. Vývoj sémantického webu má za cíl pomocí přidání tzv. sémantických značek napomoci strojům, a v konečném důsledku i člověku, vyznat se a profitovat z informací nacházejících se v těchto (nejen) na internetu uložených datech. Sémantická značka dává prvku jí označenému strojově uchopitelný význam. Tento význam spočívá v pozici a vztazích dané značky k jiným značkám v rámci nějaké množiny (slovníku) takovýchto značek. Ontologií nazýváme množinu nebo slovník takových značek, která zachycuje specifickou znalost z určité oblasti života, technologie nebo problematiky. Práce si klade za cíl v teoretické části prozkoumat historii vývoje reprezentace znalostí, vývoje ontologií a ontologického inženýrství a technologie sémantického webu. V praktické části analyzuje jednu z existujících velkých a reálné používaných ontologií SNOMED CT a navrhuje nástroj, který by mohl přispět k rozšíření a zjednodušení práce na vývoji ontologií. Posledním záměrem práce je implementovat zvolenou část navrhnuté aplikace.Modern information technologies are unstoppably advancing and their development is inseparably linked with the development of the Internet. The amount of data and information published and available on the Internet is growing in units of Exabyte every year. Using so-called semantic tags added to documents, the Semantic Web movement aims to help machines, and eventually man, to benefit from the information contained in those (not only) on the Internet stored data. Elements marked with a semantic tag is given a machine- recognizable information. The importance of it lies in the positions and relationships of the tag to other tags within some set of (dictionary) of such tags. Ontologies are sets or dictionaries of such marks that capture specific knowledge of certain areas of life, technology or problems. The theoretical part of this work aims to explore the history and the development of knowledge representation, the development of ontologies and ontological engineering and semantic web technologies. In the practical part we analyze the SNOMED CT ontology, what is a large actually used ontology. We also design a tool that should help to enhance and simplify the development of ontologies. In the last, a plan is to implement a part of the designed tool.Department of Software EngineeringKatedra softwarového inženýrstvíMatematicko-fyzikální fakultaFaculty of Mathematics and Physic