The ‘I’ in Induction, 7th e-learning@greenwich conference

Comparing two different approaches to under-graduate Induction; face-to-face (on-campus students) vs. online delivery (fully online students), and how we ‘Make it Personal’

The Evolving Role of Information Specialists as Change Agents in Performance Management: A Cross Disciplinary Study

This paper aims to explore the changing role of the Information Specialist (ISp) in the implementation of business performance improvement through business process re-engineering (BPR) initiatives. The paper will begin by examining the evolution of BPR and then discuss the changing role of the ISp. Technology enabled Performance Management (PM) and its strategic implications are found to be key to measuring the effectiveness of BPR and the role of the ISp is a vital part of this. Through a literature review and case based empirical evidence a conceptual framework is developed to appraise the role of the ISp

Geographic accessibility and risk of hospitalization and mortality among patients with chronic respiratory diseases

Spatial differences exist in hospitalization and mortality among patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and asthma. Objective: Examine the association between geographic accessibility, hospitalization, and mortality among COPD and asthma patients in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL). Methods: A retrospective cohort of adults diagnosed with COPD and asthma were followed from diagnosis until hospitalization, death or end of the study. Geographic accessibility was defined using accessibility-remoteness index. Multivariate and geospatial analyses were performed. Result: We identified 44876 (43.8% inaccessible) COPD patients and 28316 asthma patients (37.4% inaccessible). Living in inaccessible areas increased hospitalization incidence for COPD (OR=2.57, 95% CI 1.54-4.25, P<0.00136) and asthma (OR=12.38, 95% CI:6.28-24.46, P<0.001). Mortality was associated with geographic accessibility only for COPD (OR=10.73, 95% CI; 2.27-44.77, P=0.002). COPD hospitalization (MI=0.034, p<0.03), mortality (MI=0.047, p<0.011) and asthma hospitalization (MI=0.065, p<0.001) were spatially autocorrelated. Conclusion: Living with chronic respiratory diseases in NL remote areas increases risk of hospitalization

A note on 'Variable Neighborhood Search Based Algorithms for Crossdock Truck Assignment'

Some implementations of variable neighborhood search based algorithms were presented in \emph{C\'ecilia Daquin, Hamid Allaoui, Gilles Goncalves and Tient\'e Hsu, Variable neighborhood search based algorithms for crossdock truck assignment, RAIRO-Oper. Res., 55 (2021) 2291-2323}. This work is based on model in \emph{Zhaowei Miao, Andrew Lim, Hong Ma, Truck dock assignment problem with operational time constraint within crossdocks, European Journal of Operational Research 192 (1), 2009, 105-115 }m which has been proven to be incorrect. We reiterate and elaborate on the deficiencies in the latter and show that the authors in the former were already aware of the deficiencies in the latter and the proposed minor amendment does not overcome any of such deficiencies

Three Essays on Trust Mining in Online Social Networks

This dissertation research consists of three essays on studying trust in online social networks. Trust plays a critical role in online social relationships, because of the high levels of risk and uncertainty involved. Guided by relevant social science and computational graph theories, I develop conceptual and predictive models to gain insights into trusting behaviors in online social relationships. In the first essay, I propose a conceptual model of trust formation in online social networks. This is the first study that integrates the existing graph-based view of trust formation in social networks with socio-psychological theories of trust to provide a richer understanding of trusting behaviors in online social networks. I introduce new behavioral antecedents of trusting behaviors and redefine and integrate existing graph-based concepts to develop the proposed conceptual model. The empirical findings indicate that both socio-psychological and graph-based trust-related factors should be considered in studying trust formation in online social networks. In the second essay, I propose a theory-based predictive model to predict trust and distrust links in online social networks. Previous trust prediction models used limited network structural data to predict future trust/distrust relationships, ignoring the underlying behavioral trust-inducing factors. I identify a comprehensive set of behavioral and structural predictors of trust/distrust links based on related theories, and then build multiple supervised classification models to predict trust/distrust links in online social networks. The empirical results confirm the superior fit and predictive performance of the proposed model over the baselines. In the third essay, I propose a lexicon-based text mining model to mine trust related user-generated content (UGC). This is the first theory-based text mining model to examine important factors in online trusting decisions from UGC. I build domain-specific trustworthiness lexicons for online social networks based on related behavioral foundations and text mining techniques. Next, I propose a lexicon-based text mining model that automatically extracts and classifies trustworthiness characteristics from trust reviews. The empirical evaluations show the superior performance of the proposed text mining system over the baselines

Efficient Algorithms for Solving Size-Shape-Topology Truss Optimization and Shortest Path Problems

Efficient numerical algorithms for solving structural and Shortest Path (SP) problems are proposed and explained in this study. A variant of the Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm for optimal (minimum) design of 2-D and 3-D truss structures is proposed. This proposed DE algorithm can handle size-shape-topology structural optimization. The design variables can be mixed continuous, integer/or discrete values. Constraints are nodal displacement, element stresses and buckling limitations. For dynamic (time dependent) networks, two additional algorithms are also proposed in this study. A heuristic algorithm to find the departure time (at a specified source node) for a given (or specified) arrival time (at a specified destination node) of a given dynamic network. Finally, an efficient bidirectional Dijkstra shortest path (SP) heuristic algorithm is also proposed. Extensive numerical examples have been conducted in this study to validate the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed three numerical algorithms

Aligning Cybersecurity in Higher Education with Industry Needs

Cybersecurity is among the highest in-demand skills for Information Systems graduates and therefore is critical for the Information Systems curriculum. There is a substantial lack of skilled cybersecurity graduates. It is estimated that there is a global shortage of almost three and a half million cybersecurity professionals in 2022. Organizations are facing difficulties filling security positions. Thus, the Information Systems curriculum must be redesigned to meet business and industry needs and better prepare Information Systems graduates for cybersecurity careers. This study provides a model for designing a cybersecurity course that will align with industry needs to respond to the shortage of cybersecurity professionals. The proposed model is based on backward course design, aligned with the guidelines from the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework and The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education Strategic Plan, and insights from interviews with industry professionals. We applied the model at a higher education institute in the USA, as higher education graduates fill most cybersecurity positions. The designed course was met with high levels of student satisfaction, positive industry feedback, and high levels of student success. Our proposed model can be applied to any educational institute and customized to desired needs of the institute, students, and the industry with minimal cost and time consideration