Investments in the digital silk road

This chapter discusses opportunities for the new digital economy, a strategically important factor of the economic growth for contributing to the Central Asia Digital Silk Road concept. Focusing on new opportunities for international cooperation, including the development of digital technologies, the chapter also draws attention to the fact that technology advancement causes changes in the economic system which may result in digital inequality. It argues that the O&G industry can become a key driver of growth and development and could potentially boost competitiveness across all sectors. The authors consider a set of public policies in ICT-related sectors in Kazakhstan. These policies are focusing on diversification from the O&G sector, supporting domestic companies and research, encouraging export-oriented projects, and pushing companies to join international initiatives

The Usability of E-learning Platforms in Higher Education: A Systematic Mapping Study

The use of e-learning in higher education has increased significantly in recent years, which has led to several studies being conducted to investigate the usability of the platforms that support it. A variety of different usability evaluation methods and attributes have been used, and it has therefore become important to start reviewing this work in a systematic way to determine how the field has developed in the last 15 years. This paper describes a systematic mapping study that performed searches on five electronic libraries to identify usability issues and methods that have been used to evaluate e-learning platforms. Sixty-one papers were selected and analysed, with the majority of studies using a simple research design reliant on questionnaires. The usability attributes measured were mostly related to effectiveness, satisfaction, efficiency, and perceived ease of use. Furthermore, several research gaps have been identified and recommendations have been made for further work in the area of the usability of online learning

Designing PTASs for MIN-SUM scheduling problems

AbstractWe review approximability and inapproximability results for MIN-SUM scheduling problems and we focus on techniques for designing polynomial time approximation schemes for this class of problems. We present examples which illustrate the efficient use of the ratio partitioning and time partitioning techniques

A constant approximation algorithm for the densest k-subgraph problem on chordal graphs

The densest k-subgraph (DkS) problem asks for a k-vertex subgraph of a given graph with the maximum number of edges. The DkS problem is NP-hard even for special graph classes including bipartite, planar, comparability and chordal graphs, while no constant approximation algorithm is known for any of these classes. In this paper we present a 3-approximation algorithm for the class of chordal graphs. The analysis of our algorithm is based on a graph theoretic lemma of independent interest. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

On the parallel complexity of the alternating Hamiltonian cycle problem

Given a graph with colored edges, a Hamiltonian cycle is called alternating if its successive edges differ in color. The problem of finding such a cycle, even for 2-edge-colored graphs, is trivially NP-complete, while it is known to be polynomial for 2-edge-colored complete graphs. In this paper we study the parallel complexity of finding such a cycle, if any, in 2-edge-colored complete graphs. We give a new characterization for such a graph admitting an alternating Hamiltonian cycle which allows us to derive a parallel algorithm for the problem. Our parallel solution uses a perfect matching algorithm putting the alternating Hamiltonian cycle problem to the RNC class. In addition, a sequential version of our parallel algorithm improves the computation time of the fastest known sequential algorithm for the alternating Hamiltonian cycle problem by a factor of $O(\sqrt {n} )$

The densest k-subgraph problem on clique graphs

The Densest k-Subgraph (DkS) problem asks for a k-vertex subgraph of a given graph with the maximum number of edges. The problem is strongly NP-hard, as a generalization of the well known Clique problem and we also know that it does not admit a Polynomial Time Approximation Scheme (PTAS). In this paper we focus on special cases of the problem, with respect to the class of the input graph. Especially, towards the elucidation of the open questions concerning the complexity of the problem for interval graphs as well as its approximability for chordal graphs, we consider graphs having special clique graphs. We present a PTAS for stars of cliques and a dynamic programming algorithm for trees of cliques. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Scheduling trees with large communication delays on two identical processors

We consider the problem of scheduling trees on two identical processors in order to minimize the makespan. We assume that tasks have unit execution times, and arcs are associated with large identical integer communication delays. We prove that the problem is NP-hard in the strong sense even when restricted to the class of binary trees, and we provide a polynomial-time algorithm for complete binary trees