Towards a Theory of “Use” in the Autonomous Things

The way users perceive and use information system artefacts has been mainly studied from the notion of behavioural believes, cognitive efforts, and deliberate use (e.g., clicking or scrolling) by human actors to produce certain outcomes. The autonomous things, however, do not require deliberate cognitive processes and physical actions to operate. Hence, the existing notions of logical and deliberate use by human actors to produce certain outcomes warrant a revisit. Consequently, drawing on the theories of consciousness and technology adoption, we proposed the notions of conscious use in the context of autonomous things. We argue that unlike the manually operated technologies and systems, the “use” of an autonomous artefact is a state of a user’s consciousness rather than a logical, deliberate cognitive, or somatic activity. A fully autonomous artefact is consciously perceived by users anticipating their needs (through sensory information and situational awareness) without requiring any cognitive efforts, instructions, and physical contact to produce the desired outcomes

The Hideous Beauty of Bird-Shaped Burns –Transnational Allegory and Feminist Rhetoric in Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows

This paper explores the forces of nationalism and transnationalism and examines the ways in which they are intricately and inextricably linked in Kamila Shamsie's most recent novel, Burnt Shadows. It explores Burnt Shadows for its nationalistic rhetoric, arguing the case for its attempt to critically analyze the status of Pakistanis and Muslims in a post ‘9/11’ world order, particularly within the contemporary discourses on terrorism, capitalism and Islamic fundamentalism. The paper attempts at connecting the novel’s alternative version of nationalism with the forces of feminism, via the novel’s unusual and ubiquitous protagonist, Hiroko Tanaka. It argues that while Hiroko poses serious challenges to existing and normative power structures, her physical body serves as a manuscript upon which national and political upheavals are literally and metaphorically transcribed, reflecting the novel’s demonstration of women’s bodies as sites of conflict between nationalism and colonialism. It offers the novel as an attempt at ‘psychic healing’ – a work that embraces nationalism transnationally, hence propounding an ‘imagined community’ (Hicks, xxiii-xxxi) that makes possible the existence of a kind of ‘horizontal comradeship’, transcending national borderlands and cultural boundaries

What Should Businesses Know About Social Media Analytics?

Big social media data generated by customers can be employed start to identify which customer behaviour and actions creates more value. A study by conducted by MIT Sloan Management Review found that 67% of the total 2,500 survey respondents reported that by employing analytics their companies gained a competitive advantage as well it helped them to innovate. Still, many businesses struggle to plan and create value from social data analytics. Hence, using a thematic analysis of current social media analytics (SMA) literature and focus group interview with SMA experts, the aim of this article is to provide an executive overview of SMA concepts, theories, and tools that are vital for understanding and strategically using social media analytics for business intelligence purposes

Knowledge Networks of the Information Technology Management Domain: A Social Network Analysis Approach

Using the social network analysis technique, we decomposed the knowledge networks of the information technology management (ITM) domain. We included a total of 893 papers published during the 1995-2014 period in the network analysis. From this domain, the network and ego level properties—such as, degree centralities, density, components, structural holes, and degree distribution—suggest that, unlike the other information systems communities, the ITM is a community with a unique character and distinct collaboration patterns. The results show that the ITM knowledge networks are fragmented and exhibit a power law distribution in which incoming nodes and links prefer to attach to the nodes that are already well connected. We discuss several implications that arise from the network configuration that could aid the future development of the ITM domain

Acceptance-Promoting Practice Framework for Online Collaborative Learning and EdTech in Formal Education: a Thematic Analysis of Literature

This exploratory quantitative study seeks to identify (a) the e-learning practices that can improve the acceptance of online collaborative learning (OCL) and the associated EdTech in formal learning contexts and (b) the characteristics or features of such EdTech. A systematic review was conducted combined with a thematic analysis of literature (i.e., 42 journal articles relevant to OCL that was published from 2001 to 2020 from Scopus database), the findings of which not only attained all research objectives with the proposed the acceptance-promoting practice framework for OCL and EdTech (APPFOE) in formal education (see Figure 7), but also identified the challenges that OCL learners generally confront. The proposed APPFOE reveals a number of practices in three main themes (viz., teacher presence, OCL EdTech, and learners’ control over learning) that can handle those challenges and promote the acceptance of OCL and the associated EdTech in light of the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model. The implications for positive social change include the potential to guide educators in their class interactions, aid policymakers with their alignment of resources, assist EdTech professionals and entrepreneurs in their product development, and contribute to the growing body of academic knowledge in some respects, hence lay out the basis for some future research

The Generation of Large Networks from Web-of-Science Data

During the 1990s, one of us developed a series of freeware routines (http://www.leydesdorff.net/indicators) that enable the user to organize downloads from the Web-of-Science (Thomson Reuters) into a relational database, and then to export matrices for further analysis in various formats (for example, for co-author analysis). The basic format of the matrices displays each document as a case in a row that can be attributed different variables in the columns. One limitation to this approach was hitherto that relational databases typically have an upper limit for the number of variables, such as 256 or 1024. In this brief communication, we report on a way to circumvent this limitation by using txt2Pajek.exe, available as freeware from http://www.pfeffer.at/txt2pajek/

ROLE OF CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES IN STUDENTS’ DEVELOPMENT

This study attempted to explore and identify factors that help to promote students’ efficiency in co-curricular activities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The sample consisted of 60 principals/headmasters of schools from all the boys’ high schools of Peshawar City, which included 52 principals from private and 8 from public schools respectively. 120 teachers two from each sample school from both public and private sectors (16 teachers from public and 104 teachers from private schools). Of those 60 schools, a sample of 1200 students was selected, including 160 students from public and 1040 students from private schools. Three separate opinionnaires were used to gather data from principals, teachers and students. The opinionnaires contained items and statements which were structured around eliciting responses from principals, teachers and students about factors that contributed to students’ efficiency. The interviews based on 10 items/statements which were held with 120 parents whose children were in 10th class of the sampled schools. The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. In order to be logical and scientific in approach, the analysis was further made meaningful with the application of statistical measures. The data obtained from principals’, teachers’ and students’ revealed a number of areas and factors that contributed to the students’ development

A social network analysis of knowledge infrastructure in the second language acquisition domain

This study utilizes the social network analysis(SNA) technique to analyze and better understand the semantic and knowledge networks that are associated with the linguistic domain of second language acquisition (SLA). Our analytic research helps to further define our understanding of SLA by constructing a detailed description of the domain’s network knowledge infrastructure. By analyzing 5,297 publications, authored by 9,220 authors, and published in 1471 outlets. Our study utilized the SNA tool to examine the author, institution, bibliographic coupling and keyword networks of the SLA domain. The results of our study show that SLA network is relatively fragmented containing several isolated clusters of authors. The study also found that the diameter of the co-authorship network is relatively small and has clustering co-efficient that is high and displays the small world phenomenon

An In-Silico Approach for the Prediction of miRNAs in Merkel Cell Polyoma Virus and its Target Genes

Background: For last five years, as technological advancement occurs, novel kinds of human generation viruses’ discovery have been increased. A rare human cancer associated virus Merkel’s Cell polyomavirus (MCPyV or MCV) got remarkable attraction among the newly discovered viruses. As a common human virus MCPyV infection frequently found in skin and also occurs at other anatomical sites. Methods: In this study, the in-silico screening of miRNAs from MCPyV was done, as the computational screening procedures are functionally vital, efficient and inexpensive for the said purpose. Results: Primarily 52 sequences, possessing possible hairpin-like structures, were extracted from MCPyV genome by searching through VMir software using various filters. 17 nominees were confirmed with real pre-miRNA like hairpin organizations by iMiRNA-SSF program. Further seven nominees were excluded by free energy measurement and other parameters. 10 mature miRNAs were affirmed in 10 impending candidates for pre-miRNAs by MatureBayes web server v1.0, among these 10 candidates 2 were reported already by earlier studies. The homologous miRNA for these candidates were searched in mirBase. To find the target gene and its relevant diseases the best homologous miRNAs were then searched in Target Scan. Among all miRNAs Cancer was found to be common. Conclusion: These findings open new avenues for researchers to explore the role of these novel miRNAs in viral pathogenesis as well as in developing new antiviral therapy.