Variety in the Knowledge base of knowledge intensive business sectors

25 páginas, 4 tablas, 1 figuraKnowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) are intermediary firms which specialize in knowledge screening, assessment and evaluation, and trade professional consultancy services. The remarkable rise of this broad class of activities is perceived by many as the natural by-product of modern knowledge economies within which increasing specialisation induces the need for professional agents in the markets for external knowledge. This paper addresses critically a conceptual flaw in the specialised literature which portrays KIBS as a homogeneous group of activities. Using official data on occupational information in the United States we observe and analyse high variety across KIBS sectors’ occupational structures and skill requirements.European Community (FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008-235278)Davide Consoli acknowledges financial support from the European Community (FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008-235278).Peer reviewe

Framework for Computation Offloading in Mobile Cloud Computing

The inherently limited processing power and battery lifetime of mobile phones hinder the possible execution of computationally intensive applications like content-based video analysis or 3D modeling. Offloading of computationally intensive application parts from the mobile platform into a remote cloud infrastructure or nearby idle computers addresses this problem. This paper presents our Mobile Augmentation Cloud Services (MACS) middleware which enables adaptive extension of Android application execution from a mobile client into the cloud. Applications are developed by using the standard Android development pattern. The middleware does the heavy lifting of adaptive application partitioning, resource monitoring and computation offloading. These elastic mobile applications can run as usual mobile application, but they can also use remote computing resources transparently. Two prototype applications using the MACS middleware demonstrate the benefits of the approach. The evaluation shows that applications, which involve costly computations, can benefit from offloading with around 95% energy savings and significant performance gains compared to local execution only

Кризис экономики роста как системы: причины и следствия

Актуальность данной работы продиктована кризисным состоянием современной модели экономики. В основе этой модели лежат постулаты о необходимости постоянного роста экономики, который обеспечивается за счет конечного потребления. В обеспечение же реализации такой модели положены монетарные подходы и методы стимулирования потребительского спроса как основного драйвера экономического роста. Венцом данной модели стала долговая экономика потребления обществ индивидуалистов, не имеющих системы традиционных ценностей, а ориентирующихся на иллюзорные временные цели краткосрочного периода. Так, эгоцентрическая модель экономики заняла главенствующее положение по отношению к экологической модели экономики, обнажив массу системообразующих противоречий. Будущее оказалось под угрозой… Целью данной работы является анализ исходных причин этих противоречий, факторов возникновения кризисных явлений и угроз, с которыми столкнулось человечество на современном этапе развития, а также возможных альтернатив устранения этих противоречий и угроз. The relevance of this work is dictated by a critical state of the modern model of the economy. The basis of this model is construed by postulates about the need for sustained economic growth, which is provided by end-use. Monetary approaches and methods of consumer demand stimulation as a main incentive of economic growth guarantee the model implementation. On the top of this model there is a debt consumer economy of a society of individualists who do not have a system of traditional values, but instead have illusory short-term goals. Thus, an egocentric model of the economy has taken a dominant position in relation to an ecological economic model, revealing a lot of systemic contradictions. The future was under threat... The aim of this work is the analysis of the causes of these conflicts, the factors of crisis phenomena, the threats, which mankind faced at this stage of development, and the possible ways of elimination of the contradictions and threats as well. Methods: comparative analysis and synthesis of theoretical fundamental economic sources and assumptions, practical research and personal experience of various Russian and foreign scientists and business practitioners, the results, observations and conclusions arising from the personal experience of the author and his own theoretical research and inventions, and analysis of statistical data

Mobile multimedia services in the cloud

Cloud computing is a paradigm shift promising a utility-based delivery of storage and processing capacity, services, and software over the Internet. In essence it aims to reduce costs, facilitate self-automated systems and decouple service delivery from underlying technology. Thus, the cloud paradigm empowers customers with the ability to focus on creating novel services alleviating the burden of software and hardware resource provisioning. The success of cloud computing in the domain of enterprise applications has sparked increasing interest in applying the same principles to the provision of mobile multimedia services. However, the potential benefits are far from being achieved, despite the rapid growth in popularity and omnipresence of mobile multimedia applications. The combination of cloud computing and mobile multimedia is non-trivial, and many aspects from system, mobile multimedia and user perspectives need to be considered. For example, mobile applications in the cloud involve a trade-off in terms of what should run on the device and what in the cloud, which is contingent to the application type, the device capability, data locality and the operating environment (network bandwidth, delay, cloud availability). Moreover, the traditional server/client programming models fail to provide seamless cloud execution in volatile mobile networks. Furthermore, distant cloud data centers induce prohibitive latency for certain classes of interactive mobile applications such as 3D games and augmented reality. This dissertation investigates ways to efficiently apply the concepts of the emerging cloud computing paradigm in the design, development and delivery of mobile multimedia services. It describes an information systems architecture called CAELUS (Cloud Architecture for Enabling Mobile Multimedia Services) which includes both conceptual models and a concrete software platform. The conceptual models capture specific requirements for efficient building of mobile multimedia cloud services and guide the creation of the software platform (i5Cloud) which serves as a test bed of the CAELUS architecture. The contributions of this dissertation, in a addition to a comprehensive survey of literature, comprise a design view, platform and abstraction levels that lower the barrier for mobile multimedia services to leverage the clouds. Several case studies have evaluated the CAELUS-based development and delivery of mobile multimedia cloud services. In particular, the case studies were conveyed in the application domains of technology-enhanced learning, digital documentation in cultural heritage and human-computer interaction. Prototype applications together with technical evaluations and user studies demonstrate the validity and applicability of the architecture and the conceptual approach

Framework for computation offloading in mobile cloud computing

The inherently limited processing power and battery lifetime of mobile phones hinder the possible execution of computationally intensive applications like content-based video analysis or 3D modeling. Offloading of computationally intensive application parts from the mobile platform into a remote cloud infrastructure or nearby idle computers addresses this problem. This paper presents our Mobile Augmentation Cloud Services (MACS) middleware which enables adaptive extension of Android application execution from a mobile client into the cloud. Applications are developed by using the standard Android development pattern. The middleware does the heavy lifting of adaptive application partitioning, resource monitoring and computation offloading. These elastic mobile applications can run as usual mobile application, but they can also use remote computing resources transparently. Two prototype applications using the MACS middleware demonstrate the benefits of the approach. The evaluation shows that applications, which involve costly computations, can benefit from offloading with around 95% energy savings and significant performance gains compared to local execution only