Streaming and Other Web-Based Multimedia in IS Education

This paper discusses issues in teaching streaming and other multimedia applications in a Information Systems or Computer Information Systems program. It addresses the value of such learning to students and graduates and the technological and pedagogical issues involved in establishing and maintaining courses in this area. The discussion suggests how to organize a course that will help students learn to develop streaming and nonstreaming multimedia content suitable for the web and suggests the resources that are necessary to support course content and delivery

A unitary quantum lattice gas algorithm for two dimensional quantum turbulence

Quantum vortex structures and energy cascades are examined for two dimensional quantum turbulence (2D QT) at zero temperature. A special unitary evolution algorithm, the quantum lattice gas (QLG) algorithm, is employed to simulate the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) governed by the Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation. A parameter regime is uncovered in which, as in 3D QT, there is a short Poincar\'e recurrence time. It is demonstrated that such short recurrence times are destroyed as the nonlinear interaction is strengthened. The similar loss of Poincar\'e recurrence is also reported in 3D QT [1] Energy cascades for 2D QT are considered to examine whether 2D QT exhibits inverse cascades as in 2D classical turbulence. In the parameter regime considered, the spectra analysis reveals no such dual cascades-dual cascades being a hallmark of 2D classical turbulence

Does Culture Matter? A Study of Cultural Influences on the Success of Women in IT

This paper discusses cultural influences on the success of women in Information Technology (IT) careers that emerged from 38 interviews with career women in Southern California. Interviews, conducted in 2008, lasted 60-90 minutes each. The women’s career stories reflect on comparable experiences with organizational and workgroup cultures, as well as occupational cultures and subcultures. Except for primarily female organizations, “old-boy” culture prevails at the upper levels of most organizations. Women who have climbed to those levels still feel like outsiders. Women complained about “old-school” occupational cultures, but they valued trust in their workgroup cultures, when and where that exists. “Token” women often experienced the most difficulties

Discriminant Analysis with Spatial Weights for Urban Land Cover Classification

Classifying urban area images is challenging because of the heterogeneous nature of the urban landscape resulting in mixed pixels and classes with highly variable spectral ranges. Approaches using ancillary data, such as knowledge based or expert systems, have shown to improve the classification accuracy in urban areas. Appropriate ancillary data, however, may not always be available. The goal of this study is to compare the results of the discriminant analysis statistical technique with discriminant analysis with spatial weights to classify urban land cover. Discriminant analysis is a statistical technique used to predict group membership for a target based on the linear combination of independent variables. Strict per pixel statistical analysis however does not consider the spatial dependencies among neighbouring pixels. Our study shows that approaches using ancillary data continue to outperform strict spectral classifiers but that using a spatial weight improved the results. Furthermore, results show that when the discriminant analysis technique works well then the spatially weighted approach performs better. However, when the discriminant analysis performs poorly, those poor results are magnified in the spatially weighted approach in the same study area. The study shows that for dominant classes, adding spatial weights improves the classification accuracy.

Superfluid Turbulence from Quantum Kelvin Wave to Classical Kolmogorov Cascades

The main topological feature of a superfluid is a quantum vortex with an identifiable inner and outer radius. A novel unitary quantum lattice gas algorithm is used to simulate quantum turbulence of a Bose-Einstein condensate superfluid described by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation on grids up to 57603. For the first time, an accurate power-law scaling for the quantum Kelvin wave cascade is determined: k-3. The incompressible kinetic energy spectrum exhibits very distinct power-law spectra in 3 ranges of k space: a classical Kolmogorov k-(5/3) spectrum at scales greater than the outer radius of individual quantum vortex cores and a quantum Kelvin wave cascade spectrum k-3 on scales smaller than the inner radius of the quantum vortex core. The k-3 quantum Kelvin wave spectrum due to phonon radiation is robust, while the k-(5/3) classical Kolmogorov spectrum becomes robust on large grids

Outcomes after angiography with sodium bicarbonate and acetylcysteine

Background: Intravenous sodium bicarbonate and oral acetylcysteine are widely used to prevent acute kidney injury and associated adverse outcomes after angiography without definitive evidence of their efficacy. Methods: Using a 2-by-2 factorial design, we randomly assigned 5177 patients at high risk for renal complications who were scheduled for angiography to receive intravenous 1.26% sodium bicarbonate or intravenous 0.9% sodium chloride and 5 days of oral acetylcysteine or oral placebo; of these patients, 4993 were included in the modified intention-to-treat analysis. The primary end point was a composite of death, the need for dialysis, or a persistent increase of at least 50% from baseline in the serum creatinine level at 90 days. Contrast-associated acute kidney injury was a secondary end point. Results: The sponsor stopped the trial after a prespecified interim analysis. There was no interaction between sodium bicarbonate and acetylcysteine with respect to the primary end point (P=0.33). The primary end point occurred in 110 of 2511 patients (4.4%) in the sodium bicarbonate group as compared with 116 of 2482 (4.7%) in the sodium chloride group (odds ratio, 0.93; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.72 to 1.22; P=0.62) and in 114 of 2495 patients (4.6%) in the acetylcysteine group as compared with 112 of 2498 (4.5%) in the placebo group (odds ratio, 1.02; 95% CI, 0.78 to 1.33; P=0.88). There were no significant between-group differences in the rates of contrast-associated acute kidney injury. Conclusions: Among patients at high risk for renal complications who were undergoing angiography, there was no benefit of intravenous sodium bicarbonate over intravenous sodium chloride or of oral acetylcysteine over placebo for the prevention of death, need for dialysis, or persistent decline in kidney function at 90 days or for the prevention of contrast-associated acute kidney injury. (Funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia; PRESERVE ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01467466.