Teaching Introductory Programming Online: Lessons Learned

Programming is considered a fundamental skill for Information Systems students. Yet, it is generally regarded as hard for students to learn and challenging for instructors to teach. Fully online programming courses can make it even more challenging than the face-to-face version. In this paper, we share our experience of taking a multi-faceted approach in teaching an introductory programming course online. We discuss pedagogical considerations in our approach that incorporates best practices with experimentation to be suitable for our student body while achieving desired learning outcomes

A Framework for Enabling Privacy Preserving Analysis of Graph Properties in Distributed Graphs

In the real world, many phenomena can be naturally modeled as a graph whose nodes represent entities and whose edges represent interactions or relationships between the entities. Past and ongoing research on graphs has developed concepts and theories that may deepen the understanding of the graph data and facilitate solving many problems of practical interest represented by graphs. However, little of this work takes privacy concerns into account. This paper contributes to privacy preserving graph analysis research by proposing a framework for enabling privacy preserving analysis of graph properties in distributed graphs. The framework is composed of three modules. We discuss the functionality of each module and describe how the modules together ensure the privacy protection while retaining graph properties and answer users’ queries pertaining to graph properties

UNDERSTANDING THE MOBILE APP MARKETS: DEMAND, SUPPLY, AND VALUE CREATION

Recent years have witnessed unprecedented growth in the development and usage of mobile apps. While there are indications that mobile apps hold great potential in shaping a new ecosystem, research in this area is just burgeoning. In this study, we aim to better understand the relevant determinants and characteristics in the rapidly evolving mobile app markets by drawing upon the recent studies in mobile apps. In particular, we focus on the demand side and supply side as well as value creation of the emerging app markets. We also identify research gaps and suggest future research agenda

IS SOCIAL MEDIA A FAD? A STUDY OF THE ADOPTION AND USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN SMES

While Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) often face constraints of financial and IT resources, the recent emerging online social media could be a cost effective tool that allows SMEs to create two-way communications and connect with their customers. Yet, few studies have directed attention to the strategic use of online social media by SMEs. In this paper, we take the initial step to empirically examine the adoption and use of Facebook in SMEs. The results derived from our data analysis suggest that the adopting SMEs only start to see the positive effect on their sales revenue growth after a couple of years of persistent use of their Facebook platforms. Also, the engagement and interactions measured by posting activities from both a firm and its Facebook users have predictive effect on the building of an online community in terms of size

Predicting Patent Value: A Data Mining Approach

Patents have long been recognized as a rich source of data for studying innovation, technical changes, and value creation. Patent data includes citations to previous patents, and patent citations allow one to create an indicator of patent value. Identifying valuable patents in a timely manner is essential for effectively harnessing the business value of inventions in the increasingly competitive global market. However, the existing methods of evaluating patent value suffer the issues of timeliness and accuracy. In this paper, we propose a data mining approach that utilizes the structural properties of patent citations networks to predict the value of patents while aiming to improve timeliness and accuracy

Photoluminescence Properties of Carbon Nanomaterials during Coronation and Biodegradation

Carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) have been widely used in biomedical applications such as drug delivery, biosensing, and bioimaging. Due to their interactions with the biological systems in these applications, it is important to understand what happens to CNMs in vivo. Upon introduction into a biological environment, CNMs are rapidly coated with biomolecules (90% lipids) resulting in so-called ‘biocorona’. CNMs can also undergo additional bio-transformations including partial or complete biodegradation. This dissertation focuses on using fluorescence spectroscopy to study the chemical reactions between CNMs and different biomolecules upon coronation and biodegradation. We first use fluorescence spectroscopy to study the reactions between the single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and the biologically important oxygenated lipid metabolites. A photoinduced cycloaddition reaction between metabolites bearing enone functional groups and SWCNTs is reported here. By creating covalent and tunable sp3 defects in the sp2 carbon lattice of SWCNTs through [2π + 2π] photocycloaddition, a bright red-shifted photoluminescence (PL) was gradually generated. The mechanism of the photocycloaddition reaction was further investigated by comparing the reactivity with various organic molecules and computational calculations. The results of this study can enable engineering of the optical and electronic properties of semiconducting SWCNTs and provide understanding into their interactions with the lipid biocorona. In addition to coronation, CNMs could induce a robust inflammatory response. Our research group has found that these effects can be mitigated by enzymatic biodegradation of CNMs through a peroxidase enzyme released by neutrophils during inflammation, myeloperoxidase (MPO). We performed PL studies on the MPO-catalyzed oxidation of graphene oxide (GO) and surfactant-coated SWCNTs. We further constructed two ratiometric sensors using SWCNT/GO nanoscrolls by incorporating surfactant-wrapped SWCNTs as the internal either turn-off or reference sensor. Our sensors show linear response to MPO oxidative machinery and hold the promise to be used as self-calibrating CNMs-based MPO activity indicators. Finally, the composition and structures of the fluorescent GO degradation products, in the form of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), were analyzed using liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry and computational calculations. Our results indicated that structures with several conjugated benzene rings are likely to generate the observed PL

Ocular fundus manifestation of two patients following long-term chloroquine therapy: a case report

This report describes the typical manifestations of chloroquine retinopathy with some advanced new technology. A series of examinations were performed on the patients, including the fundus fluorescein angiography, optical coherence tomography, GDxVCC Nerve Fiber Analyzer, full-field electroretinography, multifocal electroretinography and visual field examinations, to provide a better understanding of chloroquine retinopathy

What Makes Video Ads Viral: Quantifying the Impact of Marketer- and User-Generated Content

Past research on viral advertising focuses on the direct impact of MGC (i.e. Marketer-Generated Content) on the content viral ability. However, it is not clear how this impact of MGC takes place through the mediating effect of UGC (i.e. User-Generated Content) in this process. In this study, we examine the mechanism that makes a video ad viral by taking into account the impact of both MGC (i.e. video content) and UGC (i.e. video comments) in YouTube. AMT (Amazon Mechanical Turk) and Text-Mining Method are combined to extract the characteristics embedded in MGC and UGC

Adsorption and desorption of methylene blue on porous carbon monoliths and nanocrystalline cellulose

The dynamic batch adsorption of methylene blue (MB), a widely used and toxic dye, onto nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) and crushed powder of carbon monolith (CM) was investigated using the pseudo-first- and -second-order kinetics. CM outperformed NCC with a maximum capacity of 127 mg/g compared to 101 mg/g for NCC. The Langmuir isotherm model was applicable for describing the binding data for MB on CM and NCC, indicating the homogeneous surface of these two materials. The Gibbs free energy of −15.22 kJ/mol estimated for CM unravelled the spontaneous nature of this adsorbent for MB, appreciably faster than the use of NCC (−4.47 kJ/mol). Both pH and temperature exhibited only a modest effect on the adsorption of MB onto CM. The desorption of MB from CM using acetonitrile was very effective with more than 94 % of MB desorbed from CM within 10 min to allow the reusability of this porous carbon material. In contrast, acetonitrile was less effective than ethanol in desorbing MB from NCC. The two solvents were incapable of completely desorbing MB on commercial granular coal-derived activated carbon