It’s Complicated: Using Facebook to Create Emotional Connections in Student-Professor Relationships

How can we use Facebook and other technologies to create emotional and professional connections with students

Large fracture toughness boron-epoxy composites

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/76716/1/AIAA-1975-773-197.pd

Unified Forensic Methodology for the Analysis of Embedded Systems

Embedded systems are ubiquitous in society and can contain information that could be used in criminal cases for example in a serious road traffic accident where the car management systems could provide vital forensic information concerning the engine speed etc. A critical review of a number of methods and procedures for the analysis of embedded systems were compared against a ‘standard’ methodology for use in a Forensic Computing Investigation. A Unified Forensic Methodology (UFM) has been developed that is forensically sound and capable of dealing with the analysis of a wide variety of Embedded Systems

IT Portfolio Management: A Holistic Approach to Outsourcing Decisions

This chapter provides an introduction to the advent of Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) and its impact on portfolio management in modern day decision-making. Specifically, it outlines the use of the Application Portfolio Matrix (APM) by companies in formulating their strategic IT direction and why such techniques may be unsuitable for outsourcing decisions, which are inherently complex and multi-faceted in nature. Consequently, there is a need for alternative decision support tools to enable companies to determine how to “best-source” various aspects of their business. This chapter subsequently presents an analysis of ten outsourcing decision-making frameworks, identified from the literature, highlighting their commonalities, strengths, deficiencies and the potential misalignment between the theory and practice of outsourcing as determined by focus group discussions. This chapter gives a background introduction to the practitioner-driven Holistic Approach {Business, Information, Organizational} (HABIO) Framework, which adopts a holistic approach to outsourcing that examines underlying issues from the business, information (i.e. technical) and organizational perspectives. The framework adopts a “card/deck” analogy in its design, allowing for the flexibility and scalability required to accommodate the intricacies of heterogeneous outsourcing decisions in varying industry and context. The chapter outlines its application to two case studies, involving multi-million contracts from the finance and retail sectors, which is of particular interest to academics seeking accounts of current practices and practitioners seeking a systematic guide to ITO portfolio management

RFID Technology in Intelligent Tracking Systems in Construction Waste Logistics Using Optimisation Techniques

Construction waste disposal is an urgent issue for protecting our environment. This paper proposes a waste management system and illustrates the work process using plasterboard waste as an example, which creates a hazardous gas when land filled with household waste, and for which the recycling rate is less than 10% in the UK. The proposed system integrates RFID technology, Rule-Based Reasoning, Ant Colony optimization and knowledge technology for auditing and tracking plasterboard waste, guiding the operation staff, arranging vehicles, schedule planning, and also provides evidence to verify its disposal. It h relies on RFID equipment for collecting logistical data and uses digital imaging equipment to give further evidence; the reasoning core in the third layer is responsible for generating schedules and route plans and guidance, and the last layer delivers the result to inform users. The paper firstly introduces the current plasterboard disposal situation and addresses the logistical problem that is now the main barrier to a higher recycling rate, followed by discussion of the proposed system in terms of both system level structure and process structure. And finally, an example scenario will be given to illustrate the system’s utilization

Understanding the determinants of Cloud Computing adoption in Saudi healthcare organisations

Cloud Computing is an evolving information technology paradigm that impacts many sectors in many countries. Although Cloud Computing is an emerging technology there is little in the literature concerning its application in the Saudi healthcare sector. This paper examines and identifies the factors that will influence the adoption of Cloud Computing in Saudi healthcare organisations. The study integrates the TOE (Technology–Organization–Environment) framework with the Information System Strategic Triangle (IS Triangle) and the HOT-fit (Human–Organization–Technology) model to provide a holistic evaluation of the determinants of Cloud Computing adoption in healthcare organisations. Of the five perspectives examined in this study, the Business perspective was found to be the most important followed by the Technology, Organisational and Environmental perspectives and finally the Human perspective. The findings of the study showed that the five most important factors influencing the adoption of Cloud Computing in this context are soft financial analysis, relative advantage, hard financial analysis, attitude toward change and pressure from partners in the business ecosystem. This study identifies the critical factors for both practitioners and academics that influence Cloud Computing adoption decision-making in Saudi healthcare

A FRAMEWORK FOR MAPPING MULTIMEDIA TO EDUCATIONAL CONCEPTS

Multimedia provides exciting opportunities to education as it allows educational material to be delivered in a multitude of ways, fine-tuned to enhance the learning experience. By using multimedia in e-learning systems, educational material can be presented in ways that both simplify and enhance learning. Increasingly, educational material developers are taking advantage of multimedia technology to deliver education but use multimedia in a variety of ways that are more based on intuition and personal experience and this often leads to the development of an ineffective learning material. Although there are not many main media prototypes (animation, images, video, text, audio), when examined at sub-prototype level, we find that there are many media types that can be used to present educational information. Given the number of available media sub-prototypes, the choice and mode of delivery of multimedia presents a problem in designing educational material. What media type or combination of types do we use for a given educational concept? What media combinations will improve learning for a particular educational concept? This paper presents a method for the selection of appropriate media for educational material and demonstrates how the method could be effectively used in the design of educational material, suitable for e-learning applications

Performance Improvement in Hospital Management using RFID and ZigBee Technologies for Tracking and Monitoring Patients and Assets in Saudi Arabia

Abstract— This paper outlines a developed framework for presenting and visualising data from RFID and ZigBee technologies. The data is gathered from sensors that track and monitor the location and statuses of patients, medical staff and medical equipment by using visualisation concepts to assist in creating, transforming and sharing knowledge to improve hospital management performance and help and to support decision making in the Saudi Arabian healthcare sector

TRACKING AND MONITORING PATIENTS AND ASSETS IN SAUDI ARABIA’ HEALTHCARE ENVIRONMENT

The Saudi healthcare system still faces a number of challenges despite numerous initiatives that have been taken by the Ministry of Health and relevant healthcare authorities. Most of these challenges relate to the underutilisation of electronic health (e-Health) strategies, and the development of a national system for health information. This paper looks into current issues and barriers in Saudi Arabia healthcare environment. The paper descries the collections and analysis of quantifiable data to support tracking and monitoring of patients and assets in Saudi Arabia’s healthcare environment. The paper also compares current practises with a proposed system for an e-Health framework using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and ZigBee technologies. A survey was conducted on respondents from Saudi Arabia to ascertain the need of tracking and monitoring in a hospital environment. The survey results indicated that implementing tracking system will help in tracking patients as they move about the facility, enabling them to be quickly located for scheduled treatments or procedures

VALIDATION OF A MEDIA SELECTION FRAMEWORK THROUGH PRACTICAL USE

Appropriate use of multimedia brings potential education and learning benefits to students. It is widely accepted that people learn better when the full potentials of multimedia are put to correct use, during the design of educational / learning material. In a previous paper by the authors, we presented an initial media selection framework, used for mapping multimedia to educational concepts. In this paper, we present results of experiments carried out using the framework practically for educational design. Specifically, the paper focuses on validating the framework, in essence, assessing the extent to which it improves learning. The validation experiment compared the performance of students that learned from material designed using the framework, with the performance of students that learned from existing learning materials, both sets of material contained similar educational concepts. We also performed reliability tests (assessing whether the framework produces the same media output for the same educational concept) and usability tests (assessing whether users found the framework easy to use). This paper presents and discusses the results of these tests