Determinants of ICT innovation and imitation in the agrifood sector

Diffusion of innovations has gained a lot of attention and concerns different scientific fields. Many studies, which examine the determining factors of technological innovations in the agricultural and agrifood sector, have been conducted assuming the widely-used Technology Accepted Model (TAM), for a random sample of farmers or firms in agricultural sector. In the present study, a holistic examination of the determining factors that affect the propensity of firms to innovate or imitate, is conducted. The diffusion of ICT tools of firms which are engaged in the NACE 02/03 as well as in the NACE 10/11 classifications for 49 heterogeneous national markets is examined, using the Bass model. The innovation parameter is positively associated with rural income, female employment, export activity and education of farmers, while the imitation parameter is increased in societies with large uncertainty avoidance

Μαθηματική προτυποποίηση της Συστημικής Γεωπολιτικής Αναλύσεως: Μια προσέγγιση της ανάλυσης και πρόβλεψης γεωπολιτικού ρίσκου με την χρήση ποσοτικών μεθόδων

Στην ανά χείρας διατριβή, κατατίθεται μια συγκροτημένη πρόταση για την μαθηματική προτυποποίηση της Συστημικής Γεωπολιτικής Αναλύσεως. Βασική στόχευση αποτελεί η διευρεύνηση της μαθηματικής προτυποποίησης της Συστημικής Γεωπολιτικής Ανάλυσης σε βήματα, τα οποία θα περιλαμβάνουν και θα ενσωματώνουν τις ποσοτικές μεθόδους ανάλυσης δεδομένων, στην Συστημική Γεωπολιτική Ανάλυση. Η αρμονική σύνδεση μεταξύ θεωρητικής γνώσης και πρακτικής εφαρμογής, μεταφράζεται σε επέκταση της έρευνας για την αρμονική λειτουργία και συνύπαρξη μεταξύ ποιοτικών και ποσοτικών μεθόδων ανάλυσης σε ένα ενιαίο πλαίσιο, που θα τονίζει την διεπιστημονική φύση της μεθόδου και θα συμβάλει στην αποτελεσματική διαχείριση του γεωπολιτικού κινδύνου κατά την διενέργεια αναλύσεων.In this dissertation, a structured proposal for the mathematical modeling of Systemic Geopolitical Analysis is submitted. The main goal is to investigate the mathematical modeling of Systemic Geopolitical Analysis in steps, which will include and integrate quantitative data analysis methods in Systemic Geopolitical Analysis. The harmonious connection between theoretical knowledge and practical application translates into an extension of the research on the harmonious operation and coexistence between qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis in a single framework, which will emphasize the interdisciplinary nature of the method and contribute to effective geopolitical risk analysis

How do developers fix issues and pay back technical debt in the Apache ecosystem?

During software evolution technical debt (TD) follows a constant ebb and flow, being incurred and paid back, sometimes in the same day and sometimes ten years later. There have been several studies in the literature investigating how technical debt in source code accumulates during time and the consequences of this accumulation for software maintenance. However, to the best of our knowledge there are no large scale studies that focus on the types of issues that are fixed and the amount of TD that is paid back during software evolution. In this paper we present the results of a case study, in which we analyzed the evolution of fifty-seven Java open-source software projects by the Apache Software Foundation at the temporal granularity level of weekly snapshots. In particular, we focus on the amount of technical debt that is paid back and the types of issues that are fixed. The findings reveal that a small subset of all issue types is responsible for the largest percentage of TD repayment and thus, targeting particular violations the development team can achieve higher benefits

Automatic Identification of Assumptions from the Hibernate Developer Mailing List

During the software development life cycle, assumptions are an important type of software development knowledge that can be extracted from textual artifacts. Analyzing assumptions can help to, for example, comprehend software design and further facilitate software maintenance. Manual identification of assumptions by stakeholders is rather time-consuming, especially when analyzing a large dataset of textual artifacts. To address this problem, one promising way is to use automatic techniques for assumption identification. In this study, we conducted an experiment to evaluate the performance of existing machine learning classification algorithms for automatic assumption identification, through a dataset extracted from the Hibernate developer mailing list. The dataset is composed of 400 'Assumption' sentences and 400 'Non-Assumption' sentences. Seven classifiers using different machine learning algorithms were selected and evaluated. The experiment results show that the SVM algorithm achieved the best performance (with a precision of 0.829, a recall of 0.812, and an F1-score of 0.819). Additionally, according to the ROC curves and related AUC values, the SVM-based classifier comparatively performed better than other classifiers for the binary classification of assumptions.</p

Application of Systemic Geopolitical Analysis: The compound geopolitical indicator of the energy reserves and their distribution in the Geopolitical Complex of the Arctic Ocean

Due to ice melting, the energy reserves in the Arctic Ocean have become accessible. Therefore, with reference to the climatic changes that have been taking place in recent years, the aim of this paper is to analyze the reallocation of power in the geopolitical complex of the Arctic Ocean, through the context of the distribution, availability and development of the energy reserves in the area . That includes the study of the energy dividends of the Arctic Ocean’s coastal states as well as the strategic and political importance of the geopolitical complex of the research, in terms of energy

Factors affecting innovation and imitation of ICT in the agrifood sector

Diffusion of innovations has gained a lot of attention and concerns different scientific fields. Many studies, which examine the determining factors of technological innovations in the agricultural and agrifood sector, have been conducted using the widely used Technology Accepted Model, for a random sample of farmers or firms engaged in agricultural sector. In the present study, a holistic examination of the determining factors that affect the propensity of firms to innovate or imitate, is conducted. The diffusion of ICT tools of firms which are engaged in the NACE 02/03 as well as in the NACE 10/11 classifications for 49 heterogeneous national markets is examined, using the Bass model. The innovation parameter is positively associated with rural income, female employment, export activity and education of farmers, while the imitation parameter is increased in countries whose societies are characterized by uncertainty avoidance

Current working conditions of public servants in Greece under the impact of the financial crisis

This thesis is focused on examining, with the usage of the Job Demands – Resources model, the levels of burnout and work engagement that the public servants experience, after the effects of the unforeseen financial crisis that stroke Greece by the end of 2009. The target is to try to investigate how the current working conditions of public servants shape up after the layoffs and wage cuts that occurred, reaching respectively by average 20% and 40% decreases. Further than that using the Job Demands and Resources (JD-R) model and the statistical analysis of the obtained data we will try to suggest methods of counter-measuring the crisis-imposed negative situation in accordance to theoretical models. In order to obtain measureable data, an online survey was created with a series of questions and statements the responses of which can help in identifying important statistical measures on the working conditions of civil servants. Two organizations were targeted to participate in our survey: The Elderly Open Care Center (EOCC) KAPI Kalamarias in Thessaloniki and the Local authorities Municipality of Grevena (O.T.A. Grevena). Using two distant local authorities it is purposed to achieve a greater statistical sample variety, compare and cross validate the data results. The online survey was answered by a total 37 of employees in Thessaloniki and 29 employees in Grevena. The statistical analysis that was made on the results revealed that the public servants are currently experiencing lack of motivation due to the crisis-imposed increased workload and work resources restriction to low levels. The statistical analysis proved two hypothesis that we made: a) there is correlation between the crisis-imposed high job demands and burnout and b) the crisis-imposed decreased job resources demotivate employees and disallows them from achieving work engagement and reducing the negative effects of burnout.Michail Digkas : 0046 76 58 29 213 Georgios Baltoglou: 0046 70 225 63 0

Mathematical modeling of systemic geopolitical analysis: an approach to the analysis and prediction of geopolitical risk using quantitative methods

In this dissertation, a structured proposal for the mathematical modeling of Systemic Geopolitical Analysis is submitted. The main goal is to investigate the mathematical modeling of Systemic Geopolitical Analysis in steps, which will include and integrate quantitative data analysis methods in Systemic Geopolitical Analysis. The harmonious connection between theoretical knowledge and practical application translates into an extension of the research on the harmonious operation and coexistence between qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis in a single framework, which will emphasize the interdisciplinary nature of the method and contribute to effective geopolitical risk analysis.Στην ανά χείρας διατριβή, κατατίθεται μια συγκροτημένη πρόταση για την μαθηματική προτυποποίηση της Συστημικής Γεωπολιτικής Αναλύσεως. Βασική στόχευση αποτελεί η διευρεύνηση της μαθηματικής προτυποποίησης της Συστημικής Γεωπολιτικής Ανάλυσης σε βήματα, τα οποία θα περιλαμβάνουν και θα ενσωματώνουν τις ποσοτικές μεθόδους ανάλυσης δεδομένων, στην Συστημική Γεωπολιτική Ανάλυση. Η αρμονική σύνδεση μεταξύ θεωρητικής γνώσης και πρακτικής εφαρμογής, μεταφράζεται σε επέκταση της έρευνας για την αρμονική λειτουργία και συνύπαρξη μεταξύ ποιοτικών και ποσοτικών μεθόδων ανάλυσης σε ένα ενιαίο πλαίσιο, που θα τονίζει την διεπιστημονική φύση της μεθόδου και θα συμβάλει στην αποτελεσματική διαχείριση του γεωπολιτικού κινδύνου κατά την διενέργεια αναλύσεων