Pickles

My story of being in the supermarket right before everything closed

Friends

This is my five-year-old son. He\u27s watching the kids next door play. He knows he can\u27t go over there because we are in quarantine due to the pandemic. He hasn\u27t even asked. He\u27s just watching them, and it breaks my heart how much he misses his friend

The Role of Information Systems in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Japan

This research examines the adoption of information technology in small and medium sized enterprises in Japan. SMEs comprise more than 99 percent of the total Japanese enterprises. These one million-plus businesses employ 72.7 percent of workers and account for more than 50 percent of the total value and almost 60 percent of the value added. SMEs are not only a crucial source of employment, but through extensive subcontracting networks forming the basis of the Japanese production system, they are also essential participants in global business practices. Furthermore, they constitute a critical segment of the Japanese innovation and economic systems. This investigation explores institutional changes in Japanese SMEs and identifies the current uses of information technology, factors driving these uses, and implications for the continuing evolution of SMEs. This research shows that Japanese SMEs are beginning to use information resources to enhance their operations and strategic relationships

Crumpled and Abraded Encryption: Implementation and Provably Secure Construction

Abraded and crumpled encryption allows communication software such as messaging platforms to ensure privacy for their users while still allowing for some investigation by law enforcement. Crumpled encryption ensures that each decryption is costly and prevents law enforcement from performing mass decryption of messages. Abrasion ensures that only large organizations like law enforcement are able to access any messages. The current abrasion construction uses public key parameters such as prime numbers which makes the abrasion scheme difficult to analyze and allows possible backdoors. In this thesis, we introduce a new abrasion construction which uses hash functions to avoid the problems with the current abrasion construction. In addition, we present a proof-of-concept for using crumpled encryption on an email server

Crowdsourcing Management Education Assessment

Assessment is now at the center of the new business education zeitgeist. This focus is the direct result of feedback from the business community regarding the growing gap between their needs and graduates from many business schools. Recently this divide has fallen under even closer scrutiny because of increasing student debt and the growing controversy over return-on- investment. Today business leaders are looking for web-savvy, problem-solving graduates. To this end, AACSB and regional accrediting bodies are calling for the adoption of comprehensive collaborative learning strategies to better align graduates’ skill sets with the real needs of business. Crowdsourcing, which is the process of connecting students and faculty with a broad- based group of both internal and external resources, is receiving increased attention throughout the assessment community. Within this context, crowdsourcing broadens the resource pool and thus provides for improved quality assurance in terms of meaning, quality, integrity, accountability and transparency. The proposed crowdsourcing-based quality assurance strategy is illustrated using sample data from a recent MBA program assessment. This article also outlines how the crowdsourcing can be used to enhance student learning outcomes via specific implementation strategies

Using Customer-Facing Technology to Create New Business Value: Insight From the Public and Private Sector into the Changing Value Equation

The objective of this research was to address two main questions regarding self-service and the changing value equation: Has the self-service value equation changed in the current downturn? How can organizations leverage information systems and customer facing technology to create new value for customers and even attract more customers? Qualitative data collection and analysis of in depth interviews of public and private sector organizations in the US and Australia were conducted from 2007-2010. To ensure accuracy and to promote triangulation, notes from interviews were transcribed, reviewed and verified by key actors in order to increase the reliability of the study (Yin, 1994). The data was coded following the methods described by Yin (1994) and Miles and Huberman (1984). Nvivo software was used for this analysis. Some organizations within the public and private sectors are surviving the economic downturn by leveraging technology to do “more with less” in order to deliver better services to customers. This has been achieved by identifying what costumers value most in order to ensure loyalty: choice, control and convenience. These organizations are particularly focusing on “customer loyalty” and “customer delight” as metrics for success. Many organizations both public and private are struggling with the challenge of identifying value, coupling that with technology strategy and delivering value. This case research provides policy makers and business practitioners with practical insight into value creation for customers or citizens using customer-facing technology

A Comparison of the Satisfaction Levels of Collegiate Student-Athletes and Their Non-Athlete peers with Their Collegiate Experience

Research examining the satisfaction level of student athletes with their overall collegiate experience has been minimal. This study examined the existence of differences between collegiate student-athletes' satisfaction and the satisfaction of their non-athlete peers. Participants were enrolled at a mid-sized, urban, state-supported university located in the southeastern United States. There was a total of 644 students participating in this study. Student-athletes represented 168 of the participants and the remaining 476 were students who were not members of an intercollegiate athletic team. Eleven scales of satisfaction were examined using the Noel-Levitz Student Satisfaction lnventory. The statistical analysis of the data indicated five scales to be significantly different. lncreased levels of satisfaction among the student-athletes were found on the scales of academic advisement, recrnitment and financial aid, and safety and security. Decreased levels of satisfaction were found on the scales of campus life and campus climate

Leveraging the Sales Force with Portal Technology at the American Subsidiary of a Japanese Motor Company Case Series (A), (B) and (C)

Managers understand the need to have information aligned with their businesses - they see and feel its consequences every day. They also understand the goal of technology-based information systems (IS) delivers the right information to the right people at the right time so that both strategic and operational decisions can be made properly and quickly. This was the approach followed by the American subsidiary of a Japanese motor company. The firm implemented a single, unified, Web-based interface to centralize and synchronize data access to 12 stand-alone dealership sales applications. The implementation took less than six months and less than $500,000 was expended. Immediate results were that the sales managers became significantly more efficient with their time, the automobile division recognized a cost savings of$1.4 million through a more efficient use of employee resources, and there was an estimated $10 million savings corporate wide as a result of employee efficiency gains throughout the organization. Despite all of these benefits, the automobile division\u27s chief information officer was faced with the decision of whether or not to return to fix the data integration and timeliness problems that remained among the division\u27s autonomous sales applications. This case study series highlights the objectives, outcomes, and challenges that managers must address while implementing Web-based portals. This case series also provides a better understanding for identifying, leveraging, and improving operational efficiency within a firm