Online interactive thematic mapping: Applications and techniques for socio-economic research

Recent advances in public sector open data and online mapping software are opening up new possibilities for interactive mapping in research applications. Increasingly there are opportunities to develop advanced interactive platforms with exploratory and analytical functionality. This paper reviews tools and workflows for the production of online research mapping platforms, alongside a classification of the interactive functionality that can be achieved. A series of mapping case studies from government, academia and research institutes are reviewed. The conclusions are that online cartography's technical hurdles are falling due to open data releases, open source software and cloud services innovations. The data exploration functionality of these new tools is powerful and complements the emerging fields of big data and open GIS. International data perspectives are also increasingly feasible. Analytical functionality for web mapping is currently less developed, but promising examples can be seen in areas such as urban analytics. For more presentational research communication applications, there has been progress in story-driven mapping drawing on data journalism approaches that are capable of connecting with very large audiences.     

Expert systems and their applications in production and operations management

Recently, the world competitive environment has forced organizations to reexamine and reevaluate their manufacturing strategies. Large capital investments in machine tools and management control systems are being made. The application of expert systems in the production environment has been steadily increasing. This paper examines the concepts of expert systems and reviews the literature pertinent to the areas of application in production management such as scheduling, layout planning and tools used in applying these concepts such as simulation and optimization. It has been concluded that due to increasing automation requirements in manufacturing and the intensified organizational competitive environment, the decision making process itself will have to be automated. It has been suggested that expert systems could be a vehicle in achieving this. This paper examines the applications of expert systems in production and operations management.The technology of expert systems is still in its infancy and many researchers see learning as a major problem. As expert systems become more readily available, the management issues of safety, validity and reliability will become more crucial. The compensation on transferring of knowledge is unclear. Also, the fear of replacement of white collar jobs is growing.     

Perceived openness of Learning Management Systems by students and teachers in education and technology courses

The emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) make new tools available for users to manage information and knowledge. These tools are used in different contexts, with varying degrees of success. One of these potential application contexts are teaching and learning processes supported by learning platforms. Learning platforms are a way for institutions to provide teachers and learners with a wide range of educational applications and services. However, students’ learning is not only limited to a specific institution or period of time; instead, learning is a lifelong process and encompasses the use of many different tools. Therefore institutional learning environments should be open in order to enable the export of functionalities and import of information and interaction from outside the institution. In order to do so, this study proposes a service-based framework, which uses interoperability specifications and web services to facilitate opening of the institutional learning systems. Such framework has been tested in educational and technical scenarios with similar results, learning platforms can be open and the exportation of functionalities from them to personal contexts can enrich students learning and increase their participation.     

Warehouse creation-a potential roadblock to data warehousing

Data warehousing is gaining in popularity as organizations realize the benefits of being able to perform sophisticated analyses of their data. Recent years have seen the introduction of a number of data-warehousing engines, from both established database vendors as well as new players. The engines themselves are relatively easy to use and come with a good set of end-user tools. However, there is one key stumbling block to the rapid development of data warehouses, namely that of warehouse population. Specifically, problems arise in populating a warehouse with existing data since it has various types of heterogeneity. Given the lack of good tools, this task has generally been performed by various system integrators, e.g., software consulting organizations which have developed in-house tools and processes for the task. The general conclusion is that the task has proven to be labor-intensive, error-prone, and generally frustrating, leading a number of warehousing projects to be abandoned mid-way through development. However, the picture is not as grim as it appears. The problems that are being encountered in warehouse creation are very similar to those encountered in data integration, and they have been studied for about two decades. However, not all problems relevant to warehouse creation have been solved, and a number of research issues remain. The principal goal of this paper is to identify the common issues in data integration and data-warehouse creation     

Manufacturing Bespoke Architecture

At the disposal of today??s architect is an evolving array of interoperable tools and processes that allow the fabrication of design propositions to be increasingly complex, non?Cstandard and adaptive. How are we equipped to deal with such a growing breadth of new potential, and how are the philosophies that underpin this potential being defined? This paper attempts to address what is something of a contemporary dilemma in architecture, as the constraints of industrial standardisation are relaxed. Have the roles of designers and makers changed in a way that we??ve not experienced before, and is a new approach to making architecture emerging?     

Protein microarray platforms for clinical proteomics

Proteomics for clinical applications is presently in a state of transition. It has become clear that the classical approaches based on 2-DE and/or MS need to be complemented by different kinds of technologies. The well-known problems include sample complexity, sensitivity, quantitation, reproducibility, and analysis time. We suggest that the new technologies for clinical proteomics can be supported by antibody-centric protein microarray platforms. These platforms presently include antibody microarrays and lysate, or reverse capture/reverse phase protein microarrays. Other forms of these arrays are in less mature developmental stages, including ORF and self assembling protein microarrays. Bioinformatic support for interpreting these arrays is becoming more available as the whole field of systems biology begins to mature. The present set of applications for these platforms is profoundly focused on certain common cancers, immunology, and cystic fibrosis. However, we predict that many more disease entities will become studied as knowledge of the power and availability of these platforms becomes more widely established. We anticipate that these platforms will eventually evolve to accommodate label-free detection technologies, human genome-scale numbers of analytes, and increases in analytic and bioinformatic speeds.     

基于ROA的移动个人知识管理系统集成

针对目前个人知识管理工具存在的功能单一以及实时性差等缺陷,提出基于智能化移动终端的、敏捷实时的个人知识管理体系结构.通过与传统基于SOA的Web服务进行比较,阐述基于ROA的Web服务在系统可扩展性、安全性及交互性等方面的优势.在此基础上,提出移动个人知识管理平台与现有第三方知识管理系统之间的集成方案,采用J2EE、JQUERY、RESTLET和ANDROID等开发环境搭建个人知识管理系统,给出异构知识管理平台之间相互集成的关键技术.     

Exploiting incumbents' potentialities: From linear value chains to multisided platforms

Two‐sided (or multisided) platforms are significantly transforming the competitive landscape. Companies like Airbnb and Uber entered and challenged traditional industries by adopting business models able to innovatively exploit the opportunities provided by digital technologies. Recent studies have pointed out that the characteristics of multisided platforms might inspire traditional businesses to foster innovation, enabling different kinds of value creation and capture. This paper aims to explore this possibility through a longitudinal case study of an Italian tour operator that moved from a traditional linear value chain model to a multisided platform. Relying on the literature about multisided platforms and the modalities adopted by incumbents in fostering innovation, this research offers contributions to both theory and practice. Firstly, it shows how incumbents can reinterpret their resources and relationships in order to conceive new multisided platforms. Secondly, it investigates how the experience gained by incumbents can unveil technological opportunities. Thirdly, it shows how the incumbents can manage complexity and adopt a systemic perspective in developing multisided platforms. Thus, the contribution to the academic dimension is in enriching the knowledge of how multisided platforms can help incumbents in dealing with their ‘typical curse’.     

Dynamics of creativity and technological innovation

This article concerns the struggle between artistic expression and technological innovation. The perspective that is articulated is drawn from the work of the Interactive Cinema group at the MIT Media Laboratory. Situated at the boundary of evolving technologies and media storytelling, research of the group iterates between shaping and presenting cinematic expressions using emerging technologies and developing the required tools and platforms to support its creation and delivery. This dynamic is integral to collaborative expression on largescale projects, as well as in more individual research endeavours such as a current investigation, which conjoins new tangible display technologies with interactive stories.     

CAD tools for aesthetic engineering

The role of computers and of computer-aided design tools for the creation of geometrical shapes that will be judged primarily by aesthetic considerations is reviewed. Examples are the procedural generation of abstract geometrical sculpture or the shape optimization of constrained curves and surfaces with some global ‘cost’ functional. Different possibilities for such ‘beauty functionals’ are discussed. Moreover, rapid prototyping tools based on layered manufacturing now add a new dimension to the visualization of emerging designs. Finally, true interactivity of the CAD tools allows a more effective exploration of larger parts of the design space and can thereby result in an actual amplification of the creative process.     

Using the Semantic Web technologies in virtual engineering tools to create extensible interfaces

Ideas and tools developed for the Semantic Web can also be applied to and integrated with engineering tools and software. The ideas upon which the Semantic Web are founded, along with the technologies that are used to implement it, provide a platform on which virtual engineering tools and interfaces can be extended to create a web in which contextual information is readily accessible to engineers. When the Semantic Web and virtual engineering methods are fully realized, computer hardware and networking capabilities will work to provide information and tools to access information meaningfully. The question that must be answered today is: how will information be integrated in a manner that will allow commercial and proprietary software tools to remain separate while also being integrated so that the end user can control and query these tools with little to no knowledge of the tools’ implementation or inner-working details? The answer to this question will depend largely on the ability to implement open interfaces and schemas that can evolve over time as well as open source toolkits that enable development teams to collaborate at a high level. This paper discusses potential applications of the Semantic Web to explore these questions. In addition, specific capabilities being developed in VE-Suite are discussed.     

Broadening Our Collaboration with Design

Success in visualization and graphics must ultimately be defined in human terms: tools must simplify image creation for users, and the resulting imagery must communicate effectively to viewers. As both users and experts in visual communication, artists and architects have become important and productive collaborators for our discipline. Yet as demand for our imagery grows, not only must we deepen this collaboration, we must broaden it to include graphic, urban and industrial design. Graphic designers will be crucial partners with depicting nonspatial business and intelligence information, especially with automating the creation of this imagery. Working with urban and industrial designers will be just as important in automating the creation of 3D digital content, to meet rapidly increasing demand from the entertainment and simulation industries. Achieving this broader dialogue with design will require a new forum or workshop.     

Toward a practical solution for capturing knowledge for softwareprojects

Rarely has a professional field evolved as quickly as software development. Software organizations are continuously struggling to keep abreast of new technologies frequently changing customer requirements; and increasingly complex software architectures, methods, and tools. Recently, many organizations have come to understand that to succeed in the future, they must manage and use knowledge more effectively at individual, team, and organizational levels. Efficient creation, distribution, and reuse of up-to-date knowledge are critical success factors that unfortunately remain difficult to achieve in practice. Knowledge-sharing events between group members have proven to be a better way of sharing knowledge than the database, but the results of these events could never be packaged and reused for future projects. One company's solution was to develop a needs-based approach that would deliver knowledge just in time     

知识管理的支撑技术及实现框架模型

知识已成为企业重要的生产投入要素,知识管理能将企业战略、信息系统和企业核心能力知识有机结合起来,而成为新的研究热点。该文分析了信息管理与知识管理的关系,指出知识管理是信息管理的新阶段,阐述了不同知识管理环节的支撑技术和工具,提出了一种知识管理系统的分层框架模型,在保证与传统信息系统兼容的前提下简化了系统的实施过程,实现从信息管理向知识管理在技术上的平稳过渡。     

FrameNet, current collaborations and future goals

This paper will focus on recent and near-term future developments at FrameNet (FN) and the interoperability issues they raise. We begin by discussing the current state of the Berkeley FN database including major changes in the data format for the latest data release. We then briefly review two recent local projects, "Rapid Vanguarding??, which has created a new interface for the frame and lexical unit definition process based on the Word Sketch Engine of Kilgarriff et?al. (2004), and ??Beyond the Core??, which has developed tools for annotating constructions, and created a sample ??construction?? of especially ??interesting?? constructions which are neither simply lexical nor easy for the standard parsers to parse. We also cover two current collaborations, FN??s part in the development of the manually annotated subcorpus of the American National Corpus, and a pilot study on aligning WordNet and FrameNet, to exploit the complementary strengths of these quite different resources. We discuss FN-related research on Spanish, Japanese, German (SALSA), Chinese and other languages, and the language-independence of frames, along with interesting FN-related work by others, and a sketch of a large group of image-schematic frames which are now being added to FN. We close with some ideas about how FrameNet can be opened up, to allow broader participation in the development process without losing precision and coherence, including a small-scale study on acquiring data for FN using Amazon??s Mechanical Turk crowd-sourcing system.     

Triangulation or bipolarization: Which mode of cooperation towards stronger cohesion in Europe?

This paper attempts to highlight some weaknesses of European integration by technology. It is argued that these weaknesses of integration arise out of misunderstanding of the relationships between economics and technology. Mainstream economics considers technology as being external to the sphere of economy. It is treated as an external stock of knowledge or information rather than the result of a process of interaction between the actors belonging to the sphere of economy. The theoretical status of technology influences the focus and process of economic development through technology. If technology is considered as being exogenous to the sphere of economics, the resulting stock of technology can be considered as transferable. If technology is considered as the result of an interaction of economic actors, so belonging to the economic sphere, its transfer becomes impossible because of its endogenous nature. In this last frame, technology concept transfer may become a danger for the development of less developed countries as well as for the cohesion of the European Community.Two modes of cooperation between actors of different European countries have been identified: bipolarization, based on the relationship between two economic actors, can correspond to logics of creation or diffusion of knowledge or information. Triangulation is always based on the interrelation of at least three actors, from which at least two will have a relationship based on mutual creation of knowledge, know-how, production, etc.Triangulation seems more oriented to creation of information or knowledge in European countries, while bipolarisation might present the risk of increased dependency, through strengthening the strongest partner of the cooperation.     

Topology,typology, and dynamics of commons‐based peer production: On platforms,actors, and innovation in the maker movement

In this paper, we aim to present a comprehensive analysis on the emerging phenomenon of distributed innovation in commons‐based peer production (CBPP) platforms. Starting with the exploration of the widely held belief on value‐creation confined to industrial settings, we raise several questions regarding the feasibility of, and a need for, an inclusive innovation process that can tap grassroots capacity into both traditional (industrial research and development) and emerging (peer‐to‐peer) innovation models to yield sustainable solutions. In particular, we explore the emergence and structuration of digital innovations in the maker movement, as it presents an alternative construct of innovation wherein access to and sharing of knowledge is predominantly distributed. With innovation outcomes often freely revealed, its very structuration could pose a principal challenge to our conceptualizations of value creation and competitive advantage in the current economic model. Drawing from responses received from 200 collaborative innovation platforms, six semi‐structured interviews focusing on socio‐technical innovation cases, as well as four in‐depth narrative interviews with maker turned entrepreneurs, we present a detailed analysis on the topology of network, typology of actors, as well as the underlying innovation ecosystem in CBPP networks in Germany. In doing so, we contribute to the conceptualization of peer‐to‐peer distributed innovations in collaborative platforms.     

Co‐creation of new solutions through gamification: A collaborative innovation practice

This paper aims to explore the main implications of gamification approaches to collaborative innovation and particularly to co‐creation, i.e. the interaction and interchange of ideas between users, customers, suppliers and other actors in the development of new solutions. Despite the few approaches attempting to make co‐creation more ludic and accessible, researchers have yet to analyse the link between gamification and co‐creation in an extensive manner. In order to better understand this unexplored relationship, empirical case research studies have been conducted with multi‐actors participating in a real‐life co‐creation project through the deployment of a gamified method and tool (ideaChef®), as well as a combination of different instruments, involving speed meetings, workshops, debriefings and interviews. Besides advancing the body of knowledge on collaborative innovation practices and conceptualizing the relationship between gamification and co‐creation, this paper provides important implications for managers on how multiple actors can be engaged and coordinated in such practices through gamification. The paper's main contribution lies in the suggestion that engagement goes hand in hand with coordination, and that a combination of both will be the best strategy for co‐creating new solutions through gamification.     

Man's role in man-machine systems

Work is not only a concept of physics, for much longer and more importantly it has been an existential humane category. Throughout history man has used his brain to make work easier and more effective, to make life better and more satisfying. He has been developing and applying new tools as well as new ways of human cooperation and social organization complementary to these new tools. Man's role in man-machine systems must be seen in this context. The paper analyses the changes the man-machine relationship has undergone; it shows the negative consequences of ‘Taylorism’, the adverse effects to both man and machine caused by specialization of work and segmentation of life. The advent of automation, information technology, micro-electronics offers the chance to reverse this development, to open up new options and real human choice. Technological needs and human aspirations meet in the search for new patterns of work organization and for new relationships between man and machine, offering man the role as knowledgeable, educated and motivated master of the machine. This is illustrated by several practical examples, proving that technology is not deterministic. There are always feasible alternatives available which will result in considerable improvements and even in the creation of new work places if decisions are taken not for but with the people concerned. The application of participative methods in designing man-machine systems, the development of alternatives which consider the needs of man and society has become the main challenge to scientists and engineers of our time. Meeting this challenge will not only reconcile and reunite designers and users, it will in the long run spell the return from the belief in machines to the belief in the humanities, the return of the power of decision-making from a few privileged to a computer-assisted democratic system.