ICT‐supported pedagogical policies and practices in South Africa and Chile: emerging economies and realities

South Africa participated in all three of the Second International Technology in Education Study (SITES). In the first international study, South Africa was the only developing country, and therefore, stark contrasts were found in the international study between South Africa and the other participating countries. Chile participated in the SITES 2006 as one of a few developing countries making the comparison with South Africa possible. Despite similarities in their contexts and economies, their approach to information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education appears to differ. This difference raised questions about differences in policies and their implementation at school level. This research conducted in South Africa found that the Chilean strategy for developing and implementing their ICT in education appear to be very different with regard to its design, the organization, the strategies adopted, the resources used and, most importantly, their approach to teacher development for implementing ICT. A number of lessons are revealed for the South African policymakers and others from similar developing contexts.     

Temporal Visualization of Boundary‐based Geo‐information Using Radial Projection

This work is concerned with a design study by an interdisciplinary team on visualizing a 10‐year record of seasonal and inter‐annual changes in frontal position (advance/retreat) of nearly 200 marine terminating glaciers in Greenland. Whilst the spatiotemporal nature of the raw data presents a challenge to develop a compact and intuitive visual design, the focus on coastal boundaries provides an opportunity for dimensional reduction. In this paper, we report the user‐centered design process carried out by the team, and present several visual encoding schemes that have met the requirements including compactness, intuitiveness, and ability to depict temporal changes and spatial relations. In particular, we designed a family of radial visualization, where radial lines correspond to different coastal locations, and nested rings represent the evolution of the temporal dimension from inner to outer circles. We developed an algorithm for mapping glacier terminus positions from Cartesian coordinates to angular coordinates. Instead of a naive uniform mapping, the algorithm maintains consistent spatial perception of the visually‐sensitive geographical references between their Cartesian and angular coordinates, and distributes other termini positions between primary locations based on coastal distance. This work has provided a useful solution to address the problem of inaccuracy in change evaluation based on pixel‐based visualization [ [BPC*10] ].     

Teacher factors associated with innovative curriculum goals and pedagogical practices: differences between extensive and non‐extensive ICT‐using science teachers

Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES) 2006 was an international study about pedagogical practices and the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in math and science classrooms. One of the findings of SITES 2006 was that – across educational systems – a proportion of the math and science teachers in the 22 countries researched in the SITES 2006 study were using ICT extensively and their pedagogy was oriented towards lifelong learning which is considered relevant for the 21st century. Starting from this finding, a secondary analysis has been conducted to explore differences between extensive and non‐extensive ICT‐using science teachers with respect to pedagogical orientation, ICT competencies and professional engagement. Based on selected questions from the SITES 2006 teacher questionnaire, indicators have been developed for these constructs. Differences between the two groups were calculated using simple t‐tests and effect sizes. The findings showed that both groups of science teachers had a pedagogical orientation that reflected traditionally important as well as lifelong learning curriculum goals and practices, but extensive ICT‐using science teachers, much more than their non‐extensive ICT‐using colleagues pursued curriculum goals and practices that are oriented towards lifelong learning. In addition, extensive ICT‐using science teachers appeared more confident about their ICT competencies and felt more professionally engaged; two factors that were also found in other studies to positively relate to a lifelong learning orientation towards teaching and learning.     

Exploring practices in collaborative innovation: Unpacking dynamics,relations, and enactment in in‐between spaces

In the field of innovation management, the study of collaborative innovation has focused primarily on the type of networks to support innovation, the modularity of the product's architecture required to engage actors in collaboration, the strategies for patenting and knowledge appropriation, and the public policies likely to stimulate collaborative innovation. But given that many efforts to collaborate collapse and fail to generate the desired innovative value, previous research needs to be complemented with perspectives on what individuals and collectives actually do when creating collaborative innovation as they engage in “in‐between spaces”, spaces between actors created by and simultaneously creating social interaction, to understand the practices that both form and constitute the collaboration. Through such studies, new knowledge can be created building on detailed insights about what ensues as different actors engage in interaction to innovate together and contribute to identifying levers to build collaborative spaces that indeed foster innovation. With this special section, we wish to encourage innovation management scholars to rethink their approach to collaborative innovation research by complementing macro‐level insights with an exploration of the micro‐foundations of collaborative innovation to gain a more nuanced understanding of collaborative dynamics, relations and enactment.     

The enactment of risk categories: The role of information systems in organizing and re-organizing risk management practices in the energy industry

This research explores the role of information systems in risk management during a twenty year period when new governance arrangements led to enterprise-wide change in the UK energy markets. We present a longitudinal case study documenting the role of “A-Trade” transaction and risk management software in the adaptation of energy organizations to competitive demands associated with a simultaneous process of privatization and liberalization. During the design, development and implementation of A-Trade, multiple forms of expertise were brought together in what we describe as organizational encounters with risk. The story of “A-Trade” highlights the shift from a traditional engineer-led culture of risk cognition to market-oriented financial risk management. Our findings are that, firstly, that energy transaction and risk management software development provided an important learning ground during periods of paradigmatic change. Secondly, we provide insights into the enactment of risk categories and the challenges associated with establishing an information infrastructure to support risk management.     

Multi‐contextuality in boundary‐spanning practices

The capability to establish boundary‐spanning practices within and across organizations has for long been recognized as a key strategic resource. As organizations are becoming distributed and dynamic, they will be increasingly populated by multiple functional, geographical, hierarchical and professional boundaries. The inherent complexity of such settings makes it difficult for organizations to leverage their boundary‐spanning practices. Information technology (IT) systems have been hailed as a critical enabler of boundary spanning. However, there is little knowledge on how organizations are affected by the introduction of different types of IT systems. Building on an interpretive case study of Swedish transport organizations, this paper explores consequences of sensor technology for boundary spanning. The paper contributes with an understanding of what coexisting use contexts mean for boundary‐spanning practices. A theoretical implication is that such multi‐contextuality requires an integrative view on boundary spanning that combines insights from the organizational innovation and work practice literatures.     

Model‐Based Visualization of Temporal Abstractions

We describe a new conceptual methodology and related computational architecture called Knowledge‐based Navigation of Abstractions for Visualization and Explanation (KNAVE). KNAVE is a domain‐independent framework specific to the task of interpretation, summarization, visualization, explanation, and interactive exploration, in a context‐sensitive manner, of time‐oriented raw data and the multiple levels of higher level, interval‐based concepts that can be abstracted from these data. The KNAVE domain‐independent exploration operators are based on the relations defined in the knowledge‐based temporal‐abstraction problem‐solving method, which is used to abstract the data, and thus can directly use the domain‐specific knowledge base on which that method relies. Thus, the domain‐specific semantics are driving the domain‐independent visualization and exploration processes, and the data are viewed through a filter of domain‐specific knowledge. By accessing the domain‐specific temporal‐abstraction knowledge base and the domain‐specific time‐oriented database, the KNAVE modules enable users to query for domain‐specific temporal abstractions and to change the focus of the visualization, thus reusing for a different task (visualization and exploration) the same domain model acquired for abstraction purposes. We focus here on the methodology, but also describe a preliminary evaluation of the KNAVE prototype in a medical domain. Our experiment incorporated seven users, a large medical patient record, and three complex temporal queries, typical of guideline‐based care, that the users were required to answer and/or explore. The results of the preliminary experiment have been encouraging. The new methodology has potentially broad implications for planning, monitoring, explaining, and interactive data mining of time‐oriented data.     

High‐performance thin‐film transistor using silicide‐mediated crystallization

Abstract— We studied the silicide‐mediated crystallization of a‐Si for low‐temperature polycrystalline‐silicon (LTPS) on glass. By controling the heating method and Ni density on the a‐Si, the grain size could be increased to 40 μm. Radial grain growth from a NiSi₂ crystalline nucleus gives rise to a large‐grain poly‐Si without amorphous phase inside. A field‐effect mobility of over 200 cm²/V‐sec was achieved by using LTPS.     

ICT‐equipped bank boat and the financial inclusion of the riverine population of Marajó Island in the Brazilian Amazon

The challenge in offering public services in less developed areas in Brazil has mobilized the government in search of new and creative approaches that can reduce major interregional disparities, including lack of access to the financial system, which is the prevailing situation on Marajó Island in the state of Pará in the Brazilian Amazon. To transform this reality, an information and communication technology (ICT)–equipped travelling bank branch installed on a boat—named Agência Barco—was designed for the purpose of meeting the financial needs of the riverine population that lives in a vast territory with low population density, marked transportation difficulties, and a limited supply of ICT. Thus, this research aims to assess the impact of this bank boat in the financial inclusion of a riverine population of Marajó Island in the state of Pará, which is the unit of analysis of this work. The research outcomes indicate that Agência Barco, via ICT, has partially managed to provide access to financial products and services that might be of interest to the riverine population of Marajó Island. However, the lack of basic financial education and context‐based issues related to the ICT infrastructure has been obstacles to the financial inclusion of this riverine population. Finally, the absence of involvement of local people in this endeavour has not stimulated dynamics of empowerment and participation that could lead to sustainable financial inclusion.     

Workers and Their Willingness to Learn: Will ICT‐Implementation Strategies and HRM Practices Contribute to Innovation?

The article deals with the relationship between the willingness of workers to acquire ICT‐competences), the ICT‐implementation strategy (to ‘automate’ or ‘to informate’) pursuit by organizations and the HRM practices used by them. Based on a simple conceptual model, we tested three hypotheses: the more extended the use HRM practices in organizations, the more often workers will work in a work setting based on an informated ICT implementation strategy; an informated ICT implementation strategy will lead to a higher willingness of employees to acquire ICT‐related competences; the effect of an informated ICT‐strategy on the willingness to acquire ICT‐related competences will be higher than that of the HRM‐practices. To test these hypotheses, we used a survey of 733 Dutch employees working with ICT devices. Our analysis gives some partial support to the first two hypotheses, but the third is rejected by the data: ICT‐implementation strategies and some HRM‐practices have an independent effect on the willingness to acquire ICT‐compentences.     

High‐Quality Screen‐Space Ambient Occlusion using Temporal Coherence

Ambient occlusion is a cheap but effective approximation of global illumination. Recently, screen‐space ambient occlusion (SSAO) methods, which sample the frame buffer as a discretization of the scene geometry, have become very popular for real‐time rendering. We present temporal SSAO (TSSAO), a new algorithm which exploits temporal coherence to produce high‐quality ambient occlusion in real time. Compared to conventional SSAO, our method reduces both noise as well as blurring artefacts due to strong spatial filtering, faithfully representing fine‐grained geometric structures. Our algorithm caches and reuses previously computed SSAO samples, and adaptively applies more samples and spatial filtering only in regions that do not yet have enough information available from previous frames. The method works well for both static and dynamic scenes.     

State‐of‐the‐Art Report on Temporal Coherence for Stylized Animations

Non‐photorealistic rendering (NPR) algorithms allow the creation of images in a variety of styles, ranging from line drawing and pen‐and‐ink to oil painting and watercolour. These algorithms provide greater flexibility, control and automation over traditional drawing and painting. Despite significant progress over the past 15 years, the application of NPR to the generation of stylized animations remains an active area of research. The main challenge of computer‐generated stylized animations is to reproduce the look of traditional drawings and paintings while minimizing distracting flickering and sliding artefacts present in hand‐drawn animations. These goals are inherently conflicting and any attempt to address the temporal coherence of stylized animations is a trade‐off. This state‐of‐the‐art report is motivated by the growing number of methods proposed in recent years and the need for a comprehensive analysis of the trade‐offs they propose. We formalize the problem of temporal coherence in terms of goals and compare existing methods accordingly. We propose an analysis for both line and region stylization methods and discuss initial steps towards their perceptual evaluation. The goal of our report is to help uninformed readers to choose the method that best suits their needs, as well as motivate further research to address the limitations of existing methods.     

The enactment of significance: a unified conception of information,systems and technology

This paper introduces a new perspective that helps unpack the relationship between information, systems and technology within the nature of human organisation. We argue for an area of interest located at the intersection of signs and systems, which involves the enactment of forma, informa and performa. To demonstrate the utility of this perspective, we deliberately consider a ‘strange’ case from a different time, space and culture. We discuss the nature of human organisation among the Inka Empire and how this organisation was reliant upon the enactment of significance, particularly in relation to an artefact known as the khipu. We conclude with a discussion of the value of our framework in helping us understand the complex entanglement of information, systems and technology within human organisation.     

Perceptually‐motivated Real‐time Temporal Upsampling of 3D Content for High‐refresh‐rate Displays

High‐refresh‐rate displays (e. g., 120 Hz) have recently become available on the consumer market and quickly gain on popularity. One of their aims is to reduce the perceived blur created by moving objects that are tracked by the human eye. However, an improvement is only achieved if the video stream is produced at the same high refresh rate (i. e. 120 Hz). Some devices, such as LCD TVs, solve this problem by converting low‐refresh‐rate content (i. e. 50 Hz PAL) into a higher temporal resolution (i. e. 200 Hz) based on two‐dimensional optical flow. In our approach, we will show how rendered three‐dimensional images produced by recent graphics hardware can be up‐sampled more efficiently resulting in higher quality at the same time. Our algorithm relies on several perceptual findings and preserves the naturalness of the original sequence. A psychophysical study validates our approach and illustrates that temporally up‐sampled video streams are preferred over the standard low‐rate input by the majority of users. We show that our solution improves task performance on high‐refresh‐rate displays.     

Temporal Coherence Methods in Real‐Time Rendering

Nowadays, there is a strong trend towards rendering to higher‐resolution displays and at high frame rates. This development aims at delivering more detail and better accuracy, but it also comes at a significant cost. Although graphics cards continue to evolve with an ever‐increasing amount of computational power, the speed gain is easily counteracted by increasingly complex and sophisticated shading computations. For real‐time applications, the direct consequence is that image resolution and temporal resolution are often the first candidates to bow to the performance constraints (e.g. although full HD is possible, PS3 and XBox often render at lower resolutions). In order to achieve high‐quality rendering at a lower cost, one can exploit temporal coherence (TC). The underlying observation is that a higher resolution and frame rate do not necessarily imply a much higher workload, but a larger amount of redundancy and a higher potential for amortizing rendering over several frames. In this survey, we investigate methods that make use of this principle and provide practical and theoretical advice on how to exploit TC for performance optimization. These methods not only allow incorporating more computationally intensive shading effects into many existing applications, but also offer exciting opportunities for extending high‐end graphics applications to lower‐spec consumer‐level hardware. To this end, we first introduce the notion and main concepts of TC, including an overview of historical methods. We then describe a general approach, image‐space reprojection, with several implementation algorithms that facilitate reusing shading information across adjacent frames. We also discuss data‐reuse quality and performance related to reprojection techniques. Finally, in the second half of this survey, we demonstrate various applications that exploit TC in real‐time rendering.     

Spatio‐Temporal Contours from Deep Volume Raycasting

We visualize contours for spatio‐temporal processes to indicate where and when non‐continuous changes occur or spatial bounds are encountered. All time steps are comprised densely in one visualization, with contours allowing to efficiently analyze processes in the data even in case of spatial or temporal overlap. Contours are determined on the basis of deep raycasting that collects samples across time and depth along each ray. For each sample along a ray, its closest neighbors from adjacent rays are identified, considering time, depth, and value in the process. Large distances are represented as contours in image space, using color to indicate temporal occurrence. This contour representation can easily be combined with volume rendering‐based techniques, providing both full spatial detail for individual time steps and an outline of the whole time series in one view. Our view‐dependent technique supports efficient progressive computation, and requires no prior assumptions regarding the shape or nature of processes in the data. We discuss and demonstrate the performance and utility of our approach via a variety of data sets, comparison and combination with an alternative technique, and feedback by a domain scientist.