Conserved quantities in discrete dynamics: what can be recovered from Noether’s theorem, how, and why?

The connections between symmetries and conserved quantities of a dynamical system brought to light by Noether??s theorem depend in an essential way on the symplectic nature of the underlying kinematics. In the discrete dynamics realm, a rather suggestive analogy for this structure is offered by second-order cellular automata. We ask to what extent the latter systems may enjoy properties analogous to those conferred, for continuous systems, by Noether??s theorem. For definiteness, as a second-order cellular automaton we use the Ising spin model with both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic bonds. We show that??and why??energy not only acts as a generator of the dynamics for this family of systems, but is also conserved when the dynamics is time-invariant. We then begin to explore the issue of whether, in these systems, it may hold as well that translation invariance entails momentum conservation.     

The geographic concentration of China’s e-business enterprises: where they gather and why

The geographic concentration of China’ s e-business sector represents beyond the ordinary image. The study focused on its analyses on 446 China’s e-business enterprises. The results show that a) Beijing, Guangdong, and Zhejiang are three emerging clusters whose enterprise dynamics have spread beyond the commonly mentioned major high-technology regions, and b) the regional economic status and ICT infrastructure condition are only necessary conditions of being a gathering centre, instead of sufficient conditions. Furthermore, China’s e-business sector is mainly influenced by the capital effect, and its geographic concentration has impressive combination with the location, which depends not on local public sectors’ deliberate efforts in doing-business promotions, but on the founders’ social relationships.     

Niklas Luhmann’s concept of social communication and documentary information theory: Cross points

Niklas Luhman’s concept of social communication is considered. The relationship between communication concepts and information theory is shown. The heuristic potential of Luhmann’s theory with respect to the document and information disciplines is analyzed.     

The hitchhiker’s guide to ubicomp: using techniques from literary and critical theory to reframe scientific agendas

Literary criticism places fictional work in historical, social and psychological contexts to offer insights about the way that texts are produced and consumed. Critical theory offers a range of strategies for analysing what a text says and just as importantly, what it leaves unsaid. Literary analyses of scientific writing can also produce insights about how research agendas are framed and addressed. This paper provides three readings of a seminal ubiquitous computing scenario by Marc Weiser. Three approaches from literary and critical theory are demonstrated in deconstructive, psychoanalytic and feminist readings of the scenario. The deconstructive reading suggests that alongside the vision of convenient and efficient ubiquitous computing is a complex set of fears and anxieties that the text cannot quite subdue. A psychoanalytic reading considers what the scenario is asking us to desire and identifies the dream of surveillance without intrusion. A final feminist reading discusses gender and collapsing distinctions between public and private, office and home, family and work life. None of the readings are suggested as the final truth of what Weiser was “really” saying. Rather they articulate a set of issues and concerns that might frame design agendas differently. The scenario is then re-written in two pastiches that draw on source material with very different visions of ubiquitous computing. The Sal scenario is first rewritten in the style of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In this world, technology is broken, design is poor and users are flawed, fallible and vulnerable. The second rewrites the scenarios in the style of Philip K Dick’s novel Ubik. This scenario serves to highlight what is absent in Weiser’s scenario and indeed most design scenarios: money. The three readings and two pastiches underline the social conflict and struggle more often elided or ignored in the stories told in ubicomp literature. It is argued that literary forms of reading and writing can be useful in both questioning and reframing scientific writing and design agendas.     

Constitute: The world’s constitutions to read,search, and compare

Constitutional design and redesign is constant. Over the last 200 years, countries have replaced their constitutions an average of every 19 years and some have amended them almost yearly. A basic problem in the drafting of these documents is the search and analysis of model text deployed in other jurisdictions. Traditionally, this process has been ad hoc and the results suboptimal. As a result, drafters generally lack systematic information about the institutional options and choices available to them. In order to address this informational need, the investigators developed a web application, Constitute [online at http://www.constituteproject.org], with the use of semantic technologies. Constitute provides searchable access to the world’s constitutions using the conceptualization, texts, and data developed by the Comparative Constitutions Project. An OWL ontology represents 330 “topics”–e.g. right to health–with which the investigators have tagged relevant provisions of nearly all constitutions in force as of September of 2013. The tagged texts were then converted to an RDF representation using R2RML mappings and Capsenta’s Ultrawrap. The portal implements semantic search features to allow constitutional drafters to read, search, and compare the world’s constitutions. The goal of the project is to improve the efficiency and systemization of constitutional design and, thus, to support the independence and self-reliance of constitutional drafters.     

Viscous Taylor droplets in axisymmetric and planar tubes: from Bretherton’s theory to empirical models

The aim of this study is to derive accurate models for quantities characterizing the dynamics of droplets of non-vanishing viscosity in capillaries. In particular, we propose models for the uniform-film thickness separating the droplet from the tube walls, for the droplet front and rear curvatures and pressure jumps, and for the droplet velocity in a range of capillary numbers, Ca, from \(10^{-4}\) to 1 and inner-to-outer viscosity ratios, \(\lambda\), from 0, i.e. a bubble, to high-viscosity droplets. Theoretical asymptotic results obtained in the limit of small capillary number are combined with accurate numerical simulations at larger Ca. With these models at hand, we can compute the pressure drop induced by the droplet. The film thickness at low capillary numbers (\(Ca<10^{-3}\)) agrees well with Bretherton’s scaling for bubbles as long as \(\lambda <1\). For larger viscosity ratios, the film thickness increases monotonically, before saturating for \(\lambda>10^3\) to a value \(2^{2/3}\) times larger than the film thickness of a bubble. At larger capillary numbers, the film thickness follows the rational function proposed by Aussillous and Quéré (Phys Fluids 12(10):2367–2371, 2000) for bubbles, with a fitting coefficient which is viscosity-ratio dependent. This coefficient modifies the value to which the film thickness saturates at large capillary numbers. The velocity of the droplet is found to be strongly dependent on the capillary number and viscosity ratio. We also show that the normal viscous stresses at the front and rear caps of the droplets cannot be neglected when calculating the pressure drop for \(Ca>10^{-3}\).     

Information systems and culture: Applying ‘stages of growth’ concepts to development administration

Abstract

This paper examines how cultural factors influence the rate at which individuals adopt technology to assist them in their duties. In order to achieve this, we review usage of the stages of growth model of information systems development in organisations which has been applied in the context of western and non‐western organisations in various parts of the world. We then apply the model to the context of development administration where information technology interventions are becoming pervasive but where the inherent traditional cultural characteristics are fundamentally at variance with those of information technology practitioners. The case study we present is that of the implementation of information systems in the Karachi Development Authority (KDA). The findings highlight the utility and limitations of the stages of growth model in terms of its ability to accommodate the inherent cultural characteristics of KDA. While such knowledge will have value for information technology practitioners within their own societies, we contend that it will become even more valuable for practitioners from western cultures in applying technology solutions to development administration.     

Impact of IT integration on the firm’s knowledge absorption and desorption

This paper examines the impact of the integration of IT systems with other organizations (IT integration) on the knowledge absorption and desorption of the focal firm. We ran an empirical study in Spain and found that IT integration enables the firm to absorb and desorb knowledge with other organizations, which in turn improves firm performance. This research provides two key contributions to the IS discipline: 1) We introduce the concept of desorptive capacity in the IS research and provide a scale for its measure, 2) we provide a theory of IT integration impact on the firm’s knowledge absorption and desorption.     

Harnessing the social web to enhance insights into people’s opinions in business,government and public administration

Transparency, participation, and collaboration are the core pillars of open government. For the systematic integration of citizens and other stakeholders into the policy and public value creation process, their opinions, wishes, and complaints first need to be received. In the future, including user-generated content from social media will become a main channel for the enrichment of this information base for public administrative bodies and commercial firms. However, the sheer speed of growth of this constantly updated data pool makes manual work infeasible. The automated gathering, combination, analysis, and visualization of user-generated content from various sources and multiple languages is therefore imperative.In this study, we present a design science research approach to develop a general framework (‘MarketMiner’) to handle large amounts of foreign-language user-generated content. As a first empirical application, we implement the framework in the automotive industry by analyzing Chinese automotive forums for the benefit of English-speaking users. At the same time, the ideas, methods, and insights are transferred to the public sector context, especially in light of the current challenges of a high number of political refugees from Arabic countries entering into the European Union.The results are promising in that MarketMiner can dramatically improve the utilization of multi-language, multi-source social media content. The modular set-up of the artifact allows an easy transfer to additional areas of application.     

Evaluating Algeria’s social and economic development using a series of night-time light images between 1992 to 2012

ABSTRACT

After social and economic problems, Algeria regained its night-time light (NL) brightness as this analysis of space-borne images shows. We evaluate the advancement of artificial light sources and the socioeconomic development between 1992 to 2012 for all 48 provinces. Image calibration improved the consistency and comparability of the DMSP-OLS data. Light detected from gas flaring has been separated to focus on light from human settlements. We then estimated the relationship between night-time light and selected socioeconomic parameters (SEP). Night-time light growth (NLG) and night-time light annual growth (NLAG) indices are calculated at the national, regional and provincial level. Considering the Oil price crash and the Algerian Civil Concord, we take a detailed look at these historic events in Algeria. Our main findings are: (A) The total night-time light (TNL) for human settlements grew nationwide by 128%, (B) night-time light data correlates with socioeconomic parameters such as population, and electric power consumption, (C) the oil price crash resulted in slower night-time light growth, while the Algerian Civil Concord and the end of the crises led to increased TNL, (D) because of government investment, the High Plateaus are the fastest growing region since the end of the crises, (E) space-borne night-time light data can consistently fill the information gap when data from official sources are not available. Government and policy-making bodies may benefit from the presented findings allowing them to oversee and address provincial inequalities and economic development.     

VR-based fire evacuation in underground rail station considering staff’s behaviors: model,system development and experiment

Virtual Reality - As an enclosed and normally crowded environment, underground rail station is a dangerous place when fire emergency happens. Traditional methods usually adopt simulation or drill...     

Impacts of navigation structure,task complexity,and users’ domain knowledge on Web site usability—an empirical study

It is essential for designers of Web sites to understand what navigation structure results in better usability for knowledge acquisition tasks of varying complexity and the Web site users with different level of domain knowledge. Literature shows that multiple factors may exert influence on Web site usability. Navigation structure, task complexity, and user domain knowledge level are among of those factors. Hypotheses are developed about the usability of alternative navigation structures, with different task complexity and user domain knowledge level. Experiments are designed and conducted to test these hypotheses in terms of user performance (accuracy, speed) in accomplishing sets of simple and comparatively complex knowledge acquisition tasks. User perceptions of usability are also measured. Two rounds of experimentation are performed, one with participants who have been trained in the domain of production and operations management, the other with participants who have not been trained in this domain. The results show that a usage-oriented hierarchy or a combined hierarchy are navigation structures associated with statistically significantly higher performance usability than a subject-oriented hierarchy, for both simple and relatively complex knowledge acquisition task sets. A statistically significant effect of domain knowledge on the perception aspect of usability is identified. The study contributes to enhancing the comprehension of researchers, practitioners, and educators about design and usability of Web site navigation structures.     

Epistemological and methodological issues for the conceptualization,development, and assessment of ICT–TPCK: Advances in technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK)

In this paper, several issues regarding the epistemology of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) are first raised for the purpose of clarifying the construct. Specifically, the transformative and integrative views are juxtaposed for exploring the epistemology of TPCK, and, at the end, the transformative view is adopted concluding that TPCK is a unique body of knowledge that is constructed from the interaction of its individual contributing knowledge bases. Then, ICT–TPCK is introduced as a strand of TPCK, and is described as the ways knowledge about tools and their affordances, pedagogy, content, learners, and context are synthesized into an understanding of how particular topics that are difficult to be understood by learners or difficult to be represented by teachers can be transformed and taught more effectively with technology in ways that signify its added value. One model for the development and another for the assessment of ICT–TPCK are then discussed. Technology Mapping is proposed as a situative methodology for the development of ICT–TPCK, and three forms of assessment, namely, expert assessment, peer assessment, and self-assessment are proposed for assessing teachers’ competencies to teach with technology. The paper also reports on the empirical findings of a study that was undertaken to investigate the impact of the proposed models on student learning within the context of two design tasks in a pre-service primary teacher education course. Repeated measures within-subject effects were tested and the results indicated that ICT–TPCK competency significantly improved over the course of a semester. The results of this study clearly show that the theoretical models proposed herein can positively impact the development of ICT–TPCK. Lastly, these results can be used as baseline data in future studies that may be conducted to further validate or improve the proposed models in different contexts.     

The European Union’s contributions to international stability: the role of education and study mobilities

The efforts of the European Union for stabilisation and democratisation in Eastern Europe and the Balkan region covered a range of areas. While the impact of such measures and incentives testify for the progress on the path of regional reconciliation and democratisation, this record remains largely a top-down account, with governments and political leaders acting as principal agents of change and drivers of stability. The long-term efficiency of this type of approach cannot be guaranteed without genuine transformations at all society levels and layers. The role of the European Union’s educational exchange schemes, particularly Erasmus, may prove to be an instilling factor for regional reconciliation and a stability generator. The Erasmus scheme has been extremely successful and key to breaking cultural barriers and working across borders and disciplines. This study seeks to understand student experiences of two postgraduate programmes which deal with issues associated with international stability. The study used a case study research methodology and selected the case studies of the “MITRA” Erasmus Mundus Masters programme on Intercultural Mediation: Identities Mobilities and Conflict and the EM2-STEM (Entrepreneurship and Management Training in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Erasmus Mundus programme. The study specifically investigates the experiences of students in these programmes and their experiences of intercultural interactions. From here an analysis is conducted to explore if European Union-funded study mobilities have shaped or transformed participating students’ views of international stability.     

Correction to: Strategic Assessment of Lisbon’s Accessibility and Mobility Problems from an Equity Perspective

Networks and Spatial Economics - A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11067-021-09544-7     

Examining end users’ ability to select business services: A conceptual framework and an empirical study

Software made from autonomous business services is gaining popularity. Now end users can build large applications by assembling a suite of services. Because some end users might have limited knowledge of their requirements and the functionality of available services, the key challenge is to find the services needed to build an application. The task of finding the services matching requirements requires specialized knowledge—knowledge of requirements and the functionality of available services—not just mere general competence. Moreover, the complexity of the requirements could also hinder the ability of end users to select services. However, there is little research into how the end users’ sophistication and requirement complexity affect their ability to avoid duplication (i.e., select the most cost-effective set of services) and select a set of services that satisfy their requirements. We provide a conceptual framework for the choice problem faced by the decision maker and develop a set of hypotheses on end user's sophistication and requirement complexity, and the impact of these factors on outcome performance—the ability to avoid duplication and select the appropriate services. Then we conduct an empirical study to test the hypotheses. Empirical results offer support for all hypotheses. Our work has several implications. We demonstrate both conceptually and empirically that end users’ naivety has a significant impact on service duplication. For a profit-maximizing service vendor, knowledge of the end user's sophistication/naivety allows there to be different pricing strategies: (1) a pure component strategy, (2) a pure bundling strategy, or (3) a mixed bundling strategy.