The Impact of Technology on Creativity in Design: An Enhancement?

Technology may be considered as an interface between individuals and the products they create, but we have to determine whether the use of new systems effectively enhance individuals' creative activities. In this paper, we present a new angle of reflection that we illustrate in the field of creative design, since it is a constant challenge for designers to introduce creativity in the projects they work on. The approach we propose is centred on designers' cognitive processes. We argue that both the development of new CAD (computer‐aided design) systems and their assessment should be conducted on the basis of a deep understanding of designers' cognitive processes. In accordance with this view, we present three empirical studies that were conducted in order to analyse the impact of new design support systems on designers' cognitive processes. Therefore, the results we present contribute to further our knowledge of whether new CAD technologies effectively facilitate designers' activities and enhance their creativity.     

Interplay between technology and meaning: How music majors reacted?

The diffusion of digital technologies enables companies to propose new business, products and services. The business environment is characterized by increasing levels of competition, and customers can choose a growing number of solutions. In this scenario, companies seek new dimension of innovation: the meaning. A vigorous debate has taken place among scholars on the strategies that companies may use to react to external innovations. Until now, the phenomenon has been analysed grounded in the technology‐push literature. The goal of this study is to understand whether these strategies are still valuable even if innovators leverage not only on the technology but also on a hedonic dimension proposing an innovation of meaning. Through a multiple case‐study analysis, based on both primary and secondary sources, we investigate whether the case companies from the music industry also used the strategies described in the literature to cope with technological innovations that leverage both on technology and meaning.     

The Interplay Between the Speaker’s and the Hearer’s Perspective

The neutralization of contrasts in form or meaning that is sometimes observed in language production and comprehension is at odds with the classical view that language is a systematic one-to-one pairing of forms and meanings. This special issue is concerned with patterns of forms and meanings in language. The papers in this special issue arose from a series of workshops that were organized to explore variants of bidirectional Optimality Theory and Game Theory as models of the interplay between the speaker’s and the hearer’s perspective.     

Data Management in Peer-to-Peer Environment: A Perspective of BestPeer

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems have attracted much attention in academic commu-nity and industry circles due to their promising applications in various domains. This paper presents the authors‘ research efforts on introducing complex query capabilities in a P2P environ-ment consisting of numerous peers with large volume of data. An underlying hybrid P2P computing platform, named BestPeer is described first. The connection among peers within BestPeer is self-configurable through maintaining the nearest neighbor of peers, and the agent techniques employed in the system ensure its capability of providing sophisticated services. The designs of three P2P data management systems which are all based on BestPeer are described in detail. They provide support for information retrieval, query processing and Web services respectively. Advantages and limitations are discussed, while ongoing work is presented. Current systems can provide basic functions for keyword-based search, SQL-like query processing, and Web services querying and discovery. Some further topics on providing fully-fledged data management functionalities for P2P distributed computing systems with security guarantee are also discussed.     

The Design and Implementation of “The GIS Based Mineral Resource Management Information System”

It is described in detail in this paper the entire development process of “The GIS Based Mineral Resource Management Information System” exercising software engineering principles together with GIS technology, database analysis and design techniques etc. It is designed to implement the standardization of geological data storage and management, to provide an efficient retrieval system and a visualization tool for data analysis, thus lays a solid foundation for profound exploration and utilization of geological data.     

GLOBAL: A Design for Random Testability Algorithm

1MotivationsIncreasingdensityofVLSIchipsmakesthecostoftestingveryexpensive.Designfortestabilitycantemperthisproblemdrastically.Therearetwokindsofsolutions:(i)localsolutionl3'2]withlowcomputingcomplexity,whichcannotalwaysgetsatisfactoryresults;(ii)globa.lsolutionwithprohibitivecomputingcomplekityl1'5].T.H.Chen'andM.A.Breuer[1lpresentedanILPmodeltoplacetestpointsglobally.Becauseofitscomputingcomplealty,[1lcanonlydealwithsmallormediumscalecircuits.SCOAPisusedin[1],whichisnotaveryaccuratet…     

The Comparison between the Statistical Heuristic Search and A

In order to further unravel the principle and performance of the statistical heuristic seach algorithm S A,in this paper,in comparison with A * search,the hypothesis,performance and computational complexity of SA are discussed.     

IT Challenges for the New Millennium – Research, Development, and Deployment Issues

Introduction

IT Challenges for the New Millennium – Research, Development, and Deployment Issues     

The Java Management Extensions (JMX): Is Your Cluster Ready for Evolution?

The arrival of commodity hardware configurations with performance rivaling that offered by RISC workstations is resulting in important advances in the state of the art of building and running very large scalable clusters at “mass market” pricing levels. However, cluster middleware layers are still considered as static infrastructures which are not ready for evolution. In this paper, we claim that middleware layers based on both agent and Java technologies offer new opportunities to support clusters where services can be dynamically added, removed, and reconfigured. To support this claim, we present the Java management extensions, a new Java agent-based technology, and its application to implement two disjoint cluster management middleware services (a remote reboot service and a distributed infrastructure for collecting Log events) which share a unique agent-based infrastructure.     

The relation between OSH and ergonomics: a 'mother-daughter' or 'sister-sister' relation?

Despite the growing importance of ergonomics and ergonomists worldwide, the position of ergonomics in companies is often not clear. Today, in many countries ergonomics is mainly (or even only) associated with the reduction of risks of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). Therefore, many companies consider ergonomics a part of occupational safety and health (OSH) that focuses mainly on the reduction of risks. This paper aims to analyse the links between occupational ergonomics and OSH. The position of occupational ergonomics in legislation, the presence of ergonomics in OSH networks, and the position of ergonomics in OSH company services are discussed. In addition, the added value of ergonomics to companies is examined. From these discussions, it becomes clear that ergonomics should be part of the OSH policy of companies, and should be integrated into today's company strategies to improve labour conditions. If ergonomics is considered as a discipline in its own right, a clear legislative context should be developed that goes beyond voluntary guidelines and the goodwill of employers, and necessitates the presence of ergonomics professionals in companies.     

Design of A MapObjects-based Information System for Urban Resource and Environment

This paper deals with the main design idea for an information system of urban resources and environment using MapObjects Component, discusses the data-sampling and data-processing, model selecting, database designing of the system, and its structure and function in details, and probes into GIS-component technique, designing of spatial-attributive database, and classifying and coding of space elements involved in it.     

A Substitution Based Model for the Implementation of PROLOG——The Design and Implementation of LPROLOG

Since PROLOG has been chosen as the Fifth Generation Computer's Kernal Language,it ispresently one of the hottest topics among computer scientists all over the world.Recently,theimplementation technique and the application of PROLOG have been developed rapidly.In thispaper,a new implementation scheme for PROLOG is proposed.The scheme is based on thesubstitution of instantiated veriable values.It has many advantages,such as a higher runningspeed,less main memory requirement,and easier to be implemented.The scheme has beenimplemented by the authors on IBM4341.     

The Implementation Methods for Computer Aided Design and Analysis on Color-Woven Fabrics

Methods for computer aided design and analysis on color-woven fabrics are presented. The relation of color pattern, colored warp, colored weft and the model for regular weave texture are given based on their formative principle. Some efficient algorithms are developed to determine the color order of warp and weft threads which yields a given color pattern and regular weave texture. Finally, the design system structure and data process flowing are introduced.     

GE free: Rejection or incomprehension? The challenge for New Zealand biotechnology education

Abstract

A personal experience of political action against genetic engineering in New Zealand led the writer to reflect on the opportunities provided by science and technology curricula for students to develop critical biotechnological literacy. An analysis of relevant New Zealand science and technology curricula shows that although there are opportunities for genetic engineering issues to be explored, such teaching situations are not commonplace. In this study, the literature reflecting the components of scientific literacy for citizenship are reviewed and a strategy for developing critical biotechnological literacy is suggested.     

The Design of GDPR-Abiding Drones Through Flight Operation Maps: A Win–Win Approach to Data Protection,Aerospace Engineering,and Risk Management

Minds and Machines - Risk management is a well-known method to face technological challenges through a win–win combination of protective and proactive approaches, fostering the collaboration...     

Database Encoding and A New Algorithm for Association Rules Mining

This paper proposes a method to encode database. By this way, a record is denoted by only one binary number, so the size of the database is reduced sharply. If some known modified algorithms are used on the database encoded, the efficiency will be improved significantly. At the meantime, a new algorithm based on the proposed encoding method is introduced too. By using some properties of numbers, the itemsets of the database can be converted into numerical fields. Different from the Apriori, the new algorithm discovers the association rules from the largest frequent itemset at first, and then all subitemsets, which are also frequent, will be gotten without any calculation, and all the other small none-frequent itemsets that must be generated in the Apriori will be omitted, and the scan times of the database are also reduced. Test results show the new algorithm based on the encoding database has a lower complexity of time and space.     

Content Management Systems: Enriched learning opportunities for all?

This article examines the popular claim of Content Management Systems (CMSs) that providing a rich toolset and leaving the use under learner control is beneficial to learning. By means of a literature review, the current contribution examines whether all students are capable of using CMS tools so that their learning is enhanced. In contrast to what is assumed, the study conceptualizes tool use as a complex self-regulation strategy that cannot be taken for granted. Specifically, the article reviews empirical studies in relation to three topics: (a) personal agency in tool use, (b) performance effects of tool use and (c) influencing tool use variables. Findings reveal that not every student profited from the CMS learning opportunities; in multiple studies students differed in their tool use, and these differences had significant performance effects. Hence, these findings suggest that the pedagogical claim CMSs make is problematic. Besides this accumulated corpus of knowledge, the review revealed serious limitations in the retrieved studies which could hamper our findings. As a consequence, the review establishes a need for further research into students’ CMS tool use from an instructional design perspective. In addition to the theoretical framework, several directions for future research are given.