Can satellites unblock the Internet?

Anyone who has surfed the Internet knows how slow it can be. Some have even suggested that it could become entirely gridlocked early in the next millennium. The author explains how satellites could help avert such a catastrophe. The primary advantage of a satellite system for Internet delivery is the same as it is for other types of communication: coverage area. A single satellite in geostationary orbit can serve approximately one third of the planet's surface, so three can cover most of the world's population. For regions where terrestrial infrastructure is limited or nonexistent, satellite coverage may be the only option. The author discusses the proposed Teledesic broadband low Earth satellite system operating in the Ku band, which is backed by Microsoft, and its only direct competitor SkyBridge which is backed by Alcatel and Loral. The author also discusses the geosynchronous Earth orbit broadband satellite systems. The commercial viability of these systems is discussed     

Can molecular resonant tunneling diodes be used for local refresh of DRAM memory cells?

The requirements of resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) in general and molecular diodes in particular for use as local refresh in low-power DRAM memory cells are discussed. Simulations show that none of the so far published molecules showing negative differential resistance have adequate electrical properties. Further, simulations show that present RTDs in III–V materials or SiGe are not compatible with the demands of future DRAM generations. A detailed list of requirements on the electrical properties of molecular RTDs or RTDs made of nanocrystals is presented. For instance, the valley current of the RTDs should be in the 10⁻¹⁶ A range. The issues of acceptable differences in the number of active molecules constituting the two RTDs, and the maximum acceptable contact resistance between the molecules and the silicon substrate are addressed.     

Expressing unpopular opinion or trolling: Can dark personalities differentiate them?

In this study, we want to conceptually and empirically distinguish those who deliberately seek to create division in an online forum by inauthentically voicing an anti-majority opinion—a specific type of “online trolls,” from the vocal minorities—those who speak out against the majority to express their unpopular viewpoint. 599 participants recruited from Amazon MTurk completed an online experiment. They were randomly assigned to post a comment after reading a series of either all positive or all negative reviews of a branded product. We coded participants’ comments based on their preexisting attitude towards the product brand and grouped the participants into five behavioral types: 1) vocal and silent (normative) majorities (n = 235), 2) silent minorities (n = 75), 3) social conformers (n = 117), 4) vocal minorities (n = 95), and 5) “online trolls” (n = 46). Both vocal minorities and “online trolls” explicitly expressed opposition to the majority opinion, but the “trolls” spoke out against the majority opinion against their own beliefs. Based on past research, we identified Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism as the set of personality markers that might differentiate the trolls from the vocal minorities. Our results were mixed. As expected, the “online trolls’ scored the highest on psychopathy and sadism among all the behavioral types. However, the trolls were not distinguishable from the vocal minorities on the psychopathy trait. This study extends the existing literature on linking personality traits to technology-mediated social behavior. It also informs social research on online trolling and cyberactivism.     

Subjective QoE analysis of VoIP applications in?a?wireless?campus?environment

The quality perceived by the user, a concept known as Quality of user Experience (QoE), is gaining momentum. Together with the efforts of providing appropriate architectures able to deliver the expected level of Quality of Service (QoS), users’ perception of the level of quality could play a key role in making a VoIP multimedia application to succeed or to fail. QoE can be measured from different approaches; subjective ones are based on polls while objective ones are mainly based on QoS network performance parameters. Although a subjective evaluation could be costly and time consuming, it gives the most accurate results. Moreover, wireless environments incorporate new challenges in terms of QoS and QoE because of inherent wireless communication characteristics. In this way, our contribution is twofold. First, we carry out a subjective QoE assessment for VoIP applications in a real wireless environment. Skype, Gizmo5, ooVoo, and Damaka are the selected VoIP applications under study. Next, we contrast QoE results with QoS evaluation from the captured video calls made during the poll. Results show that there is no precise match on both assessments, because of QoE parameters that cannot be inferred from QoS analysis, because of the different effect of some QoS parameters which prevail, or even because of the popularity of the VoIP application.     

Scan Chain Hold-Time Violations: Can They be Tolerated?

Scan chain hold-time violations may occur due to manufacturing defects or to errors in timing closure process during the physical design stage. The latter type of violations prohibits the test of manufactured chips, leading to a zero yield, although these chips with scan hold-time violations may be perfectly functional. In this paper, we propose a suite of techniques which enable the diagnosis and the tolerance of scan hold-time violations. The proposed diagnosis technique can be utilized for any scan chain hold-time violation in order to pinpoint, in minimal diagnosis application time, the cause of the violation. The proposed tolerance technique is more targeted towards violations that lead to systematic failure of parts; it enables the generation of test patterns to screen out the defective parts in the presence of scan hold-time violations, perfectly restoring the yield in a cost-effective manner. The techniques that we propose are non-intrusive, as they utilize only basic scan capabilities, and thus impose no design changes. We also extend this discussion for fast-to-rise and fast-to-fall errors, intermittent scan hold-time violations, and functional hold-time violations.      

Can smartphones be specialists? Effects of specialization in mobile advertising

Based on the Computers Are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm, this study extends the expectations regarding the superiority of specialists over generalists to mobile technology by examining whether the specialization of a hardware agent (i.e., a smartphone) and a software agent (i.e., an application) has psychological effects on smartphone users who are exposed to mobile advertisements. Results from a between-subjects experiment (N = 80) show that specialist smartphones and applications induce greater trust in advertisements and an increased purchase intention toward the advertised products than generalist smartphones and applications. In addition, the effects of specialization on purchase intention are mediated by trust in advertisements. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Rethinking Stream Ciphers: Can Extracting be Better than Expanding?

In this paper the feasibility of an alternative approach to construct stream ciphers is discussed by revisiting an old friend, i.e. the popular one-time pad. The idea is that the rationale underlying the one-time pad—which is notoriously unpractical in pure form due to the need of massive secret key exchange—might be translated into practical cryptosystems that are different from conventional stream ciphers. In alternative to the usual pseudo-random keystream generation approach (expansion), a “dual” approach based on sampling of a much longer sequence (extraction) could be conceivable nowadays due to the ready availability of sufficiently large memory resources, even in mobile devices such as PDAs, smartphones and tablets. The paper presents this idea, analyzing its pros and cons versus the classical one-time pad and conventional stream ciphers. Some practical systems that could implement the extraction paradigm are also envisioned. Finally, it is presented a real prototype of a IEEE 802.15.4-based wireless network, developed in software-defined radio by means of the GNU Radio/USRP framework, where nodes can exchange packets with virtually perfect secrecy without requiring a private pad dissemination.     

Transient analysis of traffic generated by bursty sources,and its application to measurement‐based admission control

The first part of the paper is devoted to a transient analysis of traffic generated by bursty sources. These sources are governed by a modulating process, whose state determines the traffic rate at which the source transmits. The class of modulating processes contains, e.g., on/off traffic sources with general on and off times (but is considerably broader). We focus on the probability of extreme fluctuations of the resulting traffic rate, or more precisely, we determine the probability of the number of sources being in the on state reaching a certain threshold, given a measurement of the number of sources in the on state t units of time ago. In particular, we derive large deviations asymptotics of this probability when the number of sources is large. These asymptotics are numerically manageable, and it is empirically verified that they lead to an overestimation of the probability of our interest. The analysis is extended to alternative measurement procedures. These procedures allow to take into account, for instance, more historic measurements than just one, possibly combined with an exponential weighting of these measurements. In the second part of the paper, we apply the asymptotic calculation methods to gain insight into the feasibility of measurement‐based admission control (MBAC) algorithms for ATM or IP networks. These algorithms attempt to regulate the network's load (to provide the customers with a sufficient Quality of Service), and at the same time achieve an acceptable utilization of the resources. An MBAC algorithm may base acceptance or rejection of a new request on the measured momentary load imposed on the switch or router; if this load is below a given threshold, the source can be admitted. We investigate whether such a scheme is robust under the possible stochastic properties of the traffic offered. Both the burst level (i.e., the distribution of the on and off times of the sources) and the call level (particularly the distribution of the call duration) are taken into account. Special attention is paid to the influence of the bursts, silences, or call durations having a distribution with a “heavy tail”. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Innovator: what does it take to be one?

Innovation continues to be an ever-more-critical issue as the global economy expands: it determines organizational sustainability. This paper addresses the issues of whether you want to become an innovator and how to become an innovator, from the innovator's perspective. Research on innovation has not provided a theory of innovation. The process of innovation continues to depend on the individual and the environment in which the innovator functions. This paper characterizes the scope and complexity of being the innovator, presents a set of concepts that can be applied in formulating, evaluating, and implementing innovation, considers the skills for dealing with technological uncertainty, and defines the issues that determine success or failure. There are no recipes for becoming the innovator, but there are basics that must be followed. This paper presents an overview of innovation, discusses types of innovation, provides insight to the innovation process, describes what it takes to be an innovator, considers the issues in overcoming resistance to innovation, and explains why innovators fail     

Should mobile Internet be an extension to the fixed web? Fixed-mobile reinforcement as mediator between context of use and future use

As the fixed and mobile Internet are converging, the question emerges whether consumers expect mobile Internet services to replicate services they know from the fixed Internet. Literature on reinforcement and displacement suggests that the use of new media depends on whether users are inclined to replace or reinforce their existing media use on a new device. This paper analyzes whether the importance that users attribute to using similar services on their mobile phone as on the fixed Internet can explain the intention to adopt mobile services. Specifically, we investigate if such fixed-mobile reinforcement could mediate the impact of personal innovativeness and several dimensions of context. We compare basic Internet services, entertainment services and transaction services. We find that especially the intention to adopt basic Internet services largely depends on the importance of using similar services in the mobile domain as on the fixed Internet. Several context-of-use predictors are partially or even fully mediated by fixed-mobile reinforcement. The results convey a positive message to operators that are betting on converged multimedia services that can be accessed from any device and from any fixed or mobile network.     

Do educational inequalities affect Internet use? An analysis for developed and developing countries

This study investigates whether the existence of educational inequalities at the country level affects Internet use. Additionally, we explore the extent to which these impacts depend on countries’ economic development levels. We use a logit model and data set of 69 high- and middle-income countries for the period 2005–2015. We find a negative relationship between Internet use and education inequality for the whole sample. The results confirm that, in addition to the level of education and other socioeconomic variables, the distribution of formal education among citizens within a country is also important to explain Internet use. We also obtain that this distribution affects Internet use to a higher extent in middle-income economies in comparison with high-income ones. Unlike the positive influence of educational levels obtained in the academic literature, the existence of within-country educational disparities negatively influences Internet use. This study demonstrates the influence of countries’ educational structure in relative terms in explaining Internet use.     

Can microwave/radiofrequency radiation (RFR) burns be distinguished from conventional burns?

The literature was reviewed that addressed the differences between microwave/radiofrequency radiation (RFR) and conventional burns. It was concluded that RFR may involve deeper tissue without immediate observable skin injury or pain. Since RFR is not uniformly absorbed in tissue, "hot spots" of focal necrosis may occur such as at tissue interfaces and in tissue with poor blood supply. A followup physical examination is advisable because there may be a latent period before burns are observed.     

Can Polyelectrolyte Mechanical Properties be Directly Modulated by an Electric Field? A Molecular Dynamics Study

Multifunctionality in polymers facilitates their application in emerging technologies. Electrical fields are a preferred stimulus because of the speed and ease of application to bulk polymers. While a wide range of electrically triggered actuators are developed, and electrically controlled adhesion between gels is demonstrated, modification of bulk mechanical properties via electrical stimuli remains elusive. Polymers with covalently incorporated ionic charge (polyelectrolytes) should be well suited to achieving this goal since the mechanical properties depend on electrostatic interactions and these charges are intrinsically susceptible to electric fields. Molecular dynamics simulations are utilized here to investigate whether electric fields can modulate the mechanical properties of polyelectrolytes and to understand the governing mechanisms. Mechanical property modulation by electric field is found to be sensitive to the charge distribution—charges must be tightly attached to the polymer backbone, and responsivity is greater if a single backbone contains both positive and negative charges. The dominant mechanisms are reorientation and stretching of the polymer chains, which also elongate the ionic clusters to maintain strong electrostatic interactions throughout deformation. These insights are critical for future experimental realization of polymers with electric field regulated mechanical properties.     

Can energy optimization lead to economic and environmental waste in LPWAN architectures?

As low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) end devices (EDs) are deployed in massive scale, their economic and environmental costs of operation are becoming too significant to ignore and too difficult to estimate. While LPWAN architectures and protocols are designed to primarily save energy, this study shows that energy saving does not necessarily lead to lower cost or environmental footprint of the network. Accordingly, a theoretical framework is proposed to estimate the operational expenditure (OpEx) and environmental footprint of LPWAN EDs. An extended constrained optimization model is provided for the ED link assignment to gateways (GWs) based on heterogeneous ED configurations and hardware specifications. Based on the models, a simulation framework is developed which demonstrates that OpEx, energy consumption, and environmental footprint can be in conflict with each other as constrained optimization objectives. We demonstrate different ways to achieve compromises in each dimension for overall improved network performance.     

Chinese TV drama in a regional market: Aspiring to be a cultural actor?

Once isolated from the outside world, Chinese TV exclusively and loyally served as a Party’s propaganda tool, and almost “zero” trans-border TV trade was developed. With China’s unreserved embrace of market economy after the 1980s, TV production has been internationalized, and sporadic cases of overseas trade have taken place. Joining the WTO compelled Chinese TV officials to face increasing challenges from global broadcasters which led them to formulate the “going-global” policy to encourage large scale of TV exportation. China, now, has displayed its aspiration to increase its TV exportation, or put it more ambitiously, to “centralize” a regional Chinese cultural market, including the areas of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and possibly Korean and Japan.     

Can the Shape of Nanoparticles Enable the Targeting to Cancer Cells over Healthy Cells?

Macropinocytosis is a consequence of oncogenic alterations of cancer cells while most healthy cells are non-macropinocytic. It is currently unclear whether macropinocytic cancer cells can be targeted rather than healthy cells, by adjusting the shape and size of nanoparticles. Herein, the endocytosis of two differently shaped nanoparticles; nanorods and nanospheres are compared in cancer and healthy cells. The cells are breast epithelial cancer cells (MCF7) and breast epithelial healthy cells (MCF10A) and pancreas cancer cells (PANC-1 cells) and non-tumourogenic patient-derived cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). The endocytosis pathway is quantified by a combination of pair correlation microscopy and endocytosis inhibitors. MCF7 cells use clathrin-mediated endocytosis and macropinocytosis to take up the nanorods while MCF10A cells use predominantly clathrin-mediated endocytosis. Based on the comparison of endocytic behavior of cancer and healthy cells, MCF7 cells can be induced to take up more nanorods and suppress the metabolism and endocytosis of nanorods in MCF10A cells. The nanorods allow targeting to breast cancer MCF7 cells and pancreas cancer cells over the healthy cells. This study opens exciting possibilities for shape to target the cancer cells over healthy cells, by adjusting nanoparticle shape.     

Can AI be a content generator? Effects of content generators and information delivery methods on the psychology of content consumers

Considering the rapidly improving technologies in artificial intelligence (AI), researchers in mass communication and journalism have paid attention to the use of AI technologies. However, there are still notable concerns about the particular use of AI technologies in this field. Put simply, can AI technologies reduce human tasks? In order to address this question, this study investigates the effects of content generators (human vs. AI) and information delivery methods (text vs. audio vs. video) on users’ perceptions of content. The results indicate that the generators and methods play a notable role in eliciting greater quality, satisfaction, and readability of the content. Based on the findings, the implications are addressed.