Cyber Environment Research Articles

Self-optimized Cognitive Network of Networks

Future processing, storage and communication services will be highly pervasive: people, smart objects, machines and the surrounding space (all embedding devices such as with sensors, RFID tags etc.) will define a highly decentralized cyber environment of resources interconnected by dynamic networks of networks. As communications will extend to cover any combination of ’people, machines and things’, future networks will be increasingly complex and heterogeneous, yet always endorsed with the challenging task of ensuring end-to-end QoS. This paper proposes the groundwork for an advanced cognitive networking paradigm exploitable in future wired and wireless infrastructures: a decentralized cognitive plane to allow for cross-layer, cross-node and cross-network domain self-management, self-control and self-optimization, while being compatible with legacy management and control systems.

A socio-technical framework for cyber-infrastructure design: Implication for Korean cyber-infrastructure vision

This study presents a practical case application of socio-technical framework to assess and predict the development of cyber-infrastructure (CI) in Korea. Applying a socio-technical system approach to CI, this paper attempts to gain a clear understanding of how CI will evolve and stabilize in the cyber environment. It investigates the complex interaction between social and technical aspects of CI by highlighting the co-evolving nature, diversity, and interface which constitute the next generation network environment. It describes the challenges in developing, deploying, and maintaining the diverse components of CI and provides a snapshot of Korea's current approach to supporting members in meeting this challenge. The purpose of this study is to provide insight into these challenges and opportunities by offering a socio-technical analysis of CI development involving the social dynamics and organizational, policy, management, and administration decisions inherent in the design and development of CI.

Intellectual capital and economic espionage: new crimes and new protections

PurposeIntellectual capital's (IC's) rising value in the production of wealth has been mirrored by its increasing vulnerability to crime. Among these are the increasing frequency of cybercrime, the intangible nature of IC which facilitates theft and the lack of legal remedies for the theft of IC. Taken together, these factors have created a new environment in which IC is uniquely at risk from financial crime. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to examine the efficacy in current legal remedies and formulate suggestions for better protecting IC.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is conceptual, using frameworks drawn from legal scholarship and traditional views of law‐enforcement practice.FindingsThis paper explores the risks of crime inherent in IC and a distributed cyber environment in greater detail in order to demonstrate that traditional legal remedies are largely ineffective to protect IC property rights and that, given this policy environment and the nature of IC itself, prevention is the only reasonable means for protecting IC.Research limitations/implicationsConceptual papers offer an intrinsically different form of evidence than empirical studies. Significant public debate prior to enacting legislation and subsequent empirical testing of the paper's propositions, if enacted into legislation, are strongly encouraged.Practical implicationsThe paper includes implications for the development of legal protections based on guarding sensitive information at its source, rather than traditional reactive policing and legal actions after a theft has been committed.Originality/valueThis paper fulfils an identified need to propose useful and concrete legal solutions that deal with the increasing importance of IC and the concomitant frequency of crimes that involve its theft.

Using mathematical model and empirical study to compare the face-toface interaction between the physical and cyber environments

Interaction is an important factor for effective teaching and learning and Face-to-Face (F2F) interaction is found to be a crucial element in it. Advancements in communication technologies and ICT tools now allow us to have cyber synchronous interactions with audio/video, document and whiteboard sharing that occur in real-time with similar levels of fidelity as in the physical F2F environment. However, many people still challenge the quality of online courses due to the fact that there is no F2F interaction as in traditional physical classroom. Therefore, it is imperative that we understand the features of cyber synchronous F2F environment compared with the physical F2F environment. This research uses transactional distance theory from the viewpoint of visual distance to compare the difference of physical F2F and cyber synchronous F2F environments.We use a mathematical model to formulate the transactional distance in comparing the interaction distance of physical F2F and cyber synchronous F2F. Transaction distance is then used to analyze the communication gap between the learner and the instructor, content, and other learners Finally, the paper verifies the validity of the transactional distance calculated through the mathematical model with the input of a questionnaire based survey that elicits students' perception towards these two environments

THE CYBERSPACE IN THE CONTINUED CLINICAL BIOCHEMISTRY EDUCATION

The cybernetic spaces simulate the real world with interactive multimedia. This work has been applied since January, 2007 on the curricular student’s apprenticeship at high school and graduation, in the site “bioq.educacao.biz/ULAB-HC-UFPE”. It has been developed to provide continuity to the technical-scientific learning of students and professionals, and also to improve their human social relations on the labour environment. It’s comprises a virtual space, destined to communication and collective building of knowledge on the clinical biochemistry. It’s about an interactive environment which allows the users registered as coordinator professor (professional) or the scientist student (trainee), unlimited access to posting contents (classes, texts, presentations, animations), consultations, non-synchronic discussions (on orkut, forums, e-mail) and synchronic discussions (on chats, videoconferences). After a few live tutorials about new input in this environment, and the use of the new learning tool, the collective building of knowledge on cyberspace begins. As a trainee’s program task, the scientist student would have to build a space of his own, under guidance and supervision of the coordinator teachers. The cyberspace efficiency was evaluated from reports collected in February, 2008: the adherence to this work was satisfactory, regarding this period, with 68 registered users, 870 accesses and 52 contents available on the several sections of the virtual laboratory. Our work is still being applied, and new adhesions are happening everyday. We intend to amplify this cyber environment in order to make it a permanent continued education site on the health area. From interest contracts and common knowledge, the technological interfaces constitute an interaction, in which everyone is a potential author. Keywords: Cyberspace, online biochemistry education, continued education.

Islam in the Digital Age: E-Jihad, Online Fatwas and Cyber Environments

Islam in the Digital Age: E-Jihad, Online Fatwas and Cyber Environments

Consumer Responses to Perceived Telepresence in the Online Advertising Environment: The Moderating Role of Involvement

Cyber technology creates new shopping experiences for consumers and ways of searching for product information that are not possible in traditional advertising contexts. Telepresence, defined as the sense of being present in the remote environment, can simulate direct experience, and is useful for conceptualizing consumers’ experiences in computer-mediated environments. We focus on perceived telepresence in seeking to broaden our understanding of the effects of persuasive communications in the cyber environment. We examine effects of perceived telepresence on consumer responses such as attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand, and purchase intention, and also examine how these effects are moderated by consumer involvement. Hypotheses derived from a proposed conceptual model are tested via a laboratory experiment. Data is then analyzed with multi-sample structural analysis. Results show that perceived telepresence significantly affects consumer responses to online advertising and that involvement moderates these effects. Theoretical and managerial implications of the results are discussed.

A semantic approach to visualizing online conversations

Visualizing patterns in online conversations give participants a better grasp of their cyber environment and their fellow inhabitants.

Women's Activism on the Net

The ferment of activity we see on the Internet by women is an example of how womens place-based politics is stretching old boundaries and creating new spaces for women to network organize and change the world. We need to overcome the fear that many women have around technologies and work more on how to create safe cyber environments that provide committed support to women often in emergency situations. Despite the undoubted problems and concerns around access and control women are adapting the medium and making it a powerful tool for womens place-based politics. It is stretching out our collective experiences and moving forward the political terrain for gendered social change. (excerpt)

Marketing activities and performance: A comparison of the Internet-based and traditional small firms in Taiwan

Emerging technologies, notably, have redefined business by erasing the traditional boundaries of time and geography and by creating new virtual communities of customers, distributors and suppliers, with new demands for products and services. Are there any differences between the marketing practices of the Internet-based and traditional small firms? This paper analyses published, undisguised stories of 112 traditional and 26 Internet-based small firms in Taiwan. The research results suggest that the owner-managers of both traditional and Internet-based small firms concentrate on sales, product planning and customer relationships. However, the owner-managers of traditional small firms in Taiwan place emphasis on quality control, whereas their Internet-based counterparts concentrate more on product schedules, sales forecasts, sales control and marketing research. These results indicate that cyber entrepreneurs have higher levels of marketing education and backgrounds, conduct marketing planning periodically and frequently and perform professional marketing activities. The research findings tend to suggest that though traditional marketing tenets are still suitable in the cyber environment of Taiwan, the Internet-based small firms have to utilise innovative marketing techniques to suit and compete in the ever-changing Internet business environment.

Using Telecommunication Technologies to Change the World for People with Disabilities Related to Catastrophic Neurological Impairment

Telecommunications and information technology is rapidly becoming a part of health care delivery. For people with disabilities resulting from catastrophic injury, this technology is becoming an effective way to bridge the gap between their specialized care needs and the sources of this specialty care. The cyber environment lends itself to modification, even customization, to the user. It can make resources and services readily available and accessible. Therefore, cyber environments have tremendous potential for changing the world for people with disabilities. This article is a discussion of one institution's application of telecommunication and information technology to provide support and services to people with disabilities resulting from catastrophic injury. There is a focus on the human issues and challenges associated with this mode of health care delivery.