Electronic Era Research Articles

23rd international symposium on forecasting (ISF2003) `` Forecasting in Business, Finance and Economics in the electronic Era``

23rd international symposium on forecasting (ISF2003) `` Forecasting in Business, Finance and Economics in the electronic Era``

Prescription

This paper examines the reactions of women with breast cancer to the 2009 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations for mammography screening. Specifically, it analyzes electronic postings about the Task Force’s recommendations from five breast cancer discussion boards between November 17, 2009 and December 17, 2009. Women’s opposition to the recommendations is best understood as a clash between scientific and lay expertise concerning the priorities of medicine and notions of evidentiary significance. We highlight the connective logic – or connectivity – that underlies lay expertise in the electronic era. Connectivity is a unique way of knowing that emerges from an experiential connection to illness and a virtual connection to others with the same illness. Connectivity is based on forms of evidence that enhance the moral authority of lay claims for medical succor. Connectivity is a potent element in contemporary lay challenges to scientific expertise and will become increasingly influential as online illness affiliation becomes ever more commonplace.

What’s fair? Pricing models in the electronic era

Particular characteristics of electronic resources allows information in this format to be used more widely and shared. Library consortia exist to help their members to obtain better prices: buying joint access for a greater number of users. Commercial publishers, for their part, try to combine their interests with the technical possibilities and demands of the libraries. Though the pricing models and the types of licences have improved considerably since the early years, a number of the parameters used in the calculation of prices are clearly unfavourable at present for some consortia. In 2001 the Consortium of University Libraries of Catalonia (CBUC) distributed to the most appropriate electronic mail lists a declaration “Why some libraries and consortia are paying too much for e‐information”. This article aims to extend the viewpoints set down in this statement.

In the market: the illustrated history of the financial markets

Introduction: Commerce and Civilization 1. Beyond Barter: Trade in the Ancient World 2. Locks, Stocks and Bubbles: From Medieval Fairs to the South Sea Bubble 3. Joint Enterprises: Stock Markets in the Age of the Industrial Revolution 4. Markets in the Colonial Era, and the Origins of the Modern Japanese Economy 5. The Golden Age of Stock Markets: Europe and America in the Edwardian Era 6. Wall Street Triumphant: World Markets from World War I to World War II 7. Rebirth: Dollar Parity Gives Way to the Age of the Euro, the Yen, and the Petrodollar 8. The Electronic Era: The Rise of Nasdaq and the Digital Economy 9. The Deal Makers: 100 Men and Women Who Shaped the Marketplace Timeline Glossary Selected Bibliography Index

Pricing strategies and models for the provision of digitized texts in higher education

The paper describes research into charging mechanisms for the delivery of digitized texts to students in the higher education sector. A satisfactory pricing model in this domain is urgently required. The history and background of the use and pricing of digitized texts for students in the higher education sector is examined. Issues of economics in the electronic era are described. The issues involved are outlined in relation to the stakeholders involved, namely academics, authors, the CLA (Copyright Licensing Agency), HERON (Higher Education Resources On-demand) libraries in the HE sector, publishers and students. Past projects and research conducted to date are considered and the results discussed. Particular reference is made to the HERON project, a service provided for the UK higher education community that delivers copyright clearance, digitization and delivery of the text to UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). HERON is also building up a national database and resource bank of the texts. Other electronic resource models are considered, in particular library initiatives. International projects are covered in relation to how pricing issues are addressed throughout the world, particularly in the USA. The case is proposed of the benefits to all stakeholders of establishing a mutually acceptable pricing model for the distribution of digitized texts to the HE/FE community. The PELICAN project had the ultimate aim of developing pricing models for the delivery of digitized text to the UK HE community, satisfying all stakeholders as far as possible. The project’s initial research findings are described, including a table of the possible pricing mechanisms and initial conclusions drawn.

Growing Primacy of Human Agency in Adaptation and Change in the Electronic Era

The extraordinary advances in electronic technologies and global human interconnectedness present novel adaptational challenges and expanded opportunities for people to shape their social future and national life. The present article analyzes these pervasive transformational changes from an agentic theoretical perspective rooted in the exercise of perceived personal and collective efficacy. By acting on their efficacy beliefs, people ply the enabling functions of electronic systems to promote their education, health, affective well-being, worklife, organizational innovativeness and productivity and to change social conditions that affect their lives. Technology influences, and is influenced by, the sociostructural nature of societies. The codetermining sociostructural factors affect whether electronic technologies and globalization serve as positive forces that benefit all or divisive ones in human lives.

Collection Development for Distance Learning

Summary Discusses collection development for distance learning in both the print and electronic era. Focuses on several advances in electronic access that have impacted collection development in recent years.

End‐users in academia: meeting the information needs of university researchers in an electronic age

This paper is the second part of a two‐part paper, which examines the transition to the electronic information era in academia. Seeks to establish from the published literature to what extent university researchers have accepted, and adapted to, the changes wrought in information activity by seemingly endless technological developments. Within the wider context of the impact of the changing information environment on each of the three clearly discernible components of academic research (the creation of knowledge and standards, the preservation of information, and the communication of knowledge and information to others), disciplinary‐rooted differences in the conduct of research and their influence on information needs are identified, and the resulting inter‐ and intra‐individual variations in researchers’ information seeking behaviour are explored. Reviewing a large number of studies investigating the integration of electronic media into academic work, an attempt is made to paint the picture of academics’ progressively harnessing the new technologies to scholarly information gathering endeavours, with the expressed hope of affording some insight into the directions and basic trends characterising the information activity of university faculty in an increasingly electronic environment.

End‐users in academia: meeting the information needs of university researchers in an electronic age

This paper is the first part of a two‐part paper, which examines the transition to the electronic information era in academia. Seeks to establish from the published literature to what extent university researchers have accepted, and adapted to, the changes wrought in information activity by seemingly endless technological developments. Within the wider context of the impact of the changing information environment on each of the three clearly discernible components of academic research (the creation of knowledge and standards, the preservation of information, and the communication of knowledge and information to others), disciplinary‐rooted differences in the conduct of research and their influence on information needs are identified, and the resulting inter‐ and intra‐ individual variations in researchers’ information seeking behaviour are explored. Reviewing a large number of studies investigating the integration of electronic media into academic work, an attempt is made to paint the picture of academics’ progressively harnessing the new technologies to scholarly information gathering endeavours, with the expressed hope of affording some insight into the directions and basic trends characterizing the information activity of university faculty in an increasingly electronic environment. *The author is a PhD student at City University and is also Vice‐Director of the Library at the University of Haifa, Israel.

電子時代の著作権Q&A(5)

電子時代の著作権Q&A(5)

The FALMER Project: an electronic critical edition

What will be the critical editions in the electronic era? Hubert de Phalese, a research centre in La Sorbonne-Nouvelle University (Paris III), in accordance with its pragmatic approach to literary computing problems, decided to launch this debate by putting on line a critical edition of the complete works of Lautreamont/Isidore Ducasse (http://www.cavi.univ-paris3.fr/phalese). This edition is an integral hypertext (in which nearly every word of the text is linked with a comment), which gathers all that one usually finds in critical editions, but on a scale that does not have equivalents on paper: variants, philological, literary and encyclopedic comments, biography, bibliography, iconography, index, etc. This prototype poses, concretely, a certain number of problems, on several levels: Technical: Which interface is to be used? The purely automatic search engines (including the uses of Java and other script languages) appeared unsuited and a new device of computer-assisted indexing was developed. It makes it possible to provide for the user a lemmatized index and, especially, lexical cards, which can be enriched at will. The current solution of setting on-line presents some inconveniences but it has the advantage of proposing to the greatest number of users the consultation of the edition and of inviting them to take part in it. Contents: The new support is, virtually, infinite. What is a critical edition to contain now that we are no longer concerned with its volume? All the versions of the text, for example, can now be proposed with the reading. But are we to publish the intertexts, contemporary works, criticism, etc.? How can the interconnection, in a network, of several resources enrich a critical edition? Under which scientific and legal conditions? Validation: Can this type of edition be regarded as more reliable than the paper editions? According to which protocols will such editions be judged? One of the risks is the appearance of a great quantity of work

Challenges and Opportunities Presented by Archiving in the Electronic Era

With the rapid development of electronic and network technologies, there is considerable and justifiable concern in the academic community about the challenges associated with protecting electronic information for future generations of scholars and students. As a not-for-profit organization founded specifically to build and provide a trusted central repository of important journal literature in electronic form, JSTOR has been working on the problem of electronic archiving since its founding. Unfortunately, there are no simple or easy solutions to this problem and this brief essay does not attempt to provide them. Rather, the purpose of this paper is to share JSTOR's experience and reflect upon the key principles we have identified that must be addressed if one is to maintain reliable long-term access to electronic content. The scope of this archiving discussion is limited to published journal literature, admittedly a small subset of the digital materials that require attention. Still, many of the issues raised in the journals context apply more generally as well.

Theory of Machines and Mechanisms in the Electronic Era

The widely held notion ‘that most machine problems can be solved by active control’ and Machines and Mechanisms Theory can be dropped from mechanical engineering curricula is discussed and refuted, and the role of electronics and computers in machine engineering are put in their correct context. Computer-aided control of machines and mechanisms cannot replace the mechanical essence of the mechanical end-actuator, tool, etc. An in-depth knowledge of the theory of mechanisms is essential for the understanding and development of new approaches to machine design as well as for computer programming relevant to this field.

A neural network modelling on human resource talent selection

Due to the rapid improvement of information technologies (ITs), they have been applied in the area of human resources management (HRM), which is called a human resources information system (HRIS). An effective HRIS should be able to handle complicated personnel data to assist the implementation of new policies and managerial strategies in an organisation. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to apply an artificial neural network (ANN), which is capable of learning and recalling and has been widely used in the areas of engineering, for top managers to select potential employees for the position of manager. The case study results show that the proposed system is well able to learn the data collected from the top managers and the test results are very promising. Also, the proposed system has been implemented in the Web in order to fit the requirements of the electronic era.

Who Should Support the Research Journal? : Research Journals in the Electronic Era of Information Exchange

Who Should Support the Research Journal? : Research Journals in the Electronic Era of Information Exchange

Fair Use: A Double-Edged Sword

Exploring the definition of ‘fair use’ as a facet of copyright law in the United States, Sanford Thatcher examines the inherent tension caused by this legal notion in scholarly publishing, particularly in the new electronic era. Libraries, and, by extension, universities, increasingly advocate a stronger assertion of fair use in higher education to cope with diminishing funds. University presses, in contrast, view broader definitions of fair use as a threat to the already decreasing market potential for scholarly monographs, despite recognizing that their interests are closer to the aims of higher education than they are to the aims of commercial publishers. As an example of this double-edged sword, Thatcher discusses photocopying and electronic journals and their economic and legal effects on publishers. Without due consideration of university presses and their mandate to publish scholarly research, aggressive fair use will constrain those publishers and adversely affect the careers of the authors fair use is designed to assist.

The changing structure of information in the electronic era

The changing structure of information in the electronic era

Literacy and technology studies: Past, present, future

In this presentation, I examine what we have learned from research about the complex connections between literacy, technology and learning. The beginnings of research in this area coincided with the introduction of PCs into educational settings in the late 1970s. For the first decade, researchers asked the kinds of questions best explored using quantitative methods. They set out to determine whether the use of computers enhanced writing. The findings, however, were equivocal. By contrast, sociocultural understandings of literacy, which became more widely accepted in the mid-80s, provoked a different research orientation and different kinds of questions. The Digital Rhetorics project (Lankshear et al 1997) is an example of research informed by the recognition of literacy as social practice. Further, it exemplifies the shift towards qualitative research approaches in the field of literacy and technology studies. To provide a context for the concurrent sessions and panel discussion that follow mine, I include an overview of the Digital Rhetorics project, giving particular attention to its sociocultural perspective and qualitative methodology. Finally, I consider future directions for research and practice in this area. We have reached what could be called a maturing of the field of literacy and technology studies. The research agenda is fertile with possibilities. The challenge is to undertake studies that will continue to inform effective practice, mediated by new communication and information technologies, at all levels of education. Bio-details: Dr Ilana Snyder is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Monash University. Her teaching and research focuses on the new literacies and changes to pedagogical practices associated with the use of digital media and telecommunication technologies. Two books, Hypertext: the electronic labyrinth, (Melbourne University Press 1996) and Page to screen: Taking literacy into the electronic era (Allen & Unwin 1997), explore these changes. She was one of the team of nine investigators in the DEETYA-funded literacy and technology research project, Digital Rhetorics (Lankshear et al 1997). With Colin Lankshear and Bill Green, she has co-authored Teachers and Technoliteracy: Managing literacy, technology and learning in schools, which draws on the final report. It will be published by Allen and Unwin in March 2000.

電子時代の著作権Q&A(3)

電子時代の著作権Q&A(3)

New Economic Policies and the Diffusion of Machine Tools in Latin America

This paper argues that both old and new economic regimes in Latin America only partially ensured the successful diffusion of machine tools in the region. Import-substitution policies focused on suppliers, with resulting advances in domestic imitative, adaptive and innovating capabilities, but at high cost for users in expensive and technically inferior machine tools. The New Economic Model (NEM) focus on the user has provided wider availability and lower price of technologies, with resulting increases in productivity and efficiency, but domestic suppliers cannot establish themselves nor make the technologically crucial jump into the electronics era. The paper suggests an approach focusing on the joint upgrading of users and suppliers, and proposes policy initiatives aimed at addressing market failure and “systemic” issues.