Global Information Environment Research Articles

Information Literacy

This article discusses the need and importance of information literacy as an essential component in information society. The article highlights the role of information and information technology as well as the relationship between information and literacy. This article also studies the impact of ICT in rural areas and examines the awareness of the term like, information, information literacy, computer literacy etc. in the rural communities in Manipur, India. Further, it elaborates the need for information literacy and challenges faced by the rural communities in the global information environment.

Sensor‐based complete coverage path planning in dynamic environment for cleaning robot

Using Complete Coverage Path Planning (CCPP), a cleaning robot could visit every accessible area in the workspace. The dynamic environment requires the higher computation of the CCPP algorithm because the path needs to be replanned when the path might become invalid. In previous CCPP methods, when the neighbours of the current position are obstacles or have been visited, it is challenging for the robot to escape from the deadlocks with the least extra time cost. In this study, a novel CCPP algorithm is proposed to deal with deadlock problems in a dynamic environment. A priority template inspired by the short memory model could reduce the number of deadlocks by giving the priority of directions. Simultaneously, a global backtracking mechanism guides the robot to move to the next unvisited area quickly, taking the use of the explored global environmental information. What's more, the authors extend their CCPP algorithm to a multi-robot system with a market-based bidding process which could deploy the coverage time. Experiments of apartment-like scenes show that the authors’ proposed algorithm can guarantee an efficient collision-free coverage in dynamic environments. The proposed method performs better than related approaches on coverage rate and overlap length.

Michael John-Hopkins, The Rule of Law in Crisis and Conflict Grey Zones: Regulating the Use of Force in a Global Information Environment

Michael John-Hopkins, The Rule of Law in Crisis and Conflict Grey Zones: Regulating the Use of Force in a Global Information Environment

Mapping War, Peace and Terrorism in the Global Information Environment

This article outlines in general terms how the environment of 21st century transnational organised crime, terrorism and unconventional conflict is being shaped by information-related capabilities (IRCs) that foster global networked connectivity and asymmetric responses to conventional military supremacy. This article explores how the conceptual apparatus regarding the distinction between wartime and peacetime, as well as war zones and peace zones, which has been developed within the framework of international criminal law and humanitarian law, can contribute to military-strategic operational and capability concepts. Integration of these conceptual frameworks within strategic analysis can serve to promote the effective use of force within a full spectrum operational environment in which information, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance thresholds are being lowered as deeper understandings of the social dynamic that sustains ongoing fighting within a global information environment become increasingly feasible through innovations in IRCs. In this context, this article suggests that law enforcement frameworks and approaches have a high threshold of applicability, i.e. to increasingly serious and organised situations of violence, if the strategic failures associated with conventional military operations are to be avoided. Rather than offering an analysis of cyber warfare/cyber attacks or information operations per se, this article is more generally concerned with understanding how military support and command and control operations are being conducted in the global information environment in order to achieve physical effects that can be characterised as non-international armed conflict.

Environment 1.0: Infoterra and the making of environmental information

This article traces international conflicts over the making and operation of the first global environmental information system, Infoterra (1972–2003). By studying the negotiations among international actors over what kinds of information, expertise, and technological infrastructure were deemed appropriate to constitute Infoterra, we gain insight into what was made to count as environmental information, and how “the environment” was communicated to multiple audiences in the early decades of the global environmental movement. The article argues that the struggles around Infoterra demonstrate the key role attributed to information systems for global environmental communication, with lasting impacts on pragmatic responses to environmental problems today.

КІБЕРБЕЗПЕКА ЯК ФАКТОР ПРИСКОРЕННЯ ЦИФРОВОЇ ТРАНСФОРМАЦІЇ ЕКОНОМІКИ УКРАЇНИ

The key hypothesis of the research is the assumption that security in cyberspace can accelerate a process of the economy's digital transformation in any country in the world. Our goal in this article to clarify the essence of cyberspace's concept, which is considered as a global information environment, formed by a set of interdependent elements of the information technology infrastructure, namely information and telecommunications networks and computer systems for storage, processing, modification, and exchange data, as well as the importance of cybersecurity in the process of the digital transformation of the economy. The degree of readiness of countries with different levels of socio-economic development to protecting data in cyberspace according to the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) and the National Cybersecurity Index (NCSI) is analyzed. Using the ICT Development Index (ІDІ) and the Network Readiness Index (NRI), the level of digital development of highly developed countries and countries with transformational economies is analyzed. The strengths and weaknesses of both the cybersecurity system and the level of digital development of Ukraine have been identified. The focus is on determining the impact of cybersecurity on increasing opportunities for the use of modern digital technologies in economic processes, which may ultimately accelerate the economy's digital transformation. It is concluded, increasing the level of cybersecurity is a necessary but not always sufficient factor in accelerating the economy's digital transformation. According to the results of the study, it is proposed: firstly, to research the formation of effective means of cyberdefense in legal, organizational, and technical aspects; secondly, to launch information and training campaigns to raising awareness and acquire relevant skills, in particular, to build a human resources reserve in the field of cybersecurity; thirdly, to strengthen the state's efforts to develop and implement effective cybersecurity systems at the level of the state, business organizations and citizens.

The knowledge management levels in the development of online courses

The knowledge management (KM) development was closely associated with e-learning from the beginning. E-learning is a part of the knowledge management tools, which is widely used in companies and universities for the knowledge dissemination. KM methods are used in the system of education management to solve problems of innovative development for educational institutions. The main goal of knowledge management is to support the innovative activities of lecturers and researchers. The development of elearning courses is an example of innovative activity at the university. Elearning course contains the results of scientific and methodical activities of the Faculty, and it is a ready-made innovative product of the university. The technology and methods of e-learning have already became an essential support tool for the training process at the leading universities in Russia and in the world. The scientific novelty of the research is to identify the KM levels in the development of e-learning courses. The paper shows KM levels in e-learning: individual, team, university, inter-university and global. There is a paradoxical situation in the academic environment. Many universities are willing to support free access to its educational content through the platform of open educational resources (OER), or massive open on-line courses (MOOC), however, the development of inter-university courses often is an initiative of self-organizing authors’ groups. The development of each KM level in the university is the basis for the complete work at a higher level. The determination of KM levels in the university allows to create a comprehensive strategy for e-learning, aimed at the creation of on-line courses and e-learning development, which is extremely important in the global information environment.

A Hybrid Path Planning Algorithm for Mobile Robot Based on Sliding Sub Target

Path planning is a difficult and practical problem confronting mobile robot. It is mainly because of a confliction between local and global perspectives of path planning. This paper proposes a hybrid algorithm for path planning to combine both the local path planning and global path planning based on a sliding sub target. The sub target is mounted on the global path, planned by the global path planning algorithm, so that the local path planning algorithm would be guided. By sliding the sub target along the global path, the global environmental information is considered. By using the local path planning to control the motion of the robot, a rapid consideration for the local environment is also combined. Benefit from the combination, both global and local environmental information are considered. Compared with the path planning approaches from scratch, this approach provides a hybrid algorithm for mobile to combine both global and local path planning. Both simulations and experiments have proved the effect.

Formation Tracking Control of Multiagents in Constrained Space

In this paper, formation tracking control based on potential field is studied. The objective is to control a group of agents to track a desired trajectory while maintaining a given formation in nonomniscient constrained space. Aiming at this purpose, the average of all agents' positions is viewed as the virtual leader, and the task is translated into that controlling the virtual leader to track the center of the desired formation. The situation where agents may not have global environmental information will lead to that they may have to avoid collisions with unexpected spatial constraints. By introducing the concepts of line source and surface source, two main types of spatial constraints: 1) borders and 2) obstacles are defined mathematically and unified into a common expression in an artificial potential function. In this way, the tasks of formation tracking and obstacle avoidance in a bounded environment can be solved by the control law proposed in this paper. Furthermore, concerning the situation of multiple spatial constraints, a Dirac delta function is introduced. Meanwhile, a formation optimal algorithm is proposed to minimize the formation generation time cost. Following that, a controller is designed, and the conditions for asymptotic stability of multiagent systems are proved based on the Lyapunov function. The maximum duration that the conditions cannot be satisfied is elaborated to indicate whether the tracking task should be given up. Meanwhile, the impulsive influence from spatial constraints is analyzed. Finally, the simulation results are presented to illustrate the performance of proposed approaches.

The conceptual form of an advanced technology package for the information support of knowledge-intensive production

The development trends of the global information environment and present-day high-tech production are demonstrated. A CAD methodology for supplying the stages of the "research---development---production" cycle with scientific, technical, and techno-economic information is considered from a systemic perspective. A virtually synthesized technology package for the continuous information support of the lifecycle of a product with a CAD system as its core is presented. The architecture and functional content of the technology package, as well as qualitatively new characteristics of the information support process for knowledge-intensive production, are shown.

Variability and evolution of global land surface phenology over the past three decades (1982–2012)

Monitoring land surface phenology (LSP) is important for understanding both the responses and feedbacks of ecosystems to the climate system, and for representing these accurately in terrestrial biosphere models. Moreover, by shedding light on phenological trends at a variety of scales, LSP provides the potential to fill the gap between traditional phenological (field) observations and the large-scale view of global models. In this study, we review and evaluate the variability and evolution of satellite-derived growing season length (GSL) globally and over the past three decades. We used the longest continuous record of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data available to date at global scale to derive LSP metrics consistently over all vegetated land areas and for the period 1982-2012. We tested GSL, start- and end-of-season metrics (SOS and EOS, respectively) for linear trends as well as for significant trend shifts over the study period. We evaluated trends using global environmental stratification information in place of commonly used land cover maps to avoid circular findings. Our results confirmed an average lengthening of the growing season globally during 1982-2012 - averaging 0.22-0.34 days yr(-1), but with spatially heterogeneous trends. About 13-19% of global land areas displayed significant GSL change, and over 30% of trends occurred in the boreal/alpine biome of the Northern Hemisphere, which showed diverging GSL evolution over the past three decades. Within this biome, the 'Cold and Mesic' environmental zone appeared as an LSP change hotspot. We also examined the relative contribution of SOS and EOS to the overall changes, finding that EOS trends were generally stronger and more prevalent than SOS trends. These findings constitute a step towards the identification of large-scale phenological drivers of vegetated land surfaces, necessary for improving phenological representation in terrestrial biosphere models.

ИНФОРМАТИЗАЦИЯ МИРОВОЙ ПОЛИТИКИ: СУЩНОСТНОЕ ВЫРАЖЕНИЕ И ПРАКТИЧЕСКИЕ РЕЗУЛЬТАТЫ

The article describes actual problems of Informatization of the modern world politics. The authors emphasize the necessity of adequate reaction of the expert community and public authorities on the adoption of electronic technologies and communications in various areas of social reality. The publication examines such issues as the «digital divide», the state of information security, the relationship of information and the spiritual realm of modern politics. The authors analyze the role of transnational actors of globalization in formation of global information environment. The conclusion is made about the mutual dependence of political and information spheres, leading to the emergence of new «hybrid» forms and technologies of struggle for political power. It is emphasized that in the conditions of permanent information revolution close cooperation between state administration bodies, the network of civil associations and the expert community is required.

Earth observation big data for climate change research

Earth observation technology has provided highly useful information in global climate change research over the past few decades and greatly promoted its development, especially through providing biological, physical, and chemical parameters on a global scale. Earth observation data has the 4V features (volume, variety, veracity, and velocity) of big data that are suitable for climate change research. Moreover, the large amount of data available from scientific satellites plays an important role. This study reviews the advances of climate change studies based on Earth observation big data and provides examples of case studies that utilize Earth observation big data in climate change research, such as synchronous satellite–aerial–ground observation experiments, which provide extremely large and abundant datasets; Earth observational sensitive factors (e.g., glaciers, lakes, vegetation, radiation, and urbanization); and global environmental change information and simulation systems. With the era of global environment change dawning, Earth observation big data will underpin the Future Earth program with a huge volume of various types of data and will play an important role in academia and decisionmaking. Inevitably, Earth observation big data will encounter opportunities and challenges brought about by global climate change.

Technological challenges to understanding the microbial ecology of deep subsurface ecosystems.

Terrestrial subsurface geomicrobiology is a new frontier in environmental microbiology. It seeks to determine whether life can be sustained in the absence of solar radiation. Subsurface ecosystems are also intriguing astrobiological models useful in the re-creation of life in early Earth scenarios or ascertaining its possible exist- ence on other planetary bodies. Although Darwin pre- Scanning electron microscopy allows the presence of diverse mineral substrates to be correlated with identified biological structures through elemental analysis (EDAX) and morphology, but the metabolic status and the type of functional metabolism of these biological structures cannot be determined using these techniques. The adap- tation of rRN-targeted FISH (rRNA-FISH) to the study the microorganisms associated to semisolid substrates (cata- lysed reporter deposition-FISH (CARD-FISH)) was an important breakthrough in the microbial ecology study of sediments. Even though this technique has not been used intensively in the identification and quantification of micro- organisms in continental drilling projects, it is obvious that in the near future, it will play a significant role in clarifying the ambiguous results generated by more conventional techniques such as comparative sequence analysis, which, as mentioned earlier, require sample sizes and preparation methodologies that average or destroy compartmentalization. Fluorescent oligonucleotide probes were originally designed to target rRNA for identification of microorgan- isms in environmental studies. Recently, a wide range of FISH procedures have been developed targeting not only rRNA, but also mRNA or single genes (Moraru et al., 2010). It is easy to foresee that these procedures will be

The Sinergy Aspects of the Contemporary Educational Process

Using the comparative analysis method, the authors examine the evo- lutional process of the natural science methodology and the methodology of education. The outlined analogies show some definite trends of education development in the emerging post-industrial society. It is demonstrated that the openness and correlation of the individual educa- tional activities with other co-players results in the actual cooperation of the educa- tional process. According to the authors, the implementation ground for the distributed inter- actions in the virtual space of the Internet, capable of supporting the life long learning process of society members, should be the personal educational environment, as a part of global information environment; the former being developed and used by the individual both for personal professional realization and life-long continuing self- education.

International Perspectives in LIS Education: Global Education, Research, and Collaboration at the SJSU School of Information

The IFLA Trend Report identified five trends that will impact the information environment (IFLA, 2015), such as access to information with new technologies, online education for global learning, hyper-connected communities, and the global information environment. The faculty at San José State University (SJSU) School of Information (iSchool) is engaged in a wide range of activities that focus on these trends—benefiting students, enhancing faculty professional development, and extending the school’s impact on the global information environment. The importance of incorporating global perspectives in the curriculum to reflect changes in the way that communities around the world access and share information is the focus of numerous studies. The SJSU iSchool has been an early adopter of various practices to increase the range of international education, outreach, and research initiatives. This article provides examples of curricular, research, and collaborative projects that our faculty has developed, both for our students and for the global community of information professionals. Key initiatives presented include virtually abroad global projects, globalization of LIS curriculum, international LIS internships, international project-based learning, faculty professional development, and international collaborations. Collectively, these initiatives demonstrate the diverse ways the iSchool is addressing the need in higher education to reach across national borders, especially in the information field.

Роль современной информационно-коммуникативной среды в формировании идентичности и образа мира современных подростков

We describe the various methodological approaches to the measurement of today's global information and communication environment. It is shown that the image of the world of adolescents is influenced by diverse and divergent information flows, which are the source of communicative and cognitive needs, finding the ways of social and psychological adaptation, compensation, personal difficulties. This process creates special risks for adolescent socialization, adaptation, personal development. Based on the analysis of current research, we reveal the positive and negative aspects of the impact of modern information and communication technologies on the formation of adolescent identity. Online distribution of large volumes of information creates uncontrolled "cultural chaos" and blurs cultural identity, but also promotes the development of skills to design a virtual identity that can be seen as an integral part of the formation of the person in the new information society. We substantiate the direction of psycho-pedagogical support of socialization in the information society.

Model-Predictive Motion Planning: Several Key Developments for Autonomous Mobile Robots

A necessary attribute of a mobile robot planning algorithm is the ability to accurately predict the consequences of robot actions to make informed decisions about where and how to drive. It is also important that such methods are efficient, as onboard computational resources are typically limited and fast planning rates are often required. In this article, we present several practical mobile robot motion planning algorithms for local and global search, developed with a common underlying trajectory generation framework for use in model-predictive control. These techniques all center on the idea of generating informed, feasible graphs at scales and resolutions that respect computational and temporal constraints of the application. Connectivity in these graphs is provided by a trajectory generator that searches in a parameterized space of robot inputs subject to an arbitrary predictive motion model. Local search graphs connect the currently observed state-to-states at or near the planning or perception horizon. Global search graphs repeatedly expand a precomputed trajectory library in a uniformly distributed state lattice to form a recombinant search space that respects differential constraints. In this article, we discuss the trajectory generation algorithm, methods for online or offline calibration of predictive motion models, sampling strategies for local search graphs that exploit global guidance and environmental information for real-time obstacle avoidance and navigation, and methods for efficient design of global search graphs with attention to optimality, feasibility, and computational complexity of heuristic search. The model-invariant nature of our approach to local and global motions planning has enabled a rapid and successful application of these techniques to a variety of platforms. Throughout the article, we also review experiments performed on planetary rovers, field robots, mobile manipulators, and autonomous automobiles and discuss future directions of the article.

Land Group of Global Environment Information Science, Department of Information and Computer Sciences, Nara Women's Univ. and KYOUSEI Science Center for Life and Nature

Land Group of Global Environment Information Science, Department of Information and Computer Sciences, Nara Women's Univ. and KYOUSEI Science Center for Life and Nature

The influence of the global information environment on the educational atmosphere and way of school

The active process of informatization in society has led to the problem of accounting the influence of the global information environment on the educational atmosphere and way of the modern school. The article presents the results of the study of the influence on the example of 19 schools from four regions of Russia. The research has shown that modern students of all ages are actively involved in communication through various forms of communication on the Internet. At the same time the informational and communicational environment of the educational institutions do not meet the requirements of a full reflection in the students’ eyes is not able to compete with other sources of information. The author has come to the conclusion about the necessity of successful achievement of educational goals purposeful management school way of formation with fundamental changes and the development of ICT in an educational institution in conditions of the growing influence of global information environment.