Age Of Information Technology Research Articles

Children's Rights in an Age of Information and Communication Technologies

We live in a socio-cultural, informational and technological context that poses new educational challenges for society in general but above all for children. In this paper, we present a proposal that should help to maximise the capacity of children to face the challenges presented by today’s society. We draw attention to the fact that in an age of information technology such as ours, children as a group risk marginalization. The children’s bill of rights in the XXI century needs to build on those drawn up in the XX century and should be extended to include those rights that safeguard life styles and living conditions and a child’s right to play and learn, in keeping with the specific conditions of the XXI century. To this end, we frame a proposal concerning the rights of children in a society increasingly dominated by information and communication technologies. Throughout Europe, there is much current debate about children’s rights linked with mass media and information and communication technologies. We describe several projects that offer hope for the promotion of greater responsibility on the part of the mass media given their pervasive ability to shape thinking, projects that may help to mitigate the influence of the media, including information and communication technologies on children.

Ethics and Technology: Ethical Issues in an Age of Information and Communication Technology, 2nd edition

Ethics and Technology: Ethical Issues in an Age of Information and Communication Technology, 2nd edition

Teaching statistics to social science students: Making it valuable

In this age of rapid information expansion and technology, statistics is playing an ever increasing role in education, particularly also in the training of social scientists. Statistics enables the social scientist to obtain a quantitative awareness of socioeconomic phenomena hence is essential in their training. Statistics, however, is becoming increasingly problematic in its influence on the lives of social science students. Has statistics education of social science students evolved in order to keep pace with changes in modern society? This article examines the common trends in teaching statistics to social science students and then makes some suggestions that would potentially increase the social science graduate's appreciation for the power of statistics in their profession. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 20(4) 2006: pp.503-514

Methods of the Transfer of Veteran Baby-Boomer's Skills in the Age of Information Technology

Methods of the Transfer of Veteran Baby-Boomer's Skills in the Age of Information Technology

Chemistry in the Information and Communications Technology Age

Chemistry in the Information and Communications Technology Age

Cities and Footlooseness: In Search of Place-Bound Companies and Effective Location Policies

The present study addresses the relevance of geographic proximity for companies in our age of advanced information and communication technology (ICT). Many visions of, and speculations on, an increased footlooseness of companies and a concomitant dispersal of urban economic activity have been published in recent years. To identify whether urban agglomeration economies (in particular, knowledge spillovers) are still a key force in preventing such dispersal, we investigate the degree of footlooseness of young, innovative companies. The exploratory analysis, based on interviews with twenty-one companies, employs an artificial intelligence method, called ‘rough-set analysis’, to increase our understanding of the crucial factors that influence needs for physical proximity. On the basis of these results, we argue that agglomeration economies still remain important for various categories of young, innovative, firms, even those providing ICT services, but that we need to make a distinction between agglomeration economies that work exclusively in the largest city (that is, Amsterdam) and agglomeration economies that cover a larger metropolitan area. The only fundamental change in proximity needs among these young, innovative companies originates from a small class of ‘network companies’, which are footloose even beyond the larger metropolitan area. The study also addresses urban policies to use opportunities better to attract companies with high proximity needs.

Ethics and Technology: Ethical Issues in an Age of Information and Communication Technology

Ethics and Technology: Ethical Issues in an Age of Information and Communication Technology

Reinventing Radiology in a Digital and Molecular Age: Summary of Proceedings of the Sixth Biannual Symposium of the International Society for Strategic Studies in Radiology (ISR), August 25–27, 2005

Escalating costs and inadequate quality and safety are major concerns of health care at this time. The first, increasing cost of health care worldwide, can be attributed in part to the aging of populations, but it is also due to the successful treatment of acute illnesses and the resultant shift toward the expense of caring for the chronically ill, which now accounts for 75% of the costs (1). But with 2001 health care costs comprising 14% of the gross domestic product in the United States and with an expected increase to 18% by 2012 (2), there is considerable pressure from employers, insurance companies, and the government to limit health care spending to a sustainable amount and to make the system more accountable. Radiology is not immune to these worldwide health care concerns. In 1990, U.S. radiology costs accounted for about 3.5% of the national spending on health care (3). Overall, diagnostic radiology utilization rate increases have been modest in the United States, with a 3.1% compound annual increase for Medicare enrollees in the period 1992–2001 (4). However, utilization of high-cost radiology services increased dramatically in the past decade, as has been demonstrated for Medicare enrollees (4–9), privately insured groups (4,6,8), and within individual institutions (10,11). Data for Medicare enrollees, which are more complete than those for other populations, show a trend of double-digit annual rate increases in utilization of computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, and nuclear imaging in the years 1992–2001 (4). The second major health care concern involves quality and safety. The rate of adverse events in medical care in the United States is 3%–4% (12,13), which may result in $28 billion in unnecessary expense and as many as 44 000–98 000 deaths per year due to provider error (14). In radiology practice, quality includes obtaining the best possible images through quality assurance programs and through the appropriate selection of modality and protocol. Safety issues include avoiding injury due to the effects of magnetic fields on metallic implants, contrast agent reactions, radiation exposure, and ensuring that there is adequate monitoring of patients for adverse events. Rapid technologic advances in radiology have increased the concerns regarding utilization, as well as quality and safety. By the end of the second millennium, computerized workstations have now become commonplace, picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) and radiology information systems (RIS) are widespread, the Internet is almost essential for the transfer of images and other information, and computer-aided detection (CAD) has been developed as a useful tool. Recent innovations in imaging suggest that radiology will be a major catalyst for transforming medicine into an age of information technology and molecular medicine.

Embracing Statistical Challenges in the Information Technology Age

This article examines the role of statistics in the age of information technology (IT). It begins by examining the current state of IT and of the cyberinfrastructure initiative aimed at integrating the technologies into science, engineering, and education to convert massive amounts of data into useful information. Selected applications from science and text processing are introduced to provide concrete examples of massive data sets and the statistical challenges that they pose. The thriving field of machine learning is reviewed as an example of current achievements driven by computations and IT. Ongoing challenges that we face in the IT revolution are also highlighted. The paper concludes that for the healthy future of our field, computer technologies have to be integrated into statistics, and statistical thinking in turn must be integrated into computer technologies.

From mouse genetics to systems biology

IntroductionIt will not be long before we have mutant alleles for everygene in the mouse genome. It also will not be long beforewe can sequence an entire genome in a few hours and forless than 1000 US$. But there is much more to come, andthe speed with which these developments will take placewill surprise you. Imagine following the fate of everysingle cell during the development of a mouse from fer-tilization to birth and even beyond. Imagine watching theexpression of a single molecule of any protein or the totalexpression of all proteins in a single cell continuously overtime. Imagine titrating the expression of single genes inspecific cell populations at will.High-throughput technologies have become the drivingforce in the analysis of biological systems. Biologists areincreasingly taking advantage of automatization, minia-turization, and computerization. In this sense biology fol-lows the development of computer and informationtechnology: smaller size, higher speed and capacity, lowercost. However, we should remember that the age of com-puter and information technology was preceded by a pre-exponential phase during which important theoreticalframeworks and concepts were developed: Alan Turing(1936) and John von Neumann (1945) provided themathematical basis for an automatic computing machineand a corresponding ‘‘computer architecture.’’ To ClaudeE. Shannon (Weaver and Shannon 1949) and NorbertWiener (1948) we owe the mathematical theory of infor-mation and cybernetics. The convergence of electronic andmechanical engineering then triggered the developmentand application of systems control theory, a key require-ment for the modeling and simulation of the dynamics oftechnical systems.A major challenge in biology is to model, simulate, andeventually predict the behavior of complex biologicalsystems. The identification of the individual componentsthat constitute a biological system, i.e., through the gen-ome-wide transcriptome, proteome, and metabolomeanalysis, will be required but will not be sufficient toachieve this goal. We will also need detailed informationabout the ‘‘network architecture’’ and the dynamics ofbiological systems. This is where systems biology comesinto place (Kitano 2002; Kirschner 2005; Palsson 2006;Alon 2007).From perturbation to model building: an iterative cyclein systems biologyBiological systems are emerging, adaptive systems, highlycomplex and often nonlinear. Their behavior cannot beexplained solely on the basis of their individual parts. Deepinsight into the network structure, function, and dynamicsof biological systems can be obtained only through theirsystematic perturbation, followed by a detailed character-ization of the molecular, cellular, and phenotypic changesthat follow these perturbations. Based on the perturbationconsequences observed, a model can then be established orexisting models modified or further developed that graspthe important features of the underlying mechanisms(Sauro and Kholodenko 2004).Mouse genetics has been an extremely powerful per-turbation method for nearly a century. Loss-of-function andgain-of-function mouse mutants are able to reveal causal

Digital transmission in the local network

The local network has evolved for the conveyance of speech-band signals in an efficient manner. Fortuitously, this network can also carry higher frequency signals, although with some restrictions. The advent of modern semiconductor technology has allowed engineers to exploit these higher frequencies to provide additional services. Initially these additional services were generally restricted to analogue pair-gain and alarm systems but, with the birth of the information technology age, the capability of the local network to carry high-speed digital signals is being exploited. From a review of the characteristics of the local network and an assessment of its ability to carry digital signals a perception of the future evolution of the local network and the likely penetration of digital systems emerges.

LIS curriculum in French-speaking West Africa in the age of ICTs: The case of Benin and Senegal

LIS training programme in Africa date from early independence period. In French-speaking West African area, few countries have an LIS school. The existing schools have been created in partnership with either an international organization or a northern country. The curriculum delivered is not always updated as in developed countries. The main objective of this article is to measure the gap between LIS curriculum as actually delivered in developed and developing countries in the age of the information and communication technologies (ICTs). A couple of schools were chosen—English and French-speaking area—from Northern America and Western Europe; their curriculum served as basis for evaluating those in West African French-speaking countries. The conclusion that can be drawn from the study is that LIS curriculum in Africa has changed less since the schools’ first creation and ICTs are not present as in Western countries. This trend brings out the problem of the curriculum pertinence and the competitiveness of ...

Review of Chapelle, Carol A. (2003) English Language Learning and Technology: Lectures on Applied Linguistics in The Age of Information and Communication Technology

Review of Chapelle, Carol A. (2003) <i>English Language Learning and Technology: Lectures on Applied Linguistics in The Age of Information and Communication Technology</i>

Revisiting the Prostitution Debate in the Technology Age: Women Who Use the Internet for Sex Work in Bangkok

The debate around prostitution has existed for as long as sex work has. With each new era comes a new sensibility adding more complexity to the debate. In this age of information technology the worlds oldest profession has also found new spaces and new media for itself. This exploratory study seeks to examine womens engagement with technology in the area of sex work. The first section summarizes the most prevalent views on prostitution which range from bad women to poor victims to agents. The second section recapitulates the context of sex work in Thailand especially its historical socio-economic and cultural complexity. Literature on sex work in Thailand is plentiful; however there is little on freelance sex workers who are a critical part of the sex work scene. The third section presents field data on the use of technology to seek sex work in Bangkok arguing that women choose to use technology to offer sexual services for a variety of economic and social reasons; and that within the situation of gendered inequities that places them in vulnerable situations they have empowered themselves through the use of technology. (excerpt)

Computing knowledge, attitude and skills among health care professionals in Amino Kanu Teaching Hospital, Nigeria

Health care professionals can no longer ignore the application of information technology to health care. This study was carried out to assess computing knowledge, attitude and skills among health care professionals and identify associated factors. A cross section of 200 health care professionals- consisting of 64 doctors, 90 nurses, 35 laboratory scientists and 11 pharmacists in Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital were interviewed using a pre-tested, structured, closed-ended self-administered questionnaire. Only 181 (90.5%) of the respondents returned the completed questionnaires. Twenty six percent of the respondents had formal computer training whereas 34.8% owned a personal computer. Overall, 84 (46.4%) of the respondents had good knowledge of computing. Specifically, 41(66.0%), 5 (50.0%), 14 (51.0%) and 24 (30.0%) of these were doctors, pharmacists, laboratory scientists and nurses respectively. Computing knowledge was highest among doctors and lowest among nurses. These differences were statistically significant (chi2 = 19.1 df = 3 P < 0.01). Age, gender, computer ownership and formal computer training significantly influenced computing knowledge. Most healthcare professionals 160 (88.4%) had positive attitude towards computing and this was significantly influenced by respondent's age and previous computer training. Only 41 (22.7%) of the health care professionals had good computing skills and this was significantly associated with computer ownership (P < 0.01) and formal computer training (P < 0.01). Half of the healthcare professionals had good computing knowledge, majority had a positive attitude while many were quite deficient in computer skills. Computer loans and in-house computing courses were recommended to prepare our healthcare professionals for the challenges of the information technology age.

Banking on blood [electronic donor card system

We recommend an electronic donor card system, which can not only optimise the blood donation procedure, but also enhance the satisfaction of blood donors. Firstly, such system facilitates information acquisition and production during donor registration. An additional benefit is that, in this age of information technology, blood donors usually prefer to use electronic donor cards. Therefore, the QoS of a blood centre will definitely be enhanced with the introduction of an electronic donor card system.

Teacher education challenges in the age of information technology

Teacher education challenges in the age of information technology

Collective Storytelling and Social Creativity in the Virtual Museum: A Case Study

The term “virtual” often is associated with the idea of a duplication of reality. As a result, “virtual museum” has become a useful synonym for multimedia products and Websites capable of providing new and fresh experiences of a specific museum heritage, or creating a large system of interconnections among different museum collections. It is necessary, however, to explore and envision further opportunities. Today’s questions should be: What cultural role and significance can physical artifacts assume in the age of information technologies? In what ways do information and communication technologies enhance the nature and contemporary role of the museum? Can a virtual museum promote the social dimension of creativity, and connect it to the collection and preservation of novel cultural objects? This paper aims at responding to these questions and promoting a new form of virtuality for the museum, capable of empowering the interaction among the tangibility of a physical artifact, and its current and future interpretations. To sustain this argument, the paper describes and examines in detail the Virtual Museum of the Collective Memory of Lombardia (MUVI).1 This project provides evidence of how the collective memory of a local community represents a living heritage that—by means of different media and information technologies—can be translated into actual cultural objects and give rise to new forms of creativity and museum construction.

Temperature analysis for optimizing the configuration of the linear cell

The market demand of display devices is drastically increasing in the information technology age. The research on OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) display with the luminescence in itself is being more paid attention than LCD (Liquid Crystal display) with the light source from the back. The vapor deposition process is most essential in manufacturing OLED display. The temperature distribution of the linear cell in this process is closely related to securing the uniformity of organic materials on the substrate. This work analyzed the temperature distribution depending on the intervals between the crucible and the heating band as well as on the amount of the heat flux from the heating band. Moreover, the roles of the water jacket and the configuration of the cover within the linear cell were examined through the temperature analysis for six configurations of the linear cell. Under the above temperature analysis, the variations in the intervals and the amount of the heat flux were considered to have an effect on building the uniform temperature distribution within the crucible. It is predicted that the water jacket and the adequate configuration of the cover will prevent the blowout and clogging phenomena, respectively. The results can be used as the fundamental data for designing the optimal linear cell.

From Algorithms to (Sub-)Symbolic Inferences in Multi-Agent Systems

Extending metaphorically the Moisilean idea of “nuanced-reasoning logic” and adapting it to the e-world age of Information Technology (IT), the paper aims at showing that new logics, already useful in modern software engineering, become necessary mainly for Multi-Agent Systems (MAS), despite obvious adversities. The first sections are typical for a position paper, defending such logics from an anthropocentric perspective. Through this sieve, Section 4 outlines the features asked for by the paradigm of computing as intelligent interaction, based on “nuances of nuanced-reasoning”, that should be reflected by agent logics. To keep the approach credible, Section 5 illustrates how quantifiable synergy can be reached - even in advanced challenging domains, such as stigmergic coordination - by injecting symbolic reasoning in systems based on sub-symbolic “emergent synthesis”. Since for future work too the preferred logics are doxastic, the conclusions could be structured in line with the well-known agent architecture: Beliefs, Desires, Intentions.