Trends In Information Technology Research Articles

Impact of Effective Information Technology Governance on Audit Technology Performance in Ghana

The notion of Industry 4.0 significantly changed the way firms’ operate and has influenced everyday life. The rapid digitalization and emergent trend of information technology (IT) transformation in firms and ample investment in IT by Ghanaian government stimulated the importance of IT-based risks and its associated controls. In addition, technology enabled the auditing and IT-related audit methods have significance when carrying out audit tasks. This study aims to investigate the effects of IT governess effectiveness on audit technology performance in the public sector of Ghana. This study used closed-ended to collect data. An online survey admitted to record 186 responses. The findings of the study stated that top management support, IT support services, and IT committee have a positive and statistically significant influence on audit technology performance. The proposed model of the study explained 65.1% variance in the audit technology performance. The study proposes that public sector companies must strengthen IT governance by developing an appropriate IT committee and IT support services for the auditors. Besides, firms should clearly elucidate their priorities and requirements associated with technology-based training in their IT policies, and action plans to improve the utilization of audit technology. Keywords: Information technology governance, audit technology performance, IT support services, IT committee, top management support. DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/11-24-05 Publication date: December 31 st 2020

Towards a framework of automated resource model for post contract cost control of construction projects

Real-time control of on-site construction cost has been a major concern as every client demand value for the money invested in procuring a construction project. The design team and other stakeholders in the construction industry face the challenges posed by the ever-increasing complexity of construction facilities, and the demands of clients to meet their needs within a given budget. In addition, the trend of information technology in construction demands that all activities including cost optimization be automated and digitalized for better proficiency of the construction professionals and effectiveness of job delivery. This article presents a conceptual framework for the automated resource model (ARM) for on-site construction cost control. The concept of ARM is based on the use of mobile technology, integrating it with a back-office central system for real-time data capturing, monitoring, and control to keep expenditure within a predetermined budget. The scope covered includes Automated Real-Time Data (ARTiD) collection, Construction Progress Monitoring and Evaluation, and Construction Activity Monitoring. The ARM concept can enable the construction stakeholders to obtain information on cost implications of all activities simultaneously. It can also enable quick detection of any source of cost and time overrun and propose quick remedial action.

Information development in NBICS-civilization of the XXI century

The paper examines the development trends of modern information technologies that will determine the paradigm of the–civilization development in the 21st century. The essence of NBICS-technologies is considered in this paper, and their synergetic and convergent characteristics are revealed here. The socio-humanitarian component of the modern society development is analyzed. The influence of convergent technologies on the social structure of society is noted. A new role of the subject in civilized development is shown, and the main tasks are set for transforming the sector of education.

A review of internet of medical things (IoMT) - based remote health monitoring through wearable sensors: a case study for diabetic patients

<span>The latest advances and trends in information technology and communication have a vital role in healthcare industries. </span><span>Theses advancements led to the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) which provides a continuous, remote and real-time monitoring of patients. The IoMT </span><span>architectures still face many challenges related to the bandwidth, communication protocols, big data and data volume, flexibility, reliability, data management, data acquisition, data processing and analytics availability, cost effectiveness, data security and privacy, and energy efficiency. The goal of this paper is to find </span><span>feasible </span><span>solutions to enhance the healthcare living facilities using remote health monitoring (RHM) and IoMT. In addition, the enhancement of the prevention, prognosis, diagnosis and treatment abilities using IoMT and RHM is also discussed. </span><span>A case study of monitoring the vital signs of diabetic patients using real-time data processing and IoMT is also presented</span><span>. </span>

IoT and Big Data Analytics for Smart Buildings: A Survey

Abstract The processes of digital transformation have involved a variety of socio-technical activities, with the objective of increasing productivity, safety and quality of execution, sustainable development, collaborative working and solutions for the sustainable smart city. The major digital trends, changing the building sector and revealing new trends of understanding information technologies to integrate in this sector. Current smart building management systems incorporate a variety of sensors, actuators and dedicated networks. Their objectives are to observe the condition of specific areas and apply appropriate rules to preserve or improve comfort while saving energy. In this paper, we propose a review of related works to IoT, Big Data Analytics in smart buildings.

Factors Influencing Consumer’s Willingness to Pay for IOT Products in Indonesia: Analysis of Tam and TRI Factors

The development of technology has emerged positively in these past years and Information Technology (IT) has become one of the potential sectors to have positive development. One of the trends of IT to look out for in 2020 is the Internet of Things (IoT). Globally, IoT has been a trend. The number of IoT connected devices in the world will be 38.5 billion used in 2020, and the market for IoT in Indonesia is expected to grow to 444 Trillion Rupiah in 2022.However, IoT is considered as a new kind of technology in Indonesia. In some conditions, even though the product has a breakthrough innovative value, but if the consumer is not ready to accept the product, it has a high opportunity to lose its sales. Using the smart garden as the IoT product example to gather the willingness to pay data from the market, this research wants to find out further about the factors that could affect the consumer’s willingness to pay (WTP) for IoT products. To identify the relationship between the readiness and acceptance of IoT products to the willingness to pay, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Technology Readiness Index (TRI)were used in this research. An external variable (Subjective Norm) is added in this research to test the social influence on people's decisions to use IoT products. Researchers use a quantitative method using purposivesampling and the analysis used is PLS-SEM analysis to test the hypotheses and measure the relationship between one variable to another. Contingent Valuation Method is also used to find out the desirable price of IoT products that the market wants.

The Role and Trend of Information and Communications Technology Towards a Pervasive Healthcare System

Technological innovations have played a significant role in the modern healthcare system. However, with increasing rate of human population relative to the available medical personnel and facilities, a sudden outbreak of epidemic diseases and its resultant spread into a pandemic may pose a risk to the wellbeing of human populace. Thus, state-of-the-art innovations in communication engineering and technology is able to provide a support mechanism to healthcare domain. This paper analyzed pillars and paradigms in information and communications technology (ICT) deployable in the healthcare domain and estimates a compliance index based on the subset in which the ICT pillars and paradigms are decomposed. The analysis revealed that technological advances in the areas of robotics and internet of things (IoT) paradigm presented a potential support mechanism for healthcare domain. Finally, the paper concluded with insight into the implementation of these technologies and other supporting pillars and paradigms towards a pervasive healthcare system, enlisted recommendations, and future directions.

Factors Affecting Financial Reporting Quality of Business Firms in Debre Markos Town

This study investigates the factors which affecting financial reporting quality of business firms In Debre Markos Town. The study adopts a mixed methods research approach by combining data gathering instruments of research questions, in-depth interviews and document analysis. The questionnaire data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlations, and logistic regression analysis and data from interview and document reviews were interpreted qualitatively. The findings of the study show that, that all the variables in the study affect the financial reporting quality; however, the degree of effect of each variable was different. Study found financial reporting quality is significantly and positively influenced by information technology, regulatory enforcement and audit trend. Regulatory enforcement and audit trend factors were positively and strongly correlated with financial reporting quality. Information technology factors has moderate and positive relationships. Business ethics and user’s needs has weak and positive correlation. The study suggests that improving usage of information technology, make frequent auditing and maintain regulatory enforcement uses helps to improve their financial reporting quality. Keywords : Financial reporting quality, Business firms, information technology, regulatory enforcement, business ethics, users need. DOI : 10.7176/RJFA/11-13-03 Publication date :July 31st 2020

SYNERGETIC APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF CONTROL SYSTEMS

The paper considers a new direction of scientific research - "synergetics". The key provisions and its development as a science are considered. The focus is on open feedback systems as objects of research. The properties of these systems - openness, nonlinearity, dissipation and multidimensionality, allow the use of a synergistic approach in the study. Due to new trends in information technology in recent years, interest in the new architecture of Software Defined Networks has grown. A programmable controller is used as a control mechanism for SDN networks. The connection between the logical controller and the physical network is made using the OpenFlow protocol. The graph of the network topology is presented as a set of key parameters that come to the controller. From the set of parameters, the key ones used in the study are selected. The dynamics of the ratio of key parameters under the condition of optimizing the network infrastructure is studied. The dynamics of the network corresponding to the stability condition is investigated by the methods of synergetic control theory. SDN network control is formed by methods based on the principle of self-organization of nonlinear systems. As a result, synergetic control is synthesized to increase the resistance of the control system to destructive influences. Based on the selected dynamic invariant, the possibility of providing the selection of the parameter of the SDN network management system for the transition to a controlled state is shown.

Recent trends in information technology and their applications in the near future

Recent trends in information technology and their applications in the near future

The Proposed Implementation of RFID based Attendance System

Recent trends in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) embrace several smartphone applications in a variety of educational and industrial domains in the last several years. This research focuses to solve one of the promising problems of an educational domain to take attendance smartly using the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system. Current attendance system in King Abdul-Aziz University (KAU) Saudi Arabia is partly solving the attendance problem. There are several problems in the existing attendance systems such as time-consuming, the chance of mistakes, truancy issues, no contact with parent/guardian and not efficient because of roll call as taking manual attendance. The proposed RFID based attendance system will provide robust, secure and automatic attendance. The proposed system will use modern technology and support to institutions and parents to deal with most of the problems of existing attendance systems. There are several other benefits of RFID based system such as web-based and mobile interfaces, daily absent report, an automatic SMS alert to parent/guardian, reduce administrative work, improve the ratio of attendance, economical and highly efficient. The case study method will be used as a research design. The proposed system is developed and tested in KAU Saudi Arabia. The proposed system will have both web and mobile interfaces. The web interface will need the Internet to access the proposed system and the mobile interface will use the Android platform for the testing scenarios. The user will access the system to generate customized reports to review the status of students for a particular course. It is anticipated that the proposed system will significantly improve students’ monitoring mechanisms hence enabling both parents and teachers in making appropriate decisions.

Conceptualisation of Hotel Guest Experience Assessment Process and Electronic Words of Mouth

The success of a hotel depends on the guests’ interpretation and reviews of their visit experience. Guests who perceived their visit experience as worthiness and satisfactory would circulate their experience to their acquaintances. In today’s information based era, their visit experience can be widely circulated through electronic word of mouth (e-wom) such as the social media. This paper aims to construct a research framework to study hotel guests experience responses as the result from their encounters with the hotel’s products and services during their stay. Unforgettable encounters would influence the guests’ future behaviour, starting with their commitment and eventually translated into reaction in the forms of electronic word of mouth responses. Methodically, an exhaustive review of the literature was carried out to establish a theoretical underpinning of hotel guests experience assessment process and their future responses. Perceived value and satisfaction are deemed as important measurements in the initial stage of the hotel guest visit experience outcomes. In line with the current information technology trends, the guests are expected to use electronic word of mouth to disseminate their visit outcomes. Academically, the study framework reduces the gaps related to the formulation of research constructs for hotel visit experience assessment. It is assertive that this paper would be practically beneficial to hotel operators or relevant stakeholders in order to gain a comprehensive understanding about hotel guests' visit experience responses and their future behaviour, including the electronic word-of-mouth response. Keywords: Commitment, electric word-of-mouth, hotel, perceived value, post visit responses, satisfaction.

Where in America Are the Tech Firms Going and Why: An Exploratory Analysis of Site Selection Trends in the Information Technology Sector Based on Incentive Packages from 1980 to 2018

This paper tracks the location trends of information technology (IT) firms in the United States for the last 4 decades to identify commonalities in place-based recruitment subsidy policies and strategies. Utilizing the Good Jobs First Subsidy Tracker database, examined are: a) specific subsidy amounts; b) the type of subsidy, based on the different federal, state, and local options and c) the source of the subsidy funds, be it state, local or federal. Using ArcGIS programming, the analysis maps out the spatial clustering for new location deals of 421 IT facilities from 1981 to 2018. The trends in location choice are used to offer a typology of sub-industry relocation classifications, based on NAICS codes. These relocation flows are then evaluated for job creation outcomes. The findings indicate that fairly remote locations seem to consistently have lower number of jobs created at much higher dollar amounts spent per new job, as compared to metro areas. A clear trend of moving away from Silicon Valley emerges, where most new jobs are created in the Northeast and Canada, as a function of the most generous subsidy packages.

Exploration of Smart Healthcare in the Context of Nurse Professionals in Developing Countries

In line with information and communication technology (ICT) trends, nursing practice and its preparations are expected to change fundamentally over the coming decade. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), issued by the United Nations, identify nurses as playing a significant role in achieving these goals and as using new technologies that will likely change how they deliver care to patients. Particularly for nursing care in developing countries, it is essential to emphasize the increased use and interoperability of electronic health records (EHR), mobile devices, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Four case studies, including the Malawi HIV system, community-based mobile APP in South Africa, the cloud base hospital information system (HIS) project in Marshall island, and smart hemodialysis in Vietnam, are examined in this article. In the near future, both information technology skills and interaction will have a significant impact on the nursing profession.

Task optimization and scheduling of distributed cyber–physical system based on improved ant colony algorithm

Cyber–physical system (CPS) is the product of technological development to a certain stage, and also is the future trends in information technology. High-performance computing ability is the guarantee of CPS’s real-time and accuracy applications, and the emergence of distributed technology provides the implementation possibility of high-performance CPS. Task scheduling is a typical combination optimization problem and the task allocation problem on multi-processor distributed systems refers to how to use system resources most efficiently in a distributed computing environment to complete a limited set of tasks. Based on the behavior of ants searching for food in nature, ant colony algorithm is a kind of positive feedback algorithm with good robustness and easy parallel implementation and has certain advantages for dealing with constraint satisfaction. In order to introduce an adaptive mechanism and mutation strategy, shorten the calculation time of ant colony algorithm, speed up CPS algorithm convergences, and improve distributed CPS prediction accuracy, this paper analyzed the research status and significance of ant colony algorithm, expounded the development background, current situation, and future challenges of task optimization and scheduling of distributed CPS, elaborated the principles and methods of ant colony optimization algorithm model and mathematical description of CPS task scheduling, proposed a task management model of distributed CPS based on improved ant colony algorithm, explored the task optimization scheduling of distributed CPS based on improved ant colony algorithm, and finally conducted an numerical simulation to test the effect the proposed algorithm and model. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm model enhances the local search ability and improves the quality of the task scheduling problem, and has good effectiveness, stability and adaptability. The study results of this paper provide a reference for the further research on the optimization and scheduling of distributed CPS tasks.

DistributedLedgerTechnologyforanImprovedIndex-BasedInsuranceinAgriculture

Climate insurance is already a hot topic due to the increased number of climate-related catastrophic events accompanied by associated losses for the economy in general and insurance companies, in particular. The extremely hot and dry summer of 2018 in some European countries highlighted existing weaknesses of the agricultural insurance mechanisms in Europe, where the farmers had to wait for months before compensation payments could bemade. Our paper aims to compare features of the yield-based insurance2and the index-based insurance (IBI)3in agriculture in the light of new developments and trends in information technologies (IT). The results show that an application of the distributed ledger technologies (DLT) in combination with IBI could not only resolve existing problems, but also facilitate development of the innovative insurance mechanisms at the EU level –providing effective protection against climate-related risks and preventing a systemic risk escalation

Association of the Meaningful Use Electronic Health Record Incentive Program With Health Information Technology Venture Capital Funding

Although the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act has accelerated electronic health record (EHR) adoption since its passage, clinician satisfaction with EHRs remains low, and the association of HITECH with health care information technology (IT) entrepreneurship has remained largely unstudied. To determine whether the passage of the HITECH Act was associated with an increase in key measures of health care IT entrepreneurship. This economic evaluation of venture capital (VC) activity in the US from 2000 to 2019 examined funding trends in health care IT, EHR-related companies, and all VC investments before and after the passage of HITECH. A difference-in-differences analysis compared investments in health care IT companies with those of companies in 3 categories: general health care (non-IT), IT (non-health care), and all US VC transactions. Data were analyzed from September 2018 to August 2019. Venture capital funding received by US companies before and after the HITECH Act. Venture capital investment in health care IT companies and the proportion of those investments going to seed-stage companies, a proxy for very early-stage entrepreneurship and innovation. The data included 70 982 investments, of which 9425 (13.3%) were seed stage, 10 706 (15.1%) were early stage, and 50 851 (71.6%) were growth stage. After passage of the HITECH Act, investment in both health care IT companies and EHR-related companies increased at a rate much faster (13.0% and 11.4%, respectively) than VC as a whole (6.9%). In addition, the proportion of investments going to seed-stage health care IT companies increased compared with both overall VC investments and non-IT health care investments. Health care IT companies saw increased probabilities of transactions being seed-stage of 5.1% (SE, 2.2%; 95% CI, 0.8% to 9.3%; P = .02) compared with the entire sample of VC transactions and 13.6% (SE, 1.9%; 95% CI, 9.9% to 17.2%; P < .001) compared with non-IT health care VC transactions. Health care IT had essentially 0 increased probability of a transaction being seed stage compared with IT companies outside health care (-0.8% probability; SE, 2.4%; 95% CI, -5.4% to 3.9%; P = .75). Although widespread clinician dissatisfaction with EHR systems remains a challenge, the HITECH Act's incentive program may have catalyzed early-stage entrepreneurship in health care IT, suggesting an important role for incentives in promoting innovation.

Simulation and modeling of an improved multi-verse optimization algorithm for QoS-aware web service composition with service level agreements in the cloud environments

Cloud computing is a new trend in information technology that provides resources and shares services by web services over the internet for users. Many web services have similar functionality with different quality of service (QoS) in the cloud. Thus, an appropriate service composition method is needed to assign an optimal composition of services to the users. Furthermore, service level agreement (SLA) which is the level of service expected from the service provider should be satisfied by the service composition method that less considered in previous studies. Introducing an appropriate algorithm for web service composition that could achieve high QoS while satisfying SLA constrains is one of the main issues in the cloud computing area. In this study, an improved multi-verse optimization algorithm for web service composition that is called IMVO algorithm is proposed to improve QoS while satisfying SLA. The simulation results show increasing of normalized QoS up to 57% in comparison with the other approaches, especially for service composition problems with SLA.

ЗАСТОСУВАННЯ ХМАРО ОРІЄНТОВАНИХ ТЕХНОЛОГІЙ ПІД ЧАС НАВЧАННЯ ІНФОРМАТИКИ МОЛОДШИХ БАКАЛАВРІВ

Стрімкий розвиток інформаційно-комунікаційних технологій вимагає оновлення всіх галузей суспільства, в тому числі й освітньої. Саме тому все більшої уваги приділяється питанням використання хмаро орієнтованих технологій, зокрема проблемі створення хмаро орієнтованого навчального середовища закладу освіти. Вдосконалення сучасних технологій та оновлення програмного забезпечення вимагає від закладів освіти та викладачів постійної зміни систем навчання та програмного забезпечення відповідно до сучасних тенденцій розвитку інформаційно-комунікаційних технологій. Одним із шляхів вирішення цієї проблеми є впровадження у навчально-виховний процес хмаро орієнтованих технологій. Хмаро орієнтовані технології є ефективним засобом наукової діяльності та управління освітнім процесом. В статті проаналізовано доцільність використання хмаро орієнтованих технологій під час навчання інформатики молодших бакалаврів закладів вищої освіти І-ІІ рівня акредитації. Зроблено аналіз означень хмаро орієнтованих технологій, з’ясовано діяльність усіх учасників навчального процесу та вимоги щодо їх наповнення. Дібрано хмаро-орієнтовані сервіси та додатки, які доцільно використовувати у навчально-виховному процесі закладу освіти. Розглянуто сервіси навчальної взаємодії (віртуальні класи, системи спільної роботи з додатками у хмаро орієнтованому середовищі, засоби для організації інтернет-конференцій та ін.). Зроблено детальний аналіз використання дистанційного курсу створеного на безкоштовному сервісі для підтримки навчання Google Classroom. З’ясовано, що сервіс Classroom є сучасним засобом оптимізації роботи викладача під час управління навчальною діяльністю студентів. Ефективності застосування хмаро орієнтованих технологій сприяють високій активності як студентів так і викладачів. Оволодіння хмаро орієнтованими технологіями дозволяє найбільш ефективно організувати навчальний процес.

A Survey of Interest Information Technology Trends: Undergraduate Student Viewpoint towards Business, Government and Academic Considerations

Information Technology (IT) Trends plays an important role in rapid adaptation of business, government, and academic sectors. This paper presents quantitative and qualitative analysis of IT trends survey results responded by IT undergraduate students. The technologies including in the IT trends were selected based on studies, reports from related sectors and well-known consulting firms. The questions used in the survey were passed the Index of Coherence (IOC) test from domain experts with high reliable level 63 (α = .96) The results show significant contributions toward survey objectives, which impact opportunities for improving knowledge and understanding of IT trends in business, government and academic perspectives.