Ubiquitous Information Technology Research Articles

A Novel Diabetes Prediction Model in Big Data Healthcare Systems Using DA-KNN Technique

In the past decades, there is a wide increase in the number of people affected by diabetes, a chronic illness. Early prediction of diabetes is still a challenging problem as it requires clear and sound datasets for a precise prediction. In this era of ubiquitous information technology, big data helps to collect a large amount of information regarding healthcare systems. Due to explosion in the generation of digital data, selecting appropriate data for analysis still remains a complex task. Moreover, missing values and insignificantly labeled data restrict the prediction accuracy. In this context, with the aim of improving the quality of the dataset, missing values are effectively handled by three major phases such as (1) pre-processing, (2) feature extraction, and (3) classification. Pre-processing involves outlier rejection and filling missing values. Feature extraction is done by a principal component analysis (PCA) and finally, the precise prediction of diabetes is accomplished by implementing an effective distance adaptive-KNN (DA-KNN) classifier. The experiments were conducted using Pima Indian Diabetes (PID) dataset and the performance of the proposed model was compared with the state-of-the-art models. The analysis after implementation shows that the proposed model outperforms the conventional models such as NB, SVM, KNN, and RF in terms of accuracy and ROC.

The Power of Ethics: Uncovering Technology Risks and Positive Value Potentials in IT Innovation Planning

The digital transformation of the economy is accelerating companies’ engagement in information technology (IT) innovation. To anticipate which technologies will become relevant over time and integrate them in their innovation plans, companies often rely on product roadmaps as strategic tools. However, ethical issues resulting from ubiquitous IT use have shown the need to accommodate hyped technical advancements in information systems (IS) design and acknowledge human values with moral relevance. Scholars have argued that this moral relevance can only come from an ethical framework. The empirical study presented here investigates whether the three ethical theories of utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and deontology can complement traditional innovation planning approaches. The mixed-method study covers three IT products – a digital toy, a food-delivery app and a telemedicine system. The results reveal that the three ethical theories boost creativity around values and enrich IT innovation planning by supporting the acknowledgment of more and higher value principles (e.g., freedom or personal growth), more diverse value classes (e.g., individual and social values) as well as more original values (e.g., human contact) in system design. What is more, participants identify and mitigate potential social and ethical issues associated with the IT product. Against this background, the findings in this paper suggest that a “value-based roadmapping” approach could be a vital stimulus for future IT innovation planning.

The Medium Is the Environment: Digital materialism, climate crisis and digital art as pedagogy

This article examines the environmental implications of ubiquitous information and communication technologies (ICT) manufacturing, operations and usage, using the theories of new materialism and digital materialism, and offers an interactive video installation as a case study for contemporary digital art’s pedagogical potential in response to such environmental issues. Contrary to the imageries of the cloud and the notion of immateriality as promoted by the tech industry, digital media systems are grounded in the material world and operate at the expense of the material substrate. Such a sociopolitical landscape warrants an exploration of potential counter tactics in the fields of digital art and art education. Being informed by digital materialism and hinged on the notion that encounters with contemporary art can cultivate critical and different ways of knowing, this article proposes that a focus on the material can function as an antithesis to the abstracting act of information/data and its purported immateriality.

When IT Creates Legal Vulnerability: Not Just Overutilization but Underprovisioning of Health Care Could be a Consequence

We study the potential impact of the legal vulnerability created by ubiquitous information technology (IT) and provide insights into its unintended consequences in a typical healthcare screening context. Screening policies determine the level of care provision (i.e., whether to conduct a test) based on patient risk information. If IT shares risk information with physicians in the testing stage, follow-up decisions may be more accurate. Yet, physicians may also face heightened legal risk from increased information visibility. In this context, we examine the socially optimal screening (based on risk information) and follow-up policies (based on risk and test information). Litigation is generally associated with the overutilization of health care because of physicians’ defensive medicine practices. In contrast, we find that the strategic underprovisioning of health care through screening policies could be a consequence of information sharing in the presence of litigation concerns. The underprovisioning of health care is aggravated if the precision of risk information relative to that of the medical test increases or the physician becomes more self-interested and less patient oriented. However, limits on malpractice damages can alleviate the underprovisioning of health care.

المواطنة الرقمية وتقدير الذات والرضا عن الحياة: تقييم للفروق الجغرافية والديموغرافية بالمملكة العربية السعودية

Living in the new era of globalization has been enhanced by ubiquitous information and communication technologies. These advancements in communication technology introduce many consequences in a person’s life and impact the psychology of potential users and may lead to many psychological concerns. This study examines the impact of digital citizenship and considered the effects of digital life on self-esteem and the potential mediating role of life satisfaction. The cross-sectional research design uses a purposive non-probability sampling technique with a population of 2597 Saudis with formal education. Data were collected via multiple research questionnaires: to assess individuals ‘concept of digital citizenship, the Digital Citizenship Questionnaire developed by Nordin et al. (2016); to measure self-esteem, Webster et al. (2020) state self-esteem scale; and to measure life satisfaction, the Satisfaction with Life Scale developed by Diener et al. (1985). It has been observed significant associations fall the dimensions of digital citizenship with self-esteem and life satisfaction, while life satisfaction played a significant mediation role between digital citizenship and self-esteem. Findings of the results address useful insights about the digital citizenship construct and its relationship with psychological attributes of self-esteem and life satisfaction. The results will significantly contribute to the field of digital marketing, and digital network-based organizations and enhances the knowledge about digital citizenship along with the responsibilities and ethical use of digital technology in the respective firms.

Digital Competences of Prospective Engineers and Science Teachers: A Latent Profile and Correspondence Analysis

In the light of ubiquitous information and communication technologies (ICT) it is essential for everyone to be digitally competent. This is particularly true for prospective engineers and teachers since their jobs play an important role in shaping our common future. We assessed engineering and science teacher students’ (n=180) digital competences at two higher education institutions in Germany using the DigComp framework. Applying a group comparison using t-Test analysis we found no differences in the level of digital competences. However, the subsequent latent profile analysis followed by correspondence analysis revealed that high digital competences correspond with a frequent use of various ICT, supporting the theory of the importance of implicit learning. Secondly, the data points towards a reproduction of the patterns of the digital divide showing the influence of socio-economic background and gender on the expression of digital competences. Recommendations for agents (student advisory services, companies, etc.) that wish to support and improve students’ digital competences are incorporated in the conclusions.

A scalable factory backbone for multiple independent time-sensitive networks

Convergence of time-sensitive machine control networks as part of the operational technology (OT) with the ubiquitous information technology (IT) networks is an essential requirement for the ongoing digitalization of production. In this paper, we review the fundamental differences between both technologies, the challenges to be solved, existing and upcoming solutions like TSN and their limitations. Furthermore, we introduce an Ethernet extension for a backbone network at factory scale and line rates of 10 - 100Gbit/s. The backbone is intended to carry massive amounts of IT traffic together with the traffic of multiple independent OT networks at the precision of leading-edge field bus technologies in the sub-microsecond range. The backbone remains transparent and does not require changes to the attached OT sub-networks. We prove our claims by prototype measurements, interoperability tests and field trials.

‘Good to know’: An Exploration of the role and Influence of Professional Ethics in ICT Bodies of Knowledge (BoKs)

As our dependency on ever-more complex, opaque, and ubiquitous information and communication technologies (ICTs) increases, ethical concerns about the development of those technologies are also rising. One approach to mitigate these concerns is to improve the maturity of the ICT profession through codification of its knowledge base and professional ethics. In this paper, some key theoretical approaches to ethics with a long-established tradition within Philosophy are explored and how these approaches may manifest in the codification of knowledge within ICT Bodies of Knowledge (BoKs) is discussed. BoKs provide a common vocabulary and knowledge inventory to aid communication and encourage shared values and practices, particularly in emerging professional areas such as the ICT profession. Thus, identifying and understanding how ethics are codified in ICT BoKs is important for maturing ICT professional practice in general, and more specifically, for the resolution of ethical concerns. This paper 1) explores considerations and approaches to how ethics are incorporated within ICT BoKs, and 2) conducts content analysis on how ethics are codified within the content structure of ICT Boks. It is found that theoretical ethical approaches are rarely explicated cited in BoKS though, in the more mature BoKs, the discussion of ethics does include consideration of most of the major philosophical approaches. The implications of how knowledge about ethics is described and integrated into the wider knowledge infrastructure of the ICT profession including curriculum guidelines and accreditation processes is discussed. In a wider contribution to the Knowledge Management discipline, potential lessons to increase maturity for other emerging professions through the development of BoKs are also outlined.

Amendments beyond traditional borders and the role of globalisation in the constitutional changes

The 21st century, globalisation and modernisation have necessitated changing and amending of contemporary constitutions. This paper examines the relationship between recent constitutional changes and globalisation. More specifically, the paper explores trends and tendencies of constitutional changes in the context of globalisation with an eye on how ubiquitous information technologies have shaped constitutional revisions sometimes to the point of acknowledging and limiting their sovereignty, via the terms of treaties and transnational trade agreements. In this paper, we will see that constitutionalism, influenced by globalisation and its complexity, has developed beyond its traditional, nation-state borders. Globalisation has shaped even the national legal system of countries, has brought limitation of sovereignty in countries like China or Netherlands, this in the name of economic, social development and integration. Information technology trends also have played a role in the constitution-making process and in the process of changing or amending the constitution in different states. In this regard Germany, Italy, Albania and Kosovo are our case studies to explore the role of globalisation in the revision of recent constitutional changes.

Amendments beyond traditional borders and the role of globalisation in the constitutional changes

The 21st century, globalisation and modernisation have necessitated changing and amending of contemporary constitutions. This paper examines the relationship between recent constitutional changes and globalisation. More specifically, the paper explores trends and tendencies of constitutional changes in the context of globalisation with an eye on how ubiquitous information technologies have shaped constitutional revisions sometimes to the point of acknowledging and limiting their sovereignty, via the terms of treaties and transnational trade agreements. In this paper, we will see that constitutionalism, influenced by globalisation and its complexity, has developed beyond its traditional, nation-state borders. Globalisation has shaped even the national legal system of countries, has brought limitation of sovereignty in countries like China or Netherlands, this in the name of economic, social development and integration. Information technology trends also have played a role in the constitution-making process and in the process of changing or amending the constitution in different states. In this regard Germany, Italy, Albania and Kosovo are our case studies to explore the role of globalisation in the revision of recent constitutional changes.

On Landscape Architecture Education and Professional Practice and Their Future Challenges

Increased environmental and social risk, ubiquitous information technology, and growing demands for and growing threats to democracy and public participation will alter the education and practice of all the design professions and the geographically oriented sciences, and the ways in which their activities towards influencing environmental and social change are organized and carried out. We all know about these trends, but we do not take them seriously enough. We are not adapting fast enough towards education or professional practice that is collaborative and globally oriented.

Zagubione obszary polskiej pedagogiki. Część 2

<p>W niniejszym opracowaniu przedstawiono katalogi problemów zestawiające najważniejsze z zagubionych obszarów polskiej pedagogiki. Uwagę zwrócono na konieczność jasnego określenia misji nauk pedagogicznych. Nie może ona pomijać odpowiedzi na pytanie o istotę człowieka (problemy antropologii i aksjologii). Te zaś nawiązują do filozoficznych podstaw współczesnej pedagogiki. Przyjęty obraz człowieka wskazuje na atrybuty podmiotu: człowieka jako osoby (uzupełnienie paradygmatu naturalistycznego paradygmatem humanistycznym). W odniesieniu do tych atrybutów człowieka odnosi się działalność pedagogiczną. Jej istotą jest wspomaganie procesów rozwojowych. Nie mniej ważne jest to wszystko, co wiąże się z tzw. dziedzinami wychowania (edukacji). Istnieje konieczność rezygnacji z upowszechnionego w tym zakresie addytywizmu. Jak należy postrzegać tę problematykę w świetle wymagań metodologii badań systemowych i wyzwań współczesnej cywilizacji wiedzy? Wszystko to znajduje odzwierciedlanie w zagubionej problematyce aksjologii pedagogicznej oraz problematyce wychowania w świetle i ku wartościom. Problematyka uczenia się człowieka – w kontekście wszechobecnych technologii informacyjnych – także wymaga nowego ujęcia, a to reorganizuje problematykę dydaktyk szczegółowych, w tym edukacji zawodowej.</p>

The impact of mobile phone use on farmers’ livelihoods in post-insurgency Northeast Nigeria

The most ubiquitous information and communications technology (ICT) in the hands of the common man today is the mobile phone. Most existing literature on the impact of mobile phones in farming has examined the various components of the farming cycle in isolation, and failed to holistically account for the complex interactions and relationships between these components. In this study, we combine the strengths of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) and Systems Theory (ST) as a theoretical lens to understand the impact of mobile phone use in farming and its developmental contributions on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in post-insurgency northeast Nigeria. On the basis of empirical data and literature, we develop a qualitative system dynamics model depicting mobile phone use in farming. The main feedback loops show that the greatest bane to farming in the area is insecurity and climate variability. However, better access to information and communications afforded by mobile phones empowers farmers and enables them to overcome these vulnerabilities. The use of feedback loops in analysis provides rigour and depth to the findings due to their ability to demonstrate the interdependencies between system components. We contribute to knowledge and inform practice by extending the understanding of the impact of mobile phone use in farming through system dynmics modelling.

Is Employee Technological “Ill-Being” Missing from Corporate Responsibility? The Foucauldian Ethics of Ubiquitous IT Uses in Organizations

The ethical issues introduced by excessive uses of ubiquitous information technology (IT) at work have received little attention, from either practitioners or ethics scholars. This article suggests the concept of technological ill-being and explores the ethical issues arising from such ill-being, according to the individual and collective responsibilities associated with their negative effects. This article turns to the philosopher Michel Foucault and proposes a renewed approach of the relationship among IT, ethics, and responsibility, based on the concepts of practical rationality, awareness, and self-engagement. This article reports a case study of an international automotive company actively engaged in both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ubiquitous IT deployment. Technological ill-being is an expression of the tension between an individual’s social attributes and aspirations when using modern IT and a system of norms, rules, and values imposing constraints on him or her. We identify the reasons for the lack of consideration of technological ill-being in CSR through identification of the inclusion–exclusion principle. The resulting critical, comprehensive approach to corporate responsibilities and IT uses incorporates the ethical implications of the latter, highlights the practical rationality of their relationship, and demands both individual and collective responses, through a call for collective ethical awareness and self-engagement. The findings prompt a Foucauldian ethics of IT use in organizations, which emerges in a mutually constitutive relationship between the self, as a moral subject of own actions, and broader organizational principles, in which CSR appears as a techne (i.e., a practical rationality governed by conscious aims).

A Scalable and Hybrid Intrusion Detection System Based on the Convolutional-LSTM Network

With the rapid advancements of ubiquitous information and communication technologies, a large number of trustworthy online systems and services have been deployed. However, cybersecurity threats are still mounting. An intrusion detection (ID) system can play a significant role in detecting such security threats. Thus, developing an intelligent and accurate ID system is a non-trivial research problem. Existing ID systems that are typically used in traditional network intrusion detection system often fail and cannot detect many known and new security threats, largely because those approaches are based on classical machine learning methods that provide less focus on accurate feature selection and classification. Consequently, many known signatures from the attack traffic remain unidentifiable and become latent. Furthermore, since a massive network infrastructure can produce large-scale data, these approaches often fail to handle them flexibly, hence are not scalable. To address these issues and improve the accuracy and scalability, we propose a scalable and hybrid IDS, which is based on Spark ML and the convolutional-LSTM (Conv-LSTM) network. This IDS is a two-stage ID system: the first stage employs the anomaly detection module, which is based on Spark ML. The second stage acts as a misuse detection module, which is based on the Conv-LSTM network, such that both global and local latent threat signatures can be addressed. Evaluations of several baseline models in the ISCX-UNB dataset show that our hybrid IDS can identify network misuses accurately in 97.29% of cases and outperforms state-of-the-art approaches during 10-fold cross-validation tests.

P2P surveillance in the global village

New ubiquitous information and communication technologies, in particular recording-enabled smart devices and social media programs, are giving rise to a profound new power for ordinary people to monitor and track each other on a global scale. Along with this growing capacity to monitor one another is a new capacity to explicitly and publicly judge one another—to rate, rank, comment on, shame and humiliate each other through the net. Drawing upon warnings from Kierkegaard and Mill on the power of public opinion to produce conformity, I argue a new apparatus of surveillance and control is being generated that threatens individual freedom through a coercion of the will by an anonymous and interconnected crowd. I conclude that we must urgently assess how to protect individuals from a social tyranny of the public enabled by these new technologies while effective measures can still be taken to mitigate their dangers.

Customization and augmentation of experiences through mobile technologies: A paradigm shift in the analysis of destination competitiveness

Happiness and subjective experiences receive growing attention in the business and economic literature as a central force that determines consumer satisfaction. This process is supported, to a great deal, by technological developments in the form of portable and ubiquitous information, communication, and location technologies. In this article, we argue that the interaction of tourists with the destination is becoming mediated through technological apparatuses and thus products that are being consumed are becoming increasingly personalized. We call for a paradigmatic shift in the analysis of tourist experience and destination competitiveness which should build on the following four elements: (1) utilizing advanced methodological tools that rely on mobile and sensor technologies, (2) adopting disaggregated research approach toward experiences, (3) employing high spatial resolution analysis to allow a precise investigation of content- and place-specific experiences, and (4) avoiding the traditional differentiation between destinations as suppliers of attractions and tourists as passive consumers.

High Deductibles and Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck: A Loan-Based Model for Primary Care Coverage

To date, healthcare funding models have been limited to insurance, savings programs, and unreimbursed care, with insurance being the dominant model. However, many modern insurance panels include deductibles which are fundamentally incompatible with the reality that many Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck. By reexamining old assumptions of how healthcare should be funded, in the context of a modern society with ubiquitous information technology, a new model could alleviate a common source of frustration for voters while preserving recent policy advancements. This paper outlines a proposal which could bridge the coverage gap created by high deductible levels, which are common in both ACA exchange plans and many employer provided plans today, using a loan-based approach. Such an approach would seem to greatly reduce the rather substantial transaction costs in healthcare by simplifying most transactions and provide a more patient-centered approach for common transactions up to a deductible limit. A specific proposal of how to implement such a proposal, using existing systems, is presented and payment scenarios are also presented. On the provider-side, debit card processing systems, which are widely used to process health savings account (HSA) payments, could be combined with something like the federal student loan program for loan repayment. The federal student loan program provides substantial funding with highly flexible repayment terms in a manner which is currently slightly profitable to taxpayers. Combining these two existing systems could provide much needed relief to patients in a way which is more patient-centered, reduces cost, expands coverage, and at minimal cost to taxpayers. Additionally, we show how the current health savings account framework could facilitate this if IRS regulations we modified to: 1) allow accounts to carry negative balances and 2) make interest expense related to medical care an allowable expense.

When IT Creates Legal Vulnerability: Not Just Overutilization but Underprovisioning of Health Care Could be a Consequence

We study the potential impact of the legal vulnerability created by ubiquitous information technology (IT) and provide insights into its unintended consequences in a typical healthcare context. Informed by algorithmic predictions based on risk information, screening policies determine the level of care provision (i.e., whether to conduct a test). When such predictions are provided to physicians via IT in the testing stage, follow-up decisions could be more accurate. Yet, physicians may also observe heightened legal risk due to increased information visibility. In this context, we examine the socially optimal screening (based on risk information) and follow-up policies (based on risk and test information) in light of increased visibility of patient data due to health IT and possible litigation risks associated with it.We nd that strategic underprovisioning of health care, therefore a lower utilization of health care services, through screening policies could potentially mitigate the adverse impact of health IT. The underprovisioning of health care is aggravated if the precision of the risk factors relative to that of the medical test increases or the physician becomes more self-interested and less patient-oriented. On the other hand, limits on malpractice damage can alleviate the underprovisioning of health care.

Global Governance of the Embedded Internet: The Urgency and the Policy Response

This paper addresses the need to bring the Internet of Things and associated technologies under a global policy regime, built on the newly independent ICANN, acting in an expanded capacity as a recognized non-territorial, multi-stakeholder-based, sovereign entity under agreed and transparent normative standards. The phrase “Internet governance” is highly contested over its technical, security, and sociopolitical aspects. Until recently, however, it had not been imagined to include networked devices with embedded intelligence, such as smart cars, smart watches, smart refrigerators, and a myriad of other devices. A rapidly emerging issue is how, if at all, the current global Internet governance regime relates to the emerging array of ubiquitous embedded information technologies which collect, store, process, learn from, and exploit information about all aspects of our lives. Does this call for a policy response? This is a non-trivial issue, as it binds together the Internet of Things, big data analytics, cloud computing, and machine learning/artificial intelligence into a single, integrated system. Each component raises policy issues, but the bigger challenge may be unintended adverse consequences arising from their synchronous operation. Because of the inherently global nature of the underlying network, which seeks to connect “everything to everything else,” it is important to give consideration to whether these developments should have a central point of global policy development, coordination, and oversight. This paper answers that question in the affirmative and, after reviewing multiple candidates which have been proposed, concludes that the emerging post-U.S. ICANN is most fit for that role. The authors believe it is important to keep the centers of technical and policy expertise together and efficiently available. The authors recognize that such governance is not a “singular system,” and that some issues, such as cybersecurity, may find other homes, perhaps even treaty-based. The paper further argues that “new” ICANN, largely formally severed from the U.S., and with a revised and expanded role for governments in its management, has a very strong claim for legitimacy and non-territorial sovereignty. On that basis, it may feel more secure in expanding the scope of its mandate – indeed, there will likely be considerable pressure to do so. Another critical factor is the uncertainty about the normative values that underpin, or in some cases undermine, global Internet governance. These values will continue to be contested, but there is already some broad acquiescence to general principles from the United Nations, which can form the basis for a transparent discussion in a multi-stakeholder venue about which norms and values are most appropriate to guide policy actions. Some of these policy alternatives are presented and discussed. This topic, and the approach to it, are novel in the respect that very little work has been done in this area. The paper builds on, and considerably extends, that work.