Communication Technology

The importance of communication, information sharing and interoperability in an emergency response scenario have risen recently based on the frequency of disasters throughout the world and the wide range of severities and degrees of impacts. This work contributes to the area of emergency response communication qualitatively by presenting a systematic approach to develop an organizational communication model to improve overall emergency response. Establishing and accessing a reliable communication infrastructure at crisis is crucial in order to have accurate and real-time exchange of information. This work identifies a set of potential network oriented problems in existing inter-organizational communication protocols incorporating the information collected at several drill participations and interviewing the first responders. We conquer the complexity of a large, unique and unpredictable emergency response process by a top-down approach. We are constructing a high-level hierarchical ...

Scholars have long recognized the potential of Internet-based communication technologies for improving network research—potential that, to date, remains largely underexploited. In the first half of this paper, we introduce a new public dataset based on manipulations and ...

Data compression is one of the enabling technologies for the application of communication technology with ever growing Internet, explosive development of mobile communication and the ever-increasing impact of video communication to store the data in a compact way for minimum cost of storage and transmission. There are various compression techniques available which are capable of application specific large compression ratios.

SUMMARY This paper presents ACIS, an Autonomous Community Information System. ACIS is a proposition made to meet the rapidly changing users’ requirements and cope with the extreme dynamism in current information services. ACIS is a decentralized bilateral-hierarchy architecture formed by a community of individual end-users (community members) having the same interests and demands at specified time and location. It allows those members to mutually cooperate and share information without loading up any single node excessively. In this paper, autonomous decentralized community construction and communication technologies are proposed to assure a productive cooperation, a flexible and timely communication among large number of community members. The main ideas behind the proposed communication technology are: content-code communication (service-based) for flexibility and multilateral benefits communication for timely and productive cooperation among members. All members communicate produ...

An approach to watermarking digital signals using frequency modulation-'Chirp Coding'-is considered. The principles underlying this approach are based on the use of a matched filter to reconstruct a 'chirp stream'code that is uniquely robust. The method is generic in the sense that it can, in principle, be used for a variety of different signal (the authentication of speech and biomedical signals, for example). Further, by generating a bit stream that is signal dependent, chirp coding provides a method of self-authentication, ...

Purpose – This paper aims to determine how trust and perceptions shape uses of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in public access venues (libraries, telecentres, and cybercafés) in 25 developing countries around the world. Design/methodology/approach – As part of a global study conducted by the Technology & Social Change Group at the University of Washington, local research teams conducted surveys,

In 2001, a widely distributed email urged people to indicate 'Jedi' (from the movie Star Wars) as their religious affiliation on the National Census to be undertaken that year. The email, which may have originated from a prank, stated that if large enough numbers of people declared an affiliation to Jedi, the government would be forced to include it as a religion in future censuses. More than 70,000 Australians and 390,000 Britons heeded the call to action and recorded Jedi as their religion in the 2001 census. While the majority of people claiming affiliation to Jedism probably did so in a spirit of fun and/or rebellion, research suggests there are members of society who take the 'religion' quite seriously. The introduction and establishment of new religious beliefs once reliant on migration or trade is now facilitated by a global sharing of ideas through mass media and communications technology. Using Jediism and the events surrounding the 2001 National Census in A...

Purpose – To explore the use of LexiURL as a Web intelligence tool for collecting and analysing links to digital libraries, focusing specifically on the National electronic Library for Health (NeLH). Design/methodology/approach – The Web intelligence techniques in this study are a combination of link analysis (web structure mining), web server log file analysis (web usage mining), and text analysis (web content mining), utilizing the power of commercial search engines and drawing upon the information science fields of bibliometrics and webometrics. LexiURL is a computer program designed to calculate summary statistics for lists of links or URLs. Its output is a series of standard reports, for example listing and counting all of the different domain names in the data. Findings – Link data, when analysed together with user transaction log files (i.e., Web referring domains) can provide insights into who is using a digital library and when, and who could be using the digital library if...

New communication technologies offer novel possibilities for the prevention of mental illness, in which geographical and psychosocial distances often hamper help-seeking. This paper introduces ES[S]PRIT, an Internet-based eating disorders (ED) prevention programme for university students. The programme follows a stepped-care approach combining various support components of increasing intensity. These components comprise psychoeducation, symptom monitoring, supportive feedback, peer support, and professional online counselling. Participants who develop substantial ED symptoms during their participation are referred to the University Student Counselling Center. We outline the underlying concepts and various components of the programme and report first experiences with the approach in a sample of German college students. Finally, potentials of the approach are highlighted and the need for further research is stressed.

The advanced traveler information system (ATIS) is a type of intelligent transportation system application areas that implements emerging computer, communication, and information technologies to provide vital information to the users of a system regarding traffic regulation, route and location guidance, hazardous situations and safety advisory, and warning messages. ATIS requires a large amount of data for processing, analysis, and storage for effective dissemination of traveler information to users. A geographical information system (GIS) allows large data to be effectively processed, stored, analyzed, logically associated, and graphical displayed. Thus, GIS-based ATIS provides a convenient and powerful tool for storage and graphical representation of information, which can be useful users. Further, by availing the powerful GIS functionalities, a user can conceive a problem and allow the appropriate software to assist him in the decision-making process regarding optimum route selec...

Different institutions worldwide, such as economic, social and political, are relying increasingly on the communication technology to perform a variety of functions: holding remote business meetings, discussing design issues in product development, enabling consumers to remain connected with their families and children, and so on. In this environment, where geographic and temporal boundaries are shrinking rapidly, electronic communication medium are playing an important role. With recent advances in 3D sensing, computing on new hardware platforms, high bandwidth communication connectivity and 3D display technology, the vision of 3D video-teleconferencing and of tele-immersive experience has become very attractive. These advances lead to tele-immersive communication systems that enable 3D interactive experience in a virtual space consisting of objects born in physical and virtual environments. This experience is achieved by fusing real-time color plus depth video of physical scenes from multiple stereo cameras located at different geographic sites, displaying 3D reconstructions of physical and virtual objects, and performing computations to facilitate interactions between objects. While tele-immersive (TI) systems have been attracting a lot of attention these days, the advantages of enabled interactions and delivered 3D content for viewing as opposed to current 2D high definition video have not been evaluated. In this paper, we study the effectiveness of three different types of communication media on remote collaboration in order to document the pros and cons of new technologies such as TI. The three communication media include 3D video tele-immersive, 2D video Skype and face-to-face used in a collaborative environment of a remote product development scenario. Through a study done over 90 subjects, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of different media and propose a scope for improvement in each of them.

This paper explores patterns of adoption and use of information and communications technology (ICT) by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the southwest London and Thames Valley region of England. The paper presents preliminary results of a survey of around 400 SMEs drawn from four economically significant sectors in the region: food processing, transport and logistics, media and Internet services. The main objectives of the study were to explore ICT adoption and use patterns by SMEs, to identify factors enabling or inhibiting the successful adoption and use of ICT, and to explore the effectiveness of government policy mechanisms at national and regional levels. While our main result indicates a generally favourable attitude to ICT amongst the SMEs surveyed, it also suggests a failure to recognise ICT’s strategic potential. A surprising result was the overwhelming ignorance of regional, national and European Union wide policy initiatives to support SMEs. This strikes at the...

Recent discussions of the Internet have touted “virtual community” and a capacity to enhance citizen power in democracies. The present essay (a) calls for a more rigorous understanding of community; (b) suggests that relationships forged with the aid of electronic technology may do more to foster “categorical identities” than they do dense, multiplex, and systematic networks of relationships; and (c) argues that an emphasis on community needs to be complemented by more direct attention to the social bases of discursive publics that engage people across lines of basic difference in collective identities. Previous protest movements have shown that communications media have an ambiguous mix of effects. They do facilitate popular mobilization, but they also make it easy for relatively ephemeral protest activity to outstrip organizational roots. They also encourage governments to avoid concentrating their power in specific spatial locations and thus make revolution in some ways more difficult.

... P. Sooraj is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: sooraj@iem.iitkgp.ernet. in. Pratap KJ Mohapatra is a professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. ...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to consider factors affecting the effective utilisation of information and communication technology (ICT) and the adoption of more sophisticated ICT solutions in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in Lagos, Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts a case study approach. Semi‐structured interviews in 25 SMEs were used as tools for data collection.FindingsThe paper identifies eight key factors that affect the effective utilisation and adoption of more sophisticated or advanced ICT solutions in Nigerian SMEs.Research limitations/implicationsThe data for this research are drawn from a particular region in Nigeria, therefore, the findings are not generalisable to SMEs in other regions. Also, the data are collected from various industry sectors hence, it is not possible to have sector‐specific conclusions.Practical implicationsEffective utilisation of sophisticated ICT solutions in SMEs has great impact on SMEs' competitiveness. Al...

This paper presents findings from an initial analysis of new non-tariff trade cost estimates and their determinants, based on a bilateral database of comprehensive trade cost maintained by ESCAP. Results of the non-tariff policy-related trade costs modeling exercise strongly suggest that improving port efficiency (liner shipping connectivity) and access to information and communication technology facilities is essential to reducing trade costs.

With the development of new information and communication technologies (ICT), above all computers and the internet, new forms of online commerce have emerged. The gambling industry began using the power of the rapidly developing virtual market by offering its services in online casinos. The phenomenon of online gambling has encouraged researchers to direct their work into various areas, including the

Summary The main aim of this study was to asses and to compare the attitudes and satisfaction of university students toward two different teaching-learning systems they were involved in. One system is the traditional teacher-student meeting at classroom and the other is the distance learning by mean of communication technologies The Open University's "Ofek" project is a recent example of synchronous tutorial distance learning The research included 49 students, who took at least one advanced "Ofek" on-line class. All students are in an advanced stage of their studies in the field of social studies Independent one-sample t-test suggests that students would rather prefer studying through "Ofek", t (49) = 3.81; p< 0.01. Regarding frontal tutorials, students pointed out that the quality of teaching is not standardized and they were stress about succeeding in taking notes

Purpose – To develop a testable model for girls’ career choices in technology fields based on past research and hypotheses about the future of the information technology (IT) workforce. Design/Methodology/Approach – Review and assimilation of literature from education, psychology, sociology, computer science, IT, and business in a model that identifies factors that can potentially influence a girl’s choice towards or against IT careers. The factors are categorized into social factors (family, peers, and media), structural factors (computer use, teacher/counselor influence, same sex versus coeducational schools), and individual differences. The impact of culture on these various factors is also explored. Findings – The model indicates that parents, particularly fathers, are the key influencers of girls’ choice of IT careers. Teachers and counselors provide little or no career direction. Hypotheses propose that early access to computers may reduce intimidation with technology and that...