Search

The DarkNet is a purposefully hidden collection of disconnected web sites that are not indexed by conventional or mainstream search engines, are not accessible by conventional means, and requires specialised software, specific knowledge, and authorisation to gain access. While typically associated with illegality and criminality, there are an increasing number of legitimate organisations active on the DarkNet. While explored widely in Computer Science, Humanities and Social Science, Engineering and Medicine, there is a paucity of research in the business and IS disciplines. The objective of this summary paper is to introduce the DarkNet, summarise extant business and IS research, albeit limited, and outline a proposed model and set of propositions to explore a previously unexplored relationship in the business and IS literature, the antecedents and consequences of the participation of legitimate organisations on the DarkNet.

Increasingly, organisations are investing in smart workplace technology for managing their employees. This new reality is reflected in vociferous statements like “in ten years, no single decision within the HR domain will be made without a clear business case supported by statistical data” (Van den Heuvel & Bondarouk, 2017, p. 169) or data becomes the new oil in organisations (Tarnoff, 2017). For instance, Deloitte’s 2018 Global Human Capital Trends report shows that 84 percent of surveyed companies viewed the effective deployment of workplace technology as the second-most important trend for the upcoming years. At the heart of the literature on smart technology deployment for people management, has been a heated debate between a somber narrative regarding the dehumanisation of workplaces and a rosier narrative regarding the potential for technology to enhance work experiences (e.g., Malik, 2021). In this chapter, we take up on the perspective of both the technology and human on how datafication helps and hinders trust and collaboration in the workplace.

After COVID-19, tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death by an infectious disease in the world. This work presents a data set based on data collected from the Brazilian Information System for Notifiable Diseases (SINAN) for the period from January 2001 to April 2020 relating to patients diagnosed with tuberculosis in Brazil. The data from SINAN was pre-processed to generate a new data set with two distinct treatment outcome classes: CURED and DIED. The data set comprises 37 categorical attributes (including socio-demographic, clinical, and laboratory data) as well as the target class. There are 927,909 records of patients classified as CURED and 36,190 classified as DIED, totaling 964,099 records.

Darknet technologies are a transformative technology, particularly in the context of online social media. This paper explores social media platforms where user anonymity artificially constrains self-disclosure. It proposes a social media platform anonymity continuum that recognises how the emergence and growth of darknet social platforms - and the affordances of darknet technologies - have exposed conceptual limitations in our understanding of self-disclosure and technical and social anonymity on social media platforms.

Trust is regularly cited as one the main barriers for increased adoption of cloud computing, however conceptualisations of trust in cloud computing literature can be simplistic. This chapter briefly introduces the trust literature including definitions and antecedents of trust. Following an overview of cloud computing, we discuss some of the cited barriers to trust in cloud computing, and proposed mechanisms for building trust in the cloud. We present a high-level framework for exploring assurance (trust building) and accountability (trust repair) in the cloud and call for a more integrated multi-stakeholder approach to trust research in this multi-faceted context.

Cloud computing is the dominant paradigm in modern computing, used by billions of Internet users worldwide. It is a market dominated by a small number of hyperscale cloud service providers. The overwhelming majority of cloud customers agree to standard form click- wrap contracts, with no opportunity to negotiate specific terms and conditions. Few cloud customers read the contracts that they agree to. It is clear that contracts in cloud computing are primarily an instrument of control benefiting one side, the cloud service provider. This chapter provides an introduction to the relationship between psychological trust, contracts and contract law. It also offers an overview of the key contract law issues that arise in cloud computing and introduces some emerging paradigms in cloud computing and contracts.

Simulation has become an indispensable technique for modelling and evaluating the performance of large-scale systems efficiently and at a relatively low cost. ElasticSearch (ES) is one of the most popular open-source large-scale distributed data indexing systems worldwide. In this paper, we use the RECAP Discrete-Event Simulator (DES) simulator, an extension of CloudSimPlus, to model and evaluate the performance of a real-world cloud-based ES deployment by an Irish small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), Opening.io. Following simulation experiments that explored how much query traffic the existing Opening.io architecture could cater for before performance degradation, a revised architecture was proposed, adding a new virtual machine in order to dissolve the bottleneck. The simulation results suggest that the proposed improved architecture can handle significantly larger query traffic (about 71% more) than the current architecture used by Opening.io. The results also suggest that the RECAP DES simulator is suitable for simulating ES systems and can help companies to understand their infrastructure bottlenecks under various traffic scenarios and inform optimisation and scalability decisions.

Resumo. Através de dados fornecidos pelo Sistema de Informação de Agravos de Notificação (SINAN), de 2003 à 2018, foi constatado que o Estado do Amazonas possui um altíssimo índice de casos diagnosticados de malária. O presente artigo apresenta na análise desses dados por meio da aplicação do algoritmo de clusterização k-means e modelo de predição utilizando deep learning. O objetivo principal é predizer a quantidade de ocorrências de malária na região, apresentando modelos específicos por cluster. Inicialmente, este trabalho apresenta os resultados referentes a cidade de Manaus, que por sua particularidade, está isolada das demais cidades, em um cluster. Resultados mostram que o modelo Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) proposto apresenta um bom resultado, com RMSE de 0,0362.

Software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV) are making networks programmable and consequently much more flexible and agile. To meet service level agreements, achieve greater utilisation of legacy networks, faster service deployment, and reduce expenditure, telecommunications operators are deploying increasingly complex service function chains (SFCs). Notwithstanding the benefits of SFCs, increasing heterogeneity and dynamism from the cloud to the edge introduces significant SFC placement challenges, not least adding or removing network functions while maintaining availability, quality of service, and minimising cost. In this paper, an availability- and energy-aware solution based on reinforcement learning (RL) is proposed for dynamic SFC placement. Two policy-aware RL algorithms, Advantage Actor-Critic (A2C) and Proximal Policy Optimisation (PPO2), are compared using simulations of a ground truth network topology based on the Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP) Network, Brazil's National Teaching and Research Network backbone. The simulation results showed that PPO2 generally outperformed A2C and a greedy approach both in terms of acceptance rate and energy consumption. A2C outperformed PPO2 only in the scenario where network servers had a greater number of computing resources.

A Tuberculose (TB) e reconhecida como a doença mais mortal do mundo, segundo a World Health Organization (WHO). O Brasil e um dos países com alta carga de TB, e uma das maiores taxas de mortalidade do país encontrasse no estado do Amazonas. Os principais objetivos desse artigo são: uma análise dos dados de pacientes e óbitos por TB obtidos pelo SINAN e o de envolvimento de um modelo de deep learning (DL) que auxilie profissionais de saúde no processo de pós-diagnostico de pacientes com TB. Os dados Analisados mostram que as taxas de óbito aumentam para pacientes com agravos como Álcool ou Diabetes, além disso, a maioria dos casos são novos, contudo a taxa de óbito a cada 1000 pacientes com entrada Recidiva é alta também. Os modelos de DL apresentam resultados interessantes, alcançando em alguns casos, 80% de especificidade e 87% de sensibilidade.

Cloud Computing and Social Network Services (SNS) are some of the most controversially discussed IT developments in recent years. Huge expectations exist for Cloud Computing, providing lower costs of computing while increasing employment. However, Cloud Computing as well as Social Network Services may come with a substantial risk of losing data privacy. The project conducted on Cloud Computing Services and Social Network Sites addressed the potential and impacts of these technologies. The project report showed that (1) adequate data security and privacy are critical but difficult to achieve, that (2) more consumer protection is needed and that (3) the market for Cloud Computing is not growing as fast as initially forecast, resulting in a lower than expected increase of employment and lower contribution to GDP growth. The study was carried out between 2012 and 2013 on behalf of the European Parliament’s Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA) by the Danish Board of Technology (DBT), the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI), the Institute of Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ITA), the Irish Centre for Cloud Computing and Commerce at Dublin City University (DCU/IC4), and ITAS. In this article, we highlight findings from interviews, literature reviews, and case studies. In addition, selected contributions from a project workshop under the auspices of the 5th European Innovation Summit are presented, conclusions drawn, and finally key policy options presented.

Final report for the panel for science and technology option assessment (STOA) at the European Parliament.

Business School Techspectations is the second in a series of reports based on research by the DCU Leadership, Innovation and Knowledge Research Centre (LInK) at DCU Business School. With its roots in an Irish business school, it is no surprise that LInK’s mission is to strengthen the competitiveness, productivity, innovation and entrepreneurial capacity of the Irish economy. Ireland’s next generation transformation will be enabled by information and communication technologies (ICT) and digital participation by members of Irish society. As a university research centre we have an important role to play in supporting education, industry and government to accelerate this transformation.

Gifted Techspectations is the first of a series of reports based on research by the DCU Leadership, Innovation and Knowledge Research Centre (LInK) based in DCU Business School. With its roots in an Irish business school, it is no surprise that LInK’s mission is to strengthen the competitiveness, productivity, innovation and entrepreneurial capacity of the Irish economy. Ireland’s next generation transformation will be enabled by information and communication technologies (ICT) and digital participation by members of Irish society. As a university research centre we have an important role to play in supporting education, industry and government to accelerate this transformation. With support from DCU Business School, Enterprise Ireland’s Innovation Voucher Programme, DCU’s Learning Innovation Unit, Cambridge University Press and the Nominet Foundation amongst others, LInK has undertaken a wide variety of activities to accelerate digital participation. These include applied research projects, seminar programmes, workshops and occasional research papers. In the last twelve months, 22 seminars, 5 workshops, and two 3-week courses have been held and over 200 Irish businesses and schools have benefited from LInK-related digital participation activities. Influenced by the US ECAR and Pew Internet and American Life projects, these digital participation activities were brought together under the Techspectations initiative in June 2010. The objective of Techspectations is to create both a body of research and analysis on ICT usage and expectations by Irish society and an interface for Irish education, industry and government institutions.

This report is presented to the Print and Packaging Forum in fulfilment of the activities envisaged under Research Agreement signed between the Leadership, Innovation and Knowledge Research Centre DCU and the Irish Printing and Packaging Forum dated 15 July 2010. The remainder of this report sets out our research findings and response to the requirements set out in the Research Agreement. Section 3 sets out our approach and research methodology including limitations on this study and subsequent findings. Section 4 details the research findings. A survey was conducted of the industry to provide information on various aspects of its performance. Unfortunately no firms operating in the newspaper or paper sectors responded thus impacting on the representativeness of the survey. The main findings are summarised below. The vast majority of companies surveyed continue to be private Irish-owned firms. Sales performance of surveyed companies is in decline. The Industry faces competition internationally; the overwhelming majority of companies surveyed do not export. The respondents considered themselves relatively capable against Irish competitors however less competitive across nearly all areas against International competition. Particular factors in their lack of competitiveness are seen as raw material costs and access and overall relative cost position. Average employment is 20 persons, inferring a significant decline when compared to the 2005 Report. This confirmed supporting data from Forfas. On average over 55% of employees of respondent companies are operatives or crafts people. Less than 20% of respondent companies had vacancies compared to over half reported in 2005. Both overcapacity and low capacity usage remain features of the industry however expected lead times and time lost due to breakdowns has improved when compared to the 2005 Report. Average capacity utilisation for companies in the survey was 69% with over a third operating at below 60%. Over 80% of companies surveyed indicated that they undertake benchmarking; this is a significant increase on the level reported in the 2005 Report.

The higher education sector has become increasingly competitive and prospective students are adopting a consumerist approach to institution and programme choice. In response, higher education marketing has become more complex, market-oriented and business-like. Financial sustainability of open education resource (OER) projects is a widespread concern. This paper explores the extent to which a classical product placement framework can be applied to OERs to justify institutional funding in OER projects as a marketing investment. It is argued that OERs designed on this premise can increase cognitive, affective and conative brand outcomes while providing the traditional educational and societal benefits associated with OERs. A series of propositions are presented that may form the basis of a future research agenda.

Based on survey data from 374 incoming, first-year undergraduates of an Irish university business school, this study examines student ownership, usage and expectations of information and communications technology (ICT) and how these are influenced by student characteristics, such as gender, nationality, socioeconomic background, place of residence, and prior levels of ICT experience. Results indicate significant differences in technology ownership and usage attributed to gender, nationality, socioeconomic background, and place of residence. Additional differences in expectations of ICT-enabled learning activities related to student pre-entry ICT experience are also found. The findings present business schools with challenges and opportunities in addressing the technology needs of a diverse body of netgeners by developing infrastructure and learning strategies that match these needs with their wider experience and expectations of ICT.

Data breaches are rising in magnitude and cost, with technology and privacy threats advancing at a faster pace than privacy regulation. A more sustainable approach to privacy beyond regulation is required. Whilst privacy studies suggest that exceeding regulatory minimums reduces privacy incidents, there is a dearth of scholarship researching privacy activities beyond regulatory minimums. Organisations typically conduct activities beyond regulatory minimums in the nonmarket environment e.g., political and socially responsible activity. Thus, the nonmarket environment provides a starting point for insight into privacy activities beyond regulation. This research utilises a three-stage sequential mixed-methods approach. Each stage is underpinned by theories of control and justice. In the first stage, an Online Delphi Survey is conducted to develop a taxonomy of control-based and justice-based nonmarket privacy activities. A theoretical framework of four primary approaches to privacy in the nonmarket environment is then developed. In the second stage, a number of CSR (CSR) reports (n=90) are reviewed using thematic analysis (leveraging the taxonomy previously developed). Control and justice totals are then calculated for the privacy activities reported in these publications, enabling their approach to nonmarket privacy to be positioned in one of four primary nonmarket privacy orientations. In the third stage, a theoretical framework is developed, based on the Power Responsibility Equilibrium (PRE) theory. Using this framework, a number of hypotheses are formulated regarding the relationships between nonmarket privacy activities and consumer trust, privacy concern, and purchase intention/continuance intention. These hypotheses are explored quantitatively using an experimental vignette methodology (n=396 for the first experiment, and n=503 for the second experiment). Control is found to be associated with increased privacy concern, and reduced consumer trust and purchase/continuance intention. Justice is found to be associated with reduced privacy concern, and increased consumer trust and purchase/continuance intention. This research describes a typology of nonmarket privacy for the first time, and examines a previously unexplored phenomenon. This research extends PRE Theory to the context of nonmarket privacy activities. This research also extends CSR posture theory with the addition of an additional posture called the Warrior posture, and extends the three Generations of CSR with a Fourth Generation of CSR. The research findings provide insights which can assist organisations to address consumers’ privacy concerns and enhance their corporate reputation and bottom line results.

Borderless cloud computing technologies are exacerbating tensions between European and other existing regulatory models for data privacy. On the one hand, in the European Union (EU), a series of data localisation initiatives are emerging with the objective of preserving Europe’s digital sovereignty, guaranteeing the respect of EU fundamental rights and preventing foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies from accessing personal data. On the other hand, foreign countries are unilaterally adopting legislation requiring national corporations to disclose data stored in Europe, in this way bypassing jurisdictional boundaries grounded on physical data location. The chapter investigates this twofold dynamic by focusing particularly on the current friction between the EU data protection approach and the data privacy model of the United States (US) in the field of cloud computing.

Optimisation of (the configuration and deployment of) distributed cloud applications is a complex problem that requires understanding factors such as infrastructure and application topologies, workload arrival and propagation patterns, and the predictability and variations of user behaviour. This chapter outlines the RECAP approach to application optimisation and presents its framework for joint modelling of applications, workloads, and the propagation of workloads in applications and networks. The interaction of the models and algorithms developed is described and presented along with the tools that build on them. Contributions in modelling, characterisation, and autoscaling of applications, as well as prediction and generation of workloads, are presented and discussed in the context of optimisation of distributed cloud applications operating in complex heterogeneous resource environments. TRUE pub

Digital platforms connecting users and service providers have a central role in determining the value creation structure of ecosystems. Platform developers try to achieve a dominant position for the platform with a strong ecosystem around it. The size and attractiveness of the services can attract new users, and growing user volume can bring new co-operative service providers to the service partner network. An interesting question is how the presence of power and potential power asymmetry affect the value creation capability and the structure of a network around a platform? This chapter describes an example of value creation and the influence of power asymmetry in a digital ecosystem built around a cloud gaming platform. publishedVersion

The effective management of complex and heterogeneous computing environments is one of the biggest challenges that service and infrastructure providers are facing in the cloud-to-thing continuum era. Advanced orchestration systems are required to support the resource management of large-scale cloud data centres integrated with the big data generation of IoT devices. The orchestration system should be aware about all available resources and their current status in order to perform dynamic allocations and enable short time deployment of applications. This chapter will review the state of the art with regards to orchestration along the cloud-to-thing continuum with a specific emphasis on container-based orchestration (e.g. Docker Swarm and Kubernetes) and fog-specific orchestration architectures (e.g. SORTS, SOAFI, ETSI IGS MEC, and CONCERT).

A novel, general framework that can be used for constructing a self-organising and self-managing system is introduced. This framework is independent of the application domain. It embodies directed evolution, can be parameterised with different strategies, and supports both local and global goals. This framework is then used to apply the principles of self-organisation and self-management to resource management within the CloudLightning architecture.