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Information technology infrastructure (ITI) has gone through an exponential change due to the rapid evolution of digital technologies during the past few years. It is therefore relevant to identify the factors that push organizations towards the adoption of new technologies. This paper considers a specific case study of the higher education institutions (HEI) to present (i) the motivational factors that push HEIs toward the adoption of new technologies, and (ii) the key challenges HEIs face in the adoption of these technologies. The data was gathered after conducting 17 open-ended interviews with practitioners working at HEIs in Finland and Pakistan. Data analysis identified 10 motivational factors and 41 challenges faced by HEI in the adoption of the latest technologies. Furthermore, the data was further classified to identify broad themes and categories representing the challenges and motivation factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology for radiology has accelerated in the past decade, but its deployment in radiology practices has been slow. We take a sociotechnical approach and suggest that the limited use of AI in radiology practices can be attributed to a recurring tension between planned and emergent change. The paper contributes with a conceptualization and understanding of the tension during the procurement of AI for radiology. To balance this tension, we suggest that health organizations need to redefine the concept and scope of traditional procurement projects, with well-defined goals and project time. Instead, we propose that health organizations need to conceptualize their procurement and implementation projects of AI technology as evolving change processes. The study is based on an interpretive research approach and informed by the Information Infrastructure framework. Empirically, we study the procurement of AI solutions for radiology at a large health trust in Norway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development and implementation of Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) is one of the most transparent and practical approaches to curate research information on a national level. The process of building and implementing such systems is a complex and time consuming where successful results heavily depend on the established research information infrastructure of a country, the interoperability of the systems and the quality of the information which reside in them. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the existing Ukrainian Research Information Infrastructure and identify which databases could be reused and integrated with a national Ukrainian Current Research Information System (URIS). The analysis showed that there are functional databases and registries that collect data on research activities and could be used as a data sources for the URIS. In particular, the Unified State Electronic Database on Education is a potential data source on higher educational institutions, the National Repository of Academic Texts — on metadata on research output, internal database of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine and database on research projects maintained by Ukrainian Institute of Scientific Technical and Economic Information — on projects. Secondly, it was identified that Ukrainian research infrastructure lacks complete, up-to-date registry on researchers. Finally, we discussed the challenges and solutions for further steps in building national CRIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information technology (IT) service management is an essential part for development of a company's IT. This case study discusses how to convalesce IT services using the information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) framework and measure service level management (SLM) using Fuzzy ITIL (FITIL) approach. This paper aims to obtain an appropriate model for the measurement of IT service management by using fuzzy approach. Besides that, this paper aims to be able to provide an improving recommendations and IT governance based on current value (as is) and expected value (to be). The research method functioned is by measuring maturity level using best practice of ITIL v3 to condition before and after of improving process based on a questionnaire that has been performed. After obtaining the value of the maturity level for each cycle within ITIL, then the value will be created as an input for FITIL. The manufacture of FITIL is done in 4 stages, namely fuzzification, knowledge base, inference, and defuzzification. The results of the conditions before and after of the improving process have been successful in increasing the level of maturity in each ITIL cycle. The case study indicates an improvement in the increased level of maturity in SLM with FITIL approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this paper, continuing our research on designing a Network Security Intelligence Center (NSIC) as a combination of a Security Intelligence Center and a Network Operations Center, we applied the PDCA approach to its development in accordance with the requirements, which we formulated for its operations and self-protection. Following the Plan stage of this approach, we proposed a five-layered NSIC's infrastructure (including platform, software, service delivery, access and management layers) and its high-level zone security infrastructure with four zones: demilitarized, trusted, restricted and management zones. All of them are briefly described in the paper. The main area of short-term further work concludes the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supported by digital systems, closed loop medication management (CLMM) is considered an essential method to improve the quality of medication management in hospitals. This includes electronic ordering, verifying, preparing and administering medication. However, healthcare has so far seen very few fully working solutions of CLMM. We therefore pose the research question: What is the nature, challenges and consequences of CLMM in hospitals? We find that CLMM is highly resource demanding and implies a lot of engagement and workaround by health personnel. While some workaround are expected, we find that others may jeopardize patient safety. The paper contributes with an understanding and conceptualization of CLMM and proposes socio-technical strategies for using digital tools to increase the quality of the medication management process. Theoretically, we draw on the concept of information infrastructures, work practice perspectives and work system theory. Empirically, we present a study of the first hospital in Norway to have implemented CLMM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the 21st century is crowded with disruptive technologies and ground-breaking innovations, this study will take a step back and explore basic digital competence, such as navigating a spreadsheet or using word processing tools and e-mail to conduct tasks at work. Based on a case study approach where data is derived from iterative testing of 213 employees in the banking sector and 10 semi-structured interviews, we contribute to the literature of information infrastructure and knowledge management by addressing the basic digital level of competence amongst employees. We found that the level of basic digital competence was surprisingly low, especially regarding spreadsheets; however, our analysis revealed that the skills can be quickly improved. The challenge is rather to make employees aware of the possibilities and benefits of improvement. This paper presents insights that should be useful for employees and managers in banks and similar industries. It also reminds researchers within information systems to pay attention to basic digital competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information integration and analysis is the field of IT science established since the first data storages were created, and it keeps being a question of current interest for many researchers and developers all over the world in different business areas. This paper discusses approaches to the question, being developed and used for the management of mega-science experiment metadata, characterized by wide variety, vast volumes and continuously evolving structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A grid is an infrastructure for resource sharing. At present, many scientific applications require high computing power in processing, which can only be achieved by using the computational grid. For the selection and allocation of grid resources to current and future applications, grid job scheduling is playing a very vital role for computational grids. They constitute the building blocks for making grids available to the society. The efficient and effective scheduling policies, when assigning different jobs to specific resources, are very important for a grid to process high computing intensive applications. This paper presents an agent based job scheduling algorithm for efficient and effective execution of user jobs. This paper also includes the comparative performance analysis of our proposed job scheduling algorithm along with other well known job scheduling algorithms considering the quality of service parameters like waiting time, turnaround time, response time, total completion time, bounded slowdown time and stretch time. We also conducted the QoS based evaluation of the scheduling algorithms on an experimental computational grid using real workload traces. Experimental evaluation confirmed that the proposed grid scheduling algorithms posses a high degree of optimality in performance, efficiency and scalability. This paper also includes a statistical analysis of real workload traces to present the nature and behavior of jobs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The computing world is now populated with smartphones which combine the features of a phone with a general purpose computer and come loaded with sensors including digital cameras, global positioning system (GPS) receivers, accelerometers and many more. In this paper we argue that these devices are an ideal platform for collecting data for use in urgent computing simulations. We describe how these devices will have far reaching impacts on how people connect with and organize their communities and discuss how this coincides with the rise of community driven response to disasters and the need for decentralized command and control that is discussed in disaster management literature. We also that smartphones, by providing technology which can network people without the use of centralized infrastructure, and which are carried, used, and maintained as part of daily life, are a promising platform for building distributed disaster management applications, which could be part of the inputs provided to an urgent computing simulation. In this paper we describe not only the potential of the platform, but also analyze the challenges it faces in order to realize that potential, and discuss how our middleware is designed to meet these challenges and bring about the future of disaster management applications for smartphones using urgent computing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In many organizations, information system and IT infrastructure have been considered as the most strategic capital and valid information is an important factor leads to business success. In this paper we investigate IT effects on project risk management which is vital in any industrial and business activities as a continuous and forecasting process. Risk management involves identifying the potential risks, measuring, monitoring and controlling them in an organization to meet its strategies and objectives and causes to decrease the undesired effects in project life cycles. It also has a main rule in strategic management of the organization by controlling the threads. In this paper we have estimated the effects of IT usage on 50 Iranian oil companies by analyzing the data which have been provided by questionnaires. Three different indices-cost, time, and performance-have been utilized to evaluate information technology impact on risk management. Our results illustrate the positive impact of information technology on risk management especially in optimizing time of process rather than cost and performance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The significant impact of e-commerce (EC) on the livelihood or rural populations in developing countries like Iran has made this topic of popular interest to many researchers in the past decade. To take advantage of e-commerce, employing suitable models which are adaptive to the circumstances of villages in rural areas is indispensable. Iran is on track for achieving this goal, development of EC in Rural areas. Considering the importance of sharing rural ICT experiences, the trend and experiences of the Rural EC infrastructure in Iran are demonstrated in this paper. According to our research, Iran’s rural ICT network development started in 2000 with the far northern village of Shahkooh which is known as the first multi-media center of Iran. In 2004, Iran national strategic plan of Rural ICT built two well-equipped telecentres near the villages of East Livan and Gharnabad. Taking availability of data and the duration of operation al time to account, these two telecenters were selected for this paper. In 2005, UNESCO Tehran Cluster Office was empowered to carry out a study on the economic and social effect of rural ICTs to share with others, acting in this field at regional and social levels. In fact, in order to find applicable and durable solutions for economic, social and environmental problems, these projects were carried out in the rural areas of Iran. In this paper, a practical model of e-commerce for rural areas of Iran is proposed. Our research is based on quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The qualitative methods comprised of open-ended interviews with officials and telecentre operators. The proposed model is related to the national project known as “10000 Rural ICT Center” which was started in the year 2004. In this project, Rural EC services are part of the IT application services at the Rural ICT Centers which supply four services; Communication Services, IT services, Postal Services and E-Banking services. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In a MANET, mobile nodes must cooperate to dynamically establish routes using multi-hop wireless links. Some of the main challenges in this area related to routing protocols. These networks do not require any existing infrastructure or central administration. To make MANETs adaptive to different mobility and traffic patterns, this paper proposes a novel routing scheme which is utilized mobile agents and attempts to develop DSR protocol in MANETs with simple node-level management behavior resulting in overall system optimization. We develop a probabilistic multi-path routing algorithm and incorporates factors like signal strength into the route metrics so as to predict link breaks before they actually occur. in addition to signal strength and shortest-path metrics, our algorithm updates the goodness of choosing a particular path based on congestion measurement and energy level in each node. By All of the above improvements in DSR, the simulation results testify that our new Robust algorithm can be suitable in ad-hoc situations. We refer to the protocol as the Multi Agent based Adaptive DSR (MA-DSR). Finally, this paper proposes a new cross layer approach and some modifications in the MAC layer for RERR Analysis.. By this way, we can detect reason of RERR reception and apply proper mechanisms for performance improvement. We introduce yellow, red and black lists for decrease escaped, low energy, congested and insecure nodes chances in routing strategy. We expect that new condition aware MA-DSR, shows better performance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: As the trend to open up data and provide them freely on the Internet intensifies, the opportunities to create added value by combining and cross-indexing heterogeneous data at a large scale increase. To seize these opportunities we need infrastructure that is not only efficient, real-time responsive and scalable but is also flexible and robust enough to welcome data in any schema and form and to transparently relegate and translate queries from a unifying end-point to the multitude of data services that make up the open data cloud. Transparent relegation and translation relies on detailed and accurate data summaries and other data source annotations, and with increased data volumes and heterogeneity managing these annotations, it becomes by itself a challenging data problem. In this position paper we discuss (a) how a scalable and robust semantic storage can be developed, using indexing algorithms that can take advantage of resource naming conventions and other natural groupings of URIs to compress data source annotations about extremely large datasets; and (b) how query decomposition, source selection, and distributed querying methods can be designed, that take advantage of such algorithms to implement a scalable and robust infrastructure for data service federation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: With the increasing availability of high performance computing power, new possibilities with respect to simulation and analysis become available and feasible. One of such methodologies is data farming, where large amounts of data are generated through simulation of several configurations from large parameter space and then analyzed for patterns. Unfortunately, the availability of versatile data farming systems is very limited and none of existing solutions allows integration with novel Cloud solutions. In this paper, we present our system, which is a flexible solution for running very large Data Farming experiments on both intranet clusters as well as on remote computational resources, including public Clouds. Another important aspect of the presented system is the support of interactive Data Farming experiments with online analysis of partial experiment results and experiment extending capability. Sample application of our system is present on military mission planning support scenario. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, a descriptive - comparative analysis is used to compare the use of educational technology in the developed and developing countries. In European countries advanced information technology is used in working groups while African countries have been unable to independently create and use new technologies in their education system. Iran is investing in information technology to be able to build the infrastructure and then train people in the necessary skills to use information technology. The best development for developing countries is benefiting from experiences of developed countries and progressing in parallel. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Introduction: Today, eHealth is base of health services around the world, and electronic health records as an essential core element and its basic architecture for telehealth is considered. EHR offers many potential opportunities for healthcare systems we must focus on its challenges and related guidelines but for EHR deployment. The purpose of this paper is exploration challenges of EHR implementation and related guidelines in Isfahan. Methods: This is a qualitative study and we used the method of phenomenology, a in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 of Physicians, Managers and Clear Sighted persons who had experiences regarding with electronic health record. Conclusion: The researcher divided challenges into two areas of infrastructure and structural. Challenges of electronic health records infrastructure are due to information technology, lack of uniform definitions and concepts, cultural problems, and lack of needs assessment before implementation and the challenges of structural are due to instability enforced, violations of privacy and legal cases, compromise getting information management, and lack of integration and sharing of enterprise-level. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]