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The article discusses the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in economic production and energy consumption in the U.S. It states that big cost reductions and significant new ICT innovations have merged to push the expansion and diffusion of latest applications. It also notes that ICT innovations has caused higher levels of economic productivity and increased the cost-effective energy savings of the country's economy. Several evidences of the impact of ICT innovations are also presented including increase of total energy savings of the U.S. economy, the actualization of ICT-driven energy savings, and the reduction of economic energy waste and increase in energy efficiency.

Many humanitarian organizations in the United States work with the information of undocumented migrants to help them secure services that might otherwise be unattainable to them. Information and communication technologies can help their work, but can also significantly exacerbate the risks that undocumented individuals are facing, and expose them to security breakages, leaks, hacks, inadvertent disclosure, and courts requests. This study aims to provide a preliminary understanding of the information practices and systems that US humanitarian organizations employ to protect the privacy of the undocumented individuals they serve. To do so, we conducted interviews and an analysis of organizations' working documents within humanitarian organizations on the US West Coast, including advocacy groups and organizations with ties to higher education. Our outcomes show gaps between current legal standards, technology best practices, and the day‐to‐day functioning of the organizations. We contend the necessity of support to humanitarian organizations in further developing standards and training for digital privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has triggered enormous innovation in the public sector and created positive public value at the managerial, delivery of services, and policy levels. However, these positive outcomes do not automatically accrue simply by adoption of ICTs as public leaders can fail to adopt relevant new ICTs, use them poorly, or use them in ways that actually diminish public value, which raises the question of the importance of e‐leadership. This article examines e‐leadership and innovation capacity at the individual public manager level and fills in some gaps about the practice and implementation of ICTs in the public sector. We explore eight research questions useful in theorizing about e‐leadership, develop constructs of e‐leadership, and describe the current development of e‐leadership. By comparing e‐leadership in two country settings (South Korea and the United States), we also overcome the limitations of the existing Western‐oriented studies about innovations in the public sector. In addition to the growth of e‐leadership use and requirements for a variety of competencies equivalent to, but separate from, traditional communication competences, we find that national cultures exert significant influence on the major constructs of e‐leadership, which implies that an effective e‐leadership strategy should consider cultural contexts seriously. This article fills in gaps about the practice and implementation of ICTs at the individual public manager level in South Korea and the United States. We explore eight research questions about e‐leadership, develop constructs of e‐leadership, and describe the current development of e‐leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need to understand antecedents to US teens' use of information and communication technology (ICT). Research on the "digital divide" for access to ICT reports conflicting findings based on gender and demographic factors of parent income and education. This study expanded the "tool‐will‐skill" framework to examine how demographic factors, access to ICT tools, teen will factors and social networking skill explain variation in Internet use among US teens. The study analyzed national data from Pew Research Center's survey of 1,060 US teens. Principal component analysis (PCA) identified six latent variables for teen will. A pre‐diagram depicts a conceptual framework and causal assumption of relationships between demographic factors, tool factors (ie, Internet access, smartphone access and tablet access), will factors (from PCA) and skill factors (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter). Multiple linear path analysis was conducted, and results reported. Recommendations are suggested for instructional practice, educational policy and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article addresses an important yet often neglected component of electronic civic engagement efforts: managerial ambivalence about public participation. We examine how managers’ beliefs about public participation and their perceived needs for participation in agency decision making work together to shape electronic engagement efforts. Based on observational data collected in 2010 and 2014 and data from a 2014 survey of managers in 500 U.S. municipal governments, we find that managerial beliefs about participation and their perceived needs for participation are two valid and separate constructs. There is a positive relationship between managerial beliefs and electronic engagement. Perceived needs for participation interact with managers’ beliefs to affect electronic civic engagement. A high level of perceived needs for participation reinforces the effect of managerial beliefs on electronic engagement efforts, but a low level does not offset the effect of managerial beliefs on electronic engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the secular decline in gross interstate migration in the United States from 1991 to 2011. We argue that migration fell because of a decline in the geographic specificity of returns to occupations, together with an increase in workers' ability to learn about other locations before moving. Micro data on earnings and occupations across space provide evidence for lower geographic specificity. Other explanations do not fit the data. A calibrated model formalizes the geographic specificity and information mechanisms and is consistent with cross-sectional and time-series evidence. Our mechanisms can explain at least half of the decline in migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technology ( ICT)-enhanced research methods such as educational data mining ( EDM) have allowed researchers to effectively model a broad range of constructs pertaining to the student, moving from traditional assessments of knowledge to assessment of engagement, meta-cognition, strategy and affect. The automated detection of these constructs allows EDM researchers to develop intervention strategies that can be implemented either by the software or the teacher. It also allows for secondary analyses of the construct, where the detectors are applied to a data set that is much larger than one that could be analyzed by more traditional methods. However, in many cases, the data used to develop EDM models are collected from students who may not be representative of the broader populations who are likely to use ICT. In order to use EDM models (automated detectors) with new populations, their generalizability must be verified. In this study, we examine whether detectors of affect remain valid when applied to new populations. Models of four educationally relevant affective states were constructed based on data from urban, suburban and rural students using ASSISTments software for middle school mathematics in the Northeastern United States. We found that affect detectors trained on a population drawn primarily from one demographic grouping do not generalize to populations drawn primarily from the other demographic groupings, even though those populations might be considered part of the same national or regional culture. Models constructed using data from all three subpopulations are more applicable to students in those populations than those trained on a single group, but still do not achieve ideal population validity-the ability to generalize across all subgroups. In particular, models generalize better across urban and suburban students than rural students. These findings have important implications for data collection efforts, validation techniques, and the design of interventions that are intended to be applied at scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop the concept of digital assemblages in order to advance current theorising on the ways in which information and communication technologies ( ICTs) are helping to reshape work. The empirical setting is the US residential real estate industry-a 'living laboratory' for studying information-intensive work and the adoption and uses of ICT. We find that real estate agents' uses of ICT are pervasive and suggest that agents now embed themselves more deeply into the transacting of real estate by actively supporting buyers and sellers, rather than acting primarily as information intermediaries. Building from this, we theorise that this ICT use can more coherently be understood as a 'digital assemblage' rather than a formal information system. Digital assemblages are characterised as distinct patterns of ICT collections that, in use, are functionally equivalent and structurally similar, relying on standardised and commodified ICT and are neither formally designed nor collectively governed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although communication is largely understood as a prerequisite for transnational activity, little research explores exactly how transnational communities use media and what the implications of media use are for transnational civic and political participation. Research from communication studies suggests that media can affect civic and political participation in various, sometimes contradictory, ways. In an effort to merge literature from transnational and communication studies, in this study I focus on the case of Mexicans in the USA, offering secondary analyses of two datasets concerning their communication habits and civic and political participation in Mexico. Results suggest differential effects on participation based on preferences for certain media and pre-existing attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professionals and entrepreneurs returning to developing countries from developed countries play key roles in the technological 'catch-up' of their home countries, but they are rarely well-conceptualized by the theories of globalization. This is especially the case in Asia. The American-trained Chinese engineers who returned to Taiwan were instrumental in creating Taiwan's excellent semiconductor industry during the 1980s and 1990s. In a similar vein, since the late 1990s, Chinese professionals returning to the mainland have also emerged as the most innovative industrial and capital agents in the technological industry. In this article we compare the roles and business strategies of transnational entrepreneurs on the two sides of Taiwan Strait in the information communication industry (ICT). While these Chinese returnees share striking similarities in their educational and personal trajectories, we identify major structural differences underlying their particular resources and commercial strategies. These empirical findings move beyond the assumptions of common behaviour by overseas Chinese, for they highlight the different political economic dynamics between mainland China, Taiwan and the United States in shaping the divergent engagements of these entrepreneurs in the emerging global technology industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study that examines several steps that will promote greener transportation systems for employees in commercial and industrial areas in the U.S. It highlights the need to convince employees to use public or shared modes of transportation. Factors affecting transport preferences include socioeconomic, population characteristics and behavior. Potential impacts of information and communication technology (ICT) on mobility and accessibility in the area are also discussed.

The present study analyzes the impact of firms' technological strategies on their financial performance. Technology strategies are defined by making a distinction between explorative and exploitative as well as collaborative and solitary technological activities. Several hypotheses are tested on a panel data set (1996-2003) of 168 research and development (R&D)-intensive firms based in Japan, the United States, and Europe and situated in five different industries (i.e., chemicals, pharmaceuticals, information and communication technologies [ICT], electronics, and nonelectrical machinery). This study's analyses confirm the existence of an inverted U-shape relationship between the share of explorative technological activities and financial performance. In addition, firms engaging more intensively in collaboration perform relatively stronger in explorative activities. At the same time, a negative relationship is observed between the share of collaborative technological activities and a firm's market value. This negative relationship is most pronounced in collaborative activities of an exploratory nature. Overall, these findings suggest that the value appropriation complexities of collaborative technological activities may offset their value-enhancing potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors reflect on the benefits and impacts of information and communication technology (ICT) to system perspectives and industrial ecology. They focus on the issues regarding the implication of ICT to global economy, energy consumption, environmental safety, and future trends of systems and technologies. They provide facts on the tangible positive benefits of ICT including the productivity maximization, quality of life, government policy on technologies, and technology research.

Smart irrigation controllers (SICs) can save water by adapting watering schedules to climate and soil conditions. The potential benefit of SICs is particularly high in southwestern U.S. states, where the arid climate makes water scarcer and increases watering needs of landscapes. A number of studies have tested the ability of SICs to save water in residential and small commercial settings. Results generally show overall savings, but there is substantial variability, including cases of increased water use. Though there are many controllers on the market, we argue there is a further need for optimization of design and field performance. To inform the technology development process, we develop a design for environment method, which overlays economic and environmental performance parameters under different operating conditions. This method is applied to characterize design goals for controller price and water savings that SICs must meet to yield life cycle carbon dioxide reductions and economic savings in southwestern U.S. states, accounting for regional variability in electricity and water prices and carbon overhead. Results from applying the model to SICs in the Southwest suggest that some areas are significantly easier to design for. One concept to realize improved design in practice is to build out the controller market in a staged set of niches, starting from a more favorable area then moving toward more challenging conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absence of detailed information on residential energy end use characteristics for the United States has in the past presented an impediment to the effective development and targeting of residential energy efficiency programs. This article presents a framework for modeling space heating, cooling, water heating, and appliance energy end uses, fuels used, and carbon emissions at a zip code-level resolution for the entire United States. It combines a regression-based statistical model derived from Residential Energy Consumption Survey data with U.S. census 2000 five-digit zip code level information, climate division-level temperature data, and other sources. The results show large variations in energy use characteristics both between and within different regions of the country, with particularly notable differences in the magnitude of and distribution by fuel of residential energy use in urban and rural areas. The results are validated against residential energy sales data and have useful implications for both residential energy efficiency planning and further study of variations in use patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the benefits of membership to the American Fisheries Society Fisheries Information and Technology Section (AFSFITS) to students. Such section is reportedly founded by fisheries professionals in 1985 to promote communications among computer users in the society. It says that members can utilize a listserv hosted by the AFSFITS to look for tips on computing issues and to share information about technologies and job opportunities to others. Also noted are the awards given by the AFSFITS to students.