Search

The study emphasizes the need of implementing several ways to promote guinea pig farming in small family units. It highlights the relevance of enhanced nutrition, effective health management, genetic enhancement, and acceptable habitat conditions as essential factors for enhancing productivity and profitability. Suggestions encompass the adoption of advanced breeding methods, offering training and technical support, and expanding the range of goods and markets to ensure the long-term economic viability of guinea pig farming. The utilization of neutrosophic sets provided a strong framework for assessing these techniques, enabling a thorough study that considers the inherent uncertainties in decision-making processes. To enhance future study, it is recommended to improve and broaden neutrosophic approaches to comprehend the intricacies of guinea pig farming systems more effectively. It will be beneficial to create more advanced models that include a broader set of factors and extensive data, as well as to undertake longitudinal studies to evaluate the long-term effects. It is essential to work together with local communities to customize tactics that are suitable for specific geographical conditions and socioeconomic contexts. This is necessary to ensure that these interventions are practical and successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The undeniable impact of implementing school management systems on the efficiency of school administration in the Global South is evident. Nevertheless, the implementation of school management systems can provide significant challenges, particularly in educational settings with little resources, such as township schools. This qualitative study examined the impediments to the optimal efficiency of SA-SAMS in three township schools located in the Nkangala Education District, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. The study was based on the people, processes, and technology framework (PPTF). A deliberate sampling technique was employed to choose a sample of five administrative clerks and three principals. The results indicated that administrative clerks identified several obstacles: 1) unreliable internet connectivity; 2) issues related to the delayed release of the assessment patch and changes to its structure during the school term; 3) glitches in learner admissions, leading to the deletion of profiles of learners admitted to schools in the middle of the year, exacerbated by the system's inability to smoothly process admissions of foreign learners; 4) lack of onsite technicians to provide technical support, necessitating schools to allocate funds designated for academic and operational programmes to hire private technicians. Meanwhile, principals identified two main issues: 5) limited acceptance among teachers and 6) the inadequacy of provincial SA-SAMS helpdesk workers, whose skills frequently failed to offer necessary technical assistance when system issues developed. The study suggested ensuring dependable internet access for schools with limited resources, promptly releasing the patch, maintaining clear and timely communication regarding patch format changes, providing training to teachers on SA-SAMS, offering on-site technical support to schools, and employing competent SA-SAMS provincial helpdesk personnel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microfinance services are a powerful tool for stimulating economic development, especially in impoverished and conflict-affected regions. This study aims to shed light on the reality of microfinance in Yemen under the conditions of war, identifying the challenges and opportunities facing microfinance institutions in delivering their services. Using a descriptive approach to understand the nature of microfinance and an analytical method to analyze secondary data from reports and research related to microfinance in war-affected areas, the study found that the war in Yemen has had a significant impact on the microfinance sector, with microfinance institutions shrinking, fewer borrowers, and difficulties in loan repayment by beneficiaries, leading some institutions to shift from finance to relief efforts. The study recommends the urgent need to support microfinance operations in Yemen by providing a secure and stable legal and security environment, improving infrastructure, providing financial and technical support, and developing financial products and services using financial technology, enhancing financial inclusion, strengthening international partnerships, building staff capacity, and supporting reconstruction and development programs in Yemen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ialam is the property of Arab Federation for Libraries & Information and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

AIS (Automatic Identification System) is a telecommunication system created to enable ships to transmit information regarding their trajectories (such as their position, speed, course, etc.) to other ships and shore stations. With the use of AIS, collisions between ships can be avoided. Unfortunately, AIS suffers from some technical issues that lead to part of the transmitted data being damaged (incorrect or missing). This paper contains a review of machine learning based methods of reconstructing this damaged AIS data as well as examples of inspiration from other telecommunication systems for dealing with this kind of a problem. Finally, after analysing frameworks available in the relevant literature, a novel algorithm for AIS data reconstruction is briefly presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology has played a vital role in transforming the changing teaching and learning process to become more digitally proficient in recent years. The aim of the study is to identify the factors that affecting students' satisfaction towards online teaching methods during covid-19. The variables used for the study are communication, technical support, motivation and satisfaction. This study is quantitative in nature and it concentrates to establish the relationship between the selected variables. The data were collected from 424 Government college students in Sivagangai town. Purposive sampling technique was used to collect the data and the Structural equation model was used to analyze the framed hypothesis. The findings will help the academicians as well as the institutions to know more about the performance of Government College students towards online teaching methods during covid-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enterprise computers and websites are prime targets for cybercriminals because they contain sensitive information and provide business processes. Businesses must be prepared to spot and prevent potential threats to avoid financial losses, reputational damage, and violations of customer data privacy. In this context, cybersecurity analysis systems for software and hardware of enterprise computers and websites play an important role. They allow to conduct a full-fledged infrastructure audit, discover potential vulnerabilities, assess risks, and develop protection strategies. These systems provide comprehensive information about the security status and help to make reasonable decisions on how to improve security. The article discusses two software systems for cybersecurity analysis. The first software system analyzes computer hardware and software, identifying potential security issues at the level of individual devices. It provides a user-friendly graphical interface of a desktop program and allows to perform a detailed analysis of computers, including an assessment of hardware and installed programs, and provides reports on the detected problems and recommendations for improving security. The second program, implemented as a Telegram bot, allows remote analysis of corporate websites and servers, simplifying the security control process for cybersecurity specialists and system administrators. The Telegram bot interface allows remote diagnostics of an arbitrary server without the need to access it, install and regularly update special software, which makes the bot comfortable to use. The bot analyzes various components of the website and the server on which it is hosted, including the server operating system version, server services, website CMS, website subdomains, server and website reputation, and server geolocation. The analysis results are presented in a report that helps identify potential vulnerabilities and provides recommendations for improving security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the wave of digital social transformation worldwide and pushed the "Accelerator Key" for the digital transformation of education in 2020. This transformation has also impacted in an all-around way in China. Taking Anhui province as a case study, this research explores socio-demographic factors influencing the digital competence level of pre- and in-service teachers of primary and secondary education in China. The quantitative methodological approach emphasizes the study subjects' perception of their digital competencies in three factors: basic technology literacy, technical support learning, and technical support teaching. The study involved 250 pre-service teachers and 248 in-service teachers. The main findings are: (1) participants have good consciousness and attitudes towards using ICT in daily work, but their educational practice is weak; (2) in-service teachers have a digital competence level generally higher than pre-service teachers', which might be their professional practice promote them to reflect on perceptions and attitudes regarding technological education; (3) for in-service teachers, there are significant differences between their digital competence level and age, years of teaching experience, educational background; (4) current ICT courses have no influencing on in-service teachers' digital competence level, implying that current ICT training system may have problems. The study provides insights to improve pre-service teachers' digital competence education in universities and develop well-designed in-service teachers' ICT training courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the main carrier of information transmission, plane images play an important role in the current network era. In order to enhance the color of the plane image, optimize the image effect, and solve the problem of image distortion with large color difference, a color enhancement processing optimization method is proposed based on the technical support of computer vision. According to computer vision theory, a computer vision model for adjusting perceived color and brightness is constructed. Combining it with the bilateral filtering algorithm, a color enhancement processing optimization model is obtained, which consists of three main stages: illumination information parameter estimation and image color correction, reflection coefficient parameter estimation and image color correction, and adaptive filtering. By estimating illumination information parameters and reflection coefficient parameters, the secondary gamma correction of image color is realized. After being processed by the bilateral filtering algorithm, the final optimized image is obtained. Verified by the subjective and objective evaluation results, the positive correlation index values of this method are all high, 8.0246, 16.4526, 0.9037, and 15.0246, respectively, and the negative correlation index value is low, 49.4169. It is proved that the proposed method can effectively suppress the halo and artifacts and obtain the image color quality that satisfies the visual perception. It not only enhances the image color but also retains the details to the greatest extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is considered relevant to assess the potential of modern normative and technical support for programs/ life cycle projects of complex technical systems, which is based on system, process and project approaches, as well as on risk-oriented thinking, which is an integral condition for achieving (maintaining) competitiveness not only of products produced by the organization, but also the competitiveness of the organization itself. To develop the procedure for evaluation of expediency of normative and technical documentation use in the field of project management and system engineering as a basis for the development of enterprise standards for science-intensive products life cycle ensuring. For the analysis of the existing array of information materials for this problem, such criteria were proposed and substantiated, which allowed to perform a criterion analysis, involving a comprehensive analysis of the information material content, identification of criteria significant for the organization, and subsequent expert evaluation of sources of scientific and technical information. According to the results of the criterion analysis of the array of normative and technical documents that can be used by the domestic science-intensive sector of industry, the concepts of building of the programs/projects life cycle for the life cycle of complex technical systems were determined and recommended depending on the nature of the organizations’ activities. The approach proposed allows to choose the basic concepts of normative documents as possible analogues for their use based upon the peculiarities of the enterprise’s activity and the specifics of the science-intensive product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses research which examined the successful supply chain development in China of Japanese apparel firm Uniqlo. Topics covered include the discrete dynamic stages that the company went through in its supply chain development efforts, how by exercising dynamic power concentration has helped Uniqlo develp relational governance with suppliers, and the technical support it provided to help suppliers build competence.

Work can be a place where we experience stress. In recent years, employees exposed to work with the use of information and communication technologies have reported symptoms of technostress. In turn, such frustration may lead to various negative and ineffective behaviours at work. The aim of the study was to analyse the links between technostress and counterproductive behaviours (theft, fraud, withdrawal and sabotage). 676 employees (including 50.9% women) aged 20 to 63 (M = 41.04; SD = 13.46) using ICT on a daily basis were surveyed. The study used the Counterproductive Behaviours Questionnaire and the Technostress Creators and Technostress Inhibitors Scale. The obtained results confirmed a positive relationship between Technostress creators and counterproductive behaviours and a negative relationship between Technostress inhibitors and counterproductive behaviours. These results can be used in organisations to minimize the risk of counterproductive behaviours by counteracting the occurrence of Technostress creators and reinforcing Technostress inhibitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vision of network-centric operations is to increase operational capabilities through networked collaboration. NATO and its member nations state this vision in strategic documents at a very high level of abstraction. While suitable for giving an overall feel, current documentation renders the steps toward implementing those visions largely unsupported. We outline a method that is based on agile requirements engineering, for converting high-level strategic visions into capabilities whose forms lend themselves to incremental implementation. We illustrate the use of this method in two cases that deal with both operational capabilities and technical capabilities. We also show how the method enables one to prioritise which capabilities to develop first. We conclude that it is necessary to formulate and implement some form of explicit methodology with which to span the gap between strategic visions and an effective implementation of those visions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on AM Solutions expanding its distribution network in Germany through a partnership with encee, a specialist in industrial 3D printing. Topics include AM Solutions' new collaboration with encee for comprehensive post-processing solutions, the integration of AM Solutions' technology into encee's offerings, and the enhanced customer service and support provided by this partnership.

Indifferentiability of iterated hash functions is seen as evidence that there are no structural flaws in the iteration structure of the algorithm. However, it is often overlooked that such considerations only hold in the random oracle model and do not give any guarantee in the standard model. In this article, we show the following separation result: there is a hash function that is indifferentiable from a random oracle, but is totally insecure in the standard model. In particular, we show that it does not satisfy collision or multicollision‐resistance, second preimage‐resistance or preimage‐resistance for any family of compression functions. Therefore, at least in theory, hash function indifferentiability does not guarantee the structural integrity of the hash algorithm in the standard model. Results in the random oracle model are not affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microsoft recently announced that it would no longer provide support--nor security updates--for Microsoft XP, one of the most popular PC operating systems ever. It may be time for the next "thing" to meet your technology needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of EMERG: Energy. Environment. Efficiency. Resources. Globalization is the property of Romanian National Committee of World Energy Council and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Data storage in cloud is widely utilized by different commercial, educational, scientific, healthcare applications and much more. The major concern apart from data security is data integrity. Our work focuses on data integrity. In spite of the presence of Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the data owner and CSP, the data integrity may be affected and also todays' cloud computing platform processes more of real-time data, which involves dynamic data operations. Most of the existing works intend to verify the cloud data integrity however the issues related to data replicas are not usually considered and most of the existing cloud techniques fail to focus on dynamic data operations. This article presents an outsourced auditing with data integrity verification scheme (OA-DIV) scheme that can handle multiple copies of cloud data and supports dynamic data operations such as data insertion, deletion and updation. The performance of the proposed work is tested with respect to communication cost and processing time, while comparing the results with the existing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the issue of graphic representation in urban design as an artistic and technical field that is symbiotic to the field of architecture. The basic expression instrument of urban design (spatial planning) is the projection of 2D. The ability of an urban designer or urban planner to adequately present a design is, therefore, an element of the creative process that should be acquired during higher education. The aim of the research was to reveal the key parameters influencing the resulting effect of graphic processing of a masterplan drawing and a perspective drawing from a human perspective, as a typical urban expression element. The paper focuses more closely on examining the differences between hand based and computer graphic processing. A set of categories for a masterplan drawing and perspective views has been summarized for the purposes of research, which has been used to evaluate a sample of student works. The key research methods of data evaluation are comparison and correlation analysis. The results of the research summarize the advantages and the disadvantages of the hand based and computer graphic processing and the key graphic mistakes made in urban design students proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of new service science approaches to business problems in information technology (IT) services offers new, unusually relevant insights for the senior management of vendors in this business area. This research examines how service-level agreement contract flexibility should be designed when the technological and business market environments result in volatility of demand, based on an understanding of related changes in the cost drivers that underlie IT services contracts. Our approach draws on a blend of well-known methods from financial economics--the real option pricing method and the contingent claims analysis method. In particular, our research examines a setting in which a vendor provides IT services to a client according to a prenegotiated IT services contract in the presence of demand volatility. We analyze the motivation of and value consequences for a vendor that offers the client the flexibility to opt out of the contract. For example, the client might switch to another vendor, or backsource and provide its own services internally. Our core results offer important foundational thinking for how to specify various forms of IT service-related flexibility in terms of put and call options from the point of view of an IT services vendor, so that their value and exercise timing can be estimated. We show that the client firm's demand trigger value for deciding when to backsource its IT services varies, and it depends on the degree of demand volatility as well as the usage-based fees charged by the vendor. Working from our modeling approach, we also are able to characterize the extent to which a vendor can benefit from bearing the costs of making a backsourcing flexibility option available to its client. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is substantial research on learning that occurs before adoption of a new information system, there is a dearth of research on postimplementation learning when a new system is assimilated as a routine element of users' work. Hence, during the postimplementation period of a bank's new work flow system, we conducted a longitudinal participant observation study to observe knowledge transfers of users and information technology (IT) professionals assigned to a help desk. We found that although users turned to IT professionals to obtain knowledge related to conceptual understanding and procedures to use the system, they most often turned to other users to obtain knowledge that allowed them to adapt the system to their work. IT professionals, on the other hand, often turned to their colleagues to obtain knowledge that helped them modify the system to emerging innovative uses. These patterns of knowledge transfers can be explained based upon source expertise. Our findings indicate that organizations must sustain designated sources of knowledge such as help desks, but must also establish conduits for users to acquire knowledge from other users and develop innovative uses of the system. A substantial amount of critical knowledge transfers relevant to system adaptation occurred during face-to-face discussions between users and IT professionals, and therefore future research should examine how this would be affected by the outsourcing of technical support functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an editorial from the journal "Informacije MIDEM: Journal of Microelectronics, Electronic Components & Materials." The editor expresses gratitude to the members, reviewers, and technical support team for their contributions to the success of the journal. The editorial highlights that all published papers are open-access and accessible through various platforms. The journal received over 230 manuscripts in 2023, with only 20 accepted for publication. The editor emphasizes the importance of quality and scientific originality in submitted manuscripts. The citation metrics for 2022 showed improvement, and the journal published one review paper and 19 original scientific papers in 2023. The editor encourages readers to continue submitting manuscripts and wishes them productivity and good health. [Extracted from the article]

Offshoring is a growing phenomenon. Increasingly, companies based in high-wage economies are hiring skilled workers in lower-wage economies to undertake service tasks that can be performed remotely, such as IT maintenance and call center operation. Today, improvements in information technology and falling telecommunication costs mean that any activity that is not tied to a particular place by the need for customer contact, or local knowledge, or complex, face-to-face interactions with colleagues can--in theory--be performed remotely. Thanks to freer trade between countries and a reduction in the perceived risks of operating overseas, companies can choose to perform such an activity in a lower-cost offshore location, if that seems advantageous, either by outsourcing to a third party vendor, or by developing its own, captive operation. Both choices comprise what we know as "offshoring." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge repositories are commonly used by technical support analysts in call center environments as a way of capturing and reusing solutions to common problems, and are generally expected to improve service quality, reduce costs, and enhance analyst learning. This study investigates why technical support analysts seek out and access knowledge from these repositories, as opposed to more traditional sources of such knowledge—colleagues and manuals. Focusing on the demand for—rather than supply of—knowledge in organizations, our research elaborates the role played by analysts' learning orientation, perceived work demands, and risk aversion in predicting their knowledge sourcing behavior. Our results include several counterintuitive findings that suggest there is not very much learning going on via technical support knowledge repositories. Analysts seem to be focused on finding recipes for solving customers' problems rather than building a better understanding of the products they support. Implications for research and practice highlight the need for more effective technologies to speed searches, the utility of a formal and visible mechanism for validating knowledge, and the inherent tension between efficiency and learning in these environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge is recognized as an important weapon for sustaining competitive advantage and many companies are beginning to manage organizational knowledge. Researchers have investigated knowledge management factors such as enablers, processes, and performance. However, most current empirical research has explored the relationships between these factors in isolation. To fill this gap, this paper develops a research model that interconnects knowledge management factors. The model includes seven enablers: collaboration, trust, learning, centralization, formalization, T-shaped skills, and information technology support. The emphasis is on knowledge creation processes such as socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization. To establish credibility between knowledge creation and performance, organizational creativity is incorporated into the model. Surveys collected from 58 firms were analyzed to test the model. The results confirmed the impact of trust on knowledge creation. The information technology support had a positive impact on knowledge combination only. Organizational creativity was found to be critical for improving performance; neglecting ideas can undermine a business. The results may be used as a stepping stone for further empirical research and can help formulate robust strategies that involve trade-offs between knowledge management enablers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]