Assessing ICT's Environmental Impact

Accurately quantifying information and communications technology's footprint is a critical first step toward reducing its environmental burden.     

Risks to Effective Knowledge Sharing in Agile Software Teams: A Model for Assessing and Mitigating Risks

We present an empirically grounded and theoretically informed model for the assessment and mitigation of risks to effective knowledge sharing in agile development. The model is anchored in empirical insights from four agile projects across two software companies and in extant research on risk‐strategy analysis and knowledge sharing in software development. We develop the model as part of the long‐standing tradition of presenting risk management models dedicated to specific issues in software development and confirm its practical usefulness in one of the software companies studied. The model offers concepts and processes to assess a project's knowledge sharing risk profile and articulate an overall resolution strategy plan to mitigate the risks. The results highlight how different knowledge sharing risk management profiles can lead to different project performance outcomes. We conclude with a discussion of research opportunities that the results offer software development scholarship. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd     

A Framework for Assessing RFID System Security and Privacy Risks

This framework for evaluating security and privacy risks in RFID systems focuses on key application domains, assessing risk levels for each on the basis of RFID-specific criteria.     

Transboundary Risks: The First-Comers/Late-Comers Dilemma in International Environmental Agreements

This paper investigates global, or transborder, environmental disruption risk from the perspective of the potential policy solution to be brought about by international negotiations. Particular attention is given to the First-Comers/Late-Comers dilemma. The Spanish case is used as an illustration for the argument that information provision and acceptance are critical factors.     

基于WebGIS的环境质量评价管理系统

运用WcbGIS技术设计开发了江苏省环境质量评价信息系统。讨论了该系统的总体结构与功能，解决了空间数据与属性数据的集成问题，在Web上实现了信息管理系统和地理信息系统的集成。     

From Proposal to Production: Lessons Learned Developing the Computational Chemistry Grid Cyberinfrastructure

The Computational Chemistry Grid (CCG) is a three-year, National Middleware Initiative program to develop cyberinfrastructure for the chemistry community. CCG is led by the University of Kentucky and involves collaborating sites at Louisiana State University, Ohio Supercomputing Center, Texas Advanced Computing Center, and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. This paper discusses experiences developing the CCG cyberinfrastructure in the first year of the project. Special attention is paid to technological issues faced as well as issues raised running the CCG in production. The final section of the paper looks forward to challenges foreseen in the remaining two years.September 1, 2005.     

The Cost of Environmental Constraints in Traffic Networks: Assessing the Loss of Optimality

Increasing numbers of hard environmental constraints are being imposed in urban traffic networks by authorities in an attempt to mitigate pollution caused by traffic. However, it is not trivial for authorities to assess the cost of imposing such hard environmental constraints. This leads to difficulties when setting the constraining values as well as implementing effective control measures. For that reason, quantifying the cost of imposing hard environmental constraints for a certain network becomes crucial. This paper first indicates that for a given network, such cost is not only related to the attribution of environmental constraints but also related to the considered control measures. Next, we present an assessment criterion that quantifies the loss of optimality under the control measures considered by introducing the environmental constraints. The criterion can be acquired by solving a bi-level programming problem with/without environmental constraints. A simple case study shows its practicability as well as the differences between this framework and other frameworks integrating the environmental aspects. This proposed framework is widely applicable when assessing the interaction of traffic and its environmental aspects.     

From Remote Hosting to Self-Hosting of an Erp System: Lessons Learned from the City of El Paso

This article describes how the city of El Paso, Texas, initially used an application service provider (ASP) model, allowing the city to fast track its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation. After a change in the ASP arrangements led to less responsiveness to its needs, the city government moved to a self-hosted ERP system. Lessons learned in the evolution from ASP hosting to self-hosting of the city's ERP system are compared to previously published literature.     

From Remote Hosting to Self-Hosting of an Erp System: Lessons Learned from the City of El Paso

Abstract

This article describes how the city of El Paso, Texas, initially used an application service provider (ASP) model, allowing the city to fast track its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation. After a change in the ASP arrangements led to less responsiveness to its needs, the city government moved to a self-hosted ERP system. Lessons learned in the evolution from ASP hosting to self-hosting of the city's ERP system are compared to previously published literature.     

Quantum Algorithms: Philosophical Lessons

I discuss the philosophical implications that the rising new science of quantum computing may have on the philosophy of computer science. While quantum algorithms leave the notion of Turing-Computability intact, they may re-describe the abstract space of computational complexity theory hence militate against the autonomous character of some of the concepts and categories of computer science.

Classifying Environmental Features From Local Observations of Emergent Swarm Behavior

Robots in a swarm are programmed with individual behaviors but then interactions with the environment and other robots produce more complex, emergent swarm behaviors. One discriminating feature of the emergent behavior is the local distribution of robots in any given region. In this work, we show how local observations of the robot distribution can be correlated to the environment being explored and hence the location of openings or obstructions can be inferred. The correlation is achieved here with a simple, single-layer neural network that generates physically intuitive weights and provides a degree of robustness by allowing for variation in the environment and number of robots in the swarm. The robots are simulated assuming random motion with no communication, a minimalist model in robot sophistication, to explore the viability of cooperative sensing. We culminate our work with a demonstration of how the local distribution of robots in an unknown, office-like environment can be used to locate unobstructed exits.      

Assessing Online Learning Ability From a Social Exchange Perspective: A Survey of Virtual Teams Within Business Organizations

Drawing on social exchange theory, this study proposes a model by postulating critical antecedents and mediators as the key drivers of online learning ability. In the model, online learning ability is affected indirectly by trust via 3 mediators simultaneously, including team commitment, task conflict, and relationship conflict, whereas trust is impacted directly by expressiveness interdependence, outcome interdependence, and task interdependence. Empirical testing of this model, by investigating the personnel of virtual teams from information technology organizations, confirms the applicability of social exchange theory in understanding online learning ability. This study contributes to the virtual team learning literature by extending social exchange theory to the rarely explored area of online learning ability of organizational teams and validating idiosyncratic drivers of online learning ability. Last, this article provides managerial implications and limitations of the research.     

Barriers to the Adoption of B2B e-Marketplaces by Large Enterprises: Lessons Learned From the Hellenic Aerospace Industry

This article investigates the main barriers to the adoption of B2B e-marketplaces by large enterprises and at the same time the expected benefits that push in the opposite direction towards the adoption, through a case study conducted at the Hellenic Aerospace Industry (HAI), one of the largest industrial enterprises of Greece. The evidence collected from this case has been analyzed using various frameworks from the literature and also the innovation diffusion theory of Rogers, and shed light on the specificity of the large enterprises concerning e-marketplaces adoption.     

Real-World Ubicomp Deployments: Lessons Learned

Among the many branches of computer science, ubiquitous computing enjoys an unusually distinguished history of creating and deploying prototypes. Why is this? A tempting answer is that many ubicomp researchers and practitioners have backgrounds in subjects such as HCI and systems--areas with a strong focus on learning from deploying working prototypes. However, a more compelling answer might be that ubicomp, unlike almost every other subspecialty with the exception of HCI, is about embedding computing into existing human systems. This introduction is part of a special issue on Real-World Deployments.     

Innovation outsourcing: Risks and quality issues

Innovation is the creation of new idea, practice, object, or even product by an individual or company. A competitive organization needs to continuously offer new line of products and services to the market for their customers. In order to cut down their R&D costs, companies seek external or even global vendors to pursue their research and development (R&D) tasks. This paper discusses the issues related to innovation outsourcing, including uncertainty, risks, productivity and quality issues.     

Remote sensing in BOREAS: Lessons learned

The Boreal Ecosystem Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) was a large, multiyear internationally supported study designed to improve our understanding of the boreal forest biome and its interactions with the atmosphere, biosphere, and the carbon cycle in the face of global climate change. In the initial phase of this study (early 1990s), remote sensing played a key role by providing products needed for planning and modeling. During and after the main BOREAS field campaigns (1994 and 1996), innovative remote sensing approaches and analyses expanded our understanding of the boreal forest in four key areas: (1) definition of vegetation structure, (2) land-cover classification, (3) assessment of the carbon balance, and (4) links between surface properties, weather, and climate. In addition to six BOREAS special issues and over 500 journal papers, a principal legacy of BOREAS is its well-documented and publicly available database, which provides a lasting scientific resource and opportunity to further advance our understanding of this critical northern biome.