UK Design as a Global Industry : International Trade and Intellectual Property

The importance of design to the UK economy is widely recognised. It is one of the key pillars of the knowledge economy, it plays an important role in the innovation process, and it is one of a number of specialisms that help to set the UK apart from global competition. But despite this importance, the nature of design-intensive industries – the businesses that practice and sell design – is remarkably hard to pin down. This uncertainty renders it hard to analyse, and makes it difficult to develop clear, consistent policies to support the designers. The Hargreaves Review recommended that more research was needed to develop a clear evidence base for improving the intellectual property system for design. This report forms part of that evidence base. It examines how UK design figures in the global economy, and considers how the intellectual property system can best support its growth.

UK Design as a global industry : international trade and intellectual property Executive Summary

This is an independent report comissioned by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and supported by the Design Council.

A new analytic approach for power system fault diagnosis employing the temporal information of alarm messages

Traditional analytic models for power system fault diagnosis are usually formulated as an unconstrained 0–1 integer programming problem. The key issue of the models is to seek the fault hypothesis that minimizes the discrepancy between the actual and the expected states of the concerned protective relays and circuit breakers. The temporal information of alarm messages has not been well utilized in these methods, and as a result, the diagnosis results may be not unique and hence indefinite, especially when complicated and multiple faults occur. In order to solve this problem, this paper presents a novel analytic model employing the temporal information of alarm messages along with the concept of related path. The temporal relationship among the actions of protective relays and circuit breakers, and the different protection configurations in a modern power system can be reasonably represented by the developed model, and therefore, the diagnosed results will be more definite under different circumstances of faults. Finally, an actual power system fault was served to verify the proposed method.

Sharing environmental data : the role of an information policy framework and copyright licensing

Advances in information and communication technologies have brought about an information revolution, leading to fundamental changes in the way that information is collected or generated, shared and distributed. The importance of establishing systems in which research findings can be readily made available to and used by other researchers has long been recognized in international scientific collaborations. If the data access principles adopted by international scientific collaborations are to be effectively implemented they must be supported by the national policies and laws in place in the countries in which participating researchers are operating.

First international workshop on theory and applications of process visualization

The representation of business process models has been a continuing research topic for many years now. However, many process model representations have not developed beyond minimally interactive 2D icon-based representations of directed graphs and networks, with little or no annotation for information over- lays. With the rise of desktop computers and commodity mobile devices capable of supporting rich interactive 3D environments, we believe that much of the research performed in computer human interaction, virtual reality, games and interactive entertainment has much potential in areas of BPM; to engage, pro- vide insight, and to promote collaboration amongst analysts and stakeholders alike. This initial visualization workshop seeks to initiate the development of a high quality international forum to present and discuss research in this field. Via this workshop, we intend to create a community to unify and nurture the development of process visualization topics as a continuing research area.

An expanded critical incident approach for exploring information use and learning

Critical incidents offer a focus for exploratory research about human experiences, including information use and information literacy learning. This paper describes how critical incidents underpinned research about international students’ use of online information resources at two Australian universities. It outlines the development and application of an expanded critical incident approach (ECIA), explaining how ECIA built upon critical incident technique (CIT) and incorporated information literacy theory. It discusses points of expansion (differences) between CIT and ECIA. While CIT initially proved useful in structuring the research, the pilot study revealed methodological limitations. ECIA allowed more nuanced data analysis and the integration of reflection. The study produced a multifaceted word picture of international students’ experience of using online information resources to learn, and a set of critical findings about their information literacy learning needs. ECIA offers a fresh approach for researching information use, information experience, evidence-based practice, information literacy and informed learning.

Online multiple profile manager for eHealth information sharing

Online social networks connect millions of people around the globe. These electronic bonds make individuals comfortable with their behaviours. Such positive signs of sharing information is useful phenomena requires consideration to establish a socio-scientific effect. Recently, many web users have more than one social networking account. This means a user may hold multiple profiles which are stored in different Social Network Sites (SNNs). Maintaining these multiple online social network profiles is cumbersome and time-consuming [1]. In this paper we will propose a framework for the management of a user's multiple profiles. A demonstrator, called Multiple Profile Manager (MPM), will be showcased to illustrate how effective the framework will be.

Relationships and sexual health promotion project for QUT international students

International students may experience a variety of sexual health problems which include unplanned pregnancies, abortions and sexually transmitted diseases. These are often because of limited knowledge of sexual health matters and lack of sexual health education and/or access to health services in their home country. A study was undertaken to identify the concerns of international students and how to provide culturally appropriate promotion of sexual health for international students at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The project included consultations with stakeholders, interviews with key informants, an online survey and focus group discussions with international students. The project found that sexual health is a concern for international students, particularly in developing relationships and when becoming sexually active in Australia, and there is a perceived lack of access to health services and insufficient knowledge on sexual health matters. Preferred methods of dissemination of sexual health information included use of student mentors, web-based online resources, brochures and confidential on-line advice.

Cloud computing for healthcare research information sharing

With the widespread application of healthcare Information and Communication Technology (ICT), constructing a stable and sustainable data sharing circumstance has attracted rapidly growing attention in both academic research area and healthcare industry. Cloud computing is one of long dreamed visions of Healthcare Cloud (HC), which matches the need of healthcare information sharing directly to various health providers over the Internet, regardless of their location and the amount of data. In this paper, we discuss important research tool related to health information sharing and integration in HC and investigate the arising challenges and issues. We describe many potential solutions to provide more opportunities to implement EHR cloud. As well, we introduce the development of a HC related collaborative healthcare research example, thus illustrating the prospective of applying Cloud Computing in the health information science research.

Third international workshop on empirical research in business process management (ER-BPM 2012)

Empirical research in business process management(BPM) is coming of age. In 2009, when the inaugural ER-BPM workshop was held, the field of BPM research was characterized by a strong emphasis on solution development, but also by an increasing demand for insights or evaluations of BPM technology based on dedicated empirical research strategies. The ER-BPM workshop series was created to provide an international forum for researchers to discuss and present such research.

Paranoid prizing : mapping Australia’s Eve Pownall Award for information books, 2001-2010

Each year, the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) administers a number of Book of the Year Awards, including the Eve Pownall Award for Information Books. The books chosen by the CBCA constitute a contemporary canon of Australian children’s literature, and serve to both shape and reflect current educational policies and practices as well as young Australians’ sense of themselves and their nation. This paper reads a selection of award-winning Australian non-fiction children’s literature in the context of colonialism, curriculum, military myths, and Aboriginal perspectives on national history and identity.

Evaluating the QUT Homestay Program : lessons learnt in providing quality services to international students

The QUT Homestay Program is an essential part of the university’s commitment to meet the accommodation needs of international students. Despite the importance of this style of accommodation, there is very little research addressing issues related to homestay arrangements. The program at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) was evaluated in 2002 to develop a continuous improvement framework to ensure provision of quality homestay services to international students. This paper presents an overview of the evaluation and key lessons learnt in providing quality homestay services to international students. It will cover social and cross-cultural issues faced by providers and international students in the homestay environment, the homestay support needs, program information, policies, procedures and code of practice governing the program.

Crowdsourcing information systems : definition, typology and design

Crowdsourcing has become a popular approach for capitalizing on the potential of large and open crowds of people external to the organization. While crowdsourcing as a phenomenon is studied in a variety of fields, research mostly focuses on isolated aspects and little is known about the integrated design of crowdsourcing efforts. We introduce a socio-technical systems perspective on crowdsourcing, which provides a deeper understanding of the components and relationships in crowdsourcing systems. By considering the function of crowdsourcing systems within their organizational context, we develop a typology of four distinct system archetypes. We analyze the characteristics of each type and derive a number of design requirements for the respective system components. The paper lays a foundation for IS-based crowdsourcing research, channels related academic work, and helps guiding the study and design of crowdsourcing information systems.

Engaging social customers : influencing new marketing strategies for social media information sources

A global, online quantitative study among 300 consumers of digital technology products found the most reliable information sources were friends, family or word of mouth (WOM) from someone they knew, followed by expert product reviews, and product reviews written by other consumers. The most unreliable information sources were advertising or infomercials, automated recommendations based on purchasing patterns or retailers. While a very small number of consumers evaluated products online, rating of products and online discussions were more frequent activities. The most popular social media websites for reviews were Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and e-Bay, indicating the importance of WOM in social networks and online media spaces that feature product reviews as it is the most persuasive piece of information in both online and offline social networks. These results suggest that ‘social customers’ must be considered as an integral part of a marketing strategy.

Principals, Teachers, and Student's Perception of the Information and Communication Technology in Kuwait Secondary Schools (Rhetoric and reality)

ICT integration has been advocated to provide opportunities to improve students’ achievement and engagement through transforming the educational setting. A valuable tool that contributes in enhancing and developing students’ cognitive skills for lifelong learning, ICT integration has introduced a new educational philosophy, shifting the role of students into a more central position in the pedagogical processes. Kuwait, as with many other countries, has recently planned ICT integration to develop its citizen’s capacities. This study sought to capture the principals’, teachers’, and students’ perceptions of ICT integration in pedagogical activities, as well as how ICT is being used for learning and teaching activities in three ICT leading Kuwaiti secondary schools. Interviews with principals, teachers, and students were conducted, along with an open-ended questionnaire for the teachers, researcher observations, and document analysis. The findings revealed that ICT integration in Kuwait needed to be reinforced to accomplish the ICT integration objectives. A call for further support for teachers, and a reconsideration of the ICT integration strategies were also recommended.