Critically evaluating rural women’s participation and empowerment : An interdisciplinary feminist framework for research and analysis

Community development is increasingly using participatory processes that aim to be inclusive and empowering. However, researchers have found that such processes can have contradictory effects. Australian research has highlighted the significant leadership of rural women in sustainable community and economic development and in the adoption of new communication technologies such as the Internet. A focus on gender in participatory development may therefore lead to more effective programs and policies. This chapter outlines an interdisciplinary feminist framework for critically evaluating the participation and empowerment of rural women. This framework was found effective in evaluating an Australian project that aimed to enhance rural women’s access to communication technologies and to empower its participants. Its multiple theoretical and methodological approaches are outlined. The framework advocates an analysis of diversity and difference and the macro and micro contexts. Some principles and strategies for rural women’s inclusion, participation, empowerment, and for participatory feminist evaluation are outlined.

Knowledge-Based Urban Development : Planning and Applications in the Information Era

In the globalizing world, knowledge and information (and the social and technological settings for their production and communication) are now seen as keys to economic prosperity. The economy of a knowledge city creates value-added products using research, technology, and brainpower. The social benefit of knowledge-based urban development (KBUD); however, extends beyond aggregate economic growth.

MILK : the Mobile Informal Learning Kit. Collaborating to design successful mobile learning applications

This paper suggests ways for educators and designers to understand and merge priorities in order to inform the development of mobile learning (m-learning) applications that maximise user experiences and hence learning opportunities. It outlines a User Experience Design (UXD) theory and development process that requires designers to conduct a thorough initial contextual inquiry into a particular domain in order to set project priorities and development guidelines. A matrix that identifies the key contextual considerations namely the social, cultural, spatial, technical and temporal constructs of any domain is presented as a vital tool for achieving successful UXD. The frame of reference provided by this matrix ensures that decisions made throughout the design process are attributable to a desired user experience. To illustrate how the proposed UXD theory and development process supports the creation of effective m-learning applications, this paper documents the development process of MILK (Mobile Informal Learning Kit). MILK is a support tool that allows teachers and students to develop event paths that consist of a series SMS question and answer messages that lead players through a series of checkpoints between point A and point B. These event paths can be designed to suit desired learning scenarios and can be used to explore a particular place or subject. They can also be designed to facilitate formal or informal learning experiences.

Towards ubiquitous city : concept, planning, and experiences in the Republic of Korea

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) had occupied their position on knowledge management and are now evolving towards the era of self-intelligence (Klosterman, 2001). In the 21st century ICTs for urban development and planning are imperative to improve the quality of life and place. This includes the management of traffic, waste, electricity, sewerage and water quality, monitoring fire and crime, conserving renewable resources, and coordinating urban policies and programs for urban planners, civil engineers, and government officers and administrators. The handling of tasks in the field of urban management often requires complex, interdisciplinary knowledge as well as profound technical information. Most of the information has been compiled during the last few years in the form of manuals, reports, databases, and programs. However frequently, the existence of these information and services are either not known or they are not readily available to the people who need them. To provide urban administrators and the public with comprehensive information and services, various ICTs are being developed. In early 1990s Mark Weiser (1993) proposed Ubiquitous Computing project at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre in the US. He provides a vision of a built environment which digital networks link individual residents not only to other people but also to goods and services whenever and wherever they need (Mitchell, 1999). Since then the Republic of Korea (ROK) has been continuously developed national strategies for knowledge based urban development (KBUD) through the agenda of Cyber Korea, E-Korea and U-Korea. Among abovementioned agendas particularly the U-Korea agenda aims the convergence of ICTs and urban space for a prosperous urban and economic development. U-Korea strategies create a series of U-cities based on ubiquitous computing and ICTs by a means of providing ubiquitous city (U-city) infrastructure and services in urban space. The goals of U-city development is not only boosting the national economy but also creating value in knowledge based communities. It provides opportunity for both the central and local governments collaborate to U-city project, optimize information utilization, and minimize regional disparities. This chapter introduces the Korean-led U-city concept, planning, design schemes and management policies and discusses the implications of U-city concept in planning for KBUD.

Management: Core concepts and applications

Building on the strengths of its popular previous edition Management: Core Concepts and Applications, 2nd Australasian edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the three keyaspects of contemporary undergraduate introductory management education: Management theory Concept application Skills development. The text's 16 chapters are presented in a lively and concise mannerideal for the typical 12 or 13 teaching weeks of a semester. Itsflexible framework allows instructors to teach students through the useof interactive tools such as case studies, exercises and projects.These action-oriented learning activities complement the text's solidfoundation of knowledge-based theory material. There is a balanced coverage of both small to medium sizedenterprises and larger multinational organisations operating inAustralia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region. A critical thinkingperspective is integrated throughout the book, asking and encouragingstudents to analyse the theory in light of real-world examples. Each copy of the printed textbook comes with a free copy of the Wiley Desktop Edition:a full electronic version of the text that allows students to easilysearch for key concepts, create their own colour-coded highlights andmake electronic notes in the text for revision. Key themes of the text include: The importance of ethical and socially responsible management Recognition of the continuing need to cater for the increasing diversity of the workforce The importance of managing people, technology, knowledge and quality in achieving organisational goals An appreciation of the challenges and opportunities presented bythe ever changing environment in which contemporary managers operate.

What value do users derive from social network applications?

Research on social networking sites like Facebook is emerging but sparse. This exploratory study investigates the value users derive from self-described ‘cool’ Facebook applications, and explores the features that either encourage or discourage users to recommend applications to their friends. The concepts of value and cool are explored in a social networking context. Our qualitative data reveals consumers derive a combination of functional value along with either social or emotional value from the applications. Female Facebook users indicate self-expression as important motivators, while males tend to use Facebook applications to socially compete. Three broad categories emerged for application features; symmetrical features can both encourage or discourage recommendation, polar features where different levels of the same feature encourage or discourage, and uni-directional features only encourage or discourage but not both. Recommending or not recommending an application tends to be the result of a combination of features and context, rather than one feature in isolation.

Hybrid system simulation of computer control applications over communication networks

Discrete event-driven simulations of digital communication networks have been used widely. However, it is difficult to use a network simulator to simulate a hybrid system in which some objects are not discrete event-driven but are continuous time-driven. A networked control system (NCS) is such an application, in which physical process dynamics are continuous by nature. We have designed and implemented a hybrid simulation environment which effectively integrates models of continuous-time plant processes and discrete-event communication networks by extending the open source network simulator NS-2. To do this a synchronisation mechanism was developed to connect a continuous plant simulation with a discrete network simulation. Furthermore, for evaluating co-design approaches in an NCS environment, a piggybacking method was adopted to allow the control period to be adjusted during simulations. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated through case studies which simulate a networked control scenario in which the communication and control system properties are defined explicitly.

A genetic algorithm for the multi-source and multi-sink minimum vertex cut problem and its applications

We present a new penalty-based genetic algorithm for the multi-source and multi-sink minimum vertex cut problem, and illustrate the algorithm’s usefulness with two real-world applications. It is proved in this paper that the genetic algorithm always produces a feasible solution by exploiting some domain-specific knowledge. The genetic algorithm has been implemented on the example applications and evaluated to show how well it scales as the problem size increases.