S-Kcore : a social-aware Kcore decomposition algorithm in pocket switched networks

The key nodes in network play the critical role in system recovery and survival. Many traditional key nodes selection algorithms utilize the characters of the physical topology to find the key nodes. But they can hardly succeed in the mobile ad hoc network due to the mobility nature of the network. In this paper we propose a social-aware Kcore selection algorithm to work in the Pocket Switched Network. The social view of the network suggests the social position of the mobile nodes can help to find the key nodes in the Pocket Switched Network. The S-Kcore selection algorithm is designed to exploit the nodes' social features to improve the performance in data communication. Experiments use the NS2 shows S-Kcore selection algorithm workable in the Pocket Switched Network. Furthermore, with the social behavior information, those key nodes are more suitable to represent and improve the whole network's performance.

Web 2.0 virtual design studio : social networking as facilitator of design education

In 2009, Deakin University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong trailed the use of Web 2.0 technologies to enhance learning outcomes in a third-year architectural design studio that was modelled on the virtual design studios (VDSs) of the past decades. The studio developed the VDS further by integrating a social learning environment into the blended learning experience. The Web 2.0 VDS utilized the social networking site Ning.com, YouTube, Skype and various three-dimensional modelling, video and image processing, and chat software to deliver lectures, communicate learning goals, disseminate learning resources, submitting, providing feedback and comments to various design works, and assessing of students’ outcomes. This research centres on issues of learning and teaching associated with the development of a social network VDS.

T-OSN : a trust evaluation model in online social networks

Now days, the online social networks (OSN) have gained considerable popularity. More and more people use OSN to share their interests and make friends, also the OSN helps users overcome the geographical barriers. With the development of OSN, there is an important problem users have to face that is trust evaluation. Before user makes friends with a stranger, the user need to consider the following issues: Can a stranger be trusted? How much the stranger can be trusted? How to measure the trust of a stranger? In this paper, we take two factors, Degree and Contact Interval into consideration, which produce a new trust evaluation model (T-OSN). T-OSN is aimed to solve how to evaluate the trust value of an OSN user, also which is more efficient, more reliable and easy to implement. Base on our research, this model can be used in wide range, such as online social network (OSN) trust evaluation, mobile network message forwarding, ad hoc wireless networking, routing message on Internet and peer-to-peer file sharing network. The T-OSN model has following obvious advantages compare to other trust evaluate methods. First of all, it is not base on features of traditional social network, such as, distance and shortest path. We choose the special features of OSN to build up the model, that is including numbers of friends(Degree) and contact frequency(Contact Interval). These species features makes our model more suitable to evaluate OSN users trust value. Second, the formulations of our model are quite simple but effective. That means, to calculate the result by using our formulations will not cost too much resources. Last but not least, our model is easy to implement for an OSN website, because of the features that we used in our model, such as numbers of friends and contact frequency are easy to obtain. To sum up, our model is using a few resources to obtain a valuable trust value that can help OSN users to solve an important security problem, we believe that will be big step - or development of OSN.

Mobile phones as a learning device : is it time to stop the ban?

It is now time for teachers as well as colleges to make a place for mobile learning within the classroom setting. Teachers should be encouraged to integrate mobile phones for teaching and learning within the classroom, as they can be seen as an effective learning tool for students of all ages. We believe that mobile phone bans in colleges should be reviewed and reconsidered. This paper draws on some important aspects which mobile phones can bring into the classroom; it illustrates how mobile phones can fit seamlessly in a normal classroom environment; and the advantages that they provide. A possible integration method which encourages collaboration among students and teacher will be discussed and proposed.

The circumstantial activist : holistic practice, learning and social activism

The 21st century has seen renewed interest in issues relating to social justice, campaigning and social change globally. This paper considers the educational nature of activists’ learning as they engage in progressive social change within and against the state. A great deal has been written on learning in the workplace in recent years, it is widely believed that adults learn throughout all of their lives and that a majority of this learning occurs in the workplace. Drawing on current research, this paper argues that learning of a similar nature takes place in the unpaid work of social and political activists, through social learning. It is argued that activists’ learning is holistic and embodied, that is, they use cognition, the emotions and the physical body to learn. This paper explores the significance of learning associated with the processes and practices of activism; learning that has only recently been recognised in Australia as ‘real’ adult education.

The 'circumstantial' activist : holistic practice, learning and social activism

The 21st century has seen renewed interest in issues relating to social justice, campaigning and social change globally. This paper considers the educational nature of activists’ learning as they engage in progressive social change within and against the state. A great deal has been written on learning in the workplace in recent years, it is widely believed that adults learn throughout all of their lives and that a majority of this learning occurs in the workplace. Drawing on current research, this paper argues that learning of a similar nature takes place in the unpaid work of social and political activists, through social learning. It is argued that activists’ learning is holistic and embodied, that is, they use cognition, the emotions and the physical body to learn. This paper explores the significance of learning associated with the processes and practices of activism; learning that has only recently been recognised in Australia as ‘real’ adult education.

SMEDIA: Designing to create a social and dynamic learning framework

This article discusses the design of social networking sites created through a PhD action research study. Social and participatory media was used as an active, flexible and motivating learning management system. The study investigated ways in which a social learning framework could be designed for students aged 13 to 16 and aimed to encourage student knowledge growth through peer-to-peer interaction while supporting both formal and informal learning. New literacies and multimodality were infused into the design. It was found that the practitioner-researcher’s cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting, action research, provided a mechanism for scaffolding the redesign of curriculum content and instruction. Social media in education can be dynamic, interactive and appreciated (SMEDIA) by the students.

Avaliação de Impacto em projetos sociais do terceiro setor: uma contribuição da teoria de policy learning

Esta pesquisa analisará o aprendizado em organizações do terceiro setor a partir de dois eixos principais: 1) Aprendizado através de análises empíricas (Avaliação de Impacto) - Pretende-se entender as principais recomendações para o terceiro setor em relação a Avaliação de Impacto e qual o cenário atual dessas práticas no contexto brasileiro. Para isso, foram entrevistadas 50 instituições que fazem parte de uma rede de organizações na área de educação, para entender como a avaliação vem sendo aplicada; 2) Aprendizado através da dimensão de Policy Learning: Social Learning e Instrumental Learning – Estabelecimento de conexão de teorias de aprendizado em políticas públicas com as instituições do terceiro setor e análise de possibilidades de aprendizado através de outras experiências e boas práticas.

An evolutionary approach to improve connectivity prediction in mobile wireless sensor networks

Connectivity is the basic factor for the proper operation of any wireless network. In a mobile wireless sensor network it is a challenge for applications and protocols to deal with connectivity problems, as links might get up and down frequently. In these scenarios, having knowledge of the node remaining connectivity time could both improve the performance of the protocols (e.g. handoff mechanisms) and save possible scarce nodes resources (CPU, bandwidth, and energy) by preventing unfruitful transmissions. The current paper provides a solution called Genetic Machine Learning Algorithm (GMLA) to forecast the remainder connectivity time in mobile environments. It consists in combining Classifier Systems with a Markov chain model of the RF link quality. The main advantage of using an evolutionary approach is that the Markov model parameters can be discovered on-the-fly, making it possible to cope with unknown environments and mobility patterns. Simulation results show that the proposal is a very suitable solution, as it overcomes the performance obtained by similar approaches.

Rich media content adaptation in e-learning systems

The wide use of e-technologies represents a great opportunity for underserved segments of the population, especially with the aim of reintegrating excluded individuals back into society through education. This is particularly true for people with different types of disabilities who may have difficulties while attending traditional on-site learning programs that are typically based on printed learning resources. The creation and provision of accessible e-learning contents may therefore become a key factor in enabling people with different access needs to enjoy quality learning experiences and services. Another e-learning challenge is represented by m-learning (which stands for mobile learning), which is emerging as a consequence of mobile terminals diffusion and provides the opportunity to browse didactical materials everywhere, outside places that are traditionally devoted to education. Both such situations share the need to access materials in limited conditions and collide with the growing use of rich media in didactical contents, which are designed to be enjoyed without any restriction. Nowadays, Web-based teaching makes great use of multimedia technologies, ranging from Flash animations to prerecorded video-lectures. Rich media in e-learning can offer significant potential in enhancing the learning environment, through helping to increase access to education, enhance the learning experience and support multiple learning styles. Moreover, they can often be used to improve the structure of Web-based courses. These highly variegated and structured contents may significantly improve the quality and the effectiveness of educational activities for learners. For example, rich media contents allow us to describe complex concepts and process flows. Audio and video elements may be utilized to add a “human touch” to distance-learning courses. Finally, real lectures may be recorded and distributed to integrate or enrich on line materials. A confirmation of the advantages of these approaches can be seen in the exponential growth of video-lecture availability on the net, due to the ease of recording and delivering activities which take place in a traditional classroom. Furthermore, the wide use of assistive technologies for learners with disabilities injects new life into e-learning systems. E-learning allows distance and flexible educational activities, thus helping disabled learners to access resources which would otherwise present significant barriers for them. For instance, students with visual impairments have difficulties in reading traditional visual materials, deaf learners have trouble in following traditional (spoken) lectures, people with motion disabilities have problems in attending on-site programs. As already mentioned, the use of wireless technologies and pervasive computing may really enhance the educational learner experience by offering mobile e-learning services that can be accessed by handheld devices. This new paradigm of educational content distribution maximizes the benefits for learners since it enables users to overcome constraints imposed by the surrounding environment. While certainly helpful for users without disabilities, we believe that the use of newmobile technologies may also become a fundamental tool for impaired learners, since it frees them from sitting in front of a PC. In this way, educational activities can be enjoyed by all the users, without hindrance, thus increasing the social inclusion of non-typical learners. While the provision of fully accessible and portable video-lectures may be extremely useful for students, it is widely recognized that structuring and managing rich media contents for mobile learning services are complex and expensive tasks. Indeed, major difficulties originate from the basic need to provide a textual equivalent for each media resource composing a rich media Learning Object (LO). Moreover, tests need to be carried out to establish whether a given LO is fully accessible to all kinds of learners. Unfortunately, both these tasks are truly time-consuming processes, depending on the type of contents the teacher is writing and on the authoring tool he/she is using. Due to these difficulties, online LOs are often distributed as partially accessible or totally inaccessible content. Bearing this in mind, this thesis aims to discuss the key issues of a system we have developed to deliver accessible, customized or nomadic learning experiences to learners with different access needs and skills. To reduce the risk of excluding users with particular access capabilities, our system exploits Learning Objects (LOs) which are dynamically adapted and transcoded based on the specific needs of non-typical users and on the barriers that they can encounter in the environment. The basic idea is to dynamically adapt contents, by selecting them from a set of media resources packaged in SCORM-compliant LOs and stored in a self-adapting format. The system schedules and orchestrates a set of transcoding processes based on specific learner needs, so as to produce a customized LO that can be fully enjoyed by any (impaired or mobile) student.

(Lifelong) learning in your pocket?

Der Beitrag fokussiert die Entwicklung, den Einsatz und die Nutzung von innovativen Technologien zur Unterstützung von Bildungsszenarien in Schule, Hochschule und Weiterbildung. Ausgehend von den verschiedenen Phasen des Corporate Learning, Social Learning, Mobile Learning und Intelligent Learning wird in einem ersten Abschnitt das Nutzungsverhalten von Technologien durch Kinder, Jugendliche und (junge) Erwachsene in Schule, Studium und Lehre betrachtet. Es folgt die Darstellung technologischer Entwicklungen auf Basis des Technology Life Cycle und die Konsequenzen von unterschiedlichen Entwicklungszuständen und Reifegraden von Technologien wie Content Learning Management, sozialen Netzwerken, mobilen Endgeräten, multidimensionalen und -modalen Räumen bis hin zu Anwendungen augmentierter Realität und des Internets der Dinge, Dienste und Daten für den Einsatz und die Nutzung in Bildungsszenarien. Nach der Darstellung von Anforderungen an digitale Technologien hinsichtlich Inhalte, Didaktik und Methodik wie etwa hinsichtlich der Erstellung von Inhalten, deren Wiederverwendung, Digitalisierung und Auffindbarkeit sowie Standards werden methodische Hinweise zur Nutzung digitaler Technologien zur Interaktion von Lernenden, von Lehrenden, sozialer Interaktion, kollaborativem Autorieren, Kommentierung, Evaluation und Begutachtung gegeben. Abschließend werden - differenziert für Schule und Hochschule - Erkenntnisse zu Rahmenbedingungen, Einflussgrößen, hemmenden und fördernden Faktoren sowie Herausförderungen bei der Einführung und nachhaltigen Implementation digitaler Technologien im schulischen Unterricht, in Lehre, Studium und Weiterbildung im Überblick zusammengefasst.

iCarer Project: Intelligent Care Guidance and Learning Services Platform for Informal Carers of the Elderly

The increasing ageing population is demanding new care approaches to maintain the quality of life of elderly people. Informal carers are becoming crucial agents in the care and support of elderly people, which can lead to those carers suffering from additional stress due to competing priorities with employment or due to lack of knowledge about elderly people?s care needs. Thus, support and stress relief in carers should be a key issue in the home-care process of these older adults. Considering this context, this work presents the iCarer project aimed at developing a personalized and adaptive platform to offer informal carers support by means of monitoring their activities of daily care and psychological state, as well as providing an orientation to help them improve the care provided. Additionally, iCarer will provide e-Learning services and an informal carers learning network. As a result, carers will be able to expand their knowledge, supported by the experience provided by expert counsellors and fellow carers. Additionally, the coordination between formal and informal carers will be improved, offering the informal carers flexibility to organize and combine their assistance and social activities.

Optimization and Machine Learning Frameworks for Complex Network Analysis

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Lo-Fi matchmaking: A study of social pairing for backpackers 8th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing, UbiComp 2006

It is technically feasible for mobile social software such as pairing or ‘matchmaking’ systems to introduce people to others and assist information exchange. However, little is known about the social structure of many mobile communities or why they would want such pairing systems. While engaged in other work determining requirements for a mobile travel assistant we saw a potentially useful application for a pairing system to facilitate the exchange of travel information between backpackers. To explore this area, we designed two studies involving usage of a low-fidelity role prototype of a social pairing system for backpackers. Backpackers rated the utility of different pairing types, and provided feedback on the social implications of being paired based on travel histories. Practical usage of the social network pairing activity and the implications of broader societal usage are discussed.