"No Artificial Death, Only Natural Death": The Dynamics of Centralization and Decentralization of Usenet Newsgroups

This article examines the dynamics of centralization and decentralization of Usenet newsgroups. In doing so, it considers the similarities and differences between the organization of Usenet and the design principles for other self-organizing and self-governing common-pool resource (CPR) institutions. The rise and fall of the Backbone Cabal and the birth of the "alt" hierarchy provides insight into the early conflicts between the centralizing and decentralizing processes of Usenet. Today's procedures for group creation in the big eight hierarchies and in "alt" hierarchy and the Usenet death penalty (UDP) show that earlier tensions are still extant.     

Feminist Rhetoric in Cyberspace: The Ethos of Feminist Usenet Newsgroups

Users of the Internet are stripped of voice inflections, body language, and other common cues of conversation-only their words are left. Some claim that the lack of these social cues and the lack of hierarchy in the structure of the Internet provide the potential for equality in cyberspace. Many others have shown, though, that the issues of power in cyberspace are similar to the issues of power in physical space. This article examines an intersection of feminism and cyberspace in the ethos of online discussion. It is a rhetorical analysis of two popular feminist newsgroups, alt.feminism and soc.feminism. Do these newsgroups create a feminist and inclusive space online? What are the rhetorical strategies that make an online space more or less inclusive of women? Usenet newsgroups reveal the rhetorical power of these bare words. Although no formal means of discrimination is built into Usenet newsgroup discussions, discrimination does occur through the subtle and not so subtle use of language. This article looks at how various characteristics of language are used on the two newsgroups. Though the ethos on such discussion forums is dynamic, the analysis reveals examples of how sarcastic questioning, strong assertions, accusatory disagreements, and sexistcomments can create a hostile and noninclusive ethos.     

论Usenet信息资源应用

本文主要论述Usenet网络新闻组的体系结构、文章格式、新闻服务器选择以及信息资源的检索技术等。     

A wavelet- and neural network-based voice system for a smart wheelchair control

Power wheelchairs provide unique mobility for the disabled and the elderly with motor impairments. However, it is extremely difficult for people suffering from severe motor impairments, such as tremors, to control standard power wheelchairs. In this paper, we present a design of an automated powered wheelchair system that integrates the latest technologies to assist users with motor disability in moving around and sending help messages to four distinct destinations using SMS messages. A user can move the wheelchair using one of the three techniques integrated in the wheelchair: a joystick, direction buttons, or voice. Moreover, the speed of the wheelchair can be controlled using two buttons (slow and fast). For the recognition of the voice commands, the system uses wavelets and neural networks for feature extraction and classification, respectively.     

科学技术——人类社会文明进化的基因组图谱

人类社会就象生物和人类自身一样同样具有生命现象,同样具有新陈代谢,生殖发育,遗传变异,进化分化等生命现象,我们把这种生命现象称之谓类生命现象。本文就是从人类社会的类生命现象入手,对人类社会文明发展的遗传基因组———“科学技术体系”进行全面系统地研究,并根据生物遗传学原理和生物类比方法发现并提出了“科学技术遗传信息传递的中心法则”以及“科技规范因子（ 基因） 的自由分离组合规律”和“科技遗传信息的矩阵分布规律”。据此对人类社会文明的遗传与变异、进化与分化的本质性问题进行了初步分析     

Automatic keyword identification by artificial neural networks compared to manual identification by users of filtering systems

Information filtering (IF) systems usually filter data items by correlating a vector of terms that represent the user profile with similar vectors of terms that represent data items. Terms that represent data items can be determined by experts or automatic indexing methods. In this study we employ an artificial neural network (ANN) as an alternative method for both IF and term selection and compare its effectiveness to that of “traditional” methods. In an earlier study we developed and examined the performance of an IF system that employed content-based and stereotypic rule-based filtering methods in the domain of e-mail messages. In this study, we train a large-scale ANN-based filter, which uses meaningful terms in the same database as input, and use it to predict the relevance of those messages. Our results reveal that the ANN relevance prediction out-performs the prediction of the IF system. Moreover, we found very low correlation between the terms in the user profile (explicitly selected by the users) and the positive causal-index (CI) terms of the ANN, which indicate the relative importance of terms in messages. This implies that the users underestimate the importance of some terms, failing to include them in their profiles. This may explain the rather low prediction accuracy of the IF system.     

基于专家智慧的企业危机集成研讨模式

企业危机的发生不可避免,而预防是解决危机的最好办法。现有的依靠预警指标判别企业危机状态存在缺陷,有必要引入以人为本的综合集成研讨厅进行危机判别。对危机进行判别的综合集成研讨厅是一个人-知识-机器结合的危机信息分析体系,专家是研讨厅中最具能动性的因素,他们在相关危机知识库帮助下,通过自由讨论和深层次对话激发个体智慧,最终走向群体智慧的统一完成对企业危机状态的综合判断。     

The ‘language’ of informatics: The nature of information systems

This is the second paper in a series examining the fundamental nature of informatics. The aim of the current paper is to provide a more detailed account of the concept of an information system based upon an earlier paper entitled Informatics and the Inca. The paper also builds upon the content of the first paper in this series entitled Neolithic Informatics: The Nature of Information. We ground the discussion in a significant case from the Second World War: that of the Warning Network. The Warning Network was a system that contributed to victory of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain. Through examination of this case we establish the idea of an information system as a semi-formal ‘language’ necessary for the coordination and control of activity in various forms of human organization.     

Searching for Safety Online: Managing "Trolling" in a Feminist Forum

A common phenomenon in online discussion groups is the individual who baits and provokes other group members, often with the result of drawing them into fruitless argument and diverting attention from the stated purposes of the group. This study documents a case in which the members of an online community--a feminist web-based discussion forum--are targeted by a "troll" attempting to disrupt their discussion space. We analyze the strategies that make the troller successful and the targeted group largely ineffectual in responding to his attack, as a means to understand how such behavior might be minimized and managed in general. The analysis further suggests that feminist and other nonmainstream online forums are especially vulnerable, in that they must balance inclusive ideals against the need for protection and safety, a tension that can be exploited by disruptive elements to generate intragroup conflict.     

An architecture for Malay Tweet normalization

Research in natural language processing has increasingly focused on normalizing Twitter messages. Currently, while different well-defined approaches have been proposed for the English language, the problem remains far from being solved for other languages, such as Malay. Thus, in this paper, we propose an approach to normalize the Malay Twitter messages based on corpus-driven analysis. An architecture for Malay Tweet normalization is presented, which comprises seven main modules: (1) enhanced tokenization, (2) In-Vocabulary (IV) detection, (3) specialized dictionary query, (4) repeated letter elimination, (5) abbreviation adjusting, (6) English word translation, and (7) de-tokenization. A parallel Tweet dataset, consisting of 9000 Malay Tweets, is used in the development and testing stages. To measure the performance of the system, an evaluation is carried out. The result is promising whereby we score 0.83 in BLEU against the baseline BLEU, which scores 0.46. To compare the accuracy of the architecture with other statistical approaches, an SMT-like normalization system is implemented, trained, and evaluated with an identical parallel dataset. The experimental results demonstrate that we achieve higher accuracy by the normalization system, which is designed based on the features of Malay Tweets, compared to the SMT-like system.     

What’s mine is mine; what’s yours is mine: private ownership of ICTs as a threat to transparency

In the face of ubiquitous information communication technology, the presence of blogs, personal websites, and public message boards give the illusion of uncensored criticism and discussion of the ethical implications of business activities. However, little attention has been paid to the limitations on free speech posed by the control of access to the Internet by private entities, enabling them to censor content that is deemed critical of corporate or public policy. The premise of this research is that transparency alone will not achieve the desired results if ICT is used in a one way system, controlled by the provider of information. Stakeholders must have an avenue using the same technology to respond to and interact with the information. We propose a model that imposes on corporations a public trust, requiring these gatekeepers of communication technology to preserve individual rights to criticism and review.     

Open innovation in SMEs—An intermediated network model

In spite of increasing interest in open innovation, discussion about the concept and its potential application to the SME sector has been excluded from mainstream literature. However, given that the argument about the effect of firm size on the effectiveness of innovation is still ongoing, it is worth addressing the issue from an SME perspective. That is the focus of this article, which seeks, firstly, to place the concept of open innovation in the context of SMEs; secondly to suggest the input of an intermediary in facilitating innovation; and finally to report accounts of Korean SMEs’ success in working with an intermediary. The research results support the potential of open innovation for SMEs, and indicate networking as one effective way to facilitate open innovation among SMEs.     

Content Analysis of Pornographic Images Available on the Internet

We examined the nature and content of 150 randomly selected pornographic images available in Usenet newsgroups on the Internet in April 1994. Using content analysis, we identified themes that appear most frequently and explored differences in the type of material posted by commercial and noncommercial users. Results suggest that commercial vendors are more likely to post explicit pornographic material in public access newsgroups to attract new customers to their private, pay-per-use bulletin board services.     

Observation on copying and pasting behavior during the Tohoku earthquake: Retweet pattern changes

Social media has become one of the primary sources for risk communication in a disaster. Especially, the behavior of copying and pasting messages generated by others is a primary method to redistribute information in this context. This paper examines the mediated messages that were generated after the outbreak of the Tohoku earthquake to investigate patterns of selecting received messages for redistribution. The results show that the frequency of mediated messages including external hyperlinks decreased after the disaster. In addition, the impact of a direct request to mediate a message was diminished. However, users became more sensitive to the fact whether the messages include the earthquake relevant keywords or not. This study contributes to the research stream on dynamic patterns of framing messages in that it supplies empirical evidences of pattern changes before and after the outbreak of a disaster.     

Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies: Opportunities and Challenges,edited by A. Aggarwal. Hershey,PA: Idea Group Publishing, 2000. vi + 372 pp. $69.95. ISBN 1-878-28960-8

We examined the nature and content of 150 randomly selected pornographic images available in Usenet newsgroups on the Internet in April 1994. Using content analysis, we identified themes that appear most frequently and explored differences in the type of material posted by commercial and noncommercial users. Results suggest that commercial vendors are more likely to post explicit pornographic material in public access newsgroups to attract new customers to their private, pay-per-use bulletin board services.     

脑机接口研究概述

脑机接口(BCI)是在人脑和外界之间建立不依赖于常规大脑信息输出通路(外周神经和肌肉组织)的一种通讯系统,概述了基于EEG的BCI技术的基本原理、研究方法、类型和研究现状,并分析了存在的问题与应用前景。     

Ethical codes in the digital world: comparisons of the proprietary,the open/free and the cracker system

The digital world provides various ethical frames for individuals to become ethical subjects. In this paper I examine – in a Foucauldian and Luhmannian way – the differences between three systems of communication: the proprietary, the open/free and the cracker system. It is argued that all three systems provide a different set of ethical codes which one can be subjected to. The language of each system is restricted and they cannot understand each other, they merely consider each other as the environment. The systems generate a diversity of ethical codes as they give different shapes to digital objects. To proprietary software companies digital objects are an instrument of financial profit. The free software/open source movement emphasises transparency; the end user must be able to view and alter the source code. The cracker scene sees digital objects in a different way. For this particular system, only copy-protected digital objects are appealing. Copy protection binds its target to the world of matter. Breaking the protection is the ultimate challenge and a way to gain honour and status inside the cracker scene. A copy-protected digital object is simultaneously an utmost example of the hidden source code (the open/free system), a perfect artefact that can be owned and sold (the proprietary system) and a challenge to be cracked (the cracker system).     

Neolithic informatics: The nature of information

The term informatics is used as an umbrella term to stand for the overlapping disciplinary areas of information systems, information management and information technology. The current paper is part of a series which documents an overarching attempt to develop a clearer and more sophisticated systematics for the area. It examines one of the foundation concepts of informatics – that of information – and aims to provide a definition for this concept based upon ideas from semiotics and communication theory. For this purpose we introduce the concept of a sign-system and consider the role such a system plays in human communication. We also highlight the fundamental difference between a communication system and an information system. To help ground our discussion and provide a necessary distance from the present-day concern with digital computing and communication networks we engage with the historiography of information. We consider the use of information in Neolithic times and describe the case of clay tokens in Ancient Sumeria as one of the earliest examples of information representation and manipulation. Examination of this case allows us to propose a number of universal features of information and ‘information technology’.     

A resiliency framework for an enterprise cloud

This paper presents a systematic approach to develop a resilient software system which can be developed as emerging services and analytics for resiliency. While using the resiliency as a good example for enterprise cloud security, all resilient characteristics should be blended together to produce greater impacts. A framework, cloud computing adoption framework (CCAF), is presented in details. CCAF has four major types of emerging services and each one has been explained in details with regard to the individual function and how each one can be integrated. CCAF is an architectural framework that blends software resilience, service components and guidelines together and provides real case studies to produce greater impacts to the organizations adopting cloud computing and security. CCAF provides business alignments and provides agility, efficiency and integration for business competitive edge. In order to validate user requirements and system designs, a large scale survey has been conducted with detailed analysis provided for each major question. We present our discussion and conclude that the use of CCAF framework can illustrate software resilience and security improvement for enterprise security. CCAF framework itself is validated as an emerging service for enterprise cloud computing with analytics showing survey analysis.     

The use of alternating currents for submarine marine cable transmission

This paper contains the results of experiments performed by members of the Signal Corps Research Laboratory, Bureau of Standards, in an attempt to develop a method or methods of signal transmission over submarine cables which would permit of a more effective use of existing cable systems.In the method proposed and developed, signals are transmitted by means of alternating currents simultaneously with the normal battery of direct-current operation of the cable. Currents of several different frequencies may be used, reserving a given frequency for each message, and by tuning or equivalent methods at the receiving end these messages may be separated, so that the simultaneous transmission of a number of messages is redered possible.Accurate determination of the fundamental physical properties of a particular cable for different frequencies has been accompalished, and the results are given herewith. From these physical properties accurate calculations for any length of cable can be made, so that the design of proper apparatus becomes purely a laboratory problem.Actual trial of the proposed alternating-current method was made covering distances up to approximately 700 kilometres, with results which were in all cases completely satisfactory, indicating that the method is an entirely feasible one, and one which will render cables of this length, and undoubtedly of several times this length, much more useful.