Holistic information behavior and the perceived success of work in organizations

Surprisingly little is known about the relationship between perceived work success and information behavior. This study shows that holistic (versus organization-centric) information behavioral preferences are related to interaction and exchange oriented perceptions of the success of work. The findings were drawn from a partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) based analysis of the survey data (N?=?305) collected from employees of a large multinational corporation. The findings suggest that holistic information behavior is more strongly related to social measures of success, whereas their association with quantitative measures tends to be lower. From the perspective of information behavior research, the findings suggest that holism seems to be a similar factor to, for instance, task complexity or personality, which influences human information behavior and, for instance, perceptions of relevance. From a practical perspective, the study suggests that the promotion of specific facets of measuring success and patterns of information behavior can be used to influence the orientation of working between centrifugality and openness.     

Ladder realizations of multivariable positive real functions

Necessary and sufficient conditions are obtained for the realization of an m-variable positive real function (PRF) as the impedence function of a resistively-terminated ladder network of m lossless two-ports connected in cascade. Each two-port is a single-variable lossless ladder with all of its transmission zeros either at the origin or at finity. Conditions are also obtained when each of the two-ports is a Fujisawa-type lowpass ladder.     

解决短期高峰需求的成本效益策略

For most open universities, in fact for most universities, there will arise occasions when some online activities will have to be completed by all students in a very short time interval. These occasions usually result in a great rush to get online as quickly as possible; the rush is often made worst by the limited good choices on offer such that usually only the earliest can get the best. Choosing and confirming elective subjects, when only a limited number for each are offered, on a first-come-first-served basis is an example.At the Open University Malaysia the rush occurs when confirming offered subjects and choosing face-to-face meeting timetable. Most students rushed to be earliest to ensure choice slots in the timetable are obtained.Available I. T. resources such as Internet bandwidth and servers cannot cope with these short-term sustained peak demands. Unless these peak demands are met, however, online services will slow down drastically resulting in long queues of users waiting to be served. Providing excess capacity, if at all possible, to ensure these short duration peak demands can be met would not be cost-effective since most of the time these resources are not utilised. This paper will look at some cost-effective approaches to meeting these short-term peak demands.     

Use of digital game based learning and gamification in secondary school science: The effect on student engagement,learning and gender difference

This study aimed to identify the impact of a game based learning (GBL) application using computer technologies on student engagement in secondary school science classrooms. The literature reveals that conventional Science teaching techniques (teacher-centered lecture and teaching), which foster rote learning among students, are one of the major concerns in Pakistan Education system. This leads to student disengagement in science lessons eventually resulting in student absenteeism and dropouts from the schools. This study consisted of five stages: (1) examining the impact of Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) and gamification on engagement, learning and gender difference, and literature related to using DGBL models for instructional design; (2) planning learning activities and developing a GBL application based on a specific content in Science; (3) conducting an intervention with a sample of 72 participants of 8th grade (aged 12–15) in a low cost private school of Pakistan following quasi-experimental research framework; (4) observing behaviour and emotions of the participants during science lessons; (5) conducting pre and post tests to assess the learning outcomes of participants followed by focus groups discussion. Analysis from Friedman test, Mann-Whitney U test, and Wilcoxon Signed Rank test show that the GBL application has a positive influence on student engagement. However, GBL application was not equally effective for all students since girls outperformed boys in terms of engagement and learning outcomes. This study gives insights into the development of better educational games to promote student learning.     

Examining the antecedents of e-loyalty intention in an online reservation environment

Online reservation has increased significantly in recent years. Understanding how customers behave towards this technology is considered to be important to interested parties, such as travel agencies and tourism marketing managers, in order to enable them to improve their marketing strategies, which would, in turn, allow them to retain their customers. This paper presents findings about the antecedents of e-loyalty intention towards online reservation among 288 respondents in the United Arab Emirates. The research examines the role of e-service quality, hedonic and utilitarian values, satisfaction, and subjective norms in motivating loyalty intention towards online reservation. The results show that e-service quality has a significant influence on hedonic and utilitarian values, which, in turn, affect customer satisfaction. Moreover, satisfaction and subjective norms positively affect e-loyalty intention towards online reservation.     

Resource discovery in distributed digital libraries through visual knowledge navigation

INTRODUCTION In this paper, we present our work in the Strand Map Service (SMS), which provides concept map based browsing interfaces for resource discovery in a library independent manner within American Na- tional Science Digital Library (NSDL). As critical components of digital libraries, dis- covery systems provide interfaces that support user to search and browse for resources in digital libraries (Hall et al., 1999). The effectiveness of discovery systems has big impact on the…