Topics

16

Artificial Intelligence / Automated Bangla text summarization by sentence scoring and ranking

« on: September 05, 2018, 03:52:26 PM »

Abstract: In Natural Language Processing (NLP) the document summarization is an area that is getting interest of modern researchers. Though there are many techniques that have been proposed for English language but a few notable works have been done for Bangla text summarization. This paper deals with the development of an extraction based summarization technique which works on Bangla text documents. The system summarizes a single document at a time. Before creating the summary of a document, it is pre-processed by tokenization, removal of stop words and stemming. In the document summarization process, the countable features like word frequency and sentence positional value are used to make the summary more precise and concrete. Attributes like cue words and skeleton of the document are included in the process, which help to make the summary more relevant to the content of the document.The evaluation shows that 83.57% of summary sentences selected by the system agreed with those made by human.

Full-Paper:
https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/iciev/2013/0400/00/06572686.pdf

17

Image Processing Computer Networks / Dynamic Blocks for Face Verification

« on: September 05, 2018, 03:49:20 PM »

Abstract: Face recognition system is a computer based biometric information processing for automatically identifying or verifying a person from a digital image or a video frame. The significance of this research area is increasing day by day. Although the existing methods of face verification system perform well under certain conditions, there are still challenging problems due to several issues such as pose variation, facial expression variation, occlusion, imaging conditions, illuminations, size variations, age variations, orientations, etc. This paper addresses the problem of recognizing human faces despite the variations of pose and size. To handle these problems, we mainly focus on dynamic block size. Instead of uniform block, we propose Dynamic Size Blocks (DSB) considering most prominent face features such as eye, eyebrow, nose, mouth, chin, cheek, fore-head, etc., based on facial landmarks. In this feature based approach, we use a Dynamic Local Ternary Pattern (DLTP) for extracting facial feature information from each dynamic block. Then we perform a square-root of Chi-Square distance for similarity measurement of each block. We use a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier for face verification. We performed a comprehensive experimental evaluation on Labeled Faces in the Wild (LFW) dataset with restricted settings original images. Our proposed method has achieved an accuracy of 74.08% on all test images and 82.26% on dataset images excluding extreme pose variations.

Full-Paper: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Md_Efat/publication/304083904_Dynamic_Blocks_for_Face_Verification/links/5765d55b08ae421c4489d556/Dynamic-Blocks-for-Face-Verification.pdf

18

Image Processing Computer Networks / Vision Inspired Local Ternary Pattern (VLTP) for Face Recognition & Verification

« on: September 05, 2018, 03:47:23 PM »

Abstract: Face recognition and verification algorithms use a varity of features that describe a face. Most popular amongst these features are LBP (Local binary pattern) and its varient Local Ternary Pattern (LTP). LBP is very sensitive to near uniform region and is incapable of handling intensity fluctuation that often happens due to noise. This is addressed by introducing a fixed threshold in LTP. However, a fixed threshold often fails to perfectly describe a feature. To address this issue, we propose an adaptive LTP (ALTP) that extends LTP to evoke vibrant threshold. To verify the proposed methods we have used a recent challenging face database named Label Face in Wild (LFW). Our proposed ALTP method is light weight, and achieved an accuracy of 76.23%, which is impressive in contrast to other computationally inexpensive state of the art methods.

Full-Paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304083778_Vision_Inspired_Local_Ternary_Pattern_VLTP_for_Face_Recognition_Verification

19

Image Processing Computer Networks / Face verification with fully dynamic size blocks based on landmark detection

« on: September 05, 2018, 03:42:36 PM »

Abstract: Face recognition and verification is still a challenging problem due to several issues such as pose, facial expression, occlusion, imaging conditions, rotation, size and orientation. This paper addresses the problem of recognizing human faces despite the presence in pose and size variation. To handle these problems, we mainly focus on block size definition. Instead of uniform block we thus propose Dynamic Size Blocks (DSB) that is based on facial landmarks. Extensive experimentations are performed on Labeled Faces in the Wild (LFW) dataset with restricted original images. Our proposed landmark based DSB definition has achieved an accuracy of 74.08% on all images and 82.26% on dataset images excluding extreme pose variations.

Full-Paper: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Md_Efat/publication/269297092_Face_verification_with_fully_dynamic_size_blocks_based_on_landmark_detection/links/5765ce6908aeb4b998071059.pdf

20

Image Processing Computer Networks / Dynamic Local Ternary Pattern for Face Recognition and Verification

« on: September 05, 2018, 03:41:05 PM »

Abstract: Face recognition and verification algorithms use a variety of features that describe a face. Many of them are affected by the change of illumination and intensity fluctuation due to noise. Inspired by the properties of human visual system, a dynamic local ternary pattern has been proposed that allow not only encoding important texture features but also reduction of the effect of noises for face recognition and/or verification. This descriptor is constructed with the aid of Weber’s law, and has been experimented on a benchmark face verification dataset, named Labeled Faces in the Wild (LFW) resulting very promising performances even in uncontrolled environment.

Full-Paper: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Md_Efat/publication/304083734_Dynamic_Local_Ternary_Pattern_for_Face_Recognition_and_Verification/links/5765d00108ae421c4489d53f/Dynamic-Local-Ternary-Pattern-for-Face-Recognition-and-Verification.pdf

21

Artificial Intelligence / ‘Functional Fingerprint’ May Identify Brains Over a Lifetime

« on: September 05, 2018, 03:24:33 PM »

Michaela Cordova, a research associate and lab manager at Oregon Health and Science University, begins by “de-metaling”: removing rings, watches, gadgets and other sources of metal, double-checking her pockets for overlooked objects that could, in her words, “fly in.” Then she enters the scanning room, raises and lowers the bed, and waves a head coil in the general direction of the viewing window and the iPad camera that’s enabling this virtual lab tour (I’m watching from thousands of miles away in Massachusetts). Her voice is mildly distorted by the microphone embedded in the MRI scanner, which from my slightly blurry vantage point looks less like an industrial cannoli than a beast with a glowing blue mouth. I can’t help but think that eerie description might resonate with her usual clientele.

For more reading: https://www.quantamagazine.org/functional-fingerprint-may-identify-brains-over-a-lifetime-20180816/

22

Cloud Computing / DNA Sent to the Cloud

« on: September 05, 2018, 03:16:38 PM »

China-based DNA-sequencing giant BGI announced this month that it will take its business to the cloud, harnessing the power of a network of computers to analyze massive quantities of sequence data from clients around the world, reports Nature.

The company is the largest of its kind and boasts an output of some 45 trillion base pair readings, or the DNA equivalent of nearly 15,000 human genomes, per year. This is a long way from the first sequenced human genome, which took 14 years and the efforts of researchers and institutions around the globe to complete.

By moving its sequence data to the cloud, BGI hopes to corner the market as a one-stop-shop not only for DNA sequencing but also analysis—called bioinformatics. Most other companies currently offer just one service or the other.

Not only are sequencers too expensive for most labs, the cost of hard disk storage space remains so high that it is often cheaper to store the data elsewhere. Cloud computing provides vast storage space and allows high-speed analysis that is impossible or cost-prohibitive to individual labs. “The cloud is going to be central in the entire world of DNA sequencing,” Cliff Reid, chief executive of competitor Complete Genomics.

23

Cloud Computing / Cloud Computing Is Crucial To The Future Of Our Societies -- Here's Why

« on: September 05, 2018, 03:13:48 PM »

This week, telecommunications experts will gather in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, the industry’s premier event and a chance for tech companies to show off their latest innovations in areas as diverse as 5G technology, artificial intelligence, and the cloud.

Although the cloud is far from a new idea, its true capabilities are only now beginning to be realized. Here are four ways in which the cloud will shape our lives over the next decade and beyond.

Building Digital-First Infrastructure

Cloud will provide the digital infrastructure of tomorrow’s cities, where an estimated 6 billion of the world’s population will live by 2045. Smart elevators and parking lots, driverless cars and drone taxis, trains and subways, farms and power plants -- all will be safer and better managed, thanks to the cloud’s ability to store and analyze data.


The cloud will also be transformative for companies, especially small and mid-sized businesses, as data analytics, artificial intelligence and other capabilities become available as services. Because each industry has different needs, Huawei, a global tech company where I head up the communications team, is working on what we call the Industry Cloud: thousands of distinct, separate clouds, all working in concert across a digital ecosystem of different industry verticals. For example:

• A commercial aviation cloud will help airlines manage ground operations such as maintenance, fueling, baggage handling, and cabin cleaning, thereby increasing efficiency and helping flights take off on time.
• A utilities cloud will automatically repair faults in the power grid to ensure that homes and businesses get the electricity they need.
  
• A banking cloud will let financial institutions scan thousands of transactions per second to prevent fraud.

Regardless of industry or size, all companies need digital infrastructure to support their business operations. But cloud will change ICT from a support system into a production system. For example, OpenDesk, a London-based company, uploads furniture designs to the cloud and lets customers download the designs and manufacture the furniture locally. This lowers shipping and inventory costs, while reducing the company’s carbon footprint. 

Managing Data

The cloud will also help society cope with growing volumes of data. This includes applications like high-definition video, which Huawei estimates will account for 89% of individual user traffic by 2025.

Soon, network bandwidth and storage requirements will be driven less by user-generated cat videos and more by what IDC’s Data Age 2025 white paper calls “image and video content for non-entertainment purposes.” Examples include advertising and video recordings used in public safety applications. IDC also cites “productivity-driven” data such as files on PCs and servers; meta-data about digital files and web pages; and data created by machine-to-machine communications in the Internet of Things. Cloud will enable us to store this rising tide of data and mine it for usable insights.

Artificial Intelligence

The cloud will support emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and help them to adapt to new platforms such as mobile. When smartphone sales overtook sales of PCs in 2011, mobile became the world’s largest computing platform. Naturally, AI has made its way into phones.

But smartphones capture lots of unstructured data such as emails, text messages and photos. Analyzing unstructured data takes time and processing power that most smartphones don’t have, so the phones have to send the data to powerful servers in the cloud. This slows down AI’s response time.

The solution: divide the labor between the cloud and the phone. Training, the process whereby AI learns, happens in the cloud. When Google’s AI algorithm plays millions of games of Go with itself until it becomes a grand master capable of defeating a human, it does so in the cloud, where processing power is abundant and AI learns quickly. Inference, where the AI takes what it has learned and applies it to real-life problems, happens on the device.

Smartphones will use inference continuously, according to research sponsored by Huawei. This always-on intelligence will enable the device to respond immediately to voice commands; ensure that photos are cataloged according to content; and set cameras perfectly for different subjects under various shooting conditions.

Because inference needs to process data in real time, all the time, even tomorrow’s super-advanced smartphones won’t be able to meet the computing demands imposed by AI. They’ll have to rely on the processing power of the cloud.

24

Management Information Systems / Trends Driving the IT Hardware Industry Over the Next Three Years

« on: September 05, 2018, 03:07:35 PM »

With the explosive growth in the personal computing market, there has been a marked increase in the number of new inventions in the technologies used to power these computers. The market for laptops is similarly a high growth one, despite the ongoing recession, and contributes nearly 30% of the total sales in the market for personal computing devices.

Given this background, it is hardly surprising that there would be a move towards achieving greater efficiencies in this space with the accent on better, faster and feature heavy devices. This article considers the key trends driving the market for a new form of chip to power laptops that are expected to be better than the ones in the market.

The time frame chosen for the trend analysis is the next three years and as the article makes it clear, Moore’s law corresponds perfectly to this time frame as well as the key trends that are considered include globalisation of the supply chain, the effect of the ongoing recession on consumer and corporate spending, changes in consumer preferences for laptops and finally, the changes in technology that have spurred the introduction of newer products.

Moore’s Law
Any discussion on the potential for chips used in computers and laptops and the trends that influence such deployment for business purposes has to take into account the limits as well as opportunities presented by Moore’s Law named after Gordon Moore which states that computing power doubles every three years.

Hence, any analysis of trends as required in this article can be done over a three year period and is appropriate when one considers how computing power changes over time. Given the fact that laptop makers as well as chip makers are often in a race for time when it concerns the time to market and the turnaround time for their products to hit the market, the trends that can influence these decisions can be forecasted over a three period time at the end of which newer technology would have made obsolete the technology under consideration.

Effect of the Great Recession
One of the key trends that are going to affect the hardware industry as well as the laptop industry is the ongoing recession and its affect on the purchasing habits of consumers. With the onset of the Great Recession in 2008, the IT spends by the corporates as well as the retail consumers have come down significantly leading to an all round contraction in the amount of money spent on laptops.

This lowered spend on laptops by the consumers and the contraction in the growth figures of the computer hardware industry tell their own story. In a way, the onset of the Great Recession has made life tougher for firms in the global marketplace and as we have seen in the previous section, companies are increasingly accelerating the process of globalising their supply chains to meet the challenges of cost savings and growth in depressed economic conditions.

Globalisation of the Supply Chain
The next key trend to affect the deployment of the hybrid chip would be the trend towards sourcing components from where it is cheaper, building the laptop in a different place and selling the finished product where it is profitable.

This integration of the supply chain with the global economy has meant that companies around the world are looking to innovate across the supply chain and this opens up opportunities for newer and faster chips like the one under discussion to be introduced into the market.

Given the fact that countries like China and India which are at the forefront of manufacturing at cost effective rates are yet to develop the expertise for technological innovation, the researchers in this case are at an advantage because their product stands a better chance of being incorporated by laptop makers when compared with similar products being made by companies elsewhere.

Changing Consumer Preferences
This section looks at a key trend related to how consumers are evaluating the different brands and models of laptops according to the changing preferences based on social, cultural and economic factors.

For instance, the trend in recent years has been to discard the desktops in favour of laptops. This has led to a huge boom in the market for laptops which has been exploited successfully by the laptop majors.


 
However, it is also the case that newer products like Apple’s IPad, Samsung Tablet and other products have titled the scales against laptops. With the arrival of the smaller and sleeker versions with more features and computing power, these products look like they are going to give the laptops a run for their money. In this context, it becomes clear that unless laptop makers innovate and find ways to compete with these products, they are going to see a dip in their sales.

Changes in Technology
The key trends as far as technological changes are concerned would be in the areas related to the entry of cloud computing and ubiquitous computing in a big way in the retail segment. Hitherto, these technologies were limited to corporate and enterprise segments which had the need for large scale computing power and pervasive computing and in the process leveraging the gains from “economies of scale”.

However, in recent years consumers have adopted cloud computing as a means to increase their computing power and the presence of players like Amazon has only added to the competitive nature of the market.

Conclusion
Overall, the scenario that emerges from the analysis is that in a slow growth economy, companies that are agile and nimble and can sense the market trends better than their competitors would succeed.

Given the threat of another recession striking the global economy, companies that concentrate on cost advantage coupled with feature and quality advantages would be better positioned to capture the market as opposed to static companies with limited appeal.

The point here is that whoever provides the best value for money usually corners the market and this is true for all companies and particularly in the case of laptops where the rapid churn in technology means that companies ought to move fast, the introduction of this hybrid chip is sure to shake things up.

25

Management Information Systems / How Information Technology can Enable Governance in Developing Countries

« on: September 05, 2018, 03:04:32 PM »

The Problems of Governance in Developing Countries
Governance is a problem in many Third World countries where the structures and the systems of governance are slow, archaic, and bureaucratic. Moreover, many developing countries do not have processes in place that would ensure reliable delivery of public services. For instance, take the example of the Asian and the African countries where even if the government intends to deliver public services, corruption and bureaucracy ensure that such services almost always do not reach the intended beneficiaries.

Further, there is the problem of last mile connectivity wherein citizens in remote areas inaccessible through road and rail transport find that they do not receive any benefits let alone being aware or empowered to demand such services.

What is Last Mile Connectivity ?
Last mile connectivity is the phenomenon where the final step in the delivery value chain is poorly planned and executed leaving those without access (any form of access) without any benefits. For instance, consider the case of some African countries where the hinterland is so poorly connected to the delivery value chain that people living in those areas have to fend for themselves. Indeed, even in moderately developed countries such as India, the government finds it hard to reach everyone because of the last mile connectivity.

IT Enabled Governance
This is where Information Technology (IT) enabled governance is highly effective. If those people in the rural and the interior areas are provided with an internet connection (wireless) and a bank account, then the government can ensure that subsidies and welfare benefits are directly transferred into their accounts thereby solving the problem of last mile connectivity. In addition, the use of IT enabled governance can also reduce or even eliminate corruption as the people now receive direct transfers instead of through governmental and unofficial middlemen who hitherto were siphoning off the money or demanding a cut.

Red Tape and Bureaucracy
Further, IT enabled governance can also reduce the red tape associated with bureaucracy. For instance, it is often the case that many people are unaware of the various benefit schemes under the governmental welfare policies. This is because governments and especially the bureaucrats at the lower ends of the hierarchy are reluctant to part with information regarding the schemes for various reasons. If the details of such schemes are made available on the websites of the governmental agencies, then the people can get to know and become more aware as well as empowered to avail and even demand that the benefits of such schemes be made available to them.

Indeed, the biggest advantage of IT enabled governance is that it empowers the ordinary people and ensures that information is available to them at the click of a mouse. As the saying goes, knowledge is power. This means that once people have information as well as knowledge about the various schemes and the policies of the government, they are in a position of strength since they can approach the government and demand the officials to let them avail of the benefits. In this sense, IT enabled governance is empowering to the citizenry of the country.

Example of UID as a Method of IT Enabled Governance
Apart from these advantages, IT enabled governance also ensures identification and tagging of citizens so that bogus beneficiaries as well as the scope for fraud and corruption are minimized. A good example of this in practice is the UID (Universal Identification Number) method of providing Identity Cards that are based on biometric data to the citizens in India. This scheme which has been recognized the world over as a stellar contribution to both IT enabled governance as well as the power of IT to change and transform lives and countries has already reached a major part of the population and is now showing results wherein the basic as well as the advanced services under the welfare schemes reach the intended beneficiaries without any leakage or loss of funds in the delivery value chain.

Making the Delivery Value Chain More Efficient
As can be seen from the points made so far, it is clear that the delivery value chain starts with the government and ends with the ultimate beneficiary. In the process, it encompasses a wide variety of stakeholders who can create obstacles and hurdles.

Using IT, most of the middle layers in the value chain can be done away with and the direct contact between the ends of the value chain ensures that the middlemen and the intermediaries do not get a chance to indulge in corruption and red tape. In short, IT enabled governance is indeed a game changer for developing countries where the delivery value chain is so corroded that only 20% of the intended amount reaches the last point which is the beneficiary and the rest is lost at various stages in the value chain.

Conclusion: The Promise and the Challenges of IT Enabled Governance
Before concluding this article, it would be pertinent to note that there are challenges with IT enabled governance as well and these are to do with the low level of IT penetration, lack of education among the people who even with IT cannot access services because of illiteracy. Therefore, the next step in any IT enabled governance is to target the education and health sectors which world over have the active involvement of the governments. In conclusion, it is the case that we should make optimum use of technology when it is available and instead of using IT for everything except governance; we would be losing a vital opportunity to actualize social welfare to the masses.

26

Management Information Systems / IT-Governance and Why it is Important

« on: September 05, 2018, 03:01:11 PM »

Introduction: What is IT governance and why it is important
It is not enough for corporations to have IT systems and expect them to deliver strategic value to them. Instead, there needs to be a mechanism in place to regulate, monitor, and govern the value creation efforts of the IT systems. This governance mechanism of IT systems deals with the performance and risk management of those IT systems in a manner that would create value for the organizations and ensure that the intended alignment of the IT and business objectives is on track. Hence, IT governance deals with identification, establishment, and linking of the mechanisms of the IT systems to both manage risks and at the same time ensure that their performance is in tune with the stated objectives.

The need for IT governance is felt because the interests of the organization and those managing the IT systems can be at odds or in other words, there is a conflict between these two imperatives. Thus, IT governance is needed to ensure that the IT systems are doing their assigned duty and that the objectives of the CEO and the CIO are the same. Indeed, it can be said that IT governance includes all the key stakeholders in the organization starting with the executive management and the boards and including the staff, customers, and ending with the regulators and investors.

There are many definitions of IT governance and for the purposes of this report, the definition that is closest to our discussion is that IT governance is the alignment of leadership, organizational structures, and processes to actualize and sustain the organizational objectives through the use of IT. Further, IT governance is also defined as the governance of IT in a manner that would be directed and controlled and consists of evaluation and monitoring the plans for the IT systems so that they are in alignment with the objectives of the organization.

Apart from this, it also needs to be mentioned that corporate governance and IT governance must not be viewed in isolation but must act and move in tandem. Indeed, many experts point to the fact that IT governance is a subset of corporate governance and that both must be framed in a mutually dependent manner.

Broadly speaking, the objectives of IT governance can be summed up as assuring the creation of value through the use of IT; oversight of the management’s performance; mitigation of the risks associated with the use of IT; and a general tendency to have oversight over the IT systems so that there is alignment between the organizational goals and the goals of the IT systems.

Key terms explained
The terms IT governance, IT management, and IT controls are often used interchangeably though this is fallacious as each of these terms refers to different aspects of organizational imperatives. The primary objective of IT governance is the marshaling of the IT resources available to the organization and the stewardship of the IT systems in a manner that would create value for the organization. On the other hand, IT management is all about the plans to operationalize the use of IT resources, directing and controlling the use of such resources, and organizing the management of such resources. Similarly, IT controls are the mechanisms put in place to ensure that the organizational IT systems are being monitored and tracked. Thus, as we can see, there is a difference in each of these terms, which is more than semantic and instead, extends to the scope as well as the depth of the organizational mandate for each of these terms. We have used the term organizational mandate, as IT governance is a higher-level business imperative whereas the other terms are more micro-managerial in nature.

The best way to think about IT governance is to ask the question as to what can be achieved through the use of IT and how well the existing IT resources can be leveraged for the benefit of the organization. In other words, IT governance can be seen as a superstructure that encompasses the other terms defined above. Moreover, IT governance is itself a substructure in the overall superstructure of corporate governance and business governance. This means that IT governance is effective only when there is a vertical and horizontal alignment between these various elements of the organizational structure.

Framework of IT governance
There are many IT governance frameworks that are used by organizations worldwide and the most widely used framework is COBIT or the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology). This framework prescribes a set of 37 different IT processes and the means of managing these processes through identifying the inputs and outputs along with key process activities, performance measures, and process objectives to ensure that the IT systems are indeed delivering business value.

The key reasons why organizations use the IT frameworks are to ensure that they use the IT systems in an efficient and effective manner. Further, risk mitigation and performance management are key business imperatives, which the organization must follow so that there are no surprises for its operations and that the business objectives are being met.

Conclusion
IT governance has emerged as a key imperative for organizations as during the 1990s there were several corporate failures and disasters arising out of poor corporate governance as well as lack of alignment between business objectives and the IT objectives. To conclude this report, it would be pertinent to note that to avoid such instances of business failure, organizations would be well advised to actualize effective and efficient IT governance along with responsible and reliable corporate governance.

27

Management Information Systems / Value Chain and E-Strategy

« on: September 05, 2018, 02:58:06 PM »

Value Chain and E-Strategy

Every activity within a physical value chain has an inherent information component. The amount of information that is present in activities determines, company’s orientation towards e-commerce. It has been observed that companies with high information presence will adopt e-commerce faster rather than companies with lower information presence.

For example, a computer manufacturer has high information presence, i.e. they can provide a great deal of product information through their website. Consumers also have flexibility to determine the product configuration using the website. Such computer manufacturers and companies with comparative business model are also likely to adopt e-commerce.

Activities which comprise of the value chain are undertaken by companies to produce and sell product and services. Some of the activities done within the value chain are understanding customer needs, designing products, procuring materials for production, production, storage of products, distribution of products, after sale services of products and customer care.

Understanding Information Presence

There are two ways to assess information presence. The first way is by looking at the industry, and second way is by looking at the product. In an industry with high information presence, it has been observed that:

• Industry will have large number customer base.
• Production process is complex.
• Order turnaround cycle is long.

For a product with high information presence following is observed:

• Product is simple to manufacture.
• Product has multiple functionalities.

Industry and product which satisfy above conditions are likely to adapt e-commerce.

E-Strategy

Companies with high information presence were the first to look at e-commerce as an alternate way of conducting business. For example, software companies, much of there is business is done through the internet. Their website provides in-depth product information through e-brochure, video, client opinion, etc. Sales leads are generated online; purchase and fund transfer is done, and also after-sales service is done online.

These high information companies have made substantial investment in human resources and information/communication technology.

28

Management Information Systems / Information Technology as Driving Force for Innovation

« on: September 05, 2018, 02:53:14 PM »

Function of Information Technology

Information technology is a network of devices, which are connected with each other, which process data into useful and meaningful information. Information technology, therefore, has six broad functions around which innovation is driven. The six broad functions are as follows:


Capture: it is defined as a process to obtain information in a form which can be further manipulated. This input of information may be through keyboard, mouse, picture, etc.

Transmit: it is defined as a process through which captured information is sent from one system to another. This system could be within same geographical boundary or otherwise. For example, Radio, TV, email, telephone, fax, etc.

Store: it is defined as a process through which captured information is kept in safe and secure manner and, which can be further accessed when required. For example, hard disk, USB, etc.

Retrieval: it is defined as a process through which stored information can be called upon when required. For example, RAM, hard disk, USB, etc.

Manipulation: it is defined as a process through which captured and stored information can be transformed. This transformation could be the arrangement of data, calculation, presentation, etc., For example, computer software.

Display: it is defined as a process of projecting the information. For example, computer screen, printer, etc.

Innovation and Information Technology

The last two decades of development and evolution in information technology is around six functions. The innovation driven by information technology has been the by-product of the six functions. Some of the significant development which has been achieved is as follows:


Portability: advances in information technology have made portability of all electronic gadgets possible.

Speed: computing is now done at speed at which earlier generations of super computer were working.

Miniaturization: another innovation is in form of hand-held computing devices as well as an information system, like GPS, Smartphone, IPad etc.

Connectivity: information technology has transformed communication capability.

Entertainment: proliferation of multimedia and digital information has been tremendous.

User Interface: advancement in information technology has changed way users interact with computing devices. The advent of touch screen has made computing intuitive and interactive.

29

Management Information Systems / Information Systems vs Information Technology

« on: September 05, 2018, 02:47:23 PM »

Comparison of Information System and Information Technology
Information system and information technology are similar in many ways but at the same time they are different. Following are some aspects about information system as well as information technology.

Origin: Information systems have been in existence since pre-mechanical era in form of books, drawings, etc. However, the origin of information technology is mostly associated with invention of computers.

Development: Information systems have undergone great deal of evolution, i.e. from manual record keeping to the current cloud storage system. Similarly, information technology is seeing constant changes with evermore faster processor and constantly shrinking size of storage devices.

Business Application: Businesses have been using information systems for example in form of manual books of accounts to modern TALLY. The mode of communication has also gone under big change, for example, from a letter to email. Information technology has helped drive efficiency across organization with improved productivity and precision manufacturing.

Future of Information System and Information Technology

Information technology has shown exponential growth in the last decade, leading to more sophisticated information systems. Today’s information technology has tremendously improved quality of life. Modern medicine has benefited the most with better information system using the latest information technology.

Information systems have been known to mankind in one form or the other as a resource for decision making. However, with the advent of information technology information systems have become sophisticated, and their usage proliferated across all walks of life. Information technology has helped managed large amount of data into useful and valuable information.

30

Robotics and Embedded Systems / Mechatronics and Embedded System

« on: September 05, 2018, 02:43:45 PM »

With the support for sustainable development of autonomous and intelligent systems, mechatronics, embedded systems, and robotics are becoming one hot research area. In this special issue, we select 35 papers among a large number of submissions. The selected papers cover several key technology areas in mechatronics and embedded systems and can be divided into the following eight categories.

Seven papers are related to autonomous and intelligent embedded systems. In the paper titled “Discrete Planning Unit Look-Ahead Velocity Control Strategy and Parallelization Research Based on GPU,” the GPU technology is introduced into CNC algorithms. In the paper titled “One Nonlinear PID Control to Improve the Control Performance of a Manipulator Actuated by a Pneumatic Muscle Actuator,” the controller is applied to the manipulator and experiments are conducted. In the paper titled “FPGA Implementation of Self-Organized Spiking Neural Network Controller for Mobile Robots,” a novel mechanism for controlling mobile robots is presented based on self-organized spiking neural network (SOSNN) and a method for FPGA implementation of this SOSNN is given. In the paper titled “Inner-Learning Mechanism Based Control Scheme for Manipulator with Multitasking and Changing Load,” the inner-learning mechanism makes the subcontrollers learn from the working controller when load changes so that the switching action causes smaller tracking error compared with the traditional switch controller. In the paper titled “Research on Architecture of the Prosthesis Shaping Equipment Control System,” the new software/hardware architecture of a five-axis high performance NC system is proposed. In the paper titled “Design and Development of the Humanoid Robot BHR-5,” the mechanical and control system design of the latest humanoid robot platform, BHR-5, is presented. In the paper titled “Alignment Condition-Based Robust Adaptive Iterative Learning Control of Uncertain Robot System,” an adaptive iterative learning control strategy is proposed to integrate with saturation-based robust control for uncertain robot system in presence of modeling uncertainties, unknown parameter, and external disturbance under alignment conditions.