scholarly journals Enhancing the Community Resilience with a Network Structuring Model

Author(s):  
Ming Zhong

Community resilience is a key index for describing the response of human habitat system against hazards. Enhancing the community resilience to flood disaster requires indicator identification and measurement system establishment, especially for flooding risk management. In this study, an advanced index framework for measuring community resilience to flood disaster is proposed integrating fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) and interpretative structural model (ISM). Based on the definition of community resilience, the indicators are classified into six dimensions, including environmental factors, social factors, economic factors, psychological factors, institutional factors, and information and communication factors. A simplified community resilience evaluation index system is established by using FDM, and the hierarchical network structure of the community resilience to flood disasters is confirmed, in which the direct influence indicators and the root influence indicators are analyzed. The proposed framework in this study contributes to the interdisciplinary understanding of community resilience to flooding disasters and building a more resilience community; it is also expected to be extended for risk reduction in other natural hazards.

Author(s):  
Hanlie Liebenberg ◽  
Yuraisha Chetty ◽  
Paul Prinsloo

<p>Amidst the different challenges facing higher education, and particularly distance education (DE) and open distance learning (ODL), access to information and communication technology (ICT) and students’ abilities to use ICTs are highly contested issues in the South African higher education landscape. While there are various opinions about the scope and definition of the digital divide, increasing empirical evidence questions the uncritical use of the notion of the digital divide in South African and international higher education discourses.</p><p>In the context of the University of South Africa (Unisa) as a mega ODL institution, students’ access to technology and their functional competence are some of the critical issues to consider as Unisa prepares our graduates for an increasingly digital and networked world.</p><p>This paper discusses a descriptive study that investigated students’ access to technology and their capabilities in using technology, within the broader discourse of the “digital divide.” Results support literature that challenges a simplistic understanding of the notion of the “digital divide” and reveal that the nature of access is varied.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 01144
Author(s):  
Liudmila Reshetnikova

The article is devoted to e-diplomacy (also known as digital diplomacy) which is a component of public diplomacy. Digital diplomacy is a one of the new tools of foreign policy that is aimed to solve the problems of international and interethnic relations. The article examines the concept and definition of digital diplomacy that concentrates on the use of social networks and digital media in the field of foreign policy. Some risks and threats of e-diplomacy are also considered. The use of opportunities of information and communication technologies for solving the problems of foreign policy and influence on mass consciousness by means of the Internet, social networks is analyzed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Wyche ◽  
Nightingale Simiyu ◽  
Martha E. Othieno

Increases in mobile phone ownership and Internet access throughout Africa continue to motivate initiatives to use information and communication technologies (ICTs)—in particular, mobile phones—to address long-standing socioeconomic problems in the “developing world.” While it is generally recognized that mobile phones may help to address these problems by providing pertinent information, less widely known is exactly how (and if) a handset’s human–computer interface—that is, its software and hardware design—supports this form of communication. The concept of “affordances” has long been used to answer such questions. In this paper, we use Hartson’s definition of affordances to qualitatively investigate rural Kenyan women’s interactions with their mobile phones. Our detailed analysis provides empirically grounded answers to questions about the cognitive, physical, and sensory affordances of handsets used in our field sites and how they support and/or constrain mobile communication. We then discuss the implications of our findings: in particular, how this affordance-based approach draws attention to mobile phones’ design features and to the context in which they and their users are embedded—a focus which suggests new design and research opportunities in mobile communication.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
pp. 18-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Matveeva ◽  
M. Cherkasova

The changes taking place in the modern Russian labor market with regard to the organization of labor of employees, the content of freelancing have been considered. The socio-economic essence of freelancing has been revealed. A сharacteristic of self-employed, including the number, their social affiliation and economic activities has been given. The prerequisites, that caused the development of freelancing in Russia, have been determined. Based on the data of a number of studies, the positive aspects of freelance have been analyzed and problems in its development have been named. The main attention has been paid to the definition of the prospects of freelance development in modern Russia in the conditions of wide application of information and communication technologies.


Author(s):  
Viacheslav Politanskyi ◽  
Dmytro Lukianov ◽  
Hanna Ponomarova ◽  
Oleh Gyliaka

The article examines the characteristics of the functioning of information security in the e-government system, a phenomenon that is only possible based on the development of the information security infrastructure. The authors analyze information security as a key element of the concept of e-government, as well as various interpretations and ways of explaining the concept of information security. The research team's approach to the definition of the concept of information security is formed from the deep understanding of this concept, in terms of general theoretical analysis. Topics, objects, functions, types, principles, forms, levels of provision and structural elements of information security are studied. It is concluded that the organization of modern computer security of the State is undoubtedly a complex, systemic and multilevel phenomenon, whose state, dynamics, and perspectives are directly influenced by many external and internal factors, the most important being the political situation. In the world the presence of possible external and internal threats; state and level of development of information and communication of the country and internal political situation, among other aspects.


Author(s):  
Mariyana Lybenova ◽  
Alexandre Chikalanov ◽  
Yulian Petkov

The publication deals with the development of a structural model of payment schemes for ecosystem services (PES) oriented to usage of forests for water, soil and microclimate quality improvement. Proposed structural model is built on the Meta analyses base of more than 50 PES schemes worldwide. The proposed structural model has three top down levels – groups of categories, categories and attributes. There are seven groups of categories, 17 categories and more than 120 attributes. The structured information about studied PES schemes is stored in a warehouse managed by unique web platform created by the authors. An important part presented study is the developed generic use case of PES schemes with definition of seven participated actors.


Author(s):  
A. Hafiiak ◽  
O. Shefer ◽  
E. Borodina ◽  
S. Alyoshin

The article explores modern information and telecommunication technologies, which are the basis of information processes in education. The fundamentals of improving the quality of student training from the point of view of the development of a vocational education system are investigated. The authors explore the definition of an innovative educational environment. It is proved that professional IT education is the basis for improving its quality level and has certain advantages over other types of knowledge, providing flexibility due to modern technological features, including the use of QR coding information.


Author(s):  
Tetiana Stambulska

The article analyzed the peculiarities of the interpretation of the «communication culture» in the context of scientific researches of the past and contemporary domestic researchers. An analysis was carried out to define the concept of «communication culture of a person», the approaches to the definition of this concept are singled out. The positions of scientists concerning the role of eloquence in the formation of the linguistic personality are analyzed, the language is analyzed as a «social and psychological phenomenon», historical conditions of the formation of the concept of «communication culture» are characterized, in particular, attention is focused on the formation of the linguistic personality. It was found out that studies of the ancient traditions of the formation of the language of culture make it possible to better understand modern trends in the development of the person's communication culture. Modern studies have shown that in linguistics for a long time there was no unity in the interpretation of the concepts of «language» and «communication». Problems of the formation of the culture of broadcasting have become the object of research by eminent thinkers, beginning with the period of Antiquity. The question of the formation of a culture of speech has long traditions. Note that in European linguistics, the first decades of the twentieth century. Theoretical study and approval of the concept of «culture of language» in the scientific circulation is underway. It should be noted that in connection with the introduction of information and communication technologies in all spheres of society life has increased interest in the theory and practice of eloquence. This is explained by the fact that the active use of information and communication technologies involves the search for ways of speaking influence, both on the interpersonal and on the public level. According to authoritative experts in rhetoric, L. Matsko, O. Matsko, N. Mykhailychenko, V. Poltupets, etc., there are also communicative reasons that ensure the actual and further development of the theory and practice of oratory in the XX-beginning of the XXI century.


Author(s):  
George M. Korres

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have been at the heart of economic changes for more than a decade. ICT producing sectors play an important role, notably by contributing to rapid technological progress and productivity growth. The existence of a widely accepted definition of the ICT sector is the first step towards making comparisons across time and countries possible. International comparisons are made more difficult by the lack of harmonization in the definitions of indicators. Accordingly, there is renewed interest in measuring productive efficiency to determine the degree of inefficiency (if any) and the sources of inefficiency, if it exists. This chapter provides a broad theoretical and empirical review regarding productive efficiency as well as its relationship to productivity enhancement, especially focusing on ICT and FDI investments, comprising two of the most important productivity enhancement means.


Author(s):  
Marlene Goncalves ◽  
Francisco Castro ◽  
Luis Alberto Vidal ◽  
Maribel Acosta ◽  
Maria-Esther Vidal

E-Democracy and E-Participation are sub-areas of E-Government that utilize Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to empower democracy and allow the participation of ordinary people during the definition of policies that affect their lives. Particularly, general elections as well as the selection of presidential candidates are types of electoral events where ICT can facilitate the constituency participation, providing a resource to influence the implementation of such events. The authors propose data mining and ranking techniques to analyze voting historical data and identify regions where electoral campaigns need to be intensified. Based on citizens’ participation patterns in previous elections, they illustrate the quality of their approach on Venezuelan electoral data and compare it with respect to the results produced by a baseline independent study. Experimental results suggest that the authors’ techniques are able to predict the classification given for the baseline study, while they are simpler and easily reproducible.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document