The challenge of wide application of information and communication technologies to traditional location theory

The wide application of information and communication technologies （ICTs） has been argued to be critical to spatial transformation of firms. Recent advances in the studies along this line have challenged traditional location theory. The existing literature, however, focuses mainly on the impacts of ICTs on Iocational conditions and industrial spatial distribution. The dynamics behind such changes have not yet been given sufficient attention by geographers. Given this background, this paper investigates the impact of new ICTs on traditional location theory and the dynamics of industrial re-location that are enabled by new ICTs, based on data collected from an investigation of 178 firms. The paper argues that the application of new ICTs has been a key location factor in the information age, and that the time-cost is becoming critical to the spatial organization of firms, particularly as a result of a shorter product life and mass customization, among other dynamics.

Mental Health Impacts of Information and Communication Technology Usage in South Africa

This study examined mental health issues affecting the group of individuals who are in the social media contact list of the researchers.This was done by administering a closed structured questionnaire,covering information from participants’demographic characteristics,duration of time spent on ICT usage,to their perceived health effects thereof.Male respondents,largely unemployed are active ICT users,addicted to the Internet,and also suf-fer from unspecified ailments.Aged 31–35 and above,half of men and all women participants spend more than 5 h per day.High-intensive ICT use is associated,in general,with concurrent symptoms of information overload,depression and Internet addiction.It is insignificantly associated with composite stress.Medium intensive ICT use is correlated with fatigue and depression in equal measure but in opposite direction.There are significant differ-ences in demographic attributes as they explain intensity of ICT Usage.The older the employed survey partici-pants are,the less they suffer from composite stress.However,black South Africans suffer significantly from composite stress,fatigue and depression,though negatively from internet addiction.The results also indicate that South African men have negative experiences of composite stress,depression and internet addiction.Educated South Africans have negative experiences of fatigue,but positive experiences of composite stress,depression and internet addiction.Low intensive use of ICT has no impact on composite stress,fatigue and depressive moods of survey participants.It impacts negatively on internet addiction.Medium intensive use of ICT impacts posi-tively on survey participants’experiences of fatigue,but negatively on composite stress,depression and internet addiction.High-intensive use of ICT impacts positively on survey participants’experiences of composite stress and depression.

The Effects of Information and Communication Technology on Health Service Delivery at Tafo Government Hospital

This study sought to find out the effects of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on health service delivery at Tafo Government Hospital. A descriptive survey design was used. Data were collected through the use of semi-structured questionnaire and administered to 50 respondents where stratified random sampling technique was used by ranking position as strata. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. From the findings, 56% of the respondents overwhelmingly agreed to the fact that the applications of ICT provide quicker medical diagnoses, reduced workload among users, improvement in patients’ waiting time and information accessibility. Nonetheless, 72% bemoaned lack of ICT infrastructure, poor ICT network concerns coupled with that insufficient knowledge on the use of ICT could impede the impact of ICT in quality service delivery. This could be deduced from the findings that ICT improves collaboration and clinical decision support in facilitating clinical work flow integration among nurses and other medical professionals. Moreover, the findings above affirm the fact that without electricity, ICT infrastructure, insufficient skills and technical knowledge in dealing with ICT innovations, it is impossible to successfully adopt ICT resources in health care delivery. The above findings show that the majority of healthcare professional generally had a positive attitude towards ICT prospects as they rated their skill as fairly well. The study recommends that the Ministry of Health plays a supporting role by investing in health care ICT.

Are we ready for telemonitoring inflammatory bowel disease?A review of advances,enablers,and barriers

This review summarizes the evidence about telemonitoring in patients with inflammatory bowel disease(IBD). To give an overview of the advances performed, as well as the enablers and barriers which favoured/hindered telemonitoring implementation. We performed a literature search in Pub Med, EMBASE, MEDLINE, Cochrane Database, Web of Science and Conference Proceedings. Titles and abstracts published up to September 2022 were screened for a set of inclusion criteria: telemonitoring intervention, IBD as the main disease, and a primary study performed. Ninety-seven reports were selected for full review. Finally, 20 were included for data extraction and critical appraisal. Most studies used telemonitoring combined with tele-education, and programs evolved from home telemanagement systems towards web portals through m Health applications. Web systems demonstrated patients’ acceptance, improvement in quality of life, disease activity and knowledge, with a good cost-effectiveness profile in the short-term. Initially, telemonitoring was almost restricted to ulcerative colitis, but new patient reported outcome measures, home-based tests and mobile devices favoured its expansion to different patients’ categories. However, technological and knowledge advances led to legal, ethical, economical and logistic issues. Standardization of remote healthcare is necessary, to improve the interoperability of systems as well as to address liability concerns and users’ preferences. Telemonitoring IBD is well accepted and improves clinical outcomes at a lower cost in the short-term. Funders, policymakers, providers, and patients need to align their interests to overcome the emerging barriers for its full implementation.

Shaping the future of application for information and communication technology in national economic analysis

Characterized by networking,digitization,and intellectualization,the new generation of Information and Communication Technologies(ICTs)has promoted integration of various national economic industries,with a more significant leading role in the socio-economic development.In order to describe the influence of ICT industries on economic growth,this paper has comprehensively analyzed the contribution mechanism of ICTs to current economy.Crucial indicators,such as Total Telecommunications Business(TTB),Data Traffic(DT),and Computing Power Development Index(CPDI),have been innovatively selected to sufficiently describe the data circulation scale and the processing capacity in the era of digital economy.Based on relevant statistics of 31 provinces(municipalities or autonomous regions)in China from 2011 to 2020,quantitative results have been put forward to interpret the impact of ICT industries on the national economy development by using correlation coefficient analysis and data regression analysis methods.The measurement results show that TTB,DT,and CPDI are positively correlated with the national economic development,indicating that each 1%increasement of TTB,DT,and CPDI increases Gross Domestic Product(GDP)by 0.08%,0.09%,and 0.6%,respectively.

Co-Creation in the Game Industry:A Case Study in a Brazilian Developer

The objective of this work is to understand how the process of co-creation occurs within the creative industry of video games. For this, concepts of the creative industry, co-creation, information and communication technologies (ICTs) and innovation were studied. Since this is an exploratory and qualitative research, a single case study was chosen as a method. The analysis was done in a Brazilian company that develops games for mobile devices. The results show that the consumer (gamer) participates in value creation in the company’s products, mainly in the initial production stages. In the later phases, after the launch and other steps of the life cycle, although there is a relationship with the users, the joint creation of value is little explored by the organization. Also, it was verified that the co-creation process is supported by different information and communication tools, which provide agility to the process.

Improving wellbeing of community-dwelling people with mild cognitive impairment: the SENIOR (SystEm of Nudge theory based ICT applications for OldeR citizens) project

Population aging with longer life expectancy represents one of the most relevant challenges of the next future,also because of a significant proportion of older adult people may present with dementia.Motivating senior citizens with mild cognitive impairment to maintain their independence and functional abilities,improve health status and quality of life as well as social interactions,constitutes the main target of preventive medicine.According to a nudge theoretical approach,the SENIOR(SystEm of Nudge theory based ICT applications for OldeR citizens)project–developed thanks to the collaboration among Catholic University of the Sacred Heart,Bicocca University and IRCCS Auxiologico Institute in Milan(Italy)–has been designed to adopt an advanced information and communication technology coaching system able to collect and integrate physiological,psychological and behavioral data,with the final aim of interacting with community-dwelling elderly people suffering from mild cognitive impairment and of providing them personalized feedback on lifestyle management.The SENIOR project proposes to use a smart-watch app for alerting family doctors,sharing information with family members in specific cases and monitoring patients at higher risk in hospital Units,in order to ameliorate health of senior citizens with mild cognitive impairment.

中国低碳通信方案减排最分析与其未来减排量预测(英文)

Based on the revised reduction models of the 14 low-carbon ICT solutions from Chongqing Mobile of the China Mobile Group,the CO2e emission reduction brought about by low-carbon ICTs of the wireless telecom sector of Chongqing Mobile,the entire China Mobile Group and the whole China in 2009 is calculated.And then the CO2e emission reduction potentials in 2010,2020 and 2030 are calculated in four main important fields of China,i.e.,intelligent transportation,dematerialization,smart work and smart appliances.The ICTs in the telecom sector are mostly dedicated to these fields.It provides a valuable insight into future reduction targets that should be set up for China.

Digital Transformation in Vocational Education:Present Situation,Problems,and Countermeasures

Digital transformation has become a crucial part in the modernization of vocational education,gaining considerable attention.Presently,guided by relevant national policies and projects,digital transformation in vocational education has yielded remarkable outcomes,specifically in digital supporting conditions,innovative teaching and learning methods,digital teaching proficiency,digital governance frameworks and models,and digital systems and mechanisms.Nevertheless,digital transformation in vocational education is challenged by a multitude of demands.They include advancing students’learning capability and initiative,further integrating information technology into teaching,updating and upgrading the essence and level of digital teaching proficiency,raising data-driven management and service abilities,leveling up digital supporting conditions,and improving digital systems and mechanisms.Thus,during the 14th Five-Year Plan period,a significant upgrade in digital vocational education should be made by enhancing the strategic comprehension and developmental stance of digital transformation,adopting a rational view on digital transformation,and elucidating the ideas and strategies pertaining to digital transformation.

Consumer Risk Perceptions in Mobile Health Services Adoption: Do They Matter?

The purpose of this study is to investigate empirically the role of consumer perceived risks in the adoption of mobile health services. A theoretical model including the perceived risk associated with the activity targeted by a mobile health service and the perceived risk associated with the mobile service itself was developed and tested empirically in the context of an application supporting smoking cessation. The model was validated in a cross-sectional experiment conducted with 422 consumers in the UK and Canada. Findings show that while risk triggered by the nature of a health promotion activity is a strong driver of the adoption of the supporting mobile health service, risk related to the actual application targeting that activity is a comparatively weaker obstacle. The two contrasting risk perspectives are highly significant as they together explain over 31% of the variance in consumer intention to use the mobile health service, independently from other adoption factors. Overall, this study demonstrates that consumer risk perceptions alone are a multifaceted and meaningful component in mobile health services adoption, and that this element should not be overlooked in more complex research models.

Application of Virtual Reality in Rehabilitation of Disabilities:A Mini Review

Introduction:Information and communication technology has provided new opportunities for countries'health care systems.Improving the outcome of health treatments in different groups of disabled and disabled patients is one of the benefits of using this tool.Virtual reality has emerged as a powerful backup tool in the field of rehabilitation of the disabled in life and treatment.The purpose of this study is to review the published research on the application of virtual reality in the rehabilitation of the disabled.Method:In order to conduct a review research,PubMed,Scopus database was searched with the keywords“virtual reality,virtual reality and disability,virtual reality and electronic health”and its equivalent.The documents retrieved from the search were sent to Endnote software and evaluated according to the set criteria.Results:70 articles that met the inclusion criteria constituted the research sample.The results showed a significant effect of using virtual reality in the rehabilitation of the disabled and improving patient care in the health system of countries.Conclusion:Virtual reality can be used in the health system for the rehabilitation of the disabled due to the effectiveness of routine methods of medical rehabilitation interventions.According to the results of the study,the use of virtual reality in mobile health,especially in educating patients and the disabled to self-care and reduce fear and anxiety,will be very effective.

Smart construction site in mega construction projects: A case study on island tunneling project of Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge

The construction sites of mega construction projects(MCP) often have numerous participants with interfacing work within a highly complex system. It is critical how to realize collaborative work and information sharing among such participants. The information and communication technologies(ICTs) provides a technical guarantee for solving this problem. Existing research has been achieved the partial processes digitization of construction site, but certain problems still exist: 1)information perception of the construction site is passive.2) common collaboration and coordination problems in the construction industry have not been addressed. The emerging trends of ICTs have resulted in the integration of various computer technologies such as CPS, BIM, big data, and cloud computing into construction process,which would changes behavioral and management mode of construction sites. These new ICTs have been applied successfully in MCP, in particular, Hong Kong-ZhuhaiMacao Bridge project. A new management mode of construction sites is inspired by these case. In this paper, a new management mode of construction site for MCP has been proposed, namely, smart construction site. The ultimate goal of smart construction site is to accomplish safe, efficient and high-quality construction. This study put forward the conceptual framework for smart construction site, and have identified three key elements of smart construction site, including information support platform,collaboration work, and intelligent construction management. A case study on Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge project work as an evidence to support the practicability of the proposed mode. Significant contributions of this study is to propose a new management mode for MCP in construction industry, which would enrich the body of knowledge or the construction management community.Future research should be dedicated to further explore the potential of smart construction site in MCP management.

Nutritional and physical improvements in older adults through the DOREMI remote coaching approach:a real-world study

Background Malnutrition(excess or defect)and sedentariness act as an accelerator in the older people frailty process.A systemic solution has been developed to engage older people in a healthier lifestyle using serious games and food monitoring.The study aimed to evaluate protocol influence on variables related to unhealthy behaviors improving dietary habits through a remote nutritional coaching approach and stimulating the population to increase physical activity through Exergames.Methods Thirty-two subjects(25 Treatments and 7 Controls,aging 65-80 years),of which 15(11 Treatments and 4 Controls)living in the UK(ACCORD and ExtraCare Villages placed in Shenley Wood(Milton Keynes),St.Crispin(Northampton),and Showell Court(Wolverhampton))and 17(14 Treatments and 3 Controls)in Italy(Genoa,Liguria),were recruited and characterized in terms of nutritional status,physical,somatometric,hemodynamic and biochemical measurements,and body composition.Participants were stimulated to adopt the Mediterranean dietary pattern,by a food diary diet-app,and perform regular physical activity,by the Exergame app,for three months.At the end of the trial,users underwent the same test battery.Data were tested for normality of distribution by the Shapiro-Wilk test.Comparisons between groups were performed at baseline by unpaired Student’s t-test for continuous variables,chi-square test,or Fisher’s exact test for categorical variables.Analysis of Variance(ANOVA)for repeated measures was used to analyze the significance of changes over time between groups.Results At the end of the trial,significant reductions of systolic(15 mmHg,P=0.001),diastolic(5 mmHg,P=0.025),mean(10 mmHg,P=0.001)blood pressure,and rate-pressure product(RPP)(1,105 mmHg∗bpm,P=0.017)values were observed in DOREMI users.A trend of improvement of physical performance by the short physical performance battery(SPPB)was observed for balance and walk subtests.A significant decrease(0.91 kg,P=0.043)in Body Mass Index(BMI)was observed in overweight subjects(BMI>25 kg/m 2)after DOREMI intervention in the entire population.The Mini Nutritional Assessment(MNA)score(1,P=0.004)significantly increased after intervention,while waist measure(3 cm,P<0.001)significantly decreased in the DOREMI users.A reduction in glycated hemoglobin(Hb)was registered(0.20%,P=0.018)in the DOREMI UK users.Conclusions Improvement of healthy behavior by technological tools,providing feedback between user and remote coach and increasing user’s motivation,appears potentially effective.This information and communica-tion technologies(ICT)approach offers an innovative solution to stimulate healthy eating and lifestyle behaviors,supporting clinicians in patient management.

Evaluation of Technical Education by Using a Modern Structured MOODLE Laboratory Course, in Relation to Recent Data

E-learning platforms support education systems worldwide, transferring theoretical knowledge as well as soft skills. In the present study high-school pupils’, and adult students’ opinions were evaluated through a modern structured MOODLE interactive course, designed for the needs of the laboratory course “Automotive Systems”. The study concerns Greek secondary vocational education pupils aged 18 and vocational training adult students aged 20 to 50 years. The multistage, equal size simple random cluster sample was used as a sampling method. Pupils and adult students of each cluster completed structured 10-question questionnaires both before and after attending the course. A total of 120 questionnaires were collected. In general, our findings disclosed that the majority of pupils and adult students had significantly improved their knowledge and skills from using MOODLE. They reported strengthening conventional teaching, using the new MOODLE technology. The satisfaction indices improved quite, with the differences in their mean values being statistically significant.

Digital inclusion of older people: harnessing digital technologies to promote healthy ageing in the Western Pacific Region

Adapting systems and technology for an aging population has benefits for older people,the consumer market industry itself and all of society.To promote knowledge sharing on innovations for healthy ageing and digital inclusion of older people in the Western Pacific Region,a hybrid conference on“Digital inclusion of older peo-ple:harnessing digital technologies to promote healthy ageing in the Western Pacific Region”was held on 23 June 2021 by China Academy of Information and Communications Technology,a WHO Collaborating Centre for Digital Health.Barriers from demand side include:(1)unaffordability;(2)poor Information and Communication technology(ICT)knowledge and skills for navigation;and(3)low self-efficacy and motivation.Supply barriers include:(1)youth-centred design;(2)ageism;and(3)anti-facilitative environment including infrastructure and age-biased technology.Existing practices to overcome digital inclusion barriers were shared:(1)landmark ini-tiatives related to the health and social welfare;(2)laws and policies to improve aged care services,strengthen social services,enrich spiritual and cultural life for older people;(3)ICT infrastructure and residential care facil-ities based on the philosophy of family care and supported by community care;(4)affordable digital application and adaptive feature design to better enable and motivate their desire to use digital technology;and(5)com-munity activities such as trainings and tutorials to enhance digital capacity and literacy of older people.Main principles highlighted include market motivation,human-centered design,creating enabling environments,and multi-stakeholder collaborations to provide guidance to customize strategy under context of different regions and countries,instead of a one-size-fits-all solution,to avoid the risk of exacerbating inequalities experienced by older people,caused by accelerated ICT innovation,and advocate for more affordable products in the silver market.

Sharing Economy in Local Energy Markets

With an increase in the electrification of end-use sectors,various resources on the demand side provide great flexibility potential for system operation,which also leads to problems such as the strong randomness of power consumption behavior,the low utilization rate of flexible resources,and difficulties in cost recovery.With the core idea of“access over ownership”,the concept of the sharing economy has gained substantial popularity in the local energy market in recent years.Thus,we provide an overview of the potential market design for the sharing economy in local energy markets(LEMs)and conduct a detailed review of research related to local energy sharing,enabling technologies,and potential practices.This paper can provide a useful reference and insights for the activation of demand-side flexibility potential.Hopefully,this paper can also provide novel insights into the development and further integration of the sharing economy in LEMs.

Exploiting big earth data from space - first experiences with the timescan processing chain

The European Sentinel missions and the latest generation of the United States Landsat satellites provide new opportunities for global environmental monitoring.They acquire imagery at spatial resolutions between 10 and 60 m in a temporal and spatial coverage that could before only be realized on the basis of lower resolution Earth observation data(>250 m).However,images gathered by these modern missions rapidly add up to data volume that can no longer be handled with standard work stations and software solutions.Hence,this contribution introduces the TimeScan concept which combines pre-existing tools to an exemplary modular pipeline for the flexible and scalable processing of massive image data collections on a variety of(private or public)computing clusters.The TimeScan framework covers solutions for data access to arbitrary mission archives(with different data provisioning policies)and data ingestion into a processing environment(EO2Data module),mission specific pre-processing of multi-temporal data collections(Data2TimeS module),and the generation of a final TimeScan baseline product(TimeS2Stats module)providing a spectrally and temporally harmonized representation of the observed surfaces.Technically,a TimeScan layer aggregates the information content of hundreds or thousands of single images available for the area and time period of interest(i.e.up to hundreds of TBs or even PBs of data)into a higher level product with significantly reduced volume.In first test,the TimeScan pipeline has been used to process a global coverage of 452,799 multispectral Landsat–8 scenes acquired from 2013 to 2015,a global data-set of 25,550 Envisat ASAR radar images collected 2010–2012,and regional Sentinel–1 and Sentinel–2 collections of∼1500 images acquired from 2014 to 2016.The resulting TimeScan products have already been successfully used in various studies related to the large-scale monitoring of environmental processes and their temporal dynamics.

DIGITAL INCLUSION FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES IN CHINA UNDER COVID-19:HOW FAR HAS CHINA COME?

This article reviews social regulatory and redistributive policies in China that aim at fostering digital inclusion of persons with disabilities.We examine the emerging Chinese policies and how China has responded to the impacts of the coronavirus disease(COVID-19)on digital inclusion in terms of redistribution,market regulation,involvement of persons with disabilities and disabled people’s organizations(DPOs),and awareness-raising campaigns.The policy review demonstrates that the Chinese policy framework contains a few redistributive initiatives,for example,cash transfer programs,and free distribution of information and communications technology(ICT).These have the potential to increase the uptake of ICT among persons with disabilities.The Chinese policy framework also includes provisions to ensure consultation with individual persons with disabilities and DPOs in the deliberation and implementation of ICT accessibility policies.While China has initiated awareness-raising campaigns among market actors about the importance of digital inclusion,so far,the Chinese government has adopted little legal regulation of the market to foster accessibility to ICT.The article thus argues that some of the limitations may be due to the way state–market relations have developed since the economy opened up in 1978.Apart from the growing benefits of several cash transfer programs,we have not seen major changes or adjustments to the current policy framework during the efforts to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on digital inclusion.

How the ICT Development Level Influences Students’Digital Reading Literacy:A Multi-level Model Comparison Based on PISA 2018 Data

The purpose of this study is to systematically showcase and evaluate how students’,schools’,and countries’Information and Communication Technology(ICT)development levels influence students’digital reading literacy by using the data of the Program for International Student Assessment(PISA)2018 and the multi-level model approach.It is found that the ICT development at each level has a significant positive effect on students’digital reading literacy,and there is a significant interactive moderating effect between different levels.The gap in ICT development levels between the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI)and developed economies has a“Matthew effect”in widening the digital reading literacy gap in the short term,but in the long run,the faster growth of the countries participating in BRI in ICT development levels will narrow the gap and alleviate the effect.China should make use of its advantages in ICT development to engage in global education governance,facilitate the co-development in both the ICT development level and the digital reading literacy for the countries participating in BRI,and contribute to the development of global education by opening up a new way of development.

The State of ICT Education in China:A Literature Review

Information and Communication Technology(ICT)in education has made significant progress in China in the last two decades and this paper provides an overall presentation of its prevalence and usage.In this paper,a literature review has been conducted based on the research in the field of ICT in education.Eleven major issues have been classified and discussed according to their similarities and differences.As an overview and synthetic angle,this paper focuses on how those issues are studied,how they have evolved,and what results have been carried out from the research.