Analysis of Mobile and Internet Network Coverage: Propagation of Electromagnetic Waves and Concept of Digital Divide in Burundi

Mobile and Internet network coverage plays an important role in digital transformation and the exploitation of new services. The evolution of mobile networks from the first generation (1G) to the 5th generation is still a long process. 2G networks have developed the messaging service, which complements the already operational voice service. 2G technology has rapidly progressed to the third generation (3G), incorporating multimedia data transmission techniques. It then progressed to fourth generation (4G) and LTE (Long Term Evolution), increasing the transmission speed to improve 3G. Currently, developed countries have already moved to 5G. In developing countries, including Burundi, a member of the East African Community (ECA) where more than 80% are connected to 2G technologies, 40% are connected to the 3G network and 25% to the 4G network and are not yet connected to the 5G network and then still a process. The objective of this article is to analyze the coverage of 2G, 3G and 4G networks in Burundi. This analysis will make it possible to identify possible deficits in order to reduce the digital divide between connected urban areas and remote rural areas. Furthermore, this analysis will draw the attention of decision-makers to the need to deploy networks and coverage to allow the population to access mobile and Internet services and thus enable the digitalization of the population. Finally, this article shows the level of coverage, the digital divide and an overview of the deployment of base stations (BTS) throughout the country to promote the transformation and digital inclusion of services.

The Formation Logic of the Digital Divide and Feasible Ways to Cross It:An Access-Based Analysis

How enterprises overcome the digital divide in a digital economy is a topic related to efficiency and fairness.The formation of the digital divide has showcased a certain level of objectivity and is also influenced by the characteristics of enterprises themselves.Based on the model that expands the information and communication technology(ICT)access,concept,we explored the digital divide’s formation logic of the digital divide and feasible ways to cross it.Our findings shed light on its formation logic,which includes elements of the subjective will of enterprises to transform,the fear of transformation,the dependence on development paths,and the cost of using digital technology,all of which have contributed to disparities in enterprises’motivational access.In addition,differences in the construction of digital infrastructure,financial strengths,business models,and heterogeneity in cluster networks have led to differences in enterprises’material access.The absorptive capacity of enterprises has affected their skill access,while the management capability influences the application access of enterprises.We also found that crossing the digital divide requires the joint efforts of governments,markets,and enterprises in the four access dimensions.

Innovation in the Public Sector in the Start-up Nation:Challenges of Technology,Bureaucracy,and Digital Divide

Innovation provides opportunities to all countries,as advancement in technology and globalization of economic markets encourage global competition and increase the role of governments in gaining a strategic competitive advantage while boosting economic growth and productivity.According to the OECD,innovation can make a difference in addressing developmental challenges and providing catalyst for countries to accelerate business processes and practices that improve public service efficiency.The public sector plays a significant role in modern economies and innovation is a necessary condition for improving government services to the public and creating a competitive economy.Israel is known as the“start-up nation”,but innovation policies and strategies relating to the public sector are less developed than those of business innovation due to lack of innovation culture,digital divide,and bureaucracy.The research examines innovation in the public sector in Israel compared to other OECD countries.It is argued that despite the enormous influence of high-tech and start-ups on the economy and gross of national product,the flourishing technology sector has not contributed to other sectors of the economy and the performance of the public service lags behind the private sector in terms of innovation and efficiency.The research concludes that implementing Israel’s success in business innovation into the public sector requires long-run strategic investments and public policies to increase the supply and quality of human capital and infrastructure.The goal should be to narrow digital divide with other developed countries and advance the technological capabilities and productivity of the public service.

Does digitalization mitigate regional inequalities?Evidence from China

Regional inequality significantly influences sustainable development and human well-being.In China,there exists pronounced regional disparities in economic and digital advancements;however,scant research delves into the interplay between them.By analyzing the economic development and digitalization gaps at regional and city levels in China,extending the original Cobb-Douglas production function,this study aims to evaluate the impact of digitalization on China's regional inequality using seemingly unrelated regression.The results indicate a greater emphasis on digital inequality compared to economic disparity,with variable coefficients of 0.59 for GDP per capita and 0.92 for the digitalization index over the past four years.However,GDP per capita demonstrates higher spatial concentration than digitalization.Notably,both disparities have shown a gradual reduction in recent years.The southeastern region of the Hu Huanyong Line exhibits superior levels and rates of economic and digital advancement in contrast to the northwestern region.While digitalization propels economic growth,it yields a nuanced impact on achieving balanced regional development,encompassing both positive and negative facets.Our study highlights that the marginal utility of advancing digitalization is more pronounced in less developed regions,but only if the government invests in the digital infrastructure and education in these areas.This study's methodology can be utilized for subsequent research,and our findings hold the potential to the government's regional investment and policy-making.

Bridging Digital Divide for English Learners at Chinese Secondary Schools

This article reviews the concept of digital divide and particularly discusses the digital divide among K-12 students in rural and urban China,as well as the e-learning strategies initiated by the Chinese government that were designed to minimize this digital divide in China.This article concludes by explaining the issue of skills on effective e-learning and correspondingly making suggestions for English teachers in K-12 schools in China.

Digital Divide of Internet: Model Analysis and Policy Exploration-A Comparison among China, America and Russia

A new analytical model is proposed and constructedin this paper through studying the two-stage courseand the marginal replication cost of informationproducts. The economic nature of digital divide isuncovered and that is of the economic value and theallotment styles of information and knowledge. Basedon the proposed model and taken China, Americaand Russia as examples, the empirical analyses areflexibly made and policy explanations for bridgingthe divide are given.

Assessing the Digital Divide Status of the Jordanian Telecentre

This study investigates the status of digital divide amongst Jordanian Telecentres. The objective of this study is to analyze the impact of the perceived usefulness, the perceived ease-of-use and the facilitating conditions on the behavioral intention of employees. In addition, the study investigates the effect of the three mentioned factors on the user acceptance while the behavioral intention on the user acceptance is used as a mediating factor. The proposed research model was validated by distributing 150 survey questionnaires to the Telecentres in Jordan. Structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was used to analyze the results. One of the main limitations of this study is that the results cannot be universal since the study was limited to Jordan. Similar study needs to be conducted in different courtiers to either support or negate our results.

Digital Divide in Relation to Differently Abled Community in Sri Lanka

The developments in the field of Information and Communication Technology （ICT） in the country has rapidly happen after year 2009 .Government has developed many programs and initiations to develop ICT in the country after three decades of war was ended up. As a result disabled community can make many opportunities to use the ICT and at the same time create a gap, which is commonly referred to as Disability Digital Divide. The purpose of this study was to examine empirically the current status of adoption of ICT and in turn the digital divide resulting from which in the disability community in Sri Lanka and the factors affecting this behavior. A questionnaire and Interviewed based survey （n = 107） was carried out to collect the data from the disabled people who used ICT in the Colombo, Gampaha, and Kaluthara district. An empirical model was developed to show the relationship between the level of adoption of 10 basic, intermediate, and advanced ICT facilities and a number of factors to reflect the WWW, Smart phones, and Computer usage aspects of disabled community. Based on the Innovatiotr---Diffusion Theory, the status of Digital Divide of a disabled community was specified by means of an Index. The results show that this community did not become innovators or early-adopters of ICT by adopting WWW or computer related technologies but was mostly confined to the smart phone related facilities. The results from this study highlight that the income of a disabled person, awareness about the information and technology, interest of new technology usage, social and cultural background of a person, use of English language in day-to-day life give a significant impact on the adoption oflCT by the disabled community.

Probing into Solutions to Digital Divide:China's Perspective

Since we have entered the informational epoch, the general application of information technology originates various kinds of effects that are divided into positive part and negative part, which the research of digital divide in the disabled group is raised under this background.In modern society, the disabled is an absolutely weak group which confronts the circumstance that is hard to adapt to when they face up with the impact in informational era for their physical or psychological disabilities. Strictly speaking, the issue of digital divide in the disabled group is part of the negative effect which is brought in by information technology. Meanwhile, it is a branch of digital divide issue. But the concern and solution for the digital divide issue embody a government's attitude and deed towards the new problem in the informational epoch, meanwhile they show esteem to the human rights and social equity in the new era.This article first describes and discusses the digital divide issue of the disabled group in China. Then, it focuses on the solutions or actions that Chinese local governments take towards the issue. Finally, it introduces Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act as a reference to China from the legislative perspective.

Framing and Reframing the Digital Divide Policy in Taiwan： Consensus and Conflict

This paper explores key policy issues of national information and communication technology development to identify the gap between the heterogeneity in issues pertaining to the ＂digital divide＂. How this issue is cast often as a problem to be solved in recent years. On the public policy front, a series of reports issued by Taiwan Residents policymakers were endeavored to address universal services and digital divide issues. Government also has taken various steps to mitigate the disparity in opportunities to access the Internet （e.g., ＂e-Taiwan＂ for broadband services, ＂M-Taiwan＂ for broadband infrastructure and heterogeneous network services, and ＂i-Taiwan＂ for ubiquitous networks and digital convergence by Taiwan＇s Cabinet）. However, when policymakers worked to craft solutions to the pressing societal concern, they found lots of policy agendas need to redefine to foster greater understanding and enlighten practice for policy going forward. An examination of conflicting narratives within policy has been conducted, which identified not only the earlier debates were framed, but also key agendas of the most studied and empirical data used among them. The article attempts to examine the topic from a longitudinal perspective by using sets of documents revealed a tendency over time to explore how particular the agendas and debates of ＂digital divide＂ were framed. The study traced back to policy debates from cultural, economic, educational, and political perspectives at various Internet diffusion stages. The results provide useful insights into the study and discussion on new convergence policy making implications.

Bridging the Digital Divide

She never thought the countryside scene could be so interesting. ＂The ancient farmers＇ houses of these Zhuang minority groups have threefloors--the first is for raising animals like pigs and hens, the second is for people and the third is for storing grain and corn.

A Study of Digital Disconnection Among Older Adults in the Internet Age

With internet and smartphone usage increasing every year,seniors are being exposed to digital media,either actively or passively.To better integrate into the information society for the elderly,efforts are also needed to clarify the causes of their digital disconnection and develop appropriate solutions.In this study,semi-structured interviews are utilized to investigate the self-adjustment and external intervention of the elderly in the age of digital media and to explore the ways,causes,and effects of digital disconnection of the elderly.The focus issue of this study is to clarify the subjective and objective factors of digital disconnection,especially cognitive problems,group influences,and technological access barriers in the elderly population concerning digital devices and the Internet.

Design of Digital Hybrid Chaotic Sequence Generator

The feasibility of the hybrid chaotic sequences as the spreading codes in code divided multiple access(CDMA) system is analyzed. The design and realization of the digital hybrid chaotic sequence generator by very high speed integrated circuit hardware description language(VHDL) are described. A valid hazard canceledl method is presented. Computer simulations show that the stable digital sequence waveforms can be produced. The correlations of the digital hybrid chaotic sequences are compared with those of m-sequences. The results show that the correlations of the digital hybrid chaotic sequences are almost as good as those of m-sequences. The works in this paper explored a road for the practical applications of chaos.

Effect of Digital Economy Development on Rural-Urban Income Disparity: Evidence from China

Promoting income equality between urban and rural residents is one of the main goals of China’s social progress and economic development.It is also a necessary means to achieve“common prosperity.”Digital economy can effectively promote economic development,the adjustment of industry structure and industry upgrading,as well as increase the disposable income of urban and rural residents,which is theoretically beneficial to rural-urban income disparity.An empirical analysis is conducted based on the data of 30 provinces,municipalities,and autonomous regions in China from 2013 to 2020.The findings demonstrate that the growth of digital economy helps lessen rural-urban income disparity and has a significant effect in East China and North China.

数字金融、数字鸿沟与家庭金融资产组合有效性——基于城乡差异视角的分析

数字金融发展有助于克服长期以来“三农”金融服务中面临的缺乏标准抵押物的“痛点”和信息不对称的“堵点”,有望加快弥合城乡数字鸿沟,让广大农民得以共同享受改革发展成果。利用中国数字普惠金融发展指数和2019年中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)数据,检验数字金融发展对城乡居民家庭金融资产组合有效性的差异,进而基于不同等级的数字鸿沟展开异质性讨论。研究表明:(1)数字金融发展显著提高了城乡家庭金融资产组合有效性,但明显更有利于城镇家庭,即城乡间存在家庭金融资产组合有效性差距拉大的危险;分维度来看,数字金融使用深度、普惠金融数字化程度也提高了城乡家庭金融资产组合有效性,且更有利于城镇家庭。(2)数字鸿沟是制约数字金融发展提高家庭金融资产组合有效性的关键因素,在城乡家庭都逾越一级和二级数字鸿沟后,数字金融发展显著提高了城乡家庭金融资产组合有效性,即数字金融发展要更好地促进城乡家庭金融资产组合有效性提升,其关键在于缩小数字鸿沟。因此,必须加快构建数字金融的包容性发展路径,建立健全城乡居民数字素养和金融素养培育的体制机制,不断弥合“信息富人”和“信息穷人”之间的数字鸿沟,提升居民家庭金融资产组合有效性。

数字经济对劳动力市场一体化影响研究——基于中国省际面板数据的实证检验

数字经济已逐渐成为推动我国经济高质量发展的重要引擎,也为劳动力市场提供了新动力与新机遇。本文利用2011—2021年我国省际面板数据,采用空间面板杜宾模型实证研究了我国数字经济建设对劳动力市场一体化的影响。研究发现:数字经济发展水平对劳动力市场一体化具有显著的促进作用;数字经济具有空间溢出效应,可以有效推动本地与邻近地区的劳动力市场一体化进程;数字经济主要通过增强劳动力流动与谈判力量来间接影响劳动力市场一体化;数字经济对劳动力市场一体化的作用存在明显的区域异质性,中西部地区和人力资本水平较低的地区受到的影响效应较大。因此,应不断夯实劳动力流动基础、激发劳动力流动活力、拓展劳动力流动空间,弥补数字鸿沟,激发数字经济红利,助力全国统一大市场建设。

老年人数字鸿沟的弥合:家庭代际关系的信息功能及其实现

功能运行良好的家庭可以在一定程度上应对社会不平等及福利制度不足带来的负面影响。在信息社会和老龄社会叠加的背景下,由于信息技术不平等和数字鸿沟的阻隔,年长一代的信息权力被弱化甚至遭到剥夺。面对功能复杂的智能设备,老年人获取信息的第一步便被阻断,设备接入后的信息获取、解码与辨别更是老年人面临的难题,而家庭代际支持在帮助老年人克服数字鸿沟和融入信息社会方面发挥着重要作用。研究基于对19位60岁及以上老年人的访谈,结果发现老年人面临的数字鸿沟受到主观和客观两方面因素的影响,主观上的强风险意识与低学习意愿及客观上的设备复杂程度都加深了数字鸿沟;子辈则通过设备操作的教学与替代、信息的分享与解码等帮助老年人弥合数字鸿沟,体现了信息社会中家庭代际关系的新福利功能。

缩小教育数字鸿沟实现全面教育数字化转型——美国《2024年国家教育技术计划》解读及启示

当前,数字鸿沟已经成为各国推动教育数字化转型的关键瓶颈问题。2024年初,美国发布《缩小数字访问、设计与使用鸿沟的行动倡议——2024年国家教育技术计划》,聚焦美国社会如何缩小教育数字鸿沟,从教育数字资源获取、数字化教育教学设计以及如何使用数字化技术三个方面,阐述美国未来五年的行动规划和指南。该计划重点提出,为应对教育领域中的三种数字鸿沟,应提前绘制三种画像。一是学习者画像,了解未来学习者在大学、职场和社会生活中成功所需的技能和特质。二是教师画像,了解教师需要具备哪些知识和能力,以帮助学生在课堂上培养这些技能。三是学习环境画像,了解为实现系统地帮助教师和学习者发展,如何设计和建设数字基础设施。基于该计划的解读与分析,提出对我国的三点启示:一是加快发展新质生产力,提高全民数字素养和技能;二是全面构建“师—生—环境—区域”融合图谱,提高教育数据治理水平;三是创新人机协同模式,赋能高阶思维发展。

数字经济时代的“红利”与“鸿沟”:异质性劳动力的微观表征

作为新科技革命条件下产业发展的方向,数字经济具有双刃剑的特点。文章将数字经济发展指数和中国流动人口动态监测调查数据相结合,构建多部门一般均衡理论模型,并实证探讨数字经济发展对工资收入分配的影响。研究发现:数字经济会对高技能劳动力和非常规认知型职业劳动力产生工资溢价效应,降低低技能劳动力的工资收入,从而扩大技能工资收入差距。其中,数字经济引致的城市生产率效应和创新效应是扩大工资收入差距的重要传导机制,且人力资本积累会进一步扩大差距。此外,数字经济的工资溢价效应在东中部地区、人口规模100万及以上的城市、非中老年群体及非农户口群体中更显著。