Internet of things (IoT) is a promising technology which provides efficient and reliable solutions towards the modernization of several domains. IoT based solutions are being developed to ...automatically maintain and monitor agricultural farms with minimal human involvement. The article presents many aspects of technologies involved in the domain of IoT in agriculture. It explains the major components of IoT based smart farming. A rigorous discussion on network technologies used in IoT based agriculture has been presented, that involves network architecture and layers, network topologies used, and protocols. Furthermore, the connection of IoT based agriculture systems with relevant technologies including cloud computing, big data storage and analytics has also been presented. In addition, security issues in IoT agriculture have been highlighted. A list of smart phone based and sensor based applications developed for different aspects of farm management has also been presented. Lastly, the regulations and policies made by several countries to standardize IoT based agriculture have been presented along with few available success stories. In the end, some open research issues and challenges in IoT agriculture field have been presented.
The use of collaborative learning technologies is a stimulating element of collaborative learning process, where social interaction and collaboration are key factors. This research examines the ...impact of sociability quality on the usage of web-based collaborative learning information system (WBCLIS) and user satisfaction. We propose a theoretical model by integrating the construct of
‘sociability quality’
in the DeLone and McLean’s (Journal of Management Information Systems 19:9–30, 2003) updated information system success model. Proposed theoretical model was empirically validated, in a service-learning course with undergraduate students, where data was collected using an online questionnaire and evaluated through partial least square, structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) statistical approach. Results suggest that, sociability quality has a direct positive impact on the system use and overall user satisfaction, along with a strong indirect impact on the net benefits of the WBCLIS. Findings also confirmed that, system use and user satisfaction are strong predictors of the net benefits. These results about sociability quality, contribute significantly in the domain of IS success literature, by identifying a novel and critical IS success dimension. Further, theoretical contribution in the context of sociability quality for IS success, and practical implications entailing the use of WBCLIS in the domain of service learning are also discussed.
Charity is considered as a moral obligation throughout the world, and a huge amount of money comes into circulation in the name of charity. In most of the cases, the charity collection processes are ...not transparent, and due to this the charitable organizations struggle to gain donors’ trust and interest. This article presents a blockchain-based charity management platform that aims to provide a transparent, secure, auditable, and efficient system. The proposed platform comprehensively covers charity collection process using crypto wallets, Initial Coin Offering (ICO), economic model, and introduces CharityCoin (CC) as a digital currency. Furthermore, smart-contracts for pertinent use cases have also been provided, which include exchanging fiat currency to CC, buying and selling CC, transferring CC to organizations and individuals, and call for donations. Finally, the performance evaluation shows that proposed architecture scales well for large data size.
Software Development based on Scrum Agile in a distributed development environment plays a pivotal role in the contemporary software industry by facilitating software development across geographic ...boundaries. However, in the past different frameworks utilized to address the challenges like communication and collaboration in scrum agile distributed software development (SADSD) were notably inadequate in transparency, security, traceability, geographically dispersed location work agreements, geographically dispersed teamwork effectiveness, and trust. These deficiencies frequently resulted in delays in software development and deployment, customer dissatisfaction, canceled agreements, project failures, and disputes over payments between customers and development teams. To address these challenges of SADSD, this paper proposes a new framework called ChainAgile, which leverages blockchain technology. ChainAgile employs a private Ethereum blockchain to facilitate the execution of smart contracts. These smart contracts cover a range of functions, including acceptance testing, secure payments, requirement verification, task prioritization, sprint backlog, user story design and development and payments with the automated distribution of payments via digital wallets to development teams. Moreover, in the ChainAgile framework, smart contracts also play a pivotal role in automatically imposing penalties on customers for making late payments or for no payments and penalties on developers for completing the tasks that exceed their deadlines. Furthermore, ChainAgile effectively addresses the scalability limitations intrinsic in blockchain technology by incorporating the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) is used for storage solutions as an off-chain mechanism. The experimental results conclusively show that this innovative approach substantially improves transparency, traceability, coordination, communication, security, and trust for both customers and developers engaged in scrum agile distributed software development (SADSD).
This analysis explores stagnation point in Jeffery liquid flow over a stretchable cylinder. Heat and mass transfer are investigated through Cattaneo–Christov model with double stratification, heat ...source and thermal relaxation. Moreover, the flow of liquid is caused by stretchable cylinder. Cylindrical coordinates are used for mathematical formulations. The acquired boundary layer problems for stretchable cylinder are dealt through homotopy analysis method. Results of variables appeared in governing equations are disclosed through graphs for flow, temperature, concentration and skin friction. The findings of the study show that higher values of ratio parameter and Deborah number in terms of relaxation time reduce magnitude of drag coefficient while reverse trend is noted for larger Deborah number in terms of retardation time and curvature parameter. Comparison of present work with previous published date is presented.
This article attempted to examine research support services, information services, print collections, digital resources and information literacy using bibliometric analysis from 2001 to 2020. The ...main aim was to consolidate the published studies on the research support services in academic libraries in the Web of Science (WoS) indexed documents. However, there has been a lack of quantitative measurements on the subject. Thus, we used the bibliometric method and found a total of 4079 published documents. The study findings revealed that the topic of ‘information literacy and library’ was on top with a total number of 2168 publications, 3047 articles as a type of published documents, 3662 publications in English and a considerable increase in publications as per years were found. The top author named Fourie I was found with 106 citations and 22 articles started in 2001. Similarly, the University of Illinois found on top organisations out of 2609, United States on top out of 113 countries and information literacy as a keyword out of 6179. Furthermore, the Journal of Academic Librarianship placed at top of sources out of 726 and the National Institutes of Health NIH USA as a top funding agency.
The growing demand for food in terms of quality and quantity has increased the need for industrialization and intensification in the agriculture field. Internet of Things (IoT) is a highly promising ...technology that is offering many innovative solutions to modernize the agriculture sector. Research institutions and scientific groups are continuously working to deliver solutions and products using IoT to address different domains of agriculture. This paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) by conducting a survey of IoT technologies and their current utilization in different application domains of the agriculture sector. The underlying SLR has been compiled by reviewing research articles published in well-reputed venues between 2006 and 2019. A total of 67 papers were carefully selected through a systematic process and classified accordingly. The primary objective of this systematic study is the collection of all relevant research on IoT agricultural applications, sensors/devices, communication protocols, and network types. Furthermore, it also discusses the main issues and challenges that are being investigated in the field of agriculture. Moreover, an IoT agriculture framework has been presented that contextualizes the representation of a wide range of current solutions in the field of agriculture. Similarly, country policies for IoT-based agriculture have also been presented. Lastly, open issues and challenges have been presented to provide the researchers promising future directions in the domain of IoT agriculture.
Melanoma remains the most harmful form of skin cancer. Convolutional neural network (CNN) based classifiers have become the best choice for melanoma detection in the recent era. The research has ...indicated that classifiers based on CNN classify skin cancer images equivalent to dermatologists, which has allowed a quick and life-saving diagnosis. This study provides a systematic literature review of the latest research on melanoma classification using CNN. We restrict our study to the binary classification of melanoma. In particular, this research discusses the CNN classifiers and compares the accuracies of these classifiers when tested on non-published datasets. We conducted a systematic review of existing literature, identifying the literature through a systematic search of the IEEE, Medline, ACM, Springer, Elsevier, and Wiley databases. A total of 5112 studies were identified out of which 55 well-reputed studies were selected. The main objective of this study is to collect state of the art research which identify the recent research trends, challenges and opportunities for melanoma diagnosis and investigate the existing solutions for the diagnosis of melanoma detection using deep learning. Moreover, proposed taxonomy for melanoma detection has been presented that summarizes the broad variety of existing melanoma detection solutions. Lastly, proposed model, challenges and opportunities have been presented which helps the researchers in the domain of melanoma detection.
Purpose: Developing on the base of theory of planned behaviour (TPB), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between perceived social support (SS) from one's social network and ...entrepreneurial intention (EI). Moreover, mediating effect of other constructs of TPB, i.e., attitude towards entrepreneurship (ATE), subjective norms (SN) and perceived behavioural control (PBC) is also examined in this study. Design/methodology/approach: This study involves a variance-based partial least square-structural equation modelling approach for analysing responses from 381 fresh business graduates. Findings: Findings of this study revealed that SS positively influences EI and also that this relationship is fully mediated by ATE, SN and PBC. Research limitations/implications: Due to limited resources, cross cultural comparison and multi-group analysis were not performed, which are considered as a limitation of this study. Practical implications: It is expected that the findings of this study can help policy makers, researchers and academicians in better understanding of critical role of SS for understanding the intentions of nascent entrepreneurs. Social implications: Further, findings of this study suggest that academicians and policy makers need to take heed towards relatively less explored phenomenon of SS to enhance the attractiveness of entrepreneurial career in fresh business graduates. Originality/value: This study has proposed a model for assessing impact of SS on EI. By doing so, this study extends TPB in the context of EI. Moreover, findings of this study are a unique step forward, and offer a new insight towards better understanding of the determinants of EI in fresh business graduates.
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