A Comprehensive Review of Blockchain Technology Implementation in the EV Charging Infrastructure

Charging infrastructure is a key factor in successful electric vehicle adoption. Charging stations are still a fragmented market in terms of ownership, lack of standards, and charging protocols. The increasing decentralised grid has made energy and communication flow bi-directional. Challenges arise in maintaining the increasing decentralised structure, security, and privacy of the network. Blockchain facilitates the interconnectedness of such a distributed and decentralised network. Blockchain's versatility lies in its transparent and immutable decentralized architecture that enables direct transactions between users without the need of a middleman. It provides powerful safeguards against cyberattacks with its advanced cryptography enabling privacy-preserving authentication. This chapter presents a comprehensive review on the application of blockchain technology in EV charging infrastructure such as facilitating the peer-to-peer energy exchange, increased security and privacy, immutable transactions, and mitigating trust issues among the participants in the charging infrastructure.

Social media use in government health agencies: The COVID-19 impact

Government communications typically use social media for federal agencies, national policies, and emergency cases. However, it is crucial to understand the use of these platforms within local government agencies. This investigation fills this gap and includes social media data during three months of the COVID-19 pandemic and compares it with previous trends. The research question that leads this research is: How has government social media use and communication behavior changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic? This research analyzes a study case applied to a local Mexican government agency named ISSEMyM. We analyze the data during the period between October 2017 and June 2020. Findings reveal a consistent use of Twitter and Facebook for communication by the ISSEMyM government agency. Also, it indicates an increase in engagement and communication flow over three years. We found that official local government communications remained unchanged during the whole period. We found no change in interaction, number of followers, and message structure during this period; however, the COVID-19 pandemic radically alters interactions, followers, and user engagement.

Does Crowdsourcing as Part of User-Driven Innovation Activity Affect Its Results? An Empirical Analysis of R&D Departments in Poland

Entrepreneurs have long been convinced about the power and possibilities of the Internet. Nowadays, the Internet is an integral tool for the functioning of a company, not only as an alternative distribution channel, but also as a channel of information and communication flow, a means of interaction with the environment. The increasing use of the Internet, and especially of social media, made it possible to escalate the activity of various social groups in various areas of the company’s activity, including innovation, leading to the development of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing has redefined the existing production rules and ways of using labor resources. Its potential lies in openness, partnership, resource sharing and global action. There are already many studies on crowdsourcing and innovation, but little attention is paid to the relationship between crowdsourcing and the determinants of innovation activity. Thus, the aim of this research is examining whether the use of crowdsourcing while cooperating with product users in accordance with the concept of user-driven innovation (UDI) has an impact on selected aspects of innovative activity. An original questionnaire was used for the study. Fifty-seven R&D departments in Poland participated in the research. For the purpose of the analysis, the Kendall and V-Cramer tau correlation coefficient was used. These methods are complemented by the Ward agglomeration method. The research results show a cooperation with consumer results in the development of innovative activities in the studied R&D departments of enterprises in Poland. Using crowdsourcing results in the introduction of more product innovations, the introduction of new or significantly improved technological processes, as well as the implementation of a greater number of research and development projects.

Communication Metrics for Human-Autonomy Teaming: Lessons Learned from us Army Gunnery Field Experiments

The development of more effective human-autonomy teaming (HAT) will depend on the availability of validated measures of their performance. Communication provides a critical window into a team’s interactions, states, and performance, but much remains to be learned about how to successfully carry over communication measures from the human teaming context to the HAT context. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the implementation of three communication assessment methodologies used for two Wingman Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstration field experiments. These field experiments involved Soldiers and Marines maneuvering vehicles and engaging in live-fire target gunnery, all with the assistance of intelligent autonomous systems. Crew communication data were analyzed using aggregate communication flow, relational event models, and linguistic similarity. We discuss how the assessments were implemented, what they revealed about the teaming between humans and autonomy, and lessons learned for future implementation of communication measurement approaches in the HAT context.

THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION REVOLUTION

In the context of sweeping social, economic, technological, and demographic changes, digital transformation is a series of deep and coordinated culture, workforce, and technology shifts that enable new educational and operating models and transform an institution’s operations, strategic directions. Digital transformation is a destination that is practically mandatory for most organizations. The interconnectivity that it fosters will make the communication flow between students and teachers more fluid. It also helps to improve the relationship and promotes the best use of available resources, especially in higher education. So, the researchers shed light on digital transformation, its importance and the challenges it faces, especially in higher education institutions Therefore, higher education institutions must keep pace with all these changes and take them into account if they want to develop and compete with their peers.

An evaluative study of public property maintenance practices in a tertiary institution in Ghana

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to evaluate key factors considered in the maintenance and management of property and facilities in a public tertiary institution in Ghana, taking reflective cognizance of the poor maintenance culture in the country.Design/methodology/approachThe cross-sectional design was adopted, employing both structured and semi-structured interview questionnaires for quantitative and qualitative interview data, respectively from multiple individuals in the Koforidua Technical University. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) tool was deployed to analyze the quantitative data, while the focus group interview was recorded, transcribed and thematically analyzed.FindingsThe paper reveals the need for a working policy and strategy for the maintenance of public property to ensure sustainability of practices. Essential factors such as effective communication flow and the competence of the maintenance team were highly ranked in the maintenance of public property. The use of computerized systems and other technological tools in maintenance practice featured low, and this calls for improvement in the delivery of maintenance services. Another critical finding was the need for effective engagement of all stakeholders in the planning and development of strategies to improve property maintenance.Practical implicationsThe findings have practical implications for practitioners and society at large. Notably, they enjoin public sector institutions to embrace policy-driven public property management and maintenance, strategic outlooks for public property maintenance, technological advancement in property management and effective engagement of all stakeholders in property maintenance delivery.Originality/valueThis paper reviews a collection of maintenance practices and moves further to evaluate them using a case study of a public institution to draw useful outcomes. It offers new knowledge pursued to fill a revealed gap in the literature.

PENGUNGKAPAN NILAI ANTI KORUPSI DAN PERAN KOMUNIKASI DALAM BUKU AJAR PENDIDIKAN AGAMA ISLAM DAN BUDI PEKERTI

The background of this research is an effort to participate in education in eradicating corrupt behavior. In this effort, it is necessary to inculcate anti-corruption values that are integrated into existing subjects, so that they are not burdensome to emerge new subjects. Furthermore, to provide this education, an effective learning process is needed by using the right communication process so that the cultivation of anti-corruption values can be implemented optimally. This study aims to reveal the anti-corruption values contained in Islamic Education textbooks and then provide an overview of how to build effective communication to be used in learning. This research is a library research with student textbooks as the object of study. The results showed: the values of anti-corruption education contained in the textbook of Islamic Religious Education and Character are the values of honesty, caring, independence, discipline, responsibility, hard work, simplicity, courage, and justice. Effective communication occurs when paying attention to at least five things: clarity of material, accuracy of language use, material context, communication flow, and the environmental culture of students.

Dynamic Shaping Method using SDN And NFV Paradigms

Traffic shaping controls communication traffic flow to prevent a specified communication rate from being exceeded. In conventional networks, the traffic shaping device is implemented at a predetermined location and only a communication flow passing through the device is targeted. If the traffic can be shaped dynamically on any selected communication flows at the optimal point only when necessary, it could use network bandwidths and packet relay processing capacity more efficiently and flexibly. This paper proposes a dynamic shaping method using Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) paradigms, which selects the optimal communication flows to be shaped, and the optimal shaping points dynamically. This paper also presented system configuration and functions for the proposed dynamic shaping, and the method to simplify the process of collecting the traffic data of each communication flow by SDN controller.