2015 Journal news

Cartoon characters are often used to market so-called junk food to children. However, new research from Italy suggests that the same technique might be used to nudge preschoolers into eating more fresh fruit and vegetables too. Details of the investigation appear in the International Journal of Markets and Business Systems. Fabrizio Baldassarre and Raffaele Campo [...]

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Those of us who are not dentally deprived endeavor to clean our teeth at least twice a day and to floss regularly. Looking after one's teeth and brushing effectively are instilled in us from childhood along with the idea of eating plenty of fruit and vegetables and avoiding too many sweet things, especially between meals [...]

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An add-on for antivirus software that can scan across a computer network and trap malicious activity missed by the system firewall is being developed by an international team. Details are reported in the International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics. The research raises the issue that the developers of both operating systems and antivirus [...]

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Have we sold out on our privacy to big data? Thats the question addressed in the International Journal of Society Systems Science where researchers identify a gap in big data research. They suggest that while privacy has been extensively explored in many disparate different settings, it has not been studied sufficiently in the context of [...]

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How can you, the consumer, trust the customer feedback posted at online shopping sites when hoping to make a purchasing decision? Conversely, as the company running the site, how can it protect its reputation from false negative feedback? Researchers in Australia hope to answer these questions with computer software that can detect false feedback and [...]

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Companies that attempt to use social networking to communicate ethical messages of corporate responsibility to consumers are wasting their human resources and money if they do not engage with users directly, according to research published in the International Journal of Business Information Systems. Reza Jamali of Tarbiat Modares University (TMU), in Tehran, Iran, and colleagues [...]

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Twitter engagement in the tourism sector Tourism and travel companies hoping to gain traction and credibility and likes on social media sites, such as Twitter, should take note of a new study from researchers in the UK. A team in the Business School at Brunel University London has analysed almost 3000 tweets updates on [...]

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The Internet of Things, IoT, the cloud, big databuzzwords for the modern age. But, asks Won Kim, Jaehyuk Choi and colleagues in the Department of Software at Gachon University, in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea: Is the IoT actually anything new and how does it work? Writing in the International Journal of Web and Grid Services, the [...]

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The opinion of a qualified professional is unlikely to be replaced by a computer algorithm for the diagnosis of schizophrenia. However, additional medical evidence based on such an algorithm might be useful in early diagnosis, according to work published in the International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications. Pawan Kumar Singh and Ram Sarkar [...]

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Scientific progress is being hindered by the emergence of a relatively new kind of fraud the hijacked scientific journal, according to researchers from Iran and Poland. They describe the problem and its detrimental effects on science in the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning. Mehdi Dadkhah of the Foulad Institute of Technology, in Isfahan [...]

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LinkedIn is perhaps one of the most well-known of the online social networks and is commonly used by professionals hoping to make new and fruitful contacts with other professionals in their field and the organisations and businesses associated with them. Research published in the International Journal of Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments, suggests that [...]

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Sharing to be sociable or posting to be popular? Whatever your stance on social media it seems from recent research in the Netherlands that a student's decision to share information on Facebook is predicated primarily on their perception of the benefits of sharing and not on their privacy concerns [...]

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Could scientists use the Second Law of Thermodynamics on your chewing muscles to work out when you are going to die? According to research published in the International Journal of Exergy, the level of entropy, or thermodynamic disorder, in the chewing muscles in your jaw increases with each mouthful. This entropy begins to accumulate from [...]

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New research suggests that age, race and family history are the biggest risk factors for a man to develop prostate cancer, although high blood pressure, high cholesterol, vitamin D deficiency, inflammation of prostate, and vasectomy also add to the risk. In contrast, obesity, alcohol abuse, and smoking show a negative association with the disease. Details [...]

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Research in India has found that restaurateurs in different food establishments there can influence how long their customers stay, how much they eat and whether or not they come back for seconds. The study of music as an accompaniment to a meal has been well visited in the West but not so completely in emerging [...]

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Lean manufacturing involves minimizing expenses by attempting to eradicate waste, waste of materials, energy, and human resources. But, if lean efforts are at the cost of safety then that is a bad thing for any company, research in the International Journal of Lean Enterprise Research emphasizes. To remain profitable, organizations must continue to lower costs [...]

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When our medical records are all in the cloud and available to be discussed among our healthcare professionals via online networks for diagnostics, treatment, and training purposes, how will we, as patients, know that our sensitive and personal information remains secure and private? This could be especially problematic as connected mobile devices become increasingly common [...]

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When our medical records are all in the cloud and available to be discussed among our healthcare professionals via online networks for diagnostics, treatment, and training purposes, how will we, as patients, know that our sensitive and personal information remains secure and private? This could be especially problematic as connected mobile devices become increasingly common [...]

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New research from the USA suggests that college students are well aware that they should be personally responsible for their finances, including their card obligations, but this awareness rarely correlates with limiting the debts they accrue during their time in higher education. Details of the study are reported this month in the International Journal of [...]

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The current buzzwords that one might hear flung across the boardroom tables of internet and telecommunications companies might include, the cloud, ubiquitous computing, internet of things, pervasive computing, distributed systems, Wi-Fi drones, big data, even ambient intelligence. The list goes on. Some of these are essentially synonyms, some have been used for years, others are [...]

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An approach to converting the data from MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machines, mammograms and other medical equipment gives doctors a much clearer picture of your insides and a chance to detect disease and other problems earlier, according to research published in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology. The technique known as the wavelet [...]

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Catch a whiff of an enchanting perfume, the sweet smell of freshly cut grass, newly baked bread, even the odour of two-stroke engine fumes, and many of us are whisked off to distant places in our memories. Smells trigger immediate emotional responses and marketing departments the world over have exploited this everywhere from supermarkets to [...]

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Land, labour and capital resource-related requirements, as well as significant regulatory and financial barriers are preventing more farmers from adopting an important renewable energy technology Anaerobic Digestion, or Biogas to give it its shorthand name according to research published in the International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling. Animal manure, grass, [...]

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European computer scientists have developed a way to read web addresses in images that could improve filters for blocking pornographic, gambling and other sites. They provide details in the new issue of the International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems. Internet marketers of all shades might add a website address, a URL, to a graphic or [...]

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Both the efficacy and side effects of radiation therapy depend not only on the exposure dose but also on the volume of tissue exposed to that radiation. As a general rule, the smaller the volume, the greater the tolerance. As such, microbeam radiation therapy, which relies on the high power and pinpoint accuracy of synchrotron [...]

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Security and safety could be improved if researchers from very disparate disciplines humanities, computer science and politics were to work together, according to research described in the International Journal of Emergency Management. Moreover, such coordinated efforts online would improve crisis management during natural disasters, terrorist attack or cyber warfare. Jean-Luc Wybo and colleagues [...]

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A powerful new computer security tool called XDet that can detect malicious files being uploaded to a cloud computing service is reported this month in the International Journal of Space-Based and Situated Computing by researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University and Nottingham Trent University, UK. Rob Hegarty (MMU) and John Haggerty (NTU) explain how cloud computing [...]

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Online social networking generates vast quantities of data that might be useful to the service providers, advertising agencies, and even the users themselves. Writing in the International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems this month, researchers in India describe an approach to establishing new connections in a network using what they refer to as [...]

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Reception centres for migrants seeking asylum trap the people seeking help through social disempowerment as they become increasingly dependent on so-called humanitarian government, according to research published in the International Journal of Migration and Border Studies in August. Giuseppe Campesi of the Department of Political Sciences, at the University of Bari, in Italy, carried out [...]

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People with diabetes mellitus often suffer from impaired wound healing. Now, scientists in Egypt have developed antibacterial nanofibres of cellulose acetate loaded with silver that could be used in a new type of dressing to promote tissue repair. They reveal details of the new materials and their properties in the International Journal of Nanoparticles. Thanaa [...]

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Researchers in India have investigated compounds present in Live Green Real Veggies that might have physiological activity to treat the painful inflammatory condition, migraine. They provide details of their findings in the International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design. Migraine is a neurological condition characterized by over-excitability of certain active proteins in the brain [...]

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A new computational study published in the International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications has shown how mutations that give rise to drug resistance occur in a form of cancer known as acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Juan Carlos Martinez and S.S. Iyengar of Florida International University and Nelson Lopez-Jimenez and Tao Meng of the University [...]

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Writing in the International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, researchers in Denmark explain how the new paradigm of a digital healthcare system, as it matures, is putting the picture of the doctor-patient relationship in an entirely new frame and not always in a positive way. The advent of electronic healthcare records and the mobile [...]

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An automated thermal detection system that can discern wild elephants from background and other animals in infrared images could save lives in parts of the world where the animals roam free and often enter villages and other human habitation, according to research published in the International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics. Siva Mangai [...]

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US researchers extol the virtues of high-altitude balloons for science education in a research paper published in the International Journal of Learning Technology. According to Jeremy Straub of the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, High-altitude balloons can carry student and scientific payloads to the boundaries of space. This, he suggests, gives students the [...]

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As yet another music streaming service comes online to rival the countless available outlets for so many different genres, a new approach to classifying music to make archiving, sorting and music discovery easier is published in the International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies. Rare is the musical artist described as genre-defying. Most singers and musicians, [...]

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Maybe it sounds like a cow and bull story, but researchers in Egypt are developing a biometric identification system for cattle that could reduce food fraud and allow ranchers to control their stock more efficiently. The system described in the International Journal of Image Mining uses the unique features of a prominent part of the [...]

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Many of the online social networks match users with each other based on common keywords and assumed shared interests based on their activity. A new approach that could help users find new friends and contacts with a greater likelihood of their becoming positive connections is reported this month in the International Journal of Social Network [...]

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Many of us have privacy concerns when it comes to our online social networks others are not worried that their statements, photos, videos and personal data can be seen by the service provider, other users with which we might not wish to share information and malicious hackers. At first sight, it might seem that protection [...]

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An electronic accelerometer of the kind found in most smart phones that let the device determine its orientation and respond to movement, could also be used to save lives on our roads, according to research to be published in the International Journal of Vehicle Safety. Samuel Lawoyin, Ding-Yu Fei and Ou Bai of Virginia Commonwealth [...]

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The world of academia and its penchant for publishing in journals has led to various ways of assessing the relevance of a given journal, paper and the authors of said paper in a given field and in the wider world of research. Citation indices for journals are common, widely touted by journals and their publishers [...]

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The UK may be sitting on vast reserves of shale gas accessible with todays technology to the petrochemicals industry only through the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking. Unfortunately for the industry and its lobbyists there are strong public opinions on fracking not least because of five major environmental and health concerns [...]

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The advent of online social networks has led to the rapid development of tools for understanding the interactions between members of the network, their activity, the connections, the hubs and nodes. But, any relationships between lots of entities, whether users of Facebook and Twitter, bees in a colony, birds in a flock, or the genes [...]

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Earthquakes kill, but their aftershocks can cause the rapid collapse of buildings left standing in the aftermath of the initial quake. Research published in the International Journal of Reliability and Safety offers a new approach to predicting which buildings might be most susceptible to potentially devastating collapse due to the ground-shaking aftershock tremors. Negar Nazari [...]

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How much research and development information do Fortune Global 500 companies give away on their websites? That was the question a team from the University of Tunisia hoped to answer in assessing the openness of the commercial R&D world. Writing in the International Journal of Information Technology and Management, Boutheina Ben Ghnaya explains that 145 [...]

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Nine times out of ten, that Android app is connecting to multiple internet destinations without your knowledge, more than half of them require access to the sensitive, personal information on your mobile device in order to function and more than one in five data packets these apps send contains some of that sensitive information. Thats [...]

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Qatars capital city, Doha, is set to emerge as a major knowledge hub, with its educated, high-tech workforce and its international connectivity. However, the lack of a cohesive plan for development and the mobility of that workforce in and out of Qatar could stymie its success on the global stage. The rulers of the Arab [...]

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Over the past five years, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have become an important component of modern education disrupting many conventions and opening up a wide range of new approaches and possibilities. Now, writing in the International Journal of Learning Technology, computer scientists from the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK, explain how expectations are high [...]

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If you want your cut gerberas to last longer in the vase, you could try a flower food made from acids and urea. Thats the conclusion of research published in the International Journal of Postharvest Technology and Innovation. Gerbera jamesonii also known as the Transvaal daisy or African daisy, is a species native to South [...]

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Escherichia coli O104 is an emergent disease-causing bacterium various strains of which are becoming increasingly well known and troublesome. The pathogen causes bloody diarrhea as well as and potentially fatal kidney damage, hemolytic uremic syndrome. Infection is usually through inadvertent ingestion of contaminated and incompletely cooked food or other materials, such as animals feces. Escherichia [...]

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The internet has become almost ubiquitous in the developed world and beyond with the advent of the smart phone and tablet computer. As such, staying secure and keeping information private has become an issue of utmost importance way beyond the traditional computer desktop. Writing in the International Journal of Information and Computer Security, computer scientists [...]

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Genetically modified crops are usually designed to have herbicide tolerance and insect resistance, but there are other applications of such engineered plants, such as the incorporation of genes for specific nutrients. Research published in the International Journal of Biotechnology suggests that the bio-fortification of rice with a gene to produce more folate (the ion of [...]

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There are five motivators for creating novel content online, whether blog posts, shared news stories, images, photos, songs, videos or any of the other digital artifacts users of social media and social networking sites share endlessly. Research just published in the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising suggests that these five factors are: entertainment, [...]

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In the age of the smart phone, how smart are the mobile shoppers who use these almost ubiquitous devices? A study from South Korea published in the International Journal of Mobile Communications hopes to answer that question. Thae Min Lee of the Department of Business Administration, at Chungbuk National University, South Korea, and colleagues suggest [...]

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We will still be using real money for at least the next 5 to 10 years, but financial transactions carried out using mobile electronic devices, such as smart phones and tablet computers, will increasingly become the norm during that time period, according to research published in the International Journal of Electronic Business. Key Pousttchi and [...]

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The slow implementation of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) in the USA as part of homeland security and anti-terrorism measures is leaving chemical plants vulnerable and putting at risk the safety of American citizens, according to research published in the International Journal of Critical Infrastructures. Maria Rooijakkers and Abdul-Akeem Sadiq of the School of [...]

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Burying the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, has been mooted as one geoengineering approach to ameliorating climate change. To be effective, trapping the gas in geological deposits would be the for the very long term, thousands of years. Now, a team in Brazil, writing in the International Journal of Global [...]

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A little health knowledge can be a very dangerous thing, especially if the information comes from the Internet. Now, research published in the International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems, describes a new quality indicator to remedy that situation. Rey-Long Liu of the Department of Medical Informatics, at Tzu Chi University, in Hualien, Taiwan [...]

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The media is littered with celebrity trainers, bakers, nutritionists, even gardeners. But, one profession is always missing from the roster the celebrity accountant. The reason is most likely due to the negative stereotypes propagated for centuries. However, this is no bad thing, according to researchers in Australia who suggest in the International Journal of [...]

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Would-be participants of higher education must be given full and transparent advice before they accumulate debts as students that follow them into the workplace, according to a report published in the International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education. Deborah Figart of the School of Education, at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in Galloway, [...]

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The notion of global warming was first mooted by French scientist and mathematician Joseph Fourier in 1824 and discovered by John Tyndall in 1860, he and later, Svante Arrhenius, pinned down the mechanisms. It is perhaps deceived wisdom that Arrhenius was the first to suggest that Sweden might once again be able to grow tropical [...]

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An in-car alarm that sounds when sensors on the vehicle detect an imminent crash could cut crash rates from 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 for drivers over the of 60 suffering tiredness on long journeys, according to a study published in the International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics. Psychologist Carryl Baldwin of [...]

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Well over 500 people sleep rough on the streets of London, with an estimated 2500 people sleeping in shop doorways, bus shelters, car parks and other places across the UK. Half a million people live in temporary hostels, cold weather shelters and womens refuges. Countless numbers survive in squats and it is thought that numbers [...]

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In all but the most disconnected places, most of us are connected to our online social networks and contacts information throughout the working day and either side. Moreover, even in face-to-face meetings it is now common for people to check their phones periodically. Research to be published in the International Journal of Ad Hoc and [...]

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When the conversation fades and the food runs out, exuberant partygoers might turn to drinking games for their postprandial entertainment. But, be warned the ever-popular sport of beer pong could give you a little more than you bargained for, according to US scientists writing in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health. [...]

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Antibiotic-resistant strains of the food-poisoning microbe Listeria monocytogenes in unprocessed salad products are not quite as widespread as scientists originally suspected according to a new study from Malaysia published in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health reveals that strains of the microbe falling into six distinct groups can all be found on [...]

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Coal from China could become a major source of the metal lithium, according to a review of the geochemistry by scientists published in the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology. Lithium is an essential component of rechargeable batteries used almost ubiquitously in mobile gadgets such as phones, laptops, tablet computers and in man [...]

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Abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock was perhaps most famous for his drip painting technique. His legacy, however, is plagued by fake Pollocks and even experts often have trouble distinguishing the genuine from the counterfeit. Now, a machine vision approach described in a forthcoming issue of International Journal of Arts and Technology has demonstrated 93 percent [...]

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Connecting different kinds of devices, not just computers and communications devices, to the Internet could lead to new ways of working with a wide range of machinery, sensors, domestic and other appliances. Writing in the International Journal of Innovation and Learning, suggest that we are on the verge of a another technological revolution but practicalities [...]

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The basic concept of cloud computing emerged in the 1950s when mainframe computers were coming to the fore and users would instigate processing from their dummy terminals. However, in modern parlance, cloud computing represents much more in that the dummy terminals are no longer simple input/output devices but might themselves be high-powered desktop workstations, laptops, [...]

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Misinformation is insidious whether its the latest scaremongering in the tabloid press, ill-advised commentary on social media from celebrities or TV anchors evangelising biased untruths about climate, guns, vaccines, quackery, terrorism, fundamentalism or any of countless other points of contention. It is the spread of misinformation through online social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook [...]

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Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the biotechnology industry must use scientific and corporate boards strategically if they are to become truly international companies. Thats the message from Canadian researchers in the current issue of the International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship. Sophie Veilleux and Marie-Jose Roy of the Faculty of Business Administration, at Universit Laval, in [...]

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A swarm of tiny probes each with a different sensor could be fired into the clouds of Jupiter and grab data as they fall before burning up in the gas giant planets atmosphere. The probes would last an estimated 15 minutes according to planetary scientists writing in the International Journal Space Science and Engineering. Transmitting [...]

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Are you emotionally attached to your smart phone? That was the question scientists in the UK and Iceland hoped to answer. Gsli Thorsteinsson of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik and Tom Page of Loughborough University explain how the emergence of devices such as the Apple iPhone in January 2007 gave users a computer in [...]

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For everyone, death and taxes are inevitable, for researchers theres a third item on the agenda: publishing. Almost every academic in every discipline must publish to survive, but not every academic enjoys writing or can write a decent paperenough said. Now, Michael Derntl of RWTH Aachen University, Germany, has, ironically enough, surveyed the literature and [...]

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As cloud computing becomes increasingly prevalent, the need for protection against malicious attacks on servers becomes more pressing. Now, US computer scientists have developed FAPA, a flooding attack protection architecture, to protect users of cloud systems. They report details in the aptly named International Journal of Cloud Computing. Kazi Zunnurhain, Susan Vrbsky and Ragib Hasan [...]

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