Blockchain Papers

Robert McMillan

No abstract is available for this record.

Jean Paul Simon

An upheaval is taking place in media circles globally. There are new programme services, new distribution vehicles and new devices; at the same time, financing sources are being eroded, with a growing competition for advertising revenues. The companies must deal with changing expectations of the viewers, especially younger viewers. The legacy models, formerly based on geographic boundaries and scarcity of certain kinds of resources (i.e. spectrum) are under pressure; new services (server-based distribution of content) are location-agnostic (customers can access, for instance, YouTube or DailyMotion from any location). The ubiquity and rise of the Internet are turning upside down the legacy media logic (Busson and Pham, 2010). Media and telecommunication networks were hierarchical and had centralized architectures; the Internet has a decentralized architecture, open and flexible, allowing interaction at both ends (the receiver can become the transmitter), forging a major schism from that model. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Thomas C. Schmidt, Gabriel Hege, Matthias Wählisch, Hans L. Cycon · 6 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Nathan D Lewis, Hailing Situ, Melanie Middlemiss

Gartner has for some time been reporting the potential for virtual world technology to become the next wave of the Internet, delivering what is known as the Web3.D environment. This is characterised by a high level of user participation through immersion in the virtual world. Gartner has predicted that by 2011, 80% of internet users will be regular users of Web3.D technology.\n\nProject LifeLink was initiated to discover what opportunities for Telecom might exist in the growth of business and consumer interest in virtual worlds. This has focused on a number of technologies, in particular Second Life, OpenSimulator (OpenSIM) and JAIN SLEE. The project has been run by Telecom with coordination and support from MediaLab, and with researchers at Canterbury and Otago Universities. This report describes the work undertaken at Otago University to implement a gateway to enable demonstration of communications between an object in Second Life and the JAIN SLEE environment in order to interoperate with external network services.

Alvan Bregman, Winnie S. Chan

This paper describes how library operations can be integrated in a cross-platform programming It discusses the organizational and technical issues in planning and designing of macro applications from the technical services workstation. It then describes a variety of technical and public service macro applications. It shows the efficiency and ergonomic benefits of these customized programs. It concludes with an example of how PC-based macro-programs can populate Web-accessible server-side databases with ActiveX technologies. Programming Initiatives Background This article describes how library operations can be integrated, regardless of the systems in use, through what we call the environment. Two keys to a desktop-programmed are the technical services workstation and the macro, a computer program created either through recording series of keystrokes or--far better--through purpose-designed algorithms.(1) While such macros are commonly in use in many libraries within a single system, our article shows how these can be used to link and integrate systems to great functional advantage. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) we began developing cross-system macros in the context of our migration away from a first-generation system known as LCS/FBR, which had been largely developed in-house and used by a consortium of Illinois libraries.(2) While long-range plans call for moving to a state-of-the-art client/server-centered system, interim arrangements required the implementation of a turnkey telnet-based system, DRA Classic. It quickly became evident that the introduction of new technology would have a profound effect on the library as an organization. Indeed, existing structures and entrenched technologies affected implementation of the system and were in turn highly affected themselves by what was implemented. For that reason, this article looks at the programmed environment not only as a desktop phenomenon, but also as an organizational phenomenon. To have a deep understanding of the real impact desktop computer programming can have in a library, we begin with some organizational and technical issues and how they affected systems and services. Local Organizational Structure The UIUC Library is highly decentralized, made up of some forty-five semi-autonomous departmental libraries. Original cataloging had been decentralized in the mid-1980s; much acquisitions and serials check-in work was also done in the departmental libraries. Serials cataloging and copy cataloging were the respective responsibilities of an Office of the Principal Cataloger unit and of an Automated Services unit. Catalog maintenance was entirely centralized for systems reasons: changes to the consortial catalog could only be performed using hardwired terminals running SuperWylbur or WLN text-editing software. Besides using LCS/FBR, UIUC also maintained a variety of other systems, including IBM for acquisitions accounting and Innopac for serials check-in. All original cataloging was done through OCLC. Hence, multiple input was an overall feature of the configuration. Many parts of the system were not automated; many card files were still in use, especially since retrospective conversion was incomplete. Catalog Maintenance in a Pre-Windows (DOS) Environment UIUC had long grappled with the problem of carrying out catalog maintenance using an inflexible line-editing system. This situation has been documented by Clark and Chan and by Henigman.(3) A variety of computer programs written in BASIC and operating under DOS had been developed to facilitate accuracy and productivity in cataloging maintenance. Essentially, these programs guided inputters in the formatting of data and made possible the interface between the separate LCS and FBR databases. In implementing the new system, however, these programs became obsolete, since SuperWylbur, LCS, and FBR were all being retired. …