CD-ROM catalog; CD-ROM database; Database; Information Technology

In order for land Surveyor Companies to survive and prosper in today's competitive environments, it is essential that they govern the efficiency and effectiveness in providing services (1). To assist in the process, the utilization of information technology and automated software can provide efficiency and effective solutions to the problems of mass data and information handling (2), (3). Object-oriented software engineering methodology the idea object model for the business relates to the use case model of the supporting information system (2). Meanwhile, a practical model and procedure on how to tender products based on new, emerging technologies had been proposed by A.P. Hameri et al. (4). In particular, estimating and tendering represent important processes for organization involved in land surveyor (1). In Malaysia, the calculation of tender payment claims for the land surveyor company is based on the Vide Federal Government Gazette PU (A) 169 Thirteenth Schedule (Regulation 99) Scale of Fees for Title Surveys given by Land Surveyors Board. In addition, the traditional or former practice of tender management process and calculation of tender payment claims through the manual system is complex and very difficult (1). Before the advent of system, organization kept all their data in manual or conventional files. Basically, the manual system workflow is very inefficient and ineffective. Data processing in organizations tended to be largely departmental in nature. To manage the tender information, many staffs are involved and the processes need to be completed in several stages. The file-based system was helpful, however this conventional system wouldn't produce the kind of information that needed by the management. Inevitable, the manual system is exposed to the risk of data loss, delayed and data integrity concern, which reduce the company's operation performance.

Tender Management System in Kadastra with the database technology, is capable to manage the tender information. The software design consists the modules of the customer account details, information of separating process for division or boundary, temporary properties and survey of land. Briefly, PHP language and MySQL were used to develop the Tender Management System in Kadastra and its database system respectively. Other software had been used include My SQL Client Server GUI, PHP Editor, Microsoft Front Page and Apache Web Server.

System description: Tender Management System in Kadastra supports the sharing information. All information will be control in a centralize database. TMS in Kadastra will manage all information that relevant to Measurement System for the purpose to make ease of information access by the users. Besides, managing the tender information through fully computerized is better than manual system. For example, by implementing the computerized system, customer details can be easily accessed in short period time. User can refer to file transaction details specifically with fast and accurate. The Measurement System is developed to help the user to calculate the tender payment claim that includes two type statues, either transaction claims or quotations. The Land Surveyor Board fixes the standard matrixes rate for survey of land fees.

Tender Management System in Kadastra also supports the automatical reports generated. The facilities that supported by the system has become the powerful stimulus for increasing works quality. Through the computerized system, users need not to worry about the miscalculation of tender payment tender claims. Tender Management System in Kadastra is developed based on the manual system and existing computerized system, Sistem Kadastra Jurukur Jitu Runding Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia.

Gender Differences in Attitudes towards Information Technology among Malaysian Student Teachers: A Case Study at Universiti Putra Malaysia

This article presents a quantitative study on gender differences in attitudes toward the usage of Information
Technology (IT) related tools and applications. The study was conducted at Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia,
with 73 female and 29 male student teachers involved as participants. They were each presented with a
questionnaire to relate their attitudes toward IT before and after undergoing a discrete IT course for the duration
of one semester (14 weeks). The attitudes of the respondents were measured in terms of three dimensions,
namely, usefulness, confidence and aversion. There were no significant differences between female and male
student teachers when the pre- and post-test mean scores were compared. Both genders exhibited the same
levels of attitudes before and after undergoing the comprehensive IT course. This suggests that the exposure to
IT did not contribute to any significant gender disparity. The paired sample t-test results showed improved
attitudes toward IT usage in both females and males after the exposure to IT. The biggest improvement for both
females and males was in the aversion dimension which showed that their initial strong dislike toward IT was
greatly reduced at the end of the course. In terms of confidence, female participants exhibited an enhanced
confidence level after the course as opposed to the male participants. The results support the view that computer
experience is gender-based as the increase in IT confidence over time assumed different patterns for females and
males.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN MALAYSIAN BANKS: A NEW PARADIGM

The globalization of financial markets forced bankers to be knowledge-based and be more efficient in managing knowledge in their banking operations. The importance of this function is accentuated further by the call from the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia) to integrate the concepts of knowledge management in banking operations. In this paper, we discuss a research model called: Banking Knowledge Management Model (BKMM), which encompasses knowledge creation, knowledge retention and knowledge sharing and more importantly, how each of these elements can be integrated in enhancing the quality of banking operations. The various components of BKMM are described in detail so as to explain the progress of knowledge management in banking operations. Then, using the BKMM as a reference, two case studies, one of Tiger Bank and the other of the Camel Bank, were analyzed to study the progress of knowledge management application. The contribution of the BKMM is expected to create a culture that promotes and encourages knowledge management to flourish in the banking sector.

The Relationship Between Information Technology Acceptance And Organizational Agility in Malaysia

We examined the influence of information technology (IT) acceptance on organizational agility. The study was based on a well-established theoretical model, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). We attempted to identify the relationships between IT acceptance and organizational agility in order to see how the acceptance of technology contributes to a firm's ability to be an agile competitor. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to analyze the data. Results from a survey involving 329 managers and executives in manufacturing firms in Malaysia showed that actual system or technology usage had the strongest direct effect on organizational agility. Meanwhile, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of IT influenced organizational agility indirectly through actual systems or technology use and attitudes towards using the technology. The results have several implications for IS management.

The University System : Engine Of Development in The New World Economy

Science and Technology as Sources of Economic Growth in the Information-Based Economy

Science and technology play a critical role as sources of economic productivity and competitiveness in the new, informational economy (Monk 1989). Furthermore, the growing interdependence of service activities with manufacturing and agriculture place information processing at the core of productivity growth (Hall and Preston 1988). Thus, dramatic innovation in information technologies in the last two decades has made technological capacity even more crucial for economic development and political power. Because the adequate use of advanced information technologies is highly dependent upon the general level of education and culture of labor, there is a growing connection between people's intellectual skills and their countries' development potential (Carnoy and others 1982).

This analysis is not limited to market economies. The groundbreaking econometric studies by Soviet economist Aganbegyan (1989) show that the decline of the Soviet economy from 1971 to 1985 (which ultimately forced the policy of perestroika) was linked to the exhaustion of the extensive model of growth, through massive addition of labor and physical resources, as the Soviet economy became more complex and needed improved technology and better management to perform in the next stage of development. This next stage was characterized by the importance of information generation and information processing outside the secluded military industrial complex.

However, some authors argue that less developed economies are less concerned about advanced technology as much of their activity is still linked to traditional agriculture, semi-industrial handicraft production, and petty trade. Besides, advanced technologies tend to be labor saving, while the major problem in developing countries is to create jobs for a population still growing at an excessive rate. Yet, this argument forgets that today the world is closely interconnected, and that the process of development does not proceed stage by stage, but must instead be based on the proper linkages between national and regional economies with very different technological compositions (see Geledan 1990).

The informational economy is also a world economy, in which comparative advantages in terms of labor costs only become important once a given national economy is connected to the rest of the system on the basis of a sufficient level of communications, productive infrastructure, and labor skills (see Sewell and Tucker 1988). Because of the growing interpenetration of economic processes worldwide, economies that try to reach out beyond the subsistence level (thus generating some surplus) will immediately face a highly sophisticated international economy in which technological capacity is a critical variable. Unless we adopt the ideological position of full self-sufficiency, which would be hard to implement for political reasons in a world linked by television and tourist travel (Castells and Laserna 1989), the informational economy must be considered a worldwide phenomenon, with an asymmetrical structure, in which countries and regions are integrated at very different levels, furthering the system's segmentation and aggravating societies' contradictions (Ohmae 1990). In such a worldwide, informational economy we must rethink the meaning and instruments of development (see Portes and Kincaid 1990). It would seem that investment in what is called "human capital". becomes strategic, but the concrete policy implications of such a statement are more complex and less accepted than would appear at first sight.

This chapter elaborates on one of these implications: universities (but not any kind of university) become fundamental tools of development. However, they do so in a very different way to the old humanistic approach to development in terms of improving literacy and fulfilling the developing world's cultural needs.

The science and technology systems of the new economy (including, of course, the humanities) are equivalent to the factories of the industrial age. Not that manufacturing will disappear, but the new manufacturing of the twenty-first century (as well as agriculture and advanced services) will only be able to perform on the basis of a new, highly developed cultural, scientific, and technological system (Cohen and Zysman 1986).

If knowledge is the electricity of the new informational international economy, then institutions of higher education are the power sources on which the new development process must rely. This is the central proposition of this chapter.

Axiata’s Inaugural USD300 Million Bonds Oversubscribed More than Eight Times

Kuala Lumpur, 16 April 2010 - Axiata Group Berhad (“Axiata” or “Company”) today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Axiata SPV1 (Labuan) Limited, is proposing to issue senior unsecured USD 300 million 10-year Fixed Rate Guaranteed Notes (“Notes”). The Notes will be unconditionally and irrevocably guaranteed by Axiata. The issuance is part of ongoing efforts to improve the Group’s capital management post demerger and will allow Axiata to have a longer debt maturity profile.
The net proceeds of the issue, which represents the first USD bond offering by a Malaysian corporate year to-date 2010, will be used for the purpose of refinancing the existing borrowings of Axiata’s subsidiary and for the general corporate purposes of the Group. 

Dato’ Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim, President & Group Chief Executive Officer of Axiata said, “The exercise reinforces Axiata’s commitment to optimize the Group’s capital structure. In a short space of time Axiata has gone from deleveraging during the financial crisis to being rated investment grade, enabling us to tap into new sources of funding, namely the international debt capital markets, thus providing the Group further financial agility for long term growth. Furthermore, the exercise will enable Axiata to remain relevant and visible on the radar of investors”.  
The Notes will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (as amended) (“Securities Act”) and will be offered outside the United States in accordance with Regulation S under the Securities Act. Applications have been made to list the Notes on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited and the Labuan International Financial Exchange. 
In reflection of Axiata’s strong credit and financial profile as well as the sovereign shareholding, both S&P and Moody’s have rated Axiata as investment grade BBB and Baa2 respectively.  
Goldman Sachs International and Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc are the Joint Global Coordinators. Goldman Sachs International, Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc and CIMB Bank (L) Limited are the Joint Bookrunners and Joint Lead Managers for the Notes.

ICT Knowledge and Appreciation Programme

UEM Land’s ICT Knowledge and Appreciation Programme seeks to create awareness on the importance of ICT usage and to develop IT skills amongst the upper primary and secondary school children. With the long term objective of helping to bridge the digital divide between the urban and rural communities, the programme focuses on IT literacy and the competent usage of computers.

Under the programme, activities organised include training workshops and ICT Carnival. The ICT Training was organised for UEM Land’s PINTAR School students and teachers. Students were trained to use IT software and to use the internet as a learning medium whilst the teachers’ training was aimed at improving their proficiency in ICT and empowering them to, in turn, train their students in ICT.

More than fifty PINTAR school teachers and 3,200 students from UEM Land’s PINTAR primary and secondary schools have benefitted from this programme.

The ICT Carnival for Nusajaya zone aims to expose the surrounding communities, especially the school communities, to the current trends in ICT and to showcase each school’s respective ICT projects. It was first organised in May 2009 at SMK Tg. Adang and SK Tg. Adang, Gelang Patah and had attracted over 1,000 visitors comprising students, teachers and members of the local community.

On 11th May 2011, the 2nd ICT Carnival was organised in collaboration with Johor Bahru District Education Department (PPDJB) and State Education Department (JPNJ). The carnival was also held in conjunction with ‘Semarak Mahkota Pendidikan’, one of the programmes planned by JPNJ to build closer rapport between the Palace and the students, by making His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Johor, Tunku Ismail Idris ibni Sultan Ibrahim Ismail as an icon to all the students in Johor and additionally to be the patron of the students’ programmes. The carnival, held at SMK Taman Nusa Jaya, saw the participation of more than 3,000 students and teachers from more than thirty schools around Johor Bahru.

Cisco, Sime Darby Property and Mesiniaga Collaborate to Develop Smart+Connected Communities in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – April 6, 2010 – Cisco today announced that it is collaborating with Sime Darby Property (SDP), the property division of Sime Darby Group, and Mesiniaga Berhad to develop social, economic and environmental sustainability in Malaysia through connected communities. 

The collaboration, through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Cisco and Sime Darby Property, is intended to lead to the integration of a complete range of information and communications technology solutions and related services provided by Cisco and Mesiniaga for SDP's current and future projects. The projects, which include the Sime Darby Idea House and Sime Healthcare, will build on Cisco® Smart+Connected Communities solutions.

Healthy outlook for health information technology By ELAINE ANG

According to Elaine Ang,

It has tremedous potential for growth globally

HEALTH information technology (IT) has great potential for growth globally in the wake of rising healthcare costs and demand for better healthcare, according to US-based Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) president Stephen Lieber.

“Health IT is one of the key components to help improve the cost and quality of healthcare,” he told StarBiz.

Lieber was in Malaysia to attend the HIMSS Asia Pacific conference held in Kuala Lumpur recently.

Citing an example, Lieber said the quality of patient care could be improved via an electronic health record system where all the data and medical treatment given to the patient were accessible, so that correct and timely treatment could be given to the patient.

here is also a clinical decision support system where suggestions are offered to doctors preparing for the next round of treatment for the patient.

“Having electronic medical record systems also avoids unnecessary or ineffective tests on patients as whatever tests that are done would be available at a glance.

“This will avoid any repeat tests which may not be necessary if the patient’s condition is unchanged thus increasing costs. If there was more information available about the patient, certain tests may not even be necessary,” Lieber said, adding that healthcare savings were estimated at 20% to 25% in the United States due to the use of IT.

In the United States, electronic health record systems are used mainly in the radiology, cardiology, laboratory and opthalmology departments.

HIMSS vice-president and executive director (Asia-Pacific region) Steven Yeo said that in the Asian region, Hong Kong and Singapore were expected to launch an electronic health record system for all their hospitals next year.

Australia, South Korea and Japan were exploring the possibility of integrating the electronic health record systems among their hospitals, while Malaysia and Singapore had such systems in place but no integration yet, he said.

“In Asia, spending on health IT has grown by 10% to 12% in the past two years.

“There is great potential for further growth for health IT in the region – at least a compounded annual growth rate of 11% in the next five years.

“This is because there is a realisation that health IT can improve quality of care and reduce rising healthcare costs. Asia also has a large ageing population and a lot has to be spent on them in the next 10 to 15 years,” he said.

The Middle East is another area where significant growth in IT spending is expected as a number of countries there have not invested much in health IT in the past.

In addition, some Middle Eastern countries have also put in significant resources in new hospitals and are building up the healthcare infrastructure in their countries.

High growth is also expected in emerging markets such as China, Thailand, Malaysia, India and the Philippines.

Yeo said based on the 2006 data on healthcare spending per capita in the Asian region, Australia was the highest at US$2,600; South Korea, Singapore and Japan at over US$1,000; Malaysia US$200; and China and India US$60.

According to Lieber, health IT spending in the United States was estimated to be US$30bil to US$35bil over the next five years due to a newly-passed government legislation that would provide incentives to the healthcare industry to acquire technology.

“We are on the verge of a tremendous explosion in IT adoption in the healthcare industry in the US,” he said.

Nevertheless, Lieber sees various challenges in the adoption of health IT globally.

“The technology exists but the biggest barrier is funding. There is also the resistance to changes that technology brings, such as a change of work processes for physicians,” he said.

HIMSS is a global non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting a better understanding of healthcare information and management systems.

Founded in 1961, it has offices in Chicago, Washington DC, Brussels, Singapore and globally. HIMSS represents more than 20,000 individual and over 350 corporate members.

Use of information technology

INFORMATION and technology are life-changing

I would like to thank The Star and its talented, creative and insightful columnists for highlighting, enlightening and showcasing very intriguing, touching and relevant articles of happenings in society.

I remember reading about technology and the 555 small notebook some time ago.

It was written in an easy, simple and very understandable manner.

Information and technology are great, powerful and life-changing only if you know how to utilise it wisely.

Look around you. Some are so hooked up with their gadgets and updating themselves with the latest information.

The information may be necessary, it may be good. But too much of something is not good.

One may end up suffering from Information Overload Syndrome. It’s a form of craving. We get bogged down by a kind of bumper-to-bumper crawl to our senses.

Information and technology are supposed to simplify our lives. What if simplicity becomes simplexity ? It’s simpleness becoming complex.

We can get confused with too much information particularly those that are not relevant. Let’s look from context of a simple decision making. Too much information may not lead to better decision making. It only reinforces our judgment.

We only need to ‘thin-slice’ of information for simple decision making.

Information addiction affects us physically and also mentally.

Choose only beneficial, empowering and the be-inspired information. One may consider applying 80/20 Pareto information management principle. Schedule our priorities, not prioritise our schedule. Apply flexibility. Don’t get carried away.

Learn to manage information efficiently and effectively. If not, it can affect us in many ways.

Let me cite an example here. What if you receive fiery, rude and disparaging information in the form of destructive criticism ? Pause. Take a few deep breaths. Think zen-ly, ‘Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form’.

(EDWARD WONG , The Star Online)

Postgraduate: A practical master’s in IT

“THE future is information technology. The world is not going back,” quips Dr Saadat Alhashmi from the School of Information Technology, Monash University Sunway campus.

IT plays a strong role for any job, and those who avoid learning about it will only fall behind. Today, at the rate the world is growing, no one can really escape IT. Kindergarten students are already beginning to learn how to use computers to learn. All college students need to use computers to conduct research and type out assignments.

No one can escape information technology. So the only thing to do about it is fully embrace it and all its conveniences.

Dr Saadat points out, “It is integral to everything we do. To succeed in the working world, it is good to know how technology works and improve our work quality and its processes. In the last 10 to 15 years, the world’s businesses have been leaning towards technology. Technological aspects of companies drive it to succeed. If you look at successful and failing companies just notice which one is using technology in a smarter way. No matter what your background is, it’s good to know how technology evolves.”

Monash University Sunway campus plays a role in providing learners of today with the most up-to-date courses. A postgraduate programme called Master of Business Information Systems perfectly blends technology and a business education for those with or without IT backgrounds.

So how is it different from other courses? “It combines technology with business. If your background is in business and you want to know more about technology then this is a course for you,” explains Dr Saadat.

“And Monash University turns out the most well-planned modules delivered by the most important factor in the learning environment – the lecturers. A strong faculty and research powerhouse is what separates Monash University from other universities. Here we have a team of international staff who have graduated from prestigious universities. They publish their works in the best forums and journals of the world, and they’ve worked at the best blue chip companies of the world. Monash is a Group of Eight University with an IT faculty and is recognised worldwide mainly because of the strong team of staff behind it.”

“We are also proud to boast state-of-the-art university labs, with cutting-edge technologies. Students have access to online journals and high quality books through the library here.”

Even though the course was introduced this year, it is already seeing a positive response. The aim of the school is to have a smaller student-staff ratio in order to provide the students with more attention.

ICT Investment and Economic Growth in the 1990s: Is the United States a Unique Case? A Comparative Study of Nine OECD Countries

This paper compares the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) capital accumulation on output growth in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Over the past two decades, ICT contributed between 0.2 and 0.5 percentage point per year to economic growth, depending on the country. During the second half of the 1990s, this contribution rose to 0.3 to 0.9 percentage point per year. Despite differences between countries, the United States has not been alone in benefiting from the positive effects of ICT capital investment on economic growth nor was the United States the sole country to experience an acceleration of these effects. ICT diffusion and ICT usage play a key role and depend on the right framework conditions, not necessarily on the existence of a large ICT-producing sector.

Ahmad, Nadim, 2001, Measurement of Corporate and Government Expenditure on Gross Fixed Capital Formation and Intermediate Consumption: Software and Office Machinery, paper presented to the OECD Meeting of National Accounts Experts.

Islam Analysis: The mobile route to a high-tech future

Muslim countries need forward-looking policies to take advantage of the opportunities offered by mobile technology, says Athar Osama.

The mobile phone is recognised across the world as one of the greatest enabling technologies of modern times. The exponential growth in its penetration and accessibility has defied all expectations — the UN agency International Telecommunications Union estimates that there were more than 5.98 billion mobile phones in use around the world in 2011, corresponding to about 86 per cent of the world's population. [1]

The almost universal access to mobile phones and other mobile devices, coupled with falling prices, has opened up new avenues for development. For the poorest of the poor in the Islamic world — many of whom live in Africa and South Asia — the mobile phone could be the only technology revolution to touch their lives on a sustained basis. 

A world of possibilities

The mobile phone is so important because it acts as a platform technology to enable a number of other activities. This presents many opportunities, just as television, which was launched as an entertainment device, soon showed promise as an educational tool, and the Internet, which began as an educational tool, was soon used for entertainment and commerce.

But mobile phones succeed where the Internet and the television failed to go: in the farthest corners of the world, where electricity is scarce and Internet connectivity expensive.

The low cost and ease of use of mobile technologies significantly enhance their impact. As prices of devices and connections have fallen dramatically over the years, mobile phones have become a common sight in even the poorest places.

As a technology platform, mobile telephony can deliver social value in banking, public services, education and healthcare, for example. In some countries in the Islamic world, it also contributes directly to economic prosperity. 

Route to prosperity

Mobile gaming and the development of applications ('apps'), an emerging multibillion-dollar industry, present the most exciting prospects for developing countries to establish a foothold in the global information technology (IT) value chain.

First, becoming a mobile entrepreneur does not require the kind of upfront investment needed to create a more elaborate IT business. Being a new industry, experience and a proven track record do not carry as much a premium as in other businesses.

Second, the timeframe for developing a mobile game or app is short enough to allow entrepreneurs to enter the market without putting too much at stake.

Third, and most important, the mobile industry provides a welcome escape from the domestic market — many app stores (of which Apple's App Store is the most visible) allow a game designer in a developing country to sell directly to the affluent West.

Several countries in the Islamic world have explicitly sought to capitalise on this opportunity by developing policy — for example through the SeedStartup incubator in Dubai and AppsArabia in Abu Dhabi, and similar initiatives in Jordan and elsewhere. In others, governments are catching up after clusters of mobile entrepreneurs emerged organically, such as the emerging mobile and gaming industry in Lahore, Pakistan.

Although these ventures are mostly focused on foreign markets, they will have an increasing impact on the domestic market. They are already affecting the entrepreneurial culture of these societies — mobile technology, because of its low barriers to entry and quick product development cycle, has become the primary means for providing a taste of entrepreneurship to the young.

A for-profit after-school programme in Pakistan promises to teach iPad and iPhone programming to school children. And mobile technology incubators are being planned around the Islamic world, including one (mLab South Asia) championed by the World Bank in Lahore, Islamabad. 

Forward-looking policy

Beyond the potential economic benefits, mobile technology may bring an even larger indirect benefit to society through applications in electronic government (e-government), mobile money, e-health and e-learning. Here there is less certainty about the possible impact and routes to success — but rather than a drawback, this is an opportunity for enlightened and forward-looking government policy to make a difference.

Mobile money and banking, which enables financial inclusion in the developing world, is a particularly exciting development. A recent World Economic Forum report [2] identified several Islamic countries — notably Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia — as being in a high state of readiness to embrace the opportunity afforded by mobile money and banking. Pakistan's Easypaisa initiative is widely seen as one of the leaders in this area.

But realising the full potential of this application will require an understanding of the social dimensions of the technology — how people interact with it, what they use it for, and how best to incentivise them to use it.

For instance, as smart-phones and tablets become ubiquitous and wireless Internet becomes cheaper, mobiles will become fully loaded entertainment devices. Governments may need to step in to correct market failures, such as problems with educational, local language or culturally sensitive content.

Above all, in virtually all social applications of mobile telephony, the ability to rapidly experiment, evaluate and scale up is important for success. This requires a change in policy mind-set to put more of a premium on evaluation, learning and acknowledging failure.

A compelling set of market and technology forces will play an important role, but conscious and careful use of policy is critical to help steer developing Islamic countries towards a mobile-technology-enabled future.

Athar Osama is a London-based science and innovation policy consultant. He is the founder and CEO of Technomics International Ltd, a UK-based international technology policy consulting firm, and founder of Muslim-Science.com.

World Economic Forum. The Mobile Financial Services Development Report 2011

Improving access to ICTs for development

According to David Souter from Panos London, UK, 2011

This policy brief, published by Panos London, examines Zambia's successes and limitations in using information and communication technologies (ICTs) for development, and suggests how the country can maximise future progress.

The Zambian government has supported ICT use based on their ability to create wealth and improve education, agriculture and health services.

Successful ICT projects include an SMS service, run by the Zambia National Farmers Union, which connects small-scale farmers directly to buyers and provides daily price alerts for local produce. The service helps to ensure farmers achieve the best price without a need for third-party agents.

But several challenges have limited the impact of this technology, says the author, David Souter. Whilst mobile phone use has rocketed, the fixed-line telephone network — the country's principal means of Internet access — has failed to keep up, and is largely limited to urban and industrial areas.

Zambia also suffers from inadequate connections to international communication infrastructures, making Internet access expensive. The costs of line rental and hardware means that home Internet access is out of reach for most Zambians.

The lack of a ministry dedicated to ICT has delayed the implementation of a national policy, which was adopted in 2006. And inflexible regulations make it difficult for service providers to operate and introduce new services.

These constraints, amongst others, must be addressed to improve ICT access for all Zambians, in particular those in rural areas, such as small-scale farmers and female market traders, says Souter.

A key step is to reduce consumer costs. This can be achieved by improving ICT infrastructure, in particular the fibre optics network, or using tax breaks to increase access to cheaper hardware and software.

The government must also develop a more organised and effective ICT strategy based on consultation with partners, including local stakeholders and the private sector. Public-private partnerships should have a key role in building infrastructure and coordinating network installations to reach areas that remain underserved.

Widespread awareness campaigns should be rolled out to improve ICT literacy, especially important in reducing the 'digital divide' between urban and rural communities.

It is crucial that ICT programmes are not just technology driven, says Souter. Policymakers need to learn from experience showing that projects are much more successful when they begin on a small scale, are locally run and focus on meeting the needs of communities.

ICT for Disabled – The Pakistan prospective

He core of confrontation posed by the emerging Information Society is the theory of universal service; and how the freedom of information and right to communicate would further evolve. According to UN Charter 1947 Article 19 of ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948’; which states that everyone has a right to, “hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

The future of today’s information age largely depends on the liberty of opportunities inhabitants have to access ICTs and their ability to employ them. Apart from its increasing importance in bringing the world  close ICTs have cemented a new way for the challenged people—physically or mentally—to enhance their life experiences.

 According to World Health Organization “An impairment is any loss or abnormality of psychological or anatomical structure or function; a disability is any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being; a handicap is a disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or a disability, that prevents the fulfillment of a role that is considered normal (depending on age, sex and social and cultural factors) for that individual”. According to global statistics presently around 10 per cent of the total world’s population, or roughly 650 million people, live with a disability.

The major issues confronted by disabled people with respect to ICTs are “accessibility” and “ease of use”. People with different disabilities may not be capable of accessing and utilizing ICTs such as a blind person may not be able to use mobile phone with no text-to-speech capability, a deaf person may not communicate with the emergency services requiring spoken conversation, a physical disable person may not respond to a website using mouse-clicks, online videos may not be usable by blind and deaf people and people with cognitive disabilities may not view an different pages of a website properly.

n order to facilitate ICTs accessibility to disabled people, various economies and International institutes have introduced special e-accessibility projects along with special guidelines. United States passed an exclusive ‘Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol’ adopted on 13 December 2006 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York signed by 82 signatories.

(January 29, 2011)

X Men Cometh - Brain Control May Soon Be With Us

It may sound like something out of the world of X Men and Professor Xavier, but brain-control might be a reality in the next few years. 

Extraordinary advances in computer technology that can link with the human brain have been made in the past years. It is understood that some military applications are looking at so called “thinking caps” which can be used by trained soldiers to give them mental control over weaponry. This raises the prospects of war zones being controlled from thousands of miles away.

The extensive use of drones used by the American military is helping to focus minds on the idea that this prospect may be about to move out of the realms of science fiction. 

Not all potential applications focus on war, however. Neurostimulation techniques such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) and neural brain cell stimulation are undergoing medical trials.

It raise the prospects of someone being able to control a wheelchair with the power of their mind or give someone with locked in syndrome the power to communicate. It is also opening up possibility of new treatments for depression, strokes or speech problems. Some of the techniques under investigation are non-invasive but others are looking at the possibility of implanting computer chips into the brain.

The developments have prompted a fresh debate on the ethical dilemmas being faced by scientists, in particular, the prospect of soldiers controlling super weapons with their minds and paralysed people and dementia sufferers being able to regain control of their minds and bodies. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which is based in the UK, has launched a world wide consultation on an industry that is said to be worth at least $8 billion and probably far more once medical treatments are included.

The ethical debate is being led by Prof Thomas Baldwin from York University. He says that developments are causing an equal mixture of hope and fear. He said the big challenge of enhancing the brain was to think about the fundamentals of what makes people human beings and why do we behave in the way we do. (Jane Harris 2012)

Improving the effectiveness of information retrieval with local context analysis

Techniques for automatic query expansion have been extensively studied in information research as a means of addressing the word mismatch between queries and documents. These techniques can be categorized as either global or local. While global techniques rely on analysis of a whole collection to discover word relationships, local techniques emphasize analysis of the top-ranked documents retrieved for a query. While local techniques have shown to be more effective that global techniques in general, existing local techniques are not robust and can seriously hurt retrieved when few of the retrieval documents are relevant. We propose a new technique, called local context analysis, which selects expansion terms based on cooccurrence with the query terms within the top-ranked documents. Experiments on a number of collections, both English and non-English, show that local context analysis offers more effective and consistent retrieval results. (Jinxi Xu, Jan 2000)

Recognizing and Locating Partially Visible Objects: The Local-Feature-Focus Method

According to Robert C. Bolles, a new method of locating partially visible two-dimensional objects is presented. The method is used to locate complex industrial parts that may contain several occurrences of local features, such as holes and corners. The matching process utilizes clusters of mutually consistent features to hypothesize objects and also uses templates of objects to verify these hypotheses. The technique is fast because it concentrates on key features that are automatically se lected on the basis of a detailed analysis of computer- aided design (CAD) models of the objects. The automatic analysis applies general-purpose routines for building and analyzing representations of clusters of local features that could be used in procedures to select features for other lo cational strategies. These routines include algorithms for computing the rotational and mirror symmetries of objects in terms of their local features.

Information Technology and the Future of Cities

Will improvements in information technology eliminate face-to- face interactions and make cities obsolete? In this paper, we present a model where individuals make contacts and choose whether to use electronic or face-to-face meetings in their interactions. Cities are modeled as a means of reducing the fixed travel costs involved in face-to-face interactions. When telecommunications technology improves, there are two opposing effects on cities and face-to-face interactions: some relationships that used to be face-to-face will be done electronically (an intuitive substitution effect), and some individuals will choose to make more contacts, many of which result in face-to-face interactions. Our empirical work suggests that telecommunications may be a complement, or at least not a strong substitute for cities and face-to-face interactions. We also present simple models of learning in person, from a written source, or over the phone, and find that interactive communication dominates other forms of learning when ideas are complicated. (Jess Gaspar, Edward Glaeser,1996)

Technological frames: making sense of information technology in organizations

According to Wanda J. Orlikowski 1994 In this article, we build on and extend research into the cognitions and values of users and designers by proposing a systematic approach for examining the underlying assumptions, expectations, and knowledge that people have about technology. Such interpretations of technology (which we call technological frames) are central to understanding technological development, use, and change in organizations. We suggest that where the technological frames of key groups in organizations—such as managers, technologists, and users— are significantly different, difficulties and conflict around the development, use, and change of technology may result. We use the findings of an empirical study to illustrate how the nature, value, and use of a groupware technology were interpreted by various organizational stakeholders, resulting in outcomes that deviated from those expected. We argue that technological frames offer an interesting and useful analytic perspective for explaining an anticipating actions and meanings that are not easily obtained with other theoretical lenses.