The ‘digital glimpse’ as imagining home

This paper proposes the concept of the ‘digital glimpse’, which develops the existing framing of imaginative travel. Here it articulates the experiences of mobile workers digitally connecting into family life and everyday rituals when physically absent with work. The recent embedding of digital communication technologies into personal relationships and family life is reconfiguring how absence is experienced and practiced by workers on the move, and through this, new digital paradigms for life on-the-move are emerging. This paper explores how such social relationships are maintained at-a-distance through digital technology – using evidence from qualitative interviews with mobile workers and their families. Digital technology now enables expressive forms of ‘virtual travel’, including video calling, picture sharing, and instant messaging. This has implications for the ways in which families can manage the social and relational pressures of being apart. Experiences of imaginative travel created through novel media can enrich the experience and give a greater sense of connection for both those who are at home and those who are away. While technology is limited in its ability to replicate a sense of co-presence, ‘digital glimpses’ are an emergent set of sociotechnical practices that can reduce the negative impact of absence on family relationships.     

The middling mobile: finding place in the liquid city

The middling mobile, differentiated by their modest and unsure mobility, are a vast of bulk of people who intend or expect to move on. As they travel, they tread differing intensities of rhythm and social embeddedness felt to be chaotic, constraining, liberating, or comforting. Owing to their aspirations to ‘get out’ of a rhythmic life, or to move somewhere familiar, the middling mobile use movement and rootedness to navigate and manage everyday life in the liquid city. My analysis offers a holistic exposition of a life that flows between mobility/immobility and rhythmic/arrhythmic forms, and the transitions between them.     

The contingent futures of the mobile present: automation as possibility

In this article we outline and demonstrate a design anthropological approach to investigating automated mobile futures as a processual opening up of possibilities, rather than as a process of technological innovation. To undertake this we investigate the example of how the car-smartphone relationship is configuring in the contingent circumstances of the mobile present and the implications of this for automated mobile futures. Our discussion is set in the context of the growing possibility that automonous driving (AD) features are increasingly part of everyday mobilities (even if unequally distributed globally) and in which personal mobile smart technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) will exist in some form and will interface with humans and be interoperable with other technologies. In developing this we draw on ethnographic understandings of how people live with the possibilities afforded by technologies in everyday life.     

Information society and digital divide in South Africa: results of longitudinal surveys

Integration into the information society implies that information plays an increasingly important role in all sectors of society and holds distinct social and economic benefits. Discourses on the information society are, however, also associated with the digital divide and inequalities in access to and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Within sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa is often regarded as one of the most information-integrated societies due to widespread mobile phone ownership, among other things. However, while ICT access has been emphasized, research also points to the role of demographic, socio-economic and cultural factors such as ethnicity, income, education and gender. This article discusses the results of questionnaire surveys conducted by Afrobarometer among probability South African samples in 2008 and 2011. The results indicate that individual Internet use and mobile Internet access were lower than estimated in the literature. Furthermore, gender gaps, as well as considerable gaps between population groups and educational levels, were found in Internet and computer use, mobile ownership and access to mobile Internet and accessing news via the Internet. Conclusions regarding strategies for bridging the digital divide and integrating South Africa into the information society are discussed.     

手机传播机制与受众文化心理

手机传播充分进入了人们的日常生活,传播人人同时参与的事实基本实现。手机媒体文化传播显现出普适性、放射性的传播机制,人际传播动能极强,手机媒体传播机制具有“碎片化”传播的随机性与多样化特点．手机的使用最大限度地缓解了现代人的．心理危机,满足了人们多样化交流的欲望。从手机文化传播受众需求来看,使用与满足正是人们使用手机媒体、构筑手机文化的心理动机。     

“新金融”发展态势及上海的鼓励政策研究

中国式"新金融"规模不断扩大,对中国经济发展和宏观调控产生了重要影响。它在一定程度上使得经济增长与实体经济背离,也未能完全解决中小企业融资难问题。当前政策的出发点,不应仅出于控制金融风险而对"新金融"加以限制,更多的还是应考虑如何加大力度引导资金流向中小企业等实体经济。上海"新金融"政策定位,应借助"新金融"体系,引导社会资金流向实体经济,并以金融支持科技创新和产业升级转型为重点,以活跃和繁荣金融机构和中介服务体系为抓手,构建上海"新金融"鼓励政策。     

Who is a Distracted Driver? Associations between Mobile Phone Use while Driving,Domain‐Specific Risk Taking,and Personality

Mobile phone use while driving (MPUWD) is an increasingly common form of distracted driving. Given its widespread prevalence, it is important for researchers to identify factors that may predict who is more likely to engage in this risky behavior. The current study investigates associations between MPUWD risk behaviors, domain‐specific risk perceptions, and broad personality dimensions. An Italian community sample (n = 804) completed a survey regarding MPUWD risk perceptions and engagement in MPUWD, in addition to the HEXACO‐PI‐R, a broad six‐factor personality inventory (honesty‐humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience), and the DOSPERT, a six‐factor domain‐specific self‐report risk‐taking measure (health/safety, recreational, social, ethical, gambling, and investment). With respect to domain‐specific risk taking, greater frequency of SMS use while driving most strongly was associated with greater risk taking for the health/safety, gambling, and ethical risk domains. Further, greater honesty‐humility and conscientiousness, two traits related to cognitive control and risk behaviors, and to a lesser extent openness to experience, were associated with less frequent MPUWD, and positively associated with MPUWD risk perceptions. With growing public safety concern surrounding MPUWD, understanding associated personality factors is not only important for identifying psychological mechanisms underlying risk behavior, but also for more effective prevention and intervention programs.     

The implementation of digital technologies for operations management: a case study for manufacturing apps

Abstract

Manufacturing applications address business to business (B2B) with highly customised applications developed for specific requirements, offering highly specialised solution-oriented and service-based software components, systems, and digital tools that aim at a fast and accurate decision-making support system. The purpose of this paper is to describe the implementation of digital technologies for operations management using manufacturing or engineering apps (eApps), for product design and manufacturing processes. In particular, starting from the specific needs of two companies from mature European industries as automotive and food, this work depicts how this kind of solutions can support companies and improve their operations. In particular, related benefits and challenges faced for the full implementation of the developed tools are highlighted. Moreover a business model to exploit the manufacturing apps is also proposed. The business model proposed for the exploitation of the eApps supports the commercialisation of all the revenue streams offered by this rapidly growing sector taking into account the specific needs of the concerned stakeholders through a diversified value proposition.     

A slacks-based inefficiency measure for a two-stage system with bad outputs

We model the performance of DMUs (decision-making units) using a two-stage network model. In the first stage of production DMUs use inputs to produce an intermediate output that becomes an input to a second stage where final outputs are produced. Previous black box DEA models allowed for non-radial scaling of outputs and inputs and accounted for slacks in the constraints that define the technology. We extend these models and build a performance measure that accounts for a network structure of production. We use our method to estimate the performance of Japanese banks, which use labor, physical capital, and financial equity capital in a first stage to produce an intermediate output of deposits. In the second stage, those deposits become an input in the production of loans and securities investments. The network estimates reveal greater bank inefficiency than do the estimates that treat the bank production process as a black box with all production taking place in a single stage.     

医生的信息-情感交互模式对移动问诊服务满意度的影响——基于“激励-保健”理论的分析

移动问诊服务日益成熟,但患者满意度仍有待提高。现有研究对医患交互过程关注不足,且忽略患者不满意评价的影响因素。为此,本文引入"激励-保健"理论视角,研究医生的信息-情感交互模式对移动问诊服务满意及不满的影响机制。本文筛选国内某领先移动问诊平台中的300次医患沟通记录,采用"先定性后定量"的混合研究方法对数据进行分析。其中,定性研究旨在识别医生交互模式的细分维度,定量研究则用于提出并验证不同交互模式与患者满意及不满的关系。研究发现,医生的信息交互模式是移动问诊服务满意度的保健因素,而情感交互模式是激励因素。结论丰富了移动问诊服务患者满意度的研究框架,对改善医生行为和医疗服务APP设计提供了指导。