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AbstractMicro-enterprises (MEs) are important players in job creation and global economic development. However, in developing countries, most fail to realise their growth potential due to challenges that include informality and a lack of quality human capital. The internet, by increasing information flows and reducing transaction costs, can help MEs to develop. This study assesses the effect of the internet on MEs’ performance in the service sector in Togo, using a large sample of 23,542 observations from the latest General Census of Businesses (RGE, 2017–2018), and exposes related channels and mechanisms. We find that MEs that adopt and use the internet are more productive than those that do not. This result remains robust to different regression methods such as instrumental variables and treatment-effects estimations. Complementary analyses show the positive effect of internet channels through applications such as e-mail, websites and e-business. We also find evidence that MEs with a Fixed internet connection perform better than those with a Mobile internet connection. Our investigations also yield interesting results regarding Togolese regions, service sub-sectors, managers’ characteristics and MEs’ status. This article thus highlights the need to promote digital development to enhance MEs’ performance in Togo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the awareness, utilization, and challenges associated with Open Access electronic journals among librarians in selected university libraries in Ogun State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey research design was employed, and data were collected through a self-developed questionnaire administered to 95 professional librarians. The findings revealed a moderate level of awareness and utilization of certain Open Access journals, with resources like Library Philosophy and Practice, Library and Information Research, and Information Technology and Libraries being among the most widely known and utilized. However, challenges such as power failures, slow internet speed, and the overwhelming number of available resources hindered effective utilization. The study recommends improving IT infrastructure, raising awareness, fostering collaborations, and implementing user-friendly search interfaces to enhance the utilization of Open Access electronic journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telehealth services are a growing aspect of the US healthcare delivery system. Some rural patients, however, lack proper internet speed in their home to access telehealth services and need alternative telehealth access points. Public libraries can be an alternative telehealth access point due to their access to high-speed internet services; however, these programs often experience limited success due to a lack of planning with community health providers and local health organizations. This article describes a novel workbook that guides public libraries to collaborate with community stakeholders when considering the implementation of telehealth services. Development of the workbook leveraged expertise of library and public health professionals. The workbook is currently free to download and updated versions will be available as more knowledge is gained in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a novel LoRa-based multi-hop communication architecture as an alternative to the public internet for earthquake early warning (EEW). We examine its effectiveness in generating a meaningful warning window for the New Zealand-based decentralised EEW sensor network implemented by the CRISiSLab operating with the adapted Propagation of Local Undamped Motion (PLUM)-based earthquake detection and node-level data processing. LoRa, popular for low-power, long-range applications, has the disadvantage of long transmission time for time-critical tasks like EEW. Our network overcomes this limitation by broadcasting EEWs via multiple short hops with a low spreading factor (SF). The network includes end nodes that generate warnings and relay nodes that broadcast them. Benchmarking with simulations against CRISiSLab's EEW system performance with internet connectivity shows that an SF of 8 can disseminate warnings across all the sensors in a 30 km urban area within 2.4 s. This approach is also resilient, with the availability of multiple routes for a message to travel. Our LoRa-based system achieves a 1–6 s warning window, slightly behind the 1.5–6.75 s of the internet-based performance of CRISiSLab's system. Nevertheless, our novel network is effective for timely mental preparation, simple protective actions, and automation. Experiments with Lilygo LoRa32 prototype devices are presented as a practical demonstration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have found a connection between schooling factors and Internet addiction (IA) among adolescents. However, family relationships may be a critical variable for understanding the link between school factors and IA. This study aims to investigate the association between schooling factors of academic performance and school pressure and IA in adolescents while examining the potential mediating role of family relationships in this association. A total of 482 students were recruited through a survey. The survey collected demographic data, the Brief Family Relationship Scale (BFRS), the Internet Addiction Diagnostic Questionnaire (IADQ), and questions that assessed academic performance and school pressure in adolescents. The results revealed that family relationship fully mediated the relationship between school pressure and IA in both early and middle adolescents. In contrast, family relationship fully mediated the relationship between academic performance and IA in early adolescents, only. Our results imply that supportive family relationships help adolescents, especially in the early adolescence stage, manage academic pressure without resorting to maladaptive relationship with the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been significant interest in the deployment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations as a potential solution to provide broadband internet access to remote regions [1]. One such constellation, Starlink, run by SpaceX, promises fast internet connectivity via its constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit. In this study, a comprehensive analysis of Starlink’s performance in Nigeria was given, assessing five performance metrics: latency, packet loss, throughput, routing strategy, and environmental influences. The tests were conducted for the various metrics using command-line tools like Ping (Packet Internet or Inter-Network Groper), tracert (traceroute), iperf3 (Internet Performance Working Group), and Python scripts which were used to both automating the test procedures and analysing the collected data. Our findings reveal that Starlink’s latency was higher than advertised but still low compared to most Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in Nigeria, making it suitable for the majority of internet users. On average, the study found that packet loss remained relatively low, jitter was within acceptable limits, and throughput exhibited variations but generally maintained satisfactory levels. Also, heavy rainfall was found to affect Starlink’s performance, highlighting the impact of environmental factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IEEE 802.16 can be seen as a compelling replacement for conventional broadband technologies because its primary goal is to provide Broadband Wireless Access (BWA). The variable and uncertain nature of wireless networks makes it much more challenging to ensure QoS in this network. WiMAX Technology is used to support various quality of services which includes UGS, rtps, nrtps, ertps, and Best Effort. This study employs an IEEE 802.16 network simulator, which offers adaptable and reliable features for assessing a particular QoS parameters for rtps. Achieving better internet performance in real time services is currently a challenge, and it is in need of a present scenario. This work emphasized better internet service, with good quality of service using rtps with Relay Station and Without Relay Station. In this work the CBR packet size, CBR data rate, and data rate with rtps service are fine-tuned for achieving better performance with good quality of service. When comparing uplink connections in rtps with and without relay station, it is found that the throughput in the uplink is 200% greater when using a relay station. The throughput and goodput are evaluated in uploading and downloading with single and multiple subscriber stations and we observed that the multiple subscriber stations in downloading give better performance, as compared to single subscriber stations. The throughput and goodput in single subscriber stations is better than multiple subscriber stations in uploading. The academic researchers and commercial developers can use this analysis to validate different WiMAX Network implementation mechanisms and parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Veterans Health Administration increased synchronous telemedicine (video and telephone visits) in primary care in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective: Our objective was to determine veteran use patterns of in-person and telemedicine primary care when all modalities were available. Design: A retrospective cohort analysis. We performed a latent class analysis of primary care visits over a 1-year period to identify veteran subgroup (i.e., class) membership based on amount of primary care use and modality used. Then, we used multinomial logistic regression with a categorical outcome to identify patient characteristics associated with class identification. Participants: A random national sample consisting of 564,580 primary care empaneled veterans in June 2021. Main Measures: Latent class membership. Key Results: We identified three latent classes: those with few primary care visits that were predominantly telephone-based (45%), intermediate number of visits of all modalities (50%), and many visits of all modalities (5%). In an adjusted model, characteristics associated with the "few" visits class, compared to the intermediate class, were older age, male sex, White race, further driving distance to primary care, higher Gagne, optimal internet speed, and unmarried status (OR 1.002, 1.52, 1.13, 1.004, 1.04, 1.05, 1.06, respectively; p <.05). Characteristics associated with membership in the "many" visits class, compared to the intermediate class, were Hispanic race, higher JEN Frailty Index and Gagne (OR 1.12, 1.11, 1.02, respectively; p <.05), and higher comorbidity by Care Assessment Need score quartile (Q2 1.73, Q3 2.80, Q4 4.12; p < 0.05). Conclusions: Veterans accessing primary care in-person or via telemedicine do so primarily in three ways: (1) few visits, predominantly telephone; (2) intermediate visits, all modalities, (3) many visits, all modalities. We found no groups of veterans receiving a majority of primary care through video. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a framework to measure the value of free goods and services available on the internet. The conventional method of measuring consumer surplus based on monetary expenditures is ineffective because these goods' prices are predominantly zero. As the saying goes, time is money, and thus, our method addresses this challenge by quantifying the value of the time that consumers devote to consuming these free goods. We apply our model to data on the allocation of individuals' time among internet, television, leisure, and work, and this enables us to estimate the consumer surplus of free goods. We find that the average incremental welfare gain from the internet for each year between 2002 and 2011 was about $38 billion per year in the United States, which is equivalent to approximately 0.29% of the annual GDP. In contrast, if we had not considered the value of time, then the estimated annual incremental welfare gain would have been only $2.7 billion, which is barely 7% of the estimate derived from our model, which considers the time spent on consuming these goods. Our approach can be readily extended to the valuation of other zero-priced goods and services, such as television. In addition, our results show the importance of not only quantity but also quality (e.g., internet speed) in determining the welfare contributions of free goods. We develop a framework to measure the value of free goods and services available on the internet. The conventional method of measuring consumer surplus based on monetary expenditures is ineffective because these goods' prices are predominantly zero. Our proposed method addresses this challenge by quantifying the economic value of the time that consumers devote to consuming these free goods. Using data on consumers' time and monetary expenditures, we calibrate an economic model of the allocation of individuals' time among internet, television, leisure, and work. We measure the consumer surplus of free goods on the internet as the reduction in gross domestic product (GDP) required to create an equivalent welfare loss to that which would occur if these free goods were no longer available. We find that the average incremental welfare gain from the internet between 2002 and 2011 was about $38 billion per year in the United States, equivalent to approximately 0.29% of the annual GDP. In contrast, if we had not considered the value of time, then the estimated annual incremental welfare gain would have been significantly smaller at about $2.7 billion, only 7% of the estimate derived from our proposed time-based model. Our approach can be readily extended to the valuation of other zero-priced goods and services, such as television. In addition, our results show the importance of not only quantity but also quality (e.g., internet speed) in determining the welfare contributions of free goods. History: Eric Zheng, Senior Editor; Yan Huang, Associate Editor. Funding: This work was supported by the Stanford Digital Economy Laboratory. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2021.0153. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2021 urban political protests in Russia in support of Alexei Navalny have swept the country, beginning in the Far East and reaching Moscow. They, however, displayed large variation in the number of protesters taking to the streets in the country's regional capitals. While the immediate driver of urban protests is usually a political event or a decision of authorities, the willingness to protest accumulates before that, creating protest potential. To explain why some Russian regional capitals accumulate protest potential while others do not, we perform Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 53 cases. It reveals that a high share of young and educated people and the presence of organized civil society, but not the Internet consumption or the performance of city authorities, are crucial for the accumulation of protest potential in Russian regional capitals. These findings advance our understanding of urban political potential in autocracies as well as of Russia's political geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Virtual education has flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was carried out in order to determine the satisfaction of lecturers from virtual education during the COVID-19 epidemic in Paramedical, Nursing, Midwifery, Health, and Dentistry Faculties of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences in 2020-2021. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, the research population consisted of 100 teachers who taught in the mentioned faculties in 2020-2021. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire that was compiled by at least 10 experts in the field of education and investigated using content validity ratio (CVR) and content validity index (CVI). Data were analyzed using independent t-test, one-way analysis of variance, and Tukey's post hoc test. Results: 41 people (41%) of the teachers stated that they continue virtual education after the COVID-19 epidemic and 89 people (89%) considered the speed of the internet as the most important problem of virtual education. The average satisfaction score in the age group of 30-40 years and in the teaching experience of less than 5 years and the scientific rank of professor was significantly higher than the average score of other groups (p<0.05). Conclusion: The findings of the study showed that the overall satisfaction of teachers with virtual education is at an average level. From the teachers' point of view, some aspects of virtual education including the level of interaction with the student, providing and receiving feedback, and formative and cumulative evaluation of the student need to be improved. Therefore, upgrading the infrastructure and empowering teachers to improve the quality of virtual education seems necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to studies, students' living features significantly influence the quality of their education. This paper takes a holistic approach to the post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of on-campus student housing in Iran. The framework was developed following a thorough review of the literature, and the identification of a comprehensive set of performance indicators were categorized into twelve elements and three dimensions technical, functional, and behavioral. Using several complementary techniques resulted in higher qualitative feedback during the evaluation process, leading to more reliable results. The importance-satisfaction matrix was used to determine the quality of improvement priorities. Residents expressed satisfaction with their living environment. They were mainly satisfied with technical and behavioral dimensions; nonetheless, they experienced dissatisfaction with the functional dimension. The study suggests improvements by several facilities such as air conditioning systems, sound insulation, fire detection systems, hygiene, internet speeds and house rules. It also allows for a more comprehensive and realistic prioritization of improvements. This study bridges the research gap and contributes to the need for a more holistic POE framework and several complementary techniques. Furthermore, it extends the limited research on female student housing in Iran by considering a typical and reputable case study. The provided recommendations in this study can act as feedback and feedforward for improving and developing student housing facilities. Abbreviation: POE: post occupancy evaluation; SD: strongly dissatisfied; N: neutral; SS: strongly satisfied; SI: satisfaction index; RII: relative importance index; D: dissatisfied; S: satisfied; MSI: mean satisfaction index [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advance of climate change and the local effects of human activity, it has become of utmost importance to sense spatially extended natural and artificial physical phenomena to predict, monitor, and mitigate hazardous events. Wireless sensor networks are suitable for observing such phenomena, for example, wildfires, floods or landslides, without human supervision. This is due to affordable devices, independent power sources, wireless communication, and a broad range of sensors. During normal operation a few, while during the occurrence of an event a multitude of devices can fail. This leads to further disconnected devices, degrading the network's sensing capabilities. The communication requirements of such applications are difficult to fulfil with general routing protocols. The monitored event is rare compared to the network's lifetime, while its occurrence results in multiple, gradual node failures, still demanding the network to perform reliably. Available routing protocols fail to address every aspect of such application, thus the authors propose the Reliable Resilient Multipath Routing Protocol, designed to construct multiple disjoint paths from each device to a distinguished one, called the sink. The protocol employs proactive and reactive network management techniques to increase connection redundancy and maintain connectivity during failures. To verify the proposed protocol end‐to‐end, we evaluated the supported parameters, performed comparative simulations with routing algorithms known from the literature, and provided estimates of a realistic deployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internet of things (IoT) and message queue telemetry transport (MQTT) play crucial roles in connecting sensor networks, data exchange among diverse devices, and enabling various smart systems. Several studies have been conducted on IoT-MQTT-based applications because of their ease of implementation and deployment. It also offers real-time and reliable communication between a publisher and a subscriber. However, there is a lack of comprehensive studies covering overall performance metrics. Therefore, this paper aims to develop a water level warning system prototype and evaluate its performance through simulation experiments, focusing on critical metrics, such as latency, throughput, packet loss rate (PLR), packet delivery ratio (PDR), and availability at various data transmission rates. The results demonstrate that the proposed system achieves significantly lower latency, compared to existing solutions and achieves up to 98% availability and reliability with minimal packet loss. The experimental findings also reveal that higher data transmission rates lead to higher throughput and latency performance with lower performance in terms of availability, PDR, and sensor accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the twenty-first century, the Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly becoming one of the most influential technologies that connect billions of devices to the Internet. The importance and rapid growth of IoT technology make it an undeniably significant area of study in the contemporary world. This study evaluates the performance and research trends of East Asian countries in the area of Internet of Things (IoT) using scientometric tools. This paper collected 1146 data from Scopus over a period of 5 years (2016–2020). MS Excel, VOSviewer, and Biblioshiny were used to analyze the data using various Scientometric indicators. Cluster analysis and network visualization techniques are employed to evaluate the data and results are presented in tables and graphs. The finding shows that the topic has been exponential growth in recent years. China continues to top the IoT research rankings. The joint author contributed the most publications, and "Electronics (Switzerland)" is the most preferred journal for publication, followed by IEEE journals. In addition, the study found significant growth in smart environments such as "smart factories," "machine learning," "smart cities," "wireless sensor networks," "blockchains," etc., which pose significant concerns for many researchers. The study concludes with recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transportation infrastructure has advanced significantly in the last few decades, yet traffic issues persist since more people are living in metropolitan areas, necessitating the usage of various modes of transportation. Due to this, there are now more challenges with traffic control that directly affect the public, such as air pollution, traffic rule violations, and accidents. In this regard, intelligent transport systems integrate intelligent algorithms and the internet of things as an alternative for improving the traffic environment. In this study, a thorough analysis of traffic anomaly prediction involving the transition from spatiotemporal data flow is presented. It consists of a comprehensive analysis of various techniques applied for anomaly prediction on spatiotemporal data traffic. The various benchmark algorithms and models adopted to validate the performance of the proposed techniques are presented. Metrics adopted to evaluate the performance of proposed techniques are highlighted and briefly discussed. Limitations of the proposed techniques during and after the prediction phase are documented. The outcome of this study shows that Convolutional Neural Network techniques were majorly proposed and applied to predict anomalies in spatiotemporal data traffic flow, while Classification algorithms were mostly adopted as benchmarks for performance validation of the proposed techniques. It was also observed that Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) was majorly adopted to evaluate the performance of the proposed techniques. Also, Computation Complexity was discovered as the most prevalent challenge bedeviling the proposed techniques, paving the way for future research directions in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction:Telehealth is becoming integral to health care delivery, which may create a higher need for better internet. This is the first study to examine whether users are willing to spend more on their internet if they are (1) more experienced in using telehealth, (2) more optimistic about telehealth benefits, and (3) less concerned about the difficulty of using telehealth. Methods:We surveyed 5,200 Americans about their willingness to pay (WTP) for internet speed and quality on the one hand, and their (1) prior use of telehealth, (2) opinion about the benefits of telehealth, and (3) opinion about the difficulties of using telehealth. We stratified the sample using the three aspects above and conducted a conjoint analysis to estimate the WTP for internet speed and quality within each stratum. Results:Compared with respondents who had never used telehealth, respondents who had used five to six different types of telehealth services were willing to spend 50.4% more on their internet plans. Users who most firmly believed in the benefits of telehealth were willing to spend 59.2% more than the most pessimistic users. Users who had the lowest concerns about the difficulty of using telehealth were willing to spend 114% more than users with the most perceived difficulty. Discussion:We found strong ties between the WTP for internet and prior telehealth use and perceptions of telehealth benefits and barriers. Thus, internet expenditures may be influenced by users' anticipation of using telehealth. Future studies may investigate the causality of the relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are witnessing a new space race. In the past few years, the number of successful launches to low Earth orbit has been higher than at any time since Sputnik. Commercial space companies, led by SpaceX and Blue Origin, have developed reusable rockets that are fundamentally changing the economics of spaceflight and opening new markets for recreation and tourism. Large numbers of small satellites are being deployed to monitor Earth resources and deliver high speed Internet to developing countries. Meanwhile, a growing number of countries have built space programs, and a superpower rivalry between China and America has replaced the traditional competition between Russia and America. All this activity raises legal and ethical issues. Space debris is accumulating at a rapid rate, creating a hazard for humans and hardware in low Earth orbit. Currently, there is no real incentive for companies or governments to mitigate this threat. The ownership of space resources is not covered by international law and in most countries, spaceflight is subject to very little regulation. Another concern is the potential militarization of space by the major powers. As we explore space, exploitation may be taking precedence over conservation. Hopefully, the economic benefits of space will be realized while the activity grows ethically and sustainably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To manage the IoT resources to process the massive amount of collected data in complex systems, Allocation of tasks to nodes to increase user satisfaction has been noticed by researchers. In allocating tasks, the necessity of a powerful auxiliary platform is felt. Cloud and fog networks are two suitable options for performing and completing tasks on the Internet of Things. In the cloud network, due to offloading tasks to remote computing centers, problems such as increasing complete time, increasing traffic in the network, and high energy consumption for the Internet of Things network occur. The fog network solves the problem of completing tasks due to reducing the geographical distance between Internet of Things devices and processor nodes. The devices in the fog network cooperate with the Internet of Things network's diverse and variable nodes with time computing, storage, and processing resources. In this heterogeneous environment, the non-cooperation and dishonesty of malicious fog nodes through misrepresentation of shared resources and non-completion of tasks can disrupt the performance of the Internet of Things network. As a result, two fundamental challenges in the heterogeneous fog network include providing resources to allocate tasks and recognizing valid fog nodes. This paper focuses on creating a resource provider network to allocate tasks to authentic fog nodes with appropriate resources. When an Internet of Things node faces a shortage of resources and link prediction, it can form a resource supply network with neighboring nodes to solve the two stated challenges. For this purpose, in the first stage, efforts are made to select the most appropriate options among the neighboring nodes based on specific criteria. In the second step, reliable nodes are identified based on a trust mechanism, including resource trust and entity trust. In the last step, tasks are divided among reliable devices with sufficient resources. The evaluation of the proposed method in the OMNET++ simulator shows that the trust mechanism can lead to the identification of reliable sources and, as a result, reduce the time to complete tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Sports have been a fundamental component of any culture and legacy for centuries. Athletes are widely regarded as a source of national pride, and their physical well-being is deemed to be of paramount significance. The attainment of optimal performance and injury prevention in athletes is contingent upon physical fitness. Technology integration has implemented Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) to augment the athletic training milieu. OBJECTIVE: The present study introduces an approach for assessing athlete physical fitness in training environments: the Internet of Things (IoT) and CPS-based Physical Fitness Evaluation Method (IoT-CPS-PFEM). METHODS: The IoT-CPS-PFEM employs a range of IoT-connected sensors and devices to observe and assess the physical fitness of athletes. The proposed methodology gathers information on diverse fitness parameters, including heart rate, body temperature, and oxygen saturation. It employs machine learning algorithms to scrutinize and furnish feedback on the athlete's physical fitness status. RESULTS: The simulation findings illustrate the efficacy of the proposed IoT-CPS-PFEM in identifying the physical fitness levels of athletes, with an average precision of 93%. The method under consideration aims to tackle the existing obstacles of conventional physical fitness assessment techniques, including imprecisions, time lags, and manual data-gathering requirements. The approach of IoT-CPS-PFEM provides the benefits of real-time monitoring, precision, and automation, thereby enhancing an athlete's physical fitness and overall performance to a considerable extent. CONCLUSION: The research findings suggest that the implementation of IoT-CPS-PFEM can significantly impact the physical fitness of athletes and enhance the performance of the Indian sports industry in global competitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The rapid growth of the automotive industry has exacerbated the conflict between the complex traffic environment, increasing communication demands, and limited resources. Given the imperative to mitigate traffic and network congestion, analyzing the performance of Internet of Vehicles (IoV) mesh networks is of great practical significance. Most studies focus solely on individual performance metrics and influencing factors, and the adopted simulation tools, such as OPNET, cannot achieve the dynamic link generation of IoV mesh networks. To address these problems, a network performance analysis model based on actual switches is proposed. First, a typical IoV mesh network architecture is constructed and abstracted into a mathematical model that describes how the link and topology changes over time. Then, the task generation model and the task forwarding model based on actual switches are proposed to obtain the real traffic distribution of the network. Finally, a scientific network performance indicator system is constructed. Simulation results demonstrate that, with rising task traffic and decreasing node caching capacity, the packet loss rate increases, and the task arrival rate decreases in the network. The proposed model can effectively evaluate the network performance across various traffic states and provide valuable insights for network construction and enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous development of remote sensing technology, the data volume of remote sensing images has increased exponentially, resulting in many difficulties in the storage, management, transmission, calculation, and other processes of remote sensing images. In order to solve the above problems, this paper studies the use of the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and related technologies to design and implement a browser/server (B/S) architecture for a massive, multisource, remote sensing images distributed storage management system. The image data are stored in the HDFS, and the image metadata are stored in a MySQL database. The distributed parallel construction of the image pyramid is completed based on the Spark computing engine, and the Akka framework is used to construct WMTS (Web Map Tile Service) to realize the release of remote sensing images. Finally, the rapid visual display of remote sensing images is carried out using Leaflet. The system also supports image data management, image target detection, user management, and other functions. After testing, this system can support the storage and management of multisource remote sensing image data, and can solve perfectly the problems of insufficient storage space and insufficient computing power of a single server. It is found that the upload and download speeds of a large amount of remote sensing images can be close to the maximum speed of a gigabit local area network (LAN). In the gigabit LAN environment, the average upload speed of a single remote sensing image is 97.74 MB/s, and the average download speed is 87.62 MB/s. In terms of image pyramid construction, the speed of a multi-node parallel construction based on Spark is two times higher than that of a single-node construction. Additionally, compared to similar systems, this system has better data transmission and retrieval speed, better data computing ability, and higher concurrency processing ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the transmission of data at high speed, the requirement of using a larger bandwidth increases due to the rise in wireless communication technologies like smart devices, mobiles, etc. An abrupt increase in the requirement for internet data due to an increase in internet users demanded time-to-time upgrades in available techniques. A significant modernization has been done by technology in mobile and wireless communication and networking fields. Therefore, the development of mobile communication began with the First Generation (1G) and has progressed continuously to the Fifth Generation (5G). To address the weaknesses of previous generations, each successive generation has been developed with improvements. Fifth Generation (5G) is the latest technology in wireless communication cellular systems, providing the highest internet speeds to everyone, anywhere, anytime. 5G has attracted many global researchers, universities, and research institutes to invent new techniques for enhancement in channel capacity and spectrum utilization of communication systems. This paper describes the evolution of cellular networks, expectations from 5G, the challenges and advantages of 5G, and the techniques on which 5G relies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is hoped that the presence of fintech can be relied on to improve financial performance such as increasing profitability, reducing operational costs and overcoming credit problems. However, in reality the financial performance of fintech companies is still not optimal. This research aims to ensure that companies can continue to improve their financial performance and to determine the importance of fintech and digital financial services in the economy. This research method uses a quantitative approach. The population of this research are companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) which are included in the list of Financial Technology Companies. The data was processed using IBM SPSS version 22 software. The research results show that financial technology is able to improve financial performance and Internet Financial Reporting (IFR) is able to moderate the relationship between financial technology and financial performance in fintech companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) in 2018 - 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infectious diseases pose a very significant threat to development of the society and the world at large. With several outbreaks of diseases like Monkeypox, Lassa fever, SARS, COVID-19, etc, the global economy was grossly affected. The rate of transfer and mortality associated with similar outbreaks is alarming. This research presents a novel approach utilizing the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) to develop a third-party notification model. This model uses IoMT's ubiquitous connectivity to notify even ordinary individuals of the presence of an infectious disease vector within a specified range. A four-tier architecture, including cloud and web API blocks, healthcare provider management, IoT sensory, and notification blocks forms the bedrock of the model. The research focuses on developing a Location Tracking Device (LTD) prototype that incorporates the Haversine formula for real-time distance calculation between individuals performed at the edge using the location data supplied by the LTDs as input parameters. The optimization of data reception rates was based on the average human walking speed in order to enhance response time of the system. Results from testing the prototype demonstrate an average of 4.68s response delay which corresponds to an offset of about 6.85m from the real vector distance calculation. The research implementation challenges include the internet connection speed, network availability, and topography. Despite these challenges, the IoMT-enabled model introduces a promising approach to infectious disease-carrier monitoring, integrating personalized carrier/vectorpresence awareness with associated risks within the disease control ecosystem. Hence, every user can use the LTD during an epidemic to help track the user’s nearness to a symptomatic person thereby helping to control the spread of infectious diseases during epidemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resilience of internet service is crucial for ensuring consistent communication, situational awareness, facilitating emergency response in our digitally-dependent society. However, due to empirical data constraints, there has been limited research on internet service disruptions during extreme weather events. To bridge this gap, this study utilizes observational datasets on internet performance to quantitatively assess the extent of internet disruption during two recent extreme weather events. Taking Harris County in the United States as the study region, we jointly analyzed the hazard severity and the associated internet disruptions in the context of two extreme weather events. The results show that the hazard events significantly impacted regional internet connectivity. There exists a pronounced temporal synchronicity between the magnitude of disruption and hazard severity: as the severity of hazards intensifies, internet disruptions correspondingly escalate, and eventually return to baseline levels post-event. The spatial analyses show that internet service disruptions can happen even in areas that are not directly impacted by hazards, demonstrating that the repercussions of hazards extend beyond the immediate area of impact. This interplay of temporal synchronization and spatial variance underscores the complex relationships between hazard severity and Internet disruption. Furthermore, the socio-demographic analysis suggests that vulnerable communities, already grappling with myriad challenges, face exacerbated service disruptions during these hazard events, emphasizing the need for prioritized disaster mitigation strategies and interventions for improving the resilience of internet services. To the best of our knowledge, this research is among the first studies to examine the Internet disruptions during hazardous events using a quantitative observational dataset. The insights obtained hold significant implications for city administrators, guiding them towards more resilient and equitable infrastructure planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the quantitative and qualitative situation of the current fixed and mobile Internet and its expected future. It provides a detailed insight into the past, present, and future of the Internet along with the development of technology and the problems that have arisen in accessing and using broadband Internet. First, the number of users and penetration rate of the Internet, the various types of services in different countries, the ranking of countries in terms of the mean and median download and upload Internet data speeds, Internet data volume, and number and location of data centers in the world are presented. The second task introduces and details twelve performance evaluation metrics for broadband Internet access. Third, different wired and wireless Internet technologies are introduced and compared based on data rate, coverage, type of infrastructure, and their advantages and disadvantages. Based on the technical and functional criteria, in the fourth work, two popular wired and wireless Internet platforms, one based on optical fiber and the other based on the 5G cellular network, are compared in the world in general and Australia in particular. Moreover, this paper has a look at Starlink as the latest satellite Internet candidate, especially for rural and remote areas. The fifth task outlines the latest technologies and emerging broadband Internet-based services and applications in the spotlight. Sixthly, it focuses on three problems in the future Internet in the world, namely the digital divide due to the different qualities of available Internet and new Internet-based services and applications of emerging technologies, the impact of the Internet on social interactions, and hacking and insecurity on the Internet. Finally, some solutions to these problems are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advancement of digital technologies has an impact on how information is disseminated and made accessible in the academic world. The use of digital resources has grown significantly, with e-books becoming a valuable educational resource. Panjab University library is spending a huge amount of money in terms of subscribing to a number of e resources to fulfill the information demand of faculty and students. PU library started subscribing to e-books from the year 2008 and presently a diverse collection of e-books from reputed publishers are available for the users. Since no such study has been conducted to examine the use and awareness of e-books, to determine level of relevance of e-books, subscribed by Panjab University, it is therefore imperative to investigate how Panjab University students use and are aware of their subscription to e-books. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed using a simple random sampling method and 202 responses were received. This paper also explores the usage, relevance and the difficulties encountered while accessing e-books. For this purpose, an online survey was conducted amongst post graduate students and research scholars of Panjab University. Majority of the respondents 73 (66.4 %) are accessing e-books through University Library website. 72 (62.6 %) of respondents express that friends and teachers helped them to know about availability of e-books in the library. Respondents encountered problems i.e. difficulties to login the sites, low speed of internet and restrictions in downloading etc. while accessing e-books. This study offers some useful and practical suggestions that can help libraries to enrich their e-book collections. The findings of the study will be helpful in developing e-book collection while keeping user needs in mind to enhance overall digital learning experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural access to advanced information communications technology (ICT) lags behind urban areas. ICT availability in rural areas at the household level is understudied. Often, data sources test connectivity at one point in time and then aggregate to a larger geographical region (i.e. county level or census block). Thus, this research collects a high-resolution data set in the midwestern United States through two methods: 1) participants connect a device, recording 1800 readings; and 2) participants take a survey about internet satisfaction. These two methods culminate in a unique high-resolution dataset. Using this data, this article explores how much internet throughput a rural household uses compared to how much a satisfied household consumes, while reviewing the perception of need. Exploratory connections are found between throughput speeds, reliability, and surveyed satisfaction, further validating the research methods. This lends a new perspective to rural broadband usage and the criteria used to set broadband standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-scale shrimp farmers in Hamparan Perak District, Deli Serdang Regency, Indonesia, conduct direct water quality supervision and manually use aerators and water pumps. Thus, it is inefficient in meeting the water quality required for shrimp farming and using production costs. This study aims to test the performance of an internet of things (IoT)-based prototype in supervising and controlling the aerator and pump in a shrimp pond. This prototype comprises an ESP32, three sensors: the DS18B20 sensor, MLX90614 sensor, and JSN-SR04T sensor, and two relays to control the aerator and pump automatically. Prototype testing is done directly on shrimp ponds by placing the prototype in an electrical panel connected to a power circuit. Based on the study's results, it is known that the prototype can measure water temperature. The water level and temperature of the aerator motor are pretty accurate. In addition, the prototype can also control the aerator and water pump well and send notifications to users automatically via smartphones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of the study is a compact heptagonal broadband antenna specially designed for use in the 5G millimeter band using Koch fractals to improve performance. As a result of the study, the most important problem of achieving higher gain, improving bandwidth and reducing interference at higher frequencies, which is necessary for the effective functioning of 5G networks, was solved. As a result, the maximum realized gain of 5 dB was obtained at a frequency of 27.58 GHz with an impressive bandwidth in the range from 26.5 to 40 GHz. The use of Koch fractal geometry and defective ground planes significantly improves impedance matching and expands bandwidth, which explains the excellent antenna performance compared to traditional designs. The features and distinguishing features of the results obtained, thanks to which they allowed solving the problem under study, are its compact dimensions (only 9 mm by 9 mm) and the ability to maintain VSWR at a level of less than 2 in the entire frequency spectrum. These features make the antenna particularly suitable for millimeterband integration and flexible applications such as portable devices and wearable home appliances. The field of practical application of the results includes integration into portable and wearable devices, improving the performance and connectivity of Internet of Things applications. The conditions of practical use require compliance with 5G network standards and compatibility with millimeter-wave technologies. This characterizes the antenna as a significant achievement in antenna technology, demonstrating its potential for widespread adoption in next-generation wireless communication systems and paving the way for more reliable and highperformance wireless networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software-defined networking (SDN) is a network architecture. It is becoming more popular due to its centralized network administration, adaptability, and speed. However, the centralized structure of SDN architecture makes assaults more prevalent. The attacks affect normal users by draining server resources, reducing internet speed, and occupying memory on controllers and switches. Therefore, security for SDN is essential. Most of the existing attack detection methods for SDN are based on statistical and machine learning-based techniques. In statistical techniques, determining an accurate threshold is difficult due to dynamic nature of the network flow. For machine learning-based techniques, it can be difficult to identify a suitable feature that can distinguish assaults from regular traffic. Therefore, this work presents an effective deep learning-based framework to identify network threats in SDN. This framework comprises a data augmentation generative adversarial network (DAGAN), Xception, and improved ShuffleNetV2 models. First, DAGAN is used to increase data samples and reduce class imbalance problem in the dataset. Then, Xception network extracts the essential features, and finally, intrusions are identified and categorized using an improved ShuffleNetV2 network. When a network intrusion is discovered, the suggested defense mechanism is turned on to restore normal network connectivity quickly. Several tests are carried out on two SDN-based datasets, and our proposed approach surpasses existing models by achieving 89.63% and 98.96% accuracy for InSDN and Ton-IoT datasets, respectively. Additionally, our suggested model delivers a fair trade-off between recall and precision that qualifies it for attack categorization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) learning delivery provides a student-directed multimodal learning experience that optimizes students' engagement and technological competencies needed in the present society. This descriptive-developmental research utilized archival documents and surveys to look into the capacity of the institution's existing instructional resources as inputs for designing a HyFlex learning scheme. There were a total of 979 student-respondents involved through convenience sampling ensuring representations among the agriculture course offerings of the Sorsogon State University, Philippines. The survey was conducted either face-to-face or online with the use of Google Forms and found that students who utilized technological devices with good internet connection preferred a mixture of online with face-to-face learning (~50%) for the lecture subjects. On the other hand, the agriculture students (>60%) preferred the face-to-face set-up for the major subjects regardless of the type of technological devices and the internet connectivity speed. The upgrading and re-upgrading of the human, physical facilities, and library instructional resources for the HyFlex classes are needed to further comply with the flexible learning scheme requirements in the University's agriculture programs attuned with the Philippines' Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Policies, Standards and Guidelines (PSG). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless and power line communication hybrid relay technology can realize complementary advantages and comprehensively improve the communication coverage and performance of power Internet of Things. In order to study the mechanism of the physical layer and Media Access Control (MAC) layer algorithm that affects the performance of hybrid relay systems, the cross-layer performance modeling, optimization, and simulation analysis are carried out for the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technology. Firstly, a two-hop NOMA media access control protocol is designed based on the CSMA algorithm. Considering the effects of non-ideal channel transmission at the physical layer and competitive access at the MAC layer on the system performance, a cross-layer performance analysis model of hybrid wireless and power line communication relay system under NOMA is established. Finally, a cross-layer optimization model based on multi-objective programming is established for the hybrid relay system. By analyzing the relationship between transmitting power and performance index, the joint optimization of transmitting power and power distribution factor between users is realized. Simulation results verify the validity and reliability of the proposed cross-layer model. The results show that the hybrid relay algorithm combined with NOMA and CSMA can effectively improve the performance of the system throughput, packet loss probability, and delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symbiotic Radio (SR) is one of the techniques recognized by 6G for wireless communication networks performance enhancement. In this paper, SR is used to improve the performance of the Internet of Things (IoT) network by enabling IoT tags backscatter the neighbor smart phone primary signal rely on the None Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) technique. Furthermore, Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces (IRS) are also proposed to enhance the channel Quality of Service (QoS); the service performance; between the IoT tags and the smartphones either using LTE or Wi-Fi network by smartly reconfiguring the signal propagation for performance improvement. We formulate an optimization problem to achieve the optimum location and phase shifts of the IRS, aiming to maximize the throughput of the IoT system. Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) algorithm is introduced as a solution for this problem. The main idea of PPO is to minimize the divergence between the new and old policy while maximizing the expected reward. This is achieved by using a surrogate objective function that approximates the policy update. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms can improve the total system data rate by an average of 40% above the system without using IRS and it also, improves the system capacity by 40% on average when compared to a system without the IRS scheme at smart phones p =4 which serve tags T =20. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]