Recent Advances in Evolving Computing Paradigms: Cloud, Edge, and Fog Technologies

Cloud computing has become integral lately due to the ever-expanding Internet-of-things (IoT) network. It still is and continues to be the best practice for implementing complex computational applications, emphasizing the massive processing of data. However, the cloud falls short due to the critical constraints of novel IoT applications generating vast data, which entails a swift response time with improved privacy. The newest drift is moving computational and storage resources to the edge of the network, involving a decentralized distributed architecture. The data processing and analytics perform at proximity to end-users, and overcome the bottleneck of cloud computing. The trend of deploying machine learning (ML) at the network edge to enhance computing applications and services has gained momentum lately, specifically to reduce latency and energy consumed while optimizing the security and management of resources. There is a need for rigorous research efforts oriented towards developing and implementing machine learning algorithms that deliver the best results in terms of speed, accuracy, storage, and security, with low power consumption. This extensive survey presented on the prominent computing paradigms in practice highlights the latest innovations resulting from the fusion between ML and the evolving computing paradigms and discusses the underlying open research challenges and future prospects.

Investigating the constraints for managing the protection of historic buildings in remote areas of Saudi Arabia: a DEMATEL modelling approach

PurposeThe paper is aimed at identifying, analysing and prioritizing the critical constraints affecting efficient management of historic buildings in remote areas of Saudi Arabia.Design/methodology/approachThematic content analysis and expert-based evaluation approaches were used to identify and evaluate the constraints. The DEMATEL technique was deployed to define the interrelationship complexities between the constraints and evaluate the impact of these interrelationships to ascertain the influential constraints.FindingsThe results identify “lack of clearly defined roles for the multiple government agencies” as the most influential constraint for managing historic sites and buildings in remote areas of Saudi Arabia.Research limitations/implicationsThe contextual interrelationship between the constraints is due to the experts' perceptions, which may be biased due to their proficiencies and professional backgrounds. Since the evidence on which the findings of this paper are established is predominantly from experiences related to historic sites and buildings in remote areas of Saudi Arabia, the results of this paper may not be entirely applicable elsewhere.Practical implicationsThe paper provides invaluable methodology that can support practitioners and policymakers to establish sustainable strategies that can enhance the management and protection of historic buildings in remote areas of Saudi Arabia.Originality/valueThis study noticeably contributes to knowledge by providing comprehensive understanding of the major impediments to the successful management of historic buildings in remote areas of Saudi Arabia, which can assist in mitigating the potential impacts of these constraints and to advocate for the achievement of efficient management and protection of the historic sites and buildings.

Ecological Values Theory: Beyond Conformity, Goal-Seeking, and Rule-Following in Action and Interaction

Values have long been considered important for psychology but are frequently characterized as beliefs, goals, rules, or norms. Ecological values theory locates them, not in people or in objects, but in ecosystem relationships and the demands those relationships place on fields of action within the system. To test the worth of this approach, we consider skilled coordination tasks in social psychology (e.g., negotiating disagreements, synchrony and asynchrony in interactions, and selectivity in social learning) and perception-action (e.g., driving vehicles and carrying a child). Evidence suggests that a diverse array of values (e.g., truth, social solidarity, justice, flexibility, safety, and comfort) work in a cooperative tension to guide actions. Values emerge as critical constraints on action that differ from goals, rules, and natural laws, and yet provide the larger context in which they can function effectively. Prospects and challenges for understanding values and their role in action, including theoretical and methodological issues, are considered.

Determinants of Rice Farmers’ Investment in Value Addition and Its Effect on Poverty Status in Kebbi State, Nigeria

The study examined investment of rice value addition activities among farmers in Kebbi State, Nigeria. Data used for the study were collected with the aid of structured questionnaire administered to 123 randomly selected farmers in three local government areas of the state. Data was analyzed using Foster Greek Thoerboeck (FGT) poverty index and logit regression technique. The results showed that poverty status among the rice farmers was high, as 58.3% were poor and 42.7% were non poor. The result of the analysis showed that the marginal effects of income from parboiling, winnowing, drying, destoning, and bagging value addition were negative and statistically significant related to farmer’s poverty status at 1% level. It was concluded that rice farmers’ investment in value addition should be promoted among the farmers in Kebbi State. High cost of labour (81.0%), poor marketing information (75.6%) and inadequate credit (73.1%) were the three most critical constraints limiting the farmers in engaging in value addition activities. It wasrecommended that farmers cooperatives should form collaboration with extension agent to make farmers aware of the benefits of investment in value addition activities and those farmers already investing in value addition should make use of the modern method of processing instead of the traditional practices which help to increase their income. Keywords: Investment, Value addition, Processing, Poverty status and Rice farmers

Constraints and opportunities facing construction organization in post-conflict condition in Afghanistan

Purpose Although there are many challenges and constraints for construction organization operation and performance in a post-conflict condition, there is insufficient construction project management literature. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify a framework to understand and determine critical constraints and opportunities in a post-conflict condition facing local construction firms in Afghanistan. The proposed framework is composed of three major steps: identify and determine key performance indicators; identify challenges impacting organization operation and performance in post-conflict condition; determine critical constraints and opportunities based on prioritized performance measures; and organizational strength and weakness factors. Design/methodology/approach The strength, weakness, opportunities and threat matrix analysis has been used to determine post-conflict condition constraints and opportunities. Then the analytical hierarchy process has been used to prioritize the measures and identify the constraints and opportunities facing construction companies in a post-conflict situation. The mix-research method is applied to this study to analyse qualitative variables and quantitative variables obtained from the experts’ opinions and 51 filled questioners. Findings The study shows that there are a total of 11 critical constraints and three essential opportunities for construction companies that industry practitioners and policymakers should take into account while formulating the organizational strategy. Practical implications The developed framework will benefit construction companies in improving their performance and operation in after-conflict conditions. Originality/value This paper is the first to provide a comprehensive conceptualization of the challenges and constraints for construction organization operation and performance in a post-conflict condition. It also offers a novel conceptual framework to understand and determine critical constraints and opportunities in a post-conflict condition facing local construction firms in Afghanistan.

Historical injustices and transitional justice interventions in Kenya: victims� and interveners� experiences and perceptions

This article examines historical injustices and transitional justice interventions that were initiated after the 2007 electoral conflict in the quest for conflict transformation in Kenya. During the mediation led by Kofi Annan that culminated in the signing of the National Accord in February 2008, transitional justice was emphasised as critical in attaining conflict transformation. In response, the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) and International Criminal Court (ICC) interventions initiated a complementary restorative�retributive approach in the pursuit of transitional justice in the country. Based on content analysis of fieldwork data extracted from twenty-five focus group discussions within a sampled cluster of ten counties, this study examines and presents the experiences and perceptions of victims of historical injustices, on the one hand, and the experiences and perceptions of interveners of conflict transformation programmes, on the other hand. This is with a view to explicating the outcomes and impacts of transitional justice interventions in conflict transformation in Kenya in the post-National Accord era. In the findings, a key argument is raised that unresolved three-tier historical injustices remain critical constraints in the pursuit of transitional justice and in the quest for effective conflict transformation in Kenya.

Structural coupling and the puzzle of surfaces: ontology of boundaries from the minimally cognitive perspective

Boundaries are prominent ingredients of reality, including—most importantly—the boundaries of organisms and the perceived boundaries of things (their surfaces). It is also customary to think of minds as kinds of bounded loci for thoughts, representations, and other internal entities, targeting the borderline between the internal domain and the external world as a genuine barrier. Therefore, not surprisingly, boundaries and surfaces have become targets of disciplined formal-ontological investigations. However, to have a boundary (or surface) is not only a purely geometrical or topological feature, for boundaries play certain roles. For that reason, this article unpacks boundaries in general, and surfaces in particular, in terms of interactions between structured entities, most importantly—living creatures capable of (minimal) cognition. It is argued that boundaries should be thought of as products of and at the same time as critical constraints imposed on structural coupling between complex beings, including the interactions between the (minimally) cognitive subjects and their surroundings.

Improving Infrastructure Installation Planning Processes using Procedural Modeling

Time and costs are often the most critical constraints in implementing a development impact fee (DIF) for local infrastructure installation planning in South Korea. For this reason, drafting quality plan alternatives and calculating precise DIFs for improvement remain challenging. This study proposes an application of a procedural modeling method using CityEngine as an alternative to traditional methods, which rely on AutoCAD. A virtual low-density suburban development project in Jeju, South Korea was used to compare the workability of the two methods. The findings suggest that procedural modeling outperforms the other approach by significantly reducing the number of steps and commands required in the planning process. This paper also argues that procedural modeling provides real-time 2- and 3-dimensional modeling and design evaluation and allows for a more efficient assessment of plan quality and calculation of DIF. We also argue for the need to diffuse procedural modeling to better support local planning practices.

Speleothem Evidence for Megadroughts in the SW Indian Ocean during the Late Holocene

The 4.2 ka BP event is widely described as a 200–300 years long interval of major climate anomaly (typically, arid and cooler conditions potentially across the globe), which defines the beginning of the current Meghalayan age in the Holocene epoch. The 4.2 ka event however, has been disproportionately reported from proxy records situated at low-mid latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Consequently, the climatic manifestation of the 4.2 ka event in both spatial and temporal domains is still much less clear in Southern Hemisphere. This is particularly the case for the southwest sector of the southern Indian Ocean. Here we present high-resolution and chronologically well-constrained speleothem oxygen and carbon isotopes records of hydroclimate variability between ~ 6 and 3 ka ago from Rodrigues Island, located in the southwest subtropical Indian Ocean, ~ 600 km east of Mauritius. Our records reveal a major shift to drier condition at circa 4 ka BP, which culminated into a multicentennial period of drought (i.e., megadrought) that lasted continuously from ~ 3.9 to 3.5 ka BP. The inferred hydroclimatic conditions between 4.0 and 4.2 ka BP, are however not distinctly distinguishable from the region’s mean hydroclimatic state over the length of our record. Because the precipitation variability at Rodrigues is distinctly modulated by meridional movement of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone and the El Nino Southern Oscillation dynamics, our proxy data may ultimately provide critical constraints in our understanding the timing and dynamical forcing of the 4.2 ka event.