News et Forum

Education

Education is the learning of knowledge, information and skills during the course of life and in which students can learn something:
- Instruction refers to the intentional facilitating of learning toward identified goals, delivered either by an instructor or other forms.
- Teaching refers to the actions of a real live instructor designed to impart learning to the student.
- Training refers to learning with a view toward preparing learners with specific knowledge, skills, or abilities that can be applied immediately upon completion.


Research

Research is the systematic process of investigation, collecting and analyzing information to increase our understanding of the phenomenon under study. It is an examination of a subject from different points of view and a function of the researcher to contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon in order to communicate that understanding to others. But also, research is the way you educate yourself.



Trends and Challenges

Information Technology and Communication

 

Predictions 2009: Information and Communication Technology

 

What appears ahead in 2009 and beyond in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector?  

Hype is where things often begin in ICT. It is ever-present in marketing and public relations in ICT markets.Spin is an accomplice of hype. Spin either uses concepts and terminology very loosely or bends them to suit the direction of the spin, even to the point of distortion. New developments in ICT markets are often accompanied by hype and spin. The hype and spin is usually about claiming there is a new development. Jumps in technical features, style or formats drive laggards and some competitors to lurch to hype and spin.

Fearing being left behind market protagonists and late comers all seek to make a big noise on the bandwagon of a new development. So what ICT bandwagons are in town?

The cloud computing bandwagon arrived some time ago. The thought leadership press are listening. As a local non-IT media example, cloud computing was covered reasonably competently in late 2008 by Background Briefing, an ABC Radio National program in Australia. As is often noted 'Cloud computing comes from the cloud symbol on a network designers flowchart.'

 

 

Software Engineering

 

'Virtually 2009' - Trends and Predictions of Virtualization Technology in 2009
 
Virtualization in 2008 continued to prove its importance in the areas of migration, high availability, system/data center consolidation, and also energy conservation.  Virtualization has quickly rooted itself as a key computing technology in both the consumer and enterprise sectors.  To date, virtualization has primarily been a term related to 'hypervisor' technology (in general, the isolation or abstraction of a complete operating system(s) from its underlying hardware or computing infrastructure).  Respectively, the virtualization trends we have seen have focused primarily on the virtualization and management of virtual machines. In 2009, I believe virtualization will continue to evolve in countless productive ways.  The trends already in play will advance the capabilities and sophistication of hypervisor technology.  In parallel to the maturing of hypervisor technology, will be new forms of virtualization (non-hypervisor forms) that will benefit both systems administrators and end users. In regards to the enterprise computing arena -- where volumes of new virtualization technologies will no doubt continue to be developed – I predict a few trends to be most notable in 2009: - Systems management software will move beyond parity in regards to its support for virtualization infrastructure as opposed to supporting traditional systems. - Computer platform vendors will incorporate more and more native support for virtualization technologies within their respective platforms, thus increasing competitive market pressures faced by hypervisor companies (e.g. VMWare, Citrix). - PC and server manufacturers will optimize their offering to natively support virtualization infrastructure directly from the factory. Additionally, hardware configurations will be offered that support new large scale VDI deployments and 'data centers in a box'.

 

 

 Telecommunication

 

Three mega-trends revolutionize telecom in 2009
 
Few will be upset that retrospectives on the very problematic year are best left to historians. There's nothing good to look back on, so let's move on instead. What will shape the telecom industry in the new year? Forget the traditional talk about what a new administration might or might not do and focus on the big three technology trends.
1. An emerging online ecosystem joins telecom and the Web into a single business model
2. A CDN/cloud computing model emerges for settlement for online services 3. Integrating social network features and relationship knowledge into communications is a trend in the making.
 

Medical Informatics

Publication trends in the medical informatics literature: 20 Years of 'Medical Informatics' in MeSH

The purpose of this study is to identify publication output, and research areas, as well as descriptively and quantitatively characterize the field of medical informatics through publication trend analysis over a twenty year period (1987-2006). There were 77,023 medical informatics articles published during this 20 year period in 4,644 unique journals. The average annual article publication growth rate was 12%. The 50 identified medical informatics MeSH terms are rarely assigned together to the same document and are almost exclusively paired with a non-medical informatics MeSH term, suggesting a strong interdisciplinary trend. Trends in citations, journals, and MeSH categories of medical informatics output for the 20-year period are summarized. Average impact factor scores and weighted average impact factor scores increased over the 20-year period with two notable growth periods. There is a steadily growing presence and increasing visibility of medical informatics literature over the years. Patterns in research output that seem to characterize the historic trends and current components of the field of medical informatics suggest it may be a maturing discipline, and highlight specific journals in which the medical informatics literature appears most frequently, including general medical journals as well as informatics-specific journals.

 

 Artificial Intelligence