Aim/Purpose: This paper presents the findings of an Activity-Oriented Teaching Strategy (AOTS) conducted for a postgraduate level Software Engineering (SE) course with the aim of imparting meaningful software development experience for the students. The research question is framed as whether the activity-oriented teaching strategy helps students to acquire practical knowledge of Software Engineering and thus bridge the gap between academia and software industry. Background: Software Engineering Education (SEE) in India is mainly focused on teaching theoretical concepts rather than emphasizing on practical knowledge in software development process. It has been noticed that many students of CS/IT background are struggling when they start their career in the software industry due to inadequate familiarity with the software development process. In the current context of SE education, there is a knowledge gap between the theory learned in the classroom and the actual requirement demanded by the software industry. Methodology: The methodology opted for in this study was action research since the teachers are trying to solve the practical problems and deficiencies encountered while teaching SE. There are four pedagogies in AOTS for fulfilling the requirements of the desired teaching strategy. They are flipped classroom, project role-play for developing project artifacts, teaching by example, and student seminars. The study was conducted among a set of Postgraduate students of the Software Engineering programme at Cochin University of Science and Technology, India. Contribution: AOTS can fulfil both academic and industrial requirements by actively engaging the students in the learning process and thus helping them develop their professional skills. Findings: AOTS can be molded as a promising teaching strategy for learning Software Engineering. It focuses on the essential skill sets demanded by the software industry such as communication, problem-solving, teamwork, and understanding of the software development processes. Impact on Society: Activity-oriented teaching strategies can fulfil both academic and industrial requirements by actively engaging the students in the SE learning process and thus helping them in developing their professional skills. Future Research: AOTS can be refined by adding/modifying pedagogies and including different features like an online evaluation system, virtual classroom etc.

In 2008 the University of Hull, Stanford University and University of Virginia decided to collaborate with Fedora Commons (now DuraSpace) on the Hydra project. This project has sought to define and develop repository-enabled solutions for the management of multiple digital content management needs that are multi-purpose and multi-functional in such a way as to allow their use across multiple institutions. This article describes the evolution of Hydra as a project, but most importantly as a community that can sustain the outcomes from Hydra and develop them further. The data modelling and technical implementation are touched on in this context, and examples of the Hydra heads in development or production are highlighted. Finally, the benefits of working together, and having worked together, are explored as a key element in establishing a sustainable open source solution.

The paper describes the investigations and outcomes of the JISC-funded Kindura project, which is piloting the use of hybrid cloud infrastructure to provide repository-focused services to researchers. The hybrid cloud services integrate external commercial cloud services with internal IT infrastructure, which has been adapted to provide cloud-like interfaces. The system provides services to manage and process research outputs, primarily focusing on research data. These services include both repository services, based on use of the Fedora Commons repository, as well as common services such as preservation operations that are provided by cloud compute services. Kindura is piloting the use of the DuraCloud2, open source software developed by DuraSpace, to provide a common interface to interact with cloud storage and compute providers. A storage broker integrates with DuraCloud to optimise the usage of available resources, taking into account such factors as cost, reliability, security and performance. The development is focused on the requirements of target groups of researchers.

The UK JISC-funded Content Lifecycle Integration Framework (CLIF) project has explored the management of digital content throughout its lifecycle from creation through to preservation or disposal. Whilst many individual systems offer the capability of carrying out lifecycle stages to varying degrees, CLIF recognised that only by facilitating the movement of content between systems could the full lifecycle take advantage of systems specifically geared towards different stages of the digital lifecycle. The project has also placed the digital repository at the heart of this movement and has explored this through carrying out integrations between Fedora and Sakai, and Fedora and SharePoint. This article will describe these integrations in the context of lifecycle management and highlight the issues discovered in enabling the smooth movement of content as required.

Chempound is a new generation repository architecture based on RDF, semantic dictionaries and linked data. It has been developed to hold any type of chemical object expressible in CML and is exemplified by crystallographic experiments and computational chemistry calculations. In both examples, the repository can hold >50k entries which can be searched by SPARQL endpoints and pre-indexing of key fields. The Chempound architecture is general and adaptable to other fields of data-rich science.

In his oft-quoted seminal paper ‘Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure For Scholarship In The Digital Age’ Clifford Lynch (2003) described the Institutional Repository as “a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members.” This paper seeks instead to define the repository service at a more primitive level, without the specialism of being an ‘Institutional Repository’, and looks at how it can viewed as providing a service within appropriate boundaries, and what that could mean for the future development of repositories, our expectations of what repositories should be, and how they could fit into the set of services required to deliver an Institutional Repository service as describe by Lynch.

The Digital Assets Repository (DAR) is an Institutional Repository developed at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina to manage the full lifecycle of a digital asset: its creation and ingestion, its metadata management, storage and archival in addition to the necessary mechanisms for publishing and dissemination. DAR was designed with a focus on integrating DAR with different sources of digital objects and metadata in addition to integration with applications built on top of the repository. As a modern repository, the system architecture demonstrates a modular design relying on components that are best of the breed, a flexible content model for digital objects based on current standards and heavily relying on RDF triples to define relations. In this paper we will demonstrate the building blocks of DAR as an example of a modern repository, discussing how the system addresses the challenges that face an institution in consolidating its assets and a focus on solving scalability issues.

The paper reviewed the emerging roles of the 21st century librarians, charged with the responsibility to manage repository services across libraries in present-day information technology environment. Librarians need to be trained and empowered with requisite skills and knowledge needed for successful management of the ICT driven repository initiatives that the 21st century demands. Literature was reviewed on the roles and responsibilities of librarians, training needs and opportunities, career path and recruitment of librarians, and community support necessary for effective and efficient implementation and management of repository initiatives. This entails the ability to comprehend trends and change patterns which are essential for providing research focused and user-friendly models in open repository services that are based on thorough analytical understanding of the challenges of emerging trends. To achieve this requires the training and retraining of librarians to reposition them as information specialists in their career path. The role of the library as an integral part of its social environment is to educate the community about the existence of an open repository by building partnership with community-oriented research centres through seminars, workshops, symposium, training, and awareness programmes. The study recommends that librarians should strategize and collaborate with researchers to make open repository an essential research tool.

Aim/Purpose: The need for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to maximize the use of their intellectual property and strategic resources for research and teaching has become ever more evident in recent years. Furthermore, little attention is paid in developing an enabling system that will facilitate knowledge transfer in the Research-Teaching Nexus (RTN). Hence, this study assesses the current state of practice in knowledge management of the nexus in higher education in Oman. It also explores the context of how Knowledge Management System (KMS) for the nexus can be designed and utilized by HEIs and challenges them to rethink their traditional approaches in managing their knowledge as-sets to boost individual and organizational learning. Background: This study provides a Knowledge Management-based framework and design of a knowledge management system that support the academic community towards the improvement of the nexus. This study sets out ideas from various academic and professional experts on how academic stakeholders in the higher education can improve and promote knowledge transfer and make better use of its knowledge and research assets for teaching and learning. It stressed the importance of having the knowledge assets or resources that can easily be pooled, accessed, and made available to its intended stakeholders. Methodology: Data were gathered from 29 out of 49 institutional quality audit reports of all HEIs in Oman. The panel comments were coded and analysed to extract valuable insights regarding the management of knowledge assets in research. Additionally, data were gathered from the institutional accreditation outcomes page of the same website. Manifest and latent content analyses were used in reporting the findings of the panel. Contribution: The study will contribute to a greater understanding and acceptance of Knowledge Management (KM) in higher education and extended the body of knowledge concerning knowledge management for the RTN. Findings: The reports revealed a very limited practice of the nexus in terms of people and culture, structure ad processes, and computing and web technologies. A few staff are involved in RTN work, there is an uneven understanding of the RTN among staff, limited joint research between staff and students are some of the reasons for this. Significantly, there is no explicit research framework or policy for the RTN, and systems and/or mechanisms are limited. Further-more, the reports did not account any use of computing and web technologies for the nexus. These limitations can lead to students with less academic, research, and graduate skills. Hence, this study presents a feature design of a KMS that incorporates various RTN best practices, as informed by the reports and literature. The design will allow the staff to utilize the research assets in the classroom, at the same time, engages students in research and scholarly under-takings. Recommendations for Practitioners: All HEIs must have a innovative system that integrates a formal agenda and approach, and set initiatives, strategies, policies, and procedures for knowledge management in utilizing research assets for teaching and learning. It must be designed so that RTN practices remain up-to-date, relevant, and responsive to the needs of the stakeholders, as well as, address academic accreditation challenges. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers can evaluate the knowledge management of RTN practices of other HEIs outside of Oman to effectively recommend the proper course of action for teaching and learning improvement. Impact on Society: This study will redefine the role and contribution of HEIs, which are key players in advancing a knowledge economy. HEIs are expected to be powerhouses where academic knowledge is discovered, created, disseminated, shared, and re-invented. They must be able to fully grasp the value of managing knowledge to be able to effect positive and purposeful change to the community. Future Research: Future work should include staff and student surveys that examine the knowledge management need of the learning organization to better inform the design of a KMS for the RTN. Thereafter, future research can test the stage to test the effectiveness of the conceptual design.

TAIPEI: A state-funded English-language broadcaster in Taiwan removed a video of one of its journalists calling US President-elect Donald Trump a “convicted felon”, after the Taipei government said the incident was “very serious”.

Taiwan has publicly congratulated Trump on his victory, joining other governments around the world in trying to get onside with the next US administration.

Washington has long been Taipei’s most important supporter, but Trump raised concerns on the campaign trail by suggesting Taiwan should pay the United States for its defence and accusing it of stealing the US semiconductor industry.

TaiwanPlus correspondent Louise Watt was speaking on camera in the United States last week when she said “the US is either going to vote in its first female president or its first convicted felon”.

“Well America looks like it’s chosen the felon,“ Watt said, in a clip shared by Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS and seen by AFP.

Taiwan Culture Minister Li Yuan told local media on Saturday that TaiwanPlus took down the video after he told the broadcaster “that this issue is very serious”.

Public Television Service Foundation, which manages TaiwanPlus, said Monday the broadcaster had “humbly reviewed its operational procedures” following the report.

The foundation said it will convene a “self-discipline” committee this week to “discuss the matter”.

TaiwanPlus broadcasts videos on its website, YouTube and cable television.

More than 90 percent of its viewers are overseas, the foundation said.

In 2023, TaiwanPlus began showing in US hotels in “key cities frequented by political and economic elites, such as Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle”, the foundation said.

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Monographs are fundamental for progress in systematic  botany. They are the vehicles for circumscribing and naming taxa, determining distributions and ecology,  assessing  relationships for formal classification, and interpreting long-term  and short-term  dimensions of the evolutionary process. Despite their importance, fewer monographs are now being prepared by the newer generation  of systematic  botanists, who are understandably involved principally with DNA data and analysis, especially for answering  phylogenetic, biogeographic, and population  genetic questions.  As monographs provide  hypotheses regarding species  boundaries and plant relationships, new insights  in many plant groups  are urgently  needed.  Increasing  pressures  on biodiversity, especially in tropical and developing regions of the world, emphasize this point. The results from a workshop (with 21 participants) reaffirm  the central role that monographs play in systematic  botany. But, rather than advocating abbreviated models  for monographic products,  we recommend a full presentation of relevant  information. Electronic  publication offers numerous  means of illustration of taxa, habitats, characters, and statistical and phylogenetic analyses, which previously  would have been prohibitively costly. Open Access and semantically enhanced  linked electronic  publications provide instant access to content from anywhere  in the world, and at the same time link this content to all underlying data and digital resources  used in the work.  Resources  in support  of monography, especially  databases  and widely  and easily  accessible  digital  literature and specimens, are now more powerful  than ever before, but interfacing and interoperability of databases  are much needed. Priorities  for new resources  to be developed  include an index of type collections and an online global chromosome database. Funding  for sabbaticals for monographers to work uninterrupted on major projects  is strongly  encouraged. We recommend that doctoral  students  be assigned  smaller  genera,  or natural  portions  of larger  ones (subgenera, sections,  etc.), to gain the necessary expertise for producing a monograph, including training in a broad array of data collection (e.g., morphology, anatomy, palynology, cytogenetics, DNA techniques, ecology, biogeography), data analysis (e.g., statistics,  phylogenetics, models), and nomenclature. Training programs, supported by institutes, associations, and agencies, provide means for passing on procedures and perspectives of challenging botanical  monography to the next generation  of young systematists.

The FP7 CLIMSAVE project ("Climate Change Integrated Assessment Methodology for Cross-Sectoral Adaptation and Vulnerability in Europe") finished at the end of 2013. The project developed the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment Platform which is a unique user-friendly, interactive web-based tool that enables stakeholders to interactively explore the complex multi-sectoral issues surrounding impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate and socio-economic change within the agriculture, forest, biodiversity, coast, water and urban sectors.  Two versions of the tool have been developed: one for Europe and one for Scotland.