Computer mediated communication (CMC), a central feature of cyberspace, is also a key resource for the creation of innovative technology-based educational environments. However, the real significance of these environments for education is still unclear. Our aim in this paper is to propose a particular educational configuration based on CMC technology, the Learnet, based on the combination of th...

The tendency is strong to take the notion of "conflict of interests" for granted as if it had an invariant meaning and an ethical content independent of the historical context. It is doubtful however, from an historical and sociological point of view, that many of the cases now considered as instances of "conflicts of interests" would also have been conceived and perceived as such in, say, the ...

The number of accessible web pages in Internet increases every day and it becomes more and more difficult to deal with such a huge source of information. In literature many approaches have been proposed to provide users with high-quality links extracted from the thousands of irrelevant ones. In this paper, we present Implicit, a system that combines recommender system and multi-agent system app...

As organizations grow in size, geographical scope, and complexity, it is increasingly apparent that sponsorship and support of communities of practice—groups whose members regularly engage in sharing and learning, based on common interests—can improve organizational performance. Although many authors assert that communities of practice create organizational value, there has been relatively litt...

Wildlife crime is a complex problem with many interconnected facets, which are generally responded to in parts or fragments in efforts to “break down” the complexity into manageable components. However, fragmentation increases complexity as coherence and cooperation become diluted. A whole-of-society approach has been developed towards finding a common goal and integrated approach to preventing...

In June 2007 a number of scientific and medical journal editors gathered to discuss the possibility of developing a common standard with regard to the disclosure of conflicts of interest . The meeting was a response to the widespread concern among members of the research community, policy makers, and the general public that failure to disclose conflicts of interest in research publications refl...

The advent of relatively inexpensive tools for characterizing microbial communities has led to an explosion of research exploring the diversity, ecology, and evolution of microbe-host systems. Some now question whether existing conceptual frameworks are adequate to explain microbe-host systems. One popular paradigm is the "holobiont-hologenome," which argues that a host and its microbiome evolv...

We discuss the role and characteristics of informal learning in a community computing context. We argue that minimalist design can be adapted to the needs of community computing, and that its principles can be used to envision and develop community activities and technologies that promote active learning. We illustrate these ideas with several community computing projects that exemplify how to ...

Computational, data, and service grids, peer to peer systems, and wireless communication systems are examples of open systems where the distinction between providers and consumers of resources is blurred. Individual members of the community contribute computing cycles, storage, services, and communication bandwidth to the pool of resources available to the entire community. While the popularity...