Today home entertainment appliances are usually based on closed, proprietary hardware and software design supporting only a limited set of media types, stream formats, and entertainment options. With the availability of cheap, small, quiet, and powerful multimedia PCs, it is now possible to create an open and extensible PC-based platform for multimedia home entertainment. Based on a new multime...

The environments of software development and software provision are shifting to Web-based platforms supported by Platform/Software as a Service (PaaS/SaaS) models. This paper will make the case that there is equally an opportunity for mobile operators to identify additional sources of revenue by exposing network functionalities through Web-based service platforms. By elaborating on the concepts...

The recently created Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), originally focused on multilateral and global issues, is shifting its focus to address local issues and to include in its assessments local stakeholders and indigenous and traditional systems of knowledge. Acknowledging that full biodiversity governance is unavoidably rooted in participation of local...

This case presents the story of TutorVista, an ebusiness organization based in India that provides online tutoring services to students in different parts of the world. TutorVista had been able to meet growth expectations and gain recognition in the lucrative private tutoring market because of its innovative technology platform and business model. As a fledgling organization charting new territ...

Using X-ray crystallography, we have directly observed the path of mRNA in the 70S ribosome in Fourier difference maps at 7 A resolution. About 30 nucleotides of the mRNA are wrapped in a groove that encircles the neck of the 30S subunit. The Shine-Dalgarno helix is bound in a large cleft between the head and the back of the platform. At the interface, only about eight nucleotides (-1 to +7), c...

In virtual environment systems, the ultimate goal is delivery of the highest-fidelity user experience possible. This paper describes a general-form framework for optimizing fidelity on a per-task basis. The virtual world database is priority-ordered; the ordering is dynamically recomputed based on display platform, virtual world state, and (possibly shifting) task objectives. Optimization is pe...

Boundary resource theory has emerged as conceptual tool for understanding the complex relationship between platform owners and third-party developers. Drawing on existing theories of boundary objects and boundary spanning competence it suggests that platforms may offer influence over external ecosystems, yet keep them at arm’s length. To exercise such governance, however, platform owners have t...

a field study was undertaken with four farming systems (fs) such as; grasses and fodders, agro-forestry, agriculture (new farming systems) and shifting cultivation (old practice), to investigate the effect of land use on the soil properties, erosion and crop productivity on a loamy acidic alfisol. besides crops, the livestock were also kept and their dropping were incorporated in the respective...