As long as students use Web 2.0 tools extensively for social purposes, there is an opportunity to improve students' engagement in Higher Education by using these tools for academic purposes under a Personal Learning Environment approach (PLE 2.0). The success of these attempts depends upon the reactions and acceptance of users towards e-learning using Web 2.0. This paper aims to analyse the fac...

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology allows for the implementation of novel contactless payment systems in stationary retail. In this paper, we quantitatively analyze the impact of such systems on a retailer's payment costs on the example of real-world data from a Swiss food retailer. Our results indicate that the introduction of contactless payment under current card fee models would in v...

A new method of calculating the asymmetry parameter from aircraft microphysical observations is discussed and has been applied to aircraft data where direct measurements are available. Recent parameterizations of the asymmetry parameter often are based on theoretical ray-tracing results for simple particle shapes. One recent theory, which has gained prominence, is the use of equivalent surface ...

Moinuddin Ghauri 1,*, Khurram Shahzad 2,*, Abrar Inayat 3, Zulfiqar Ali 4, Waqar Ali Khan 5, Javaid Akhtar 2 and Keith R. Cliffe 6 1 Department of Chemical Engineering, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Defence Road, Off Raiwind Road, Lahore 54000, Pakistan 2 Centre for Coal Technology, University of the Punjab, Lahore 54000, Pakistan; [email protected] 3 Department of Sustainable...

Prior studies indicate that perceived risk is an important determinant of the adoption of commerce-related IT innovations. However, little work has investigated how risk perceptions are formulated in consideration of different demographic attributes. Based on a sample of 377 useful responses, this study quantifies how different risk dimensions (privacy risk, performance risk, psychological risk...

This paper presents a printed near field communication system that can be integrated into everyday objects, like paper products or plastic parts. The interface is realised by high-volume production technologies, like printing and injection moulding, as they allow for the integration of “low-end” electronics at low costs and, thus, potentially enable a wide spreading of the technology. As a firs...