Dissertation Abstracts International

Dissertation Abstracts International (DAI) is an unparalleled and well-established information service for dissertation literature. Dissertation Abstracts International is divided into two sections, namely Section A (Humanities & Social Sciences) and Section B (Sciences & Engineering). Dissertation Abstracts International -A and B list over 3000 dissertations each month, most of them from North American and British institutions. Full manuscripts are microfilmed and made available for sale. The author or university pays a fee for this service.

Dissertation Abstracts International Section C
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The purpose of Dissertation Abstracts International -C is to enhance the value of the Dissertation Abstracts International service by increasing its worldwide coverage and thus respond to the recognized need for an expanded source for dissertation literature. Dissertation Abstracts International -C publishes abstracts free of charge; full manuscripts are not microfilmed or made available for sale. DAI-C is a bibliographic information service only, but the quarterly issues are distributed widely.

Section C is devoted to dissertations from throughout the world in all disciplines. Publication started in 1976 and is quarterly. The internal organization of material within Section C is by subject and each issue includes author and keyword indexes. For all titles, including those in foreign languages, English keywords are used for the generation of the subject indexes to avoid dispersing synonymous terms (e.g., railway, chemin de fer, Eisenbahn, ferrovia) throughout a single-sequence index or creating more than one index sequence. A cumulated author index is issued at the end of the volume year. Beginning with 1988 issues, DAI-C data is also included in Dissertation Abstracts Online, Dissertation Abstracts Ondisc, and the annual Comprehensive Dissertation Index.

Benefits of Contributing to DAI Section C
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The results of much of the research carried out at institutions of advanced education are embodied in doctoral dissertations, and it is in the interests of authors, librarians, and other academics, including post-graduate students conducting doctoral research, that information should be disseminated concerning recently completed doctoral research. The DAI system has been developed to achieve this end, and Section C has adopted all of its features. The chief benefits of the system are set out below:

Bibliographic Control:
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Full bibliographic details are given: author, dissertation title, degree date, institution, language of text, and, where known, number of dissertation pages.
Abstracts:
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A second level of depth is provided by abstracts, which enable researchers to decide whether the consultation of a complete text is necessary for their own work.
Complete Texts:
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Information is given on the availability of copies of dissertations, provided the author has submitted publisher information.
Subject Access:
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A keyword indexing system is employed to offer subject access to dissertations recorded. Since a doctoral dissertation is frequently the author's first significant published work, this is
a more useful tool than author indexes alone.
Current Awareness:
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Even the most comprehensive reading and the most cultured "grapevine" cannot guarantee that a researcher is always up-to-date. DAI offers assistance in a sometimes elusive sphere of literature.

UK English Schools

London's popularity with overseas students is well-known - young people come from all over Europe and the rest of the world to study the English language and culture in its very birthplace; and what better place to learn English than the capital of the United Kingdom'
Although London's vehemently multicultural society is common knowledge these days - with over 1,500 immigrants per day, the UK as a whole is a centre for immigration; and London is said to house over 300 different languages, all of which are regularly spoken within city limits. UK English schools thrive on the constant turnaround generated by overseas students and immigration. As clearly the most cosmopolitan city in Europe (with its internationalism only truly comparable with New York), London stands out not so much as a quintessentially English-speaking city, but certainly the city from which tens of thousands of people each year are given their first taste of the British tongue. Unlike New York, however, London's multicultural communities are spread throughout the entire city, with relatively few areas specific to any racial subgroup. However multicultural London may be, however, an English school in London is a hugely superior alternative to overseas students learning English in their native country, as the best way to learn a second language is to immerse yourself within it, to the point where you are forced to converse in order to survive. In London, English lessons take place on the streets as well as in the classroom.
As the world's universal language, and with over a billion speakers worldwide, English is so often the best option as a secondary language for non-native speakers, giving them access to world business, media and culture without the need for constant translation. English courses in London (and the rest of the UK) come in a variety of flavours to suit all needs, from general English courses, to academic English for foreign students hoping to attend a UK university, as well as business and executive courses for those needing to sharpen up their skills for their occupation.

Premium SMS As A Pivotal Marketing Tool

Premium SMS is a type of mobile offering that allows people to access messaging-based services like content downloads, chats, polls, mobile sweepstakes, and much more. While most people use premium SMS for recreational purposes, there are some very practical uses for premiums SMS. These include subscriptions for stock information updates, weather updates, and movie schedule listings.

With each succeeding year, analysts are seeing significant increases in the consumption of premium SMS services. Most of these revenues have gone to companies which have invested in promoting brands through this new dynamic mobile experience. Part of the success of premium SMS services has plenty to do with its evolution from being a simple mobile messaging novelty to a useful, data-on-demand technology. While the internet changed the way information was made available to users, premium SMS is making information even more accessible by making it readily available to devices that are, literally, always at hand.

Companies that offer information services and media downloads have traditionally relied on the internet to deliver their products. But it also makes a lot of sense to provide them through mobile handsets because they are more prevalent and accessible than computers. Content providers see premium SMS as a fast and easy way to deliver content and an easy way to bill customers for their purchases. For consumers, premium SMS is the fastest way to get the latest content whenever they want it.

An increasing demand for personalizing mobile handsets, especially among the younger population, is another factor driving premium SMS revenues. Media companies who need to bring their brands to the mass market should seriously consider utilizing premium SMS in their marketing methods. Premium SMS is affordable, easy to deploy and provides an extremely wide reach. As was noted in a recent survey conducted by Sprint, 81 percent of women and 75 percent of men personalize their mobile phones. Clearly there is an excellent opportunity for companies to take advantage of premium SMS.

Premium SMS has enormous potential in marketing. However, choosing a premium SMS provider is not always easy. There are a number of players out there providing services that appear to be similar with each other. What qualities should one look for in a mobile services provider to ensure a successful mobile marketing campaign? Partnering with the right mobile messaging company is pivotal to your success. Here are a few questions you should ask:

1.) Are the services they offer competitively priced and reliable? Can they offer you a demo of their offerings? What if you have more sophisticated needs in the future? Can the company accommodate this? Does the company offer a wide range of premium SMS services?

2.) Does the company provide intuitive tools to manage your premium SMS campaigns? Are these tools easy to use, even for non-technical people? What about the level of customer service the company provides?

3.) Is the company reputable? Does the company have a roster of important clients? Are you dealing with a company that is an expert in the industry?

Remember that choosing the right provider will ensure your success in mobile marketing.

Reading On The Move Without A Pda, All You Need Is Your Mobile Phone

Displaying texts: books, news, mass media messages, helps or documents is among the most used functions of any PDA. Articles are no exception. Just download a couple of dozen of articles on whatever the subject - from a site like this one into your PDA - and read away anyplace. Before you know, you become quite familiar with the subject you read on.

Yet what can one do when there is no PDA? None at all or none available at a time. However, at a time like this, there is something you never leave behind, which is... your cellular phone. Expensive modern telephones display texts, even though making reading not quite as comfortable as palmtops do. However, most cheap or outdated telephones can do the same with just about as much convenience as when using a PDA. This capability is based on a seemingly very simple idea. A text is converted into a Java application which can be loaded into a mobile phone the same way one downloads games or other applications like, for instance, a calculator. You do that and that is it. Read all you want anyplace where you have nothing but you cellular phone. For the modern person, having a mobile phone along has become more commonplace than having home keys or a wallet. And as long as you have your phone along, you can read anything you want to or must.

We know several desktop PC programs that will make such Java applications for you. Different in small details, they all work alike. Install one of these programs on your desktop, start it and load in the text you need. After that, you will have to set several parameters like the type of your mobile phone, font color and size, background color, scrolling and navigation methods, etc. This done, the Java application is compiled and loaded into the mobile phone according to its manual. Read and enjoy.

The functionality and capabilities of such applications are close to those of modern PDA reading programs. Normally, there is automatic scrolling, bookmark capability, navigation, text search and such. You can read comfortably even when all you have is a totally outdated cellular telephone. When you do that, just do not forget that your phone may also be used for making calls.

Konstantin Frid is the webmaster and publisher of www.RifcoMobile.com and www.bizPla.net.

Open Source Software - Licensing Issues or Not?

The Wikipedia Encyclopedia describes open source as “practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's sources”. Before the label open source was coined, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept. In fact, earlier researchers used a process which is similar to open standards to develop telecommunication network protocols. Characterized by contemporary open source work, this collaborative process led to the birth of the Internet in 1969. Its application to software gained popularity with the emergence of the Internet. It is said that the open source label came out of a strategy session held at Palo Alto, California, in reaction to Netscape’s announcement that it planned to release the source code for its browser Navigator. The politically correct version is that to clarify a potential confusion caused by the ambiguity of the word “free”, so that the perception of free software is not anti-commercial, the label open source (contributed by Chris Peterson) stuck. The un-official version is that it was to shed the confrontational attitude that had been associated with free software in the past and sell the idea on pragmatic, business case grounds to the commercial world. Whatever it may be, Netscape listened and released their code as open source under the name of Mozilla. That was the beginning of the contemporary open source movement, whose main champion today allegedly is the Open Source Initiative (“OSI”) which makes and continues to make a case for the open source software to the commercial world. Consequently, we have seen the application of the open source philosophy in other fields inlcuding biotechnology. Linus Torvalds, a finnish software engineer who initiated the development of the Linux kernel went as far as saying “the future is open source everything”.

According to the OSI, the case for open source software is simple – free access to read, redistribute and modify the source code of a piece of software results in a rapid evolutionary process that produces better software. Advocates of open source argue that when programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing.

However, evangelists of free software have been at pains to clarify that open source software is not synonymous with free software. The philosophy of the open source movement is based on practicality and not ethical considerations while free software is based on freedom, not price. Borrowing from Richard M. Stallman, “free software” and “open source” describe the same category of software, more or less, but say different things about the software, and about values. While the two are not synonymous, both have a common enemy – proprietary software.

Critics of open source say that “open source” fosters an ambiguity of a different kind, in that it confuses the mere availability of the source code with the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute it. But open source doesn't just mean access to the source code; the use of open-source software must comply with a number of criteria including as to re-distribution, depending on the license under which it is distributed. Different licenses require different criteria. For instance, under the GNU General Public License (GPL) published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for licensing free software, any work based on the program or any other derivative work must be licensed as a whole at no charge at all to all third parties under the terms of the GNU GPL, whereas an Apache License does not require derivative works to be open source. You can add your own copyright statement to modifications of a source code under Apache License and provide additional or different license terms and conditions for use, reproduction, or distribution of your modifications, or for any derivative works as a whole, provided your use, reproduction, and distribution of the work otherwise complies with conditions of the Apache License. Similarly, there is no requirement that any derivative work created under an Academic Free License (AFL) or a Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) License, should be distributed at all, or for free if distributed. Further, any derivative work need not be free and one can charge for it as you would for proprietary software.

The subtle licensing criteria between open source generally and free software is further highlighted when you consider that some licenses are not compatible. For instance, programs/source code distributed under PHP License is not compatible with GNU GPL since GNU GPL is a copyleft license, which raises a couple of licensing issues:

(1) Why are there different criteria under different licenses for open source software? Presently, there are about 54 licenses certified by OSI as open source – a tribute to OSI’s philosophy – which many now see as an unnecessary proliferation of licenses, an issue that forced OSI to admit that -

“OSI's approach on the development and distribution problems involved building as many different bridges as possible between developers and the corporate world. In doing this, we accepted a proliferation of new licenses. This is a problem in that although physical bridges between communities don't interfere with each other, licenses do. Interference between different open-source licenses is now perceived as a sufficiently serious problem that OSI has become as a victim of its own earlier success.”

To address the issue of proliferation, OSI plans to take all existing OSI approved licenses and group them into three tiers: (i) preferred, (ii) recommended but not preferred, and (iii) not recommended. This is likely to create more confusion. One would then ask why an OSI certified license would be OSI “not recommended” license. Would a ‘not recommended’ tag not be deemed as de-approval (though OSI says its not). It would be ‘preferable’ not to have certified such license as OSI approved in the first place.

(2) Why are some licenses not compatible with others? We may well appreciate that compatibility goes beyond the issue of license proliferation. For example, the FSF considers all versions of the Apache License incompatible with Version 2 of the GNU GPL. About version 2.0 of the Apache License, they say:

"The Apache Software License is incompatible with the GPL because it has a specific requirement that is not in the GPL: it has certain patent termination cases that the GPL does not require. (We don't think those patent termination cases are inherently a bad idea, but nonetheless they are incompatible with the GNU GPL.)"

Apache Software Foundation (ASF), which publishes the Apache License, has adequately replied to FSF’s statement, stating that ASF does not share the same goals as FSF. For the time being, the controversy rages on. Compatibility is really a relationship issue; free software movement and the open source movement can be likened to two political camps within the free software community. While it can be argued that GNU GPL is not compatible with a number of licenses because the philosophy behind GNU GPL is freedom – which proponents of free software have cried themselves hoarse from the rooftops for decades now – GNU GPL itself publishes a list of free/open source software licenses that are GPL incompatible, distinguishing between non-copyleft and ‘not strong copyleft’. Even, copyleft licenses like xinetd have also not been spared and was held incompatible because it places extra restrictions on redistribution of modified versions that contradict the redistribution requirements in the GPL. Don’t they share the same goals? Yet the free software movement has complained that to be lumped together with open source software is restrictive for free software since open source software allegedly has a much weaker criterion than free software. Then one may ask, what is the criteria for determining compatibility with GNU GPL even for copyleft free software licenses? At least FSF is not intending to classify licenses in the same manner as OSI – for now.

(3) Don’t some of these licenses support a ‘one way’ street attitude described by John Udell in the Open Source Citizenship where developers are encouraged to take and not give back to the community. Or it could be akin to the situation described by Stallman where commercial developers invited to the “Open Source Developers Day” meeting in August 1998 said they intend to make only a part of their work free software (or open source) since the focus of their business is on developing proprietary add-ons (software or manuals) to sell to the users of the free software. According to Stallman, those developers requested that this should be regarded as legitimate, as part of the community, because some of the money is donated to free software development. Whichever way you look at it, it is a dangerous trend for the future of open source software. The ideals and philosophy of open source is threatened by the ‘marriage of convenience’ of open source with the commercial world, which makes a strong case for the traditional free software movement. It is, perhaps, taking the adage ‘making a case to the commercial world’ too far. Eventually, there may such a blend of both the open source movement and the commercial world that we are not able to distinguish between the two. The enemy would have sneaked in unawares and made sport of all ideals and philosophies of the open source movement.

These are all valid concerns that the open source community needs to address. In closing I have a word of advise for the open source movement from my grandmother which I find appropriate – If you don’t know where you’re going, remember where you’re coming from.

Sources

1. Wikipedia Encyclopedia
2. Open Source Initiative
3. The Free Software Foundation
4. The Apache Software Foundation
5. Richard M. Stallman in “Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution”
6. John Udell “Open Source Citizenship”.

Purchasing a Video Card

A video card or graphic card is a device that allows for the visualization of images on your computer monitor. Without the card you would not be able to view images, play games or see colors. If you are anything less than a graphics card expect, the shopping process for a video card can be grueling. With a bit of knowledge it should make the trip easier and you may just come home with the correct video card. There are currently more than sixty types of video cards that range in price and specifications. In order to decide which card is right for you there are a few things that you must understand first. Keep in mind the type of computer, purpose and uses of the computer, as well as the expectations for rendered image. After that is all decided you must remember your budget when shopping for the video card.

The type of computer that you have is one of the most important issues when deciding on a video card. You must ensure the compatibility of the card with your PC or it could be a waste of money. To ensure compatibility you will need to know what type of card slot the computers mother board has for the video card. There are three types of card slots that we will discuss further.

• PCI Slot – the PCI slot is short for Peripheral Component Interconnect and is not exclusive with any one processor type. PCI was the first expansion slot made by computer manufacturers. The PCI has limited performance, but there are several value cards that offer acceptable performance.

• AGP Slot – the AGP slot is short for Accelerated Graphics Port. AGP has many versions and was first designed for 3D gaming abilities. Today the AGP 2.0 and 3.0 are sold, but the 1.0 is no longer in use.

• PCI Express – this is the latest card slot and is up to four times faster than the PCI slot or AGP slot. The PCI Express was made with the intention of replacing the PCI and AGP slots for the extended performance ability. Note PCI and PCI Express are not compatible and are very different products, not to be confused with one another.

Along with knowing the card slot type you must also know the requirements and specifications of the CPU. When we refer to requirements and specifications we mean the CPU type and speed. If you are purchasing a video card for regular viewing the 500 MHz will suffice, but for optimal use the 800 MHz is suggested. When viewing images it is important to have a higher MHz or your system may become overloaded. The 1600 MHz range is suggested for limited 3D gaming and running other applications such as business applications or graphics. For optimal 3D gaming the minimum CPU would be 2.4 GHz. Much of the CPU speed depends on computer use and personal budget. The faster the CPU the better and more realistic the special effects are. Cost rises as CPU speed rises!