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The purpose of this paper is to follow up on the 2009 publication “Building a virtual branch at Vancouver Public Library (VPL) using Web 2.0 tools” and to explore the work that VPL has been doing in the social media space over the past two years.

Following the launch of its new web site in 2008, Vancouver Public Library has continued to expand its online presence, both via its own web properties and in the social media space. At the core of the library's approach to web services is the desire to take the community development model online, and engage with communities in the spaces of their choosing.

The Web Team has been active in moving into the social media space, and was an early adopter of popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The social bookmarking site Delicious also became an integral part of the new web site, being used as a management tool for the library's extensive collection of recommended web links. Since 2008 the Web Team has piloted a variety of other Web 2.0 and social media tools, pushing the library's online presence into new spaces while continuing to build on the successes experienced by its established accounts.

Libraries are very conscious of the need to leverage social media tools to engage with patrons, but are also facing the challenge of managing these tools with reduced staff and funding. VPL's success in this space offers a model of how to use these tools effectively to engage patrons, develop community, and maximize resources in a time of constrained budgets.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the work undertaken by Vancouver Public Library (VPL) in an effort to convert its website into a true virtual branch, both through the functionality of the website itself and by extending its web presence on to external social networking sites.

VPL worked with its development partners to conduct a thorough community consultation to ensure that the new VPL website would be truly user‐focused. Since the site's launch, VPL has made strategic management of both its internal and external web presence a key organisational priority, reflected in its creation of two new professional positions which include co‐ordination of VPL's internal and external web presence as part of their job specification.

VPL has demonstrated that it is possible to take a systematic, integrated, thoughtful approach to the adoption of Web 2.0 tools and technologies in order to enhance web services without sacrificing quality or control.

As many public libraries consider their options with regard to the integration of Web 2.0 tools and technologies, VPL offers an example of good practice in strategic selection and management of these tools to optimise the delivery of web‐based library services.

Cybersecurity training plays a decisive role in overcoming the global shortage of cybersecurity experts and the risks this shortage poses to organizations' assets. Seeking to make the training of those experts as efficacious and efficient as possible, this study investigates the potential of visual programming languages (VPLs) for training in cyber ranges. For this matter, the VPL Blockly was integrated into an existing cyber range training to facilitate learning a code-based cybersecurity task, namely, creating code-based correlation rules for a security information and event management (SIEM) system.

To evaluate the VPL’s effect on the cyber range training, the authors conducted a user study as a randomized controlled trial with 30 participants. In this study, the authors compared skill development of participants creating SIEM rules using Blockly (experimental group) with participants using a textual programming approach (control group) to create the rules.

This study indicates that using a VPL in a cybersecurity training can improve the participants' perceived learning experience compared to the control group while providing equally good learning outcomes.

The originality of this work lies in studying the effect of using a VPL to learn a code-based cybersecurity task. Investigating this effect in comparison with the conventional textual syntax through a randomized controlled trial has not been investigated yet.

Relying on a design science paradigm, the purpose of this paper is to describe the development and evaluation of items for an ICT artefact that supports the assessment of transversal professional competences within the validation of prior learning (VPL). To do so, the authors build a conceptual bridge between the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) and the European Qualifications Framework (EQF).

Design science research paradigm, in particular the participatory development of candidate items and their evaluation in a multi-stakeholder approach.

The authors find that a self-assessment of professional competences should be comprised of 160 items in order to cover the breadth and depth of the O*NET in the hierarchical taxonomy. Such quantity of items sufficiently builds a conceptual bridge between the O*NET and the; EQF.

When designing procedures for the VPL, it is imperative to bear in mind the purpose of the validation procedure, in order to determine relevant stakeholders and their needs in advance as well as the; required language proficiency of the assessment instrument.

The innovative value of this approach lies in the combination of an underlying hierarchical taxonomy with assessment items that are developed based on the qualification standards of different Austrian professions. Together with specific verbs that were adapted for each particular item, an innovative self-assessment is proposed. Thereby the authors aim to account for some of the mentioned shortcomings of the EQF.

This paper applies a design science paradigm to develop an ICT artefact that should support the VPL. By reflecting on the design process, the authors introduce a theoretical bridge between the O*NET and the EQF. Thereby the authors aim to account for some of the mentioned shortcomings of the EQF.

Economic load dispatch (ELD) is one of the crucial optimization problems in power system planning and operation. The ELD problem with valve point loading (VPL) and multi-fuel options (MFO) is defined as a non-smooth and non-convex optimization problem with equality and inequality constraints, which obliges an efficient heuristic strategy to be addressed. The purpose of this study is to present a new and powerful heuristic optimization technique (HOT) named as squirrel search algorithm (SSA) to solve non-convex ELD problems of large-scale power plants.

The suggested SSA approach is aimed to minimize the total fuel cost consumption of power plant considering their generation values as decision variables while satisfying the problem constraints. It confers a solution to the ELD issue by anchoring with foraging behavior of squirrels based on the dynamic jumping and gliding strategies. Furthermore, a heuristic approach and selection rules are used in SSA to handle the constraints appropriately.

Empirical results authenticate the superior performance of SSA technique by validating on four different large-scale systems. Comparing SSA with other HOTs, numerical results depict its proficiencies with high-qualitative solution and by its excellent computational efficiency to solve the ELD problems with non-smooth fuel cost function addressing the VPL and MFO. Moreover, the non-parametric tests prove the robustness and efficacy of the suggested SSA and demonstrate that it can be used as a competent optimizer for solving the real-world large-scale non-convex ELD problems.

This study has compared various HOTs to determine optimal generation scheduling for large-scale ELD problems. Consequently, its comparative analysis will be beneficial to power engineers for accurate generation planning.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this manuscript is the first research work of using SSA approach for solving ELD problems. Consequently, the solution to this problem configures the key contribution of this paper.

The purpose of this paper is based on implementation of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technique in civil aviation for recovery of aircraft position using Single Point Positioning (SPP) method in kinematic mode.

The aircraft coordinates in ellipsoidal frame were obtained based on Global Positioning System (GPS) code observations for SPP method. The numerical computations were executed in post-processing mode in the Aircraft Positioning Software (APS) package. The mathematical scheme of equation observation of SPP method was solved using least square estimation in stochastic processing. In the experiment, airborne test using Cessna 172 aircraft on September 07, 2011 in the civil aerodrome in Mielec was realized. The aircraft position was recovery using observations data from Topcon HiperPro dual-frequency receiver with interval of 1 second.

In this paper, the average value of standard deviation of aircraft position is about 0.8 m for Latitude, 0.7 m for Longitude and 1.5 m for ellipsoidal height, respectively. In case of the Mean Radial Spherical Error (MRSE) parameter, the average value equals to 1.8 m. The standard deviation of receiver clock bias was presented in this paper and the average value amounts to 34.4 ns. In this paper, the safety protection levels of Horizontal Protection Level (HPL) and Vertical Protection Level (VPL) were also showed and described.

In this paper, the analysis of aircraft positioning is focused on application the least square estimation in SPP method. The Kalman filtering operation can be also applied in SPP method for designation the position of the aircraft.

The SPP method can be applied in civil aviation for designation the position of the aircraft in Non-Precision Approach (NPA) GNSS procedure at the landing phase. The typical accuracy of aircraft position is better than 220 m for lateral navigation in NPA GNSS procedure. The limit of accuracy of aircraft position in vertical plane in NPA GNSS procedure is not available.

This paper is destined for people who works in the area of aviation and air transport.

The work presents that SPP method as a universal technique for recovery of aircraft position in civil aviation, and this method can be also used in positioning of aircraft based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) code observations.

This paper aims to introduce an information and communication technology (ICT) artifact that uses text mining to support the innovative and standardized assessment of professional competences within the validation of prior learning (VPL). Assessment means comparing identified and documented professional competences against a standard or reference point. The designed artifact is evaluated by matching a set of curriculum vitae (CV) scraped from LinkedIn against a comprehensive model of professional competence.

A design science approach informed the development and evaluation of the ICT artifact presented in this paper.

A proof of concept shows that the ICT artifact can support assessors within the validation of prior learning procedure. Rather the output of such an ICT artifact can be used to structure documentation in the validation process.

Evaluating the artifact shows that ICT support to assess documented learning outcomes is a promising endeavor but remains a challenge. Further research should work on standardized ways to document professional competences, ICT artifacts capture the semantic content of documents, and refine ontologies of theoretical models of professional competences.

Text mining methods to assess professional competences rely on large bodies of textual data, and thus a thoroughly built and large portfolio is necessary as input for this ICT artifact.

Following the recent call of European policymakers to develop standardized and ICT-based approaches for the assessment of professional competences, an ICT artifact that supports the automatized assessment of professional competences within the validation of prior learning is designed and evaluated.

Virtual Reality (VR) refers to the computer generation of realistic three‐dimensional artificial worlds in which humans, typically equipped with head‐mounted 3D displays, interactive gloves and even whole‐body suits, can be ‘immersed’, and are free to explore and interact with graphical objects in real time, using such natural skills as looking from different angles, moving, pointing, grasping, listening and talking. The early history behind the emergence of VR is short and incredibly intense and characterized by a small group of familiar names. As one of the key figures, Myron Krueger has described it, ‘…Like particles in a fission reaction, personnel from one project disband and reappear with new affiliations’. That reaction continues today, with a reproduction of the American experience in Europe.

This paper aims to present the problem of the integration of the global positioning system (GPS)/global navigation satellite system (GLONASS) data for the processing of aircraft position determination.

The aircraft coordinates were obtained based on GPS and GLONASS code observations for the single point positioning (SPP) method. The numerical computations were executed in the aircraft positioning software (APS) package. The mathematical scheme of equation observation of the SPP method was solved using least square estimation in stochastic processing. In the research experiment, the raw global navigation satellite system data from the Topcon HiperPro onboard receiver were applied.

In the paper, the mean errors of an aircraft position from APS were under 3 m. In addition, the accuracy of aircraft positioning was better than 6 m. The integrity term for horizontal protection level and vertical protection level parameters in the flight test was below 16 m.

The paper presents only the application of GPS/GLONASS observations in aviation, without satellite data from other navigation systems.

The presented research method can be used in an aircraft based augmentation system in Polish aviation.

The paper is addressed to persons who work in aviation and air transport.

The paper presents the SPP method as a satellite technique for the recovery of an aircraft position in an aviation test.

The purpose of this work is to obtain an overbounded broadcast sigma from actual (non-Gaussian) correction error distribution under the stringent navigation integrity requirements for aircraft precision approach and landing.

Approach is statistically to overbound satellite pseudorange correction error distribution with the use of numerical solution of Fisher-Z transformation. Inflation factors for overbounding broadcast sigma are extracted from Fisher-Z transformation based on measured correlation and counted independent identically distributed (iid) sample sizes of true empirical data.

New overbounded broadcast sigma values for eight long-pass satellites were obtained based on measured actual empirical data and ensured integrity risk at 10⁻⁸ probability level. Proposed methodology successfully overbounds ground reflection multipath-type systematic and temporal errors sources.

This paper introduced a new method of accounting for ground reflection multipath for local area augmentation system/ground-based augmentation system navigation integrity. The method is also applicable to statistically overbound any other serially correlated temporal variation in measured data if both correlation values and finite iid sample sizes are known.