This paper aims to address privacy concerns that arise from the use of mobile recommender systems when processing contextual information relating to the user. Mobile recommender systems aim to solve the information overload problem by recommending products or services to users of Web services on mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets, at any given point in time and in any possible location. They use recommendation methods, such as collaborative filtering or content-based filtering and use a considerable amount of contextual information to provide relevant recommendations. However, because of privacy concerns, users are not willing to provide the required personal information that would allow their views to be recorded and make these systems usable. This work is focused on user privacy by providing a method for context privacy-preservation and privacy protection at user interface level. Thus, a set of algorithms that are part of the method has been designed with privacy protection in mind, which is done by using realistic dummy parameter creation. To demonstrate the applicability of the method, a relevant context-aware data set has been used to run performance and usability tests. The proposed method has been experimentally evaluated using performance and usability evaluation tests and is shown that with a small decrease in terms of performance, user privacy can be protected. This is a novel research paper that proposed a method for protecting the privacy of mobile recommender systems users when context parameters are used.

This paper is one of the first attempts to address the fundamental barriers to the adoption of online crowdfunding mechanisms in a developing country by offering a new online/offline fundraising model. The focus is on Nigeria as a typical example of an environment that, unlike that in the developed world, is not fully conducive to social networking as a crowdfunding platform due to both economic and technological issues. Using a mixed research method, the study first compares the state of the art in crowdfunding in a developed and developing economy by interviewing two groups of 20 entrepreneurs from the UK and Nigeria, respectively. The differences between those in terms of crowdfunding facilitation are identified, and propositions for the Nigerian market are formulated. These are then tested statistically by surveying 160 randomly selected Nigerian fundraisers. Based on the outcomes of the thematic analysis and statistical modelling, a unique integrated online/offline crowdfunding model is proposed. It is particularly aimed at supporting entrepreneurial activities and related policymaking that can have a key impact on further social and economic development of these countries. The proposed model can be considered as an alternative novel fundraising instrument in regions where socioeconomic and technological challenges inhibit the adoption of traditional crowdfunding approaches.

Electronic Government applications have been the focus of hundreds of local and national government administrations all over the world during the past decade. The emphasis of most of these applications lies in their effort to improve the experience of the user in interacting with public administration services and to minimise waiting times in completing transactions public services and citizens. Early applications were relying mainly on the speed and simplicity of submitting a request by the user while most of the work beyond the web based interaction was carried out as in the era before the introduction of the web based applications. The benefits from such endeavours have been short lived as citizens are looking for real enhancements in the way public administration serves their needs and responds to their requests. The authors argue that for e-government applications to succeed, considerable changes in the way public administration organizes itself and how it utilizes information management systems to respond to user / citizen requirements including and addressing the goals of all stakeholders involved are required. Currently the number of successful applications to that end is quite low when compared to the projects implemented and the resources invested in such systems so far. The authors propose steps that would maintain the focus of future implementations in doing so. They also identify the next steps for research in addressing this complex and ever evolving issue.