bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Prioritizing Disease Genes and Understanding Disease Pathways
Authors: Zhao Xiaoyue , Iakoucheva Lilia M. , Zhang Michael Q.
Published: May 2011

Genetic factors play a major role in the etiology of many human diseases. Genome-wide experimental methods produce an increasing number of genes associated with such diseases. This chapter introduces data sources, bioinformatics tools, and computational methods for prioritizing disease candidate genes and identifying disease pathways. The main strategy is to examine the similarity among the candidate genes and known disease genes at the functional level. The authors review different similarity measures and prevailing methods for integrating results from different functional aspects. They hope this chapter will help advocate many useful resources that the researchers can use to investigate diseases of their interest.
Dynamics of Protein-Protein Interaction Network in Plasmodium Falciparum
Authors: Mohanty Smita , Pandit Shashi Bhushan , Srinivasan Narayanaswamy
Published: May 2011

Integration of organism-wide protein interactome data with information on expression of genes, cellular localization of proteins and their functions has proved extremely useful in developing biologically intuitive interaction networks. This chapter highlights the dynamics in protein interaction network across different stages in the lifecycle of Plasmodium falciparum, a malarial parasite, and the implication of the network dynamics in different physiological processes. The main focus of the chapter is the integration of information on experimentally derived interactions of P.falciparum proteins with expression data and analysis of the implications of interactions in different cellular processes. Extensive analysis has been made to quantify the interaction dynamics across various stages, as well as correlating it with the dynamics of the cellular pathways involving the interacting proteins. The authors’ analysis demonstrates the power of strategic integration of genome-wide datasets in extracting information on dynamics of biological pathways and processes.
Employee Preparation, Participation, and Performance
Authors: Ellis Katy E.
Published: May 2011

Project management is a carefully planned, organized effort to manage the resources in order to successfully accomplish specific project goals and objectives. It involves the entire life cycle of a project right from the feasibility study of the project, project planning, implementation, evaluation, support, and maintenance of the project. Each phase of the project is a vast topic within project management. The topic of interest for this chapter is quality assurance and its relationship project management. By defining quality and situating the concept within the frame of project management, the authors’ scope and understanding of project completion will be improved.
Static and Dynamic Determinants of Earned Value Based Time Forecast Accuracy
Authors: Vanhoucke Mario
Published: May 2011

It is well-known that well managed and controlled projects are more likely to be delivered on time and within budget. The construction of a (resource-feasible) baseline schedule and the follow-up during execution are primary contributors to the success or failure of a project. Earned value management systems have been set up to deal with the complex task of controlling and adjusting the baseline project schedule during execution. Although earned value systems have been proven to provide reliable estimates for the follow-up of cost performance, they often fail to predict the total duration of the project. In this chapter, results of a large simulation study to evaluate the forecast accuracy of earned value based predictive metrics are presented. No detailed mathematical calculations are presented in the chapter, but instead an overview from a project life cycle point-of-view is presented. Details can be found at the end of the chapter (key terms and definitions) or in the references cited throughout this chapter.
Mining User Activity Data In Higher Education Open Systems
Authors: McGrath Owen G.
Published: May 2011

Higher education IT project managers have always relied on user activity data as logged in one form or another. Summarized counts of users and performance trends serve as essential sources of information for those who need to analyze problems, monitor security, improve software, perform capacity planning, etc. With the reach of the Internet extending into all aspects of higher education research and teaching, however, new questions have arisen as to how, where, and when user activity gets captured and analyzed. Tracking and understanding remote users and their round-the-clock activities is a major technical and analytical challenge within today’s cyber-infrastructure. As open content publishing and open source development projects thrive in higher education there are some side effects on usage analysis. This chapter examines how data mining solutions – particularly Web usage mining methods– are being taken up in three open systems project management contexts: digital libraries, online museums, and course management systems. In describing the issues and challenges that motivate data mining applications in these three contexts, the chapter provides an overview of how data mining integrates within project management processes. The chapter also touches on ways in which data mining can be augmented by the complementary practice of data visualization.
Using Rule-Based Concepts as Foundation for Higher-Level Agent Architectures
Authors: Braubach Lars , Pokahr Alexander , Paschke Adrian
Published: May 2011

Declarative programming using rules has advantages in certain application domains and has been successfully applied in many real world software projects. Besides building rule-based applications, rule concepts also provide a proven basis for the development of higher-level architectures, which enrich the existing production rule metaphor with further abstractions. One especially interesting application domain for this technology is the behavior specification of autonomous software agents, because rule bases help fulfilling key characteristics of agents such as reactivity and proactivity. This chapter details which motivations promote the usage of rule bases for agent behavior control and what kinds of approaches exist. Concretely, these approaches are in the context of four existing agent architectures (pure rule-based, AOP, Soar, BDI) and their implementations (Rule Responder, Agent-0 and successors, Soar, and Jadex). In particular, this chapter emphasizes in which respect these agent architectures make use of rules and with what mechanisms they extend the base functionality. Finally, the approaches are generalized by summarizing their core assumptions and extension mechanisms and possible further application domains besides agent architectures are presented.
Combining Data-Driven and User-Driven Evaluation Measures to Identify Interesting Rules
Authors: Rezende Solange Oliveira , Melanda Edson Augusto , Fujimoto Magaly Lika , Sinoara Roberta Akemi , de Carvalho Veronica Oliveira
Published: May 2011

Association rule mining is a data mining task that is applied in several real problems. However, due to the huge number of association rules that can be generated, the knowledge post-processing phase becomes very complex and challenging. There are several evaluation measures that can be used in this phase to assist users in finding interesting rules. These measures, which can be divided into data-driven (or objective measures) and user-driven (or subjective measures), are first discussed and then analyzed for their pros and cons. A new methodology that combines them, aiming to use the advantages of each kind of measure and to make user’s participation easier, is presented. In this way, data-driven measures can be used to select some potentially interesting rules for the user’s evaluation. These rules and the knowledge obtained during the evaluation can be used to calculate user-driven measures, which are used to aid the user in identifying interesting rules. In order to identify interesting rules that use our methodology, an approach is described, as well as an exploratory environment and a case study to show that the proposed methodology is feasible. Interesting results were obtained. In the end of the chapter tendencies related to the subject are discussed.
Variations on Associative Classifiers and Classification Results Analyses
Authors: Antonie Maria-Luiza , Chodos David , Zaïane Osmar
Published: May 2011

The chapter introduces the associative classifier, a classification model based on association rules, and describes the three phases of the model building process: rule generation, pruning, and selection. In the first part of the chapter, these phases are described in detail, and several variations on the associative classifier model are presented within the context of the relevant phase. These variations are: mining data sets with re-occurring items, using negative association rules, and pruning rules using graph-based techniques. Each of these departs from the standard model in a crucial way, and thus expands the classification potential. The second part of the chapter describes a system, ARC-UI that allows a user to analyze the results of classifying an item using an associative classifier. This system uses an intuitive, Web-based interface and, with this system, the user is able to see the rules that were used to classify an item, modify either the item being classified or the rule set that was used, view the relationship between attributes, rules and classes in the rule set, and analyze the training data set with respect to the item being classified.
Selection of High Quality Rules in Associative Classification
Authors: Chiusano Silvia , Garza Paolo
Published: May 2011

In this chapter the authors make a comparative study of five well-known classification rule pruning methods with the aim of understanding their theoretical foundations and their impact on classification accuracy, percentage of pruned rules, model size, and number of wrongly and not classified data. Moreover, they analyze the characteristics of both the selected and pruned rule sets in terms of information content. A large set of experiments has been run in order to empirically evaluate the effect of the pruning methods when applied individually as well as when combined.
Frequent Closed Itemsets Based Condensed Representations for Association Rules
Authors: Pasquier Nicolas
Published: May 2011

After more than one decade of researches on association rule mining, efficient and scalable techniques for the discovery of relevant association rules from large high-dimensional datasets are now available. Most initial studies have focused on the development of theoretical frameworks and efficient algorithms and data structures for association rule mining. However, many applications of association rules to data from different domains have shown that techniques for filtering irrelevant and useless association rules are required to simplify their interpretation by the end-user. Solutions proposed to address this problem can be classified in four main trends: constraint-based mining, interestingness measures, association rule structure analysis, and condensed representations. This chapter focuses on condensed representations that are characterized in the frequent closed itemset framework to expose their advantages and drawbacks.
Maintenance of Frequent Patterns
Authors: Feng Mengling , Li Jinyan , Dong Guozhu , Wong Limsoon
Published: May 2011

This chapter surveys the maintenance of frequent patterns in transaction datasets. It is written to be accessible to researchers familiar with the field of frequent pattern mining. The frequent pattern maintenance problem is summarized with a study on how the space of frequent patterns evolves in response to data updates. This chapter focuses on incremental and decremental maintenance. Four major types of maintenance algorithms are studied: Apriori-based, partition-based, prefix-tree-based, and conciserepresentation- based algorithms. The authors study the advantages and limitations of these algorithms from both the theoretical and experimental perspectives. Possible solutions to certain limitations are also proposed. In addition, some potential research opportunities and emerging trends in frequent pattern maintenance are also discussed.
A General-Purpose Taxonomy of Computer-Augmented Sports Systems
Authors: Reilly Sean , Barron Peter , Cahill Vinny , Moran Kieran , Haahr Mads
Published: May 2011

The area of computer-augmented sports is large and complex and spans several disciplines. This chapter presents a general-purpose taxonomy of computer-augmented sports systems, which is intended to assist researchers and designers working in this domain. Allowing systems to be classified with regard to form as well as function, the taxonomy is intended to have several uses, including serving as a clear map to aid in the understanding of the domain and as a tool to help researchers analyse the state-of-the-art by characteristics of systems. The taxonomy also offers a common vocabulary to the multidisciplinary teams that work in computer-augmented sports and can be used to identify sparsely populated regions of the domain as promising areas for future research. The authors present and demonstrate the use of the taxonomy using four example systems selected from an extensive review.
A League of Our Own
Authors: Roy Donald P. , Goss Benjamin D.
Published: May 2011

The explosion of fantasy sports and the dearth of research about it create a need for investigation in this relatively new form of sport spectatorship. This chapter proposes a conceptual framework for marketers to utilize in their examinations of influences on the consumption of fantasy sports by postmodern sports fans. The framework is based on literature from psychology, sociology, sport management/marketing, general management/marketing, and consumer behavior. It leads to the proposition that fantasy sports consumption is impacted by the interplay of psychological characteristics internal to consumers, social interactions, and external influences controlled by fantasy sports marketers.
Schemas of Disrepute
Authors: Bloxsome Ellen L. , Pope Nigel K. Ll.
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents marketers, sporting management and sports organizations with a technique for analyzing consumer schemas associated with athletes. Correspondence analysis is a frequently used tool for social network analysis that evaluates relationships between actors and events. Correspondence analysis allows examination of the effectiveness of positioning efforts, as well as the assessment of potential brand damage caused by the off-field activities of athletes and endorsers. This technique can be used for snap-shot analyses of events, or longitudinal evaluation of changes in consumer and media schemas over time. The digital emphasis of the paper incorporates use of both non-traditional and external media commentary made about athletes and brands. Where media commentary is not controlled by management groups or brands, evaluation of potential schemas developing out of external media sources becomes important. Web logs, fan sites, and other digital information sources outside the control of sport managers contribute to the development of consumer perceptions, potentially affecting consumer sport involvement and merchandising revenue. When external media sources focus primarily on negative on- and off-field behavior by athletes, we suggest that there is potential for digital damage to sporting codes and brands.
Applying Social Network Analysis Techniques to Community-Driven Libre Software Projects
Authors: López-Fernández Luis , Robles Gregorio , Gonzalez-Barahona Jesus M. , Herraiz Israel
Published: May 2011

Source code management repositories of large, long-lived libre (free, open source) software projects can be a source of valuable data about the organizational structure, evolution and knowledge exchange in the corresponding development communities. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of the available information renders it almost unusable without applying methodologies which highlight the relevant information for a given aspect of the project. Such methodology is proposed in this paper, based on well known concepts from the social networks analysis field, which can be used to study the relationships among developers and how they collaborate in different parts of a project. It is also applied to data mined from some well known projects (Apache, GNOME, and KDE), focusing on the characterization of their collaboration network architecture. These cases help to understand the potentials of the methodology and how it is applied, but also show some relevant results which open new paths in the understanding of the informal organization of libre software development communities.
A Prediction Based Flexible Channel Assignment in Wireless Networks using Road Topology Information
Authors: Sivaradje G. , Nakkeeran R. , Dananjayan P.
Published: May 2011

In this paper, a novel prediction technique is proposed, which uses road topology information for prediction. The proposed scheme uses real time positioning information and road topology information, which matches with the real environment. The scheme uses flexible channel assignment to maintain a better tradeoff between forced termination and call blocking probabilities. For reservation of resources in advance, the information about future handoffs is obtained from the road topology prediction technique. To show the effectiveness of the prediction scheme and flexible channel assignment scheme, this work aims at simulation of other channel assignment strategies viz., fixed and dynamic channel assignment strategy with and without incorporating the prediction based on road topology information. It gives accurate prediction results which helps to maintain a better QoS and resource management.
High Performance Scheduling Mechanism for Mobile Computing Based on Self-Ranking Algorithm (SRA)
Authors: Ali Hesham A. , Farrag Tamer Ahmed
Published: May 2011

Due to the rapidly increasing of the mobile devices connected to the internet, a lot of researches are being conducted to maximize the benefit of such integration. The main objective of this paper is to enhance the performance of the scheduling mechanism of the mobile computing environment by distributing some of the responsibilities of the access point among the available attached mobile devices. To this aim we investigate a scheduling mechanism framework that comprises an algorithm provides the mobile device with the authority to evaluate itself as a resource. The proposed mechanism is based on the proposing of “self ranking algorithm (SRA)” which provides a lifetime opportunity to reach a proper solution. This mechanism depends on event-based programming approach to start its execution in a pervasive computing environment. Using such mechanism will simplify the scheduling process by grouping the mobile devices according to their self -ranking value and assign tasks to these groups. Moreover, it will maximize the benefit of the mobile devices incorporated with the already existing grid systems by using their computational power as a subordinate value to the overall power of the system. Furthermore, we evaluate the performance of the investigated algorithm extensively, to show how it overcomes the connection stability problem of the mobile devices. Experimental results emphasized that, the proposed SRA has a great impact in reducing the total error and link utilization compared with the traditional mechanism.
Growth of the Digital Economy
Authors: Mutula Stephen M.
Published: May 2011

As pointed out in the previous chapter, the concepts ‘digital economy’, ‘information economy’, ‘information society’ and ‘knowledge society/economy’ are inextricably intertwined and are often used interchangeably. However, the concept ‘information society’ is increasingly being seen as a unifying term. In defence of why this is so, Schienstock et al. (1999) have argued that the notion of an ‘information society’ is presented as a strategic aim meant to overcome current social stagnation. The central argument is that the information society would create and secure millions of new jobs; guarantee economic competitiveness; bring ecological advantages; intensify democracy; and revolutionize our ways of living and working with the help of new communication technologies.
Identifying Opportunities for Using ICT
Authors: Koh S.C. Lenny , Maguire Stuart
Published: May 2011

The reason for going ahead with a new information system (IS) development can come from many sources. A new business requirement may force an organization to develop a new IS. An existing IS may be coming to the end of its usefulness. The firm may decide to either update its existing system or develop a completely new system.
System Development and Project Management
Authors: Koh S.C. Lenny , Maguire Stuart
Published: May 2011

Nearly all information systems developments follow a structured approach. This is true of all projects. This chapter takes a critical look at both system development and project management. The development of computer systems is a complex process, one with many opportunities for things to go wrong. To try and control this complex process, a methodology was required that would bring more discipline to the computer system development process. There was a need to make more efficient use of the resources that were available. However, the use of accepted methodologies for system development has not guaranteed the successful implementation of information systems. There are still weaknesses in the traditional methodologies. This section examines some relevant current literature regarding the system development process and identifies areas of weakness that could be improved. In the UK the National Computing Centre in Manchester defined the system development process as a number of stages. Seven were identified: feasibility study; systems investigation; systems analysis; systems design; systems development; implementation; and review and maintenance. These stages were later revised but are still generally viewed as the key elements of the computer system development process. This defines the development process as a technical one. Many methodologies that have adopted this type of approach have become grouped under the heading of ‘hard systems methodologies’. This structured approach has proved popular with IS/IT professionals since it caters for their needs as technical staff who view information system development as systematic problem-solving. It is not surprising that some authors have a narrow view of what is entailed in the system development process. Some regard it as simply structuring hardware and software to achieve effective and efficient processing of the information system.
Impediments to the Successful Implementation of ICT
Authors: Koh S.C. Lenny , Maguire Stuart
Published: May 2011

For many organizations, the implementation of a new information system (IS) may be the biggest capital expenditure they undertake. If substantial amounts of capital are committed to these developments it follows that every effort is needed to ensure that they are successful for the overall well being of the organization (Maguire & Redman 2007). A considerable amount of disruption can occur when an information system (IS) is introduced. There is a possibility that the IS may also be dysfunctional to the organization for several years after the system has gone ‘live’. (Maguire 2004). There is the thorny issue of how you are going to make sure that your staff are capable of realising the benefits from ICT. You should have a clear idea of what strategies you can adopt with regard to training, who in your company decides on training and where training resources are employed with respect to your overall strategy (Computer Weekly 2007).
Security and Risk Management
Authors: Koh S.C. Lenny , Maguire Stuart
Published: May 2011

In information terms, security can be defined as the processes of ensuring that private information remains private and uncompromised in an atmosphere where all other information is free. Security techniques such as encryption, passwords, and firewalls are designed to prevent unauthorized access to information, to protect the integrity of computing resources, and to limit the potential damage that can be caused by attackers and intruders. The notion of a “secure computer” is relative though: the only truly secure computer is one powered down in a locked facility that no one has access to. Risk management is the ongoing process of assessing the risk to automated information resources. It is part of a risk-based approach used to determine adequate security for a system by analysing the threats and vulnerabilities and selecting appropriate cost-effective controls to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of risk (Maguire, 2002).
Semantic Web Services
Authors: Roa-Valverde Antonio J. , Navas-Delgado Ismael , Aldana-Montes José F.
Published: May 2011

The potential growth of applications distributed over a network and the large number of users has created the need for an infrastructure which can support increasing interaction among such users and applications. In this environment a scalable solution is needed. This problem known as application integration is addressed in this chapter, and it is combined with Semantic Web technology. After introducing the different techniques to overcome the application integration challenge current trends in Semantic Web Services are discussed and the most recent R&D projects and a selection of available tools are presented. Also discussed is the use of ESB as a suitable mechanism to deploy Semantic Web Services.
Multi-Agent Systems for Semantic Web Services Composition
Authors: Poggi Agostino , Turci Paola
Published: May 2011

The vision which is making its way in information technology is to encapsulate organizations’ functionalities within appropriate interfaces and advertise them as one or more Web services, which could be integrated, when brought into play, in workflows. This innovative idea brings with it new outstanding opportunities but also new great issues, related mainly to the ability to automatically discover and compose Web services. Several researchers belonging to the agent community are convinced that this technical area is a natural environment in which the agent technology features can be leveraged to obtain significant advantages. This chapter is aimed at briefly recalling the major results achieved by agent community and showing how their exploitation in the area of service-orientation systems could be very promising.
The Semantic Web in Tourism
Authors: Miranda Lima Salvador , Moreira José
Published: May 2011

The emergence of the World Wide Web made available massive amounts of data. This data, created and disseminated from many different sources, is prepared and linked in a way that is well-suited for display purposes, but automation, integration, interoperability or context-oriented search can hardly be implemented. Hence, the Semantic Web aims at promoting global information integration and semantic interoperability, through the use of metadata, ontologies and inference mechanisms. This chapter presents a Semantic Model for Tourism (SeMoT), designed for building Semantic Web enabled applications for the planning and management of touristic itineraries, taking into account the new requirements of more demanding and culturally evolved tourists. It includes an introduction to relevant tourism concepts, an overview of current trends in Web Semantics research and a presentation of the architecture, main features and a selection of representative ontologies that compose the SeMoT.
The Impacts of Semantic Technologies on Industrial Systems
Authors: Marík Vladimír , Vrba Pavel , Obitko Marek
Published: May 2011

Industrial systems face the challenges of robust and flexible control of industrial processes while satisfying the demand of mass customization and reduced time to market. To meet these requirements, systems need to work in a distributed manner, because the traditional centralized approaches are not sufficient. To achieve automated cooperation and coordination of distributed components at a larger scale, semantic technologies are necessary to enable truly open systems. The authors review state of the art of the research of ontologies, Semantic Web and Semantic Web services, together with advances of usage of semantic technologies in industry. The usage of semantic technologies is illustrated on two applications – semantics in multi-agent manufacturing systems and structural search in industrial data.
Ontologies and Law
Authors: Cevenini Claudia , Contissa Giuseppe , Laukyte Migle , Riveret Régis
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces the reader with the specificity of the development of a particular type of legal ontology, that is ontology of copyright law. The process of the development of this ontology (ALIS IP Ontology) should be seen as a miniature guide for anyone who will pursuit a goal to create an ontology for any sphere of law. In this chapter the development of the copyright ontology is not addressed separately as such, but in vaster perspective, analyzing not only particular problems that the development of the legal ontology implies, but also looking at the ontology development issues in the light of the general relation that the law (and intellectual property law in particular) has with the IT domain.
KC-PLM
Authors: Amaro Ferreira João Carlos
Published: May 2011

This chapter defines a system and a methodology, the Knowledge Collaborative Product Lifecycle Management (KC-PLM) to better support the complete product lifecycle in the industry. The KC-PLM system intends to reduce the lead-time from new product development to production by providing and integrating knowledge platform, based on a semantic information repository, domain ontology, a domain specific language and on the user collaboration. These characteristics differentiate the KC-PLM system from others PLM systems, because it supports an intelligent rules engine, to extrapolate and make inference with historical solutions that allow the generation of new solutions. A real case study in automobile business shows the current proposal application and its benefits in a product concept phase.
PolyOrBAC
Authors: El Kalam Anas Abou , Deswarte Yves
Published: May 2011

With the emergence of Web Services-based collaborative systems, new issues arise, in particular those related to security. In this context, Web Service access control should be studied, specified and enforced. This work proposes a new access control framework for Inter-Organizational Web Services: “PolyOr- BAC”. On the one hand, the authors extend OrBAC (Organization-Based Access Control Model) to specify rules for intra- as well as inter-organization access control; on the other hand, they enforce these rules by applying access control mechanisms dedicated to Web Services. Furthermore, the authors propose a runtime model checker for the interactions between collaborating organizations, to verify their compliance with previously signed contracts. In this respect, not only their security framework handles secure local and remote accesses, but also deals with competition and mutual suspicion between organizations, controls the Web Service workflows and audits the different interactions. In particular, every deviation from the signed contracts triggers an alarm, the concerned parties are notified, and audits can be used as evidence for a judge to sanction the party responsible for the deviation.
A Basic Definition of E-Collaboration and its Underlying Concepts
Authors: Kock Ned
Published: May 2011

Electronic collaboration (e-collaboration) is operationally defined here as collaboration using electronic technologies among different individuals to accomplish a common task (Kock & D’Arcy, 2002; Kock, Davidson, Ocker, & Wazlawick, 2001). This is a broad definition that encompasses not only computer-mediated collaborative work but also collaborative work that is supported by other types of technologies that do not fit most people’s definition of a “computer.” One example of such technologies is the telephone, which is not, strictly speaking, a computer—even though some of today’s telephone devices probably have more processing power than some of the first computers back in the 1940s. Another example of technology that may enable e-collaboration is the teleconferencing suite, whose main components are cameras, televisions, and telecommunications devices.
Knowledge Transfer
Authors: Herschel Richard T. , Yermish Ira
Published: May 2011

Knowledge transfer has been an important issue for organizational knowledge management programs. This article reviews the plethora of user-generated video activity and the issues it creates for knowledge management activities. Video’s media richness combined with its ability to convey rich narratives can facilitate sensemaking and learning. However, structure and culture are important factors that must be considered in story telling activities to increase the opportunity for effective sensemaking and message retention. Evidence and arguments are presented that should motivate organizations and academics to review video generation activities both internal and external to the organization. Issues concerning video content delivery, liability, spam, and search engine capabilities are discussed. Opportunities for new research inquiries are identified.
A Use-Centered Strategy for Designing E-Collaboration Systems
Authors: Schwartz Daniel H. , Flach John M. , Nelson W. Todd , Stokes Charlene K.
Published: May 2011

The ubiquity of collaboration cannot be overstated. Derived from the Latin collaborare, which means “work with” or through, collaboration is the process wherein agents work together through transaction. Collaboration entails the existence of a team if a common goal or purpose underlies the transaction. A virtual team exists when collaboration takes place (to a varying degree) through technology across time, space, and (often) organizational boundaries; also known as e-collaboration. As a general definition, we follow the lead of Kock and colleagues (Kock, Davison, Ocker, & Wazlawick, 2001;Kock & Nosek, 2005), and state that e-collaboration is “collaboration among individuals engaged in a common task using electronic technologies” ( Kock et al., 2001, p. 1). This is a very broad definition and includes such historical means of e-collaboration as the U.S. Department of Defense’s ARPANET and early group decision support systems (GDSSs) such as Lotus Notes (Kock & Nosek, 2005). Few would argue the contemporary impact computers, the Internet, and network architectures (e.g., local area networks; LANs) have had on collaboration and teams (Schwartz, Divitini, & Brasethvik, 2000). Current instantiations of e-collaborative systems include the Internet (which includes various e-collaborative subsystems such as Internet relay-chat, bulletin boards, and weblogs), videoconferencing, and virtual workstations. The opportunities created by this new wave of e-collaboration and virtual teamwork have, in turn, dramatically transformed military forces (e.g., network-centric warfare; Cebrowski, 1998), business (e.g., B2B collaboration; Rosenberg, 2003), infrastructure (e.g., traffic flow regulation; Jermann, 2001), and other areas of society (e.g., collaborative music development; Weinberg, 2005).
Customizing Multimedia and Collaborative Virtual Environments
Authors: Sampaio Paulo N.M. , Rodello Ildeberto A. , Rodríguez Peralta Laura M. , Bressan Paulo Alexandre
Published: May 2011

Virtual reality (VR) represents a modern human-computer interface consisting of a three-dimensional (3D) environment generated by computer where the user can interact in different ways. VR can be applied in several applications domains such as medicine, education, entertainment, etc. In particular, interest is drawn to the application of VR in education since a student is able to interact and to be involved with a 3D environment, which simulates situations that are difficult or even impossible to be carried out in the traditional education process.
Web-Based Collaboration and Decision Making Support
Authors: Karacapilidis Nikos , Tzagarakis Manolis
Published: May 2011

Arguing that a vvaryying levvel of formmalityy needs to be offered in syystemms supporting argummentativve collaboration, this article proposes an incremmental formmalization approach that has been adopted in the devvelopmment of CoPe_it!, a Web-based tool that commplies with collaborativve principles and practices, and provvides mmemmbers of commmmunities engaged in argummentativve discussions and decision mmaking processes with the appropriate mmeans to collaborate towards the solution of divverse issues. AAccording to the proposed approach, incremmental formmalization can be achievved through the consideration of alternativve projections of a collaborativve workspace.
Developing REALSpace
Authors: Vat Kam Hou
Published: May 2011

This manuscript is to provide an action research report on the issues behind the prototyping of a student-centered creative knowledge environment (CKE), which focuses on developing student responsibility, making learning meaningful, promoting overt knowledge construction, performing learner assessment, and showcasing learner achievements. The primary idea is to create an electronic knowledge space where students are enabled to learn through constructing rich portfolios of knowledge work. The issue of learner responsibility lies in student’s willingness to identify learning deficits, setting goals, managing the learning process, and monitoring the learning strategies they use. The issue of meaningful learning lies in providing students with realistic problems, which are conducive to the development of capable problem solvers. The issue of active knowledge construction lies in providing students with opportunities to engage in high-level thinking, reflection, and articulation activities, with suitable support to scaffold students in their pursuit of active learning.
A Macro-Level Approach to Understanding Use of E-Collaboration Technologies
Authors: Vaidya Sanjiv D. , Seetharaman Priya
Published: May 2011

The article is organized in the following manner. The first section reviews concerned literature relevant to the use of ECT in organizations. The second section describes a framework depicting the drivers of ECT use in organizations. The framework represents a macro level perspective of the phenomenon. The subsequent section highlights the implications of such a framework and the potential for further research.
Collaborative E-Learning Using Semantic Course Blog
Authors: Lu Lai-Chen , Yeh Ching-Long
Published: May 2011

Collaborative e-learning delivers many enhancements to e-learning technology; it enables students to collaborate with each other and improves their learning efficiency. Semantic blog combines semantic Web and blog technology that users can import, export, view, navigate, and query the blog. We developed a semantic course blog for collaborative e-learning. Using our semantic course blog, instructors can import the lecture course. Students can team up for projects, ask questions, mutually discuss problems, take the comments, support answers, and query the blog information. This semantic course blog provided a platform for collaborative e-learning framework. In this chapter, we described some collaborative e-learning and semantic blog technology, and then we introduced functions, implementation and how collaborative e-learning appears in semantic course blog.
Levels of Adoption in Organizational Implementation of E-Collaboration Technologies
Authors: Munkvold Bjørn Erik
Published: May 2011

While the e-collaboration term only dates back a few years, its roots can be traced back at least two decades to the research and development in areas such as groupware, computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), group support systems (GSS), and computer-mediated communication (CMC). As defined by Kock (2005), the e-collaboration term can be seen to encompass a wide range of technologies supporting collaboration among indivduals engaged in a common task. In this article, the e-collaboration term thus incorporates previous research and practice within the areas mentioned above. The term organizational implementation is used to denote the process of introducing the technology in an organizational setting (Walsham, 1993).
E-Collaboration for Internationalizing U.S. Higher Education Institutions
Authors: Ortiz Jaime
Published: May 2011

The current globalization wake requires countries to cope with their deficiencies in international competencies to become credible political actors and sustained economic players (Stiglitz, 2003). They must develop expertise on foreign policies, emphasize functional knowledge, and make concerted efforts to narrow technological gaps to successfully unleash global competitiveness (McGrew, 2005). There is a high correlation between the level of global competence acquired by U.S. students during their undergraduate and graduate education and the success of the country as a key international player (American Council of Education, 1995). U.S. higher education institutions are compelled to increase their stature by constantly seeking ways to expand their network of partnerships with foreign counterparts. Any steps into that direction will broaden and strengthen the internationalization of their curriculum to facilitate and improve students’ understanding of the world.
Using Social Networking Analysis to Facilitate Knowledge Sharing in the British Council
Authors: Cheuk Bonnie Wai-yi
Published: May 2011

Prior to the establishment of the Knowledge Management (KM) strategy, the British Council defined knowledge as objects. Knowledge sharing was about sharing documents and information on the intranet or via global databases. Since December 2002, Dervin’s Sense-Making Methodology has been applied to manage knowledge. Knowledge is seen not as a product that can be transferred from one colleague to another but as a communication practice. This means that shared knowledge has to be interpreted and made sense of by its recipients through genuine dialogue. During this phase of KM implementation, the focus shifted to linking up colleagues and providing space for dialogue through building global communities of practice and virtual teams. This article presents an example of how we have used the theory of Social Networking Analysis as a diagnostic tool to promote knowledge sharing among our newly formed 30-people global leadership team. The three steps we have taken to carry out the exercise and its limitations also are discussed.
How Groupware Systems Can Change How an Organisation Makes Decisions
Authors: Adam Frédéric , Pomerol Jean-Charles , Brézillon Patrick
Published: May 2011

In this article, a newspaper company which has implemented a computerised editorial system is studied in an attempt to understand the impact that groupware systems can have on the decision making processes of an organisation. First, the case study protocol is presented, and the findings of the case are described in detail. Conclusions are then presented which pertain both to this case and to the implementation of decision support systems that have a groupware dimension.
A Study of Friendship Networks and Blogosphere
Authors: Agarwal Nitin , Liu Huan , Zhang Jianping
Published: May 2011

In Golbeck and Hendler (2006), authors consider those social friendship networking sites where users explicitly provide trust ratings to other members. However, for large social friendship networks it is infeasible to assign trust ratings to each and every member so they propose an inferring mechanism which would assign binary trust ratings (trustworthy/non-trustworthy) to those who have not been assigned one. They demonstrate the use of these trust values in e-mail ?ltering application domain and report encouraging results. Authors also assume three crucial properties of trust for their approach to work: transitivity, asymmetry, and personalization. These trust scores are often transitive, meaning, if Alice trusts Bob and Bob trusts Charles then Alice can trust Charles. Asymmetry says that for two people involved in a relationship, trust is not necessarily identical in both directions. This is contrary to what was proposed in Yu and Singh (2003). They assume symmetric trust values in the social friendship network. Social networks allow us to share experiences, thoughts, opinions, and ideas. Members of these networks, in return experience a sense of community, a feeling of belonging, a bonding that members matter to one another and their needs will be met through being together. Individuals expand their social networks, convene groups of like-minded individuals and nurture discussions. In recent years, computers and the World Wide Web technologies have pushed social networks to a whole new level. It has made possible for individuals to connect with each other beyond geographical barriers in a “flat” world. The widespread awareness and pervasive usability of the social networks can be partially attributed to Web 2.0. Representative interaction Web services of social networks are social friendship networks, the blogosphere, social and collaborative annotation (aka “folksonomies”), and media sharing. In this work, we brie?y introduce each of these with focus on social friendship networks and the blogosphere. We analyze and compare their varied characteristics, research issues, state-of-the-art approaches, and challenges these social networking services have posed in community formation, evolution and dynamics, emerging reputable experts and in?uential members of the community, information diffusion in social networks, community clustering into meaningful groups, collaboration recommendation, mining “collective wisdom” or “open source intelligence” from the exorbitantly available user-generated contents. We present a comparative study and put forth subtle yet essential differences of research in friendship networks and Blogosphere, and shed light on their potential research directions and on cross-pollination of the two fertile domains of ever expanding social networks on the Web.
The Vineyard Approach
Authors: Vivacqua Adriana S. , de Souza Jana Moreira
Published: May 2011

Recent research has noted that individuals engage in multiple collaborations simultaneously and have difficulties managing these different contexts. Studies indicate that awareness of others’ activities plays an important part in collaboration. Proximity also has a strong effect on collaboration, as maintaining awareness of peers becomes harder in distributed environments. Many awareness systems have been proposed to deliver information on peers’ activities or status, which usually either require extensive configuration by the user or disseminate information regardless of users’ interests. With the increase in information available, systems must be sensitive to users’ attention foci, minimizing interruptions, and helping focus and providing information according to current tasks. We have been investigating ways to determine awareness foci through e-mail-based user interaction analysis. Our goal is to be able to draw inferences as to whom and about what a user is collaborating, enabling a system to automatically distribute awareness information and adapt itself according to users’ needs without much configuration.