bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
World Wide Weber
Authors: Pejout Nicolas
Published: May 2011

Many of African States are focusing on ICTs and developing e-government infrastructures in order to fasten and improve their “formalisation strategy”. This philosophy drives the South African State in its impressive efforts to deploy an efficient and pervasive e-government architecture for its citizens to enjoy accurate public services and for this young democracy to be “useful” to them. By focusing on the South African case, people will be able to understand the role of ICTs as tools to register, formalise and normalise, supporting the final objective of Weberian rationalisation. The author will consider the historical process of this strategy, across different political regimes (from Apartheid to democracy). He will see how it is deployed within a young democracy, aiming at producing a balance between two poles: a formal existence of citizens for them to enjoy a “delivery democracy” in which they are to be transparent; an informal existence of citizens for them to live freely in their private and intimate sphere. In this tension, South Africa, given its history, is paradigmatic and can shed light on many other countries, beyond Africa.
Pillars of Ontology Treatment in the Medical Domain
Authors: Sonntag Daniel , Wennerberg Pinar , Buitelaar Paul , Zillner Sonja
Published: May 2011

In this chapter the authors describe the three pillars of ontology treatment in the medical domain in a comprehensive case study within the large-scale THESEUS MEDICO project. MEDICO addresses the need for advanced semantic technologies in medical image and patient data search. The objective is to enable a seamless integration of medical images and different user applications by providing direct access to image semantics. Semantic image retrieval should provide the basis for the help in clinical decision support and computer aided diagnosis. During the course of lymphoma diagnosis and continual treatment, image data is produced several times using different image modalities. After semantic annotation, the images need to be integrated with medical (textual) data repositories and ontologies. They build upon the three pillars of knowledge engineering, ontology mediation and alignment, and ontology population and learning to achieve the objectives of the MEDICO project.
Exploring the Effects of Process Characteristics on Product Quality in Open Source Software Development
Authors: Koch Stefan , Neumann Christian
Published: May 2011

There has been considerable discussion on the possible impacts of open source software development practices, especially in regard to the quality of the resulting software product. Recent studies have shown that analyzing data from source code repositories is an efficient way to gather information about project characteristics and programmers, showing that OSS projects are very heterogeneous in their team structures and software processes. However, one problem is that the resulting process metrics measuring attributes of the development process and of the development environment do not give any hints about the quality, complexity, or structure of the resulting software. Therefore, we expanded the analysis by calculating several product metrics, most of them specifically tailored to object-oriented software. We then analyzed the relationship between these product metrics and process metrics derived from a CVS repository. The aim was to establish whether different variants of open source development processes have a significant impact on the resulting software products. In particular we analyzed the impact on quality and design associated with the numbers of contributors and the amount of their work, using the GINI coefficient as a measure of inequality within the developer group.
Nibbling, Sniping, and the Role of Uncertainty in Second-Price, Hard-Close Internet Auctions
Authors: Friesner Daniel , Bozman Carl S. , McPherson Matthew Q.
Published: May 2011

Internet auctions have gained widespread appeal as an efficient and effective means of buying and selling goods and services. This study examines buyer behavior on eBay, one of the most well-known Internet auction Web sites. eBay’s auction format is similar to that of a second-price, hard-close auction, which gives a rational participant an incentive to submit a bid that is equal to his or her maximum willingness to pay. But while traditional second-price, hard-close auctions assume that participants have reliable information about their own and other bidders’ reservation prices, eBay participants usually do not. This raises the possibility that eBay participants may adapt their bidding strategies and not actually bid their reservation prices because of increased uncertainty. In this article, we empirically examine the bidding patterns of online auction participants and compare our findings to the behavior of bidders in more conventional auction settings.
Product Choice Strategy for Online Retailers
Authors: Yan Ruiliang , Bhatnagar Amit
Published: May 2011

An important strategic issue for managers planning to set up online stores is the choice of product categories to retail. While the “right” product category would depend on a number of factors, here we focus on the following two factors: compatibility of the product with the online channel, and the competition between the traditional brick and mortar channel and the online channel. This is to acknowledge two well-known facts: Certain products are more suitable for selling through the Web than through other channels; and an online retailer competes with not only other online retailers, but also traditional brick and mortar retailers. To determine the right product category, we develop a game theoretical model that allows for competition between the retailers. We study both Stackelberg and Bertrand competition models, as these two models capture the essence of different types of competition on the Web. Based on our results, we propose that, under all types of competition, the optimal product is one that is only moderately compatible with the Internet.
Can Web Seals Work Wonders for Small E-Vendors in the Online Trading Environment? A Theoretical Approach
Authors: Hu Xiaorui , Wu Yuhong
Published: May 2011

Trust is a major issue in e-markets. It is an even more prominent issue when online shoppers trade with small, less-established e-vendors. Empirical studies on Web seals show that small e-vendors could promote consumers’ trust and increase Web sales by displaying Web seals of approval. This article takes a theoretical approach to examine online trading when seals are used in e-markets. We establish an online shopper’s decision-making model to reveal the online shopper’s decision-making criteria. Criteria include when to trade with a well-established e-vendor and when to trade with a small, less-established e-vendor, with or without a Web seal. Based on our analysis of the research results, we reveal the price effect, the seal effect, the reputation effect, and their impact on a shopper’s decision-making process. Meanwhile, a social welfare analysis is conducted to further demonstrate the positive impact of Web seals on small, less-established e-vendors.
E-Governance and Development
Authors: Zambrano Raul
Published: May 2011

This article provides a quick assessment of current e-governance policies and programmes to then suggest an alternative approach to the issue of the use information and communications technology in governance process. By focusing on citizens and stakeholders needs and fostering their participation in decision-making processes, governments can be best prepared to provide them with basic services and information, especially to poor and marginalized areas excluded from the potential benefits of egovernance. Pro-poor basic delivery in turn has the potential of fostering stakeholder engagement in public policy discussions at the local level.
An Empirical Study of Factors Affecting RFID's Adoption in Taiwan
Authors: Shih Dong-Her , Chiu Yuh-Wen , Chang She-I , Yen David C.
Published: May 2011

RFID technologies represent a common standard for data storage and retrieval that could improve collaboration and data sharing between non-competing organizations. With the advent of RFID (radio frequency identification), organizations have the opportunity to rethink how their organization will be. Unlike companies in the United States and Europe which are mandated by large retailers or government departments, most Taiwan companies are investing in RFID without pressure. The article explores the factor affecting radio frequency identification adoption applications in Taiwan. Its objective is to summarize the ways in which organizations are thinking about their possible uses in a wide variety of companies and industries. An empirical investigation (n=134) found seven factors affecting RFID adoption within Taiwan. They are operation efficiency, manufacturing efficiency and supply chain efficiency, organization context, investment cost, market environment, and technology characteristic. By providing insight into these important factors, this article can help further understanding of their role in the adoption and use of RFID. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.
Literary Onomastics and Language Technology
Authors: Borin Lars , Kokkinakis Dimitrios
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, the authors describe the development and application of language technology for intelligent information access to the content of digitized cultural heritage collections in the form of Swedish classical literary works. This technology offers sophisticated and flexible support functions to literary scholars and researchers. The authors focus on one kind of text processing technology (named entity recognition) and one research field (literary onomastics), but try to argue that the techniques involved are quite general and can be further developed in a number of directions. This way, the authors aim at supporting the users of digitized literature collections with tools that enable semantic search, browsing and indexing of texts. In this sense, the authors offer new ways for exploring the large volumes of literary texts being made available through national cultural heritage digitization projects. Language technology; Computational linguistics; Natural language processing; Literary onomastics; Named entity recognition; Corpus linguistics; Corpus annotation; Digital resources; Text technology; Cultural heritage
Collocation as Instrumentation for Meaning
Authors: Louw Bill
Published: May 2011

Until fairly recently, linguistics has been classified as a ‘science’ by definition, averral, and ideology rather than because of the uniformity of its practices across its many schools of thought. It is seldom the case in any discipline that a particular phenomenon begins to question that discipline’s raison d’etre, withdraw the option and luxury of its often directionless and eclectic practices and proceed to force unwelcome and sweeping changes upon the discipline by beginning to dictate its method. This paper re-states its author’s earlier proofs as claims that collocation as instrumentation for meaning is a scientific fact. The burden of this proof has acquired renewed urgency of an interdisciplinary nature that makes this paper both timely and necessary. The claim for collocation as science is reinforced by a number of new discoveries: the fact that all devices are brought about by relexicalisation as a marked form rather than the purported markedness that is mentalist and hence, merely averred. Collocation, corpus, stylistics, instrumentation, delexicalisation, relexicalisation, science, empiricism, philosophy of language, chunking, context of situation, context of culture, worlds, intuition, subtext, symbolism, co-selection.
A Chinese Interactive Feedback System for a Virtual Campus
Authors: Jui-Fa Chen , Wei-Chuan Lin , Chih-Yu Jian , Ching-Chung Hung
Published: May 2011

Considering the popularity of the Internet, an automatic interactive feedback system for E-learning websites is becoming increasingly desirable. However, computers still have problems understanding natural languages, especially the Chinese language, firstly because the Chinese language has no space to segment lexical entries (its segmentation method is more difficult than that of English) and secondly because of the lack of a complete grammar in the Chinese language, making parsing more difficult and complicated. Building an automated Chinese feedback system for special application domains could solve these problems. This paper proposes an interactive feedback mechanism in a virtual campus that can parse, understand and respond to Chinese sentences. This mechanism utilizes a specific lexical database according to the particular application. In this way, a virtual campus website can implement a special application domain that chooses the proper response in a user friendly, accurate and timely manner.
Ethical Issues in Information Technology
Authors: Litzky Barrie E. , Oz Effy
Published: May 2011

This research examines the impact of education on the ethical decision-making outcomes of adult learners in the area of information technology (IT). This study sheds light on the research question “Does IT ethics education make a difference?”, and more specifically, “Do ethics courses influence decisions regarding IT ethical issues in adult learners?” In a field study of 78 pre- and post-test surveys, we found that graduate students who took a course in IT ethics made different decisions than those made at the start of the term, for 2 of 6 ethical issues. The ethical issues described in this article are particularly relevant in today’s knowledge economy. Implications for IT ethics education and future research in the area are discussed.
A Virtual World Environment for Group Work
Authors: Brown E. , Hobbs M. , Gordon M.
Published: May 2011

This article seeks to show that a virtual world can provide a useful addition in the use of computermedi ated learning tools. We discuss the underlying educational context and link this to the properties of virtual worlds and, in particular, that of Second Life. We report on the progress of a project for developing group work that seeks to link affordances in the environment to learning outcomes and employs a socially situated, constructivist, pedagogical framework. We found that a virtual world environment can enable autonomous, differentiated learning through the use of suitably structured tasks, and postulate that an individual’s depth of engagement with the environment may be linked to the learning style.
The Knowledge Society
Authors: Rocci Luppicini
Published: May 2011

Generally speaking, all societies in history were knowledge societies. However, the modern, conceptualization of the ” knowledge society’ can be traced to John Stuart Mill’s (1831) The Spirit of the Age where social progress was explained through the diffusion of knowledge (intellectual wisdom) and increased opportunities for individual choice arising from industrialization. This was an early indicator foreshadowing the transformation of modern society into a knowledge society. Beginning in the early 20th century, industrialized nations became increasingly reliant on economic investment in the production and distribution of knowledge in training, education, work, research and development (Abramovitz & David, 2000). Also, the importance of knowledge in society became even more pronounced through the advent of specialized areas of science and technology in society. As stated by Stehr (2002), “Contemporary society may be described as a knowledge society based on the extensive penetration of all its spheres of life and institutions by scientific and technological knowledge.”
Automated Data Capture Technologies
Authors: Potdar Vidyasagar , Wu Chen , Chang Elizabeth
Published: May 2011

In this chapter we provide an introduction to RFID technology. We discuss the main components of the RFID technology, which includes RFID transponders, RFID readers, RFID middleware, and RFID labels. A detailed classification and explanation for each of these components is provided, followed by the benefits and applications that can be achieved by adopting this technology. After discussing all possible applications, we describe the business benefits and how stakeholders can benefit. This is followed by a detailed outline of the adoption challenges, where we discuss issues like the security, privacy, cost, scalability, resilience, and deployment and some existing solutions. Once the issues are discussed, we divert our attention to some successful RFID deployment case studies to describe the adoption of RFID technology that has already begun and how many big organizations across the world are showing interest in this technology. Since this chapter takes into consideration 83 Automated Data Capture Technologies a variety of audiences like researchers, business executives, business consultants, hobbyists, and general readers, we tried to cover material relevant to each target audience. For business executives and consultants interested in knowing who can offer complete RFID solutions, we allocated a dedicated section for RFID vendors where we provide a comprehensive list of RFID vendors across the globe. For researchers, we listed some open issues in the section of adoption challenges. For advanced users, in-depth technical details are provided in the section where we discuss security and privacy enhancing protocols.
Networked Appliances and Home Networking
Authors: Merabti Madjid , Fergus Paul , Abuelma’atti Omar
Published: May 2011

The Internet has revolutionised the way we access and disseminate information and changed the way we communicate with each other. More and more homes are Internet-enabled as people from all walks of life embrace this technology because of the benefits it brings. However, to date Internet usage has predominately focused on personal computing. This said, an interesting technological shift is taking place, whereby any device, irrespective of its capabilities or conventional usage, will form part of the Internet. These devices will reside at the edge of the Internet, thus enabling devices to exploit the power of Internet communications to interoperate devices and utilise the functions they provide. Researchers believe that this transition mirrors the evolutionary process undertaken within personal computing and wide-area communications, whereby it is difficult to imagine using a computer without Internet access. Given the success of this transition, home networking platforms aim to achieve the same level of acceptance. Already, our homes are populated by numerous electronic computing devices that form part of some network, be they TVs, PCs, set top boxes, or mobile phones, as illustrated in Figure 1. The difficulty is getting different devices, built to different specifications, to work together without changing their original characteristics or protocols. This will result in more complex systems, which will be a by-product of device heterogeneity and the dynamic nature associated with networks that resist any form of control. Putting complexity aside, there is, however, a need to promote this integration because these developments are too expensive and limiting for innovative applications. The downside is that the proliferation of home appliances and the complex functions they provide make it difficult for a specialist, let alone an ordinary home user, to configure and use them. Therefore, complexity needs to be abstracted using flexible solutions that allow for better exploitation of devices and the functions they provide. This new interconnected world will enable devices to automatically integrate and interoperate themselves within the network. It will provide access to a plethora of online services, such as digital radio, programme guides, on-demand TV, online gaming, as well as ad hoc services capable of enhancing or extending the functional capabilities devices support beyond what they where initially designed to do. that is clear is that we are at a crossroads whereby the ability to effectively manage next generation homes and the interconnected devices they contain will be highly dependent on how we utilise the Internet, Internet technologies, and the IT sector. This is a vision shared by many research communities.
Designing Pervasive and Multimodal Interactive Systems
Authors: Barricelli Barbara R. , Mussio Piero , Padula Marco , Marcante Andrea
Published: May 2011

The chapter is organized into five sections. The first section concerns related works. The SSW methodology section presents the design approach, introducing some considerations about the phenomena affecting the HCI process. The third section deals with the system architecture. The fourth section illustrates the annotation primitive operator. The fifth section describes the experiences gained on the field by illustrating several case studies: different scenarios are introduced in which experts have to afford complex problems (e.g. diagnoses, territorial portal organization, tourist guides organization, yard management) in a collaborative asynchronous way and using different devices (e.g. desktop PC, PDAs) to access their SSW from everywhere and in different working contexts. The implemented multimodal interactive environment permits experts to face the problems related to their activity, to update and manage a shared knowledge base and to adapt and evolve their virtual work environment by adding tools becoming unwitting programmer.
Model-Driven Development for Pervasive Information Systems
Authors: Fernandes José Eduardo , Machado Ricardo J. , Carvalho João Álvaro
Published: May 2011

This chapter focuses on design methodologies for pervasive information systems (PIS). It aims to contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of software development of ubiquitous services/applications supported on pervasive information systems. Pervasive information systems are comprised of conveniently orchestrated embedded or mobile computing devices that offer innovative ways to support existing and new business models. Those systems are characterized as having a potentially large number of interactive heterogeneous embedded/mobile computing devices that collect, process, and communicate information. Also, they are the target of technological innovations. Therefore, changes in requirements or in technology require frequent modifications of software at device and system levels. Software design and evolution for those require suitable approaches that consider such demands and characteristics of pervasive information systems. Model-driven development approaches (which essentially centre the focus of development on models, and involve concepts such as Platform-Independent Models, Platform-Specific Models, model transformations, and use of established standards) currently in research at academic and industrial arenas in the design of large systems, offer potential benefits that can be applied to the design and evolution of these pervasive information systems. In this chapter, we raise issues and propose strategies related to the software development of PIS using a model-driven development perspective.
TeleTables and Window Seat
Authors: Oh Yeonjoo , Camarata Ken , Weller Michael Philetus , Gross Mark D. , Do Ellen Yi-Luen
Published: May 2011

People can use computationally-enhanced furniture to interact with distant friends and places without cumbersome menus or widgets. We describe computing embedded in a pair of tables and a chair that enables people to experience remote events in two ways: The TeleTables are ambient tabletop displays that connect two places by projecting shadows cast on one surface to the other. The Window Seat rocking chair through its motion controls a remote camera tied to a live video feed. Both explore using the physical space of a room and its furniture to create “bilocative” interfaces.
Ubiquitous Healthcare
Authors: Lee Cheon-Pyo , Shim J. P.
Published: May 2011

Ubiquitous healthcare has become possible with rapid advances in information and communication technologies. Ubiquitous healthcare will bring about an increased accessibility to healthcare providers, more efficient tasks and processes, and a higher quality of healthcare services. Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a key technology of ubiquitous healthcare and enables a fully automated solution for information delivery, thus reducing the potential for human error. This chapter provides an overview of ubiquitous healthcare and RFID applications. In this chapter, the background of ubiquitous computing and RFID technologies, current RFID applications in hospitals, and the future trends and privacy implications of RFID in hospitals are discussed.
Recognizing RFID as a Disruptive Technology
Authors: Soon Chin-Boo , Gutiérrez Jairo A.
Published: May 2011

Recognizing radio frequency identification (RFID) as a disruptive technology unearths interesting facts that could help managers decide how to approach their RFID projects. RFID for the supply chain (RFID/SC) has attracted global attention and the adoption pace is quickening. It has characteristics resembling that of a disruptive technology. To better understand RFID/SC, we use Christensen’s principles of disruptive technology and the motivation/ability framework to illustrate the uniqueness of RFID/SC. The principles provide valuable information for managers steering their RFID projects toward success. We provide cases studies as vignettes to support the applications of the theories. The objectives of this paper are: (1) to equip managers with the knowledge of disruptive technology in the context of RFID/SC, (2) to highlight the need to assess an organization’s motivation and ability for adopting RFID/SC, and (3) to propose further research areas in RFID/SC in the IS field.
Evolving Relationship between Law, Offshoring of Professional Services, Intellectual Property, and International Organizations
Authors: Gupta Amar , Gantz David A. , Sreecharana Devin , Kreyling Jeremy
Published: May 2011

This article covers four issues. First, it examines evolving international conventions to determine whether countries, especially developed countries, can take any steps to inhibit offshoring with the objective of protecting jobs in their respective countries. Second, it looks at statistics from independent sources to see if outsourcing exceeds insourcing, or vice versa, in the case of the U.S. Third, it looks at trends in outsourcing in the legal arena. Fourth, it looks at the intellectual property aspects of outsourcing and presents a long-term vision on how this ticklish issue is likely to be addressed in the long-term.
An Empirical Investigation of Stress Factors in Information Technology Professionals
Authors: Raghavan Vijay V. , Sakaguchi Toru , Mahaney Robert C.
Published: May 2011

This study explores whether organizations can employ job design strategies to relieve organizational stress for information technology (IT) professionals. The effect of flexible work schedule, employee support and training, and telecommuting as potential coping resources to relieve stress were studied. Perceived workload, role ambiguity, work facilitation, and decision latitude were drawn from previous studies as potential stressors of IT professionals. Perceived stress was measured by two commonly used measures: work exhaustion and depressed mood. The results suggest that removing role ambiguity and improving work-facilitation ease work-related stress. Allowing employees to have flexible work schedules was also found to ease their perceptions of workload. Employee support and training strategies were found to influence decision latitude and role ambiguity. Telecommuting did not have any effect on the stressors. Results also indicate that the association between work exhaustion and depressed mood was stronger for males than females.
Semantic Supplier Contract Monitoring and Execution DSS Architecture
Authors: Salam A. F.
Published: May 2011

This research is motivated by the critical problem of stark incompatibility between the contractual clauses (typically buried in legal documents) and the myriad of performance measures used to evaluate and reward (or penalize) supply participants in the extended enterprise. This difference between what is contractually expected and what is actually performed in addition to the lack of transparency of what is measured and how those measures relate to the contractual obligations make it difficult, error prone and confusing for different partner organizations. To address this critical issue, in this article, we present a supplier performance contract monitoring and execution decision support architecture and its prototype implementation using a business case study. We use the SWRL extension of OWL-DL to represent contract conditions and rules as part of the ontology and then use the Jess Rule Reasoner to execute the contract rules integrating with Service Oriented Computing to provide decision support to managers in the extended enterprise.
Semantic Web Adaptation
Authors: Mikroyannidis Alexander , Theodoulidis Babis
Published: May 2011

The rate of growth in the amount of information available in the World Wide Web has not been followed by similar advances in the way this information is organized and exploited. Web adaptation seeks to address this issue by transforming the topology of a Web site to help users in their browsing tasks. In this sense, Web usage mining techniques have been employed for years to study how the Web is used in order to make Web sites more user-friendly. The Semantic Web is an ambitious initiative aiming to transform the Web to a well-organized source of information. In particular, apart from the unstructured information of today’s Web, the Semantic Web will contain machine-processable metadata organized in ontologies. This will enhance the way we search the Web and can even allow for automatic reasoning on Web data with the use of software agents. Semantic Web adaptation brings traditional Web adaptation techniques into the new era of the Semantic Web. The idea is to enable the Semantic Web to be constantly aligned to the users’ preferences. In order to achieve this, Web usage mining and text mining methodologies are employed for the semi-automatic construction and evolution of Web ontologies. This usage-driven evolution of Web ontologies, in parallel with Web topologies evolution, can bring the Semantic Web closer to the users’ expectations.
Developing Rule-Based Applications for the Web
Authors: Papataxiarhis Vassilis , Tsetsos Vassileios , Karali Isambo , Stamatopoulos Panagiotis
Published: May 2011

Embedding rules into Web applications, and distributed applications in general, seems to constitute a significant task in order to accommodate desired expressivity features in such environments. Various methodologies and reasoning modules have been proposed to manage rules and knowledge on the Web. The main objective of the chapter is to survey related work in this area and discuss relevant theories, methodologies and tools that can be used to develop rule-based applications for the Web. The chapter deals with both ways that have been formally defined for modeling a domain of interest: the first based on standard logics while the second one stemmed from the logic programming perspective. Furthermore, a comparative study that evaluates the reasoning engines and the various knowledge representation methodologies, focusing on rules, is presented.
Modeling of Web Services using Reaction Rules
Authors: Ribaric Marko , Sheidaei Shahin , Milanovic Milan , Gaševic Dragan , Giurca Adrian , Lukichev Sergey
Published: May 2011

The development process of Web services needs to focus on the modeling of business processes rather than on low-level implementation details of Web services, and yet it also needs to incorporate the support for frequent business changes. This chapter presents the UML-based Rule Language (URML) and REWERSE Rule Markup Language (R2ML), which use reaction rules (also known as Event-Condition-Action rules) for modeling Web services in terms of message exchange patterns. Web services that are being modeled in this way can easily be integrated in the wider context of modeling orchestration and choreography. In order to achieve proposed solution, we have developed a plug-in for the Fujaba UML tool (so called Strelka) and a number of model transformations for roundtrip engineering between Web services and reaction rules. Also, the paper presents mappings of models of Web services with reaction rules into the Drools rule language, thus enabling the run time execution semantics for our rule-based models.
Rule Markup Languages and Semantic Web Rule Languages
Authors: Paschke Adrian , Boley Harold
Published: May 2011

Rule markup languages will be the vehicle for using rules on the Web and in other distributed systems. They allow publishing, deploying, executing and communicating rules in a network. They may also play the role of a lingua franca for exchanging rules between different systems and tools. In a narrow sense, a rule markup language is a concrete (XMLbased) rule syntax for the Web. In a broader sense, it should have an abstract syntax as a common basis for defining various concrete languages addressing different consumers. The main purposes of a rule markup language are to permit the publication, interchange and reuse of rules. This chapter introduces important requirements and design issues for general Web rule languages to fulfill these tasks. Characteristics of several important general standardization or standards-proposing efforts for (XML-based) rule markup languages including W3C RIF, RuleML, R2ML, SWRL as well as (human-readable) Semantic Web rule languages such as TRIPLE, N3, Jena, and Prova are discussed with respect to these identified issues.
Semantic Web Rule Languages for Geospatial Ontologies
Authors: Smart Philip D. , Abdelmoty Alia I. , El-Geresy Baher A. , Jones Christopher B.
Published: May 2011

Geospatial ontologies have a key role to play in the development of the geospatial-Semantic Web, with regard to facilitating the search for geographical information and resources. They normally hold large volumes of geographic information and undergo a continuous process of revision and update. Limitations of the OWL ontology representation language for supporting geospatial domains are discussed and an integrated rule and ontology language is recognized as needed to support the representation and reasoning requirements in this domain. A survey of the current approaches to integrating ontologies and rules is presented and a new framework is proposed that is based on and extends Description Logic Programs. A hybrid representational approach is adopted where the logical component of the framework is used to represent geographical concepts and spatial rules and an external computational geometry processor is used for storing and manipulating the associated geometric data. A sample application is used to demonstrate the proposed language and engine and how they address the identified challenges.
WSBen
Authors: Oh Seog-Chan , Lee Dongwon
Published: May 2011

In this article, a novel benchmark toolkit, WSBen, for testing web services discovery and composition algorithms is presented. The WSBen includes: (1) a collection of synthetically generated web services files in WSDL format with diverse data and model characteristics; (2) queries for testing discovery and composition algorithms; (3) auxiliary files to do statistical analysis on the WSDL test sets; (4) converted WSDL test sets that conventional AI planners can read; and (5) a graphical interface to control all these behaviors. Users can finetune the generated WSDL test files by varying underlying network models. To illustrate the application of the WSBen, in addition, we present case studies from three domains: (1) web service composition; (2) AI planning; and (3) the laws of networks in Physics community. It is our hope that WSBen will provide useful insights in evaluating the performance of web services discovery and composition algorithms. The WSBen toolkit is available at: http://pike.psu.edu/sw/wsben/.
Using Semantic Web Services in E-Banking Solutions
Authors: Cicurel Laurent , Bas Uribe José Luis , Gonzalez Sergio Bellido , Contreras Jesús , López-Cobo José-Manuel , Losada Silvestre
Published: May 2011

Offering public access to efficient transactional stock market functionalities is of interest to all banks and bank users. Traditional service oriented architecture (SOA) technology succeeds at providing reasonable, good Web-based brokerage solutions, but may lack extensibility possibilities. By introducing Semantic Web Services (SWS) as a way to integrate third party services from distributed service providers, we propose in this chapter an innovative way to offer online real-time solutions that are easy-to-use for customers. The combined use of ontologies and SWS allows different users to define their own portfolio management strategies regardless of the information provider. In deed the semantic layer is a powerful way to integrate the information of many providers in an easy way. With due regard for more development of security technological issues, research on SWS has shown that the deployment of the technology in commercial solutions is within sight.
Diffusion and Oscillation of Telecommunications Services
Authors: Kollmann Tobias , Stöckmann Christoph , Schröer Carsten
Published: May 2011

The diffusion of a Web 2.0 product or services is, unlike to traditional consumer or industrial goods, not only based on purchase. Full acceptance of Web 2.0 platforms occurs by recurring utilization. The chapter focuses on diffusion characteristics of this innovative category of ICT products and provides management concepts for competition. The concept of critical mass is applied to different growth scenarios. Additional success factors are discussed. Particularly the permanent supervision of a platform regarding its compliance with qualitative, as well as ethical and legal standards is of great importance. Adjustments to external market conditions, proactive management, and a bilateral marketing approach are a key to lasting success within the Net Economy. Markets are never settled, due to the ever changing and oscillating conditions. The chapter shows that there is always a chance to capture a market or at least to grow against competition in a Web 2.0 setting.
Probabilistic Models for the Semantic Web
Authors: Predoiu Livia , Stuckenschmidt Heiner
Published: May 2011

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in formalisms for representing uncertain information on the Semantic Web. This interest is triggered by the observation that knowledge on the web is not always crisp and we have to be able to deal with incomplete, inconsistent and vague information. The treatment of this kind of information requires new approaches for knowledge representation and reasoning on the web as existing Semantic Web languages are based on classical logic which is known to be inadequate for representing uncertainty in many cases. While different general approaches for extending Semantic Web languages with the ability to represent uncertainty are explored, we focus our attention on probabilistic approaches. We survey existing proposals for extending semantic web languages or formalisms underlying Semantic Web languages in terms of their expressive power, reasoning capabilities as well as their suitability for supporting typical tasks associated with the Semantic Web
Estimating the Privacy Protection Capability of a Web Service Provider
Authors: Yee George O.M.
Published: May 2011

The growth of the Internet has been accompanied by the growth of Web services (e.g., e-commerce, e-health, etc.), leading to important provisions put in place to protect the privacy of Web service users. However, it is also important to be able to estimate the privacy protection capability of a Web service provider. Such estimates would benefit both users and providers. Users would benefit from being able to choose (assuming that such estimates were made public) the service that has the greatest ability to protect their privacy (this would in turn encourage Web service providers to pay more attention to privacy). Web service providers would benefit by being able to adjust their provisions for protecting privacy until certain target capability levels of privacy protection are reached. This article presents an approach for estimating the privacy protection capability of a Web service provider and illustrates the approach with an example.
Aspect-Oriented Framework for Web Services (AoF4WS)
Authors: Mostefaoui Ghita Kouadri , Maamar Zakaria , Narendra Nanjangud C.
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents our research initiative known as aspect-oriented framework for Web services (AoF4WS). This initiative looks into the role of aspect-oriented programming in enhancing Web services with nonfunctional properties that are orthogonal to the primary functional properties of Web services, without the need for extensive reprogramming. This enhancement achieves a separation between the functional and nonfunctional aspects of Web services, thereby resulting in easier adaptability and maintainability. We have initially chosen to focus on security and self-healing nonfunctional requirements. The AoF4WS initiative is therefore demonstrated using two projects, SC-WS and SHWS, which respectively stand for security concerns of Web services and self-healing Web services. Our contributions are relevant to the design phase in an aspect-oriented software development lifecycle.
Mapping Policies to Web Rules
Authors: Kaviani Nima , Gaševic Dragan , Hatala Marek
Published: May 2011

Web rule languages have recently emerged to enable different parties with different business rules and policy languages to exchange their rules and policies. Describing the concepts of a domain through using vocabularies is another feature supported by Web rule languages. Combination of these two properties makes web rule languages appropriate mediums to make a hybrid representation of both context and rules of a policy-aware system. On the other hand, policies in the domain of autonomous computing are enablers to dynamically regulate the behaviour of a system without any need to interfere with the internal code of the system. Knowing that policies are also defined through rules and facts, Web rules and policy languages come to a point of agreement, where policies can be defined through using web rules. This chapter focuses on analyzing some of the most known policy languages (especially, KAoS policy language) and describes the mappings from the concepts for KAoS policy language to those of REWERSE Rule Markup Language (R2ML), one of the two proposals to Web rule languages.
New Forms of Deep Learning on the Web
Authors: DeSchryver Michael , Spiro Rand J.
Published: May 2011

We claim that the Web has the potential to be a quintessential multimedia environment for complex learning, particularly in ill-structured domains. This chapter explores the cognitive load considerations associated with several aspects of deep and extended learning on the Web. We also propose the need for a reconceptualization of Cognitive Load Theory for comprehension and learning in more ill-structured conceptual arenas. This reconceptualization emphasizes the need for learning approaches that promote flexible knowledge assembly through processes of organic, reciprocal, and deep Web learning.
Social and Human Elements of Information Security
Authors: Carr Mahil
Published: May 2011

This chapter attempts to understand the human and social factors in information security by bringing together three different universes of discourse – philosophy, human behavior and cognitive science. When these elements are combined they unravel a new approach to the design, implementation and operation of secure information systems. A case study of the design of a technological solution to the problem of extension of banking services to remote rural regions is presented and elaborated to highlight human and social issues in information security. It identifies and examines the concept of the ‘Other’ in information security literature. The final objective is to prevent the ‘Other’ from emerging and damaging secure systems rather than introducing complex lock and key controls.
Social Networking
Authors: Curran Kevin , O’Kane Paul , McGinley Ryan , Kelly Owen
Published: May 2011

It is in man’s nature to form communities, and it is also in his nature to communicate. Psychologists hold that man is moved by instincts, desires which can only find full satisfaction in a community and by communication. Social networking (or network theory) is not an exact science and may reasonably be termed a social catalyst in discovering the method in which problems are solved; organisations are run to the degree in which individuals succeed in achieving goals (Freeman, 2004). In the network theory, social relationships are discussed in terms of nodes and ties: the former individual actors, the latter, relationships within networks frequently described diagrammatically where the node is a point, and the ties, lines of social connectivity (Scott, 2000).
The ‘Social Experience Factory' and the Fabrics of Collaboration in Virtual Communities of Practice
Authors: Akoumianakis Demosthenes
Published: May 2011

This chapter proposes and discusses the “social” experience factory (SEF). The SEF provides a general model and architecture supporting information- based product assembly by cross-organization communities of practice using interactive toolkits and practice-specific technologies. In terms of engineering ground, the SEF builds on two prevalent research tracks, namely experience-based and reuse-oriented proposals for the management of virtual assets and automated software assembly as conceived and facilitated by recent advances on software factories. Our account of the SEF focuses on functions facilitating electronic squads (i.e., cross-organization virtual community management) and workflows (i.e., practice management) which collectively define the scope of collaboration using the SEF. Further technical details on operational aspects of the SEF as deployed in the tourism sector to facilitate vacation package assembly are presented in Chapter XXI in this volume.
Social Shaping of Technologies for Community Development
Authors: Bala Poline
Published: May 2011

Using electronic-Bario (e-Bario) project in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak in East Malaysia, this chapter explores how the introduction of information communication technologies (ICT) as developmental tools have been mediated and reconfigured by webs of social relations and the intricate interplay of social, political and cultural conditions specific to different social and technical settings. One crucial factor conditioning the effects of the project has been the Kelabit’s own desire for, and expectations of, “development” and “progress.” This is a quest which ties in closely with two fundamental Kelabit concepts: doo-ness and iyuk. As a result, the social and economic effects of ICT have unfolded through countless open-ended strategic and everyday decisions made by the Kelabit themselves, who actively consume, apply and make use of objects, ideas and services in the Highlands.
Social Networking Sites and Critical Language Learning
Authors: Halvorsen Andy
Published: May 2011

This chapter looks at the potential use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) for educators and second language learners. It views SNSs broadly through the lens of Critical Language Learning (CLL) and looks at specific issues of identity formation, student empowerment, learner autonomy, and critical literacy as they relate to the use of SNSs. This chapter also reports the results of an initial project to make use of the MySpace social networking site for Japanese learners of English. It is hoped that this chapter will raise awareness of some of the complex issues surrounding the use of SNSs by language learners and that it will lead to further research and consideration of these issues.