bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Framework for Integrating the Social Web Environment in Pattern Engineering
Authors: Kamthan Pankaj
Published: May 2011

In the last decade, patterns have emerged as a notable problem-solving approach in various disciplines. This paper aims to address the communication requirements of the elements of pattern engineering (namely, actors, activities, and artifacts) in general and the pattern realization process in particular. To that regard, a theoretical framework using the Social Web as the medium is proposed and its implications are explored. The prospects of using the Social Web are analyzed by means of practical scenarios and concrete examples. The concerns of using the Social Web related to cost to actors, decentralization and distribution of control, and semiotic quality of representations of patterns are highlighted. The directions for future research including the use of patterns for Social Web applications, and the potential of the confluence of the Social Web and the Semantic Web for communicating the elements of pattern engineering, are briefly explored.
Social Networks Applied to E-Gov
Authors: Natale Leandro Pupo , Silveira Ismar Frango , Zucchi Wagner Luiz , Mustaro Pollyana Notargiacomo
Published: May 2011

The technological advances establish new communication forms between people and have also reached the government sphere and its activities, improving access to information and allowing greater interaction between citizens through C2C (Citizen to Citizen) Services. Based on these aspects, this chapter presents a proposal for software architecture, using a social network to map the relationships and interactions between citizens, accounting and storing this knowledge in a government ontological metadata network. Using UML notation (Unified Modeling Language) for Software Engineering process and Java platform for development, a software prototype was modeled and developed in order to manage and handle e-Gov-driven social networks, using ontological metadata to computationally represent the social ties. This prototype is also capable of providing graphical display of social networks, enabling the identification of different social links between citizens, creating a tool intended for government agencies, since it allows a quantitative analysis of information in the social network.
Asynchronous Communication Fostering Social Interaction with CollaboraTV
Authors: Amento Brian , Harrison Chris , Nathan Mukesh , Terveen Loren
Published: May 2011

With the advent of digital video recorders and video-on-demand services, the way in which we consume media is undergoing a fundamental change. People today are less likely to watch shows at the same time, let alone the same place. As a result, television viewing which was once a social activity has been reduced to a passive, isolated experience. CollaboraTV was designed to address this new mode of television viewing by directly supporting asynchronous communication. We demonstrated its ability to support this communal viewing experience through a lab study and a month-long field study. Our studies show that users understand and appreciate the utility of asynchronous interaction, are enthusiastic about CollaboraTV’s engaging social communication primitives and value implicit show recommendations from friends. Our results both provide a compelling demonstration of a social television system and raise new challenges for social television communication modalities.
From 2BeOn Results to New Media Challenges for Social (i)TV
Authors: Abreu Jorge Ferraz , Almeida Pedro
Published: May 2011

This chapter focuses on traditional and emergent challenges for the Social (i)TV area focusing on explaining the development and evaluation of one of the first Social iTV prototypes and looking at the challenges new media is introducing to this research field. The authors begin by explaining the conceptualization, development and evaluation process of the 2BeOn system and continue with the most important results from it’s evaluation with a particular focus on the results that can be important when developing any Social iTV platform. In the last part of the chapter recent developments in the broadcast of TV and Audiovisual content, namely considering the Internet as a medium, are addressed. In this scope authors propose a categorization of emergent online distribution platforms along with a set of social activities users perform on those platforms. Taking in consideration some of the challenges surrounding the presented scenario the chapter ends with the conceptualization of UMCA, a system that could increase social interaction activities performed during the consumption of online AV/TV content.
Using the Social Web for Collaborations in Software Engineering Education
Authors: Kamthan Pankaj
Published: May 2011

The discipline of software engineering has been gaining significance in computer science and engineering education. The technological environment in which software engineering education (SEE) resides and thrives has also been changing over the past few years. A technological revitalization of SEE requires a considerate examination from human and social perspectives. This chapter studies the impact of integrating Social Web technologies and applications based on these technologies in collaborative activities pertaining to SEE. In particular, teacher–student and student–student collaborations, both inside and outside the classroom, are highlighted. In doing so, the feasibility issues in selection and adoption of technologies/applications are emphasized and the use of pedagogically-inclined patterns is made. The potential prospects of such an integration and related concerns are illustrated by practical examples
Exploring the Role of Social Software in Higher Education
Authors: Ryan Yoni , Fitzgerald Robert
Published: May 2011

This chapter considers the potential of social software to support learning in higher education. It outlines a current project funded by the then Australian Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, now the Australian Learning and Teaching COuncil (ALTC) (http://www.altc. edu.au/carrick/go) to explore the role of social software in supporting peer engagement and group learning. The project has established a series of pilot projects that examine ways in which social software can provide students with opportunities to engage with their peers in a discourse that explores, interrogates and provides a supplementary social ground for their in-class learning. Finding creative ways of using technology to expand and enrich the social base of learning in higher education will become increasingly important to lecturers and instructional designers alike. This project represents one small step in testing the applicability of social software to these contexts. While many of our students are already using various technologies to maintain and develop their personal networks, it remains to be seen if these offer viable uses in more scholarly settings.
Social Marketing in Healthcare
Authors: Mah Manuel W.
Published: May 2011

Social marketing is a way to influence the behaviors of stakeholders in the healthcare system. This chapter will define the traditional transaction marketing concepts of exchange, segmentation, competition, the marketing mix, and audience orientation. Then it will describe the current paradigm shift to relationship marketing with its logic of collaboration and the cocreation of value. Relationship marketing is enhanced by the arrival of Internet-based “social media” such as blogs, file sharing sites, and social networking sites that place creativity and communication channels under “audience” control. These developments in marketing strategy and social software will profoundly affect the next generation of social marketing programs.
Social Networking and Schools
Authors: Abbott Chris , Alder William
Published: May 2011

Although social networking has been enthusiastically embraced by large numbers of children and young people, their schools and colleges have been more cautious, and often concerned about the implications for online safety. Social networking used by young people is considered here as part of a trajectory of online practices which began with personal Web sites in the mid 1990s and continued through the use of interactive services to the networking sites familiar today. The response of the education system is examined through interview and anecdotal evidence, and with reference to a growing body of research in this and allied areas. It is concluded that social networking has initiated a series of practices which cannot now be abandoned, and that the challenge for the education system is not control or abolition but the inclusion of social networking appropriately within teaching and learning.
Exploring a Professional Social Network System to Support Learning in the Workplace
Authors: Basiel Anthony “Skip” , Coyne Paul
Published: May 2011

This chapter sets out to explore how professionals can network, collaborate and capture informal learning in an online work-based environment. It addresses the pedagogical approaches that underpin emerging Web 2.0 technological trends and provide recommendations for future use of such online environments. Existing Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are primarily content driven with little provision for social engagement and stakeholdergenerated material. Similarly, many organisations have little or no structure for facilitating online interaction in a work based learning context. Since 2006 Emerald Group Publishing and the Middlesex Centre for Excellence in Work Based Learning have been partnering to develop, test and implement an online platform that will support collaborative, interactive learning. This link between Industry and Higher Education is critically reviewed. The InTouch (2008) platform was incorporated into the syllabus for MCEWBL’s work-based Professional Practice BA Honours programme in 2007 to support newly trained professionals as they worked through a professional development work based learning programme. The pedagogical underpinning of the course was reflective, self-directed learning and the blog, Wiki and profiling tools provided had the potential to either contribute to this aim or become a major part of how students construct their understanding of themselves in their professional practice. Emerald and MCEWBL have been monitoring the adoption, use and challenges associated with using Web 2.0 technology to support work based learning in order make recommendations about future pedagogical frameworks and approaches. This platform and related online pedagogic principles fills the gap between informal, free tools that provide little security or structure and heavyweight VLEs that offer tutor-made content, but do not naturally support social interaction for learning. The chapter provides some ideas and strategic options about implementing similar tools in other organisational settings and provides frameworks to evaluate these options in line with existing resources and capabilities. It concludes with an in-progress web-based learning design or ePedagogy that unifies the threads of the online learning experience.
The Potential of Enterprise Social Software in Integrating Exploitative and Explorative Knowledge Strategies
Authors: Bibikas Dimitris , Paraskakis Iraklis , Psychogios Alexandros G. , Vasconcelos Ana C.
Published: May 2011

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the potential role of social software inside business settings in integrating knowledge exploitation and knowledge exploration strategies. These strategies are approached through the lens of dynamic capabilities, organisational learning and knowledge lifecycle models. The authors argue that while current enterprise Information Technology (IT) systems focus more on knowledge lifecycle processes concerning the distribution and application of knowledge, enterprise social software can support knowledge exploration strategies and leverage knowledge creation and validation procedures. We present secondary data from the utilisation of enterprise social computing tools inside two companies for that matter. The first case illustrates how social computing tools were deployed in an international bank, and the other presents the employment of these technologies in an international broadcasting company. The authors suggest that free-form and pre-defined structures can co-exist in bounded organisational environments, in which knowledge exploitation and knowledge exploration strategies can harmonically interact. This chapter concludes with some managerial implications and future research avenues.
Cyberspace's Ethical and Social Challenges in Knowledge Society
Authors: Ranieri Maria
Published: May 2011

During the last years the issue of digital divide has received particular attention from international bodies like the UN, UNESCO, OECD (Bindé, 2005; OECD, 2001; UN, 2006). These organizations acknowledge that our planet is divided into “information haves” and “information have-nots” and that the effort to bridge this global gap is one of the main challenges of society today. Interest in digital divide is also widely present in literature. In these last five years, research and empirical surveys on this subject have notably increased (Baker, 2001; Hargittai, Di Maggio, Neuman, & Robinson, 2001; Ranieri, 2006; Rallet, 2004; Sartori, 2006; van Dijk, 2005). What does digital divide mean? What are the causes of the digital gap? How can education and technological research contribute to facing this challenge? In this chapter, we shall first develop this concept, identifying through literature reviews its dimension and causes. We shall then focus our attention on the possible roles that education and technological research can play in order to overcome the gap, suggesting four main directions to be followed, with the help of concrete examples.
Social Networking Site
Authors: Chan Tom S.
Published: May 2011

Social networking has become one of the most popular applications on the Internet since the burst of the dot-com bubble. Apart from being a haven for teenagers and online marketers, social networking sites are increasingly adopted by the corporate community. The trend makes viable many new business models and applications. The popularity of these sites has altered the way society interacts, but it also greatly heightened the threats of cyber crime. Safety and crime issues aside, the massive amount of user-generated content in these Web 2.0-enabled social networking sites are becoming fertile grounds for viruses. Furthermore, these sites pose great challenges on how to protect copyrighted works as they are havens for digital content sharing. Society must learn to balance the benefits of social networking with its drawbacks as the phenomenon is an inescapable global trend, expanding at the speed of light.
A New Approach to Reducing Social Engineering Impact
Authors: Mostefaoui Ghita Kouadri , Brézillon Patrick
Published: May 2011

In recent years, the security research community has been very active in proposing different techniques and algorithms to face the proliferating security vulnerabilities. However, social engineering remains an alarming threat to the most secured networks. Security administrators are certainly aware of the gravity of the human factor, whatever is the strength of the technological measures. The human factor is still a difficult-to-surround notion and a difficult to quantify concept. It is rarely considered in the early stages of the development lifecycle of software, assuming traditional security considerations have been taken into account. In this chapter, we discuss the added-value of context as a way to deal with social engineering. Based on a case study describing a typical attack, we provide a first attempt to model this parameter.
Representing and Sharing Tagging Data Using the Social Semantic Cloud of Tags
Authors: Kim Hak-Lae , Breslin John G. , Decker Stefan , Kim Hong-Gee
Published: May 2011

Social tagging has become an essential element for Web 2.0 and the emerging Semantic Web applications. With the rise of Web 2.0, websites that provide content creation and sharing features have become extremely popular. These sites allow users to categorize and browse content using tags (i.e., free-text keyword topics). However, the tagging structures or folksonomies created by users and communities are often interlocked with a particular site and cannot be reused in a different system or by a different client. This chapter presents a model for expressing the structure, features, and relations among tags in different Web 2.0 sites. The model, termed the social semantic cloud of tags (SCOT), allows for the exchange of semantic tag metadata and reuse of tags in various social software applications.
Audience Replies to Character Blogs as Parasocial Relationships
Authors: Robinson James D. , Agne Robert R.
Published: May 2011

News anchors, talk show hosts, and soap opera characters often become objects of parasocial affection because of the nature of these program genres. This chapter explores the concept of parasocial interaction by focusing on audience replies to blog posts made on behalf of a TV character, Jessica Buchanan of ABC Television Network’s One Life to Live show. The authors employ communication accommodation theory to illuminate the concept and to identify specific communicative behaviors that occur during parasocial interaction. The chapter presents evidence of parasocial interaction within the blog replies and audience accommodation to the blog posts. Analysis suggests that parasocial interaction is the mediated manifestation of the relationship dimension inherent in television messages and used by audience members in much the same way it is used during face-to-face interaction.
The Generative Potential of Appreciative Inquiry as an Essential Social Dimension of the Semantic Web
Authors: Vat Kam Hou
Published: May 2011

The mission of this chapter is to present a framework of ideas concerning the expected form of knowledge sharing over the emerging Semantic Web. Of specific interest is the perspective of appreciative inquiry, which should accommodate the creation of some appreciative knowledge environments (AKE) based on the peculiar organizational concerns that would encourage or better institutionalize knowledge work among people of interest in an organization. The AKE idea is extensible to the building of virtual communities of practice (CoP) whose meta-data requirements have been so much facilitated in today’s Web technologies including the ideas of data ownership, software as services, and the socialization and co-creation of content, and it is increasingly visible that the AKE model of knowledge sharing is compatible for the need of virtual collaboration in today’s knowledge-centric organizations. The author’s investigation should provide a basis to think about the social dimension of today’s Semantic Web, in view of the generative potential of various appreciative processes of knowledge sharing among communities of practice distributed throughout an organization.
Social Self-Regulation in Computer Mediated Communities
Authors: Goldspink Christopher
Published: May 2011

This article documents the findings of research into the governance mechanisms within the distributed on-line community known as Wikipedia. It focuses in particular on the role of normative mechanisms in achieving social self-regulation. A brief history of the Wikipedia is provided. This concentrates on the debate about governance and also considers characteristics of the wiki technology which can be expected to influence governance processes. The empirical findings are then presented. These focus on how Wikipedians use linguistic cues to influence one another on a sample of discussion pages drawn from both controversial and featured articles. Through this analysis a tentative account is provided of the agent-level cognitive mechanisms which appear necessary to explain the apparent behavioural coordination. The findings are to be used as a foundation for the simulation of ‘normative’ behaviour. The account identifies some of the challenges that need to be addressed in such an attempt including a mismatch between the case findings and assumptions used in past attempts to simulate normative behaviour.
"Social Potential" Models for Modeling Traffic and Transportation
Authors: Oleson Rex , Kaup D.J. , Clarke Thomas L. , Malone Linda C. , Bölöni Ladislau
Published: May 2011

The “Social Potential”, which the authors will refer to as the SP, is the name given to a technique of implementing multi-agent movement in simulations by representing behaviors, goals, and motivations as artificial social forces. These forces then determine the movement of the individual agents. Several SP models, including the Flocking, Helbing-Molnar–Farkas-Visek (HMFV), and Lakoba-Kaup-Finkelstein (LKF) models, are commonly used to describe pedestrian movement. A systematic procedure is described here, whereby one can construct and use these and other SP models. The theories behind these models are discussed along with the application of the procedure. Through the use of these techniques, it has been possible to represent schools of fish swimming, flocks of birds flying, crowds exiting rooms, crowds walking through hallways, and individuals wandering in open fields. Once one has an understanding of these models, more complex and specific scenarios could be constructed by applying additional constraints and parameters. The models along with the procedure give a guideline for understanding and implementing simulations using SP techniques.
Public Intimacy and the New Face (Book) of Surveillance
Authors: Baruh Lemi , Soysal Levent
Published: May 2011

In recent years, social media have become an important avenue for self-expression. At the same time, the ease with which individuals disclose their private information has added to an already heated debate about the privacy implications of interactive media. This chapter investigates the relationship between disclosure of personal information in social media and two related trends: the increasing value of subjective or private experience as a social currency and the evolving nature of automated dataveillance. The authors argue that the results of the extended ability of individuals to negotiate their identity through social media are contradictory. The information revealed to communicate the complexity of one’s identity becomes an extensive source of data about individuals, thereby contributing to the functioning of a new regime of surveillance.
Analysis of Content Popularity in Social Bookmarking Systems
Authors: Papadopoulos Symeon , Menemenis Fotis , Vakali Athena , Kompatsiaris Ioannis
Published: May 2011

The recent advent and wide adoption of Social Bookmarking Systems (SBS) has disrupted the traditional model of online content publishing and consumption. Until recently, the majority of content consumed by people was published as a result of a centralized selection process. Nowadays, the large-scale adoption of the Web 2.0 paradigm has diffused the content selection process to the masses. Modern SBS-based applications permit their users to submit their preferred content, comment on and rate the content of other users and establish social relations with each other. As a result, the evolution of popularity of socially bookmarked content constitutes nowadays an overly complex phenomenon calling for a multi-aspect analysis approach. This chapter attempts to provide a unified treatment of the phenomenon by studying four aspects of popularity of socially bookmarked content: (a) the distributional properties of content consumption, (b) its evolution in time, (c) the correlation between the semantics of online content and its popularity, and (d) the impact of online social networks on the content consumption behavior of individuals. To this end, a case study is presented where the proposed analysis framework is applied to a large dataset collected from Digg, a popular social bookmarking and rating application.
Modeling Cognitive Agents for Social Systems and a Simulation in Urban Dynamics
Authors: Zhang Yu , Lewis Mark , Drennon Christine , Pellon Michael , Coleman Phil , Leezer Jason
Published: May 2011

Multi-agent systems have been used to model complex social systems in many domains. The entire movement of multi-agent paradigm was spawned, at least in part, by the perceived importance of fostering human-like adjustable autonomy and behaviors in social systems. But, efficient scalable and robust social systems are difficult to engineer. One difficulty exists in the design of how society and agents evolve and the other difficulties exist in how to capture the highly cognitive decision-making process that sometimes follows intuition and bounded rationality. We present a multi-agent architecture called CASE (Cognitive Agents for Social Environments). CASE provides a way to embed agent interactions in a three-dimensional social structure. It also presents a computational model for an individual agent’s intuitive and deliberative decision-making process. This chapter also presents our work on creating a multi-agent simulation which can help social and economic scientists use CASE agents to perform their tests. Finally, we test the system in an urban dynamic problem. Our experiment results suggest that intuitive decision-making allows the quick convergence of social strategies, and embedding agent interactions in a three-dimensional social structure speeds up this convergence as well as maintains the system’s stability.
Leveraging Semantic Technologies Towards Social Ambient Intelligence
Authors: Joly Adrien , Maret Pierre , Bataille Fabien
Published: May 2011

These times, when the amount of information exponentially grows on the Internet, when most people can be connected at all times with powerful personal devices, we need to enhance, adapt, and simplify access to information and communication with other people. The vision of ambient intelligence which is a relevant response to this need brings many challenges in different areas such as context-awareness, adaptive human-system interaction, privacy enforcement, and social communications. The authors believe that ontologies and other semantic technologies can help meeting most of these challenges in a unified manner, as they are a bridge between meaningful (but fuzzy by nature) human knowledge and digital information systems. In this chapter, the authors will depict their vision of “Social Ambient Intelligence” based on the review of several uses of semantic technologies for context management, adaptive human-system interaction, privacy enforcement and social communications. Based on identified benefits and lacks, and on their experience, they will propose several research leads towards the realization of this vision.
Virtual Social Networks
Authors: Sangwan Sunanda , Guan Chong , Siguaw Judy A.
Published: May 2011

Multi-user virtual communities have become an accepted fundamental component of communication whereby community members share information and knowledge for mutual learning or problem solving. Virtual communities in a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) have evolved into active social networks, formulating an alternative social existence and this phenomenon warrants further investigations. In these virtual social networks (VSNs), member participation is essential for their success. Therefore, developing knowledge on how to manage and sustain participation of members in VSNs fills a gap in our academic understanding of the dynamics underpinning the processes of virtual community development. This article aims to address these issues by extending the theory of sense of community into a virtual context (SOVC) and by integrating it with other communication theory of U&G.
Online Virtual Communities as a New Form of Social Relations
Authors: Mínguez Almudena Moreno , Suárez Hernán Carolina
Published: May 2011

The generalization of the new information technologies has favored the transformation of social structures and the way of relating to others. In this changing process, the logic of the social relationships is characterized by the fragility and the temporality of the communicative systems reciprocity which are established “online” in a new cybernetic culture. “Virtual communities” are created in which the interaction systems established by individuals exceed the traditional categories of time and space. In this manner the individuals create online social webs where they connect and disconnect themselves based on their needs or wishes. The new online communication technologies favor the rigid norms of the “solid society” that dilute in flexible referential contexts and reversible in the context of the “global and liquid society” to which the sociologists Bauman or Beck have referred to. Therefore the objective that the authors propose in this chapter is to try new theoretic tools, from the paradigms of the new sociology of technology, which let them analyze the new relational and cultural processes which are being generated in the cultural context of the information global society, as a consequence of the new communication technologies scope. Definitely the authors propose to analyze the meaning of concepts such as “virtual community”, “cyber culture”, or “contacted individualism”, as well as the meaning and extent of some of the new social and individual behaviors which are maintained in the Net society.
Visualization in Support of Social Networking on the Web
Authors: Leng J. , Sharrock Wes
Published: May 2011

In this chapter the authors explore the contributioSocial Media Marketing Web X.0 of Opportunities Baruh, Lemi Kadir Has University, Turkeydevelopment of user-manipulable interfaces.
Measures of Network Structure
Authors: Calinescu Ani , Efstathiou Janet
Published: May 2011

Networked systems, natural or designed, have always been part of life. Their sophistication degree and complexity have increased through either natural evolution or technological progress. However, recent theoretical results have shown that a previously unexpected number of different classes of networks share similar network architectures and universal laws. Examples of such networks include metabolic pathways and ecosystems, the Internet and the World Wide Web, and organizational, social, and neural networks. Complex systems-related research questions investigated by researchers nowadays include: how consciousness arises out of the interactions of the neurons in the brain and between the brain and the environment (Amaral & Ottino, 2004; Barabási, 2005; Barabási & Oltvai, 2004; Neuman, 2003b) and how this understanding could be used for designing networked organizations or production networks whose behavior satisfies a given specification.
Adaptive Codec Selection for VoIP in Multi-Rate WLANs
Authors: Sfairopoulou Anna , Macián Carlos , Bellalta Boris
Published: May 2011

Network Technologies and Strategies (NeTS) Research Group, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, SpainThis chapter introduces the problems caused to voice over IP calls on 802.11 networks due to the link adaptation mechanism of them. It provides an overview of all the components participating in this study with special emphasis on the multi-rate anomaly. Furthermore, it reviews the literature on recent works on the specific area of link adaptation and codec selection. The authors finally propose as a solution to the multi-rate problem a codec selection mechanism, which, by changing codec of some of the calls at the moment of the rate change, has as an objective to maintain delay and packet loss values in acceptable levels and provide the desired QoS for the voice flows.
Comparison of Policies for Epidemic Broadcast in DTNs under Different Mobility Models
Authors: Giudici Francesco , Pagani Elena , Rossi Gian Paolo
Published: May 2011

The broadcast diffusion of messages in Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) is heavily dependent on nodes mobility, since protocols must rely on contact opportunities among devices to diffuse data. This work is a first effort to study how the dynamics of nodes affect both the effectiveness of the broadcast protocols in diffusing data, and their efficiency in using the network resources. The paper describes three control mechanisms. The mechanisms characterize a family of protocols able to achieve some awareness about the surrounding environment, and to use this knowledge in order to keep the broadcast overhead low, while ensuring high node coverage. Simulation results identify the winning mechanisms to diffuse messages in DTNs under different conditions.
Building Enterprise Network Infrastructure for a Supermarket Store Chain
Authors: Choi Beomjin , Tsai Nancy , Jones Tom
Published: May 2011

Enterprise network infrastructure has served as a vehicle on which data and information can be transferred between functional units regardless of their location. Creating the network infrastructure that enables firms and organizations to adapt to rapidly changing business needs has never been more important than now. Building the enterprise network infrastructure requires careful planning, effective design, and appropriate strategies for successful implementation. The current case study examines how a regional supermarket store chain in the retail food industry develops its enterprise network infrastructure to outperform its larger competitors. A detailed description of the evolution of the company’s enterprise network infrastructure is presented to show how the strategy of network infrastructure development has aligned with the organization’s growth strategy for the past two decades. The current case study highlights critical success factors for firms to build an effective enterprise network infrastructure that include IS planning firmly tied to critical business goals, strategic collaboration with technology vendors, and careful evaluation and selection of network services and technical details.
Mixing and Matching Organizational Network Legitimacy Practices to China’s Telecommunication Market
Authors: Low Brian , Johnston Wesley J.
Published: May 2011

Despite massive investment, few foreign firms doing business in China’s telecommunication sector can claim success. Such failures can be explained by their inability to acquire organizational legitimacy. Legitimacy is garnered when firms successfully market their competencies to key stakeholders, by conforming to regulative processes, institutional norms and cognitive meanings within the environment. But which competencies should a firm push to develop its legitimacy and to whom should they be targeted? While firms can push its in a variety of different ways, there is no guarantee of success in a network of embedded, interdependent stakeholders. Drawing on institutional theory, this chapter presents a case research based framework to describe an iterative and incremental process to help firms manage their network legitimacy. Using this framework, the chapter examines the complementary assets and legitimacy orientations of these firms with network stakeholders, and the resulting inter-partner initiatives and alliances.
Mobile Community Networks
Authors: Sugumaran Vijayan , Raghunathan Shriram , Vivekanandan K.
Published: May 2011

The evolution of mobile devices has opened new opportunities for collaboration and communication. Instant connectivity, portability, rapidly reducing costs, etc. are some of the drivers for this change. Mobile devices have lower processing power, memory capabilities, deal with varying network conditions and the available power is less. Notwithstanding the above, mobile communities have emerged as a significant domain of research in their own right akin to the online (virtual) communities. This article traces the factors contributing to the proliferation of mobile communities and places the mobile community networks in a current and future perspective. An architecture for the mobile community network is proposed and the challenges in implementing such a network are also discussed.
Need for a Well-Managed Technology Infrastructure, The
Authors: Lapping Thomas
Published: May 2011

As commonly defined, the “digital divide” means inadequate access to the Internet in urban or rural areas where telecommunications resources are limited or non-existent. This gap normally exists because of an insufficient economic incentive for investment by telecommunications providers. For educators, the digital divide means that students and teachers are unable to learn and apply the technologies most used by other educators, business, and industry in the information age because these technologies are not available. When there is inadequate access to the tools needed to learn and work in the information age, a barrier is placed between teachers, students, and successful achievement of learning goals.
Consumer Response to High Technology Mobile Phones in Emerging Markets
Authors: Fierros Ernesto , Rajagopal Dr.
Published: May 2011

The principal objective of the study is to identify the primary variables that can make an impact on the buying decision for a mobile phone. The focus of this study is to suggest developing a high performing customer-centric marketing plan to guide the mobile telecommunication companies to gain competitive advantage in the market.
Student Success in a University Introductory Networks and Telecommunications Course
Authors: Brookshire Robert G. , Crews Tena B. , Brown III Herbert F.
Published: May 2011

Students at a large southeastern university typically find the introductory networking and telecommunications course difficult. This study examines the factors that contribute to the success of undergraduate technology support and training management students in this required course. College transcripts and academic student files provided the data, which were analyzed using multiple regression. In contrast to previous research, only performance in an introductory technology prerequisite course significantly predicted success. These findings have implications for faculty designing or organizing curricula who want to improve the success students in networking and telecommunications courses.
Analyzing the Disruptive Potential in the Telecommunications Industry
Authors: Hüsig Stefan
Published: May 2011

This chapter covers an important issue in the area of telecommunications planning and technology management: The ex ante analysis of potential disruptive technologies. Due to the convergence of IT and telecommunications, an ever-growing onslaught of emerging technologies and new entrants with new business models are starting to eat up the incumbent’s revenues, profits, and market shares. The theory of disruptive technology (Christensen, 1997; Christensen & Raynor, 2003) helps managers, policy-makers and analysts to analyze emerging technologies, new business models, and new entrants in order to be prepared in advance, providing appropriate ways to react in a timely fashion to innovation- based opportunities or threats. In this chapter the theory of disruptive technology, the concept of disruptive potential and a method for applying this concept in a telecommunications planning and technology management context is presented. Finally, some examples of potential disruptive technologies in telecommunication which were analyzed ex ante are introduced with specific emphasis placed on the WLAN-technology.
Error Probability for Coherent Modulations in Rician Fading Channel
Authors: Chandra A. , Bose C.
Published: May 2011

Simple closed-form solutions for the average error rate of several coherent modulation schemes including square M-QAM, DBPSK and QPSK operating over slow flat Rician fading channel are derived. Starting from a novel unified expression of conditional error probability the error rates are analysed using PDF based approach. The derived end expressions composed of infinite series summations of Gauss hypergeometric function are accurate, free from any numerical integration and general enough, as it encompasses as special situations, some cases of non-diversity and Rayleigh fading. Error probabilities are graphically displayed for the modulation schemes for different values of the Rician parameter K. In addition, to examine the dependence of error rate performance of M-QAM on the constellation size, numerical results are plotted for various values of M. The generality of the analytical results presented offers valuable insight into the performance evaluation over a fading channel in a unified manner.
A Novel Secure Video Surveillance System Over Wireless Ad Hoc Networks
Authors: Yin Hao , Lin Chuang , Chen Zhijia , Min Geyong
Published: May 2011

The integration of wireless communication and embedded video systems is a demanding and interesting topic which has attracted significant research efforts from the community of telecommunication. This chapter discusses the challenging issues in wireless video surveillance and presents the detailed design for a novel highly-secure video surveillance system over ad hoc wireless networks. To this end, we explore the state-of-the-art cross domains of wireless communication, video processing, embedded systems, and security. Moreover, a new media-dependent video encryption scheme, including a reliable data embedding technique and real-time video encryption algorithm, is proposed and implemented to enable the system to work properly and efficiently in an open and insecure wireless environment. Extensive experiments are conducted to demonstrate the advantages of the new systems, including high security guarantee and robustness. The chapter would serve as a good reference for solving the challenging issues in wireless multimedia and bring new insights on the interaction of different technologies within the cross application domain.
Inventing the Future of E-Health
Authors: Medina-Garrido José Aurelio , Crisóstomo-Acevedo María José
Published: May 2011

E-health involves the use of information and communications technologies to improve health in general and the healthcare system in particular (Alvarez, 2002; Chau & Hu, 2004; Roger & Pendharkar, 2000). Healthcare, one of the largest industries in the world, suffers from some inefficiencies and inequities in both service provision and quality. Some of these problems are due to the poor management of the information flows (Kirsch, 2002). In this respect, there are business opportunities for e-health. But to understand what the future holds for e-health, we need to find a precise definition of the concept and identify the possible sources of business. This article is structured as follows. The second section, the background, defines the concept of e-health. The third section outlines some of the business opportunities in the area of e-health based on the communications platform that is the Internet, and discusses some practical guidelines for e-health businesses to create value. The fourth section discusses the low level of adoption of e-health at present, as well as the future trends, in which e-health will presumably grow. e-health is also expected to be used to reduce the disparities in the population in access to healthcare, and for the treatment of the chronically ill. The fifth section is dedicated to the final conclusions.
Health Technology Assessment
Authors: Haheim Lise Lund , Morland Berit
Published: May 2011

Scientific publications in medical fields are rapidly increasing and are overwhelming in numbers. This poses a challenge to health authorities, and health professionals who need knowledge to make informed decisions in finding the best evidence for treatment and practice in the health provision to the public. They need an accessible system that handle the information flow using a systematic approach. This applies to developing and industrialized countries alike. The rapid development of health technologies with the introduction of new drugs, devices, and complex treatment modalities to achieve better health outcomes increases the need for evaluation of the treatment effect. This chapter illustrates how the health service handles the information flow utilizing information technology, and the great benefit that is gained by this methodology.
IT Adoption and Evaluation in Healthcare
Authors: AM Spil Ton , LeRouge Cynthia , Trimmer Ken , Wiggins Carla
Published: May 2011

This article focuses on the evolution of theory, methodology, and practice regarding the role of adoption, implementation, diffusion, and evaluation factors, and the interaction of these factors at various levels, to healthcare system success. These topics continue to present challenges to organizations, the research community, and to society in general. The first place that new waves of thought are often aired is at conferences. This article explores the evolution taking place in this domain by looking back through the years over work presented at the longest standing conference track focused on adoption, implementation, diffusion, and evaluation factors in e-health and the interaction of these factors at various levels to healthcare system success.
Benefits and Barriers to Adoption of Information Technology in US Healthcare
Authors: Anderson James G.
Published: May 2011

Information technology such as electronic medical records (EMRs), electronic prescribing, and clinical decision support systems are recognized as essential tools in all developed countries. However, the U.S. lags significantly behind other countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Significant barriers impede wide-scale adoption of these tools in the U.S., especially EMR systems. These barriers include lack of access to capital by healthcare providers, complex systems, and lack of data standards that permit exchange of clinical data, privacy concerns and legal barriers, and provider resistance. Overcoming these barriers will require subsidies and performance incentives by payers and government, certification and standardization of vendor applications that permit clinical data exchange, removal of legal barriers, and convincing evidence of the cost-effectiveness of these IT applications.
Ageing, Learning, Technology, and Health Management
Authors: Boulton-Lewis Gillian , Buys Laurie , Edwards Sylvia , Patridge Helen
Published: May 2011

The world’s population is ageing rapidly. Ageing has an impact on all aspects of human life, including social, economic, cultural, and political. Understanding ageing is therefore an important issue for the 21st century. This chapter will consider the active ageing model. This model is based on optimising opportunities for health, participation, and security in order to enhance quality of life. There is a range of exciting options developing for personal health management, for and by the ageing population, that make use of computer technology, and these should support active ageing. Their use depends however on older people learning to use computer technology effectively. The ability to use such technology will allow them to access relevant health information, advice, and support independently from wherever they live. Such support should increase rapidly in the future. This chapter is a consideration of ageing and learning, ageing and use of computer technology, and personal health management using computers.
Healthcare Information Systems and the Semantic Web
Authors: Parry David
Published: May 2011

The World Wide Web (WWW) is a critical source of information for healthcare. Because of this, systems for allowing increased efficiency and effectiveness of information retrieval and discovery are critical. Increased intelligence in web pages will allow information sharing and discovery to become vastly more efficient .The semantic web is an umbrella term for a series of standards and technologies that will support this development.