bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Theory-Based Models of E-Government Adoption
Authors: Orgeron Craig P.
Published: May 2011

Too often, citizens view government as hopelessly ineffective and lacking in skill to deliver services in the same way that a bottom-line-focused private-sector business is able to effectively do. This view often informs a marked decline in political participation and a lack of confidence in the ability of public-sector agencies to effectively and efficiently solve problems (Hetherington, 1998; P. Norris, 1999). As a response, contemporary public administrators have been tasked with government “reinvention” as a way of increasing bureaucratic effectiveness and efficiency (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). Some scholars have begun to view information technology as a critical component for creating a more capable government, one capable of providing better service and thus increasing citizen confidence in public-sector management (Norris, 2001). Electronic government (e-government) has in recent years attracted much attention as scholars have suggested that by leveraging cutting-edge information technology, government may reap benefits of increased efficiency, effectiveness, and citizen communication with public-sector agencies (C. Chadwick & May, 2003; Ho, 2002; Melitski, 2001; West, 2004). E-government can be defined as the implementation of information technology to supply services between public-sector agencies and citizens, businesses, employees, and other nongovernmental agencies (Carter & Belanger, 2004). E-government offers potential impact on the business of government in two fundamental, yet crucial, ways: by improving service delivery, including costs, and by improving communication between citizens and government (Fountain, 2001). Participatory forms of e-government, such as online public hearings or e-voting, are less common than informational uses or online transactions, such as tax e-filing. Carter and Belanger note that public-sector agencies at all levels of government have leveraged e-government applications to foster buying goods and services, the dissemination of critical information, and the acceptance of bids and proposals (General Accounting Office [GAO], 2001). Arguably, both the public sector and the citizenry benefit from the implementation of e-government services. As public-sector agencies reduce costs and improve efficiency, citizens receive quicker, better aligned services from a more focused and streamlined government (Kettl, 2000).
The Role Of Government in E-Business Adoption
Authors: Roberts Barbara , Toleman Mark
Published: May 2011

An analysis of the role of government in e-business adoption is provided in this chapter, with empirical evidence from Australia included. It is shown that government influence is multi-faceted. Governments champion e-business adoption for national economic gain; they provide the physical network on which much of the e-business depends; and increasingly provide e-government services to improve regulation and compliance effectiveness. E-government in particular can act as a strong driver of organisational adoption for some types of e-business processes. Implications for theory from a DOI perspective are included. The authors hope that further research by IS professionals will guide future e-business project directions by improving the understanding of government’s role in e-business adoption in practice, which in turn will improve theoretical understanding of how the benefits can best be maximized.
Local Democracy Online
Authors: Pratchett Lawrence , Wingfield Melvin , Polat Rabia Karakaya
Published: May 2011

This report from the field analyzes the extent to which local authorities in England and Wales have responded to the e-democracy agenda by examining their Web sites and assessing their potential to deliver democracy. The analysis of Web sites provides a powerful insight into how local government is using the Internet to promote democracy. Two aspects of Web site use are particularly significant. First, the analysis reveals the overall commitment to e-democracy in local government, as it is a measure of actual behavior rather than simply an attitudinal survey. Second, it highlights the types of democratic structure being supported and the values being emphasized in the implementation of e-democracy. The research demonstrated that the potential of the Internet for enhancing democracy is not fully exploited by local authorities and there remain considerable variations between different authorities.
The Digitalization of the West European Party Systems
Authors: Cunha Carlos , Voerman Gerrit
Published: May 2011

American politics has been at the forefront of World Wide Web use. In the early 1990s political parties and candidates started to employ Web sites to spread their message. President Bill Clinton’s second-term campaign for the 1996 election was the first time the Internet appeared as a pervasive presence in American Politics, and in which all presidential candidates had Web sites (Rash, 1997). After some time, European parties and politicians followed the lead. In this article, we intend to describe the emergence of Web sites of political parties in West European nations. Reaching out to the Web required allocating limited resources. What advantages did parties hope to reap by creating a Web site, and what disadvantages might they have encountered once the sites were in place? Ideally, a comprehensive analysis would include all political parties in every West European nation. Given the complications regarding collection of data from multiple nations, however, we focused on the parties which were represented in parliament. At the same time, not all nations are currently included in this assessment. The data set consists of information provided by country experts that kindly responded to an expert survey, which included categorizing their national parties by party family (ideologically).1 To facilitate comparative analysis, we have organized the existing data into four chronological lists (tables) and two figures such as the level of Internet penetration in countries, as well as party family, size, and ideological characteristics: 1. “Complete Chronology” provides the data according to party Web site inauguration for all parties and all nations. The calendar year is divided into three-month quadrants. Is there a correlation between the spread of party Web sites in national party systems and the emergence and development of Internet connections within individual countries? 2. “Party Family Chronology” categorizes site emergence regardless of nationality by ideological divisions ranging from “Nationalist/extreme-right” toward the left ending with “Other” (mainly regional parties). Did ideology influence parties’ decisions to initiate Web sites? 3. “National Chronology” arranges Web site emergence by individual nation. Did party size (small, medium, or large) influence the Web site creation decision? 4. “National Initiator Chronology” lists only the first political party in each nation to initiate a Web site. We also include figures that consolidate the data from the lists to portray potential patterns behind party Web emergence. Our content analysis of the digitalization of Western European parties is limited only to their decisions and motivations for initiating a Web presence. We do not intend to systematically look at other facets of digital activity such as internal uses of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) by political parties for data management (archiving or membership lists) or communication (newslists).
E-Government Regimes
Authors: Amoretti Francesco
Published: May 2011

The internationalization of the reform movement is changing the ways in which governments operate throughout the world (Kettl, 2000). The ICT revolution is fast spreading its reach from private enterprises to bureaucratic agencies. As a result, electronic government (e-government) is both encouraging reform and, in itself, is a way of reinventing traditional structures and procedures and improving how the machinery of decision-making works. The scale of e-government developments is the subject of much research on a global perspective (Kamark, 2004). They show different and conflicting theoretical and ideological paradigms, but very little effort has been made to formulate a framework to define the e-government regimes that emerge in different political and institutional contexts. Since the characteristics of the World Wide Web (WWW) become the parameters from which to evaluate the public organizations and their capacity to innovating in regard to technology policy, the dominant vision of e-government emphasizes service delivery. As Forlano said (2004, p. 35) “the case studies ... bring to life common classification of e-government stages … ,” not to a typology focused on political and institutional features. In this way, a crucial point is underestimated; namely, that the restructuring of the administrative apparatuses because of the WWW is a political choice, and does not take place in a institutional and ideological vacuum, which at the end of the day expresses its nature, whether democratic or otherwise (Barber, 1999).
E-Tourism and Digital Government
Authors: Buhalis Dimitrios
Published: May 2011

The recent developments in information communication technologies (ICTs) and the emergence of the Internet, in particular, as a mainstream communications and transaction media has changed the way that governments, organisations, and citizens interact and operate. These developments have changed the best operational and strategic practices for organisations on a global level and altered the competitiveness of enterprises and regions around the world. ety Technology Advisory Group (ISTAG) (2003) as “a set of properties of an environment that we are in the process of creating.” This represents a new paradigm for how people can work and live together. According to the ISTAG vision statement, humans, in an ambient intelligent environment, will be surrounded by intelligent interfaces supported by computing and networking technology that is embedded in everyday objects, such as furniture, clothes, vehicles, roads, and smart materials—even particles of decorative substances like paint. Humans will live in an ambient intelligence space in which there will be seamless interoperation between different environments—home, vehicle, public space, work, leisure space, tourism destination, and so forth. This implies a seamless environment of computing, advanced networking technology, and specific interfaces, which should be aware of the specific characteristics of human presence and personalities; adapt to the needs of users; be capable of responding intelligently to spoken or gestured indications of desire; and even result in systems that are capable of engaging in intelligent dialogue (Buhalis & O’Connor, 2005).
New Media and Democratic Citizenship
Authors: Hardy Bruce W. , Scheufele Dietram A.
Published: May 2011

The issue of the civic potential of the Internet has been at the forefront of much scholarly discussion over the last 10 to 15 years. Before providing a comprehensive overview of the different schools of thought currently dominating this debate, it is necessary to briefly describe how researchers have defined the terms citizenship and new media. Across different literatures, two ways of examining citizenship emerge. The first approach examines citizenship broadly as citizen involvement in the political process. Scheufele and Nisbet (2002), for example, identified three dimensions of citizenship: feelings of efficacy, levels of information, and participation in the political process. The second approach taps citizenship much more narrowly as social capital (i.e., the more emotional and informal ties among citizens in a community) (Shah, Kwak, & Holbert, 2001). Depending on which definition of citizenship they followed, researchers also have been interested in different types of new media use with a primary focus on the Internet. Some have examined the Internet as a medium that functions in a top-down fashion similar to traditional mass media. These scholars mostly are concerned with how online information gathering differs from traditional media use, such as newspaper readership or TV viewing. More recently, scholars have begun to examine different dimensions of Internet use, including chatting online about politics, e-mail exchanges with candidates and other citizens, and online donations to campaigns.
Scenarios for Future Use of E-Democracy Tools in Europe
Authors: Kubicek Herbert , Westholm Hilmar
Published: May 2011

Many ICT-based tools for supporting democratic participation that have been developed with public funds and applied in pilot projects have not yet achieved large-scale outreach. Optimists still believe this will happen; sceptics doubt. This paper starts from the assumption that technological development and diffusion are largely influenced by socioeconomic conditions. It develops a contingency model for e-democracy tools and applies the scenario method for differentiating the future context of these tools. It is based on the results of a research project that described possible futures of European e-government in general and e-democracy in particular on a 10-year time horizon by using the scenario method and inputs from European experts on e-government. Out of three different scenarios, possible and plausible futures of e-democracy are described in order to analyse robust technologies that are expected to be used in all three scenarios.
Intelligent Cities
Authors: Komninos Nicos
Published: May 2011

In the dawn of the 21st century, information and communication technologies have radically altered the construction of our physical environment. Instead of constructing spaces that intermediate between nature and man’s physical condition, a new orientation is emerging attempting to create spaces that increase man’s intellectual capacity and improve the ways in which we use the environment in order to learn, innovate, and reach new frontiers. Intelligent cities belong to this new orientation; they are part of an ongoing research project for creating environments that improve our cognitive skills, our ability to learn and innovate, to foresee and prevent. Intelligent cities combine two fundamental dimensions of our era: information technologies and innovation systems. …We use the term ‘intelligent city’ to characterize areas (communities, neighborhoods, districts, cities, regions) which have the ability to support learning, technological development, and innovation procedures on the one hand, with digital spaces and information processing, knowledge transfer and technology tools on the other hand. ….There are three basic components of an intelligent city: (1) the island of innovation formed by a community of people, production, exchange and other activities, (2) the virtual innovation system, which includes knowledge management tools and information technologies for online provision of information and innovation services, and (3) the connection between the physical and virtual innovation systems, in other words, the use of the latter by the island’s community. (Komninos, 2002, p. 198, 201). To date, many territories have adopted “intelligent city” strategies. Public authorities in Singapore, Taipei (Taiwan), Spokane (U.S.), Seoul and Songdo (Korea), and Cyberjaya and Putrajaya (Malaysia) have implemented plans to make their cities more “intelligent.” But, the most elaborated illustration of intelligent cities is to be found in the awards of the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), which assesses communities, cities, and regions with respect to five criteria of innovation performance and digital government. During the last five years, about 20 territories from all over the world were selected by the ICF as top intelligent cities (http://www.intelligent community.org).
Behavorial, Cognitive, and Humanistic Theories
Authors: Cicciarelli MarySue
Published: May 2011

This article presents fifteen different design theories from the behaviorism, cognitivism, and humanism schools of psychology. Information about the theories is presented as a response to three research questions. Descriptions and online learning empirical evidence of eight of the theories are illustrated first. Then, descriptions of seven additional design theories which have not yet been researched in connection with online learning are offered. Finally, results from a study that investigates how often online instructors utilize nine of the theories is presented. Conclusions are made in connection to the three research questions, and further research studies related to the topic are suggested.
Delivering More Effective Community Consultation and Support for Regional ICT Programs
Authors: De Weaver Lynne , Ellis Allan H.
Published: May 2011

This chapter looks at the role of language and the community consultation process in overcoming the digital divide by facilitating the uptake of information and communications technologies (ICT) in small regional communities in Australia. It focuses on one of the ‘telecentre’ programs funded by State and Federal governments in Australia – the Community Technology Centre at New South Wales (CTC@NSW) program. The authors look at some of the key issues that emerged in communities that applied for CTC@NSW grants when a more culturally relevant consultation process, based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, was developed and implemented. This consultation process was successfully used in targeted regional communities to build social capital, facilitate regional economic development and empower communities through the use of ICT. The chapter also includes projects that demonstrate the diversity of ICT usage in the communities that received funding to establish a CTC.
E Bario Project
Authors: Bala Poline , Harris Roger W. , Songan Peter
Published: May 2011

This chapter highlights an initiative by a group of researchers2 from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) to connect villagers in the remote and isolated village of Bario to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), which include computers, telephones, the Internet, and VSATs. This project has eased the information flow in and out of Bario, affecting the well-being of the people by providing a means to keep in touch with friends and relatives in urban areas. The response of the Bario community has been positive, but the objective of the e Bario project is more ambitious than to just provide access to the Internet, computers and other related technologies. The main objective is to identify opportunities for remote and rural communities in Sarawak to develop socially, culturally and economically from the deployment of the technologies. The results of the initiative are expected to demonstrate the many ways in which ICTs can be used to improve the lives of marginalized groups, specifically, here, the rural and remote communities in Malaysia. However, to ensure that the objectives will ultimately be met, the team has had to search for an appropriate methodology that will ensure the full benefits of the initiative to the community. This chapter describes and discusses the approaches adopted, emphasizing the benefits of a close association between the researchers and the community as well as the adoption of suitable participatory methods for engaging with the needs and opportunities that were discovered.
Information and Communication Technologies
Authors: Finger Glenn , McGlasson Maret , Finger Paul
Published: May 2011

Teaching and learning in the 21st century should be markedly different from earlier times through the design of new teaching and learning environments. Through the presentation of three models of technology-rich learning environments (teacherdirected, learner-centered and mediated), this chapter provides a case study of the design and delivery of a course called Learning with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) guided by a mediated learner approach, using new approaches to using ICTs and assessment for learning as key course design drivers. That course aims to prepare future teachers who demonstrate strong theoretical and practical understanding of designing and creating effective ICT teaching and learning experiences, and are confident and proficient users of ICTs. We provide an analysis of the implementation of that course through the presentation of the learning stories and reflections of students. Specific discussion is provided about the conceptualization and implementation of an e-portfolio approach to promote deep learning.
Transitioning from Face-to-Face to Online Instruction
Authors: York Cindy S. , Yang Dazhi , Dark Melissa
Published: May 2011

This article briefly reviews two important goals in online education: interaction and presence. These are important goals in online education because they are linked to learning and motiva-tion to learn. The article provides guidelines and an extended example of how to design an online course in information security in a manner that will enhance interaction and presence. This article’s contribution is to provide guidelines with a corresponding extended and concrete example for those who are tasked with designing and delivering online courses. Although the guidelines and example were targeted to the field of information security, they can be readily adopted by other disciplines.
Developing Staff Training in Virtual High Schools
Authors: Thompson Chris , Berge Zane L.
Published: May 2011

As virtual high schools grow in numbers across America more interest is generated in how to successfully plan and implementing them. Part of planning, implementing, and sustaining suc-cessful virtual schools includes delivering quality professional development that has a positive impact upon students’ achievement. This article focuses on three virtual schools at different stages of maturity in order to describe such a model.
Internet
Authors: Naicker Inban
Published: May 2011

This study examines the impact of the Internet on a student society by investigating the effective use of the Internet at tertiary education. The main objectives of the studies were to determine whether the Internet is being optimally utilized at tertiary education, and to evaluate the level of utilization of the Internet. The study also identified problems experienced by students. A convenience sample of 95 under-graduate students was used at the University of KwaZulu Natal (Westville campus) (only information systems and technology (IS&T) students were included in the study because they had access to computers). The researcher compiled a questionnaire to collect the data. The study revealed that the activity that students mostly used was e-mail systems. The majority of the students (81%) have indicated there are insufficient computers for proper Internet usage. Fifty-eight percent of the students still use the library to access information. Seventy-four percent of the students have indicated that the Internet is easy to use.
Digital Business Portfolios
Authors: Flanigan Eleanor J.
Published: May 2011

Developing an innovative and original professional digital business portfolio and keeping it updated is one of the most effective tools that can be used either by the business professional or by the student emerging into the business world. It constitutes a lasting comprehensive experience for both groups. Continual reflection upon their work arms students and business people alike with more confidence in their own competence and worth as they embark on their professional careers or justify their desires for advancement. This article will confine itself to the types of portfolios used most frequently in the business world or in preparation for entering a career, showing that content in each can be cumulative or separate. It will describe ideas for the types of artifacts to compile along with how to format them effectively and digitize them creatively. It will give answers to why to create a portfolio, who should have one, what should be in it, and how portfolios are created.
A Statewide Analysis of Student Web Portfolios in New York Colleges and Universities
Authors: DiMarco John
Published: May 2011

This survey research project investigated the existence of Web portfolios on academic Web sites in New York State. The goal of this project was to promote Web portfolios and the main objective was to provide interpretation of the current level of student Web portfolio usage and activity within all New York colleges and universities. Major findings were that there is a low quantity of Web portfolios in relation to overall student enrollment, thus providing impetus to study a new phenomenon, lack of Web portfolios. The study yielded data providing a breakdown of where and how many Web portfolios were found. This study provides a basis for further research by scholars into Web portfolios within academic settings.
CAL Student Coaching Environment and Virtual Reality in Mechanical Engineering
Authors: Sidhu S. Manjit , Selvanathan N. , Ramesh S.
Published: May 2011

This work presents an extension of our study on multimedia patterns of interactions and development of computer aided-learning (CAL) engineering tools. We used four approaches in implementing the CAL tools for user visualization that is, that is, 2-D, 3-D, coach environment and desktop virtual reality. The designed CAL tools have been enhanced to enable the integration and investigation of visualization in various engineering problems for undergraduates with particular weak learners. Each problem was designed using different authoring tool. More significantly, we have enhanced some of the CAL tools to the degree where the user can interact and be coached independently. This dramatically increases the quality of the tools i.e. patterns of interactions, 2-D and 3-D views of synthetic models. In general the result shows that the CAL tools could alleviate the user interacting and instill a sense of learning and the user understand the engineering problem better.
Convergence of ICT and Culture
Authors: Mitchell Matthew.
Published: May 2011

Participants in development projects and programs that strategically utilize information communication technologies (ICT) are engaged in activities that have culturally-relevant impacts. At local and regional levels, there may be approaches to implementing ICT-based development projects that are appropriately contextualized for different socio-cultural systems. Such approaches need to look beyond short-term outputs and mid-term outcomes and give adequate focus on long-term impacts. It is possible to analyze the long-term impacts of ICT-based development projects through a number of different lenses, one of which is the concept of “convergence.”
Who's Talking Online II
Authors: Hartsell Taralynn
Published: May 2011

This descriptive study investigated the association between gender and online communication that involved participants from two online graduate courses. The study implemented a descriptive model in that “student involvement” was assessed by tabulating and recording the quantity and quality of student activity in the discussion threads. Quantity was recorded by the amount of times students posted online comments and the number of words that women and men used to make their responses. In addition, quality was examined by reviewing the content that women and men made concerning topics under discussion. A difference between the genders was found in that the amount (quantity) women contributed to the discussions exceeded the men. Women were also more inclined to give supportive or encouraging remarks than men, and addressed their classmates by name to promote a sense of online community, all which support previous studies.
Conceptual Modeling Solutions for the Data Warehouse
Authors: Rizzi Stefano
Published: May 2011

In the context of data warehouse design, a basic role is played by conceptual modeling, that provides a higher level of abstraction in describing the warehousing process and architecture in all its aspects, aimed at achieving independence of implementation issues. This chapter focuses on a conceptual model called the DFM, that suits the variety of modeling situations that may be encountered in real projects of small to large complexity. The aim of the chapter is to propose a comprehensive set of solutions for conceptual modeling according to the DFM and to give the designer a practical guide for applying them in the context of a design methodology. Besides the basic concepts of multidimensional modeling, the other issues discussed are descriptive and cross-dimension attributes; convergences; shared, incomplete, recursive, and dynamic hierarchies; multiple and optional arcs; additivity.
Pattern Mining and Clustering on Image Databases
Authors: Bouet Marinette , Gançarski Pierre , Boussaïd Omar
Published: May 2011

Analysing and mining image data to derive potentially useful information is a very challenging task. Image mining concerns the extraction of implicit knowledge, image data relationships, associations between image data and other data or patterns not explicitly stored in the images. Another crucial task is to organize the large image volumes to extract relevant information. In fact, decision support systems are evolving to store and analyse these complex data. This paper presents a survey of the relevant research related to image data processing. We present data warehouse advances that organize large volumes of data linked with images and then, we focus on two techniques largely used in image mining. We present clustering methods applied to image analysis and we introduce the new research direction concerning pattern mining from large collections of images. While considerable advances have been made in image clustering, there is little research dealing with image frequent pattern mining. We shall try to understand why.
A Framework for Efficient Association Rule Mining in XML Data
Authors: Zhang Ji , Liu Han , Ling Tok Wang , Bruckner Robert M. , Tjoa A. Min
Published: May 2011

In this article, we propose a framework, called XAR-Miner, for mining ARs from XML documents efficiently. In XAR-Miner, raw data in the XML document first are preprocessed to transform either to an Indexed XML Tree (IX-tree) or to Multirelational Databases (Multi-DB), depending on the size of the XML document and the memory constraint of the system, for efficient data selection and AR mining. Concepts that are relevant to the AR mining task are generalized to produce generalized metapatterns. A suitable metric is devised for measuring the degree of concept generalization in order to prevent undergeneralization or overgeneralization. Resulting generalized metapatterns are used to generate large ARs that meet the support and confidence levels. A greedy algorithm is also presented in order to integrate data selection and large itemset generation to enhance the efficiency of the AR mining process. The experiments conducted show that XAR-Miner is more efficient in performing a large number of AR mining tasks from XML documents than the state-of-the-art method of repetitively scanning through XML documents in order to perform each of the mining tasks.
Node Partitioned Data Warehouses
Authors: Furtado Pedro
Published: May 2011

Data Warehouses (DWs) with large quantities of data present major performance and scalability challenges, and parallelism can be used for major performance improvement in such context. However, instead of costly specialized parallel hardware and interconnections, we focus on low-cost standard computing nodes, possibly in a non-dedicated local network. In this environment, special care must be taken with partitioning and processing. We use experimental evidence to analyze the shortcomings of a basic horizontal partitioning strategy designed for that environment, then propose and test improvements to allow efficient placement for the low-cost Node Partitioned Data Warehouse. We show experimentally that extra overheads related to processing large replicated relations and repartitioning requirements between nodes can significantly degrade speedup performance for many query patterns. We analyze a simple, easy-to-apply partitioning and placement decision that achieves good performance improvement results. Our experiments and discussion provide important insight into partitioning and processing issues for data warehouses in shared-nothing environments.
Domain-Driven Data Mining
Authors: Cao Longbing , Zhang Chengqi
Published: May 2011

Extant data mining is based on data-driven methodologies. It either views data mining as an autonomous data-driven, trial-and-error process or only analyzes business issues in an isolated, case-by-case manner. As a result, very often the knowledge discovered generally is not interesting to real business needs. Therefore, this article proposes a practical data mining methodology referred to as domain-driven data mining, which targets actionable knowledge discovery in a constrained environment for satisfying user preference. The domain-driven data mining consists of a DDID-PD framework that considers key components such as constraint-based context, integrating domain knowledge, human-machine cooperation, in-depth mining, actionability enhancement, and iterative refinement process. We also illustrate some examples in mining actionable correlations in Australian Stock Exchange, which show that domain-driven data mining has potential to improve further the actionability of patterns for practical use by industry and business.
Semantics-Aware Advanced OLAP Visualization of Multidimensional Data Cubes
Authors: Cuzzocrea Alfredo , Sacca Domenico , Serafino Paolo
Published: May 2011

Efficiently supporting advanced OLAP visualization of multidimensional data cubes is a novel and challenging research topic, which results to be of interest for a large family of data warehouse applications relying on the management of spatio-temporal (e.g., mobile) data, scientific and statistical data, sensor network data, biological data, etc. On the other hand, the issue of visualizing multidimensional data domains has been quite neglected from the research community, since it does not belong to the well-founded conceptual-logical-physical design hierarchy inherited from relational database methodologies. Inspired from these considerations, in this article we propose an innovative advanced OLAP visualization technique that meaningfully combines (i) the so-called OLAP dimension flattening process, which allows us to extract two-dimensional OLAP views from multidimensional data cubes, and (ii) very efficient data compression techniques for such views, which allow us to generate “semantics-aware” compressed representations where data are grouped along OLAP hierarchies.
A Presentation Model & Non-Traditional Visualization for OLAP
Authors: Maniatis Andreas , Vassiliadis Panos , Skiadopoulos Spiros , Vassiliou Yannis , Mavrogonatos George , Michalarias Ilias
Published: May 2011

Data visualization is one of the major issues of database research. OLAP a decision support technology, is clearly in the center of this effort. Thus far, visualization has not been incorporated in the abstraction levels of DBMS architecture (conceptual, logical, physical); neither has it been formally treated in this context. In this paper we start by reconsidering the separation of the aforementioned abstraction levels to take visualization into consideration. Then, we present the Cube Presentation Model (CPM), a novel presentational model for OLAP screens. The proposal lies on the fundamental idea of separating the logical part of a data cube computation from the presentational part of the client tool. Then, CPM can be naturally mapped on the Table Lens, which is an advanced visualization technique from the Human-Computer Interaction area, particularly tailored for cross-tab reports. Based on the particularities of Table Lens, we propose automated proactive support to the user for the interaction with an OLAP screen. Finally, we discuss implementation and usage issues in the context of an academic prototype system (CubeView) that we have implemented.
Engineering Conceptual Data Models from Domain Ontologies
Authors: El-Ghalayini Haya , Odeh Mohammed , McClatchey Richard
Published: May 2011

This article studies the differences and similarities between domain ontologies and conceptual data models and the role that ontologies can play in establishing conceptual data models during the process of developing information systems. A mapping algorithm has been proposed and embedded in a special purpose transformation engine to generate a conceptual data model from a given domain ontology. Both quantitative and qualitative methods have been adopted to critically evaluate this new approach. In addition, this article focuses on evaluating the quality of the generated conceptual data model elements using Bunge-Wand-Weber and OntoClean ontologies. The results of this evaluation indicate that the generated conceptual data model provides a high degree of accuracy in identifying the substantial domain entities, along with their relationships being derived from the consensual semantics of domain knowledge. The results are encouraging and support the potential role that this approach can take part in the process of information system development.
Improving Similarity Search in Time Series Using Wavelets
Authors: Liabotis Ioannis , Theodoulidis Babis , Saraaee Mohamad
Published: May 2011

Sequences constitute a large portion of data stored in databases. Data mining applications require the ability to process similarity queries over a large amount of time series data. The query processing performance is an important factor that needs to be taken into consideration. This article proposes a similarity retrieval algorithm for time series. The proposed approach utilizes wavelet transformation in order to reduce the dimensionality of the time series. The transformed series are indexed using X-Trees, which is a spatial indexing technique able to efficiently index high-dimensional data. The article proves that this technique outperforms the usage of the Fourier transformation, since the wavelet transformation provides better approximation of the time series. Through the experiments, it can be concluded that the optimum performance is obtained using 16 to 20 wavelet coefficients. Furthermore, a novel mechanism for reducing the complexity of the calculation for the false alarms removal is proposed. Storing the approximation coefficients of the penultimate level of the decomposition tree, the Euclidean distance between the two sequences is calculated, thus reducing further the number of false alarms before calculating the actual Euclidean distance using the complete time series. The article concludes with a detailed performance evaluation of the proposed similarity retrieval algorithm using data from the Greek stock market and the temperature measurements from Athens. The comparison is done with techniques that use the Haar transform and the R*-Tree, and the proposed algorithm is shown to outperform them.
Hybrid Query and Data Qodering for Fast and Progressive Range-Aggregate Query Answering
Authors: Shahabi Cyrus , Jahangiri Mehrdad , Sacharidis Dimitris
Published: May 2011

Data analysis systems require range-aggregate query answering of large multidimensional datasets. We provide the necessary framework to build a retrieval system capable of providing fast answers with progressively increasing accuracy in support of range-aggregate queries. In addition, with error forecasting, we provide estimations on the accuracy of the generated approximate results. Our framework utilizes the wavelet transformation of query and data hypercubes. While prior work focused on the ordering of either the query or the data coefficients, we propose a class of hybrid ordering techniques that exploits both query and data wavelets in answering queries progressively. This work effectively subsumes and extends most of the current work where wavelets are used as a tool for approximate or progressive query evaluation. The results of our experimental studies show that independent of the characteristics of the dataset, the data coefficient ordering, contrary to the common belief, is the inferior approach. Hybrid ordering, on the other hand, performs best for scientific datasets that are inter-correlated. For an entirely random dataset with no inter-correlation, query ordering is the superior approach.
Biomedical Data Mining Using RBF Neural Networks
Authors: Chu Feng , Wang Lipo
Published: May 2011

Accurate diagnosis of cancers is of great importance for doctors to choose a proper treatment. Furthermore, it also plays a key role in the searching for the pathology of cancers and drug discovery. Recently, this problem attracts great attention in the context of microarray technology. Here, we apply radial basis function (RBF) neural networks to this pattern recognition problem. Our experimental results in some well-known microarray data sets indicate that our method can obtain very high accuracy with a small number of genes.
A TOPSIS Data Mining Demonstration and Application to Credit Scoring
Authors: Wu Desheng , Olson David L.
Published: May 2011

The technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is a technique that can consider any number of measures, seeking to identify solutions close to an ideal and far from a nadir solution. TOPSIS has traditionally been applied in multiple criteria decision analysis. In this paper we propose an approach to develop a TOPSIS classifier. We demonstrate its use in credit scoring, providing a way to deal with large sets of data using machine learning. Data sets often contain many potential explanatory variables, some preferably minimized, some preferably maximized. Results are favorable by a comparison with traditional data mining techniques of decision trees. Proposed models are validated using Mont Carlo simulation.
Using Data Mining for Forecasting Data Management Needs
Authors: Zhang Qingyu , Segall Richard S.
Published: May 2011

This chapter illustrates the use of data mining as a computational intelligence methodology for forecasting data management needs. Specifically, this chapter discusses the use of data mining with multidimensional databases for determining data management needs for the selected biotechnology data of forest cover data (63,377 rows and 54 attributes) and human lung cancer data set (12,600 rows of transcript sequences and 156 columns of gene types). The data mining is performed using four selected software of SAS® Enterprise MinerTM, Megaputer PolyAnalyst® 5.0, NeuralWare Predict®, and Bio- Discovery GeneSight®. The analysis and results will be used to enhance the intelligence capabilities of biotechnology research by improving data visualization and forecasting for organizations. The tools and techniques discussed here can be representative of those applicable in a typical manufacturing and production environment. Screen shots of each of the four selected software are presented, as are conclusions and future directions.
Design of a Data Model for Social Network Applications
Authors: Mitra Susanta , Bagchi Aditya , Bandyopadhyay A. K.
Published: May 2011

A social network defines the structure of a social community like an organization or institution, covering its members and their inter-relationships. Social relationships among the members of a community can be of different types like friendship, kinship, professional, academic, and so forth. Traditionally, a social network is represented by a directed graph. Analysis of graph structure representing a social network is done by the sociologists to study a community. Hardly any effort has been made to design a data model to store and retrieve social-network-related data. In this paper, an object-relational graph data model has been proposed for modeling a social network. The objective is to illustrate the power of this generic model to represent the common structural and node-based properties of different social network applications. A novel, multi-paradigm architecture has been proposed to efficiently manage the system. New structural operators have been defined in the paper and the application of these operators has been illustrated through query examples. The completeness and the minimality of the operators have also been shown.
Data Mining and the Banking Sector
Authors: Felsovalyi Àkos , Courant Jennifer
Published: May 2011

Banking has changed rapidly over the last decades due to the ability to capture massive data sets easily and the availability of new tools for analysis. The new, commonly used expressions to describe these phenomena are data warehousing and data mining. The changes have transformed traditional banking activities such as extending loans and given birth to new businesses. For example, the credit card business would simply not exist today, or not in today’s form, without the use of high powered computers and new statistical methods.
Credit Card Users' Data Mining
Authors: de Carvalho André , Braga Antonio P. , Ludermir Teresa
Published: May 2011

The widespread use of databases and the fast increase in the volume of data they store are creating problems and new opportunities for credit companies. These companies are realizing the necessity of making efficient use of the information stored in their databases, extracting useful knowledge to support their decision-making processes.
Data Mining Techniques and Medical Decision Making for Urological Dysfunction
Authors: Sriraam N. , Natasha V. , Kaur H.
Published: May 2011

Data mining has been emerging recently as a viable computational tool for autonomous decision making especially in the field of medical applications. It has provided diagnostic solutions for skin and breast cancer detection, brain tumor detection, and also for other classification problems. In this chapter, we explore two data mining techniques, namely, association mining and decision tree mining, for predicting the life span of the kidney failure patients who have undergone routine dialysis. The total parameters used for this study were 28 attributes. The optimal prioritized parameters that decide the survival rate are reported and it can be concluded from the experimental results that the decision tree approach yields promising results.
A Space-Efficient Protocol for Consistency of External View Maintenance on Data Warehouse Systems
Authors: Huang Shi-Ming , Yen David C. , Hsueh Hsiang-Yuan
Published: May 2011

The materialized view approach is widely adopted in implementations of data warehouse systems in or-der for efficiency purposes. In terms of the construction of a materialized data warehouse system, some managerial problems still exist to most developers and users in the view resource maintenance area in particular. Resource redundancy and data inconsistency among materialized views in a data warehouse system is a problem that many developers and users struggle with. In this article, a space-efficient protocol for materialized view maintenance with a global data view on data warehouses with embedded proxies is proposed. In the protocol set, multilevel proxy-based protocols with a data compensating mechanism are provided to certify the consistency and uniqueness of materialized data among data resources and materialized views. The authors also provide a set of evaluation experiences and derivations to verify the feasibility of proposed protocols and mechanisms. With such protocols as proxy services, the performance and space utilization of the materialized view approach will be improved. Furthermore, the consistency issue among materialized data warehouses and heterogeneous data sources can be properly accomplished by applying a dynamic compensating and synchronization mechanism. The trade-off between efficiency, storage consumption, and data validity for view maintenance tasks can be properly balanced.