bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Enforcing Data Integrity in Pharmacy
Authors: Butler C. David
Published: February 2013

Data integrity is essential to every organization and to every healthcare practitioner in order to ensure the correct use of patient information to optimize care. It provides the assurance that the data you see every day is the same as it was the day before. It assures you that the drug dosage regimen “QID,” whether you define it as four times daily or four times daily with meals and at bedtime, is applied using the same parameters for every patient, as you define a patient, across every day (or any time period), as you define day in your health care setting. Definitions about data must be made by the business person (the practitioner), rather than by Information Technology (IT). Only by doing this can appropriate business rules by applied by a database, which manages the information used in electronic medical records. Once a decision is made about what a datum represents, whether by an individual or a group, it is imperative that the decision remain consistent over time. Should the definition evolve, it is also imperative that that evolution be tracked. Thus, organizations must establish governance committees to maintain consistency both across an organization and across time. Governance committees must have the highest level of authority to ensure that rules are not overridden on a casual, intermittent basis. Once business rules for data have been established, use of a relational database provides one of the strongest tools for ensuring that data integrity is maintained. This chapter explores the concepts serving as the foundation for today’s relational database management systems. A top-down approach is described using an Entity-Relationship diagram that can be used to create a relational model for implementation in a relational database management system. A bottom-up approach is described using functional dependencies and normalization. A pharmacist should be able to apply these concepts in corporation with a database architect to ensure the appropriate, consistent use of drug data within an organization. A pharmacist must be able to validate all drug information being used across the organization in order to minimize medication errors and optimize patient care. Only by being the subject matter expert on governance committees and working closely with IT and quality assurance can pharmacy maintain appropriate control over the use of drug information by healthcare technology.
Pharmaco-EcoMicrobiology and Its Potential Role in Medical and Environmental Sciences
Authors: Shahid Mohd. , Mishra Hridesh , Mishra Hemant Kumar , Tripathi Trivendra , Khan Haris M. , Sobia Farrukh , Singh Anuradha
Published: February 2013

Despite the call of the World Health Organization (WHO) for “Pharmacovigilance,” i.e. the monitoring, detection, assessment, and prevention of any adverse reactions, poor attention has been given to identify the long term and short term Adverse Effects (ADEs) of antimicrobial agents on the environment. It is obvious that most of the health sectors across the globe are occupied by infectious diseases (e.g. tuberculosis, HIV, and hepatitis), and to combat such threats, the pharmaceutical industries are pouring tons of drugs and reagents into a market worth billions of dollars. The discharge of these products into the ecosystem is potentially a threat to the environment and human health. In this chapter, the authors depicted a recently described terminology, “Pharmaco-EcoMicrobiology” (PEcM), that could cover these problems and their possible solutions on medical and environmental aspects. In this regard, the role of pharmacoinformatics could also be crucial, since it can provide swift information for implementation and use of information technologies for the discovery and development of drugs as well as in pharmacy education and also the detection and combat of adverse drug effects.
Automatic Metadata Generation for Geospatial Resource Discovery
Authors: Manso-Callejo Miguel-Angel , Fonollosa Arturo Beltran
Published: February 2013

In the metadata generation context, metadata extraction is the first and most important stage in the production chain and has an enormous complexity due to the huge variety of storage formats for geospatial datasets. In addition, the authors analyze the current situation and importance of metadata in information systems and particularly in SDI. This chapter identifies and justifies the need to automate the metadata generation. In this context, the different metadata points of view according to their functions and interoperability levels are analyzed. Afterwards, different metadata generation methods and workflows, and various metadata generation related tools are reviewed, respectively. Finally, the authors introduce topics related to the automatic metadata generation that have neither been studied in depth nor prototypically implemented as future works.
User-Friendly Geoportal Interfaces for Geospatial Resource Discovery
Authors: Ayats Victor Pascual
Published: February 2013

The Spatial Data Infrastructure of Catalonia (IDEC) was launched in 2002. From the beginning, the Metadata Catalog (MC) service has been considered as one of the main pieces of the infrastructure. Building a metadata catalog is important for any Spatial Data Infrastructure to foster resource interoperability and integration. In addition to organizing, classifying, and sorting metadata records, one of the hardest parts in the IDEC was to design web applications that allow users to easily discover and access such geospatial resources. This chapter reviews the different trends in building friendly user interfaces of web applications to search and discovery metadata records through the evolution of user interface of the IDEC Geoportal.
Communication and Documentation on Parliamentary Websites
Authors: Seta Enrico
Published: February 2013

This chapter describes a new section of the parliamentary website of the Italian Chamber of Deputies launched in November 2009 “Temi dell’attività parlamentare.” In this section, parliamentary records, research material, and hyperlinks to a variety of external information sources are integrated in a unified digital resource structured according to topical indexes. The new website’s section has been conceived as an evolution of documentation and research activities done by the internal staff of the Research Department of the Chamber of Deputies and benefits from the domain knowledge of the parliamentary documentation experts. The chapter discusses future innovation implied by the implementation of the project in the areas of institutional communication, documentation supporting legislators, and their staff internal organization. It also suggests that these innovations relate to the passage from e-government to the conceptual and operational model of “transformational government” (t-government), that emphasizes a citizen-centric delivery of public services, a shared services culture, and innovative methods in management of resources and skills in public administration.
Standards for Achieving Interoperability of eGovernment in Europe
Authors: Küster Marc Wilhelm
Published: February 2013

E-government interoperability frameworks in Europe and the standards they reference are diverse, often reflecting different legal and policy priorities across the continent. Selected examples from a number of member states illustrate how legal interoperability impacts the choice or creation of e-Government standards. It looks at the situation of technical interactions, especially the use of web service standards, then at two data exchange standards, two metadata standards, and the current work on linked open data. The examples discussed represent different use cases (Government to Government / G2G, Government to Business / G2B, Government to Citizen / G2C), allowing an overview over the current situation in Europe.
Municipal Government and the Interactive Web
Authors: Jimenez Benedict S. , Mossberger Karen , Wu Yonghong
Published: February 2013

What opportunities do citizens have to interact with government online at the local level? This study uses content analysis of the websites of the 75 largest U.S. cities to identify the extent to which they integrate features that allow online information customization and online citizen participation. Completed from March-May 2009, the coding includes analysis of Web 2.0 applications and older web-based tools such as citizen surveys, online town meetings, and other features relevant to citizen engagement. The study finds that municipal governments have steadily developed their online capacity to provide information to local residents, but new media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube remain underutilized. Local e-government has yet to evolve as a tool to advance deliberative democracy, but some opportunities for input have increased. An initial analysis indicates that cities with large African-American and Latino populations have less interactive websites, and that larger cities are likely to have more participatory opportunities online.
Evaluating the Quality Attributes of E-Government Websites
Authors: Markaki Ourania I. , Charilas Dimitris E. , Askounis Dimitris
Published: February 2013

The purpose of this chapter is to address the issue of e-government website evaluation in terms of providing a decision making framework. Built around the concepts of website evaluation and e-government, the proposed framework deploys Multi-Attribute Decision Making (MADM) methods and Fuzzy Sets Theory to overcome the subjectivity and inaccuracy that characterizes the conventional models for e-government website quality assessment. The framework offers also the possibility of performing comparisons with regard to the overall quality of different implementations either at national or international level. The chapter presents a holistic and scalable approach to e-government website evaluation and it is anticipated to be of great interest to both researchers and practitioners requiring an understanding of the factors influencing the quality of e-government websites or allocating resources to the relevant implementations respectively.
Developments of e-Government in Sri Lanka
Authors: Karunasena Kanishka , Deng Hepu , Karunasena Anuradha
Published: February 2013

This chapter investigates the status of e-Government development, explores the opportunities created for citizens and government, and identifies the challenges for an effective implementation of e-Government in Sri Lanka. The study reveals that the dissemination of public information online, the provision of call centre services, and the establishment of tele-centres in rural areas have generally improved the wellbeing of citizens. It further shows that the development of information and communication technology infrastructure and the taking of the human resource capacity building initiative in public organizations have had a positive impact on the performance of public organizations. The study, however, reveals that the continuous development of e-Government in Sri Lanka is troubled by the uneven access of rural citizens to e-Government services, the low e-Readiness of citizens, the delay in implementing major e-Government projects, and the insufficient funding for successfully implementing all the e-Government initiatives.
Value Assessment in E-Government
Authors: Hia Lai Pek , Wen Lee Shu
Published: February 2013

Governments around the world have implemented or are in the midst of implementing, amid differing levels of progress, electronic government (e-Government). These implementations create different values for the different stakeholders. This chapter examines an e-Government Component Assessment Cube Framework for value assessment of e-Government information technology project implementations. The three main groups are (value) components, stages, and stakeholders.
Extension of E-Government
Authors: Shareef Mahmud Akhter , Archer Norm
Published: February 2013

The emergence of mobile technologies has not only revolutionalized business procedures, but it has also resulted in transformation and reengineering of public service adoption mechanisms in more traditional e-government (EG) systems. Mobile-government or m-government (MG) is a subset of EG where interactions with government services can be conducted through mobile devices. In this chapter, we identify the development of the fundamental capabilities needed to adopt and manage information and communications technologies and to successfully implement citizen-focused MG systems. To accomplish this, we address the feasibility of adopting MG and the fundamental capabilities needed by a government to establish MG.
Data Mining Applications in the Service of e-Government
Authors: Stylios George , Christodoulakis Dimitris , Besharat Jeries , Vonitsanou Maria-Alexandra , Kotrotsos Ioannis , Koumpouri Athanasia , Stamou Sofia
Published: February 2013

In this chapter we propose the exploration of text and data mining techniques for empowering e-government applications and services for the citizen’s benefit. In particular, we start by providing a field overview with respect to the current trends in e-government services and we demonstrate via proofs of concept the limited adaptation existing e-government applications entail. Stimulated by the need to transform e-government services to e-inclusion applications, we suggest the utilization of data mining techniques for processing the governmental data so as to extract and associate information fragments with real citizen needs and thus enable the encapsulation of the latter in future governmental decisions. To demonstrate the usability and added value of our proposed approach we have designed an interactive e-government infrastructure, the architecture of which we will present and discuss in our chapter. Moreover, we will elaborate on the system details, its adaptation capacity and we will discuss its usage benefits for both citizens and public sector bodies.
Egyptian Local Government Website Portals
Authors: Abdelsalam Hisham M. , Reddick Christopher G. , ElKadi Hatem A.
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines the development of e-Government in selected Egyptian local governments. A content analysis of 25 local government website portals was conducted examining categories of e-Management, e-Services, e-Democracy, and e-Decision making. The study first sets out to examine the overall level of maturity of local government websites in these four areas in Egypt. Second, this study examines whether Egyptian human development indicators explain the maturity of local government websites. Firstly, the overall results indicated that e-Government maturity in Egypt was primarily in the information dissemination stage. Secondly, local governments had a greater population in social services industries which indicated a greater level of e-Government maturity. Out of 17 variables tested, there were very few human development indicators related to e-Government website maturity. The results of this chapter showed the maturity of e-Government in local governments in a developing country matched against developed nations. Also, the results showed the limited impact of human development indicators to predict e-Government website maturity.
SOA Designed Health Care System for Taiwan Government
Authors: Shi Jun-Bin , Yang Shu-Fen , Huang Tsung-Jen
Published: February 2013

SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) is gaining popularity in becoming the mainstream in corporate integrated applications in recent years. However, at the early stage of proposal for SOA, due to the lack of a completion in relevant standards and infrastructure, corporations still need to evaluate the effect and risks involved in investment for SOA. For this reason, the introduction for SOA among corporations becomes relatively conservative. In contrast to the conservation projected by corporations at the initial stage, the government agents took position in promoting SOA and developing e-Government, who were the forerunners first committed in the integration of SOA applications.
Using a Fuzzy-Based Cluster Algorithm for Recommending Candidates in E-Elections
Authors: Terán Luis , Ladner Andreas , Fivaz Jan , Gerber Stefani
Published: February 2013

The use of the Internet now has a specific purpose: to find information. Unfortunately, the amount of data available on the Internet is growing exponentially, creating what can be considered a nearly infinite and ever-evolving network with no discernable structure. This rapid growth has raised the question of how to find the most relevant information. Many different techniques have been introduced to address the information overload, including search engines, Semantic Web, and recommender systems, among others. Recommender systems are computer-based techniques that are used to reduce information overload and recommend products likely to interest a user when given some information about the user’s profile. This technique is mainly used in e-Commerce to suggest items that fit a customer’s purchasing tendencies. The use of recommender systems for e-Government is a research topic that is intended to improve the interaction among public administrations, citizens, and the private sector through reducing information overload on e-Government services. More specifically, e-Democracy aims to increase citizens’ participation in democratic processes through the use of information and communication technologies. In this chapter, an architecture of a recommender system that uses fuzzy clustering methods for e-Elections is introduced. In addition, a comparison with the smartvote system, a Web-based Voting Assistance Application (VAA) used to aid voters in finding the party or candidate that is most in line with their preferences, is presented.
A Descriptive Analysis of Contents of Asian E-Government Websites
Authors: Rorissa Abebe , Demissie Dawit , Gharawi Mohammed
Published: February 2013

Advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) continue to drastically impact the activities of individuals, families, communities, businesses, governments, as well as other national and global entities. They often give rise to new institutions and systems such as electronic government (e-government). E-government improves the efficiency of governments’ services and facilitates government-to-citizen and other types of communications. Nowhere is the impact of ICTs and e-government more pronounced than in developing countries, such as those in Asia, a continent that is home to the largest democracy in the world (i.e., India), where an appropriate use of ICTs can enable them to become part of the global information society. There had been encouraging signs in Asia with respect to e-government adoption and implementation of relevant services. Asian countries provide e-government services, mainly through websites that range from static to fully fledged web portals. However, there is a lack of e-government literature that provides detailed analyses of contents of Asian e-government services. This chapter is intended to address this. In addition to describing Asian e-government services, it also provides recommendations with respect to future works, and identifies prospects for e-government services.
Benchmarking Botswana’s e-Government Initiatives with WSIS Principles
Authors: Zulu Saul F.C. , Sebina Peter M. , Grand Balulwami , Mutula Stephen M.
Published: February 2013

The chapter assesses the state of e-Government projects to anchor Botswana’s drive towards attainment of the goals of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Data for the study was obtained through a survey research design, which employed desk research and interviews with strategic respondents in the ICT sector in Botswana. Botswana’s e-Government projects are then benchmarked against the WSIS Declaration of Principles and a Plan of Action and other international and regional strategic frameworks for ICTs. The findings reveal that while Botswana, through its various e-Government projects, has made some progress towards laying the foundation for meeting the goals of the WSIS and has reached other international milestones for ICTs, a lot remains to be done as the e-Government projects have yet to positively impact the lives of the majority of citizens. This is due to a number of factors that have to be addressed, including inadequate infrastructure, low citizen capacity in terms of skills, accessibility, and affordability of ICT systems, and absence of an enabling e-Legislative and policy framework. Among the proposed areas for future studies are measuring the levels of ICT uptake at the citizen (individual) level to determine levels of e-Participation.
Service Oriented Architectural Principles for Interoperable and Secure E-government Frameworks
Authors: Stamati Teta , Karantjias Athanasios , Martakos Drakoulis
Published: February 2013

Keywords: transformational government (t-Gov); interoperability; privacy; trust; SOA; SaaS; business process management; t-Gov adoption and diffusion; public administration; enterprise integration; content management; web 2.0.
The Contribution of Colombian Civil Society Organizations to E-Government for the Improvement of Transparency through the Use of Information and Communication Technologies
Authors: G. Julián Casasbuenas
Published: February 2013

This chapter presents the experience of civil society organizations in Colombia to improve the transparency of the municipalities’ administrations through the project ‘Internet for Accountability’ developed by Colnodo in partnership with Corporation Transparency for Colombia. Within this initiative, a website for municipalities was developed and afterwards improved and expanded by the Territorial e-government Strategy (GELT) and implemented by the Connectivity Agenda of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies. The chapter begins by describing the current situation of the municipalities’ websites and how they have been expanded with the support of the GELT strategy. Subsequently, presents the consultation carried out with the municipalities in order to find out the impact and usage of the websites on citizens’ participation and accountability. Finally, presents the conclusions based on the experience of the organizations involved and the information gathered during the consultation.
Voters’ Perception of the Adequacy and Suitability of e-Voting in the Nigeria Polity
Authors: Adeyinka Tella , Olasina Gbolahan
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines the perception of academics regarding the suitability and adequacy of e-Voting in the Nigeria polity. A qualitative approach using interviews as the data collection instruments was employed. Five research questions were developed and used in the interviews. The population of the study comprised academic staff in the South West Nigerian universities. From this population, 250 academic staff were purposely selected from five universities. This represents the sample for the study. Five research questions were developed and used in the interviews. The results demonstrated that Nigerians are aware of e-Voting systems, the advantages of e-Voting revealed include ease of voting, ease of counting, electoral vote fraud prevention, and cost reduction, To a great extent, Nigeria is e-Voting ready, and the e-Voting system is relevant to the Nigeria electoral system. Respondents find electronic voting desirable in Nigeria given reasons such as saving time/cost, queuing reduction, and Nigeria being technologically advanced enough to carry out a fast voting process. Hindrances to e-Voting and recommendations for the effective adoption of e-Voting in the Nigeria polity were highlighted.
Organizational Change Contributions to E-Government Project Transitions
Authors: Goodyear Marilu
Published: February 2013

Leaders recognize that successful transitions to e-government projects are important factors in organizational effectiveness. And yet for many public organizations, such initiatives have produced cost overruns and schedule delays, and some have ended in failure. Practitioners and researchers alike have recognized that technology transitions are not just about the technology and have placed increased emphasis on planning and organizational factors as keys to success. Utilizing contributions from the disciplines of business administration, public administration, psychology, and communication studies, this chapter explores the planning, process, and people aspects of technology transitions in an integrated way. Organizational change theories are directly related to traditional concepts of project management; process views of organizational change are related to planning views of project management. A framework focused on the people aspect of technology transitions provides insights for researchers and practitioners on addressing resistance to change through the use of specific communication protocols. In addition, the framework addresses the development of successful follower profiles within technology transitions. Additional research is sought to validate this framework.
Internet-Based Citizen Participation
Authors: Aikins Stephen K.
Published: February 2013

This chapter determines whether the deliberative features of local government websites reflect city officials’ beliefs and funding for Internet-based citizen participation. Although the Internet is argued to have interactive potential to bring citizens closer to their governments, empirical evidence suggests many governments have not taken advantage of this potential. A survey was sent to Chief administrative officers of municipalities with websites, and respondents’ government website contents were analyzed and audited against the survey responses. Findings from the audit reveal that in general, the deliberative features of local government websites reflect the beliefs and funding stated in the survey. The technique applied in this research could be a useful tool to investigate the degree of alignment between a government’s Internet website contents and its e-government strategic goals, policy requirements and priorities, etc.
Comparative Study of E-Government Implementation in two Public Agencies in Oman
Authors: Al-Busaidy Moaman , Weerakkody Vishanth
Published: February 2013

Electronic government has been established as an effective mechanism for increasing government productivity and efficiency and a key enabler of citizen-centric services. Like the rest of the world, in Gulf countries, public sector transformation efforts are focused towards increasing accessibility, availability, competitive advantage, and enhancing services in civil administration. The e-government initiative in Oman was officially started in 2003 and has achieved mixed results due to various challenges faced by the different ministries engaged in implementation. Using a semi-structure interview, this chapter examines some of these challenges from the perspective of two government ministries. The chapter investigates the improvements that have been made to facilitate electronic services in the chosen public ministries and their resulting impact within the organization. The results of the empirical study reveal that some of the challenges faced by the Omani government in implementing e-services are generic, while other specific challenges faced by the individual ministries such as top management support, IT integration, and IT staff skills and capabilities are more significant in terms of facilitating e-government success in the Omani public sector.
Employees’ Perceptions of Biometric Technology Adoption in E-Government
Authors: Alhussain Thamer , Drew Steve
Published: February 2013

This paper discusses an exploratory study of government employees’ perceptions of the introduction of biometric authentication at the workplace in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The authors suggest that studying the factors affecting employees’ acceptance of new technology will help ease the adoption of biometric technology in other e-government applications. A combination of survey and interviews was used to collect the required data. Interviews were conducted with managers and questionnaires were given to employees from two different government organisations in Saudi Arabia to investigate the employees’ perceptions of using biometrics. The results of this study indicate a significant digital and cultural gap between the technological awareness of employees and the preferred authentication solutions promoted by management. A lack of trust in technology, its potential for misuse and management motives reflect the managers’ need to consider their responsibilities for narrowing these gaps. It was apparent that overcoming employees’ resistance is an essential issue facing biometric implementation. Based on the research the authors recommend that an awareness and orientation process about biometrics should take place before the technology is introduced into the organisation.
Internal Digital Divide in Organizations
Authors: Grundén Kerstin
Published: February 2013

In this chapter, internal digital divide problems in organizations are identified and discussed. A longitudinal case study focusing on the implementation of e-Government at a public organization in Sweden is used as a starting-point for the discussion. Although the general use of information and communication technology is very high in Sweden there are still problems with digital divide. Such problems could hamper the implementation process of e-Government. In the case study the older employees were especially stressed and had problems to renewing their competencies and adapting to new working situations due to the implementation of e-Government. Internal digital divide is, however, a complex phenomenon, and involves aspects of learning, motivation, professionalization, management strategies, and organizational culture. Some ways of bridging internal digital divide problems are discussed. Soft systems methodology could be used for analysis and change of internal digital divide aspects involving a discussion with the concerned communities.
Trust and Public Services in E-Government Based on Customer Orientation
Authors: Chiang Li-chun
Published: February 2013

This chapter aims to identify the role of risk perception and trust in civil servants’ intention to deliver e-services in e-government. The research method is based on theories on perceived behaviors and technology acceptance. The research uses questionnaires to examine civil servants’ intention to adopt digitalized services in e-government and seeks to measure perceived usefulness of e-services, subjective norm, self-efficacy, technology facilitating conditions, trust towards Information Systems, and perceived risk from the perspective of service marketing (e.g., SSTs, self-service technologies). Structural equation modeling is used to further analyze the data and to design a theoretical model predicting the individual’s intention to trust e-services in e-government. The research results indicate that perceived usefulness cannot directly influence behavioral intention without an attitude of acceptance towards digitalized administration. Further, civil servants do not have high risk perception in using online public services.
Web 2.0 Applications and Citizen Relations through E-Government Websites
Authors: Chun Heasun , Kim Daejoong
Published: February 2013

This research will focus on constructing an analytical model for Web 2.0 applications through making a systematic analysis on emerging web practices, to talk about a strategic, systematic plan of Web 2.0 in e-government Web sites. To achieve this mission, we suggest applying dialogic communication theory (Kent & Taylor, 1998) that has been developed in public relations, to create an analytic model of the various types of Web 2.0 applications for building better e-government Web sites.
Customer Relationship Management Adoption in Local Governments in the United States
Authors: Reddick Christopher G.
Published: February 2013

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is part of the use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to transform government. This chapter examines the common characteristics of the New Public Management (NPM) and e-government models applying them to CRM adoption in local governments in the United States. Both of these models are commonly cited in the public administration literature as drivers of organizational reform and change. Some of the common characteristics of the NPM and e-government are examined with data from a survey of local government chief administrators. The results of this chapter indicated that more of the characteristics identified in the e-government literature were exemplified in CRM adoption in local governments. In addition, local governments that used more advanced CRM technology were more likely to report organizational changes from these models. The implications of these findings are that researchers should understand both the NPM and e-government principles as important for understanding organizational change.
Reconfiguring Performance Information Linking with Accountability
Authors: Charbonneau Étienne , Kim Younhee
Published: February 2013

Over the past decade, performance information has been widely available to citizens along with the expansion of e-government, which has magnified communications between citizens and government as well as citizen direct participation in government business. If citizens are informed more about government performance, citizen trust in government should improve. However, there is, in effect, little use of performance information by citizens, since availability to citizens is not very visible. To disseminate the results of performance measurement effectively, government should pay attention to the improvement of performance measurement systems and performance reporting systems with citizen-centered approaches. User-friendly reporting should not just simplify the multi-layers of performance measurement for improving performance itself. Rather, this chapter suggests applying different approaches to present complicated performance information to citizens. Performance reporting should be constructed in modernized, innovative, and user-focused ways to stimulate the use of performance information by external stakeholders, which can promote government accountability.
Factors Affecting the Citizens’ Trust in E-Government
Authors: Alsaghier Hisham M. , Ford Marilyn , Nguyen Anne , Hexel Rene
Published: February 2013

In e-government context, trust plays a vital role in helping citizens overcome perceived risks. Trust makes citizens comfortable sharing personal information, make online government transaction, and acting on e-Government advices. Thus, trust is a significant notion that should be critically investigated to help both researchers and practitioners to understand citizens’ acceptance to e-Government. Prior research in trust has focused mainly on consumer’s trust in e-Commerce. Most of existing literatures on trust in e-government focus on technical perspective such as PKI. This paper contributes by proposing a conceptual model of citizens’ trust in e-Government. The proposed conceptual model of citizens’ trust in e-government is integrated constructs from multiple disciplines: psychology, sociology, e-commerce, and HCI. The research is aimed also to develop items in order to measure the theoretical constructs in the proposed model. The pool of items is generated based on literature review. Q-Methodology has been utilised to validate the generated measurement items. The outcome of two Q-sorting rounds resulted in developing a survey instrument for proposed model with an excellent validity and reliability statistical results.
Government Process Reengineering
Authors: Kassahun Asmare Emerie , Molla Alemayehu , Sarkar Pradipta
Published: February 2013

Despite differences between public and private sectors, business process reengineering (BPR) principles have been widely used in reengineering government processes. This has led to a growing body of literature on government process reengineering (GPR). This chapter presents synthesis and analysis of the literature on government process reengineering from 1997 to 2009. It reviews normative studies that examine the nature and characteristics of government process reengineering, challenges and problems of undertaking government process reengineering, and relationships between government process reengineering and IT-especially enterprise resource planning (ERP)-based E-Government. The review also encompasses the methods, techniques and tools for undertaking GPR; analytical and conceptual GPR models and frameworks; and empirical studies that evaluate GPR implementation outcomes and identify the critical success or failure factors. The chapter summarizes the selected articles in terms of research types, methods, theories, and contexts. Based on the review, areas for future research are defined.
Using Web 2.0 to Reconceptualize E-Government
Authors: Sadeghi Leila , Ressler Steve , Krzmarzick Andrew
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines the growing literature on e-government and Web 2.0 with particular attention to online collaborative platforms, such as GovLoop, that complement government. The authors present a thorough background to the topic of Web 2.0 in e-government and present numerous examples of how these technologies are used across government both in the U.S. and globally. This chapter explores two main areas: first, how Web 2.0 and social media are being used as a vehicle to enhance e-government, and second, to present a case study of GovLoop, which is a collaborative social media platform designed to complement the work of government. GovLoop provides those working within and external to government—citizens, government employees, academics, non-profit professionals and contractors—with the ability to share information and collaborate on issues of public benefit. The chapter presents a starting point for future research on how Web 2.0 is changing the very nature of e-government and service delivery, and how governments are in a unique position to utilize these tools to expand collaboration and openness with their communities.
Service Science Innovations
Authors: Leonova Tatiana , Plotnikova Galina
Published: February 2013

The purposes, problems, and principles of the organization, and the structure of the electronic government, questions of development of the electronic government in the countries of the world, and the spectrum of represented services are considered in the present chapter.
Improving Prediction Accuracy via Subspace Modeling
Authors: Masso Majid
Published: February 2013

A computational mutagenesis is detailed whereby each single residue substitution in a protein chain of primary sequence length N is represented as a sparse N-dimensional feature vector, whose M << N nonzero components locally quantify environmental perturbations occurring at the mutated position and its neighbors in the protein structure. The methodology makes use of both the Delaunay tessellation algorithm for representing protein structures, as well as a four-body, knowledge based, statistical contact potential. Feature vectors for each subset of mutants due to all possible residue substitutions at a particular position cohabit the same M-dimensional subspace, where the value of M and the identities of the M nonzero components are similarly position dependent. The approach is used to characterize a large experimental dataset of single residue substitutions in bacteriophage T4 lysozyme, each categorized as either unaffected or affected based on the measured level of mutant activity relative to that of the native protein. Performance of a single classifier trained with the collective set of mutants in N-space is compared to that of an ensemble of position-specific classifiers trained using disjoint mutant subsets residing in significantly smaller subspaces. Results suggest that significant improvements can be achieved through subspace modeling.
Prediction of Protein-Protein Interactions Between Human Host and Two Mycobacterial Organisms
Authors: Krishnadev Oruganty , Bisht Shveta , Srinivasan Narayanaswamy
Published: February 2013

The genomes of many human pathogens have been sequenced but the protein-protein interactions across a pathogen and human are still poorly understood. The authors apply a simple homology-based method to predict protein-protein interactions between human host and two mycobacterial organisms viz., M.tuberculosis and M.leprae. They focused on secreted proteins of pathogens and cellular membrane proteins to restrict to uncovering biologically significant and feasible interactions. Predicted interactions include five mycobacterial proteins of yet unknown function, thus suggesting a role for these proteins in pathogenesis. The authors predict interaction partners for secreted mycobacterial antigens such as MPT70, serine proteases and other proteins interacting with human proteins, such as toll-like receptors, ras signalling proteins and immune maintenance proteins, that are implicated in pathogenesis. These results suggest that the list of predicted interactions is suitable for further analysis and forms a useful step in the understanding of pathogenesis of these mycobacterial organisms.
Roles of Non-Volatile Devices in Future Computer Systems
Authors: Ando Koji , Ikegawa Sumio , Abe Keiko , Fujita Shinobu , Yoda Hiroaki
Published: February 2013

Normally-off Computer (NOC) is a computer designed with a new concept in which most parts of a computer use non-volatile functionalities. The power of NOC will be completely turned off at short intervals when computing is not required without users even being aware of it. Thus far, slow latency, limited endurance, and small capacity of non-volatile memories have been preventing the implementation of non-volatile functionalities into computer architecture. Emerging magnetic memory, Spintronic RAM (Spin-RAM), is now changing the premise of computer design. Spin-RAM will soon replace dynamic RAM, and will actualize instant-on computer. For NOC, however, inventors must develop many new technologies including non-volatile cache memories, hierarchical non-volatile memory architecture, advanced power gating, non-volatile peripheral circuits, and non-volatile displays. The authors discuss the present status of Spin-RAM technology and the challenges for achieving NOC.
Energy-Aware Switch Design
Authors: Nakagawa Yukihiro , Shimizu Takeshi , Horie Takeshi , Koyanagi Yoichi , Shiraki Osamu , Miyoshi Takashi , Umezawa Yasushi , Hattori Akira , Hidaka Yasuo
Published: February 2013

The use of virtualization technology has been increasing in the IT industry to consolidate servers and reduce power consumption significantly. Virtualized commodity servers are scaled out in the data center and increase the demand for bandwidth between servers. Therefore, a high performance switch is required. The shared-memory switch is the best performance/cost switch architecture, but it is challenging to satisfy the requirements on the memory bandwidth in a high speed network. In addition, it is challenging to handle variable-length frames in Ethernet. This chapter describes the main challenges in Ethernet switch designs and then energy-aware switch designs, including switch architecture and high speed IO interface. As implementation examples, this chapter also describes a single-chip switch Large Scale Integration (LSI) embedded with high-speed IO interfaces and 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) switch blade equipped with the switch LSI. The switch blade delivers 100% more performance per watt than other 10GbE switch blades in the industry.
Basic Methods for Analysis of High Frequency Transients in Power Apparatus Windings
Authors: Martinez-Velasco Juan A.
Published: February 2013

Power apparatus windings are subjected to voltage surges arising from transient events in power systems. High frequency surges that reach windings can cause high voltage stresses, which are usually concentrated in the sections near to the line end, or produce part-winding resonance, which can create high oscillatory voltages. Determining the transient voltage response of power apparatus windings to high frequency surges is generally achieved by means of a model of the winding structure and some computer solution method. The accurate prediction of winding and coil response to steep-fronted voltage surges is a complex problem for several reasons: the form of excitation may greatly vary with the source of the transient, and the representation of the winding depends on the input frequency and its geometry. This chapter introduces the most basic models used to date for analyzing the response of power apparatus windings to steep-fronted voltage surges. These models can be broadly classified into two groups: (i) models for determining the internal voltage distribution and (ii) models for representing a power apparatus seen from its terminals.
Frequency Characteristics of Transformer Windings
Authors: Su Charles
Published: February 2013

Transformers are subjected to voltages and currents of various waveforms while in service or during insulation tests. They could be system voltages, ferroresonance, and harmonics at low frequencies, lightning or switching impulses at high frequencies, and corona/partial discharges at ultra-high frequencies (a brief explanation is given at the end of the chapter). It is of great importance to understand the frequency characteristics of transformer windings, so that technical problems such as impulse distribution, resonance, and partial discharge attenuation can be more readily solved. The frequency characteristics of a transformer winding depend on its layout, core structure, and insulation materials.
Detection and Location of Partial Discharges in Transformers Based on High Frequency Winding Responses
Authors: Phung B.T.
Published: February 2013

Localized breakdowns in transformer windings insulation, known as partial discharges (PD), produce electrical transients which propagate through the windings to the terminals. By analyzing the electrical signals measured at the terminals, one is able to estimate the location of the fault and the discharge magnitude. The winding frequency response characteristics influence the PD signals as measured at the terminals. This work is focused on the high frequency range from about tens of kHz to a few MHz and discussed the application of various high-frequency winding models: capacitive ladder network, single transmission line, and multi-conductor transmission line in solving the problem.
Optimal Placement of Controller for Seismic Structures
Authors: Cimellaro Gian Paolo
Published: February 2013

The objective of this chapter is to evaluate different methodologies for the optimal placement and innovative design of passive energy dissipation systems which are being used to reduce vibrations of civil engineering structures subject to earthquakes. For large civil engineering structures it is necessary to install a sufficient number of dampers to achieve a reduction of the building response and the performance of these dampers depends on their location in the structures. The selection of few locations out of a large number of locations for the placement of passive dampers is typically a nonlinear constrained optimization problem. This problem can be solved either by simple heuristic search approaches which can be easily integrated in conventional design procedures used by practicing engineers dealing with damper-added structures, and they yield a solution which may be close to the optimal solution, but computationally expensive. Three different heuristic search strategies will be used to optimize four objective functions, and results will be compared for three different building typologies.