bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Information Infrastructure
Authors: Cordella Antonio
Published: April 2012

Recent work on information systems has discussed the nature and the complexity of the Information Infrastructures (II) concept. This research has mainly focused on two aspects: studying the process that both shapes and stabilizes information infrastructures, and studying the role played by information infrastructure in leveraging business performance. Using the ideas proposed by the Actor Network Theory (ANT), this article suggests a new way to conceptualise the nature of II, that is, its ontology. Using ANT as an ontological foundation to analyse the relations among actors, the article proposes the concept of information infrastructures in action to highlight their dynamic nature. This leads us to consider information infrastructures not as stable entities, but rather as entities performed in, by, and through relations. The aim of this work is to overcome the limitations associated with studying information infrastructures that rely on stability and manageability assumptions. Conceiving information infrastructures in terms of performative forces that evolve dynamically, this work provides a framework to examine information infrastructure in terms of dynamic relationships by looking at the process that shapes these relationships. The article suggests that information infrastructures should not be studied retrospectively to understand how they are established, but rather should be studied focussing on the process of making. Here we study the action of making rather than the processes that made.
Having a Say
Authors: Kennan Mary Anne , Cecez-Kecmanovic Dubravka , Underwood Jim
Published: April 2012

This article explores issues associated with giving non-human actors a voice of their own in actor-network theory based research. What issues arise in doing so? Does doing so increase understanding of the issue to hand, bring to life and make more accessible and interesting the stories of these actors? Or does this anthropomorphism detract from the issues at hand? The authors discuss these broader issues and then present findings from an ANT field study which investigated the implementation of institutional repositories and their relations with the spread of open access to scholarly publishing. This paper experiments with allowing some of the non-human actors to speak for themselves. The authors conclude with a discussion which opens the debate: does giving voice to non-human actors bring them to life and make them better understood as intimately entangled with each other and human actors in the socio-material practices of the everyday? And what are the challenges in doing so?
A Socio-Technical Account of an Internet-Based Self-Service Technology Implementation
Authors: Naidoo Rennie
Published: April 2012

Despite the rampant growth in technology-based service delivery options, the implementation of these contemporary forms of service channels continues to be risky and problematic for organisations. Current conceptualisations of IS implementation is rather narrow and highlights only particular aspects of this phenomenon. This paper adopts a socio-technical lens to enhance our understanding of the implementation of an Internet-based self-service technology (ISST) at a major South African healthcare insurance firm. Actor-Network theory’s (ANT) key conceptual elements of inscription and translation are used to describe how the design and use of this self-service technology emerged from the co-entanglement between the technological and social. Drawing from a field study, this paper demonstrates the complex interdependencies and interactions among contrasting social, political, economic and technological issues and therefore advances implementation theory for these contemporary service channels in yet another important way.
How to Recognize an Immutable Mobile When You Find One
Authors: Gonçalves Fernando Abreu , Figueiredo José
Published: April 2012

Research involved with Actor-Network Theory (ANT) application in engineering domains often crosses through its fundamentals. In fact, exploring trends that envisage ANT as a paradigm that can prove valid in the engineering design field, researchers sometimes enrol in discussions that drive them to its roots. Obligatory Passage Points (OPP) and Immutable Mobiles (IM) are two of the fundamental concepts that need to be revisited. These concepts are critical to understanding innovation in Actor-Networks, especially for the part of IMs. In the pursuit of that understanding, the authors opt to entangle ANT and engineering design and explore a framework based on Programs of Action where actors are represented as taxonomies of competences. These actors are hybrids but, when human, they are mainly engineers engaged in the scope planning and resource management in engineering design projects or processes. This article exercises and develops a constructive process towards a methodology to approach innovation in engineering design. This research is useful for the first stages of the project design process and, in a broader way, to the full cycle of the engineering design process.
Social Network Sites
Authors: Zammar Nisrine
Published: April 2012

This article examines the role of actors in a Social Network Sites and also the triggers and challenges they represent to social networking between today’s communities and businesses. A Social Network Sites is the product of the evolution of social liaisons and the emergence of online communities of people who are interested in exploring the concerns and activities of others. A social network is the assembly of direct or indirect contacts; a network is the product of interactions with the actors (individuals, families, enterprises, etc.) enabled by means of the structural design of web 2.0. Social Network Sites bring people together to interact through chat rooms, and share personal information and ideas around any topics via personal homepage publishing tools. This article is intended to be a trigger to deeply and more intensely explore potential roles of actor-network theory in the Social Network Sites context, in today’s and tomorrow’s world.
Aspects of e-Learning in a University
Authors: Manning Karen , Wong Lily , Tatnall Arthur
Published: April 2012

Most universities make use of e-learning facilities to manage and deliver on-line learning. Many universities have adopted an approach to teaching and the delivery of course content that combines traditional face-to-face delivery with online teaching resources: a blended learning approach. Many factors act to determine how online learning is adopted, accepted, and the balance between online and face-to-face delivery is formed. In this paper, the authors suggest that educational technology adoption decisions are made at three levels: strategic decisions are made by the university to implement a particular package, and then individual academics made adoption decisions regarding those aspects of the package they will use in their teaching and how they will use them. They also make a decision on the balance they will have between on-line and face-to-face teaching. This article questions how decisions are made to adopt one e-learning package rather than another. The authors then examine how individual academics relate to this technology once it is adopted and make use of it to deliver some or all of their teaching and determine the appropriate blend.
A Collaborative Framework for Multiagent Systems
Authors: Ahmed Moamin , Ahmad Mohd Sharifuddin , Yusoff Mohd Zaliman M.
Published: April 2012

In this paper, the authors demonstrate the use of software agents to extend the role of humans in a collaborative work process. The extended roles to agents provide a convenient means for humans to delegate mundane tasks to software agents. The framework employs the FIPA ACL communication protocol which implements communication between agents. An interface for each agent implements the communication between humans and agents. Such interface and the subsequent communication performed by agents and between agents contribute to the achievement of shared goals.
History Sensitive Cascade Model
Authors: Zhang Yu , Tsikhanovich Maksim , Smilyanov Georgi
Published: April 2012

Diffusion is a process by which information, viruses, ideas, or new behavior spread over social networks. Traditional diffusion models are history insensitive, i.e. only giving activated nodes a one-time chance to activate each of its neighboring nodes with some probability. But history dependent interactions between people are often observed in the real world. This paper proposes the History Sensitive Cascade Model (HSCM), a model of information cascade through a network over time. The authors consider the “activation” problem of finding the probability of that a particular node receives information given that some nodes are initially informed. In this paper it is also proven that selecting a set of k nodes with greatest expected influence is NP-hard, and results from submodular functions are used to provide a greedy approximation algorithm with a 1–1/e–e lower bound, where e depends polynomially on the precision of the solution to the “activation” problem. Finally, experiments are performed comparing the greedy algorithm to three other approximation algorithms.
Enhanced Reputation Model with Forgiveness for E-Business Agents
Authors: Burete Radu , Badica Amelia , Badica Costin , Moraru Florin
Published: April 2012

Trust is a very important quality attribute of an e-service. In particular, the increasing complexity of the e-business environment requires the development of new computational models of trust and reputation for e-business agents. In this paper, the authors introduce a new reputation model for agents engaged in e-business transactions. The model enhances classic reputation models by the addition of forgiveness factor and the use of new sources of reputation information based on agents groups. The paper proposes an improvement of this model by employing the recent con-resistance concept. Finally, the authors show how the model can be used in an agent-based market environment where trusted buyer and seller agents meet, negotiate, and transact multi-issue e-business contracts. The system was implemented using JADE multi-agent platform and initially evaluated on a sample set of scenarios. The paper introduces the design and implementation of the agent-based system together with the experimental scenarios and results.
Quasi-PSO Algorithm for Modeling Foraging Dynamics in Social Mammals
Authors: Campenní Marco , Cecconi Federico
Published: April 2012

In this paper, the authors present a computational model of a fundamental social phenomenon in the study of animal behavior: the foraging. The purpose of this work is, first, to test the validity of the proposed model compared to another existing model, the flocking model; then, to try to understand whether the model may provide useful suggestions in studying the size of the group in some species of social mammals.
Consumers’ Attitudes Toward Mobile Commerce
Authors: Su QiYing , Adams Carl
Published: April 2012

Mobile commerce operates in a global market place where services are rolled out to different nations. However, it is unclear if mobile commerce developed for one national environment can be successfully applied in another. There are likely to be many influences on attitudes to mobile commerce, including environmental and cultural. This paper reports on a study on consumers’ attitudes toward m-commerce from samples in a city in China and a city in the UK. Attributes of environment and cultural influences are explored and the paper develops a model on Consumers’ Attitudes toward M-commerce in different Cultural Environments (CAMCE). The paper makes contribution by identify and distinguish between influences related to the environment and to culture.
SMS Banking
Authors: Petrova Krassie , Yu Shi
Published: April 2012

Mobile banking is a mobile service that allows the user to perform banking transactions using a mobile handheld device and a mobile service known as short text messaging (SMS). Deploying an expanded Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this study aims to identify the factors that influence the customer’s decision to use SMS banking. Findings from relevant literature and outcomes of the analysis of qualitative data were gathered through focus group discussions to build a model, and a survey was conducted to explore the model with respect to individuals’ behaviour when considering using SMS banking. Findings show that service quality, as well as the degree of customers’ awareness about the service, influence participants’ perceptions about the usefulness of SMS banking and their intentions to use and adopt the service in the future.
The Role of Choice in the Development of an M-Government Strategy in Turkey
Authors: de Kervenoael Ronan , Cakici N. Meltem , Guner Duygu
Published: April 2012

Enhanced data services through mobile phones are expected to be soon fully transactional, interactive and embedded with other mobile consumption practices. While private services will continue to take the lead in the mobile data revolution, others such as government and NGOs are becoming more prominent m-players. This paper adopts a qualitative case study approach interpreting micro-level municipality officers’ mobility concept, ICT histories and choice practices for m-government services in Turkey. The findings highlight that in-situs ICT choice strategies are non-homogenous, sometimes conflicting with each other, and that current strategies have not yet justified the necessity for municipality officers to engage and fully commit to m-government efforts. Furthermore, beyond m-government initiatives’ success or failure, the mechanisms related to public administration mobile technical capacity building and knowledge transfer are identified to be directly related to m-government engagement likelihood.
Activity-Based Costing in Public Administrations
Authors: Becker Jörg , Bergener Philipp , Räckers Michael
Published: April 2012

The traditional way of budgeting in public administrations is input-oriented; however, this system does not meet actual methods of efficient budget controlling as a mapping of output parameters. Due to challenges, such as the need for cost reduction because of decreasing tax revenues, pressure for controlling mechanisms is rising. Furthermore, Europe Pan-European directives foster process harmonization and introduction of IT-supported and optimized business processes in the public sector. In this regard, activity-based costing can be a useful instrument for efficiency measurement of public administrations output. Through the introduction of new public management and double-entry accounting public administrations, the opportunity to use cost-centered accounting mechanisms to assess process performance while evaluating their activities in a holistic concept is accomplished. Process modeling can be a useful instrument to help public administrations to capture relevant process knowledge and thus create the data basis for activity-based costing.
Fuzzy Judgments and Fuzzy Sets
Authors: Saaty Thomas L. , Tran Liem T.
Published: April 2012

Using fuzzy set theory has become attractive to many people. However, the many references cited here and in other works, little thought is given to why numbers should be made fuzzy before plunging into the necessary simulations to crank out numbers without giving reason or proof that it works to one’s advantage. In fact it does not often do that, certainly not in decision making. Regrettably, many published papers that use fuzzy set theory presumably to get better answers were not judged thoroughly by reviewers knowledgeable in both fuzzy theory and decision making. Buede and Maxwell (1995), who had done experiments on different ways of making decisions, found that fuzzy does the poorest job of obtaining the right decision as compared with other ways. “These experiments demonstrated that the MAVT (Multiattribute Value Theory) and AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) techniques, when provided with the same decision outcome data, very often identify the same alternatives as ‘best’. The other techniques are noticeably less consistent with the Fuzzy algorithm being the least consistent.”
Overcoming Liability of Foreignness
Authors: Chen Haiyang , Hu Michael Y. , Zhang G. Peter
Published: April 2012

This study examines the liability of foreignness (LOF) faced by multinational enterprises (MNEs), and the effects of strategies employed to overcome the liability. Based on a sample of 3,085 Sino-foreign joint ventures formed in manufacturing sectors in China, the authors find that Hong Kong investors, who are often perceived to have lower LOF than investors from other countries, are more actively engaged in strategies to overcome the LOF. Specifically, Hong Kong investors actively adopt strategies to seek local markets, maintain investment flexibility, utilize their competitive advantages in labor-intensive industries, and leverage cooperative synergism to improve their performance. Investors from other countries adopt market seeking and cooperative synergy approach to improve performance.
Thinking in Terms of Design Decisions When Developing Maturity Models
Authors: Mettler Tobias
Published: April 2012

To measure dedicated aspects of “maturity”, a range of maturity models have been developed in the field of information systems by practitioners and academics over the past years. Despite its broad proliferation, the concept has not escaped criticism. Unnecessary bureaucracy, poor theoretical foundation, and the impression of a falsified certainty to achieve success are a few examples. As there is a significant lack of knowledge on how to design theoretically sound and widely accepted maturity models, in this paper, the author opens the discussion on design decisions when developing these models. Based on analogy and informed arguments, the author synthesizes a generic but adjuvant framework that consists of five common design steps and eighteen decision parameters that help practitioners as well as researchers in the development of maturity models.
Demonstrating and Communicating the Value of Nuclear Decommissioning to Society
Authors: Wareing Mark
Published: April 2012

The UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is a Non Departmental Public Body (NDPB) responsible for the remediation of the UK’s civil nuclear liabilities. To secure government funding and demonstrate that the NDA is delivering its mission, it must be able to show that it provides value for money across its estate. Value comes in many forms, such as an improved environment, hazard reduction, changes in sky line, social amenities, money, employment, and so forth. Depending on the perspective of the receiver, and their closeness to the affected area, the weighting placed on the different aspects of value will vary. Therefore, the challenge has been to get a consistent approach that measures value and is broadly acceptable to stakeholders in which different aspects are compared and decisions are made on a national basis.
Linear Programming Approaches for Multiple-Class Discriminant and Classification Analysis
Authors: Sun Minghe
Published: April 2012

New linear programming approaches are proposed as nonparametric procedures for multiple-class discriminant and classification analysis. A new MSD model minimizing the sum of the classification errors is formulated to construct discriminant functions. This model has desirable properties because it is versatile and is immune to the pathologies of some of the earlier mathematical programming models for two-class classification. It is also purely systematic and algorithmic and no user ad hoc and trial judgment is required. Furthermore, it can be used as the basis to develop other models, such as a multiple-class support vector machine and a mixed integer programming model, for discrimination and classification. A MMD model minimizing the maximum of the classification errors, although with very limited use, is also studied. These models may also be considered as generalizations of mathematical programming formulations for two-class classification. By the same approach, other mathematical programming formulations for two-class classification can be easily generalized to multiple-class formulations. Results on standard as well as randomly generated test datasets show that the MSD model is very effective in generating powerful discriminant functions.
Constraint Handling in Particle Swarm Optimization
Authors: Leong Wen Fung , Yen Gary G.
Published: April 2012

In this article, the authors propose a particle swarm optimization (PSO) for constrained optimization. The proposed PSO adopts a multiobjective approach to constraint handling. Procedures to update the feasible and infeasible personal best are designed to encourage finding feasible regions and convergence toward the Pareto front. In addition, the infeasible nondominated solutions are stored in the global best archive to exploit the hidden information for guiding the particles toward feasible regions. Furthermore, the number of feasible personal best in the personal best memory and the scalar constraint violations of personal best and global best are used to adapt the acceleration constants in the PSO flight equations. The purpose is to find more feasible particles and search for better solutions during the process. The mutation procedure is applied to encourage global and fine-tune local searches. The simulation results indicate that the proposed constrained PSO is highly competitive, achieving promising performance.
Compensation of Voltage Sags with Phase-Jumps through DVR with Minimum VA Rating Using PSO based ANFIS Controller
Authors: Ramakuru Anil Kumar , Kumar Siva G. , Kumar Kalyan B. , Mishra Mahesh K.
Published: April 2012

Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) restores the distribution system load voltage to a nominal balanced sinusoidal voltage, when the source voltage has distortions, sag/swell and unbalances. DVR has to inject a required amount of Volt-Amperes (VA) into the system to maintain a nominal balanced sinusoidal voltage at the load. Keeping the cost effectiveness of DVR, it is desirable to have a minimum VA rating of the DVR, for a given system without compromising compensation capability. In this regard, a methodology has been proposed in this work to minimize VA rating of DVR. The optimal angle at which DVR voltage has to be injected in series to the line impedance so as to have minimum VA loading on DVR as well as the removal of phase jumps in the three-phases is computed by the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique. The proposed method is able to compensate voltage sags with phase jumps by keeping the DVR voltage and power ratings minimum, effectively. The proposed PSO methodology together with adaptive neuro–fuzzy inference system used to make the DVR work online with minimum VA loading. The proposed method has been validated through detailed simulation studies.
Networks Do Matter
Authors: Reynolds Robert G. , Kinniard-Heether Leonard
Published: April 2012

This article describes a socially motivated evolutionary algorithm, Cultural Algorithms, to design a controller for a 3D racing game for use in a competitive event held at the 2008 IEEE World Congress. The controller was modeled as a state machine and a set of utility functions were associated with actions performed in each state. Cultural Algorithms are used to optimize these functions. Cultural Algorithms consist of a Population Space, a collection of knowledge sources in the Belief Space, and a communication protocol connecting the components together. The knowledge sources in the belief space vie to control individuals in the population through the social fabric influence function. Here the population is a network of chromosomes connected by the LBest topology. This LBest configuration was employed to train the system on an example oval track prior to the contest, but it did not generalize to other tracks. The authors investigated how other topologies performed when learning on each of the contest tracks. The square network (a type of small world network) worked best at distributing the influence of the knowledge sources, and reduced the likelihood of premature convergence for complex tracks.
A Theoretical Framework for Estimating Swarm Success Probability Using Scouts
Authors: Rebguns Antons , Spears Diana F. , Anderson-Sprecher Richard , Kletsov Aleksey
Published: April 2012

This paper presents a novel theoretical framework for swarms of agents. Before deploying a swarm for a task, it is advantageous to predict whether a desired percentage of the swarm will succeed. The authors present a framework that uses a small group of expendable “scout” agents to predict the success probability of the entire swarm, thereby preventing many agent losses. The scouts apply one of two formulas to predict – the standard Bernoulli trials formula or the new Bayesian formula. For experimental evaluation, the framework is applied to simulated agents navigating around obstacles to reach a goal location. Extensive experimental results compare the mean-squared error of the predictions of both formulas with ground truth, under varying circumstances. Results indicate the accuracy and robustness of the Bayesian approach. The framework also yields an intriguing result, namely, that both formulas usually predict better in the presence of (Lennard-Jones) inter-agent forces than when their independence assumptions hold.
Distributed Multi-Agent Systems for a Collective Construction Task based on Virtual Swarm Intelligence
Authors: Meng Yan , Jin Yaochu
Published: April 2012

In this paper, a virtual swarm intelligence (VSI)-based algorithm is proposed to coordinate a distributed multi-robot system for a collective construction task. Three phases are involved in a construction task: search, detect, and carry. Initially, robots are randomly located within a bounded area and start random search for building blocks. Once the building blocks are detected, agents need to share the information with their local neighbors. A distributed virtual pheromone-trail (DVP) based model is proposed for local communication among agents. If multiple building blocks are detected in a local area, agents need to make decisions on which agent(s) should carry which block(s). To this end, a virtual particle swarm optimization (V-PSO)-based model is developed for multi-agent behavior coordination. Furthermore, a quorum sensing (QS)-based model is employed to balance the tradeoff between exploitation and exploration, so that an optimal overall performance can be achieved. Extensive simulation results on a collective construction task have demonstrated the efficiency and robustness of the proposed VSI-based framework.
Introduction to Chipless and Conventional Radio Frequency Identification System
Authors: Karmakar Nemai Chandra
Published: April 2012

The book provides a comprehensive coverage on most recent developments in chipless and conventional RFID. It covers a wide range of topics from component level design, analysis, and development, to system integration, middleware, anti-collision, and security protocols. The chipless RFID will bring revolutionary impacts on low-cost item tagging in this millennium. The RFID based sensors and RF sensors play a vital role in real time condition monitoring of objects. The designs of various chipless RFID tags and printing techniques to achieve a goal toward less than a cent tag are presented. The reading methods of RFID tags of various types, system perspective design, and analyses, detection techniques, sensor nodes for RFID system, security risk and vulnerability of the RFID technology and their remedies, anti-collision protocols, middleware and enterprise software implementation, and innovative applications of RFIDs in various fields are all presented in the book. The book will make a valuable reference in the RFID field, which has been growing exponentially.
Multi-Input-Multi-Output Antennas for Radio Frequency Identification Systems
Authors: Bansal Shivali G. , Abawajy Jemal H.
Published: April 2012

In this chapter the authors discuss the physical insight of the role of wireless communication in RFID systems. In this respect, this chapter gives a brief introduction on the wireless communication model followed by various communication schemes. The chapter also discusses various channel impairments and the statistical modeling of fading channels based on the environment in which the RFID tag and reader may be present. The chapter deals with the fact that the signal attenuations can be dealt with up to some level by using multiple antennas at the reader transmitter and receiver to improve the performance. Thus, this chapter discusses the use of transmit diversity at the reader transmitter to transmit multiple copies of the signal. Following the above, the use of receiver combining techniques are discussed, which shows how the multiple copies of the signal arriving at the reader receiver from the tag are combined to reduce the effects of fading. The chapter then discusses various modulation techniques required to modulate the signal before transmitting over the channel. It then presents a few channel estimation algorithms, according to which, by estimating the channel state information of the channel paths through which transmission takes place, performance of the wireless system can be further increased. Finally, the Antenna selection techniques are presented, which further helps in improving the system performance.
Design of High Efficiency Power Amplifier for RFID Readers
Authors: Gu Liming , Yang Yang , Chen Shichang , Karmakar Nemai Chandra
Published: April 2012

In RFID reader systems, power amplifier plays a critical rule for efficiency enhancement. A high efficiency power amplifier may not only increase the life expectancy of portable RFID devices but also reduce the reliance on heat sinks. Heat sinks usually occupy plenty of space and lead to packing difficulties. A well-designed power amplifier with high efficiency and output power may also increase the reading range of RFID and system reliability, especially for the applications requiring long reading range (e.g. vehicle tagging in complicated traffics) or in a lossy environment (e.g. in sensing in rainy weather). This chapter systematically introduces the typical power amplifiers classified as Class A, AB, B, E, and F. The principles of Class F are emphasized due to its outstanding performance in efficiency enhancement. A practical design example is also presented, and also some recent typical techniques for improving the performances of Class F power amplifier are summarized.
Agile Service-Oriented E-Business in a Collaborative Networked Environment
Authors: Picard Willy
Published: April 2012

The goal of this chapter is to explore potential IT support for collaborative networked organizations encompassing both the service and network orientations of e-business environments. First, it is argued that the main reason for collaboration among organizations is the need for a competitive advantage, leading to the concept of Collaborative Networked Organization (CNO) proposed as an appropriate organizational structure supporting the collaboration of organizations. Then, the concept of Service-Oriented Virtual Organization Breeding Environment (SOVOBE) is presented as a means to support CNO creation and operations, while emphasizing both the network and service orientation of SOVOBEs. Next, a feedback loop encompassing adaptation, business processes, monitoring, and networks is proposed as a means to provide SOVOBE members with support for agile collaboration within CNOs. Finally, implementation concerns are discussed, with an introduction of the ErGo system supporting organizations willing to cooperate in an agile service-oriented manner in collaborative networked environments.
Electronic Markets and Multiagent Systems
Authors: Sardinha Alberto , Milidiú Ruy L.
Published: April 2012

As the Internet helps mediate millions of transactions in electronic markets, research work on automated trading agents is helping humans improve their trading objectives (e.g., finding lower prices and improving delivery options). This chapter presents an overview of the research work on trading agents in the context of the Trading Agent Competition. The Trading Agent Competition is an annual event where researchers are interested in the following research questions: (i) how to design trading agents, (ii) how to evaluate these trading agents, and (iii) how do trading agents affect electronic markets. This research community has produced many research results that are based on state-of-the-art techniques from artificial intelligence, operations research, statistics, and other relevant fields.
Improving the Shopping Experience in B2C E-Commerce Systems using Rich Internet Applications
Authors: Alor-Hernandez Giner , Hernandez-Carrillo Victor Manuel , Ambros-Antemate Jorge Fernando , Martinez-Nieves Luis Alfredo
Published: April 2012

One of the main uses of the internet is e-commerce. Companies conducting business online across a broad range of consumer goods and services from books to travel are operating in an increasingly competitive environment. Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are a new generation of internet applications. RIAs combine the advantages of desktops and Web applications. RIAs incorporate behavior and features of desktop applications such as animations, multimedia content and client-side computing. In Web applications, RIAs allow to the users to do interactive data exploration through visual attractive interfaces. RIAs solve disadvantages presented in traditional Web applications like continuous updating Web pages and processing overload on Web server. Therefore in a software development context, the RIAs have a great acceptance as solution in data-processing. RIAs can improve the experience of moving through an e-commerce application by removing extra navigation steps, reducing interface complexity, and presenting relevant, meaningful information to the user in the most appropriate visual format. Advances available with RIAs are enhancing the customer experience, driving revenue, and increasing customer loyalty. In this book chapter, the authors cover the reasons for incorporating RIAs in B2C e-commerce systems.
Ubiquitous, Mobile and Pervasive Services
Authors: Tabassum Kahkashan , Sultana Asia , Damaodaram Avula
Published: April 2012

The growing demand for wireless technology and related applications has impelled companies to invest profoundly in a wide range of wireless products such as laptops, notebooks, cellular phones, etc., to meet needs of broad range of customers’ requirements while maintaining high efficiency and data integrity. The Mobile Customers (MC) should be able to access the desired information such as news, weather reports, traffic updates, financial information, stock prices, etc. whenever and wherever they desire, but it is possible that they may have inconsistent data as they are not physically connected to the servers and hence they maintain a local cache that stores some amount of data that has been sent by the server. They may also prefetch data from the server for caching, depending on history for future use. The cached data should be consistent with the data in the data server in order to correctly serve the user. The critical constraints of a mobile device like limited network bandwidth, low battery power and low processing power of mobile devices make them more susceptible to inconsistencies. Broadcasting is the natural method for disseminating information in media: namely, shared Ethernet, optical networks, short-range wireless and wireless links, including satellites. It has the highest priority to disseminate information on the wireless network. Multicasting supports an enormous range of applications within a network and is an effective method to guarantee scalability of bulk data transfer in wireless environment. In a Multicast scenario, a single source sends data items, which are then replicated within the network infrastructure to reach a large client population (group). Therefore, it can be used to guarantee scalability, reliable data dissemination, timely and consistent content distribution.
Social Networks and e-Business
Authors: Marca David A.
Published: April 2012

If prolonged economic downturn causes further mass market evaporation, then future e-Business survival may depend on correctly understanding and selling into niche markets. There are abundant niche markets in electronic social networks. Traditionally, companies have tried to eavesdrop on social networks to create buying relationships with individuals. This mass-market strategy creates no deep understanding of consumer needs and preferences, especially if prolong economic downturn forces consumers to purchase high-customization and low-cost products. Using the Language/Action Perspective, social networks can be understood and analyzed to glean buying intent, preferences, and cost. Using intelligent agents, companies can engage in highly aligned online advertising and transacting to satisfy those intents, preferences, and costs. The architecture for such activity could comprise: a) a real-time customer-based and transaction-based organization, b) highly adaptive offerings that anticipate consumer need, c) an intelligent value-seeking front-end, and d) an intelligent product decision-making back-end.
Web Designers, Social E-Value Creation and E-Business Planning
Authors: de Kervenoael Ronan , Bisson Christophe , Palmer Mark
Published: April 2012

This chapter investigates the conflicting demands faced by web designers in the development of social e-atmospherics that aim to encourage e-value creation, thus strengthening and prolonging market planning strategies. While recent studies have shown that significant shifts are occurring concerning the importance of users’ generated content by way of social e-communication tools (e.g. blogs), these trends are also creating expectations that social and cultural cues ought to become a greater part of e-atmospherics and e-business strategies. Yet, there is growing evidence that organizations are resisting such efforts, fearing that they will lose control of their e-marketing strategy. This chapter contributes to the theory and literature on online cross-cultural understanding and the impact website designers (meso-level) can have on improving the sustainability of e-business planning, departing from recent studies that focus mainly on firms’ e-business plans (macro-level) or final consumers (micro-level). A second contribution is made with respect to online behavior regarding the advancement of technologies that facilitate the development and shaping of new social e-atmospherics that affect users’ behavior and long term e-business strategies through the avoidance of traditional, formal decision making processes and marketing strategy mechanisms implemented by firms. These issues have been highlighted in the literature on the co-production and co-creation of value, which few organizations have thus far integrated in their strategic and pragmatic e-business plans. Drawing upon fifteen online interviews with web designers in the USA, as key non-institutional actors at the meso-level who are developing what future websites will be like, this chapter analyzes ways in which identifying points of resistance and conflicting demands can lead to engagement with the debate over the online co-creation of value and more sustainable future e-business planning. A number of points of resistance to the inclusion of more e-social atmospherics are identified, and the implications for web designers’ roles and web design planning are discussed along with the limitations of the study and potential future research for e-business studies.
Towards a Collaborative E-Business Vision for Africa
Authors: Ochara Nixon Muganda , Krauss Kirstin
Published: April 2012

This chapter elevates the need to enhance global understanding of how the e-business and e-commerce artifact is unfolding in developing countries in Africa. As markets become saturated in the developed world, companies are diversifying by considering online sales opportunities in developing countries. For instance, conservative estimates of Internet users in Africa is currently at about 120 million, without taking into account the explosive growth of mobile Internet browsing. This is barely 6% of the total population, with growth rates being the highest in the world. Thus e-business applications, whether based on the traditional Internet infrastructure or mobile technology, is positioned to provide a strategic opportunity for organizations as the focus shifts to online consumers in developing countries, especially those in Africa and Asia. The motivation for the contribution in this paper stems from the claim that the fast advent of the environment of e-business has been claimed to change the game of business, threatening the existence, not only of firms, but also of whole industries. Perhaps due to the speed of change, there is little generic strategic guidance available for organizations to help them navigate through the uncharted waters of the new domain of business. There also seems to be little work from developing countries, on the actual value that firms can hope to get from participating in e-business, which would make the new environment relevant to established and evolving new businesses. Therefore, the chapter’s contribution stems from a quest to provide an explanatory critique of the real nature of e-business in a developing countries ‘context and explore a possible successful model for e-business adoption. The alternative conceptualization shall be explored based on two outcomes that are inevitably a consequence of increasing e-business adoption in developing countries: increasing business reliance on virtual markets and marketing and increasing accessibility of global markets occasioned by the Internet and mobile infrastructure. Thus, the first part of the chapter will explore how the online business contexts are influencing buyer behaviour; while the second part attempts an alternative conceptualization of web user behaviour.
Web Service Composition, Optimization and the Implications for Developing Economies
Authors: Osofisan Adenike , Eteng Idongesit E. , Arikpo Iwara , Usoro Abel
Published: April 2012

The emergence of the Service Oriented computing paradigm with its implicit inclusion of web services has caused a precipitous revolution in software engineering, e-service compositions, and optimization of e-services. Web service composition requests are usually combined with end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, which are specified in terms of non-functional properties e.g. response time, throughput, and price. This chapter describes what web services are; not just to the web but to the end users. The state of the art approaches for composing web services are briefly described and a novel game theoretic approach using genetic programming for composing web services in order to optimize service performance, bearing in mind the Quality of Service (QoS) of these web services, is presented. The implication of this approach to cloud computing and economic development of developing economies is discussed.
An Empirical Evaluation of the Effects of Gender Differences and Self-efficacy in the Adoption of E-banking in Nigeria
Authors: Ayo Charles K. , Ifinedo Princely , Ekong Uyinomen O. , Oni Aderonke
Published: April 2012

The issues of gender disparity in the usage of information technology (IT), as well as self-efficacy, have received considerable interest and attention among researchers in recent times. Prior research has identified that gender differences and self-efficiency affect the attitude towards adoption and use of technology. In general, females are believed to be disadvantaged compared to their male counterparts with respect to IT usage and acceptance. The reasoning is that males are mostly more exposed to technology and tend to have more proficiency with such tools. Very little information exists in the extant literature regarding perceptions in developing parts of the world, including Africa. In this chapter, an empirical evaluation of the issues in the context of e-banking will be made in Lagos (Nigeria) and its environs. An extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) will be used as a conceptual framework to guide the discourse. Data analysis was done on SPSS 15.0. The study’s results showed that gender differences moderated the acceptance of e-banking of users in the research context. Namely, computer self efficacy and perceived ease of use were of concerns to females, but less so for their male counterparts. Also, perceived usefulness of e-banking is discovered to be the most influencing factor for male users. The study’s implications for research and practice are discussed in the chapter.
The Issues of Digital Natives and Tourists
Authors: Ololube Nwachukwu Prince , Amaele Samuel , Kpolovie Peter James , Egbezor Daniel Elemchukwu
Published: April 2012

Frequently it is presumed that Nigerian students and faculties have been unable to find effective ways to use technology in the classroom and other aspects of their teaching and learning. Yet, considerable debate remains over the most efficient techniques and procedures to measure students and faculties IT/IS use. In most developing countries, the challenges associated with carrying out IT/IS measurements are different from those in developed countries, as are the methods for selecting appropriate IT/IS contents. The thrust of this chapter is to examine IT/S contents with a view to analyse their meaning and impact on educational offerings. This study gathered data using a five item demographic variable and a fifty item questionnaire to measure student and faculty academic IT/IS use in two universities in Nigeria. This study is based on the 191 responses received to the questionnaire. The results reveal significant differences between the academic use of IT/IS by students and faculty members. This groundbreaking study recommends that universities become valuable and proactive actors in the provision of technology based learning, teaching and research for students and academic staff so as to foster an effective academic environment aimed at meeting MDG education goals. This scholarly discourse has implication for researchers, education practitioners, planners, policy makers and government.
Canadian Biotechnology Systems
Authors: Queenton Johanne , Dufour Yvon , Milot Régis
Published: April 2012

In this chapter, the authors seek to estimate the importance of the clustering phenomenon in link with the biotechnological system as external factors that influence the growth of SBEs (specialised biotechnology enterprises). This is a first step in determining the geographical proximity of SBEs and researchers, and secondly, to identify the players involved in biotechnological systems of different clusters of agglomeration. Thus, the authors specify the number of SBEs by region, the number of researchers, and their links with industry. Therefore, in terms of biotechnological systems in place, the identification of the different stakeholders allow for revealing strengths and weaknesses of those regions for the sustaining of innovation in Canadian SBEs.