bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Information Technology Strategy in Knowledge Diffusion Lifecycle
Authors: Li Zhang , Qiong Jia , Xiao Yao
Published: May 2011

A progressive liberalization and deregulation of international trade, and the rapid development and diffusion of information and communication technology (IT) have fundamentally changed the global competitive dynamic environment (Ernst & Kim, 2002). Growing around these is a new information age economy whose fundamental sources of wealth are knowledge and communication rather than natural resources and physical labor (Kanter, 1994). The simultaneous development of the knowledge economy (Dunning, 2000) and the information technology economy (Varian, Farrell, & Shapiro, 2004) provides both opportunity and challenge for the organizations, and also requires us to develop from a comprehensive perspective by combining knowledge management with the information technology strategy. In the knowledge economy, the importance of knowledge diffusion dynamics has been increasingly recognized in development economics over the last decade (World Bank, 1999). Knowledge diffusion can be defined as the adaptations and applications of knowledge documented in scientific publications and patents (Crane, 1972). Knowledge diffusion is part of the knowledge management process, realizing the proliferation of knowledge and information among different individuals across time and space (Chen & Hicks, 2004). According to the extent of knowledge diffusion, the knowledge diffusion lifecycle can be divided into four stages, including incubation, nurture, promotion, and popularization (Lang & Yuan, 2004). In this lifecycle, knowledge diffusion refers to promoting the innovation and core competence formation, so how to accelerate the knowledge diffusion has become an important issue for organizations. The development of information technology establishes a solid base to accelerate knowledge diffusion. IT and related organizational innovations provide effective mechanisms for constructing flexible infrastructures that can link together and coordinate economic transactions at distant locations (Broadbent, Weill, & St. Clair, 1999). In essence, IT fosters the development of leaner, meaner, and more agile production systems that cut across firm boundaries and national borders. The underlying vision is that accelerating knowledge diffusion can speed up the dissemination of information technology. Knowledge diffusion is an essential content of the business strategy (Borghoff & Pareschi, 2003). However, existing theories of both information technology and knowledge have not specified the information technology strategy in the knowledge diffusion. This article introduces the information technology strategy in knowledge diffusion based on the knowledge cycle theory. The article describes how to advance knowledge diffusion by using the matched information technology strategy in a different knowledge diffusion lifecycle. The article shows how firms innovate and research to imitate knowledge and improve the diffusion of knowledge.
Intellectual Property Protection on Multimedia Digital Library
Authors: Sasaki Hideyasu
Published: May 2011

The principal concern of this article is to provide researchers and practitioners in information science and technology with legal references on the concepts, issues, trends, and frameworks of intellectual property protection regarding multimedia digital library in engineering manner. Digital library is the global information infrastructure in the networked society (Borgman, 2003). A digital library, as an information system, consists of digital contents in databases and retrieval mechanisms. The right protection of digital library is a critical issue in the digital library community that demands frameworks for recouping their investment in database design and system implementation. Intellectual property law gives incentive to advance appropriate investment in database design and implementation with two types of intellectual property protection: copyright and patent (Jakes & Yoches, 1989; Junghans & Levy, 2006). Multimedia digital contents take a variety of forms including text, images, photos, and video streams, which often commingle in multimedia digital libraries. Nevertheless, present legal studies are not satisfactory as the source of technical interpretation of the intellectual properties regarding multimedia digital libraries. The intellectual property protection of the multimedia digital libraries demands clear and concise frameworks.
The Internet and SMEs in Sub-Saharan African Countries
Authors: Ifinedo Princely
Published: May 2011

The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers using multiple Internet protocols (IP). Increasingly, it is being used to enhance business operation by both small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large organizations around the world (Bunker and MacGregor, 2002; Turban, Lee, King, & Chung, Lee, J., King, D. & Chung 2004). One reason is that the Internet, when used to facilitate e-commerce and e-business, offers several benefits for the adopting organizations (Walczuch, den Braven, & Lundgren, 2000; Turban, et al, 2004). Such benefits include the following: 1) reducing distance barrier, 2) the development of new products and services, 3) opening direct links between customer and suppliers, and 4) enhancing communication efficiency. Our study of the relevant literature reveals that the diffusion of the Internet among businesses in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA), including SMEs, is the lowest in the world at around 2% (ITU, 2005). A recent report shows that the whole of Africa has only 1% of the total international Internet bandwidth (UNCTAD, 2005). Thus, it is to be expected that businesses in the region with such poor connectivity and use will be unable to fully reap the benefits of the technology. Against such unfavorable situations, it would seem reasonable for research efforts to uncover why such unfavorable conditions prevail in the region. Sadly, very few studies exist that have investigated such issues. Little is known about the perceptions of the Internet or the factors inhibiting its spread among SMEs in SSA. To fill this gap in research, this article aims at adding to knowledge by presenting a summary of the findings of a preliminary study designed to investigate the perceptions of the Internet and the sorts of barriers facing SMEs in SSA desiring to adopt Internet in their operations or for commerce. The study used SMEs in Nigeria, a Sub-Saharan African country. The country was chosen for illustration proposes as it is the most populous country in Africa and has favorable indicators for the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) compared to other SSA countries (Ifinedo, 2005). Importantly, researchers, for example, Ojukwu (2006) have discussed use of ICT among Nigerian SMEs and it is hoped that this present effort will complement similar research efforts.
IT Supporting Strategy Formulation
Authors: Achterbergh Jan
Published: May 2011

This overview approaches information and communication technology (ICT) for competitive intelligence from the perspective of strategy formulation. It provides an ICT architecture for supporting the knowledge processes producing relevant knowledge for strategy formulation. To determine what this architecture looks like, we first examine the process of strategy formulation and determine the knowledge required in the process of strategy formulation. To this purpose, we use Beer’s viable system model (VSM). Second, we model the knowledge processes in which the intelligence relevant for the process of strategy formulation is produced and processed. Given these two elements, we describe an ICT architecture supporting the knowledge processes producing the knowledge needed for the strategic process.
Key Factors and Implications for E-Government Diffusion in Developed Economies
Authors: Raisinghani Mahesh S.
Published: May 2011

E-government has grown in significance with the growth of the digital age and the global economy; however, at a slower pace. Its impact is pervasive and is evident in the availability and distribution of products and services within agencies, to business, and to citizens in western countries. There are many aspects of e-government; researchers have written extensively on the subject and have reached conclusions that will continue to evolve as new discoveries are made. The business community, and society at-large, have been challenged by the complexities of e-government in meeting the needs in developing countries as well. The relationship between developed and underdeveloped countries is interdependent due to natural resources that may be available in underdeveloped countries and products that may be modi- fied in their packaging and price for sale to the people in underdeveloped countries (e.g., toothpaste packaged in small, disposable packets, or shampoo in small vials, or second/third generation mobile phones to keep it affordable for the people in the underdeveloped countries). The polarization between e-government and society is due to conflicting financial, geopolitical/ethical and societal goals (Webber, 2006); this issue is evident in the adoption rates and usage of government Web sites. Although progress has been made in identifying e-government opportunities, the juxtaposition of government infrastructure, technology, and societal needs often conflict and, as a result, have adversely impacted the products and services offered by e-governments throughout the western world and ultimately, the adoption rates.
Leapfrogging an IT Sector
Authors: Trauth Eileen M.
Published: May 2011

Accompanying the global spread of the post-industrial society (Bell, 1973) are nations who see economic opportunity deriving from the development of an information economy to support it (Porat, 1977). But while advanced industrialized nations moved gradually from industrial to post-industrial work over a period of decades, newly industrializing countries are “leapfrogging” directly from agrarian to informationintensive work in a matter of years. Given this rapid labor force transformation, a critical consideration in the development of a global information sector is the development and management of information technology (IT) workers. Ireland is an appropriate country for examination of this leapfrog phenomenon because it was one of the earliest examples of this phenomenon, having developed its information sector rapidly and successfully through inward investment by multinational firms during the 1970s to the 1990s. Thus, this case offers the point of view of both an advanced industrialized or “first wave” country and of a “second wave” country that is taking an alternate path into the information economy by rapidly moving directly from an agrarian or partially-developed industrial economy into an information economy. Since Ireland was one of the earliest examples of “leapfrogging”, the Irish case has lessons applicable to other contexts (Trauth, 2000).
Machine Learning
Authors: Gama João , de Carvalho André C.P.L.F.
Published: May 2011

Machine learning techniques have been successfully applied to several real world problems in areas as diverse as image analysis, Semantic Web, bioinformatics, text processing, natural language processing,telecommunications, finance, medical diagnosis, and so forth. A particular application where machine learning plays a key role is data mining, where machine learning techniques have been extensively used for the extraction of association, clustering, prediction, diagnosis, and regression models. This text presents our personal view of the main aspects, major tasks, frequently used algorithms, current research, and future directions of machine learning research. For such, it is organized as follows: Background information concerning machine learning is presented in the second section. The third section discusses different definitions for Machine Learning. Common tasks faced by Machine Learning Systems are described in the fourth section. Popular Machine Learning algorithms and the importance of the loss function are commented on in the fifth section. The sixth and seventh sections present the current trends and future research directions, respectively.
Marketing Vulnerabilities in an Age of Online Commerce
Authors: Owen Robert S.
Published: May 2011

This article provides an overview of strategic and tactical threats to the marketing efforts of businesses engaged in online marketing activities. Marketing-related assets that are vulnerable to attack include networking and hardware resources, human resources, information resources, promotion resources, and brand equity and customer good will. Vulnerable areas that an organization should protect include its core network and computing infrastructure, its internal social infrastructure, domain name registrations related to its branding, and branding exploits on external social networks. Although hacks of networking and hardware resources are of concern, the focus of this article is on encouraging marketing managers and strategists to consider a wider variety of external and internal threats.
Mobile Commerce Technology
Authors: Lee Chung-wei , Hu Wen-Chen , Yeh Jyh-haw
Published: May 2011

With the introduction of the World Wide Web, electronic commerce has revolutionized traditional commerce and boosted sales and exchanges of merchandise and information. Recently, the emergence of wireless and mobile networks has made possible the admission of electronic commerce to a new application and research subject—mobile commerce, which is defined as the exchange or buying and selling of commodities, services, or information on the Internet through the use of mobile handheld devices. With services provided by mobile commerce, consumers may use the microbrowsers on their cellular phones or PDAs to buy tickets, order meals, locate and book local hotel rooms, even write contracts on the move. In just a few years, mobile commerce has emerged from nowhere to become the hottest new trend in business transactions. NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode (2003) is by far the most successful example of mobile commerce. Introduced in February 1999, i-mode has attracted over 36 million subscribers worldwide. With i-mode, cellular phone users can easily access more than 62,000 Internet sites, as well as specialized services such as e-mail, online shopping and banking, ticket reservations, and personalized ringing melodies that can be downloaded for their phones. The i-mode network structure not only provides access to i-mode and i-mode-compatible contents through the Internet, but also provides access through a dedicated leased-line circuit for added security. i-mode users are charged based on the volume of data transmitted, rather than the amount of time spent connected. In Spring 2001, NTT DoCoMo introduced its next-generation mobile system, based on wideband CDMA (W-CDMA), which can support speeds of 384Kbps or faster, allowing users to download videos and other bandwidth-intensive content with its high-speed packet data communications.
A Model for Characterizing Web Engineering
Authors: Kamthan Pankaj
Published: May 2011

The Internet, particularly the Web, has opened new vistas for many sectors of society, and over the last decade it has played an increasingly integral role in our daily activities of communication, information, and entertainment. This evidently has had an impact on how Web applications are perceived, developed, and managed. The need to manage the size, complexity, and growth of Web applications has led to the discipline of Web engineering (Ginige & Murugesan, 2001). It is known (Kruchten, 2004) that conventional engineering practices cannot be simply mapped to software engineering without the engineer first understanding the nature of the software, and we contend the same applies to Web engineering. This article proposes a systematic approach to identify and elaborate the characteristics that make Web engineering a unique discipline, and considers the implications of these characteristics. The rest of the article is organized as follows. We first outline the background and related work necessary for the discussion that follows, and state our position in that regard. This is followed by a model to uniquely posit the nature of Web applications based on the dimensions of project, people, process, product, and resources. Next, challenges and directions for future research are outlined. Finally, concluding remarks are given.
Modeling Information Systems in UML
Authors: Rittgen Peter
Published: May 2011

The first approaches to object-oriented modeling appeared already in the second half of the 1970s, but not much happened for more than a decade so there were still barely more than a handful of modeling languages at the end of the 1980s. It was the early 1990s that witnessed an ever-growing market in competing object-oriented methods so that potential users found it increasingly difficult to identify any single method that suited their needs. This phenomenon came to be known as the “method wars.” Toward the end of 1994, two of the “big” players, Grady Booch and Jim Rumbaugh, decided to join forces by integrating their respective approaches, the Booch method and OMT (object modeling technique). In late 1995, Ivar Jacobson became a member of this team merging in his OOSE method (object-oriented software engineering). The efforts of the “three amigos” aimed at overcoming unnecessary differences between the individual approaches and also improving each of them by creating a common, standardized modeling language that could serve as an industry standard. The result was the release of the Unified Modeling Language (UML), version 0.9, in June 1996. The UML partners, an industry consortium, performed further work on UML. This led to the versions 1.0 and 1.1 being introduced in 1997. The latter was adopted by the OMG (Object Management Group) in the same year. The current version is 2.0 (OMG, 2005, 2006).
Motivations for Internet Use
Authors: Stafford Thomas F.
Published: May 2011

In light of the importance the Internet has as a channel of commerce, it is important to understand consumer motivations for Internet use (Eighmey & McCord, 1998; Lohse & Spiller, 1998; Schonberg, Cofino, Hoch, Podlaseck, & Spraragen, 2000). In the absence of motivations for Internet use, there can be no motivations for e-commerce use, so Internet use motivations are an important antecedent to e-commerce activities (Stafford, 2003b). The Internet is a telecommunications medium, but it is also far more than a computer-mediated communication channel. In its evolution, the Internet evolved from a basic telecommunications network, to a consumer communications and entertainment medium, to a converged channel of commercial and telecommunications media that combine the utilities of familiar entertainment and communications media such as telephones, radio, and television, along with emerging computer network functionalities. While remaining at its core a network for the distribution of information and telecommunications services, it has evolved into a combined channel for the delivery of other, richer media—become a medium of conveyance for many separate media delivered simultaneously, or a meta-medium (Stafford, Stafford, & Shaw, 2002). In the past, understanding Internet motivations strictly related to computer use was sufficient to characterize Internet user motivations, but in the converged meta-medium of the modern day, we should consider a wider range of potential uses and motivating gratifications arising from use of this complex and converged medium. Media uses and gratifications (U&G) has been a useful theoretical platform for understanding Internet use in this emerging age of media convergence. This perspective focuses on the process of using the Internet medium, and the gratifi- cations related to the content provided by the network. More recently, Internet U&G research has demonstrated additional motivations for Internet use that expand beyond the traditional usage process and media content motivations found in U&G studies of conventional media. These motivations span usage process and content to include considerations of social motivations for network usage, which is a gratification that traditional media have not generally been able to supply to users (Stafford et al., 2002). These new and emerging media usage gratifications for the Internet are important for site and service operators to understand, if they wish to successfully motivate customer use of and loyalty to their resource. These new motivations are potential differentiators between operators within the Internet medium as well as between the Internet and conventional promotional media.
New Perspectives on Rewards and Knowledge Sharing
Authors: Bock Gee-Woo ("Gilbert") , Siew Chen Way , Kim Young-Gul
Published: May 2011

Of the 260 responses from a survey of European multinationals, 94% believed that knowledge management requires employees to share what they know with others within the organization (Murray, 1999). Among the processes of knowledge management—creation, sharing, utilization and accumulation of knowledge—sharing is what differentiates organizational knowledge management from individual learning or knowledge acquisition. However, the process of sharing knowledge is often unnatural to many. Individuals will not share knowledge that is regarded to be of high value and importance. In fact, the natural tendency for individuals is to hoard knowledge or look suspiciously at the knowledge of others. Thus, incentive schemes—where employees receive incentives as a form of compensation for their contributions—are common programs in many organizations. Such schemes have met their fair share of success as well as failure in the field of knowledge management. On the one hand, the carrot and stick principle used in Siemens’ ShareNet project turned out to be a success (Ewing & Keenan, 2001). On the other hand, the redemption points used in Samsung Life Insurance’s Knowledge Mileage Program only resulted in the increasingly selfish behavior of its employees (Hyoung & Moon, 2002). Furthermore, despite the plethora of research on factors affecting knowledge sharing behavior, little concerns discovering effective ways to encourage individuals to voluntarily share their knowledge. Early studies on knowledge management began by trying to discover key factors pertaining to knowledge management in general, instead of knowledge sharing in particular, as summarized in Table 1. Although research on knowledge sharing started around the mid 1990s, it focused mainly on knowledge sharing at the group or organizational level in spite of the fact that knowledge itself actually originates from the individual. Even at the group or organizational level, most studies dealt with a specific knowledge type, such as best practices (Szulanski, 1996) or a specific context, such as between dispersed teams (Tsai, 2002). In addition, factors such as trust, willingness to share, information about the knowledge holder, and the level of codification of knowledge were considered in abstract. Although these factors are valuable, they require further empirical research before they could be used to explain the individual’s fundamental motivation to share knowledge. Thus, this study aims to develop an understanding of the factors that support or constrain the individual’s knowledge sharing behavior in the organization, with a special interest in the role of rewards. This is done according to Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1975) Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), a widely accepted social psychology model that is used to explain almost any human behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980).
Online Learning as a Form of Accommodation
Authors: Cavanaugh Terence
Published: May 2011

An estimated three billion people, representing approximately half of the planet’s population, are in some way affected by disabilities, which includes an estimated 150 million from the United States of America (Half the Planet, 2001). According to the Twenty-Third Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2002a), concerning students with special needs between the ages of three and 21, the U.S. and its outlying areas are currently serving educationally more than 6,272,000 students classified as having a disability. The inclusion model, in which a special needs student participates in the “regular” classroom, has become the current classroom education standard. Today’s special needs students have increasing impacts on the general education teacher as, during the past 10 years, the percentage of students with disabilities served in schools and classes with their non-disabled peers has gradually grown to over 90% in 1998 (U.S. Department of Education, 2000b). Because of the large and increasing number of special needs students, assistive educational technology is growing in importance. The population of postsecondary students with disabilities has increased over the past two decades, and currently there are approximately one million persons in postsecondary institutions who are classified as having some form of disability (U.S. Department of Education, 2000b). In 1994, approximately 45% of the adult population who reported having a disability had either attended some college or had completed a bachelor’s degree or higher, as compared to only 29% in 1986 (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1999a).
Organizational Hypermedia Document Management Through Metadata
Authors: Suh Woojong , Kim Garp Choong
Published: May 2011

Web business systems, the most popular application of hypermedia, typically include a lot of hypermedia documents (hyperdocuments), which are also called Web pages. These systems have been conceived as an essential instrument in obtaining various beneficial opportunities for CRM (customer relationship management), SCM (supply chain management), e-banking or e-stock trading, and so forth (Turban et al., 2004). Most companies have made a continuous effort to build such systems. As a result, today the hyperdocuments in the organizations are growing explosively. The hyperdocuments employed for business tasks in the Web business systems may be referred to as organizational hyperdocuments (OHDs). The OHDs typically play a critical role in business, including the forms of invoices, checks, orders, and so forth. The organization’s ability to adapt the OHDs rapidly to ever-changing business requirements may impact on business performance. However, the maintenance of the OHDs increasing continuously is becoming a burdensome task to many organizations; managing them is as important to economic success as is software maintenance (Brereton et al., 1998). An approach to solve the challenge of managing OHDs is to use metadata. Metadata are generally known as data about data (or information about information). Concerning this approach, this article first reviews the previous studies and discusses perspectives desirable to manage the OHSs and then provides metadata classification and elements. Finally, this article discusses future trends and makes a conclusion.
An Overview of Threats to Information Security
Authors: Rainer Jr. R. Kelly
Published: May 2011

Organizations and individuals have many information assets, which are subject to an increasing number of threats. The purpose of this article is to provide (1) an overview of the factors that are increasing the threats to information security and (2) an overview of the threats to information security.
Parallel and Distributed Visualization Advances
Authors: Zhu Huabing , Wang Lizhe , Chan Tony K.Y.
Published: May 2011

Visualization is the process of mapping numerical values into perceptual dimensions and conveying insight into visible phenomena. With the visible phenomena, the human visual system can recognize and interpret complex patterns. One can detect meaning and anomalies in scientific data sets. Another role of visualization is to display new data in order to uncover new knowledge. Hence, visualization has emerged as an important tool widely used in science, medicine, and engineering. As a consequence of our increased ability to model and measure a wide variety of phenomena, data generated for visualization are far beyond the capability of desktop systems. In the near future, we anticipate collecting data at the rate of terabytes per day from numerous classes of applications. These applications can process a huge size of data, which are produced by more sensitive and accurate instruments, for example, telescopes, microscopes, particle accelerators, and satellites (Foster, Insley, Laszewski, Kesselman, & Thiebaux, 1999). Furthermore, the speed of the generation of data is still increasing. Therefore, to visualize large data sets, visualization systems impose more requirements on a variety of resources. For most users, it becomes more difficult to address all requirements on a single computing platform, or for that matter, in a single location. In a distributed computing environment, various resources are available, for example, large volume data storage, supercomputers, video equipment, and so on. At the same time, high speed networks and the advent of multi-disciplinary science mean that the use of remote resources becomes both necessary and feasible (Foster et al., 1999).
Patterns in the Field of Software Engineering
Authors: Medina-Domínguez Fuensanta , Sanchez-Segura Maria-Isabel , de Amescua Antonio , Mora-Soto Arturo
Published: May 2011

In the mid 1960’s, the architect Christopher Alexander (1964) came up with the idea of Patterns, as “a solution to a problem within a defined context” and developed this concept. He explains, in a very original way, his ideas of urban planning and building architecture, using patterns to explain the “what”, “when”, and “how” of a design. Alexander invented a Pattern Language that is the fundamental to good building and city designs, and describes it in a collection of repetitive schemas called patterns. In Computer Science, software is susceptible to conceptual patterns. Consequently, Ward Cunningham and Kent Beck, used Alexander’s idea to develop a programming pattern language composed of five patterns as an initiation guide for Smalltalk programming. This work was presented at the Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages & Applications Conference (OOPSLA) in 1987. In the early 1990’s, Erich Gamma and Richard Helm did a joint research that resulted in the first specific design patterns catalog. They identified four patterns: Composite, Decider, Observer, and Constrainer patterns. According to many authors, OOPSLA ’91 highlighted the evolutionary process of design patterns. The synergy between Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Rala Johnson, and John Vlissides (better known as the “Gang of Four” or GoF) and other reputable researchers (Ward Cunningham, Kant Beck or Doug Lea) definitively launched the study of and research into Object Oriented Design Patterns. At the same time, James Coplien, another software engineer, was compiling and shaping a programming patterns catalogue in C++, which was a significant advance in the implementation phase in software development. Coplien’s catalog was published in 1991 under the title “Advanced C++ Programming Styles and Idioms”. Between 1991 and 1994 the concept of pattern design was discussed at international congresses and conferences. All of these encounters culminated in OOPSLA ’94. The GoF took advantage of this event to present their compilation (Gamma, Helm, Johnson & Vlissides, 1995). This publication, considered at that time as the best book on Object Orientation, compiled a 23-pattern catalog, founding the basis of patterns design. The number of pattern-related works, studies and publications in general, but especially in design, has exponentially grown since. However, the different research groups being born must be cataloged into three fundamental paradigms: • Theoretical approximations to the software pattern design concept and pattern languages. Coplien’s work (Coplien, 1996; 2004; Coplien & Douglas, 1995) stands out in this field. • Analysis and compilation of software applications design patterns. Rising’s efforts (Rising, 1998; 2000) and Buschmman (Buschmann, Meunier, Rohnert, Sommerlad & Stal, 1996; Buschmann, Rohnert, Stal & Schmidt, 2000) are included in this classification. • The study of special purpose patterns, like antipatterns (Brown, 1998).
Personalization in the Information Era
Authors: Pazos-Arias José Juan , López-Nores Martín
Published: May 2011

We are witnessing the development of new communication technologies (e.g., DTV networks [digital TV], 3G [thirdgeneration] telephony, and DSL [digital subscriber line]) and a rapid growth in the amount of information available. In this scenario, users were supposed to benefit extensively from services delivering news, entertainment, education, commercial functionalities, and so forth. However, the current situation may be better referred to as information overload; as it frequently happens that users are faced with an overwhelming amount of information. A similar situation was noticeable in the 1990s with the exponential growth of the Internet, which made users feel disoriented among the myriad of contents available through their PCs. This gave birth to search engines (e.g., Google and Yahoo) that would retrieve relevant Web pages in response to user-entered queries. These tools proved effective, with millions of people using them to find pieces of information and services. However, the advent of new devices (DTV receivers, mobile phones, media players, etc.) introduces consumption and usage habits that render the search-engine paradigm insufficient. It is no longer realistic to think that users will bother to visit a site, enter queries describing what they want, and select particular contents from among those in a list. The reasons may relate to users adopting a predominantly passive role (e.g., while driving or watching TV), the absence of bidirectional communication (as in broadcasting environments), or users feeling uneasy with the interfaces provided. To tackle these issues, a large body of research is being devoted nowadays to the design and provision of personalized information services, with a new paradigm of recommender systems proactively selecting the contents that match the interests and needs of each individual at any time. This article describes the evolution of these services, followed by an overview of the functionalities available in diverse areas of application and a discussion of open problems. Background The development of personalized information
Software Agents in E-Commerce Systems
Authors: Seitz Juergen
Published: May 2011

The Internet introduces a new global marketplace for a large number of relatively unknown and not seldom small companies often offering substitutive or complimentary products and services. The merchants profit from reduced costs, reduced time, and unsold stocks. Customers are attracted by increasing convenience and fast fulfillment. Merchants offering these products and services on this new marketplace need to acquire new customers and sustain ongoing relationships. Nowadays, most merchants’ sites are passive catalogs of products and prices with mechanisms for orders (Dasgupta, Narasimhan, Moser, & Melliar-Smith, 1998). The pull strategy is also applied in auctions available over the Internet, where the seller waits passively for bids. The new push technologies for electronic commerce, like software agents, enable customers to compare a bewildering array of products efficiently, effectively, and automatically (Jennings, Sycara, & Wooldridge, 1998). Switching costs for customers and, thereby, their loyalty to previous suppliers in the marketplace decline (Phlips, 1989; Schwartz, 1999). Using the Internet, the producers profit from reduced cost through direct, non-intermediated sales. The key elements to successful long-term relationships between merchants and customers will be the offering of personalized and value-added services, like one-to-one marketing services, discounts, guarantees, and savings coupons (Seitz, Stickel, & Woda, 2003). In this article, we will analyze possible consequences of new push and pull technologies in electronic commerce for customer’s loyalty, as well as the active technologies enabling customers to purchase efficiently and for the merchants to offer high personalized, value-added, and complimentary products and services. We will discuss some examples of such services and personalization techniques sustaining one-to-one relationships with customers and other actors involved.
Solutions for Wireless City Networks in Finland
Authors: Inkinen Tommi , Jauhiainen Jussi S.
Published: May 2011

Wireless urban networks can be approached from many perspectives. They are commonly studied on the basis of technology development (e.g., Chao, Uden, & Shih, 2005), business and service support (e.g., Friday, Davies, Wallbank, Catterall, & Pink, 2004; Jenisch, Orlamünder, Köstring, & Brügge, 2005), urban marketing and city image promotion (e.g., Dobers, 2004) or societal use of technology (e.g., Graham & Marvin, 1996; Rao & Parikh, 2003; Palm & Wihlborg, 2006). This article gives a detailed outline of the provision and condition of public wireless local area networks (WLANs) in Finland. The cases of Oulu, Turku and Helsinki (“Arabianranta” residential area) are presented. These cities are relevant study locations because they have actively participated to the creation processes of public city WLANs. They are also using wireless networks as promotion tools in their image marketing. In addition, Finland has been regarded as one of the top “network ready” nations in the world and was ranked fourth in the latest Networked Readiness Index by WEF (2007) after Denmark, Sweden and Singapore.
Strategic IT Investment Decisions
Authors: Chou Tzu-Chuan , Dyson Robert G. , Powell Philip L.
Published: May 2011

As many as half the decisions taken in organizations result in failure (Nutt, 1999). As information technology (IT) assumes a greater prominence in firms’ strategic portfolios, managers need to pay more attention to managing the technology. However, while IT can have a significant impact on organizational performance, it can also be a major inhibitor of change and can be a resource-hungry investment that often disappoints. Organizations can best influence the success of IT projects at the decision stage by rejecting poor ones and accepting beneficial ones. This may enable better implementation, as Nutt (1999) suggests most decision failures are due to implementation failure that tends to be under managers’ control. However, little is known about IT decision processes. Research demonstrates the importance of managing strategic IT investment decisions (SITIDs) effectively. SITIDs form part of the wider range of corporate strategic investment decisions (SIDs) that cover all aspects in which the organization might wish to invest. Strategic investment decisions will have different degrees of IT intensity that may impact outcome. IT investment intensity is the degree to which IT is present in an investment decision. That is, some decisions will be wholly about IT investments while others will have little or no IT—most, though, will be blended programs of IT and non-IT elements. Here, IT investment intensity is defined as the ratio of IT spending to total investment. The higher the IT investment intensity, the more important IT is to the whole investment. For example, Chou, Dyson, and Powell (1997) find IT investment intensity to be negatively associated with SID effectiveness. The concept of IT intensity is similar to, but also somewhat different from, the concept of information intensity. Information intensity is the degree to which information is present in the product or service (Porter & Millar, 1985). Management may use different processes in order to make different types of decisions (Dean & Sharfman, 1996). The link between decision process and outcome is so intimate that “the process is itself an outcome” (Mohr, 1982, p. 34). This may imply that the link between IT investment intensity and SID effectiveness is not direct but that the impact of IT investment intensity may be through the decision process. If different IT intensity in projects leads to different decision processes, leading to different outcomes, then it is important to know what factors act in this, in evaluating and managing SITIDs. This chapter presents an integrative framework for exploring the IT investment intensity-SID effectiveness relationship.
Technical Communication in an Information Society
Authors: DiMarco John
Published: May 2011

Gutenberg developed movable type and revolutionized communication. O’Hara (2001) makes identification that “from the fourteenth century on, the social system of science has depended on technical communication to describe, disseminate, criticize, use, and improve innovations and advances in science, medicine, and technology” (p.1). O’Hara’s reference provides a clear pathway to further discussion and interpretation on the rapidly changing tools, techniques, and roles that have caused the permutation of technical communication from an original tool of science and medicine in the 1400s to an academic discipline and a universally desired societal skill set for all who engage the information society. The purpose of this research is to identify the stature of technical communication in societies which engage heavily in information design, social technological product consumption, and publishing. This chapter addresses the past, present, and future issues, controversies, and roles that technical communication has had and will have on the information society.
Third Places in the Blackosphere
Authors: Igwe C. Frank
Published: May 2011

Although times change, there are certain human elements that survive through the ages. These elements include the need for expression, companionship, involvement, connection, and information. The avenues by which humans engage in these social practices have evolved, and with the dawn of the Information Age we are seeing the emergence of new forms of computer mediated communication (CMC), with Weblogs (or blogs) being a manifestation of this transformation. This chapter deals with these Information and Communicative Technologies (ICT), and more specifically, how blogs are being used by African Americans on the positive side of the digital divide to create virtual “third places”, to rebuild aspects of community dialogue that have been lost in the physical “real-world”. These “third places” arise out of a need for individuals to find a dependable, neutral place of refuge to gather and interact, away from first places (home) and second places (work), often conferring or dealing with issues that may considered too taboo for public discussion by the community at large. With this in mind the researcher identified an issue within the African American community that was of consequence, and yet was not being addressed due to individual or social pressures. The problem that presented itself was the lack of discussion and social support pertaining to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
3D Graphics Standardization in MPEG-4
Authors: Preda Marius , Preteux Françoise
Published: May 2011

This chapter is dedicated to professionals of 3D graphics industry, solution providers for on-line systems involving 3D content (games, persistent universes, virtual spaces with graphical representation), students and professors in digital sciences. The first section aims at presenting the background of the compression for multimedia signals. The second section presents the latest developments in MPEG-4 with respect to the compression and streaming of 3D graphics objects and scenes. The MPEG-4 tools, categorized into geometry, appearance and animation, are introduced. While MPEG standards specify only the bit-stream syntax and the architecture of the decoder, scheme for encoders’ implementation are presented in this section. In the third section we describe a recently adopted MPEG model for 3D graphics consisting in opening the representation of graphics primitives to any XML-based format and completing it with binarization and compression layers. This shift in the manner of using MPEG-4 for 3D graphics is concretized in Part 25 of MPEG-4 (Preda, Jovanova, Arsov& Prêteux, 2007).
Trust in B2C E-Commerce Interface
Authors: Wang Ye Diana
Published: May 2011

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is changing the way people make business transactions, especially in the business- to-consumer (B2C) area, and it is becoming a significant global economic force. Since Internet technologies and infrastructures to support e-commerce are now in place, attention is turning to psychological factors that affect e-commerce acceptance by online users and their perceptions of online transactions. One such factor is trust, seen to be key to the proliferation of e-commerce. Trust has existed as long as the history of humans and human social interactions, and it has been studied long before the emergence of the Internet or e-commerce. With respect to consumer behavior, studies have mainly focused on trust and trust relationships in the off-line world and have emerged from numerous disciplinary fields since the 1950s (Corritore, Kracher, & Wiedenbeck, 2001). These disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, psychology, management, marketing, ergonomics, human-computer interaction (HCI), and industrial psychology (Corritore, Kracher, & Wiedenbeck, 2003), have together contributed an extensive body of literature on trust in general, and therefore, they are important grounding points for the examination of trust in the online world. However, “trust is an extraordinarily rich concept, covering a variety of relationships, conjoining a variety of objects,” as Nissenbaum (2001, p. 104) has pointed out. Due to the complex and abstract nature of trust, each discipline has its own understanding of the concept and different ways to conceptualize it according to the features of a particular context. There are almost certainly many potential sources of influence that promote or hinder online trust. However, the current article focuses on the HCI or interface design perspective in inducing online trust, that is, to use what consumers can see on an e-commerce interface to affect their feelings of trust toward the online merchant that the e-commerce interface represents.
Underwater Wireless Networking Techniques
Authors: Malumbres Manuel Perez , Garrido Pedro Pablo , Calafate Carlos Tavares , Gil Jose Oliver
Published: May 2011

Underwater sound has probably been used by marine specimens for millions of years as a communication capability among the members of a same species. It is said that in 1490, Leonardo Da Vinci wrote the following sentence: “If you cause your ship to stop and place the head of a long tube in the water and place the outer extremity to your ear, you will hear ships at a great distance from you” (Urick, 1983); being perhaps the first recorded experiments about hearing underwater sounds. In 1826 on Lake Geneva, Switzerland, the physicist Jean-Daniel Colladon, and his mathematician friend Charles-Francois Sturm, made the first recorded attempt to determine the speed of sound in water. In their experiment, the underwater bell was struck simultaneously with ignition of gunpowder on the first boat. The sound of the bell and flash from the gunpowder were observed 10-miles away on the second boat. The time between the gunpowder flash and the sound reaching the second boat was used to calculate the speed of sound in water. Colladon and Sturm were able to determine the speed of sound in water fairly accurately with this method. (Colladon, 1893).