bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Collaboration Among Multicultural Virtual Teams
Authors: Cagiltay Kursat , Bichelmeyer Barbara A. , Evans Michael A. , Paulus Trena M. , An Jae Soon
Published: May 2011

Due to the increasingly widespread use of various information and communication technologies (ICT), individuals from different countries and cultures are able to learn and work collaboratively in virtual environments (Mowshowitz, 1997). Electronic communication tools, such as chat, e-mail, and the World Wide Web, now make it possible for students and employees to communicate and problem solve with colleagues irrespective of geographical location (Scott, 2000).
Computer Assisted/Aided Language Learning
Authors: Laghos Andrew , Zaphiris Panayiotis
Published: May 2011

This entry provides a thorough introduction to computer-assisted and -aided language learning (CALL). It starts by providing the definition and history of CALL and associated relevant terms. Then, an existing CALL methodological framework is presented and discussed. This is then followed by an overview of the current state of CALL by citing some representative examples of its uses and discussing advantages and disadvantages of current CALL systems. The chapter concludes with a discussion of present and future research and commercial directions of CALL.
Electronic Portfolios
Authors: Wieseman Katherine C.
Published: May 2011

A view in teacher preparation increasingly reported in the literature is that electronic portfolios can present an educator’s achievement, competence, and/or professional growth, and serve as a tool promoting teacher reflection (Amber & Czech, 2002; Barrett, 2003; Geier, 2002; Milman, 1999; Mullen, 2002; Walker, 2000; Wright, Stallworth & Ray, 2002). As a result, more frequently are they being used as an assessment or evaluation tool to document and measure teacher quality in areas such as technological literacy, competence according to teaching standards, and/or eligibility for initial teacher licensure or credential (Bartlett, 2002; Borko, Michalec, Timmons, & Siddle, 1997; Lehman, O’Brien, & Seybold, 2002; Perry, Smith, Woods, McConney, 1998; Ring & Foti, 2003; Wieseman & Wenzlaff, 2004). Reasons cited in the literature for its increasing popularity in the field of teacher preparation (e.g., Bartlett, 2002; Geier, 2002; Mullen, 2002) include: a belief that learning to teach is a dynamic and learner-centered process; a belief that knowledge is socially constructed, situated, and dynamic; growing interest in performance-based assessment to show teacher quality; a need for concrete demonstrations of teaching qualifications to compete for teaching positions; accountability for teacher quality; and teacher education initiatives, including competition for U.S. Department of Education Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers for Technology (PT3) grants.
Important Design Considerations for Online Web Courses
Authors: Zhang Y. J.
Published: May 2011

The progress of computer and communication technology as well as multimedia equipment and network infrastructures have greatly enhanced the quality of distance learning in recent years (Chee, 2001). Distance learning consists of the conducting of education and training at a long distance by using modern telecommunication technology. On developing cost-effective applications and services that allow people to learn what, where, when, and how they want distance learning becomes more and more important in many fast-growing sectors such as: continuing education, tele-education, home learning, on-the-job training, professional training, vocational training, and so forth.
Infusion of Technology into the P-16 Environment
Authors: Johnson Vivian
Published: May 2011

The infusion of technology into the P-16 environment requires a commitment to changing school culture. I see two major barriers to creating cultures that support the infusion of technology into the P-16 environment.
Online Education and Manufacturing Mode
Authors: Rada Roy
Published: May 2011

Online educational programs are changing the university profession. Two of the prominent organizational forms in modern society are professional and manufacturing. Universities are one example of the professional form; automobile factories are one example of the manufacturing organization. Online education is facilitating the move of teaching at universities from the professional mode to the manufacturing mode.
Online Learning in the School Reform Movement
Authors: Glick David B.
Published: May 2011

Since the early 1980s a school reform movement has been underway that has led to new standards, new choices for students, and new forms of accountability. In the last few years, online learning has become a significant factor in this school reform and school choice landscape, and its influence is expected to continue to grow (Edwards, Chronister & Bushweller, 2002).
Social or Group Learning Theories
Authors: Berg Gary A.
Published: May 2011

In both computer-based and traditional educational environments, there has been a growing organization of learning in groups with an increased use of teams and group projects (Berg, 2003). Goldman (1999) claims that traditionally education is seen as an activity of isolated thinkers pursuing truth in a spirit of American self-reliance. However, in practice education is very much a social activity, especially the research component that is heavily dependent on colleagues. In fact, some argue that the key to the learning process as a whole is the interaction among students, and between faculty and students (Palloff & Pratt, 1999). Group learning approaches have been widely adopted by many of the leading distance learning institutions, and consequently an understanding of this approach is important.
Tablet PCs as Online Learning Tools
Authors: Roldan Malu
Published: May 2011

Tablet PCs are recent additions to the range of portable, connected devices that comprise mobile computing. Although the devices are just now entering the mainstream market and there are many technical and user glitches still to be overcome, the devices show much promise as a future component of the online learning infrastructure. This paper discusses early applications of Tablet PCs in learning environments and outlines key applications where the devices might have the greatest impact on online learning in the future.
Technology and Disabilities in the Century Ahead
Authors: Kurzweil Ray
Published: May 2011

I have been involved in inventing since I was five, and I quickly realized that for an invention to succeed, you have to target the world of the future. But what would the future be like?
Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding Online
Authors: Lerch Carol M. , Bilics Aandrea R. , Colley Binta
Published: May 2011

While developing our courses, we realized the importance of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) in supporting our students. Learners’ experiences and backgrounds influence the learning process by bringing together the current learning situation with their individual social and historical backgrounds. Vygotsky (1978) defined the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (p. 86). Learners move from needing constant assistance to becoming knowledgeable participants who at times may need to review previous learning. Each student has the potential to provide needed scaffolding for others in the group by becoming the knowledgeable other in appropriate situations. This shared power based on “levels of understanding” (Driscoll, 1994) allows the learners to achieve a state of intersubjectivity.
Creating the Entrepreneurinal University
Authors: Warren Lorraine
Published: May 2011

This article discusses how the concept of the Community of Practice (CoP) can be useful in developing more entrepreneurial universities. Following a brief introduction, the argument is developed through the exploration of a research-led university in the UK.
Encouraging Research through Communities of Practice
Authors: Corlett Sandra , Bryans Patricia , Mavin Sharon
Published: May 2011

This article explores the role communities of practice (CoPs) can play in encouraging individual and organizational research capacity and capability. Through three case study CoPs with members from UK universities, we highlight this potential contribution. We argue that processes of social learning underpin the CoPs and use reflexive learning as the methodology to explore individual experiences. We focus particularly on the identity construction for new researchers and identity transformation for experienced researchers enabled by participation in the CoPs. Emerging knowledge domains that bind together individual members are also discussed. While this account focuses on CoPs and the development of competencies and identities of researchers, we believe the process and benefits of collaboration discussed have application to other organizational contexts for the development of core competencies and organizational learning.
Cluster Analysis in Fitting Mixtures of Curves
Authors: Burr Tom
Published: May 2011

One data mining activity is cluster analysis, of which there are several types. One type deserving special attention is clustering that arises due to a mixture of curves. A mixture distribution is a combination of two or more distributions. For example, a bimodal distribution could be a mix with 30% of the values generated from one unimodal distribution and 70% of the values generated from a second unimodal distribution. The special type of mixture we consider here is a mixture of curves in a two-dimensional scatter plot. Imagine a collection of hundreds or thousands of scatter plots, each containing a few hundred points, including background noise, but also containing from zero to four or five bands of points, each having a curved shape. In a recent application (Burr et al., 2001), each curved band of points was a potential thunderstorm event (see Figure 1), as observed from a distant satellite, and the goal was to cluster the points into groups associated with thunderstorm events. Each curve has its own shape, length, and location, with varying degrees of curve overlap, point density, and noise magnitude. The scatter plots of points from curves having small noise resemble a smooth curve with very little vertical variation from the curve, but there can be a wide range in noise magnitude so that some events have large vertical variation from the center of the band. In this context, each curve is a cluster and the challenge is to use only the observations to estimate how many curves comprise the mixture, plus their shapes and locations. To achieve that goal, the human eye could train a classifier by providing cluster labels to all points in example scatter plots. Each point either would belong to a curved region or to a catch-all noise category, and a specialized cluster analysis would be used to develop an approach for labeling (clustering) the points generated according to the same mechanism in future scatter plots
Clustering of Time Series Data
Authors: Denton Anne
Published: May 2011

Time series data is of interest to most science and engineering disciplines and analysis techniques have been developed for hundreds of years. There have, however, in recent years been new developments in data mining techniques, such as frequent pattern mining, which take a different perspective of data. Traditional techniques were not meant for such pattern-oriented approaches. There is, as a result, a significant need for research that extends traditional time-series analysis, in particular clustering, to the requirements of the new data mining algorithms.
Clustering Techniques for Outlier Detection
Authors: Klawonn Frank , Rehm Frank
Published: May 2011

For many applications in knowledge discovery in databases, finding outliers, which are rare events, is of importance. Outliers are observations that deviate significantly from the rest of the data, so they seem to have been generated by another process (Hawkins, 1980). Such outlier objects often contain information about an untypical behaviour of the system.
Discovering Knowledge from XML Documents
Authors: Nayak Richi
Published: May 2011

XML is the new standard for information exchange and retrieval. An XML document has a schema that defines the data definition and structure of the XML document (Abiteboul et al., 2000). Due to the wide acceptance of XML, a number of techniques are required to retrieve and analyze the vast number of XML documents. Automatic deduction of the structure of XML documents for storing semi-structured data has been an active subject among researchers (Abiteboul et al., 2000; Green et al., 2002). A number of query languages for retrieving data from various XML data sources also has been developed (Abiteboul et al., 2000; W3c, 2004). The use of these query languages is limited (e.g., limited types of inputs and outputs, and users of these languages should know exactly what kinds of information are to be accessed). Data mining, on the other hand, allows the user to search out unknown facts, the information hidden behind the data. It also enables users to pose more complex queries (Dunham, 2003).
Distributed Association Rule Mining
Authors: Ashrafi Mafruz Zaman , Taniar David , Smith Kate A.
Published: May 2011

Data mining is an iterative and interactive process that explores and analyzes voluminous digital data to discover valid, novel, and meaningful patterns (Mohammed, 1999). Since digital data may have terabytes of records, data mining techniques aim to find patterns using computationally efficient techniques. It is related to a subarea of statistics called exploratory data analysis. During the past decade, data mining techniques have been used in various business, government, and scientific applications.
Incremental Mining from News Streams
Authors: Chung Seokkyung , Jun Jongeun , McLeod Dennis
Published: May 2011

With the rapid growth of the World Wide Web, Internet users are now experiencing overwhelming quantities of online information. Since manually analyzing the data becomes nearly impossible, the analysis would be performed by automatic data mining techniques to fulfill users’ information needs quickly.
Intelligence Density
Authors: Sundaram David , Portougal Victor
Published: May 2011

The amount of information that decision makers have to process has been increasing at a tremendous pace. A few years ago it was suggested that information in the world was doubling every 16 months. The very volume has prevented this information from being used effectively. Another problem that compounds the situation is the fact that the information is neither easily accessible nor available in an integrated manner. This has led to the oft-quoted comment that though computers have promised a fount of wisdom they have swamped us with a flood of data. Decision Support Systems (DSS) and related decision support tools like data warehousing and data mining have been used to glean actionable information and nuggets from this flood of data.
Materialized View Selection for Data Warehouse Design
Authors: Theodoratos Dimitri , Simitsis Alkis
Published: May 2011

A data warehouse (DW) is a repository of information retrieved from multiple, possibly heterogeneous, autonomous, distributed databases and other information sources for the purpose of complex querying, analysis, and decision support. Data in the DW are selectively collected from the sources, processed in order to resolve inconsistencies, and integrated in advance (at design time) before data loading. DW data are usually organized multi-dimensionally to support online analytical processing (OLAP). A DW can be seen abstractly as a set of materialized views defined over the source relations. During the initial design of a DW, the DW designer faces the problem of deciding which views to materialize in the DW. This problem has been addressed in the literature for different classes of queries and views, and with different design goals.
Physical Data Warehousing Design
Authors: Bellatreche Ladjel , Mohania Mukesh
Published: May 2011

Recently, organizations have increasingly emphasized applications in which current and historical data are analyzed and explored comprehensively, identifying useful trends and creating summaries of the data in order to support high-level decision making. Every organization keeps accumulating data from different functional units, so that they can be analyzed (after integration), and important decisions can be made from the analytical results. Conceptually, a data warehouse is extremely simple. As popularized by Inmon (1992), it is a “subject-oriented, integrated, time-invariant, non-updatable collection of data used to support management decision-making processes and business intelligence”. A data warehouse is a repository into which are placed all data relevant to the management of an organization and from which emerge the information and knowledge needed to effectively manage the organization. This management can be done using data-mining techniques, comparisons of historical data, and trend analysis. For such analysis, it is vital that (1) data should be accurate, complete, consistent, well defined, and time-stamped for informational purposes; and (2) data should follow business rules and satisfy integrity constraints. Designing a data warehouse is a lengthy, time-consuming, and iterative process. Due to the interactive nature of a data warehouse application, having fast query response time is a critical performance goal. Therefore, the physical design of a warehouse gets the lion’s part of research done in the data warehousing area. Several techniques have been developed to meet the performance requirement of such an application, including materialized views, indexing techniques, partitioning and parallel processing, and so forth. Next, we briefly outline the architecture of a data warehousing system.
Scientific Web Intelligence
Authors: Thelwall Mike
Published: May 2011

Scientific Web Intelligence (SWI) is a research field that combines techniques from data mining, Web intelligence, and scientometrics to extract useful information from the links and text of academic-related Web pages using various clustering, visualization, and counting techniques. Its origins lie in previous scientometric research into mining off-line academic data sources such as journal citation databases. Typical scientometric objectives are either evaluative (assessing the impact of research) or relational (identifying patterns of communication within and among research fields). From scientometrics, SWI also inherits a need to validate its methods and results so that the methods can be justified to end users, and the causes of the results can be found and explained.
Support Vector Machines Illuminated
Authors: Musicant David R.
Published: May 2011

In recent years, massive quantities of business and research data have been collected and stored, partly due to the plummeting cost of data storage. Much interest has therefore arisen in how to mine this data to provide useful information. Data mining as a discipline shares much in common with machine learning and statistics, as all of these endeavors aim to make predictions about data as well as to better understand the patterns that can be found in a particular dataset. The support vector machine (SVM) is a current machine learning technique that performs quite well in solving common data mining problems.
Knowledge Management in Tourism
Authors: Xodo Daniel , Nigro Héctor Oscar
Published: May 2011

Management greatly depends on knowledge, and its detection, creation, transmission, and number of intangibles play a fundamental role in success. In tourism, information systems must work on immaterial concepts and take steps to satisfy the expectations of multiple potential customers. These systems require complex models of reality and suitable conceptual tools to work out strategies. This article expounds the use of different mathematical and management techniques that can be applied to the modeling, application, and control of strategic and operative management.
Main Memory Databases
Authors: Meixner Matthias
Published: May 2011

For a long time, hard disks were the only technology that could store enough information to hold a database and offered random access at the same time. Therefore, conventional database management systems were tuned to take this technology to the maximum. But in recent years, main memories have become cheaper and grown to a point that for some fields of application it allows one to keep the whole information of a database in main memory and therefore speed up operation. This article focuses on the differences in conventional databases that affect both performance and internal structure of a database management system.
Security Controls for Database Technology and Applications
Authors: Kincses Zoltán
Published: May 2011

The word security has many meanings, even for the programmers and other members of the computer science community, but it is often inferred by frequently used keywords, such as threat, vulnerability, exploit, risk, and related expressions such as attack, circumvention, manipulation, sniffing, denial of service, malicious, privacy, and so forth.
Consumer Attitude in Electronic Commerce
Authors: Gao Yuan
Published: May 2011

As a valuable communications medium, the World Wide Web has undoubtedly become an important playground of commercial activities. Founded on a hypermedia document system, this medium plays a critical role in getting messages across to visitors, who may be current or perspective customers. In business-to-consumer (B2C) Web sites, companies are engaged in a wide range of activities including marketing, advertising, promotion, sales, and customer service and support (Berthon, Pitt, & Watson, 1996; Singh & Dalal, 1999). As a result, practitioners and scholars alike have started to examine various techniques ranging from the overall structure of the online retailing interface to individual features as banners, animation, sound, video, interstitials, and popup ads (Rodgers & Thorson, 2000; Westland & Au, 1998). Consumers are the ultimate judges of the success of any online retailing site, and consumer perceptions mediate content factors in influencing their attitude toward electronic commerce as well as individual e-tailing sites, complementing the roles played by Web site content in shaping consumer attitude.
Digital Filters
Authors: Jovanovic-Dolecek Gordana
Published: May 2011

A signal is defined as any physical quantity that varies with changes of one or more independent variables, and each can be any physical value, such as time, distance, position, temperature, or pressure (Oppenheim & Schafer, 1999; Elali, 2003; Smith, 2002). The independent variable is usually referred to as “time”. Examples of signals that we frequently encounter are speech, music, picture, and video signals. If the independent variable is continuous, the signal is called continuous-time signal or analog signal, and is mathematically denoted as x(t). For discrete-time signals the independent variable is a discrete variable and therefore a discrete-time signal is defined as a function of an independent variable n, where n is an integer. Consequently, x(n) represents a sequence of values, some of which can be zeros, for each value of integer n. The discrete–time signal is not defined at instants between integers and is incorrect to say that x(n) is zero at times between integers. The amplitude of both the continuous and discrete-time signals may be continuous or discrete. Digital signals are discrete-time signals for which the amplitude is discrete. Figure 1 illustrates the analog and the discrete-time signals.
Interactive Memex
Authors: Guan Sheng-Uei
Published: May 2011

With the development of the Internet, a great deal of information is on-line. Popular search sites could be visited million times daily and the sites related to your interest will often be visited by you. Although bookmarks can be used to record frequented Web sites, browsers discard most history and trail information. The explosion of information needs a more effective mechanism. Memex has been considered in this domain. Assisted by Memex, a Web surfer can retrieve the URL trails that a user visited several months ago. In this paper, we propose a mechanism Self-modifiable Color Petri Net - SCPN to simulate the Memex functions in a Web browser. In this mechanism, an SCPN instance is used to record a trail of a topic, a place in an SCPN instance represents a Web site.
Internet Privacy Issues
Authors: Sockel Hy , Chen Kuanchin
Published: May 2011

Businesses need to understand privacy conditions and implications to ensure they are in compliance with legal constraints and do not step on consumers’ rights or trust. Personal identifiable information (PII) and data can have innate importance to an organization. Some organizations view certain privacy features as essential components of their products or services; for example, profile data is often used to tailor products specifically for their customers’ likes and needs. PII can also be used for less honorable endeavors, such as identity theft, phishing, political sabotage, character annihilation, spamming and stalking.
Mobile Radio Technologies
Authors: Kaspar Christian , Hagenhoff Svenja
Published: May 2011

Mobile radio technologies have been subject to speculations in recent years. The initial euphoria about opportunities and market potentials of mobile services and applications has mainly been caused by growth expectations in the field of non-voice-orientated services. For the year 2003 optimistic analysis of the market development already predicted an expected total volume for the European sales of more than 23 billion Euros (Müller-Verse, 1999). But such expectations appear to be hardly achievable. In 2003 the German Ministry of Labour and Economics merely show a sales volume of US$71 million for Europe. Based on this number, an increase up to US$119 million until 2007 is predicted (Graumann/Köhne, 2003).
Open Source Software and International Outsourcing
Authors: Amant Kirk , Still Brian
Published: May 2011

The popularity of open source software (OSS) has exploded among consumers and software developers. For example, today, the most popular Web server on the Internet is Apache, an open source product. Additionally, Linux (often considered one of the perfect examples of OSS) is now contesting Microsoft’s dominance over the operating system market. OSS’ flexibility, moreover, has allowed it to become a key international technology that could affect developments in global business practices. Despite these beneficial aspects, there are those who would claim it is difficult to implement and its core developers are undependable hobbyists. The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with an overview of what OSS is, to present some of the benefits and limitations of using OSS, and to examine how international growth in OSS use could affect future business practices. By understanding these factors, readers will gain a better understanding of it and how OSS can be integrated into their organizational computing activities.
Web Site Usability
Authors: Falk Louis K. , Sockel Hy
Published: May 2011

Strictly speaking, the term usability has evolved from one of use to also include design and presentation aspects. A large amount of research has been conducted using this wider definition. These studies include everything from model development (Cunliffe, 2000) to personal self image on Web sites (Dominick, 1999) to the purpose of a Web site (Falk, 2000), and to Web site effectiveness (Briggs & Hollis, 1997). Ultimately, these topics are related to usability and the success a Web site enjoys. The construct of usability covers a range of topics. This paper specifically addresses Web usability from the perspective of how easy a system is to learn, remember and use (Rosen, Purinton & Lloyd, 2004). The system features should emphasize subjective satisfaction, low error rate and high task performance (Calongne, 2001). In this regard, usability is a combination of the underlying (hypermedia) system engine and the contents and structure of the document, and how these two elements fit together (Lu & Yeung, 1998).
Knowledge Management as an E-Learning Tool
Authors: Andrade Javier , Ares Juan , García Rafael , Rodríguez Santiago , Seoane María , Suárez Sonia
Published: May 2011

The goal of educational methods is to allow the pupil the acquisition of knowledge. Even so, the way in which this aim is pursued originates four different currents of methods sorted by two criteria: (1) who leads the educational process and (2) requirement of pupil physical attendance. Regarding the former criterion, the process may be conducted either by the teacher—Teaching-Oriented Process—or by the pupil—Learning-Oriented Process. Obviously, both processes have the same aim: the interiorization and comprehension of knowledge by the pupil. But the difference between them is based on the distinctive procedure followed in each case to achieve the common goal. Regarding the second criterion, the methods may or may not require pupil attendance. Bearing in mind this classification, four different types of educational methods could be described: 1. Teaching Method: This includes the already known classic educational methods, the Conductivity Theory (Good & Brophy, 1990) being the foremost one. This method is characterized by the fact that the teacher has the heavier role during education—the transmission of knowledge. 2. E-Teaching Method: This second type comes from the expansion and popularity of communication networks, especially the Internet. This method brings the teacher to the physical location of the pupil; one of its most important representative elements is the videoconference. 3. Learning Method: This constitutes a new vision of the educational process, since the teacher acts as a guide and reinforcement for the pupil. The educational process has the heavier role in this method. In other words, the teacher creates a need for learning and afterwards provides the pupil with the necessary means in order to fill these created requests. Piaget Constructionist Theory is one of the most remarkable methods for this (Piaget, 1972, 1998). 4. E-Learning Method: This method is supported both by learning methods and by the expansion of communication networks in order to facilitate access to education with no physical or temporal dependence from pupil or teacher. As in learning methods, the pupil, not the teacher, is the one who sets the learning rhythm.
Differences in the Use of Media Across Cultures
Authors: Moustafa Karen South
Published: May 2011

It has been estimated that managers spend the majority of their day in face-to-face communication (McKinnon & Bruns, 1992; Rice & Shook, 1990), and a major portion of the rest of their day in either voice or written communication (Mintzberg, 1973; Panko & Kinney, 1995), although this may be changing as more employees work in locations other than the headquarters or where their manager works (Dennis & Kinney, 1998). The issue of concern is: Which tasks are suited to which type of media? Understanding the effectiveness of media choices can help in designing information and communication technologies (Fulk & Boyd, 1991). These questions are particularly important to virtual organizations who, by their very nature, usually communicate using methods other than face to face.
Peer-to-Peer Wireless Network Confederation
Authors: Efstathiou Elias C. , Polyzos George C.
Published: May 2011

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ratified the initial version of the standard for Wireless Local Area Networks known as IEEE 802.11 in 1997 (IEEE Standards, 2004). Belonging to the same family of standards as the Ethernet, it was labeled “Wireless Ethernet” and considered an appropriate networking technology for offices because it did not rely on cables. Although burdened by a lack of strong security (Fluhrer, 2001) and lower throughput compared to its wired equivalent, IEEE 802.11 was a success. The cost of manufacturing 802.11 chipsets fell quickly, and 802.11 found its way from desktop PCs to laptops and next generation cellular phones. Wi-Fi, a consumer-friendly moniker for 802.11, was adopted and the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA), a nonprofit international association, was formed in 1999 to certify the interoperability of Wi-Fi products. WECA changed its name to the Wi-Fi Alliance in 2002 (Wi-Fi Alliance, 2004). The two main components of Wi-Fi networks are the wireless clients and the Wi-Fi access points, which are the wireless equivalent of Ethernet hubs. Clients equipped with Wi-Fi can communicate wirelessly with nearby access points that link them to each other, to the local wired network and to the Internet. Clients can also communicate with each other without access points (assuming their radios are within range) in a so called “ad hoc” mode (IEEE Std. 802.11, 1999). Newer IEEE specifications include 802.11g, which enables clients and access points to connect to each other at speeds of up to 54 Mbps; and 802.11i, which employs advanced authentication and encryption algorithms to protect against unauthorized users that attempt to gain access to private networks (IEEE Standards, 2004). Standard 802.11i also protects the confidentiality and integrity of wireless sessions, which are usually susceptible to eavesdropping and hijacking attacks. The term “Wi-Fi hotspot” is now being used to describe any area where Wi-Fi connectivity is available via nearby access point. Public hotspots can be found in airport lounges and shopping malls, in coffee shops and restaurants, and in hotels and exhibition centers. Wi-Fi users, which include business travelers as well as casual users, can use their portable devices in these hotspots to access e-mail, their corporate intranets and the Internet. Users can browse the Web, use instant messaging and location-based services, place cheaper voice-over-IP calls and conduct videoconferences. Nevertheless, such practice is still not commonplace (Stone, 2003).
Motivations and Barriers to the Adoption of 3G Mobile Multimedia Services
Authors: Pagani Margherita , Schipani Danilo
Published: May 2011

This chapter provides an end-user perspective on mobile multimedia services that are likely to emerge with the roll out of Third Generation Mobile Services (3G). More specifically, the objectives of the study are: to provide an insight into current behavior in terms of attitudes towards, access and usage of multimedia mobile services by current end users; to establish main clusters of mobile users; to investigate the possible motivations and barriers of usage of new mobile multimedia services as viewed by current users. The remainder of this chapter is organized into the following four sections. The first section provides a brief review of the literature on the technology acceptance model. Next we present our research model based on a qualitative exploratory survey conducted in six markets. Then we test the proposed model on the Italian market and present the analysis and results of our study. Finally we make conclusions by discussing the implications of our study, followed by presenting future research directions.
Modeling and Management of Location and Mobility
Authors: Wang Wenye
Published: May 2011

Location modeling represents inclusive mobile objects and their relationship in space, dealing with how to describe a mobile object’s location. The goal of mobility modeling, on the other hand, is to predict or statistically estimate the movement of mobile objects. With the increasing demand for multimedia applications, location-aware services, and system capacity, many recognize that modeling and management of location and mobility is becoming critical to locating mobile objects in wireless information networks. Mobility modeling and location management strongly influence the design and performance of wireless networks in many aspects, such as routing, network planning, handoff, call admission control, and so forth. In this chapter, we present a comprehensive survey of mobility and location models, and schemes used for location-mobility management in cellular and ad hoc networks, which are discussed along with necessary, but understandable, formulation, analysis, and discussions.
Multimedia Authoring
Authors: Adams Brett , Venkatesh Svetha
Published: May 2011

This chapter takes a look at the task of creating multimedia authoring tools for the amateur media creator, and the problems unique to the undertaking. It argues that a deep understanding of both the media creation process, together with insight into the precise nature of the relative strengths of computers and users, given the domain of application, is needed before this gap can be bridged by software technology. These issues are further demonstrated within the context of a novel media collection environment, including a real- world example of an occasion filmed in order to automatically create two movies of distinctly different styles. The authors hope that such tools will enable amateur videographers to produce technically polished and aesthetically effective media, regardless of their level of expertise.
Adoption of Mobile Data Services
Authors: Fife Elizabeth , Pereira Francis
Published: May 2011

The evaporation of dramatic growth forecasts for mobile data services highlights the need for greater understanding of user’s behavior, needs and attitudes to technology, as well as their environment and other contextual factors. By examining sectors where a value proposition for mobile data services has been identified and yet adoption rates have varied, we discuss requirements for uptake to occur in specific sectors. Adoption of mobile data services refers to organizational-related solutions as well as service innovations related to the product or service delivered to end-users who in these cases include customers, patients, and students. Using frameworks for innovation diffusion, we examine promising mobile services in the areas of health, construction, and education. The underlying behavioral, cultural, and economic factors affecting demand for mobile technology in these markets is investigated. This exploratory research contributes to theory-building for understanding technology adoption from the user’s context.
Video Shot Boundary Detection for Video Indexing
Authors: Farag Waleed E. , Abdel-Wahab Hussein
Published: May 2011

The increasing use of multimedia streams nowadays necessitates the development of efficient and effective methodologies for manipulating databases storing this information. Moreover, in its first stage, content-based access to video data requires parsing of each video stream into its building blocks. The video stream consists of a number of shots, each one a sequence of frames pictured using a single camera. Switching from one camera to another indicates the transition from a shot to the next one. Therefore, the detection of these transitions, known as scene change or shot boundary detection, is the first step in any video-analysis system. A number of proposed techniques for solving the problem of shot boundary detection exist, but the major criticisms to them are their inefficiency and lack of reliability. The reliability of the scene change detection stage is a very significant requirement because it is the first stage in any video retrieval system; thus, its performance has a direct impact on the performance of all other stages. On the other hand, efficiency is also crucial due to the voluminous amounts of information found in video streams. This chapter proposes a new robust and efficient paradigm capable of detecting scene changes on compressed MPEG video data directly. This paradigm constitutes the first part of a Video Content-based Retrieval (VCR) system that has been designed at Old Dominion University. At first, an abstract representation of the compressed video stream, known as the DC sequence, is extracted, then it is used as input to a Neural Network Module that performs the shot boundary-detection task. We have studied experimentally the performance of the proposed paradigm and have achieved higher shot boundary detection and lower false alarms rates than other techniques. Moreover, the efficiency of the system outperforms other approaches by several times. In short, the experimental results show the superior efficiency and robustness of the proposed system in detecting shot boundaries and flashlights — sudden lighting variation due to camera flash occurrences — within video shots.
News Video Indexing and Abstraction by Specific Visual Cues
Authors: Jiang Fan , Zhang Yu-Jin
Published: May 2011

This chapter addresses the tasks of providing the semantic structure and generating the abstraction of content in broadcast news. Based on extraction of two specific visual cues, Main Speaker Close-Up (MSC) and news caption, a hierarchy of news video index is automatically constructed for efficient access to multi-level contents. In addition, a unique MSC-based video abstraction is proposed to help satisfy the need for news preview and key-person highlighting. Experiments on news clips from MPEG-7 video content sets yield encouraging results that prove the efficiency of our video indexing and abstraction scheme.
Intentional Online Learning Plans
Authors: Crichton Susan
Published: May 2011

The literature suggests a strong tie between literacy and job security; education and poverty. We know that those with higher literacy skills are able to participate more fully in the economy and society (Crichton & Kinsel, 2001, p. 46).
Information Security Policy
Authors: Janczewski Lech J. , Colarik Andrew M.
Published: May 2011

In Chapter 12, we discussed most of the information security issues that are important to IT managers, especially in the current situation of increased attacks. Perhaps the most visible and important document that relates to the attitude of management towards security issues is the Information Security Policy (ISP). (Please note that the most common understanding of the abbreviation ISP is Internet Services Provider. For clarity within this chapter only, ISP means Information Security Policy.) This document reflects all the decisions and activities required to set up a clear set of rules and procedures for company employees in terms of protecting information assets. The ISP is also used to:
Dynamic Boundaries and Vertical Integration
Authors: Vesa Jarkko
Published: May 2011

In this chapter we will review existing theories and models of the boundaries of firms and industries. The goal is to gain a better understanding of the forces behind the current development in the mobile services industry. It is argued here that at the end of the day, there are very few elements that are totally new even in the most advanced high-tech industries, when the focus is on the evolution of an industry.
Eight Myths of Virtual Teams
Authors: Jones Robert , Oyung Rob , Pace Lisa Shade
Published: May 2011

Geographically dispersed virtual teams more and more are becoming the norm in many companies. However, not all companies have embraced the idea willingly or gracefully. In Section I of this book, we examine what we call the “eight myths of virtual teams.” Note that we don’t promise that these issues don’t exist, rather that in a well run virtual team environment, they shouldn’t exist.
Show Me the Money
Authors: Jones Robert , Oyung Rob , Pace Lisa Shade
Published: May 2011

In 1988, this author received a promotion with a caveat—move from Atlanta (low cost of living) to the San Francisco Bay Area (high cost of living). But in the 1980s, that was the sort of thing that employees did to climb up the company ladder. My wife and I discussed the ins and outs for several weeks before I finally accepted the Bay Area job. To sweeten the deal, HP paid for my move, with inducements such as the following:
International Issues
Authors: Jones Robert , Oyung Rob , Pace Lisa Shade
Published: May 2011

The teams that we’ve worked on in the last 10 years have all been international in scope. And being a member of a virtual team for a United States corporation, but being physically located in another country, can have it’s own set of problems, including time zone differences, infrastructure challenges, cultural issues, and language barriers. From an international perspective, we interviewed individuals in Australia, France, and Japan. We spoke with two members of the Hewlett-Packard PC COE team (discussed in Chapter 8), Geoff Markley, from Australia, and David Brehm, who spent part of his PC COE years living in California, and part living in France. We also interviewed Takehiko Kato from Japan who came to work in the US for four months in order to build stronger ties with his teammates and experiment with technology that was not yet available in Japan.
Applying Tools for Maximum Impact
Authors: Jones Robert , Oyung Rob , Pace Lisa Shade
Published: May 2011

Early on, we mentioned that technology won’t solve all problems related to virtual teams. In fact, basic meeting management and project management skills and techniques are actually more important than trying to use the most sophisticated tools. For example, if you don’t have a meeting agenda with specific topics to discuss, identified decisions that need to be made, and owners for action items, the best virtual meeting tool is not going to automatically do those things for you. At the same time, if we didn’t have the tools we have today, virtual teams would not be possible, and the speed of business would be driven by how many face-to-face meetings we could squeeze into our schedules. Identifying and using the best tools for each situation is a key to maximizing the effectiveness of every virtual team. In many cases, people often start by selecting a tool, try to use it for every situation, and end up frustrated or confused. This is not surprising, since it’s like going to the kitchen, pulling out a bag of flour, and thinking, “Now what can I do with this?” rather than deciding you want to bake some bread and what you really need is bread flour. Let’s look first at what we want to do and then identify the most appropriate tool for that task.
Chinese Wall Security Policy Model
Authors: Lin Tsau Y.
Published: May 2011

In 1989, Brewer and Nash (BN) proposed the Chinese Wall Security Policy (CWSP). Intuitively speaking, they want to build a family of impenetrable walls, called Chinese walls, among the datasets of competing companies so that no datasets that are in conflict can be stored in the same side of Chinese walls. Technically, the idea is: (X, Y) Ï CIR (= the binary relation of conflict of interests) if and only if (X, Y) Ï CIF (= the binary relation of information flows). Unfortunately, BN’s original proof has a major flaw (Lin, 1989). In this chapter, we have established and generalized the idea using an emerging technology, granular computing.
Agile Project Controlling and Effort Estimation
Authors: Roock Stefan
Published: May 2011

Project controlling was not in the focus of agile methods like eXtreme Programming (XP, cf. Beck, 1999) for a long time. Since agile methods are grass rooted, they derive from practitioners and focus on their needs. This chapter shows how to integrate lightweight mechanisms for project controlling into agile methods. The main idea is to combine (incomplete) hierarchical decomposition of systems with abstract measurements. The presented techniques address management needs without building barriers for developers.