bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Case Study on Service Oriented Enterprise Interoperability in Automobile Supply Chain
Authors: Zhang Yong , Liu Shijun , Jiao Yuchang , Sun Yuqing
Published: December 2012

Interoperability is an important issue in the supply chain management (SCM) systems that highly influence the productivity, especially in such complex automobile domain that many supplies take part in the activities and requirements are dynamically changed according to the market. In order to keep ahead in the competitive market, each enterprise in the supply chain should keep efficient interoperability with its partners. However, it is difficult for all of them to update their SCM systems in real time for collaboration especially for some small suppliers due to the expensive maintenance and complex technologies. In this paper, we propose a service-oriented approach to solve the above problem by providing an integrated platform, where interoperability is considered as utility-like capability and delivered in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS). Each enterprise in a supply chain could establish the interoperation activities with other partners in this platform and thus they could efficiently collaborate. We illustrate in detail how two SaaS-typed applications interact with each other.
The Internationalization Path of Wanxiang
Authors: Lu Qing , Sun Yuan , Goh Mark
Published: December 2012

This case study examines the internationalization experience of Wanxiang, an auto supplier in China. Once at the lower end of internationalization and controlled by its Western partners without its own brands and distribution channels, Wanxiang has managed to climb the ladder of internationalization and taken a greater share of supply chain profits using its coopetition strategy with Western partners. Two mini-cases are presented and discussed in this chapter. The first describes how Wanxiang obtained more direct market access and the appropriation of supply chain profits in competition with its Western partners. The second describes how Wanxiang acquired more sophisticated technological assets for value-addition and managed them astutely. Two important areas were explored: (i) prudent use of diversification for capital accumulation to support capability building; and (ii) management of technology acquisitions and markets by maintaining a proper balance between autonomy and the integration of the acquired business units.
E-Procurement System and Adoption for SMEs
Authors: Bayram Serdal , Vayvay Özalp
Published: December 2012

An electronic procurement (e-procurement) system is an electronic based procurement style that facilitates effective communications along the entire supply chain. E-procurement accelerates SMEs (small and medium size enterprises) at a reduced cost. The purpose of this chapter is to show that adoption of an e-procurement system is essential in the supply chain for SMEs and to find solutions in order to make using this system as easy as possible. The adoption should be considered as a re-engineering process from an innovative perspective. An adoption plan is proposed within the study. It contains three phases: 1) identification of the e-procurement process, 2) seeking integration points with other elements of the system, and 3) IT implementation of the integration areas. The study also proposes to use business process management tools that have workflow engines and Web service implementations for integration points. Although BPM (business process management) tools are seen as quite expensive to SMEs, there are also dependable free licensed ones. The study is concluded with a case-study that is implemented with a free-licensed BPM tool for proof-of-concepts.
A Multi-Criteria Intuitionistic Fuzzy Group Decision Making Method for Supplier Selection with VIKOR Method
Authors: Roostaee Razieh , Izadikhah Mohammad , Lotfi Farhad Hosseinzadeh , Rostamy-Malkhalifeh Mohsen
Published: December 2012

Supplier selection, the process of finding the right suppliers who are able to provide the buyer with the right quality products and/or services at the right price, at the right time and in the right quantities, is one of the most critical activities for establishing an effective supply chain, and is typically a multi-criteria group decision problem. In many practical situations, there usually exists incomplete and uncertain information, and the decision makers cannot easily express their judgments on the candidates with exact and crisp values. Therefore, in this paper an extended VIKOR method for group decision making with intuitionistic fuzzy numbers is proposed to solve the supplier selection problem under incomplete and uncertain information environment. In other researches in this area, the weights of each decision makers and in many of them the weights of criteria are pre-determined, but these weights have been calculated in this paper by using the decision matrix of each decision maker. Also, normalized Hamming distance is proposed to calculate the distance between intuitionistic fuzzy numbers. Finally, a numerical example for supplier selection is given to clarify the main results developed in this paper.
Coordination Policies for Multi-Echelon Multi-Product Inventory Systems
Authors: Torres Fidel , Mejía Gonzalo
Published: December 2012

The effective coordination is a key element in the success of many cooperative supply chains. All production, distribution and supply must be adequately synchronized in order to satisfy the customer needs and at the same time optimizing the operational costs. This paper presents a multi-product, multi-echelon inventory system which comprises one manufacturer, a number of distribution centers and a number of retailers which are dependent of such distribution centers. The coordination and collaboration is achieved through a carefully designed replenishment policy. The near-optimal order quantities for each of the supply chain agents are calculated with a mathematical model in which the integrality constraints are relaxed. A number of instances were generated and tested. The results show the validity of the proposed approach.
Business Process Management in the Computer Games Industry
Authors: Belfo Fernando
Published: December 2012

Computer games conceptualization and development are processes that have particular features with significant complexity. The life cycle at computer games development should attend the dynamism, the challenge and the opportunities of the game market. Business process management (BPM) pretends to give an alternative perspective of management to the departmental and hierarchical one. Game firm’s business should be seen with an integrated attitude, incentivising employees from different departments to work together in the same process with a common mission and persecuting same objectives. The importance of integrating the strategic level plans and the task level deployment is crucial for increased alignment and so, organizational performance. This can be better done if there is a process strategy definition, which links strategic initiatives with all needs of a process infrastructure. The processes´ standardizing tendency opens the chance to outsource parts of them bringing possible benefits to game firm and customers. The definition of a clear framework at the strategic level allows lower processes description and global business process architecture specification. Other important aspects of business process management approach at computer games industry should include ownership clarification, performance measurement mechanisms and obviously the identification and activation of improvement opportunities. Author elects business processes customization, integration of flows between firm and its supply chain partners and superior user interfaces using specialized workflow tools as being three improvement opportunities at games industry. In addition to those components, three additional extra concepts are considered critical to have a complete understanding of BPM. They are the conscious process management, the macro process management and the centrality of process. This chapter is going to follow these vectors in order to understand possible opportunities powered by BPM to gain competitive advantages in computer game industry.
Supply and Production/Distribution Planning in Supply Chain with Genetic Algorithm
Authors: Sohrabi Babak , Moghadam MohammadReza Sadeghi
Published: December 2012

The present study, using genetic algorithm, tries to improve material flow management in supply chain. Consequently, in this paper, an integrated supply-production and distribution planning (SPDP) is considered despite the fact that in most of the Iranian industrial firms, SPDP is done independently. The effective use of integrated SPDP not only enhances the performance rather decreases inventory cost, holding cost, shortage cost and overall supply chain costs. A quantitative mathematical model is used to the problem articulation, and then it is solved by applying heuristic genetic algorithm (GA) method. The proposed model with genetic algorithm could provide the best satisfactory result with the minimum cost. The reliability test was carried by comparing the model results with that of the amount of variables.
Military Involvement in Humanitarian Supply Chains
Authors: Barber Elizabeth
Published: December 2012

The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the multitude of activities that military logisticians can provide throughout the various stages in relief supply chains. Most military joint doctrine identifies humanitarian assistance (HA) as one of the “Military Operations Other Than War” (MOOTW) that military personnel are trained to undertake. Part of this HA involves contributing to humanitarian supply chains and logistics management. The supply chain management processes, physical flows, as well as associated information and financial systems form part of the military contributions that add to other aid in the relief supply chain. The main roles of the military to relief supply chains include security and protection, distribution, and engineering. Examples of these key contributions will be provided in this chapter.
A Study of Barriers to Greening the Relief Supply Chain
Authors: Sarkis Joseph , Spens Karen M. , Kovács Gyöngyi
Published: December 2012

Relief supply chain (SC) management is a relatively unexplored field. In this field, practitioners have shown some interest in greening practices, but little practical or academic literature exists to help provide insights into combining the two fields. Adoption of green SC principles in the relief SC requires a systematic study of existing barriers in order to remove these barriers and allow introduction of green practices. The aim of this chapter is to explore barriers to implementation of green practices in the relief SC. Expert opinions and literature from humanitarian logistics and green supply chain management are used to establish a list of barriers and to propose a categorization of barriers. Further research to evaluate the relationships and importance of these barrier factors is identified.
Towards Patient-Driven Agile Supply Chains in Healthcare
Authors: Nabelsi Véronique
Published: December 2012

Healthcare organizations in many countries are compelled to pursue drastic supply cost reductions, while continuing to improve patient health outcomes, as they must meet ever increasing economic and performance pressures brought on by changes in national health policies. As demonstrated in many other industries, these improvements require more integrated Supply Chain Management (SCM) practices, processes, and systems. The author develops a strategic framework for Customer-Oriented or Patient-Driven SCM, integrating the evolving economics of the healthcare industry and the emerging dynamics of global supply chains. The chapter focuses on modern SCM approaches such as agile and lean supply chains, in order to efficiently realign hospitals and their Material Management Systems (MMS) on patient health outcomes.
Transparency and Accountability in Public Procurement of Essential Medicines in Developing Countries
Authors: Kotwani Anita
Published: December 2012

Pharmaceuticals are an integral component of a health care system; any weakness in governance of the pharmaceutical system negatively impacts health outcomes, especially in developing countries. It is believed that procurement on the concept of essential medicine list and transparency leads to improved efficiency and access to medicines, as has been described for the Delhi model. However, transparency is only the first step; accountability and sustainability are also needed. Information systems create opportunities for transparency and openness through the disclosure of information and improve decision-making and efficiency along the medicine supply chain. With the lessons learned from experiences of many developing countries, technical guidance and tools developed by international agencies, a transparent, accountable, sustainable public procurement system is possible but high-level political commitment is needed to mandate and enforce the system.
Semiotic Evaluation of Product Ontologies
Authors: Leukel Joerg , Sugumaran Vijayan
Published: December 2012

Product-related information can be integrated with the help of a product ontology, which can provide consensual definitions of concepts and inter-relationships relevant in a product domain of interest. A product ontology is either given by a third party or results from ontology engineering. In both cases, the problem is how to assess its quality, and then select the “right” ontology. This chapter: (1) proposes a metrics suite for product ontology evaluation based on semiotic theory, and (2) demonstrates the feasibility and usefulness of the metrics suite using a supply chain model. The contribution of this research is the comprehensive metrics suite that takes into account the various quality dimensions of product ontology.
Key Issues in the Implementation of Electronic Customer Relationship Management in the Australian Hospitality and Tourism Sector
Authors: Lin Chad
Published: December 2012

The hospitality and tourism sector is one of fastest growing sectors in Australia and in the world. In order to become more efficient and effective in delivering products and services to customers via the use of ICT, hospitality and tourism organizations have to rethink the ways in which they build relationships with their customers by initiating electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) projects. Inappropriate eCRM decision-making and implementation can result in multi-million dollar losses, which can translate into a loss of competitiveness. Therefore, the case study approach was conducted to: (1) identify potential ICT costs and risk factors involved in eCRM initiatives in general; and (2) identify and examine key issues in the implementation of eCRM in the Australian hospitality and tourism sector. The contribution of this book chapter is two-fold. First, it offers hospitality and tourism executives with a more realistic insight about the impact of their eCRM investments on their business. Second, potential key issues, costs and risk factors associated with eCRM implementation are presented to assist these organizations in dealing with these challenges.
New Perspectives on Adoption of RFID Technology for Agrifood Traceability
Authors: Gandino Filippo , Sanchez Erwing Ricardo , Montrucchio Bartolomeo , Rebaudengo Maurizio
Published: December 2012

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an ubiquitous technology which may provide important improvements for the agri-food in different fields, e.g., supply chain management and alimentary security. As a consequence of local laws in many countries, which lay down that the traceability of food products is mandatory, industrial and academic research entities have been conducting studies on traceability management based on non-traditional technologies. A relevant outcome from these studies states that RFID systems seem to help reducing processing time and human-related errors in traceability operations due to their automation characteristics; nevertheless, engineering and economical constraints slow down their full adoption. The main purpose of this chapter is to analyze, describe and compare the most significant and novel RFID-based traceability systems in the agri-food sector while providing an exhaustive survey of benefits, drawbacks and new perspectives for their adoption.
Moving toward a Global Supply Chain Operations and the Impact on International Competition
Authors: Aghazadeh Seyed-Mahmoud
Published: December 2012

As the domestic businesses expand, many are making the choice to use foreign products, labor, and services to aid in their production. Global supply chains are minimizing the costs of the production process but are also creating vulnerabilities to home countries. As the global economy changes, the competitiveness between countries grows. Competitiveness can affect everything from a country’s economy to how a firm conducts international business. Addressing the need to find a method to increase the United States competitiveness in the world economy by improving the use of global supply chains would help to make domestic firms more successful in the global economy. Studying how companies position themselves abroad is important to providing insight into how to become more competitive. Worldwide companies are diversifying by moving more of their supply chain to international locations. This is providing them with many benefits such as better markets for products, lower costs, and more advanced technologies. As a result, the competitive strategy of companies is to increase production and decrease costs through the most efficient global supply chain. Maximizing the potential of domestic firms’ global supply chains is one of the most effective ways to increase U.S. competitiveness. If more big businesses in the United States are willing to participate on the global level, then the US will be able to improve their competitiveness.
Alternative Approaches to Auction Trading by Consortia in Multi Agent Systems
Authors: Nag Barin N. , Yao Dong-Qing , Hong Sungchul
Published: December 2012

Agent-based auction trading is important in e-Procurement as a part of the supply chain management activity of procurement via the Internet. Participating buyers and sellers are intelligent agents tasked with finding matches with required or offered quantities for best performance. Formation of consortiums offers opportunities in matching trade volumes, but in the real world, there are difficulties in optimizing consortium formation due to lack of perfect information and the dynamic character of the information. Heuristic methods are often the only solution. This chapter shows the impact and capabilities of alternate heuristic models, and compares their performances in auction trading.
Selection and Evaluation of 3PL Providers
Authors: Keramydas Christos , Tsolakis Naoum , Xanthopoulos Anastasios , Aidonis Dimitrios
Published: December 2012

As supply chains continue to globalize, the need for robust Third Party Logistics (3PL) provider qualification, selection, and evaluation programs becomes increasingly critical. In this context, this chapter aims to present a methodological approach for the optimization of this specific type of outsourcing operations in today’s globalized supply chains. More specifically, the authors first present an analytical literature review of the criteria and the methods that are employed in this field of decision-making, and then propose a generic methodological framework for the 3PL partner selection and evaluation problem. This framework is constituted by a nine-phased conceptual decision-making methodology that outlines the whole life cycle of the 3PL provider selection and continuous evaluation processes.
A Multi-Agent System for Production Networks Simulation
Authors: Hamichi Samir , Mangalagiu Diana , Guessoum Zahia
Published: December 2012

In this chapter, the authors present a multi-agent model aimed to investigate emergent organizational structures in production networks and their reification by means of pheromone-based algorithms. The model considers agents (firms) embedded in a production network, interacting among them through business-to-business relations. The evolution of the network structure is endogenous, as it takes into account the individual behavior of the firms and their interactions. The firms are adaptive agents taking investment decisions according to their business efficiency. They adapt their prices to be competitive and get a larger share of the market. Also, they adapt their business relations with their suppliers in order to reduce costs of inputs and get orders satisfied. The agent’s proactivity, with very simple decision mechanisms at the micro level, leads to the emergence of meta-stable business clusters and supply chains at the macro level. Pheromone-based algorithms reify dynamically these clusters as explicit graphs. The results of the authors’ simulations show the impact of the transportation cost and the geographical reach on the regionalization of production and on wealth patterns. Individual firms, with local B2B interactions and decisions, form stable production systems based on the supply/demand and market growth mechanisms leading to the maturation of the market.
The Strategic Importance of Data Mining Analysis for Customer-Centric Marketing Strategies
Authors: Veglio Valerio
Published: December 2012

The main challenge for companies is to identify accurate models and methods to predict winning competitive strategies. Data mining is becoming an astonishing approach for data analysis because the meaningful knowledge is often hidden in enormous databases, and most traditional statistical methods could fail to uncover such knowledge. An efficient development of the customer relationship management and the data mining is the vital resource to collect and to manage this knowledge. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the strong relationship between data mining and customer relationship management in order to forecast customer-centric marketing strategies. The last part of this chapter shows the results of an empirical study related to the identification of the main marketing and financial activities that could be leading customers in a credit-risk state. This study focuses the attention on the logistic regression model and on the criteria based on the loss function.
Metaheuristic Algorithms for Supply Chain Management Problems
Authors: Taleizadeh Ata Allah , Cárdenas-Barrón Leopoldo Eduardo
Published: December 2012

Recently, metaheuristic algorithms (MHAs) have gained noteworthy attention for their abilities to solve difficult optimization problems in engineering, business, economics, finance, and other fields. This chapter introduces some applications of MHAs in supply chain management (SCM) problems. For example, consider a multi-product multi-constraint SCM problem in which demands for each product are not deterministic, the lead-time varies linearly with regard to the lot-size and partial backordering of shortages are assumed. Thus, since the main goal is to determine the re-order point, the order quantity and number of shipments under the total cost of the whole chain is minimized. In this chapter, the authors concentrate on MHAs such as harmony search (HS), particle swarm optimization (PSO), genetic algorithm (GA), firefly algorithm (FA), and simulated annealing (SA) for solving the following four supply chain models: single-vendor single-buyer (SBSV), multi-buyers single-vendor (MBSV), multi-buyers multi-vendors (MBMV) and multi-objective multi-buyers multi-vendors (MOMBMV). These models typically are in any supply chain. For illustrative purposes, a numerical example is solved in each model.
Matrices
Authors: Biukaghazadeh Payman
Published: December 2012

Matrices are one of the most important tools of representing graphs. Various types of matrices are used for this purpose. This chapter teaches about the definitions and the standard notations of the matrices. Then, some kinds of the matrices such as Adjacency, Incidence, Cycle and Cut-set are introduced. Some discussions will be made on the applications of these matrices. Advanced topics on matrices will be the final part.
Isomorphism
Authors: Biukaghazadeh Payman
Published: December 2012

In this chapter, the isomorphism application in graph theory is discussed. Various types of the isomorphism such as the automorphism and the homomorphism are introduced. The theorems and hints to reject or accept the isomorphism of graphs are the next section. In the some sections, knowledge about matrices may be necessary; if so, reading chapters one, and especially two, are necessary to understand this chapter.
Trees
Authors: Hosseinijou Seyed Abbas , Kiya Farhad , Kalantari Hamed
Published: December 2012

In this chapter, the authors present a special and important type of graphs named Trees. Although the concept of a tree is simple, many applications of graph theory in science and engineering are related to this type. The topics of this chapter are selected based on theory and application of trees. Rooted trees, spanning trees, fundamental cycles and bounds, and tree search algorithms are covered. However, this chapter mainly focuses on spanning trees and tree search algorithms.
Digraphs
Authors: Boloori Alireza , Mahmoudi Monirehalsadat
Published: December 2012

This chapter gives the basic introduction to directed graphs (digraphs) and their pertinent concepts, elements, and frameworks. From a general point of view, the most majority of concepts of digraphs have similar characteristics with networks structures. Therefore, in conjunction with networks chapter, this chapter not only emphasizes some aspect of digraphs, but also addresses the basic terminology and terms that have been widely applied in literature. Regarding this premise, the first section presents the basic definitions, and the second section classifies the most important and applicable types of digraphs extensively addressed in the literature. Moreover, one of the main concepts of digraphs (reachability and connectivity) is discussed in the third section. In addition, the fourth section briefly discusses a few application cases of digraphs, and the fifth section finally presents the conclusion of this chapter.
Networks Flow Applications
Authors: Boloori Alireza , Mahmoudi Monirehalsadat
Published: December 2012

In this chapter, some applications of network flow problems are addressed based on each type of problem being discussed. For example, in the case of shortest path problems, their concept in facility layout, facility location, robotics, transportation, and very large-scale integration areas are pointed out in the first section. Furthermore, the second section deals with the implementation of the maximum flow problem in image segmentation, transportation, web communities, and wireless networks and telecommunication areas. Moreover, in the third section, the minimum-cost flow problem is discussed in fleeting and routing problems, petroleum, and scheduling areas. Meanwhile, a brief explanation about each application as well as some corresponding literature and research papers are presented in each section. In addition, based on available literature in each of these areas, some research gaps are identified, and future trends as well as chapter’s conclusion are pointed out in the fourth section.
Phasing of Traffic Lights in Urban Intersections
Authors: Dadgostari Faraz , Hosseininia Mahtab
Published: December 2012

In this chapter, the phasing of traffic lights in urban intersections is introduced and discussed applying the graph theory concepts. At first section, some concepts such as traffic streams, vehicle or pedestrian flows, and compatible streams or streams which are in conflict, are introduced. Accordingly, from the viewpoint of graph theory, two approaches are introduced for phasing of traffic streams. The first approach uses the concept of conflict graphs, and the second one uses the concepts such as circular chromatic number and star chromatic number of graphs, developing two procedures of phasing of traffic streams in urban intersections. In addition, these two procedures are compared based on the performance index of total length of complete traffic period which should be optimized.
Train Timetable Construction
Authors: Barah Masoud
Published: December 2012

Railway transportation has a fundamental role in development of countries. Efficient usage of capacities in this industry is essential. Solving Train Timetabling Problem (TTP) is one of the valuable ways to exploit the capacities efficiently. In this book chapter, the author introduces TTP in general, and demonstrates the solution procedure for a special case of it via graph theory techniques.
Industrial and Urban Applications of Eulerian and Chinese Walks
Authors: Amine Khalil , Djellab Rima
Published: December 2012

Eulerian walks are paths that visit each edge once in a connected graph. When the extremities of the walk are confused, then it is called Eulerian cycle or closed Eulerian walk. Introduced by Euler in 1736, Eulerian cycle concept was the historical beginning of the Graph theory. On account of the difficulty to get an Eulerian walk in a nonspecific graph, many problems were formulated with the aim to find a “weak Eulerian” walk. Thus, Chinese walk and cycle concept appeared consisting of visiting all edges of a connected graph at least one time. This concept was introduced due to the Kwan studies for postman problem. Furthermore, as each graph admits a Chinese walk, and a cycle respectively, postman studies has been of use in many modeling formulations and has given a wide range of applications relevant to transportation, urban planning, and industrial manufacturing among others. Laser or water cutting presents a technology for industrial manufacturing consisting of using water or laser to cut (metallic) materials for producing tools where it is plausible to follow Chinese walks to ensure efficiency.
Making Programming Exercises Interoperable with PExIL
Authors: Queirós Ricardo , Leal José Paulo
Published: December 2012

Several standards have appeared in recent years to formalize the metadata of learning objects, but they are still insufficient to fully describe a specialized domain. In particular, the programming exercise domain requires interdependent resources (e.g. test cases, solution programs, exercise description) usually processed by different services in the programming exercise lifecycle. Moreover, the manual creation of these resources is time-consuming and error-prone, leading to an obstacle to the fast development of programming exercises of good quality. This chapter focuses on the definition of an XML dialect called PExIL (Programming Exercises Interoperability Language). The aim of PExIL is to consolidate all the data required in the programming exercise lifecycle from when it is created to when it is graded, covering also the resolution, the evaluation, and the feedback. The authors introduce the XML Schema used to formalize the relevant data of the programming exercise lifecycle. The validation of this approach is made through the evaluation of the usefulness and expressiveness of the PExIL definition. In the former, the authors present the tools that consume the PExIL definition to automatically generate the specialized resources. In the latter, they use the PExIL definition to capture all the constraints of a set of programming exercises stored in a learning objects repository.
MCEQLS Approach in Multi-Criteria Evaluation of Quality of Learning Repositories
Authors: Kurilovas Eugenijus
Published: December 2012

This chapter analyzes the quality of XML learning object repositories. Special attention is paid to the models and methods to evaluate the quality of learning repositories. Multiple criteria decision analysis and optimization methods are explored to be applied for evaluating the quality of learning repositories. This chapter also presents the results of several large-scale projects co-funded by EU research programs that have been implemented in the area of learning repositories. Learning repositories’ technological quality model (system of criteria) and novel comprehensive model for evaluating the quality of user interfaces of learning repositories are presented in more detail. The general MCEQLS (Multiple Criteria Evaluation of Learning Software) approach is presented in this chapter. It is shown that the MCEQLS approach is suitable for evaluating the quality of learning repositories. The author believes that research results presented in the chapter will be useful for all educational stakeholder groups interested in developing learning repositories.
Using Device Detection Techniques in M-Learning Scenarios
Authors: Queirós Ricardo , Pinto Mário
Published: December 2012

Recent studies of mobile Web trends show the continued explosion of mobile-friend content. However, the wide number and heterogeneity of mobile devices poses several challenges for Web programmers, who want automatic delivery of context and adaptation of the content to mobile devices. Hence, the device detection phase assumes an important role in this process. In this chapter, the authors compare the most used approaches for mobile device detection. Based on this study, they present an architecture for detecting and delivering uniform m-Learning content to students in a Higher School. The authors focus mainly on the XML device capabilities repository and on the REST API Web Service for dealing with device data. In the former, the authors detail the respective capabilities schema and present a new caching approach. In the latter, they present an extension of the current API for dealing with it. Finally, the authors validate their approach by presenting the overall data and statistics collected through the Google Analytics service, in order to better understand the adherence to the mobile Web interface, its evolution over time, and the main weaknesses.
Managing Research Data at the University of Porto
Authors: Rocha da Silva João , Ribeiro Cristina , Lopes João Correia
Published: December 2012

This chapter consists of a solution for the management of research data at a higher education and research institution. The chapter is based on a small-scale data audit study, which included contacts with researchers and yielded some preliminary requirements and use cases. These requirements led to the design of a data curation workflow involving the researcher, the curator, and a data repository. The authors describe the features of the data repository prototype, which is an extension to the widely used DSpace repository platform and introduced a set of features mentioned by the majority of the interviewed researchers as relevant for a data repository. The data repository platform contributes to the curation workflow at the university, with XML technology at its core—data is stored using XML documents, which can be systematically processed and queried unlike its original-format counterpart. This system is capable of indexing, querying, and retrieving, in whole or in part, datasets represented in tabular form. There is also the possibility of using elements from domain-specific XML schemas for the cataloguing process, improving the interoperability and quality of the deposited data.
Comparative Analysis of Temporal Segmentation Methods of Video Sequences
Authors: Saval-Calvo Marcelo , Azorín-López Jorge , Fuster-Guilló Andrés
Published: December 2012

In this chapter, a comparative analysis of basic segmentation methods of video sequences and their combinations is carried out. Analysis of different algorithms is based on the efficiency (true positive and false positive rates) and temporal cost to provide regions in the scene. These are two of the most important requirements of the design to provide to the tracking with segmentation in an efficient and timely manner constrained to the application. Specifically, methods using temporal information as Background Subtraction, Temporal Differencing, Optical Flow, and the four combinations of them have been analyzed. Experimentation has been done using image sequences of CAVIAR project database. Efficiency results show that Background Subtraction achieves the best individual result whereas the combination of the three basic methods is the best result in general. However, combinations with Optical Flow should be considered depending of application, because its temporal cost is too high with respect to efficiency provided to the combination.
A Review of Registration Methods on Mobile Robots
Authors: Morell-Gimenez Vicente , Orts-Escolano Sergio , García-Rodríguez José , Cazorla Miguel , Viejo Diego
Published: December 2012

The task of registering three dimensional data sets with rigid motions is a fundamental problem in many areas as computer vision, medical images, mobile robotic, arising whenever two or more 3D data sets must be aligned in a common coordinate system. In this chapter, the authors review registration methods. Focusing on mobile robots area, this chapter reviews the main registration methods in the literature. A possible classification could be distance-based and feature-based methods. The distance based methods, from which the classical Iterative Closest Point (ICP) is the most representative, have a lot of variations which obtain better results in situations where noise, time, or accuracy conditions are present. Feature based methods try to reduce the great number or points given by the current sensors using a combination of feature detector and descriptor which can be used to compute the final transformation with a method like RANSAC or Genetic Algorithms.
Real-Time Structure Estimation in Dynamic Scenes Using a Single Camera
Authors: Dani Ashwin P. , Kan Zhen , Fischer Nic , Dixon Warren E.
Published: December 2012

In this chapter, an online method is developed for estimating 3D structure (with proper scale) of moving objects seen by a moving camera. In contrast to traditionally developed batch solutions for this problem, a nonlinear unknown input observer strategy is used where the object’s velocity is considered as an unknown input to the perspective dynamical system. The estimator is exponentially stable, and hence, provides robustness against modeling uncertainties and measurement noise from the camera. The developed method provides first causal, observer based structure estimation algorithm for a moving camera viewing a moving object with unknown time-varying object velocities.
Computer Vision for Learning to Interact Socially with Humans
Authors: Ramos da Silva Renato , Romero Roseli Aparecida Francelin
Published: December 2012

Computer vision is essential to develop a social robotic system capable to interact with humans. It is responsible to extract and represent the information around the robot. Furthermore, a learning mechanism, to select correctly an action to be executed in the environment, pro-active mechanism, to engage in an interaction, and voice mechanism, are indispensable to develop a social robot. All these mechanisms together provide a robot emulate some human behavior, like shared attention. Then, this chapter presents a robotic architecture that is composed with such mechanisms to make possible interactions between a robotic head with a caregiver, through of the shared attention learning with identification of some objects.
Learning Robot Vision for Assisted Living
Authors: Yan Wenjie , Torta Elena , van der Pol David , Meins Nils , Weber Cornelius , Cuijpers Raymond H. , Wermter Stefan
Published: December 2012

This chapter presents an overview of a typical scenario of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) in which a robot navigates to a person for conveying information. Indoor robot navigation is a challenging task due to the complexity of real-home environments and the need of online learning abilities to adjust for dynamic conditions. A comparison between systems with different sensor typologies shows that vision-based systems promise to provide good performance and a wide scope of usage at reasonable cost. Moreover, vision-based systems can perform different tasks simultaneously by applying different algorithms to the input data stream thus enhancing the flexibility of the system. The authors introduce the state of the art of several computer vision methods for realizing indoor robotic navigation to a person and human-robot interaction. A case study has been conducted in which a robot, which is part of an AAL system, navigates to a person and interacts with her. The authors evaluate this test case and give an outlook on the potential of learning robot vision in ambient homes.
An Integrated Framework for Robust Human-Robot Interaction
Authors: Sridharan Mohan
Published: December 2012

Developments in sensor technology and sensory input processing algorithms have enabled the use of mobile robots in real-world domains. As they are increasingly deployed to interact with humans in our homes and offices, robots need the ability to operate autonomously based on sensory cues and high-level feedback from non-expert human participants. Towards this objective, this chapter describes an integrated framework that jointly addresses the learning, adaptation, and interaction challenges associated with robust human-robot interaction in real-world application domains. The novel probabilistic framework consists of: (a) a bootstrap learning algorithm that enables a robot to learn layered graphical models of environmental objects and adapt to unforeseen dynamic changes; (b) a hierarchical planning algorithm based on partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) that enables the robot to reliably and efficiently tailor learning, sensing, and processing to the task at hand; and (c) an augmented reinforcement learning algorithm that enables the robot to acquire limited high-level feedback from non-expert human participants, and merge human feedback with the information extracted from sensory cues. Instances of these algorithms are implemented and fully evaluated on mobile robots and in simulated domains using vision as the primary source of information in conjunction with range data and simplistic verbal inputs. Furthermore, a strategy is outlined to integrate these components to achieve robust human-robot interaction in real-world application domains.
Visual Control of an Autonomous Indoor Robotic Blimp
Authors: Alkurdi L. M. , Fisher R. B.
Published: December 2012

The problem of visual control of an autonomous indoor blimp is investigated in this chapter. Autonomous aerial vehicles have been an attractive platform for a wide range of applications, especially since they don’t have the terrain limitations the autonomous ground vehicles face. They have been used for advertisements, terrain mapping, surveillance, and environmental research. Blimps are a special kind of autonomous aerial vehicles; they are wingless and have the ability to hover. This makes them overcome the maneuverability constraints winged aerial vehicles and helicopters suffer from. The authors’ blimp platform also provides an exciting platform for the application and testing of control algorithms. This is because blimps are notorious for the uncertainties within their mathematical model and their susceptibility for environmental disturbances such as wind gusts. The authors have successfully applied visual control by using a fuzzy logic controller on the robotic blimp to achieve autonomous waypoint tracking.
Attentive Visual Memory for Robot Localization
Authors: Vega Julio , Perdices Eduardo , Cañas José María
Published: December 2012

Cameras are one of the most relevant sensors in autonomous robots. Two challenges with them are to extract useful information from captured images and to manage the small field of view of regular cameras. This chapter proposes a visual perceptive system for a robot with a mobile camera on board that cope with these two issues. The system is composed of a dynamic visual memory that stores the information gathered from images, an attention system that continuously chooses where to look at, and a visual evolutionary localization algorithm that uses the visual memory as input. The visual memory is a collection of relevant task-oriented objects and 3D segments. Its scope and persistence is wider than the camera field of view and so provides more information about robot surroundings and more robustness to occlusions than current image. The control software takes its contents into account when making behavior or navigation decisions. The attention system considers the need of reobserving objects already stored, of exploring new areas and of testing hypothesis about objects in the robot surroundings. A robust evolutionary localization algorithm has been developed that can use both the current instantaneous images or the visual memory. The system has been programmed and several experiments have been carried out both with simulated and real robots (wheeled Pioneer and Nao humanoid) to validate it.
Security Assurance Evaluation and IT Systems’ Context of Use Security Criticality
Authors: Ouedraogo Moussa , Mouratidis Haralambos , Dubois Eric , Khadraoui Djamel
Published: December 2012

Today’s IT systems are ubiquitous and take the form of small portable devices, to the convenience of the users. However, the reliance on this technology is increasing faster than the ability to deal with the simultaneously increasing threats to information security. This paper proposes metrics and a methodology for the evaluation of operational systems security assurance that take into account the measurement of security correctness of a safeguarding measure and the analysis of the security criticality of the context in which the system is operating (i.e., where is the system used and/or what for?). In that perspective, the paper also proposes a novel classification scheme for elucidating the security criticality level of an IT system. The advantage of this approach lies in the fact that the assurance level fluctuation based on the correctness of deployed security measures and the criticality of the context of use of the IT system or device, could provide guidance to users without security background on what activities they may or may not perform under certain circumstances. This work is illustrated with an application based on the case study of a Domain Name Server (DNS).
A Petri-Net Based Context Representation in Smart Car Environment
Authors: Sun Jie , Zhang Yongping , Fan Jianbo
Published: December 2012

Driving is a complex process influenced by a wide range of factors, especially complex interactions between the driver, the vehicle, and the environment. This paper represents the complex situations in smart car domain. Unlike existing context-aware systems which isolate one context situation from another, such as road congestion and car deceleration, this paper proposes a context model which considers the driver, vehicle and environment as a whole. The paper tries to discover the inherent relationship between the situations in the smart car environment, and proposes a context model to support the representation of situations and their correlation. The detailed example scenarios are given to illustrate our idea.
Mobile E-Health Information System
Authors: Tsai Flora S.
Published: December 2012

A mobile e-Health information system (MEHIS) aims to speed up the operations of health care in medical centers and hospitals. However, the proper implementation of MEHIS involves integrating many subsystems for MEHIS to be properly executed. A typical MEHIS can consist of many components and subsystems, such as appointments and scheduling; admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT); prescription order entry; dietary planning; and smart card sign-on. This paper describes the development of a MEHIS with open-source Eclipse, using currently available health care standards. The author discusses the issues of building a mobile e-Health information system which can help achieve the goal of ubiquitous and mobile applications for the personalization of e-Health.