bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Privacy-Aware Organisation-Based Access Control Model (PrivOrBAC)
Authors: Ajam Nabil , Cuppens-Boulahia Nora , Cuppens Fréderic
Published: April 2012

In this chapter, the authors propose the expression and the modelling of the most important principles of privacy. They deduce the relevant privacy requirements that should be integrated in existing security policy models, such as RBAC models. They suggest the application of a unique model for both access control and privacy requirements. Thus, an access control model is to be enriched with new access constraints and parameters, namely the privacy contexts, which should implement the consent and the notification concepts. For this purpose, the authors introduce the Privacy-aware Organisation role Based Access Control (PrivOrBAC) model.
A Dynamic Cyber Security Economic Model
Authors: Axelrod C. Warren
Published: April 2012

One cannot develop effective economic models for information security and privacy without having a good understanding of the motivations, disincentives, and other influencing factors affecting the behavior of criminals, victims, defenders, product and service providers, lawmakers, law enforcement, and other interested parties. Predicting stakeholders’ actions and reactions will be more effective if one has a realistic representation of how each of the various parties will respond to internal motivators and external stimuli. In this chapter, reactions of involved parties are assumed to be based on “personal utility functions.” However, it is not sufficient merely to develop static utility functions, since the net value of security and privacy changes dynamically. External events, such as the announcement of a new threat, also have a significant effect on both subjective and objective net value. Knowing how such value functions vary over time helps determine the overall dynamic impact of security and privacy measures on the behavior of various participants and ultimately on the economic model that describes these behaviors. Also in this chapter, the authors enumerate the many factors that affect all the various parties and examine how these factors affect the responses of all those involved due to the economic impact of particular exploits and situations as they affect different groups.
Chance Discovery as Analogy Based Value Sensing
Authors: Ohsawa Yukio , Abe Akinori , Nakamura Jun
Published: April 2012

The authors are finding rising demands for sensing values in existing/new events and items in the real life. Chance discovery, focusing on new events significant for human decision making, can be positioned extensively as an approach to value sensing. This extension enables the innovation of various artificial systems, where human’s talent of analogical thinking comes to be the basic engine. Games for training and activating this talent are introduced, and it is clarified that these games train the an essential talent of human for chance discovery, by discussing the experimental results of these games on the logical framework of analogical abductive reasoning.
Students’ Perceptions and Acceptance
Authors: Theng Yin-Leng , Wen Elaine Lew Yee , Leong Jimmy Chong Jeah , Yeow Stanley See Boon , Yan Ding Hong
Published: April 2012

In recent years, we witness the formation of social spaces in computers and networks where children, youths and young adults learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life. The question we want to ask is: if this participatory culture of user-generated content in which socially constructed and collective intelligence is to be harnessed, what are the critical success factors that determine the acceptance of this participatory culture in the learning environments? As an illustration, the paper describes two studies focused on tertiary students’ perceptions of acceptance of social tools such as Weblogs and instant messaging in facilitating collaborative and collective learning with the aim of tapping onto the collective intelligence of user communities. Congruent to other studies, findings from these two preliminary studies have shown that factors influencing the acceptance of social tools such as Weblogs and instant messaging for learning are dependent on learners’ perceptions of usefulness, followed by usability of the social tools. The paper concludes with design implications for socially constructed, learning environments.
Insurance-Based Business Web Services Composition
Authors: Liu An , Wenyin Liu , Huang Liusheng , Li Qing , Xiao Mingjun
Published: April 2012

As more web services that implement core functions of business are delivered to customers with service charges, an open and competitive business web services market must be established. However, the qualities of these business web services are unknown without real experiences and users are unable to make decisions on service selection. To address this problem, the authors adopt insurance into business web services composition. In this paper, the authors propose three insurance models for business web services. Based on the insurance models, the authors propose an approach to compute the expected profit of composite business web services, which can be used as a criterion for business web services composition. The insurance of business web services and the criterion for business web services composition will help service competition and boost the development of more business web services and the software industry.
3D Real-Time Reconstruction Approach for Multimedia Sensor Networks
Authors: Mostefaoui Ahmed , Piranda Benoit
Published: April 2012

Multimedia sensor networks have emerged due to the tremendous technological advances in multimedia hardware miniaturization and the application potential they present. However, the time sensitive nature of multimedia data makes them very problematic to handle, especially within constrained environments. In this paper, the authors present a novel approach based on continuous 3D real time reconstruction of the monitored area dedicated for video surveillance applications. Real-time 3D reconstruction allows an important network bandwidth reduction in context to sensor nodes sending descriptive information to the fusion server instead heavy video streams. Each node has to support additional processing in order to extract this descriptive information in real-time, which results in video sensors capturing tasks, data analysis, and extraction of features needed for 3D reconstruction. In this paper, the authors focus on the design and implementation of such sensor node and validate their approach through real experimentations conducted on a real video sensor.
An Experimental Performance Comparison for Indexing Mobile Objects on the Plane
Authors: S.Sioutas  , Papaloukopoulos G. , Tsichlas K. , Manolopoulos Y.
Published: April 2012

In this paper, the authors present a time-efficient approach to index objects moving on the plane in order to answer range queries about their future positions. Each object is moving with non small velocity u, meaning that the velocity value distribution is skewed (Zipf) towards in some range , where is a positive lower threshold. This algorithm enhances a previously described solution (Sioutas, Tsakalidis, Tsichlas, Makris, & Manolopoulos, 2007) by accommodating the ISB-tree access method as presented in Kaporis et al. (2005). Experimental evaluation shows the improved performance, scalability, and efficiency of the new algorithm.
Benefits and Challenges in the Use of Case Studies for Security Requirements Engineering Methods
Authors: Mead Nancy R.
Published: April 2012

The premise of this paper is that pilot case studies in security requirements engineering provide both benefits and challenges to the underlying research, education, and technology transition effort. Over the past four years we have worked with seven development groups in five organizations in the process of refining and transitioning the Security Quality Requirements Engineering (SQUARE) and SQUARE-Lite methods into practice. These experiences have provided the opportunity to step back and assess the use of pilots in conjunction with student projects to support method refinement and technology transition. Although SQUARE and SQUARE-Lite are concerned with security requirements, the benefits and challenges that have been observed would apply to many security research and technology transition efforts. We itemize and justify these benefits and challenges and discuss their practical relevance and application to ensuring adequate information assurance protection.
Retrofitting Existing Web Applications with Effective Dynamic Protection Against SQL Injection Attacks
Authors: Sun San-Tsai , Beznosov Konstantin
Published: April 2012

This paper presents an approach for retrofitting existing Web applications with run-time protection against known, as well as unseen, SQL injection attacks (SQLIAs) without the involvement of application developers. The precision of the approach is also enhanced with a method for reducing the rate of false positives in the SQLIA detection logic, via runtime discovery of the developers’ intention for individual SQL statements made by Web applications. The proposed approach is implemented in the form of protection mechanisms for J2EE, ASP.NET, and ASP applications. Named SQLPrevent, these mechanisms intercept HTTP requests and SQL statements, mark and track parameter values originating from HTTP requests, and perform SQLIA detection and prevention on the intercepted SQL statements. The AMNESIA testbed is extended to contain false-positive testing traces, and is used to evaluate SQLPrevent. In our experiments, SQLPrevent produced no false positives or false negatives, and imposed a maximum 3.6% performance overhead with 30 milliseconds response time for the tested applications.
Katana
Authors: Bratus Sergey , Oakley James , Ramaswamy Ashwin , Smith Sean W. , Locasto Michael E.
Published: April 2012

The mechanics of hot patching (the process of upgrading a program while it executes) remain understudied, even though it offers capabilities that act as practical benefits for both consumer and mission-critical systems. A reliable hot patching procedure would serve particularly well by reducing the downtime necessary for critical functionality or security upgrades. However, hot patching also carries the risk—real or perceived—of leaving the system in an inconsistent state, which leads many owners to forgo its benefits as too risky; for systems where availability is critical, this decision may result in leaving systems un-patched and vulnerable. In this paper, the authors present a novel method for hot patching ELF binaries that supports synchronized global data and code updates, and reasoning about the results of applying the hot patch. In this regard, the Patch Object format was developed to encode patches as a special type of ELF re-locatable object file. The authors then built a tool, Katana, which automatically creates these patch objects as a by-product of the standard source build process. Katana also allows an end-user to apply the Patch Objects to a running process.
A Rigorous Approach to the Definition of an International Vocational Master’s Degree in Information Security Management
Authors: Girard Frédéric , Meunier Bertrand , Hua Duan , Dubois Eric
Published: April 2012

In Luxembourg, like in many other countries, information security has become a central issue for private companies and public organizations. Today, information is the main asset of a company for its business and, at the same time, regulations are imposing more and more rules regarding its management. As a consequence, in Luxembourg, a clear need has emerged regarding the development of new learning trajectory fulfilling the requirements of the new job profile associated with a Chief Security Officer. This need was relayed by the national professional security association which asked for the development of a new education program targeting professional people engaged in a lifelong learning trajectory. The paper reports on the rigorous and scientific participatory approach for producing the adequate learning program meeting requirements elicited from the professional association members. The authors present the skills card that has been elaborated for capturing these requirements and the program, which has been built together with the University of Luxembourg for matching these requirements. This program proposes a holistic approach to information security management by including organization, human and technical security risks within the context of regulations and norms.
Simplifying the Design of Human-Like Behaviour
Authors: Bryson Joanna J. , Tanguy Emmanuel
Published: April 2012

Human intelligence requires decades of full-time training before it can be reliably utilised in modern economies. In contrast, AI agents must be made reliable but interesting in relatively short order. Realistic emotion representations are one way to ensure that even relatively simple specifications of agent behaviour will be expressed with engaging variation, and those social and temporal contexts can be tracked and responded to appropriately. We describe a representation system for maintaining an interacting set of durative states to replicate emotional control. Our model, the Dynamic Emotion Representation (DER), integrates emotional responses and keeps track of emotion intensities changing over time. The developer can specify an interacting network of emotional states with appropriate onsets, sustains and decays. The levels of these states can be used as input for action selection, including emotional expression. We present both a general representational framework and a specific instance of a DER network constructed for a virtual character. The character’s DER uses three types of emotional state as classified by duration timescales, keeping with current emotional theory. We demonstrate the system with a virtual actor. We also demonstrate how even a simplified version of this representation can improve goal arbitration in autonomous agents.
Emotion as a Significant Change in Neural Activity
Authors: Parussel Karla
Published: April 2012

It is hypothesized here that two classes of emotions exist: driving and satisfying emotions. Driving emotions significantly increase the internal activity of the brain and result in the agent seeking to minimize its emotional state by performing actions that it would not otherwise do. Satisfying emotions decrease internal activity and encourage the agent to continue its current behavior to maintain its emotional state. It is theorized that neuromodulators act as simple yet high impact signals to either agitate or calm specific neural networks. This results in what we can define as either driving or satisfying emotions. The plausibility of this hypothesis is tested in this paper using feed-forward networks of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons.
Character Segmentation Scheme for OCR System
Authors: Win Htwe Pa Pa , Khine Phyo Thu Thu , Tun Khin Nwe Ni
Published: April 2012

Automatic machine-printed Optical Characters or texts Recognizers (OCR) are highly desirable for a multitude of modern IT applications, including Digital Library software. However, the state of the art OCR systems cannot do for Myanmar scripts as the language poses many challenges for document understanding. Therefore, the authors design an Optical Character Recognition System for Myanmar Printed Document (OCRMPD), with several proposed techniques that can automatically recognize Myanmar printed text from document images. In order to get more accurate system, the authors propose the method for isolation of the character image by using not only the projection methods but also structural analysis for wrongly segmented characters. To reveal the effectiveness of the segmentation technique, the authors follow a new hybrid feature extraction method and choose the SVM classifier for recognition of the character image. The proposed algorithms have been tested on a variety of Myanmar printed documents and the results of the experiments indicate that the methods can increase the segmentation accuracy as well as recognition rates.
Detecting Corners for 3D Objects
Authors: Irshad Misbah , Elahi Irfa , Hussain Malik Zawwar
Published: April 2012

In this paper, a corner detection algorithm for 3D objects is presented. This algorithm is an extension of corner detection scheme for planar objects (Chetrikov & Zsabo, 1999). This algorithm finds corners and other high curvature points for 3D objects.
Learning Fuzzy Network Using Sequence Bound Global Particle Swarm Optimizer
Authors: Dehuri Satchidananda , Cho Sung-Bae
Published: April 2012

This paper proposes an algorithm for classification by learning fuzzy network with a sequence bound global particle swarm optimizer. The aim of this work can be achieved in two folded. Fold one provides an explicit mapping of an input features from original domain to fuzzy domain with a multiple fuzzy sets and the second fold discusses the novel sequence bound global particle swarm optimizer for evolution of optimal set of connection weights between hidden layer and output layer of the fuzzy network. The novel sequence bound global particle swarm optimizer can solve the problem of premature convergence when learning the fuzzy network plagued with many local optimal solutions. Unlike multi-layer perceptron with many hidden layers it has only single hidden layer. The output layer of this network contains one neuron. This network advocates a simple and understandable architecture for classification. The experimental studies show that the classification accuracy of the proposed algorithm is promising and superior to other alternatives such as multi-layer perceptron and radial basis function network.
MINOTAUR
Authors: Mitchell Alex L. , Selimas Ioannis , Attwood Teresa K.
Published: April 2012

In recent years, the rapid accumulation of biological data and the corresponding enormous growth in the number of published research papers has rendered data annotation and literature searching immensely laborious tasks. The problems are particularly acute for biocurators, who often need to move quickly and easily, say, from a set of biomolecular sequences, to relevant literature search terms, and thence to a core set of informative sentences that might help their annotation efforts. To this end, the authors have developed MINOTAUR, a Web-based assistant tool that helps biologists and biocurators to find relevant facts in online databases and biomedical literature abstracts. The software takes a variety of inputs (sequences, keywords, etc.), ranks returned documents according to relevance, and then extracts pertinent sentences using machine-learning and rule-based sentence-classification systems. These may be collated and presented as blocks of text to seed manual-annotation processes. The suite is available for interactive use at http://www.bioinf.manchester.ac.uk/dbbrowser/minotaur/about.html
Stakeholders and Power in Community-Based IT Projects
Authors: Stockdale Rosemary , Felstead Chris
Published: April 2012

Not-for-profit organisations put considerable effort into community-based Information Technology (IT) projects to bridge the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ of the digital divide. However, the outcomes of these IT projects are often seen as problematic with service recipients failing to gain the intended benefits. This research takes a critical research approach to examining the role of service recipients as stakeholders in community-based IT projects. In this paper, the authors address the first element of critical research, that of considering ‘what we think is known.’ Using the lens of Bourdieu’s forms of capital, the authors identify the power asymmetries among not-for-profit community stakeholders and provide an understanding of community characteristics that affect the delivery of project outcomes.
Reassessing the Foundations of Semiotics
Authors: Nadin Mihai
Published: April 2012

What justifies a discipline is its grounding in practical activities. Documentary evidence is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for viability. This applies to semiotics as it applies to mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science, and all other forms of questioning the world. While all forms of knowledge testify to the circularity of the epistemological effort, semiotics knowledge is doubly cursed. There is no knowledge that can be expressed otherwise than in semiotic form; knowledge of semiotics is itself expressed semiotically. Semiotics defined around the notion of the sign bears the burden of unsettled questions prompted by the never-ending attempt to define signs. This indeterminate condition is characteristic of all epistemological constructs, whether in reference to specific knowledge domains or semiotics. The alternative is to associate the knowledge domain of semiotics with the meta-level, i.e., inquiry of what makes semiotics necessary. In a world of action-reaction, corresponding to a rather poor form of causality, semiotics is not necessary. Only in acknowledging the anticipatory condition of the living can grounding for semiotics be found. This perspective becomes critical in the context of a semiotized civilization in which the object level of human effort is progressively replaced by representations (and their associated interpretations).
The Concept of Exaptation Between Biology and Semiotics
Authors: Weible Davide
Published: April 2012

This paper explains what the biological concept of exaptation is by providing the theoretical context within which it was formulated and the definition of its meaning with respect to other related notions adopted in evolutionary biology. At the same time, this paper describes the main stages of its further development from the initial introduction and outlines its wide contemporary usage within fields of research other than biology. Finally, specific attention is paid to the linguistic, semiotic and biosemiotic dimensions of its adoption, concluding with a discussion concerning the relationship between exaptation and biosemiotics and furnishing some clues for a possible direction of inquiry in the tradition of a Peircean semiotic approach.
Utilization of Intelligent Software Agent Features for Improving E-Learning Efforts
Authors: Farzaneh Mandana , Vanani Iman Raeesi , Sohrabi Babak
Published: April 2012

E-learning is one of the most important learning approaches within which intelligent software agents can be efficiently used so as to automate and facilitate the process of learning. The aim of this paper is to illustrate a comprehensive categorization of intelligent software agent features, which is valuable for being deployed in the virtual world of learning and training. The characteristics of agents make them worthwhile for being used in the implementation and improvement of e-learning information systems, especially the web-based or web-enabled e-learning mechanisms. An extensive exploration of agent-related international papers has been conducted so as to cover a wide range of internationally accepted features as well as the classification of agents and their correspondent references. These agent characteristics enable the online learning mechanisms to act on behalf of the user in electronic learning and to respond to specific requirements in a more efficient and effective manner than the traditional learning systems. The implementation of agents according to the most useful features helps teachers transfer the related knowledge easier, faster, and more directed towards the targeted audience of the e-learning system for a better and deeper learning quality.
Critical Managerial Activity and Competency of Healthcare Management
Authors: Lin Li-Min , Chen Han-Jung , Chen Pei-Fen , Tennyson Robert D.
Published: April 2012

This study employed the activity competency model (ACM) to investigate the perceived importance of the managerial activities, skills and knowledge required by top management in the healthcare sector. A survey instrument was designed based on the ACM for data collection. It encompasses 17 initial managerial activities and 14 managerial competences required to effectively perform these management activities. Data for this study were collected using a structured questionnaire. Twenty-seven healthcare top managers from 18 major hospitals in Taiwan were selected. These include 10 medical centers and 8 regional hospitals. Among these 27 top managers, there are 12 superintendents, 13 vice superintendents, and 2 chief executive officers. A set of critical managerial activities and the competency needed for top managers in the healthcare sector was identified. Findings have implications for healthcare management development, training and management career planning. Additionally, these findings can also serve as guidelines for recruiting the right top healthcare managers.
Fishermen on the Batinah Coast in Oman
Authors: Belwal Shweta , Belwal Rakesh , Al-Shizawi Fadhil
Published: April 2012

Fishing is common among the inhabitants in every coastal region. Oman’s Al-Batinah coast accounts for 20% of the national catch. However, poor uptakes of improved fishing technologies and practices, weak management, inefficiency and ineffective marketing have resulted in Al-Batinah fishermen securing low earnings (Al-Zabri, 2008). This study assesses the situation of the fishermen on the Batinah coast of Oman. It uncovers the reasons behind their leading a subsistence life. This study also explores their difficulties and concerns, and devises some policy implications that offer them a better life. The study utilizes both qualitative and quantitative data collected from fishermen using questionnaires and interviews in an organized form of field survey. The majority of the fishing activity takes place in the traditional sector, where small fishermen run it as their family business. Expenditures surpass fishermen’s income and restrict their savings and growth. The Omani Government has provided infrastructure; however, there is a need for officials to be more observant and concerned about the not so well off fishermen. Facilitators such as training institutes and banks need to provide concentrated measures to improve fishermen’s skills and productivity. Altogether all the facilitators and the fishermen need to come together and share a common platform to advance fishing activity and its scope in the region.
A Model of Scale-Free Proportion Based on Mutual Anticipation
Authors: Murakami Hisashi , Niizato Takayuki , Gunji Yukio-Pegio
Published: April 2012

Recently, new empirical research of flocking behavior has been accumulated. Scale-free proportion has revealed how a flock can appear to behave as if it has one mind and body. The notion of scale-free proportion implies that the correlated domain within a flock is not constant size, but is proportional to flock size. Scale-free proportion can be explained by previous models, such as BOIDS based on the fixed radius neighborhood where an agent interacts with others if the critical valued parameter and a huge neighborhood are given. However, it is hard to explain under the normal neighborhood condition. The authors propose a new computational model that, although also based on BOIDS, incorporates mutual anticipation, which is implemented by modeling the resonance between the potential transitions available to each agent, allowing overlap between them. Via mutual anticipation, this model implements interactions not only among individuals but also between individuals and the field. The authors show that this model reveals the dynamic and robust structure of a flock or swarm, as well as scale-free proportion over a wide range of the flock sizes, comparing previous models, and that its predictions correlate well with empirical field data.
Reinforcement Learning for Improving Gene Identification Accuracy by Combination of Gene-Finding Programs
Authors: Yin Peng-Yeng , Shyu Shyong Jian , Yang Shih-Ren , Chang Yu-Chung
Published: April 2012

Due to the explosive and growing size of the genome database, the discovery of gene has become one of the most computationally intensive tasks in bioinformatics. Many such systems have been developed to find genes; however, there is still some room to improve the prediction accuracy. This paper proposes a reinforcement learning model for a combination of gene predictions from existing gene-finding programs. The model learns the optimal policy for accepting the best predictions. The fitness of a policy is reinforced if the selected prediction at a nucleotide site correctly corresponds to the true annotation. The model searches for the optimal policy which maximizes the expected prediction accuracy over all nucleotide sites in the sequences. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model yields higher prediction accuracy than that obtained by the single best program.
Research and Implementation of Self-Publishing Website Platforms for Universities Based on CMS
Authors: Chong Liu , Mei Wang , Guang An Wen
Published: April 2012

To update school websites, incorporating personality and ease of maintenance and management, the authors propose the use of a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS is a self-publishing Website platform for university information resources. The system has many features, such as self-service, fast station, self-service custom modules, dynamic replacement site style template, flexible adjustment of dynamic website contents and structures, search engine optimization (SEO) measures, and so forth. Each institution can customize according to their own information platform needs. A CMS greatly shortens the development cycle of the site and promotes the development of information technology on campus.
Optimizing the Accuracy of Entity-Based Data Integration of Multiple Data Sources Using Genetic Programming Methods
Authors: Zhou Yinle , Kooshesh Ali , Talburt John
Published: April 2012

Entity-based data integration (EBDI) is a form of data integration in which information related to the same real-world entity is collected and merged from different sources. It often happens that not all of the sources will agree on one value for a common attribute. These cases are typically resolved by invoking a rule that will select one of the non-null values presented by the sources. One of the most commonly used selection rules is called the naïve selection operator that chooses the non-null value provided by the source with the highest overall accuracy for the attribute in question. However, the naïve selection operator will not always produce the most accurate result. This paper describes a method for automatically generating a selection operator using methods from genetic programming. It also presents the results from a series of experiments using synthetic data that indicate that this method will yield a more accurate selection operator than either the naïve or naïve-voting selection operators.
Identification of Natural Images and Computer Generated Graphics Based on Hybrid Features
Authors: Peng Fei , Liu Juan , Long Min
Published: April 2012

Examining the identification of natural images (NI) and computer generated graphics (CG), a novel method is proposed based on hybrid features. Since the image acquisition pipelines are different, some differences exist in statistical, visual, and noise characteristics between natural images and computer generated graphics. Firstly, the mean, variance, kurtosis, skew-ness, and median of the histograms of grayscale image in the spatial and wavelet domain are selected as statistical features. Secondly, the fractal dimensions of grayscale image and wavelet sub-bands are extracted as visual features. Thirdly, considering the shortage of the photo response non-uniformity noise (PRNU) acquired from wavelet based de-noising filter, a pre-processing of Gaussian high pass filter is applied to the image before the extraction of PRNU, and the physical features are calculated from the enhanced PRNU. In the identification, a support vector machine (SVM) classifier is used in experiments and an average classification accuracy of 94.29% is achieved, where the classification accuracy for computer generated graphics is 97.3% and for natural images is 91.28%. Analysis and discussion show that the method is suitable for the identification of natural images and computer generated graphics and can achieve better identification accuracy than the existing methods with fewer dimensions of features.
Trust Dimensions and the Adoption of E-Government in Jordan
Authors: Abu-Shanab Emad , Al-Azzam Ameen
Published: April 2012

E-government project utilization depends on users’ adoption of the system, where trust is a crucial factor in forcing the intentions to use such systems. This research utilized 105 usable responses from citizens who used and explored e-government services. It was hypothesized that trust in e-government and trust in the Internet, along with perceived risk, will significantly influence trust in E-government, and further intention to use the system. Using path analysis, results supported trust in government and the Internet and did not support perceived risk. Also, trust in e-government significantly influenced intention to use the system. Finally, path analysis indicated a significant mediation of trust in E-government, where direct and indirect effects were estimated. Conclusions and future work are stated at the end.
Evolution of Standards for Smart Grid Communications
Authors: Wright David
Published: April 2012

A diverse range of telecommunications standards is available and in development for the correspondingly diverse areas of the smart grid. In this paper, the author details and analyzes their current status, the direction of ongoing work, and application in transmission and distribution networks, as well as distributed generation. The author also examines the interface to residential and business customers.
Searching and Generating Authoring Information
Authors: Alkhateeb Faisal , Alzubi Amal , Abu Doush Iyad , Aljawarneh Shadi , Al Maghayreh Eslam
Published: April 2012

In this paper, the authors propose a novel approach to search and retrieve authoring information from online authoring databases. The proposed approach combines keywords and semantic-based methods. In this approach, the user can retrieve such information considering some specified keywords and ignore how the internal semantic search is being processed. The keywords entered by the user are internally converted by the system to a semantic query that will be used to search the requested information. The authors then use (X)HTML-based templates for the automatic construction of BibTeX elements from the query results.
Context-Aware Expert Finding in Tag Based Knowledge Sharing Communities
Authors: Zhu Hengshu , Chen Enhong , Cao Huanhuan , Tian Jilei
Published: April 2012

With the rapid development of online Knowledge Sharing Communities (KSCs), the problem of finding experts becomes increasingly important for knowledge propagation and putting crowd wisdom to work. A recent development trend of KSCs is to allow users to add text tags for annotating their posts, which are more accurate than traditional category information. However, how to leverage these user-generated tags for finding experts is still underdeveloped. To this end, this paper develops a novel approach for finding experts in tag based KSCs by leveraging tag context and the semantic relationship between tags. Specifically, the extracted prior knowledge and user profiles are first used for enriching the query tags to infer tag context, which represents the user’s latent information needs. Specifically, two different approaches for addressing the problem of tag sparseness in authority ranking are proposed. The first is a memory-based collaborative filtering approach, which leverages non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) to find similar users for alleviating tag sparseness. The second approach is based on Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model, which can further capture the latent semantic relationship between tags. A large-scale real-world data set is collected from a tag based Chinese commercial Q&A web site. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms several baseline methods with a significant margin.
Advances on Adaptive Systems in NGN
Authors: Billet Yves-Gael , Gravier Christophe , Fayolle Jacques
Published: April 2012

This paper provides the state of art and hints on how to lay the foundations of an adaptive QoS approach in Next Generation Networks (NGN). The key idea is to provide a model, which would offer one application version or another, depending on the Quality of Service (QoS) negotiated at the session establishment in a NGN. The stake of this research is a better-balanced usage of the network, for maximizing the service offered to the user given his or her network capacities. It encompasses the model for such an implementation in a NGN as IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS).
A Systemic Framework for Accelerating Collaboration-Centered Knowledge Management Strategy
Authors: Bragge Johanna , Kivijärvi Hannu
Published: April 2012

Knowledge is today more than ever the most critical resource of organizations. However, at the same time it is also the least-accessible resource that is difficult to share, imitate, buy, sell, store, or evaluate. Organizations should thus have an explicit strategy for the management of their knowledge resources. In this research the authors pay special attention to a knowledge management (KM) strategy called collaboration-centered strategy. This strategy builds on the assumption that a significant part of personal knowledge can be captured and transferred, and new knowledge created through deep collaboration between the organization’s members. A critical element in the collaboration-centered KM strategy is the facilitation process that involves managing relationships between people, tasks and technology. The authors describe how the Collaboration Engineering approach with packaged facilitation techniques called ThinkLets is able to contribute to this endeavour.
A Formal Knowledge Representation System (FKRS) for the Intelligent Knowledge Base of a Cognitive Learning Engine
Authors: Tian Yousheng , Wang Yingxu , Gavrilova Marina L. , Ruhe Guenther
Published: April 2012

It is recognized that the generic form of machine learning is a knowledge acquisition and manipulation process mimicking the brain. Therefore, knowledge representation as a dynamic concept network is centric in the design and implementation of the intelligent knowledge base of a Cognitive Learning Engine (CLE). This paper presents a Formal Knowledge Representation System (FKRS) for autonomous concept formation and manipulation based on concept algebra. The Object-Attribute-Relation (OAR) model for knowledge representation is adopted in the design of FKRS. The conceptual model, architectural model, and behavioral models of the FKRS system is formally designed and specified in Real-Time Process Algebra (RTPA). The FKRS system is implemented in Java as a core component towards the development of the CLE and other knowledge-based systems in cognitive computing and computational intelligence.
Inconsistency-Induced Learning for Perpetual Learners
Authors: Zhang Du , Lu Meiliu
Published: April 2012

One of the long-term research goals in machine learning is how to build never-ending learners. The state-of-the-practice in the field of machine learning thus far is still dominated by the one-time learner paradigm: some learning algorithm is utilized on data sets to produce certain model or target function, and then the learner is put away and the model or function is put to work. Such a learn-once-apply-next (or LOAN) approach may not be adequate in dealing with many real world problems and is in sharp contrast with the human’s lifelong learning process. On the other hand, learning can often be brought on through overcoming some inconsistent circumstances. This paper proposes a framework for perpetual learning agents that are capable of continuously refining or augmenting their knowledge through overcoming inconsistencies encountered during their problem-solving episodes. The never-ending nature of a perpetual learning agent is embodied in the framework as the agent’s continuous inconsistency-induced belief revision process. The framework hinges on the agents recognizing inconsistency in data, information, knowledge, or meta-knowledge, identifying the cause of inconsistency, revising or augmenting beliefs to explain, resolve, or accommodate inconsistency. The authors believe that inconsistency can serve as one of the important learning stimuli toward building perpetual learning agents that incrementally improve their performance over time.
Web 2.0
Authors: Coutinho Clara Pereira
Published: April 2012

In this article, the author presents the results of a project where different Web 2.0 technologies were used as tools for assessing learning in education programs at the University of Minho, Braga, Portugal. The emergence of new skills to better fit the networked information economy presses higher education institutions to invest in digitally rich environments that allow learning to be personalized, taking place in multiple locations and at time that suits the learner. Social web tools prioritize collaboration, participation, and reflection, as well as offer new opportunities for knowledge construction and sharing. But they also demand new pedagogical strategies and forms of assessment that are not consistent with standards that value what is taught instead of what is constructed, what is pre-established instead of was is agreed. To provide rationale for embracing Web 2.0 tools as well as point out forms to create, capture, and assess evidence that results from the integration of such tools in learning and teaching, the author describes sixteen pedagogical experiences and reflects on the affordances and challenges of setting up authentic tasks that engage students in the learning process and embracing digital evidence in different formats for assessing learning outcomes.
An Empirical Investigation of Students’ Acceptance of OLAT as an Open Web-Based Learning System in an Egyptian Vocational Education School
Authors: Mabed Metwaly , Koehler Thomas
Published: April 2012

This study uses the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a basic theory to address the factors that affect students’ acceptance of using the OLAT (Open Learning and Training) system in an Egyptian vocational education school. System quality and self-efficacy were incorporated as an extension to TAM in the research model. The data was analyzed by Partial Least Squares (PLS). The results show that perceived ease of use is the main variable linking external variables with perceived usefulness, attitude, and system usage. Moreover, it was found that the research model explained 66% of the variance in perceived ease of use, 80% of the variance in perceived usefulness, and 81% of the variance in attitude toward using OLAT.
Infant B Cell Memory Differentiation and Early Gut Bacterial Colonization
Authors: Lundell Anna-Carin , Björnsson Viktor , Ljung Annika , Ceder Margareta , Johansen Susanne , Lindhagen Gunhild , Törnhage Carl-Johan , Adlerberth Ingegerd , Wold Agnes E. , Rudin Anna
Published: April 2012

Germ-free animal models have demonstrated that commensal bacterial colonization of the intestine induces B cell differentiation and activation. Whether colonization with particular bacterial species or groups is associated with B cell development during early childhood is not known. In a prospective newborn/infant cohort including 65 Swedish children, we examined the numbers and proportions of CD20+, CD5+, and CD27+ B cells in blood samples obtained at several time points during the first 3 y of life using flow cytometry. Fecal samples were collected and cultured quantitatively for major facultative and anaerobic bacteria at 1, 2, 4, and 8 wk of life. We found that the numbers of CD20+ B cells and CD5+CD20+ B cells reached their highest levels at 4 mo, whereas CD20+ B cells expressing the memory marker CD27 were most numerous at 18 and 36 mo of age. Using multivariate analysis, we show that early colonization with Escherichia coli and bifidobacteria were associated with higher numbers of CD20+ B cells that expressed the memory marker CD27 at 4 and 18 mo of age. In contrast, we were unable to demonstrate any relation between bacterial colonization pattern and numbers of CD20+ or CD5+CD20+ B cells. These results suggest that the intestinal bacterial colonization pattern may affect the B cell maturation also in humans, and that an early gut microbiota including E. coli and bifidobacteria might promote this maturation.
Host Genetic Factors in Susceptibility to Herpes Simplex Type 1 Virus Infection: Contribution of Polymorphic Genes at the Interface of Innate and Adaptive Immunity
Authors: Moraru Manuela , Cisneros Elisa , Gómez-Lozano Natalia , de Pablo Rosario , Portero Francisca , Cañizares María , Vaquero Mercedes , Roustán Gastón , Millán Isabel , López-Botet Miguel , Vilches Carlos
Published: April 2012

HSV-1 establishes life-long latency that can result in clinical relapses or in asymptomatic virus shedding. Although virtually all adults have been exposed to HSV-1, the clinical course varies remarkably. Genetic host variability could be related to this clinical diversity. In this study, we analyzed the contribution of gene families in chromosomes 1, 6, 12, and 19, which encode key regulators of the innate and adaptive immunity, in a cohort of 302 individuals. Class I and class II alleles of the HLA system, the copy-number variation of NK cell receptor genes (KIR and NKG2C), the combinations of killer cell Ig-like receptor and their HLA ligands, and CD16A and CD32A allotypes of variable affinity for IgG subclasses were all studied. Although no major susceptibility locus for HSV-1 was identified, our results show that the risk of suffering clinical HSV-1 infection is modified by MHC class I allotypes (B*18, C*15, and the group of alleles encoding A19), the high-affinity receptor/ligand pair KIR2DL2/HLA-C1, and the CD16A-158V/F dimorphism. Conversely, HLA class II and CD32A polymorphisms and NKG2C deletion did not seem to influence the clinical course of herpetic infection. Collectively, these findings support an important role in host defense against herpetic infection for several polymorphic genes implicated in adaptive immunity and in surveillance of its subversion. They confirm the crucial role of cytotoxic cells (CTL and NK) and the contribution of genetic diversity to the clinical course of HSV-1 infection.
The Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas, shows negative correlation to naturally elevated carbon dioxide levels: Implications for near‐term ocean acidification effects
Authors: Barton Alan , Hales Burke , Waldbusser George G. , Langdon Chris , Feely Richard A.
Published: April 2012

We report results from an oyster hatchery on the Oregon coast, where intake waters experienced variable carbonate chemistry (aragonite saturation state < 0.8 to > 3.2; pH < 7.6 to > 8.2) in the early summer of 2009. Both larval production and midstage growth (∼ 120 to ∼ 150 µm) of the oyster Crassostrea gigas were significantly negatively correlated with the aragonite saturation state of waters in which larval oysters were spawned and reared for the first 48 h of life. The effects of the initial spawning conditions did not have a significant effect on early‐stage growth (growth from D‐hinge stage to ∼ 120 µm), suggesting a delayed effect of water chemistry on larval development.