bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
E-Commerce Product Selection and Evaluation Services
Authors: Guan Sheng-Uei
Published: May 2011

Despite the rapid growth of e-commerce and the hype surrounding it, the potential of the Internet for truly transforming commerce is largely unrealized to date is because most electronic purchases are still largely nonautomated. User presence is still required in all stages of the buying process. According to the nomenclature of Maes’s group in the MIT Media Labs (Maes, 1994; Guttman & Maes, 1999), the common commerce behavior can be described with consumer buying behaviour (CBB) model, which consists of six stages, namely, need identification, product brokering, merchant brokering, negotiation, purchase and delivery, and product service and evaluation. The solution to automating electronic purchases could lie in the employment of software agents and relevant AI technologies in e-commerce. Software agent technologies can be used to automate several of the most time consuming stages of the buying process like product information gathering and comparison. Unlike “traditional” software, software agents are personalized, continuously running and semiautonomous. These qualities are conducive for optimizing the whole buying experience and revolutionizing commerce, as we know it today. Software agents could monitor quantity and usage patterns, collect information on vendors and products that may fit the needs of the owner, evaluate different offerings, make decisions on which merchants and products to pursue, negotiate the terms of transactions with these merchants and finally place orders and make automated payments (Hua & Guan, 2000). At present, there are some software agents like BargainFinder, Jango, and Firefly providing ranked lists based on the prices of merchant products. However, these shopping agents fail to resolve the challenges presented as follows.
Integration Visualization Techniques in Groupware Interfaces
Authors: Daassi Mohamed , Daassi Chaouki , Favier Marc
Published: May 2011

Problems attributed to uncertainty and a lack of visibility about others’ activities and behaviors have led designers of multi-user interfaces to develop so-called awareness mechanisms (Dourish & Bellotti, 1992). The importance of maintaining awareness in the virtual environment has been outlined in many studies in CSCW and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research areas. According to Gutwin, Greenberg and Roseman (1996), awareness reduces the effort needed to coordinate tasks and resources by providing a context in which to interpret utterances and to anticipate others’ actions. For many years, a significant effort was devoted to explore how computer-based technologies might facilitate some kinds of awareness among and between interdependent actors. These studies tried to solve technical problems related to providing awareness through multi-user interfaces. Unfortunately, however, the expected benefits from these technologies never materialized (Schmidt, 2002). This article focuses on the design of visualization techniques for collective awareness. It proposes a design approach of visualization techniques centered on the semantic of collective awareness and human characteristics (ergonomic design). The article is organized as follows: First, we present users’ needs when interacting through multi-user interfaces. Second, we give an overview of the notion of awareness by reviewing its categories. Third, we present an ergonomic design approach of awareness visualization techniques. We illustrate our approach with examples of techniques from literature and show how these techniques support collective awareness. Finally, we conclude with some future directions.
MOOS as Virtual Communities
Authors: Roper Shannon , Ferris Sharmila Pixy
Published: May 2011

Many researchers have observed that the Internet has changed the concept of virtual communities (Barnes, 2001, 2003; Jones, 1995, 1998; Rheingold, 1993). A unique example of virtual communities is a MOO—a specialized interactive online community that is usually based on a work of fiction such as book series, theater or television (Bartle, 1990). MOOs share many of the features of multi-user dimensions (MUDs) in that both allow participants to create their own virtual worlds, but some researchers consider MOOs to be “more sophisticated” (Barnes, 2001, p. 94). In a MOO community, the participants or “players” create their own virtual communities—fantasy communities complete with world structures, interpersonal norms and social constructs. Individual participants create characters complete with environment, history and personality constructs. The characters interact and influence each other and their environments, just as do the members of real-world communities. The MOO discussed in this case study is based on acclaimed fantasy author Anne McCaffery’s book series set on the fictional world of “Pern.” The players on DragonWings1 MOO create and develop characters over long periods, often many years, leading to the establishment and creation of a strong MOO. In this article we provide a case study of the DragonWings MOO as a unique virtual community. Because the concept of virtual communities is evolving with the Internet, and no definitive understanding of virtual community or virtual culture yet exists, we have chosen to structure our analysis of DragonWings MOO around the classical anthropological definition of culture and community. A seminal definition of culture, first articulated by Tylor (1871), provides the springboard for a number of anthropological definitions widely used today. Building on Tylor, White (1959), a prominent cultural scholar, defined culture as “within human organisms, i.e., concepts, beliefs, emotions, attitudes; within processes of social interaction among human beings; and within natural objects” (p. 237). He also identified symbols as a primary defining characteristic of culture. White’s simple yet comprehensive definition yields clear criteria that lend themselves to our analysis of MOOs. At the broadest level, an application of the criteria provides support for the acceptance of the Internet as a distinct and unique culture. At a more particular level, they provide a convenient tool for the analysis of a MOO as a virtual community. In the remainder of this article, we will utilize the definition outlined above to demonstrate the features that make DragonWings MOO a unique example of a virtual community.
Online Empathy
Authors: Lambropoulos Niki
Published: May 2011

Scientific research on empathy started in the early 20th century. Only in 1992 did the development of cognitive neuroscience help di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Fogassi, Gallese and Rizzolatti to identify the mirror neurons related to representations of an Object from a Subject, verifying Lipps’ (1903) and McDugall’s (1908) suggestions on empathy. Primary empathy is related to the automatic matching of the feelings of the other person (Fischer, 1980). An example is the relationship newborns have between each other on their first days on the earth. Another verification of mirror neurons was made by Rizzolati and Arbib (1998), as well as identification of the areas where the mirror neurons are located, interacting with areas in both hemispheres (Broca area 44 and PE/PC). Hiltz and Turrof (1978) referred to members’ comments on their closest friends, whom seldom or never see each other face to face. Preece and Ghozati (2001) made the first serious attempt to search and analyze empathy in online communities as well as understand it better towards sociability and usability. They used the process-based model of knowing, feeling and responding compassionately for distress by Levenson and Ruef (1992), and the results showed that empathy is widespread in communities. In 2002, Preston and de Waal presented their Perception-Action Model (PAM), a process-based suggestion on empathy. PAM states that: attended perception activates subject’s representations of the state, situation and object, and that activation of this representation automatically primes or generates the associated autonomic and somatic responses, unless inhibited. (p. 4) PAM also relates empathy to the levels of awareness, reconciliation and vicarious learning as well as effortful information processing. The latter, and the mirror neurons discovery, suggest that empathy can be taught and learned as it creates symmetries between the Subject and the Object, activating the primary empathy in human perception. Self-awareness leads to self-directed behaviour, then empathy arousal and, as such, arousal of shared intentions, feelings and thoughts for common goals, desires and beliefs for community building. Eslinger, Moll and de Oliveira-Souza (2002) are among the first neuroscientists to search for Subjects’ empathy from written text. They found that text judging showed different human brain pattern activation, strongly influenced by emotional experience of the text due to reasoning and judgment. As such, the hypothesis was the following: If empathic members are sensitive organs who have the ability to simulate members’ common visions, needs and suggestions (Goleman, McKee & Boyatzis, 2002), they could be detected on the Internet, form a group and be mediators or messengers between authorities and the public.
Peer-to-Peer-Based Collaboration for Virtual Communities
Authors: Kao Odej , Rerrer Ulf
Published: May 2011

Internet applications nowadays are part of our everyday life. Gathering information from any networked site in the world, exchanging documents, transferring information via e-mail, telephone and video conferencing, e-learning or Web shopping are well known examples for Internet collaboration. The common characteristic of all these activities is the elimination of the spatial distance between involved partners. Furthermore, the information can be accessed with different devices, from hardwired PCs via WLAN-capable notebooks and PDAs (Watters, 2003) to mobile phones. The introduction of wireless communication in recent years opened new opportunities for collaboration based on so called location-based services (Schiller, 2004; Jagoe, 2003). These benefit from the fact that the most wireless devices need a dedicated access point to connect to the network. This access point registers all users in the neighborhood, and thus adds new information relevant for communication: the current spatial position of the device and its user. All registered users/devices create a local neighborhood for ad-hoc communication. This scenario is very common in our everyday life: People contact other people at different locations and start a conversation. Furthermore, they often share documents to learn (e.g., lecture slides), for entertainment (e.g., holiday photos) or¾most common¾to collaborate and to develop products in a team. All this is possible in the Internet, too, and countless applications were developed in recent years. However, each user has to know the persons to be contacted a-priori and have the access information available¾for example, e-mail address or ICQ number¾before the first contact. In opposite, users in the local neighborhood can approach other members without knowing each other a-priori. The partners must declare their willingness for communication; for example, by installing a client program and setting the security parameters accordingly. In summary, the restriction to a local neighborhood or the consideration of the current location is opposite to the main design idea of the internet to bridge the gap between spatially divided users and resources. However, this approach aims to satisfy human needs to learn more about their current local environment, the infrastructure and the people in the near neighborhood. Therefore, peer-to-peer-based collaboration platforms allow a location-based selection of relevant information and ad-hoc communication with users in the range of the current access point.
Racial Issues in the Virtual Classroom
Authors: Rovai Alfred P. , Gallien Jr. Louis B.
Published: May 2011

Distance education has burgeoned over the past decade and it continues to rapidly expand. The National Center for Educational Statistics reports that U.S. enrollments in postsecondary distance education courses nearly doubled between 1995 and 2000, with 56% of the nation’s two- and four-year institutions of higher education offering courses at a distance during the 2000-2001 academic year (Walts & Lewis, 2003). The Internet is the favorite medium of colleges and universities for presenting such courses. The anytime, anywhere delivery of courses by the Internet, known as ALNs (i.e., asynchronous learning networks) has become a viable alternative for students who either cannot or choose not to travel to campuses to attend traditional class meetings at predetermined times. Additionally, synchronous networks, such as chat rooms and MUDs (i.e., multiuser dungeons/dimensions/domains), are frequently used for educational purposes. Unlike ALNs, MUDs are real-time, text-based virtual realities that allow as many as 20 (and sometimes more) individuals from around the Internet to be simultaneously connected to a simulated physical space, such as a classroom or laboratory, populated with virtual objects that can be examined and manipulated. As a result of using the Internet for coursework, students will not usually meet one another face-to-face as they exchange ideas and construct knowledge through computer-mediated communication (CMC). The end result is the formation of a virtual community in which students and instructors engage in text-based conversations along with other diverse pedagogical tasks. They can do almost everything students do in a traditional face-to-face classroom environment, but they do it separated by space and/or time. This personal separation can contribute to weak feelings of community.
Sanctioning Mechanisms in Virtual Communities
Authors: Bertino Elisa , Squicciarini Anna Cinzia , Ferrari Elena
Published: May 2011

A virtual community is a composition of heterogeneous and independently designed subsystems, sharing services, resources, information, and knowledge to achieve a common goal. The concept of virtual community is very general and open to a number of interpretations (Ao & Misky, 2003; Sadighi & Sergot, 2002). Members belonging to a virtual community, indeed, may be represented by human beings, if the virtual community is a collection of people sharing common interests and ideas, or roles, programs or software/hardware modules, if the community is an automated system for sharing computing resources (Welch & Foster, 2002). The resource shared among a community may be computational resources as well as documents, information, or data. Whichever is the community-specific goal and features, assuming a community composed by interacting entities, several open issues need to be addressed, for instance, how to manage access policies to coordinate resource sharing, how to establish a community, how to oblige member communities to respect community policies, and so on. In the real world, to set up an organization it is necessary to perform some fundamental steps. First, the founder members have to draft a constitution, specifying the object and purpose of the organization, the rules, the kind of services and information provided. The constitution may be directly released to members or officially published in a registry’s Office. Furthermore, constitution must establish rules and responsibilities that each member has to follow. To join the community, a subject commonly has to apply for membership. The application consists of a procedure, where the applicant communicates his/her personal data, subscribes to the regulation of the community, and informs whether he/she has something to share, and which are the conditions under which he/she will release his/her services. Similarly, in order to start up a virtual community, it is necessary to define participant roles and resources to be shared, as well as a regulatory system composed of community laws and/or local laws defined by single members.
Social Impact of Virtual Networking
Authors: Rahman Hakikur
Published: May 2011

nformation has been defined as a set of data, facts, and figures that have been processed in such a way that they become meaningful. They make intelligence. When information is applied to doing something and is globally pertinent, it is said to have become knowledge. Information flow can be treated as an alternate wealth for a developing society and knowledge networking through virtual communication processes can break the lags and leads of information barriers. It can create an appropriate tool for achieving and facilitating exchange of information and knowledge among development partners, academia, policymakers, and the civil society at local, national, and global level to design and implement plans for development (Rahman, 2000). Virtual communities are the collection of online links to a particular node, examples of which are Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon, or smaller chat rooms or instant message buddy lists. These networks of links are freely chosen, democratic, unrestricted, and may even be anonymous or pseudonymous (Roberts, Smith, & Pollock, 2002). The concept of the virtual enterprise has emerged in management literature as the result of the fusion of technological advances and a claimed major socioeconomic paradigm shift. The virtual enterprise can be seen as a temporary alliance of contracted individuals or companies linked together by ICTs, which assembles for the purpose of a specific business task. Advocates of the virtual enterprise believe that it will replace the conventional model of organization in the 21st century (Introna, More, & Cushman, 1999). The virtual network is being increasingly promoted as a model for a new form of ICT-mediated communication endeavor. Initially, the concept of the virtual network and the supportive role of ICTs as conceived by its proponents need to be clarified. Based on the initial understanding, the establishment of community information centres as the existing instance of virtual enterprise needs to be done.
Trust in Virtual Communities
Authors: Park Eun G.
Published: May 2011

Trust is one of the key factors that emerged as a significant concept in virtual communities. Trust is so complicated that it is hard to define in one standardized way. Trust issues have evolved into two major ways in the fields of virtual community and security. Among a huge literature concerning trust in virtual communities, a majority of literature addresses technical solutions on trust-building by providing new Web-based applications. They range from human users authorization, semantic Web, agent technologies and access control of network to W3C standardization for content trust and security. Some examples include AT&T’s Policymaker or IBM’s Trust Establishment Module (Blaze, Feigenbaum, & Lacy, 1996; Herzberg, 2000). Only a minority deals with understanding the concept of trust and sources of trust-building from social and cultural aspects. It appears to miss the essence of trust in virtual communities, although an integrated approach is needed for building trust in communication and the use of virtual communities. This article aims to present the definition of trust and relevant concepts for recognizing sources of trust-building in virtual communities. This article also presents future research implications for further development on trust and trust-building in virtual communities.
Trust in Virtual Organizations
Authors: Mezgar István
Published: May 2011

Based on the results of the information and communications technologies (ICTs), a new “digital” economy is arising. This new economy needs a new set of rules and values, which determine the behavior of its actors. Participants in the digital market realize that traditional attitudes and perspectives in doing business need to be redefined. In this dynamic and turbulent environment that requires flexible and fast responses to changing business needs organizations have to respond by adopting decentralized, team-based, and distributed structures variously described in the literature as virtual, networked, cluster, and resilient virtual organizations. One main aspect of this approach is that organizations in this environment are networked, that is, interlinked on various levels through the use of different networking technologies. Today, besides the Internet, new solutions are offered: wireless networks. Collaboration and cooperation are main characteristics of virtual organizations, so the contacts among the users, the human beings, have outstanding importance. A very important element of this human contact is trust. In a networked organization, trust is the atmosphere, the medium in which actors are moving (Castelfranchi & Tan, 2001). Trust is the basis of cooperation, the normal behavior of the human being in the society. The ability of enterprises to form networked systems depends on the existing level of trust in the society and on the capital of society (Fukuyama, 1995). As the rate of cooperation is increasing in all fields of life, the importance of trust is evolving even faster. In this new organizational environment new methods and techniques of trust building have to be developed, as the conventional rules cannot be applied. According to different experiments, the level of trust between cooperating virtual teams is highly influenced by the type of communication and the duration of contacts.
Understanding Virtual Communities in Online Games
Authors: Park Kyonghwan , Lepawsky Josh
Published: May 2011

Along with rapid innovations in IT technology for the last few decades, the world of online games has emerged as one of the most exemplary and fast-growing forms of the Internet economy. Broadly, the term online game covers a variety of Internet-based computer games in which network users log on to host computers through the Internet and play with other users on a real-time basis. However, strictly speaking, there are at least three different subcategories within the online game: “network game” such as Blizzard’s Starcraft, “Internet game” such as MSN’s MSN Games, and “online game” in a narrow sense such as EA’s Ultima Online. Such differences include the number of gaming participants and the range of interactions allowed by a given game system, graphical richness, and the relative openness of a game’s spatiotemporal environment.
Virtual Communities and Social Capital Theory
Authors: Ridings Catherine M.
Published: May 2011

Imagine a neighborhood where young children can play freely in the streets and various backyards without direct parental oversight, the implication being that other adults in the vicinity will watch out for the children. If a parent is late getting home before the school bus, the children know which neighbors’ house to go to and will be well cared for until the parent arrives home. The residents are very willing to help each other, perhaps by moving a sofa down to a basement or lending a ladder for a project. In such a neighborhood, the first place one turns to for recommendations for plumbers, dry cleaners, and preschools, or perhaps to borrow a tool, is each other. Perhaps one person has secured a job for a neighbor’s daughter, and another family has “paved the way” for their neighbor’s entry into a country club. If a person has a need for emotional support to deal with a personal crisis, she turns to a neighbor. Such a neighborhood can be said to have social capital—that resource that comes from relations between people that makes lives more productive and easier. Social capital is not only created from groups of people living in very close proximity, such as in a neighborhood. It might be created between people belonging to the same church or civic group, or perhaps between people who met at a hospital support group for a particular affliction, or people who are alumni of a particular university. These groups of people can be said to constitute communities, or gatherings of people who have common interests or ties. In the past, these communities tended also to be focused in a local geographic area. This article will examine social capital in the context on online communities. Online communities, like physically based communities such as church groups or neighborhoods, can also be said to produce social capital for their members. These virtual communities can create and foster social capital—and indeed, it may be social capital that draws and retains their members. The background of social capital theory will be examined and then applied in the virtual community context.
Virtual Communities Wish List
Authors: Isaak James
Published: May 2011

Experience with virtual communities such as Yahoo Groups, Community Zero, Blackboard and WebCT and working with ad hoc and formal groups (such as IEEE committees) has provided a basis for a “wish list” of virtual community capabilities. For any given audience, purpose, life-cycle and culture the relevant elements of this list will vary (Kim, 2000). With emerging technology and evolving experience, additional elements should be added. This, then, is a starting point for identifying the specific requirements for a specific virtual community. Here, general functions are described, as well as functions as seen by users or administrators of a virtual community. The format is intentionally terse to facilitate the use of this information as the basis for a checklist in evaluating requirements, alternatives and priorities. The general concepts of “push” (data is delivered to users, e-mail being an example) and “pull” (where data is only available when the user chooses to seek it out) are highly relevant. Maintaining community “interaction” is dependent on having a core of participants who are regularly interacting, and the “push” model can facilitate this among less experienced users.
Virtual Marketplace for Agent-Based Electronic Commerce
Authors: Guan Sheng-Uei
Published: May 2011

With the ever-increasing amount of available online resources in general, information overload has become a very real problem. One possible solution is the application of software agents in e-commerce. Intelligent agents are already on the Web, freeing us from some of the drudgework of searching and automatically keeping us up to date. There are now many examples of software agents currently available on the Web. Shopping agents such as BargainBot, Excite’s Jango, and Andersen Consulting’s BargainFinder are but a few. However, they have their shortcomings, such as lack of purchasing capability and limited range of product selection. Furthermore, the current Web front end to an online storefront is not conducive to autonomous browsing by search agents. A more comprehensive solution would therefore be to build a virtual marketplace whereby producers and consumers can come together, and with the help of software agents, actively participate and conduct e-commerce. There are currently several agent-based marketplace systems that have been developed for purposes of electronic commerce, and these include Kasbah (Chavez & Maes, 1996), MAGMA (Tsvetovatyy & Gini, 1996), and MAGNET (Collins, Youngdahl, Jamison, Mobasher, & Gini, 1998). However, these systems have certain limitations and shortcomings which make them questionable for e-commerce applications. An example is the Kasbah system architecture which did not include any form of payment mechanisms. Another is MAGMA which is felt to be rather expensive on network bandwidth and the system performance is heavily reliant on network latencies as it communicates through socket connections. The objective of our research is to build a new virtual marketplace prototype whereby producers and consumers can meet and conduct e-commerce in cyberspace with the help of software agents.
Web Services and Virtual Communities
Authors: Zhang Qingyu
Published: May 2011

With the escalating need for global and flexible interactions in an increasingly networked society, virtual communities as a new model are becoming important for virtual communication and collaboration. Virtual community refers to a group of people who interact socially for mutual benefits in a shared cyberspace, and a social network of relationships that provide information and a sense of belongings (de Moor & van den Heuvel, 2004; Schubert & Ginsburg, 2000). Schubert and Ginsburg (2000) describe virtual communities as the union between individuals or organizations who share common values and interests using electronic media to regularly communicate within a shared semantic space. From a technical perspective, the communicative and collaborative functionalities of virtual communities mostly consist of standard components, modules and tools (Ludwid & Kluber, 2003). These software components and functionalities increasingly come in a form of Web services discovered and invoked via the Internet (de Moor & van den Heuvel, 2004). Virtual community can be realized by using Web services to take advantage of the convergence of software technologies (e.g., distributed computing, object orientation, WWW) and network technologies (e.g., voice/data service, IP, Internet) (Muschamp, 2004). Web services are interesting for virtual communities, since they allow community members, even non-technical ones, to combine Web services in new value-adding applications (de Moor & van den Heuvel, 2004). In the following sections, we are going to discuss what Web services are, why Web services are important and where they are going. In addition, we look at Web service architecture, standards, advantages, development platforms and semantic Web.
UML-based Modeling of Educational Components for Cooperative Problem-based Learning Situation Design
Authors: Laforcade P.
Published: May 2011

As common learning situations, Problem-Based Learning Situations (PBLS) require accurate template models in which the roles of tutor and learner participate in varied codified cooperative activities. This chapter discusses the use of the UML formalism to first build such customizable models, and next to derive Educational Components (EC) from models. The chapter contributes to reduce the lack of flexibility in “open” learning tools where distribution of components applies with some difficulty. It purposefully introduced the designer role for problem-based learning situations. This designer aims to assemble educational components in order to offer computer-aided learning supports. Model examples and techniques for the implementation of components are also briefly evoked.
Push and Pull Systems
Authors: Nicopolitidis Petros , Papadimitriou Georgios I. , Pomportsis Andreas S.
Published: May 2011

Data broadcasting has emerged as an efficient way for the dissemination of information over asymmetric wireless environments where the needs of the various users of the data items are usually overlapping. In such environments, data broadcasting stands to be an efficient solution since the broadcast of a single information item is likely to satisfy a possibly large number of users. Communications asymmetry is due to a number of facts, the most important being equipment, network, and application asymmetry. This chapter starts with a discussion of preliminary issues and terminology for asymmetric environments for data broadcasting. The chapter then discusses broadcast schedule construction for systems employing a single broadcast channel, schedule construction for systems employing multiple broadcast channels, and schedule construction for systems that take into account the effect of reception errors. It then presents an algorithm that tries to provide better support for clients whose access patterns deviate a lot form the overall access pattern of the client population. It also presents algorithms for environments where item requests by clients are dropped if not served in a certain time period. Brief comments on issues that affect performance of the discussed data broadcasting methods are also made.
Location-Dependent Data Access and Queries
Authors: Rabai Gyula , Imre Sandor
Published: May 2011

Location-dependent data access technology will create a new family of services in mobile telecommunication systems of the near future. This technology is based on positioning, communication over various protocols, and spatial databases. Location-dependent applications will be used in many fields such as emergency services, information services, and financial services. This chapter intends to present the infrastructure that makes it possible to create such services, and provides an insight on key application development issues. The focus is on location information access as the latest achievements of this research field are presented.
The Role of Relevance Feedback in Managing Multimedia Semantics
Authors: Zutshi Samar , Wilson Campbell , Krishnamurthy Shonali , Srinivasan Bala
Published: May 2011

Relevance feedback is a mature technique that has been used to take user subjectivity into account in multimedia retrieval. It can be seen as an attempt to bridge the semantic gap by keeping a human in the loop. A variety of techniques have been used to implement relevance feedback in existing retrieval systems. An analysis of these techniques is used to develop the requirements of a relevance feedback technique that aims to be capable of managing semantics in multimedia retrieval. It is argued that these requirements suggest a case for a user-centric framework for relevance feedback with low coupling to the retrieval engine.
Emergent Semantics from Media Blending
Authors: Altman Edward , Wyse Lonce
Published: May 2011

The computation of emergent semantics for blending media into creative compositions is based on the idea that meaning is endowed upon the media in the context of other media and through interaction with the user. The interactive composition of digital content in modern production environments remains a challenging problem since much critical semantic information resides implicitly within the media, the relationships between media models, and the aesthetic goals of the creative artist. The composition of heterogeneous media types depends upon the formulation of integrative structures for the discovery and management of semantics. This semantics emerges through the application of generic blending operators and a domain ontology of pre-existing media assets and synthesis models. In this chapter, we will show the generation of emergent semantics from blending networks in the domains of audio generation from synthesis models, automated home video editing, and information mining from multimedia presentations.
Video Data Management and Information Retrieval
Authors: Deb Sagarmay
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, we present a basic introduction to two very important areas of research in the domain of Information Technology, namely, video data management and video information retrieval. Both of these areas need additional research efforts to seek solutions to many unresolved problems for efficient data management and information retrieval. We discuss those issues and relevant works done so far in these two fields.
HYDRA
Authors: Zimmermann Roger , Fu Kun , Desai Dwipal A.
Published: May 2011

This chapter describes the design for High-performance Data Recording Architecture (HYDRA). Presently, digital continuous media (CM) are well established as an integral part of many applications. In recent years, a considerable amount of research has focused on the efficient retrieval of such media for many concurrent users. The authors argue that scant attention has been paid to large-scale servers that can record such streams in real time. However, more and more devices produce direct digital output streams, either over wired or wireless networks, and various applications are emerging to make use of them. For example, cameras now provide the means in many industrial applications to monitor, visualize, and diagnose events. Hence, the need arises to capture and store these streams with an efficient data stream recorder that can handle both recording and playback of many streams simultaneously and provide a central repository for all data. With this chapter, the authors present the design of the HYDRA system, which uses a unified architecture that integrates multi-stream recording and retrieval in a coherent paradigm, and hence provides support for these emerging applications.
Wearable and Ubiquitous Video Data Management for Computational Augmentation of Human Memory
Authors: Kawamura Tatsuyuki , Ueoka Takahiro , Kono Yasuyuki , Kidode Masatsugu
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces video data management techniques for computational augmentation of human memory, i.e., augmented memory, on wearable and ubiquitous computers used in our everyday life. The ultimate goal of augmented memory is to enable users to conduct themselves using human memories and multimedia data seamlessly anywhere, anytime. In particular, a user’s viewpoint video is one of the most important triggers for recalling past events that have been experienced. We believe designing augmented memory system is a practical issue for real world-oriented video data management. This chapter also describes a framework for an augmented memory albuming system named Sceneful Augmented Remembrance Album (SARA). In the SARA framework, we have developed three modules for retrieving, editing, transporting, and exchanging augmented memory. Both the Residual Memory module and the I’m Here! module enable a wearer to retrieve video data that he/she wants to recall in the real world. The Ubiquitous Memories module is proposed for editing, transporting, and exchanging video data via real world objects. Lastly, we discuss future works for the proposed framework and modules.
Adaptive Summarization of Digital Video Data
Authors: Farog Waleed E. , Abdel-Wahab Hussein
Published: May 2011

As multimedia applications are rapidly spreading at an ever-increasing rate, efficient and effective methodologies for organizing and manipulating these data become a necessity. One of the basic problems with such systems is finding efficient ways to summarize the huge amount of data involved. In this chapter, we start by defining the problem of key frames extraction, then review a number of proposed techniques to accomplish that task, showing their pros and cons. After that, we describe two adaptive algorithms proposed to effectively select key frames from segmented video shots where both apply a two-level adaptation mechanism. These algorithms constitute the second stage of a Video Content-based Retrieval (VCR) system that has been designed at Old Dominion University. The first adaptation level is based on the size of the input video file, while the second level is performed on a shot-by-shot basis to account for the fact that different shots have different levels of activity. Experimental results show the efficiency and robustness of the proposed algorithms in selecting the near-optimal set of key frames required to represent each shot.
Video Presentation Model
Authors: Hsu Hun-Hui , Liao Yi-Chun , Liu Yi-Jen , Shih Timothy K.
Published: May 2011

Lecture-on-Demand (LOD) multimedia presentation technologies among the network are most often used in many communication services. Examples of those applications include video-on-demand, interactive TV and the communication tools on a distance-learning system, and so on. We describe how to present different multimedia objects on a Web-based presentation system. Using characterization of extended media-streaming technologies, we developed a comprehensive system for advanced multimedia content production: support for recording the presentation, retrieving the content, summarizing the presentation, and customizing the presentation. This approach significantly impacts and supports the multimedia presentation authoring processes in terms of methodology and commercial aspects. Using the browser with the Windows Media Services allows those students to view live video of the teacher giving his or her speech, along with synchronized images of presentation slides, and all the annotations/comments. In our experience, this very approach is sufficient to the use of distance learning environment.
A Soft-Decision Histogram from the HSV Color Space for Video Shot Detection
Authors: Sural Shamik , Mohan M. , Malumdar A. K.
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, we describe a histogram with soft decision using the Hue, Saturation, Intensity Value (HSV) color space for effective detection of video shot boundaries. In the histogram, we choose the relative importance of hue and intensity depending on the saturation of each pixel. In traditional histograms, each pixel contributes to only one component of the histogram. However, we suggest a soft-decision approach in which each pixel contributes to two components of the histogram. We have done a detailed study of the various frame-to-frame distance measures using the proposed histogram and an Red, Green, Blue (RGB) histogram for video shot detection. The results show that the new histogram has a better shot-detection performance for each of the distance measures. A Web-based application has been developed for video retrieval, which is freely accessible to interested users.
Epistemology and Knowledge Management
Authors: Aarons Jeremy
Published: May 2011

This article surveys and explores the relationship between epistemology and knowledge management (KM). Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and extent of human knowledge (Klein, 1998b). Knowledge management is clearly deeply indebted to many ideas derived from epistemology. Much of the seminal work in KM discusses epistemology in a fair amount of detail, and explicitly appeals to insights from epistemology in developing a theoretical account of KM. In particular, the groundbreaking works by Sveiby (1994, 1997, 2001), Nonaka (1994), and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) make explicit appeal to the philosophical insights in epistemology, which has provided the groundwork for much of their pioneering work in knowledge management. One would thus expect there to be a fairly intimate connection between epistemology and knowledge management. The relationship between these two fields, however, is far from straightforward.
Mathematical Knowledge Management
Authors: Farmer William M.
Published: May 2011

Mathematical knowledge is significantly different from other kinds of knowledge. It is abstract, universal, highly structured, extraordinarily interconnected, and of immense size. Managing it is difficult and requires special techniques and tools.
Analysing a Rural Community's Reception of ICT in Ghana
Authors: Pryor John
Published: May 2011

The Fiankoma Project was a development awareness (DA) initiative run by the Video Educational Trust aiming to link the small rural community of Fiankoma (Ghana) with people and institutions in Brighton UK through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). People in both settings produced accounts of their lives using digital media that were turned into a Web site for cultural exchange and development education. A parallel research project Understandings of education in an African village: The impact of information and communication technologies1 studied the effects of the intervention on the Ghanaian community, seeking to gain the perspective of rural Africans on ICT and development and particularly education. Ethnographic and participatory methods enabled the research to achieve an unusual perspective on these issues (Thomas & Ahmed, 2004; Chambers, 2003).
The Arab World, Culture and Information Technology
Authors: El Louadi Mohamed
Published: May 2011

In 801, Harun Rashid offered Charlemagne a water clock, the like of which was inexistent in all of Europe at that time; the King’s court thought that a little devil was hidden inside the clock. In the 1930s, King Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia had to convince his people that the radio was not the making of the devil and that it could in fact be used to broadcast and spread the Quran. In 2003, the Arab region is found to be still lagging in modern technologies adoption (UNDP, 2003). Thus, in a little more than 11 centuries, the Arabs were transformed from leaders to adopters, then to late adopters as far as technologies are concerned.
Assessment of E-Government Projects
Authors: De Rahul
Published: May 2011

This article considers the issues relevant to assessing the success or failure of large-scale e-government projects in India. Prior research has highlighted a number of possible reasons why e-government systems in Less Developed Countries (LDCs) fail, underscoring, principally, the issue of the design-reality gap or design-actuality gap. We find that this analysis, though useful, is inadequate to capture the immense complexity of e-government systems design and implementation. This article proposes and elaborates on three issues that must be examined in the context of any e-government system in an LDC to assess its success or failure, in addition to other analyses. These issues are: demand- and supply-side stakeholder analysis, second order effects, and analysis of incentives for governance efficiency. We use the Bhoomi e-government system implemented in the state of Karnataka, India, as an exemplary system to elaborate on these issues and also to discuss concrete the theoretical aspects.
Civic Space Portal
Authors: Arkyhypska Olesya , Bilous Svitlana , Yarinich Vitaly
Published: May 2011

Internet use in Ukraine has grown rapidly over the past years. In January 2001, the number of Internet users constituted 4.6% of the Ukraine’s population, in January 2002—5.5%. In 2003, the number of Ukrainian e-users reached 8% of Ukrainian population or 3.8 million people (Press release, 2003). Research shows that about 2% of Ukrainian men and 2% of women have access to the Internet at home. Thirty-seven percent use Internet at work, 22% at home and 21% in Internet access sites (e.g., Internet cafes, libraries, etc.). Thirteen percent of Ukrainians residing in cities with the population of more than 500,000 inhabitants are Internet users, however in other areas of Ukraine its rate is lower—only 1%.
Developing Regional Tourism Using Information Communications Technology
Authors: Carson Dean
Published: May 2011

Tourism and hospitality industries are heavily reliant on the effective exchange of information between suppliers, intermediaries, regulatory and marketing agencies, and consumers (Sheldon, 1999). Many technologies may be employed to facilitate this exchange, with the selection of the most appropriate technologies in any given circumstance depending on issues such as the proximity of agents; the extent to which information is dynamic; and the application of information as part of business or decision-making processes.
Digital Divide and the ICT Paradigm Generally and in Estonia
Authors: Kalvet Tarmo
Published: May 2011

A multitude of writings have appeared since the 1970s describing how societies have undergone “information revolutions” (Bell, 1973; Castells, 1998; Masuda, 1981), “the third wave” (Toffler, 1980), etc. Indeed, ICT development has been explosive in both developed and developing countries since the 1990s. This, in turn, has given some countries an opportunity for bigger economic growth; attempts have been made in a majority of countries to rearrange the organization of the public sector, and individuals have experienced a rise in the quality of life due to the introduction of new technologies.
E-Africa Initiative for Good Governance
Authors: Misuraca Gianluca
Published: May 2011

There is no doubt that the need for all around improvement of performance is very urgent for African governments and that ICT is valuable in decision-making, planning and management support in all sectors of the economy. In this regard, in Africa, there is a clear recognition of the opportunities than can be exploited using ICT within the framework of enhancing governance. As underlined by the United Nations Development Programme¾Human Development Report 2001, “Making New Technologies Work for Human Development”, technology networks are transforming the traditional map of development, expanding people’s horizons, and creating the potential to realize in a decade progress that required generations in the past.