bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Social Network Analysis in Marketing
Authors: Kazienko Przemyslaw , Doskocz Piotr , Kajdanowicz Tomasz
Published: May 2012

The chapter describes a method how to perform a classification task without any demographic features and based only on the social network data. The concept of such collective classification facilitates to identify potential customers by means of services used or products purchased by the current customers, i.e. classes they belong to as well as using social relationships between the known and potential customers. As a result, a personalized offer can be prepared for the new clients. This innovative marketing method can boost targeted marketing campaigns.
A License Revocation Protocol Supporting Digital License Reselling in a Consumer-to-Consumer Model
Authors: Gaber Tarek , Zhang Ning
Published: May 2012

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is an important technology supporting e-commerce systems and online marketing, enabling content owners and market intermediaries to securely manage and deliver digital content. In addition, P2P (peer-to-peer) networks play a pro-motive role in e-commerce. However, it facilitates illegal access to copyrighted media which may cause a violation of content owners’ rights. P2P could support legal digital content transfer—reselling digital content. One peer (a reseller) could use P2P technology to send a digital content and its license to another peer (a buyer). A reseller could continue to resell it many times, causing content owners to lose revenue. This paper presents a License Revocation Protocol (LRP) to support reselling of a digital license. This LRP protocol enables a license issuer, representing a content owner, to confirm that once a reseller has resold his license, the reseller cannot continue to use the license. With LRP protocol, a reseller does not get the license payment until he revokes his resold license. The LRP protocol does not make use of any additional trusted hardware device, thus making the protocol more cost-effective.
Mobile Customer Relationship Management (mCRM)
Authors: Silberer Günter , Schulz Sebastian
Published: May 2012

Customer Relationship Management is conducive to providing customer information and the correct way to deal with customers. After the advent of the world-wide-web (www), which brought an increase in customer data and intensified CRM discussions in its wake, we are now entering the age of computerized mobile communication with diverse possibilities to enlist the services of mobile people. This chapter outlines the new and latest technological developments and the resultant capabilities of mobile CRM. Looking to a future in which mobile marketing efforts may become increasingly important, the erosion of personal freedom and the threat to this freedom becomes all the more significant. The findings from reactance research do not only specify the reactance conditions but also the reactance consequences. Previous research has sometimes pointed to self-determination as an acceptance factor yet failed to analyze the reactance risk more closely. This chapter will attempt to close this gap. In this respect, the initial findings of an empirical study will be presented, revealing that the acceptance of mobile services is surprisingly low and the reactance risk for mobile services is not to be underestimated, and that reactance involves the corresponding behavior on the part of the user. The plea is to consider the acceptance risk in the mobile CRM of the future and select a customer-friendly permission policy.
Viral Marketing via Social Networking Sites
Authors: Jayasekera Ranadeva , Papadopoulos Thanos
Published: May 2012

This chapter focuses on the role of social networking sites in viral marketing through a case study in a university environment. Over the last years, companies are using alternative channels including social networking sites to promote their products. The specific channel provides the opportunity to connect with customers and achieve marketing objectives. The study aims to gather the perspectives of students on social networking sites as a form of marketing and draw on their views to establish implications and practical recommendations for marketers. By using questionnaires and focus groups interviews, the study ascertained that companies which were active in social networking sites developed a positive effect on customer attitudes, particularly brand perception, but had little to no effect on the actual customer behaviour patterns. It is also concluded that social networking sites suggest an efficient alternative channel for marketing purposes.
Strategies for an Integrated Distribution Problem
Authors: Lourenço Helena R. , Ribeiro Rita
Published: May 2012

Problems arising in the logistics of commercial distribution are complex and involve several players and decision levels. One of the most important decisions is the design of the routes to distribute the products in an efficient and inexpensive way but also satisfying marketing objectives such as customer loyalty. This chapter explores three different distribution routing strategies. The first strategy corresponds to the classical vehicle routing problem where total distance or cost is minimized. This one is usually an objective of the Logistics department. The second strategy is a master route strategy with daily adaptations where customer loyalty is maximized, which is one of the objectives of the Marketing department. The authors propose a third strategy which takes into account the cross-functional planning between the Logistics and the Marketing department through a multi-objective model. All strategies are analyzed in a multi-period scenario. A metaheuristic algorithm based on the Iterated Local Search is proposed and applied to optimize each strategy. An analysis and comparison of the three strategies is presented through a computational experiment. The cross-functional planning strategy leads to solutions that put in practice the coordination between the two functional areas of Marketing and Logistics and better meet business objectives in general.
Ariel Egypt
Authors: Tolba Ahmed
Published: May 2012

This case study examines the past and present challenges facing Ariel, a long-time market leader in the detergent sector in Egypt whose market share has started to slip. In particular, it examines the marketing strategies and performance of Ariel High Suds, which is witnessing a declining market share as well as a decline in the overall high-suds market due to fierce competition and the growing low-suds market in Egypt.
Exploring E-Marketing Practises as Tool for Globalisation by Egyptian SBEs
Authors: El-Gohary Hatem
Published: May 2012

This chapter aims to add to the accumulative knowledge in the field of E-marketing through exploring E-Marketing practises by Egyptian small business enterprises as a tool for globalisation. An organised systematic examination of the published work related to E-Marketing practises by small business enterprises is discussed and illustrated. Moreover, the chapter demonstrates that although many Egyptian small business enterprises seems to conduct E-Marketing activities, only very small number of these enterprises conduct an effective and efficient E-Marketing activities for expanding globally. The chapter illustrates an exploratory research to explore the current aspects related to E-Marketing adoption and implementation by Egyptian small business enterprises as a tool for globalisation. The main aim of conducting such exploratory study is to achieve a deep and reflective understanding of E-Marketing practises by Egyptian small business enterprises as a tool for globalisation. The results of the fieldwork research conducted by the author through survey and case studies will enable authors, entrepreneurs, policy makers, students and practitioners to build a greater understanding of E-Marketing practises by Egyptian small businesses. Moreover, the chapter will help authors and scholars in the field of E-Marketing to have a clearer view towards suitable future research studies in the field of E-Marketing that in turn will contribute to the related accumulated knowledge in the field.
A Comparative Analysis of Online Social Networking Sites and Their Business Models
Authors: Yang T. Andrew , Kim Dan J.
Published: May 2012

In the world of e-marketing, new business models are introduced to accommodate changes caused by various factors, including the markets, the services, the customers, among others. One latest trend of e-marketing is social networking Web sites, many of which have attracted not only large number of users and visitors, but also business companies to place their online ads on the sites. As an important example of Web 2.0 applications, online social networks deserve comprehensive studying and analysis; they are not only employed as an effective vehicle of e-marketing, but may impact how future Web-based applications would be developed. In this chapter, we explore online social networking as a new trend of e-marketing, by conducting a comparative analysis of online social networking sites. We first discuss the various types of online social networks, based on the classification by Laudon & Traver (2008), and then analyze online social networks from a business strategy point of view, by discussing the primary revenue models for online social networking sites. The primary contribution of this chapter is a comparative analysis and discussions of representative online social networking sites and their respective revenue model(s). This chapter aims to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the emerging online social networking Web sites and their primary revenue models.
Internet Marketing and SMEs
Authors: Doiron Daniel John
Published: May 2012

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been adopting the internet at a feverish pace. Recent studies have shown that up to 85% of SMEs in industrialized countries have web sites, yet less than half are utilizing these web sites to securely transact with their customers. Consumer media consumption is moving away from traditional media, like newspapers, to the internet. These revelations coupled with the growth of tools and techniques available to support online marketing, make it a perfect time for SMEs to market their web sites and ultimately succeed online. In this chapter we will present and support the hypothesis that SMEs should stop investing in their web site’s design and functionality and start investing in efforts to market their web sites online, no matter how lousy their web site may be in comparison to today’s standards. With the support of two case studies, illustrating the successful utilization of internet marketing by two very different SMEs, we will relate how a SME can effectively market their web site online. We will also discuss the tools and techniques available to help an SME successfully begin a journey of internet marketing.
Encouraging Engagement in Game-Based Learning
Authors: Whitton Nicola
Published: May 2012

It is a common misconception that game-based learning is, by its very nature, engaging for the majority of learners. This is not necessarily the case, particularly for learners in Higher Education who may need to be persuaded of the value of learning games. For some learners, games may simply not be perceived as engaging–either in terms of an initial motivation to play or sustained participation. This paper describes the Alternate Reality Games for Orientation, Socialisation and Induction (ARGOSI) project, which experienced unexpectedly low motivation and participation. Despite extensive marketing, only a small fraction of potential students participated in the game and of those a far smaller number were highly engaged. Evidence from the project is presented and the reasons for the lack of engagement in the game created are considered. Finally the paper reflects on ways in which engagement with game-based learning might be encouraged.
Designing an Ethical Structure for Social Influence Marketing (SIM)
Authors: Schafer Stephen Brock , Palamides Thomas
Published: May 2012

Unprecedented advances in media technology have created the need to define ethics for a media-age ontology that combines the dynamics of physics and psychology. This unprecedented human reality has been called the media-sphere, and it appears to have all the dimensions and dynamics of dreams as defined by Carl Jung. Because of the dreamlike dynamics and structural dimensions of the media sphere, its psychological dynamics may be contemplated in terms of Jungian dream analysis which is intrinsically ethical. The Jungian model for dream analysis is structurally and dynamically consistent with the most recent discoveries in cognitive research. Because of its subjective, emotive, interactive integrity as defined by Aristotle’s dramatic unities, dramatic structure is a common denominator for the study of conscious-unconscious cognitive states. This chapter explores the ethics of social influence marketing (SIM) relative to the dynamics and standards of morality implied by cognitive principles of Analytical Psychology.
Understanding the Factors Affecting the Adoption of E-Marketing by Small Business Enterprises
Authors: El-Gohary Hatem , Trueman Myfanwy , Fukukawa Kyoko
Published: May 2012

The chapter builds on the current body of knowledge in the field of E-Marketing through a survey and organised systematic examination of the published work related to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) and E-Marketing adoption by Small Business Enterprises. Furthermore, the chapter illustrates that although many E-Marketing adoption factors are driven from the literature of E-Marketing, as well as the technology adoption theories like TAM and IDT, only some of these factors are found to significantly affect the adoption of E-Marketing by Small Business Enterprises. This review and the results of the fieldwork research conducted by the authors will enable entrepreneurs, policy makers, students and practitioners to build a greater understanding of E-Marketing adoption in a small business context. Moreover, the chapter will help researchers and scholars in the field of E-Marketing to have a clearer view towards suitable future research studies in the field of E-Marketing that in turn will contribute to the related accumulated knowledge in the field.
Management of World Heritage Sites
Authors: Chhabra Deepak
Published: May 2012

This study seeks to determine sustainable efforts by the world heritage sites (WHS). By gauging the effectiveness and efforts of the WHS to convey viable social, environmental, and economic use of their resource through the medium of website marketing, effort is made to highlight the extent to which sustainability initiatives are visible in the vision and mission and signature websites. In doing so, it makes a significant contribution in heritage tourism literature and communicates a critical assessment of sustainability initiatives to the WHS management and respective states. Mixed results are presented. Although, the World Heritage Convention supports an exhaustive list of site-centric heritage sustainability initiatives associated with conservation and authenticity, other aspects of sustainability such as host community concerns, social and viable economic impact considerations to date have received less attention.
Segmentation Challenges Posed by ‘Transnationals’ in Mobile Marketing
Authors: Sirkeci Ibrahim , Mannix Richard
Published: May 2012

Mobile technologies have posed new challenges for marketers as well as opportunities in an increasingly global market with high human mobility within and across borders. To understand and address customer needs more effectively, this chapter proposes to add new variables to market segmentations formula such as change of residence, movement and commuting distance/hours. A discussion of ‘mobile nationals’, and ‘transnationals’, as segments, is undertaken. The transnationals segment includes immigrants, refugees, tourists as well as businesspeople and professionals whose careers span into several countries. These groups create multiple reference points, which are likely to determine their characteristics and behaviour. This is an emerging and promising customer segment particularly for mobile marketing and mobile services. To explore the viability of such a segment, we have made use of several existing theoretical frameworks and concepts of segmentation. Future research should focus on the identification of transnational and national mobile segments while also developing and fine tuning the new variables –movement, change of residence and commuting for segmentation theory.
The Impact of Gender and Age on Consumer Responsiveness to Permission-Based Mobile Advertising
Authors: Karjaluoto Heikki , Lehto Heikki , Leppäniemi Matti
Published: May 2012

This chapter investigates the impact of gender and age on mobile marketing responsiveness among regular customers of Finnish night club chain. The study develops sixteen research propositions which are tested with a sample of 8578 members of the company’s permission- based, opt-in mobile advertising list . The results contribute to mobile marketing and technology acceptance literature in various ways. First, the authors find support for four out of eight gender related propositions. Second, five out of the eight age-related hypotheses are supported. The results further show that among opt-in customers, gender and age explain various antecedents of intention to engage in mobile marketing. The study provides several theoretical and managerial contributions and outlines vital avenues for further investigation in the field.
Theories behind Mobile Marketing Research
Authors: Vatanparast Ramin
Published: May 2012

The future of mobile communication is expected to rely on mobile services and revenue generated through mobile marketing. Marketing activities supported by mobile devices allow companies to directly communicate with their consumers without location or time barriers. It is becoming vital for today’s marketers to understand the processes behind the factors affecting consumers’ intention to use and adopt mobile marketing. One can often argue that the mobile marketing adoption is difficult to understand due to a lack of relevant research. However, much research has already been conducted on the adoption of mobile services and technology acceptance that likely can support mobile marketing research. Thus it is essential for mobile marketing researchers to get a thorough understanding of the theory behind mobile service adoption and technology acceptance. Theories in this area have been developed gradually and built up on each other. This chapter covers some of the theories and related models and shows how those could be used in mobile services and mobile marketing research.
Moral Guidelines for Marketing Good Corporate Conduct Online
Authors: Stoll Mary Lyn
Published: May 2012

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is highly valuable for transnational corporations, but entails special requirements of heightened honesty in the marketing of CSR as compared to other goods and services. Companies need help in finding appropriate venues for advertising CSR. The Internet is an ideal medium for advertising CSR because it affords a global reach and greater space than the confines of standard advertising venues. However, using the Internet also poses special challenges in terms of perceived epistemic criteria for truth in a company’s online presence. This chapter highlights both the problems and benefits of marketing good corporate conduct online and provides moral guidelines for marketers of good corporate conduct.
Integrating Mobile Marketing into the Marketing Communication
Authors: Nasir Süphan
Published: May 2012

With the increasing growth and sophistication of mobile communications, companies integrate the mobile channel into their marketing communication and campaigns. Companies are able to execute very different and creative mobile marketing campaigns by using a wide range of mobile platforms such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), Short Message Service (SMS), and Multimedia Message Service (MMS). The purpose of this chapter is to review and exemplify the concepts, objectives, strategies and promotional tactics associated with mobile marketing campaigns; so that the review of relevant literature and exemplification of mobile marketing campaigns provide an insight into the nature of mobile marketing campaigns.
The Marketing Strategies and Applications of English Language Teaching (ELT) Programs via Distance Education
Authors: Usun Salih , Komur Sevki
Published: May 2012

The main aim of this descriptive study is to review the marketing strategies and applications of English Language Teaching (ELT) programs via distance education. The study, firstly, introduces the role of English as a global language in the 21st century and the importance of marketing of English Language Teaching (ELT) programs, examines using ways of distance education and distance teacher training in ELT, and finally, presents the some sample of websites on marketing ELT programs and products via e-Learning.
From E-Commerce to V-Commerce
Authors: Jones Susan
Published: May 2012

This introductory chapter provides an overview of e-commerce marketing focused on history, trends and future predictions for the field – leading into the development and application of virtual worlds and v-commerce. It begins with a discussion of the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. Next is a survey of developments in marketing convergence, as businesses integrate their customer-centric online/offline marketing efforts and databases. The chapter continues with an overview of business-to-business Internet marketing, including the profit strategies businesses employ in the online world. A commentary on the evolution of browsers, portals and search engines is followed by a discussion of social networking’s movement toward a money-making model. To set the stage for the chapters to come, the piece concludes with a preview of what is on the horizon for “v-commerce” – with opportunities and applications that are capturing the imagination of consumers and marketers alike.
The Event Search Engine
Authors: Okadome Takeshi , Kishino Yasue , Maekawa Takuya , Kamei Koji , Yanagisawa Yutaka , Sakurai Yasushi
Published: May 2012

In a remote or local environment in which a sensor network always collects data produced by sensors attached to physical objects, the engine presented here saves the data sent through the Internet and searches for data segments that correspond to real-world events by using natural language (NL) words in a query that are input in an web browser. The engine translates each query into a physical quantity representation searches for a sensor data segment that satisfies the representation, and sends back the event occurrence time, place, or related objects as a reply to the query to the remote or local environment in which the web browser displays them. The engine, which we expect to be one of the upcoming Internet services, exemplifies the concept of symbiosis that bridges the gaps between the real space and the digital space.
Robust Feature Vector Set Using Higher Order Autocorrelation Coefficients
Authors: Bansal Poonam , Dev Amita , Jain Shail
Published: May 2012

In this paper, a feature extraction method that is robust to additive background noise is proposed for automatic speech recognition. Since the background noise corrupts the autocorrelation coefficients of the speech signal mostly at the lower orders, while the higher-order autocorrelation coefficients are least affected, this method discards the lower order autocorrelation coefficients and uses only the higher-order autocorrelation coefficients for spectral estimation. The magnitude spectrum of the windowed higher-order autocorrelation sequence is used here as an estimate of the power spectrum of the speech signal. This power spectral estimate is processed further by the Mel filter bank; a log operation and the discrete cosine transform to get the cepstral coefficients. These cepstral coefficients are referred to as the Differentiated Relative Higher Order Autocorrelation Coefficient Sequence Spectrum (DRHOASS). The authors evaluate the speech recognition performance of the DRHOASS features and show that they perform as well as the MFCC features for clean speech and their recognition performance is better than the MFCC features for noisy speech.
A Web Knowledge Discovery Engine Based on Concept Algebra
Authors: Hu Kai , Wang Yingxu , Tian Yousheng
Published: May 2012

Autonomous on-line knowledge discovery and acquisition play an important role in cognitive informatics, cognitive computing, knowledge engineering, and computational intelligence. On the basis of the latest advances in cognitive informatics and denotational mathematics, this paper develops a web knowledge discovery engine for web document restructuring and comprehension, which decodes on-line knowledge represented in informal documents into cognitive knowledge represented by concept algebra and concept networks. A visualized concept network explorer and a semantic analyzer are implemented to capture and refine queries based on concept algebra. A graphical interface is built using concept and semantic models to refine users’ queries. To enable autonomous information restructuring by machines, a two-level knowledge base that mimics human lexical/syntactical and semantic cognition is introduced. The information restructuring model provides a foundation for automatic concept indexing and knowledge extraction from web documents. The web knowledge discovery engine extends machine learning capability from imperative and adaptive information processing to autonomous and cognitive knowledge processing with unstructured documents in natural languages.
Approximations in Rough Sets vs Granular Computing for Coverings
Authors: Liu Guilong , Zhu William
Published: May 2012

Rough set theory is an important technique in knowledge discovery in databases. Classical rough set theory proposed by Pawlak is based on equivalence relations, but many interesting and meaningful extensions have been made based on binary relations and coverings, respectively. This paper makes a comparison between covering rough sets and rough sets based on binary relations. This paper also focuses on the authors’ study of the condition under which the covering rough set can be generated by a binary relation and the binary relation based rough set can be generated by a covering.
Further Considerations of Classification-Oriented and Approximation-Oriented Rough Sets in Generalized Settings
Authors: Inuiguchi Masahiro
Published: May 2012

Rough sets can be interpreted in two ways: classification of objects and approximation of a set. From this point of view, classification-oriented and approximation-oriented rough sets have been proposed. In this paper, the author reconsiders those two kinds of rough sets with reviewing their definitions, properties and relations. The author describes that rough sets based on positive and negative extensive relations are mathematically equivalent but it is important to consider both because they obtained positive and negative extensive relations are not always in inverse relation in the real world. The difference in size of granules between union-based and intersection-based approximations is emphasized. Moreover, the types of decision rules associated with those rough sets are shown.
Feature Reduction with Inconsistency
Authors: Liu Yong , Jiang Yunliang , Yang Jianhua
Published: May 2012

Feature selection is a classical problem in machine learning, and how to design a method to select the features that can contain all the internal semantic correlation of the original feature set is a challenge. The authors present a general approach to select features via rough set based reduction, which can keep the selected features with the same semantic correlation as the original feature set. A new concept named inconsistency is proposed, which can be used to calculate the positive region easily and quickly with only linear temporal complexity. Some properties of inconsistency are also given, such as the monotonicity of inconsistency and so forth. The authors also propose three inconsistency based attribute reduction generation algorithms with different search policies. Finally, a “mini-saturation” bias is presented to choose the proper reduction for further predictive designing.
Amplification of Signal Features Using Variance Fractal Dimension Trajectory
Authors: Kinsner Witold , Grieder Warren
Published: May 2012

This paper describes how the selection of parameters for the variance fractal dimension (VFD) multiscale time-domain algorithm can create an amplification of the fractal dimension trajectory that is obtained for a natural-speech waveform in the presence of ambient noise. The technique is based on the variance fractal dimension trajectory (VFDT) algorithm that is used not only to detect the external boundaries of an utterance, but also its internal pauses representing the unvoiced speech. The VFDT algorithm can also amplify internal features of phonemes. This fractal feature amplification is accomplished when the time increments are selected in a dyadic manner rather than selecting the increments in a unit distance sequence. These amplified trajectories for different phonemes are more distinct, thus providing a better characterization of the individual segments in the speech signal. This approach is superior to other energy-based boundary-detection techniques. Observations are based on extensive experimental results on speech utterances digitized at 44.1 kilosamples per second, with 16 bits in each sample.
Some Remarks on the Concept of Approximations from the View of Knowledge Engineering
Authors: Lin Tsau Young , Barot Rushin , Tsumoto Shusaku
Published: May 2012

The concepts of approximations in granular computing (GrC) vs. rough set theory (RS) are examined. Examples are constructed to contrast their differences in the Global GrC Model (2nd GrC Model), which, in pre-GrC term, is called partial coverings. Mathematically speaking, RS-approximations are “sub-base” based, while GrC-approximations are “base” based, where “sub-base” and “base” are two concepts in topological spaces. From the view of knowledge engineering, its meaning in RS-approximations is rather obscure, while in GrC, it is the concept of knowledge approximations.
Populating Knowledge Based Decision Support Systems
Authors: García-Manotas Ignacio , Lupiani Eduardo , García-Sánchez Francisco , Valencia-García Rafael
Published: May 2012

Knowledge-based decision support systems (KBDSS) hold up business and organizational decision-making activities on the basis of the knowledge available concerning the domain under question. One of the main problems with knowledge bases is that their construction is a time-consuming task. A number of methodologies have been proposed in the context of the Semantic Web to assist in the development of ontology-based knowledge bases. In this paper, we present a technique for populating knowledge bases from semi-structured text which take advantage of the semantic underpinnings provided by ontologies. This technique has been tested and evaluated in the financial domain
Access and Use of Information by Primary Health Care Providers in Rural Uganda
Authors: Musoke Maria G. N.
Published: May 2012

This article summarises findings from a qualitative study conducted in rural Uganda, East Africa. The main aim of the study was to investigate the accessibility and use of health information in the lower echelons of Primary Health Care (PHC). Women, as PHC providers in an African family, were the focus as well as health workers. An interview schedule that consisted of open questions and one relating to health information critical incidents were used. A holistic inductive paradigm was adopted with a grounded theory analysis. The findings highlight a model of information behaviour that was driven by the value and impact of information unlike previous information models, which have been driven by information needs. The value and effect of information on PHC was as experienced and reported by the interviewees. Implications of the study and areas for further research are highlighted.
The Evaluation of Library Services Methods
Authors: Meletiou Aristeidis
Published: May 2012

In these competitive years of continuing change, libraries enrich their services with modern technologies and innovative approaches to satisfy users’ standards. This engagement significantly increases the effects of these new inputs on library budgets as new technology applications demand money and new organization schemes. Consequently, the annual budget has to be increased and difficulties arise due to its efficient allocation. This paper describes a methodology of evaluating offered services by using specific important factors like Users Satisfaction of a Service, Usage, and Cost of this service. Known methods for estimating Costs (ABC method) and estimating Satisfaction (MUSA method) in library fields are used. Also, the multi-criteria method to evaluate a service by correlating the above mentioned factors are used to give the observer the ability to find useful information. Finally, a case study about the evaluation of services using the proposed methodology is presented. The goal of the proposed methodology is to help library decision makers choose the most appropriate services to offer change and improvements according to user needs and allocated budgets.
An Empirical Study of Group Awareness Information in a Web-Based Group Decision Support System
Authors: Jongsawat Nipat , Premchaiswadi Wichian
Published: May 2012

Group awareness information is important information for group work. It represents group members’ roles and responsibilities, their positions on an issue, their status, and the state of various group processes. The group awareness information presented in this article is designed to capture group member activities and their behaviors in web-based collaborative work. In this article, group awareness information is represented with a visual display and consists of activity and availability information. The application of this proposed scheme is designed and implemented in a web-based group decision support system. This article reports on the results of a study that examined group performance on a given task in a web-based group decision support system with and without group awareness information. The study examined how group awareness information impacts the quality of the work effort and a given task, group decision making by members in the same group and different groups, the communications among group members in the completion of an online collaborative authoring task, the cohesiveness among group members in a web-based group decision support system, and the commitment/disposition of group engagement.
A Typology of Tacit Knowledge Sharing Themes to Fostering Group Decision Support System
Authors: Shaqrah Amin A.
Published: May 2012

Today, much effort and importance is placed on the management of knowledge, its security, and sustainability in context to organizations and their competitiveness. This paper outlines a typology to guide that applying tacit knowledge sharing themes from a social perspective, that is trust, care, leadership charisma, knowledge culture, concept ba, and social network analysis, affect a group’s decision support system. This paper shows that the mentioned themes facilitate a more open group discussion with a higher degree of consensus and agreement resulting in a vividly higher amount of accuracy in decision making.
A Social-Academic Network Analysis of the EURO Working Group on DSS
Authors: Bouaziz Rahma , Simas Tiago , Dargam Fátima , Ribeiro Rita , Zaraté Pascale
Published: May 2012

This paper addresses aspects of the social network analysis (SNA) performed on the social-academic network implemented for the EURO Working Group on Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS). The EWG-DSS network has more than 105 members and is defined with the objective of analysing and representing the various relationships that academically link the group members, as well as evaluating the group’s collaboration dynamics. This paper shows graphical representations and discusses their corresponding interpretation and analytical data. This work is part of the study carried out within the underlying project of the EWG-DSS social-academic network to understanding how the group interacts, as well as encouraging new research and promoting further collaboration among the EWG-DSS group members.
A Survey of Web Services Provision
Authors: Liu An , Liu Hai , Lin Baoping , Huang Liusheng , Gu Naijie , Li Qing
Published: May 2012

Web services technologies promise to create new business applications by composing existing services and to publish these applications as services for further composition. The business logic of applications is described by abstract processes consisting of tasks which specify the required functionality. Web services provision refers to assigning concrete Web services to perform the constituent tasks of abstract processes. It describes a promising scenario where Web services are dynamically chosen and invoked according to their up-to-date functional and non-functional capabilities. It introduces many challenging problems and has therefore received much attention. In this article, the authors provide a comprehensive overview of current research efforts. The authors divide the lifecycle of Web services provision into three steps: service discovery, service selection, and service contracting. They also distinguish three types of Web services provision according to the functional relationship between services and tasks: independent provision, cooperative provision and multiple provision. Following this taxonomy, we investigate existing works in Web services provision, discuss open problems, and shed some light on potential research directions.
Execution Management for Mobile Service-Oriented Environments
Authors: Konstanteli Kleopatra G. , Kirkham Tom , Gallop Julian , Matthews Brian , Johnson Ian , Kardara Magdalini , Varvarigou Theodora
Published: May 2012

This paper presents an Execution Management System (EMS) for Grid services that builds on the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) while achieving “mobile awareness” by establishing a WS-Notification mechanism with mobile network session middleware. It builds heavily on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), used for managing sessions with mobile terminals (such as laptops and PDAs) where the services are running. Although the management of mobile services is different to that of ubiquitous services, the enhanced EMS manages both of them in a seamless fashion and incorporates all resources into one Mobile Dynamic Virtual Organization (MDVO). The described EMS has been implemented within the framework of the Akogrimo EU IST project and has been used to support mission critical application scenarios in public demonstrations, including composite and distributed applications made of both ubiquitous and mobile services within multiple domains.
Developing Local Association Network Based IoT Solutions for Body Parts Tagging and Tracking
Authors: Luo ZongWei , Lai Martin , Cheung Mary , Han ShuiHua , Zhang Tianle , Luo Zhongjun , Ting James , Wong Patrick , Chan Sam , So Kwok , Tipoe George
Published: May 2012

Traditional Internet is commonly wired with machine to machine persistent connections. Evolving towards mobile and wireless pervasive networks, Internet has to entertain dynamic, transient, and changing interconnections. The vision of the Internet of Things furthers technology development by creating an interactive environment where smart objects are connected and can sense and react to the environment. Adopting such an innovative technology often requires extensive intelligence research. A major value indicator is how the potentials of RFID can translate into actions to improve business operational efficiency (Luo et al., 2008). In this paper, the authors will introduce a local association network with a coordinated P2P message delivery mechanism to develop Internet of Things based solutions body parts tagging and tracking. On site testing and performance evaluation validate the proposed approach. User feedback strengthens the belief that the proposed approach would help facilitate the technology adoption in body parts tagging and tracking.
Autonomic Business-Driven Dynamic Adaptation of Service-Oriented Systems and the WS-Policy4MASC Support for Such Adaptation
Authors: Tosic Vladimir
Published: May 2012

When a need for dynamic adaptation of an information technology (IT) system arises, often several alternative approaches can be taken. Maximization of technical quality of service (QoS) metrics (e.g., throughput, availability) need not maximize business value metrics (e.g., profit, customer satisfaction). The goal of autonomic business-driven IT system management (BDIM) is to ensure that operation and adaptation of IT systems maximizes business value metrics, with minimal human intervention. The author presents how his WS-Policy4MASC language for specification of management policies for service-oriented systems supports autonomic BDIM. WS-Policy4MASC extends WS-Policy with new types of policy assertions: goal, action, probability, utility, and meta-policy assertions. Its main distinctive characteristics are description of diverse business value metrics and specification of policy conflict resolution strategies for business value maximization according to various business strategies. The author’s decision making algorithms use this additional WS-Policy4MASC information to choose the adaptation approach best from the business viewpoint.
Using Description Logics for the Provision of Context-Driven Content Adaptation Services
Authors: Yang Stephen J.H. , Zhang Jia , Huang Jeff J.S. , Tsai Jeffrey J.P.
Published: May 2012

This article presents our design and development of a description logics-based planner for providing context-driven content adaptation services. This approach dynamically transforms requested Web content into a proper format conforming to receiving contexts (e.g., access condition, network connection, and receiving device). Aiming to establish a semantic foundation for content adaptation, we apply description logics to formally define context profiles and requirements. We also propose a formal Object Structure Model as the basis of content adaptation management for higher reusability and adaptability. To automate content adaptation decision, our content adaptation planner is driven by a stepwise procedure equipped with algorithms and techniques to enable rule-based context-driven content adaptation over the mobile Internet. Experimental results prove the effectiveness and efficiency of our content adaptation planner on saving transmission bandwidth, when users are using handheld devices. By reducing the size of adapted content, we moderately decrease the computational overhead caused by content adaptation.
Engineering Financial Enterprise Content Management Services
Authors: Chiu Dickson K. W. , Hung Patrick , Kwok Kevin
Published: May 2012

The demand is increasing to replace the current cost ineffective and bad time-to-market hardcopy publishing and delivery of content in the financial world. Financial Enterprise Content Management Services (FECMS) have been deployed in intra-enterprises and over the Internet to network with customers. This paper presents Web service technologies that enable a unified scalable FECMS framework for intra-enterprise content flow and inter-enterprise interactions, combining existing sub-systems and disparate business functions. Additionally, the authors demonstrate the key privacy and access control policies for internal content flow management (such as content editing, approval, and usage) as well as external access control for the Web portal and institutional programmatic users. Through the modular design of an integrated FECMS, this research illustrates how to systematically specify privacy and access control policies in each part of the system with Enterprise Privacy Authorization Language (EPAL). Finally, a case study in an international banking enterprise demonstrates how both integration and control can be achieved.
A Method to Support Fault Tolerance Design in Service Oriented Computing Systems
Authors: Cotroneo Domenico , Pecchia Antonio , Pietrantuono Roberto , Russo Stefano
Published: May 2012

Service Oriented Computing relies on the integration of heterogeneous software technologies and infrastructures that provide developers with a common ground for composing services and producing applications flexibly. However, this approach eases software development but makes dependability a big challenge. Integrating such diverse software items raise issues that traditional testing is not able to exhaustively cope with. In this context, tolerating faults, rather than attempt to detect them solely by testing, is a more suitable solution. This paper proposes a method to support a tailored design of fault tolerance actions for the system being developed. This paper describes system failure behavior through an extensive fault injection campaign to figure out its criticalities and adopt the most appropriate countermeasures to tolerate operational faults. The proposed method is applied to two distinct SOC-enabling technologies. Results show how the achieved findings allow designers to understand the system failure behavior and plan fault tolerance.
Demand-driven Development of Service Compositions in Organizational Networks
Authors: Feenstra Ralph , Janssen Marijn , Overbeek Sietse
Published: May 2012

Organizational collaborate more and more in organizational networks to remain competitive. New systems can be created by assembling a set of elementary services provided by various organizations. Several composition methods are available, yet these methods are not adopted in practice as they are primarily supply-driven and cannot deal the complex characteristics of organizational networks. In this paper, the authors present a service composition development method and a quasi-experiment to evaluate this method by comparing it with existing ones. The development method is able to deal with incomplete information, to take the demand as a starting point, to deal with news services that do not exist yet, to include and to evaluate non-functional requirements, to show various stakeholder views, and to help to create a shared vision. Visualization and evaluation of alternative compositions and negotiation about the desired results are important functions of any composition method in organizational networks.
Investigating the Role of Service Encounter in Enhancing Customer Satisfaction
Authors: Chen Irene
Published: May 2012

Recently, it is found that several pure e-tailers set up a customer service center where on-line shoppers can access a real person over the phone to answer their questions. However, there has been little systematic research examining how service encounter help to enhance customer satisfaction when a pure e-retail company set up a call center to provide additional services. This study conducted a questionnaire survey and collected data from persons who shopped on-line and had experiences in requesting help from customer service centers. 116 responses were collected and the data were then analyzed to examine the four relationships posited in the research model. The proposed research model suggests that service encounter significantly influences service quality and information quality, which can jointly predict customer satisfaction. Findings of this study help to advance the understanding of the role that service encounters play in enhancing customer satisfaction.