bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Secure Robust Hash Functions and Their Applications in Non-Interactive Communications
Authors: Li Qiming , Roy Sujoy
Published: May 2012

A robust hash function allows different parties to extract a consistent key from a common fuzzy source, e.g., an image gone through noisy channels, which can then be used to establish a cryptographic session key among the parties without the need for interactions. These functions are useful in various communication scenarios, where the security notions are different. The authors study these different security notions in this paper and focus on forgery attacks, where the objective of the attack is to compute the extracted key (hash value) of a given message. This paper will examine information-theoretical security against forgery under chosen message attacks. The authors prove that it is not possible due to the entropy of the hash value of a given message can be reduced arbitrarily when sufficient message/hash pairs have been observed. In this regard, the authors give a computationally secure scheme, where it is computationally infeasible to compute the hash value even when its entropy may not be high.
Steganography in Thai Text
Authors: Samphaiboon Natthawut , Dailey Matthew N.
Published: May 2012

Steganography, or communication through covert channels, is desirable when the mere existence of an encrypted message might cause suspicion or provide useful information to eavesdroppers. Text is effective for steganography due to its ubiquity; however, text communication channels do not necessarily provide sufficient redundancy for covert communication. In this paper, the authors propose a novel steganographic embedding scheme for Thai plain text documents that exploits redundancies in the way particular vowel, diacritical, and tonal symbols are composed in TIS-620, the standard Thai character set. This paper provides a Thai text stegosystem following a provably secure construction that guarantees covertness, privacy, and integrity of the hiddentext message under meaningful attacks against computational adversaries. In an experimental evaluation, the authors find that the message embedding scheme allows 203 bytes of embedded hiddentext message per 100KB of covertext on average, and that the document modifications are not readily noticed by observers. The stegosystem is thus a practical and effective secure system for covert communication over Thai plain text channels.
Digital Image Forensics Using Multi-Resolution Histograms
Authors: Liu Jin , Ling Hefei , Zou Fuhao , Yan WeiQi , Lu Zhengding
Published: May 2012

In this paper, the authors investigate the prospect of using multi-resolution histograms (MRH) in conjunction with digital image forensics, particularly in the detection of two kinds of copy-move manipulations, i.e., cloning and splicing. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work that uses the same feature in both cloning and splicing forensics. The experimental results show the simplicity and efficiency of using MRH for the purpose of clone detection and splicing detection.
Mobile Phone Forensic Analysis
Authors: Curran Kevin , Robinson Andrew , Peacocke Stephen , Cassidy Sean
Published: May 2012

During the past decade, technological advances in mobile phones and the development of smart phones have led to increased use and dependence on the mobile phone. The explosion of its use has led to problems such as fraud, criminal use and identity theft, which have led to the need for mobile phone forensic analysis. In this regard, the authors discuss mobile phone forensic analysis, what it means, who avails of it and the software tools used.
The Prospects for eGovernment and eGovernance in Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Nyirenda Joshua C. , Cropf Robert A.
Published: May 2012

EGovernance and eGovernment are critical tools for Good governance and economic development, and are therefore critical for Highly Indebted Poor Countries, a majority of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper reviews literature in order to discuss the prospects of eGovernance and eGovernment in Sub Saharan Countries, and chooses the nation of Zambia as an in-depth case study. Issues of investment climate, market structure, infrastructural capacity, social contexts and political and cultural resistance factors are identified as impediments but also key components (if well understood and tackled) for effective initiation and implementation of eGovernance and eGovernment projects.
Tracking the Evolution of E-Governance in India
Authors: Gupta M.P.
Published: May 2012

An attempt is made in this paper to gain an understanding of the evolution of Electronic Governance (E-governance) in India. The initial part of the paper examines the Historical Perspectives and the evolution of E-governance in India since the formation of the Department of Electronics. The following sections give a detailed study about the initiatives taken by the Government of India over periods of five years and their Missions and Objectives in the creation of a “Transparent and Efficient Govern ability” from grass root levels. The relative development with the induction of these technologies through various policies and reforms are mapped against the projects and gauge the significant impact on the ability of our government to establish the current E-governance structures.
Ubiquitous Participation Platform for POLicy Makings (UbiPOL)
Authors: Irani Zahir , Lee Habin , Weerakkody Vishanth , Kamal Muhammad Mustafa , Topham Shaun , Simpson Gary , Balci Asim , Meden Tunc D. , Gábor András , Corvinus Andrea Ko , Küçükpehlivan Alim , Dabanli Ahmet , Sagirogllu Candan , Saygin Yücel , Nergiz Ercan , Hintoglu Ayca , Campos Luis Miguel , Correia Paulo , Luis João Paulo Santos , Rebahi Yacine , Onofrei Andreea Ancuta , Pop Eugen , Barbos Mihai , Iancu Mihai
Published: May 2012

The purpose of UbiPOL project is to develop a ubiquitous platform that allows citizens be involved in Policy Making Processes (PMPs) regardless of their current locations and time. However, literature highlights one of the foremost reasons that make citizens de-motivated in engaging themselves in policy making—the ignorance of germane policies and PMPs within the government organisations. It is highly suggested that while more citizens find connections between their everyday life activities and pertinent government policies, the more they become pro-active or motivated to be involved in PMPs. For this reason, UbiPOL aims to provide ‘context aware knowledge’ provision with regards to policy making, i.e. through UbiPOL enabling citizens in identifying any relevant policies along with other citizens’ opinion ‘whenever they want’ ‘wherever they are’ according to their everyday life pattern. As a result of this platform, citizens are anticipated to be more acquainted with the newest relevant policies and PMPs for their participation during their routine life activities. Moreover, this platform is also anticipated to provide policy tracking functionality through a ‘workflow engine’ and ‘opinion tag’ concept to improve the transparency of PMPs. As a final point, the platform intends to facilitate policy makers to collect citizen opinions more efficiently as the opinions are collected as soon as they are created in the middle of citizen’s everyday life. UbiPOL provides security and identity management facility to ensure only authorised citizens can have access to relevant policies according to their roles in PMPs. The delivery of the opinion and policy data over the wireless network is secure as the platform use leading edge encryption algorithm in its communication kernels. UbiPOL is a scalable platform ensuring at least 100,000 citizens can use the system at the same time (e.g., for e-Voting applications) through its well proven automatic load balancing mechanisms. The privacy ensuring opinion mining engine prevents unwanted revealing of citizen identities and the mining engine prevents any unrelated commercial advertisements are included in the opinion base to minimise the misuse of the system.
Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating User-centered and Citizen-centered E-government
Authors: Jaeger Paul T. , Bertot John Carlo
Published: May 2012

The effectiveness of user interactions and engagement with e-government hinges on the extent to which the information and services being offered are user-centered, and in particular citizen-centered. E-government is not effectively serving users if they cannot find the information and services that they seek due to organizational, educational, policy, or management issues; do not have the skills to properly interact with e-government; do not understand the results that they get; or do not trust the information that they receive. As such, user-centered design and evaluation must be a key consideration in the development and management of e-government. Building on a range of previous research by the authors, this article will examine the issues of the designing for, evaluation of, and research about user-centered e-government and implications for e-government policy and management.
Innovation in Democratic E-Governance
Authors: Anttiroiko Ari-Veikko
Published: May 2012

This article provides a brief introduction to Web 2.0 and its gradual adoption in public services and governance. Web 2.0 refers to the second generation of Web-based communities, networks and hosted services, which facilitates interaction between users. Since the invention of the concept of Web 2.0, version numbering has been attached to various activities and organizations, including government. Government 2.0 opens a horizon towards post-modern governance, in which government utilizes in its governance and stakeholder relations open and pluralist interactivity, community-centeredness and citizens’ own content production and networking, following the logic of Web 2.0. The promise of Government 2.0 lies in the idea that the more direct citizen involvement there is in public affairs in Web 2.0 style, the more reason there is for people to take a constructive view of public policies, governance and organizations.
A Goal-Driven Management Approach based on Knowledge Exploitation for e-Government Projects
Authors: Sarantis Demetrios , Charalabidis Yannis , Askounis Dimitris
Published: May 2012

The implementation of electronic Government projects in public sector organisations is a challenging task, due to technical, organisational and cultural specificities of the domain. Research shows that such IT projects have higher failure rates than similar approaches in the private sector, also indicating the lack of a method to transfer knowledge and apply best management practices in an effective way. The proposed management approach aims to recognise structure and reuse past successful attempts, in ways that support the overall viability of an e-Government project. After stating the fundamental principles of project management that apply to public sector IT projects, the authors present a conceptual model for e-Government project management, including entities such as dimensions, goals, activities, deliverables and roles that can be structured and adapted to cover all types of relevant projects in an out-of-the-box approach. This knowledge base of predefined project components can then be populated and utilised in making more informed decisions for effective project management of e-Government initiatives. This way, the proposed method supports public officials and practitioners in learning from past experience projects and in designing and running e-Government projects in a more systematic manner, thus, significantly increasing the likelihood of project success.
Theorizing Information Security Success
Authors: Dunkerley Kimberley , Tejay Gurvirender
Published: May 2012

As information systems become more pervasive within organizations, securing their associated information assets has become a topic of extensive research. However, minimal research has been focused on understanding the dimensions of information systems security within an organizational context. This study organizes a considerable body of information systems security literature based on their findings, and the authors identify core dimensions of information system security success and operationalize them as a model to predict success with information security initiatives. The utility of the proposed model is evaluated for the e-Government context and emergent issues for research and practice are discussed.
Harnessing Interagency Collaboration in Inter-Organizational Systems Development
Authors: Phuaphanthong Thayanan , Bui Tung , Keretho Somnuk
Published: May 2012

In spite of the increasing need for building interagency systems, the literature on effective inter-organizational collaboration is practically inexistent, both from the methodological and practical perspectives. Using an action research approach, this paper reports the findings of a four-year long action research that seeks to identify critical success factors for establishing and maintaining interagency collaboration in a large-scale inter-organizational system development project. The findings were drawn from direct experiences during the implementation of the cross-border internet-based system for trade and transport facilitation in Thailand, which required an involvement of more than 40 governmental and business stakeholders. This paper suggests a stepwise approach for the establishment and maintenance of interagency collaboration, and derives methodological and practical implications from this large-scale experience.
A Profile of Scholarly Community Contributing to the International Journal of Electronic Government Research
Authors: Dwivedi Yogesh   K. , Weerakkody Vishanth
Published: May 2012

This paper analyses the first five volumes of research published in the International Journal of Electronic Government Research (IJEGR). All 90 papers that appeared between the years of 2005 and 2009 are analysed by extracting information on the following variables: most active authors, gender of the contributors, academic expertise/research area, background (academic vs. practitioner), number of co-authors, universities associated with the most publications, geographical diversity of the authors and occupations of the contributors. Findings suggest that there are very few authors contributing to more than one article in IJEGR. Findings also suggest that there are imbalances in terms of authors’ discipline, gender and background. Finally, this paper illustrates the institutions supporting electronic government research and countries and regions promoting e-government research and practice. The main contribution of this research lies in understanding the evolution and patterns of the electronic government research community.
E-Government Services Online
Authors: Dorasamy Magiswary , Marimuthu Maran , Raman Murali , Kaliannan Maniam
Published: May 2012

E-filing is a new service launched in the year 2005 by the Malaysian Inland Revenue Board. This is in line with the government’s vision to leverage on the Internet technology in extending its services to the citizens and to further embrace the cutting-edge technology of the information age. Via this system, the citizens or taxpayers are able to complete an electronic application form and the necessary payment details with a few keystrokes; therefore completing their revenue declaration within minutes. The purpose of the e-filing service is to encourage every taxpayer to submit their income tax returns through an online system, thus reducing the manual paper-based submission method. This paper examines taxpayers’ intention to use the e-filing system in Malaysia. This paper analyses the factors that contribute towards adoption of such system in Malaysia based on three models: the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Diffusion of Innovation (DOI), and Technology Readiness Index (TRI). The authors’ findings suggest that taxpayers have intentions to use the e-filing systems as they perceive that tax submission method via the internet is more convenient and that perceived readiness towards using this technology is paramount to their belief for using e-filing systems.
Extending the Information-Processing View of Coordination in Public Sector Crisis Response
Authors: Gonzalez Rafael A. , Verbraeck Alexander , Dahanayake Ajantha
Published: May 2012

Coordinating the response of multiple public agencies to a large-scale crisis is a challenge that has been studied predominantly according to the information-processing view. In this paper, the authors extend this view with the notion of emergence giving special attention to information and communication technology (ICT). The extended framework is applied in a case study of crisis response exercises in the public sector. The findings suggest that current practices concentrate on standards and hierarchy, but mutual adjustment and emergent coordination also occur and are susceptible to analysis and equally relevant to understand coordination practices. In addition, ICT can provide information processing capabilities needed for coordination but may also create information processing needs by increasing the volume of data and the interconnectedness of responders. Applying the extended framework improves the understanding of coordination and forms the basis for its future use in designing ICT to support coordination in crisis response and e-government.
An Approach to Assessing Quality of Electronic Government Services
Authors: Ray Subhajyoti
Published: May 2012

The emergence of e-Government in developing countries has led to the discovery of many innovative ways of public service delivery to citizens and businesses. India has chosen the common service center based service delivery model, where multiple services from single or multiple government agencies can be obtained in one location. However, the assessment quality of service at these centers, especially in comparison to the quality of service delivery under manually run operations has not been addressed in literature. In this paper, the authors propose and demonstrate a method to evaluate the quality of service at common service centers by exploring the case of an urban local body in India. Specifically, the paper uses the Analytic Hierarchy Method to assess quality improvements and discusses the implications for public managers.
Weighted Association Rule Mining for Video Semantic Detection
Authors: Lin Lin , Shyu Mei-Ling
Published: May 2012

Semantic knowledge detection of multimedia content has become a very popular research topic in recent years. The association rule mining (ARM) technique has been shown to be an efficient and accurate approach for content-based multimedia retrieval and semantic concept detection in many applications. To further improve the performance of traditional association rule mining technique, a video semantic concept detection framework whose classifier is built upon a new weighted association rule mining (WARM) algorithm is proposed in this article. Our proposed WARM algorithm is able to capture the different significance degrees of the items (feature-value pairs) in generating the association rules for video semantic concept detection. Our proposed WARM-based framework first applies multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) to project the features and classes into a new principle component space and discover the correlation between feature-value pairs and classes. Next, it considers both correlation and percentage information as the measurement to weight the feature-value pairs and to generate the association rules. Finally, it performs classification by using these weighted association rules. To evaluate our WARM-based framework, we compare its performance of video semantic concept detection with several well-known classifiers using the benchmark data available from the 2007 and 2008 TRECVID projects. The results demonstrate that our WARM-based framework achieves promising performance and performs significantly better than those classifiers in the comparison.
Correlation-Based Ranking for Large-Scale Video Concept Retrieval
Authors: Lin Lin , Shyu Mei-Ling
Published: May 2012

Motivated by the growing use of multimedia services and the explosion of multimedia collections, efficient retrieval from large-scale multimedia data has become very important in multimedia content analysis and management. In this paper, a novel ranking algorithm is proposed for video retrieval. First, video content is represented by the global and local features and second, multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) is applied to capture the correlation between video content and semantic concepts. Next, video segments are scored by considering the features with high correlations and the transaction weights converted from correlations. Finally, a user interface is implemented in a video retrieval system that allows the user to enter his/her interested concept, searches videos based on the target concept, ranks the retrieved video segments using the proposed ranking algorithm, and then displays the top-ranked video segments to the user. Experimental results on 30 concepts from the TRECVID high-level feature extraction task have demonstrated that the presented video retrieval system assisted by the proposed ranking algorithm is able to retrieve more video segments belonging to the target concepts and to display more relevant results to the users.
Robust Duplicate Detection of 2D and 3D Objects
Authors: Vajda Peter , Ivanov Ivan , Goldmann Lutz , Lee Jong-Seok , Ebrahimi Touradj
Published: May 2012

In this paper, the authors analyze their graph-based approach for 2D and 3D object duplicate detection in still images. A graph model is used to represent the 3D spatial information of the object based on the features extracted from training images to avoid explicit and complex 3D object modeling. Therefore, improved performance can be achieved in comparison to existing methods in terms of both robustness and computational complexity. Different limitations of this approach are analyzed by evaluating performance with respect to the number of training images and calculation of optimal parameters in a number of applications. Furthermore, effectiveness of object duplicate detection algorithm is measured over different object classes. The authors’ method is shown to be robust in detecting the same objects even when images with objects are taken from different viewpoints or distances.
Ontology Instance Matching Based MPEG-7 Resource Integration
Authors: Seddiqui Hanif , Aono Masaki
Published: May 2012

Heterogeneous multimedia contents are annotated by a sharable formal conceptualization, often called ontology, and these contents, regardless of their media, become sharable resources/instances. Integration of the sharable resources and acquisition of diverse knowledge is getting researchers’ attention at a rapid pace. In this regard, MPEG-7 standard convertible to semantic Resource Description Framework (RDF) evolves for containing structured data and knowledge sources. In this paper, the authors propose an efficient approach to integrate the multimedia resources annotated by the standard of MPEG-7 schema using ontology instance matching techniques. MPEG-7 resources are usually specified explicitly by their surrounding MPEG-7 schema entities, e.g., concepts and properties, in conjunction with other linked resources. Therefore, resource integration needed schema matching as well. In this approach, the authors obtained the schema matching using their scalable ontology alignment algorithm and collected the semantically linked resources, referred to as the Semantic Link Cloud (SLC) collectively for each of the resources. Techniques were addressed to solve several data heterogeneity: value transformation, structural transformation and logical transformation. These experiments show the strength and efficiency of the proposed matching approach.
Archive Film Comparison
Authors: Zaharieva Maia , Zeppelzauer Matthias , Mitrovic Dalibor , Breiteneder Christian
Published: May 2012

In this paper, the authors present an approach for video comparison, in which an instantiated framework allows for the easy comparison of different methods that are required at each step of the comparison process. The authors’ approach is evaluated based on a real world scenario of challenging video data of archive documentaries. In this paper, the performed experiments aim at the evaluation of the performance of established shot boundary detection algorithms, the influence of keyframe selection, and feature representation.
Board Game Supporting Learning Prim’s Algorithm and Dijkstra’s Algorithm
Authors: Chang Wen-Chih , Wang Te-Hua , Chiu Yan-Da
Published: May 2012

The concept of minimum spanning tree algorithms in data structure is difficult for students to learn and to imagine without practice. Usually, learners need to diagram the spanning trees with pen to realize how the minimum spanning tree algorithm works. In this paper, the authors introduce a competitive board game to motivate students to learn the concept of minimum spanning tree algorithms. They discuss the reasons why it is beneficial to combine graph theories and board game for the Dijkstra and Prim minimum spanning tree theories. In the experimental results, this paper demonstrates the board game and examines the learning feedback for the mentioned two graph theories. Advantages summarizing the benefits of combining the graph theories with board game are discussed.
The Factors that Influence E-Instructors’ Performance in Taiwan
Authors: Shen Chun-Yi , Chang Chiung-Sui
Published: May 2012

Online teaching is the fastest growing form of delivery in higher education and faculty is expected to integrate technology into their teaching. The purpose of this study is to examine the performance of e-instructors in Taiwan based on the new human performance model. To achieve the purposes, this paper adopted a questionnaire survey and One hundred and six online instructors from 25 universities in Taiwan participated in this study. Correlation and multiple regression are performed to analysis the data. After statistical analysis, the results show that the four factors, advanced skill, basic skill, effort, and self-efficacy, contributed significantly to the model variance of e-instructors’ performance in online teaching. The results also provide the evidences of the importance of self-efficacy in online teaching.
Qualitative Reasoning and Spatio-Temporal Continuity
Authors: Davis Ernest
Published: May 2012

This chapter discusses the use of transition graphs for reasoning about continuous spatial change over time. The chapter first presents a general definition of a transition graph for a partition of a topological space. Then it defines the path-connected and the homogeneous refinements of such a partition. The qualitative behavior of paths through the space corresponds to the structure of paths through the associated transition graphs, and of associated interval label sequences, and the authors prove a number of metalogical theorems that characterize these correspondences in terms of the expressivity of associated first-order languages. They then turn to specific real-world problems and show how this theory can be applied to domains such as rigid objects, strings, and liquids.
A Qualitative Trajectory Calculus to Reason about Moving Point Objects
Authors: Delafontaine Matthias , Chavoshi Seyed Hossein , Cohn Anthony G. , Van de Weghe Nico
Published: May 2012

A number of qualitative calculi have been developed in order to reason about space and time. A recent trend has been the emergence of integrated spatiotemporal calculi in order to deal with dynamic phenomena such as motion. In 2004, Van de Weghe introduced the Qualitative Trajectory Calculus (QTC) as a qualitative calculus to represent and reason about moving objects. This chapter presents a general overview of the principal theoretical aspects of QTC, focusing on the two most fundamental types of QTC. It shows how QTC deals with important reasoning concepts and how calculus can be employed in order to represent raw moving object data.
Methodologies for Qualitative Spatial and Temporal Reasoning Application Design
Authors: Schultz Carl , Amor Robert , Guesgen Hans W.
Published: May 2012

Although a wide range of sophisticated Qualitative Spatial and Temporal Reasoning (QSTR) formalisms have now been developed, there are relatively few applications that apply these commonsense methods. To address this problem, the authors of this chapter developed methodologies that support QSTR application design. They established a theoretical foundation for QSTR applications that includes the roles of application designers and users. The authors adapted formal software requirements that allow a designer to specify the customer’s operational requirements and the functional requirements of a QSTR application. The chapter presents design patterns for organising the components of QSTR applications, and a methodology for defining high-level neighbourhoods that are derived from the system structure. Finally, the authors develop a methodology for QSTR application validation by defining a complexity metric called H-complexity that is used in test coverage analysis for assessing the quality of unit and integration test sets.
Enriching the Qualitative Spatial Reasoning System RCC8
Authors: Alboody Ahed , Sedes Florence , Inglada Jordi
Published: May 2012

In this context, the authors develop definitions for the generalization of these detailed topological relations at these two levels (Level-1 and Level-2). The chapter presents two tables of these four detailed relations. Finally, examples for GIS applications are provided to illustrate the determination of the detailed topological relations studied in this chapter.
Explanation Generation over Temporal Interval Algebra
Authors: Mitra Debasis , Launay Florent
Published: May 2012

Temporal interval algebra has generated strong interest for both theoretical and practical reasons. All its Maximal Tractable Subalgebras (MTS) have been identified. Now is the time to make the transition toward their practical applications. In this chapter, the authors have proposed a formalism on how to classify an input temporal network in one of these MTSs or decide its intractability. They have also proposed a linear algorithm for checking consistency when the input belongs to one of the seventeen MTSs, and for finding the constraints responsible for inconsistency in case the network is unsatisfiable.
Reasoning about Space, Actions, and Change
Authors: Bhatt Mehul
Published: May 2012

Qualitative spatial conceptualizations provide a relational abstraction and interface to the metrical realities of the physical world. Humans, robots, and systems that act and interact, are embedded in space. The space itself undergoes change all the time, typically as a result of volitional actions performed by an agent, and events, both deterministic and otherwise, which occur in the environment. Both categories of occurrences are a critical link to the external world, in a predictive as well as an explanatory sense: anticipations of spatial reality conform to commonsense knowledge of the effects of actions and events on material entities. Similarly, explanations of the perceived reality too are established on the basis of such apriori established commonsense notions. The author reasons about space, actions, and change in an integrated manner, either without being able to clearly demarcate the boundaries of each type of reasoning, or because such boundaries do not exist per se. This chapter is an attempt to position such integrated reasoning as a useful paradigm for the utilization of qualitative spatial representation and reasoning techniques in relevant application domains. From a logical perspective, the author notes that formalisms already exist and that effort need only be directed at specific integration tasks at a commonsense conceptual, formal representational, and computational level.
Integrated Ontologies for Spatial Scene Descriptions
Authors: Batsakis Sotirios , Petrakis Euripides G.M.
Published: May 2012

Scene descriptions are typically expressed in natural language texts and are integrated within Web pages, books, newspapers, and other means of content dissemination. The capabilities of such means can be enhanced to support automated content processing and communication between people or machines by allowing the scene contents to be extracted and expressed in ontologies, a formal syntax rich in semantics interpretable by both people and machines. Ontologies enable more effective querying, reasoning, and general use of content and allow for standardizing the quality and delivery of information across communicating information sources. Ontologies are defined using the well-established standards of the Semantic Web for expressing scene descriptions in application fields such as Geographic Information Systems, medicine, and the World Wide Web (WWW). Ontologies are not only suitable for describing static scenes with static objects (e.g., in photographs) but also enable representation of dynamic events with objects and properties changing in time (e.g., moving objects in a video). Representation of both static and dynamic scenes by ontologies, as well as querying and reasoning over static and dynamic ontologies are important issues for further research. These are exactly the problems this chapter is dealing with.
On the Representation and Recognition of Temporal Patterns of Activities in Smart Environments
Authors: Mastrogiovanni Fulvio , Scalmato Antonello , Sgorbissa Antonio , Zaccaria Renato
Published: May 2012

This chapter introduces a framework for enabling context-aware behaviors in smart environment applications, with a special emphasis on smart homes and similar scenarios. In particular, an ontology-based architecture is described that allows system designers to specify non-trivial situations the system must be able to detect on the basis of available sensory data. Relevant situations may include activities and events that could be prolonged over long periods of time. Therefore, the ontology encodes temporal operators that, once applied to sensory information, allow the recognition and efficient correlation of different human activities and other events whose temporal relationships are contextually important. Special emphasis is devoted to actual representation and recognition of temporally distributed situations. The proof of the concept is validated through a thoroughly described example of system usage.
Topical and Spatio-Temporal Search over Distributed Online Databases
Authors: Zotos Nikos , Stamou Sofia
Published: May 2012

In this chapter, the authors propose a novel framework for the support of multi-faceted searches over distributed Web-accessible databases. Towards this goal, the authors introduce a method for analyzing and processing a sample of the database contents in order to deduce the topical, the geographic, and the temporal orientation of the entire database contents. To extract the database topics, the authors apply techniques leveraged from the NLP community. To identify the database geographic footprints, the authors first rely on geographic ontologies in order to extract toponyms from the database content samples and then employ geo-spatial similarity metrics to estimate the geographic coverage of the identified toponyms. Finally, to determine the time aspects associated with the database entities, the authors extract temporal expressions from the entities’ contextual elements and utilize a time ontology against which the temporal similarity between the identified entities is estimated.
A Census of State Portal and Agency Homepage Design in the United States
Authors: Jones Scott L.
Published: May 2012

This study reports on the results of a census of design trends of 300 state government portal and agency homepages within the United States. The results can be used by government web designers to aid web design decisions and improve usability, researchers wishing to compare the findings with other populations, and future researchers who wish to study changes in homepage design over time. The study has found a limited number of design elements were common in state portal and state agency homepages. In addition, it found that state portal and agency homepage design is lacking in terms of design principles (such as screen length), navigation principles (such as in use of search boxes, site indexes, and site maps), providing of communication options, and inclusion of multimedia and Web 2.0 technologies.
The Cytoskeletal Adaptor Protein IQGAP1 Regulates TCR-Mediated Signaling and Filamentous Actin Dynamics
Authors: Gorman Jacquelyn A. , Babich Alexander , Dick Christopher J. , Schoon Renee A. , Koenig Alexander , Gomez Timothy S. , Burkhardt Janis K. , Billadeau Daniel D.
Published: May 2012

The Ras GTPase-activating-like protein IQGAP1 is a multimodular scaffold that controls signaling and cytoskeletal regulation in fibroblasts and epithelial cells. However, the functional role of IQGAP1 in T cell development, activation, and cytoskeletal regulation has not been investigated. In this study, we show that IQGAP1 is dispensable for thymocyte development as well as microtubule organizing center polarization and cytolytic function in CD8+ T cells. However, IQGAP1-deficient CD8+ T cells as well as Jurkat T cells suppressed for IQGAP1 were hyperresponsive, displaying increased IL-2 and IFN-γ production, heightened LCK activation, and augmented global phosphorylation kinetics after TCR ligation. In addition, IQGAP1-deficient T cells exhibited increased TCR-mediated F-actin assembly and amplified F-actin velocities during spreading. Moreover, we found that discrete regions of IQGAP1 regulated cellular activation and F-actin accumulation. Taken together, our data suggest that IQGAP1 acts as a dual negative regulator in T cells, limiting both TCR-mediated activation kinetics and F-actin dynamics via distinct mechanisms.
Amino-Terminal Extended Peptide Single-Chain Trimers Are Potent Synthetic Agonists for Memory Human CD8+ T Cells
Authors: Carreno Beatriz M. , Becker-Hapak Michelle , Chan Megan , Lie Wen-Rong , Wang Xiaoli , Hansen Ted H. , Linette Gerald P.
Published: May 2012

Upon Ag exposure, most memory T cells undergo restimulation-induced cell death. In this article, we describe a novel synthetic agonist, an N-terminal extended decamer peptide expressed as a single-chain trimer, the amino-terminal extended peptide MHC class I single-chain trimer (AT-SCT), which preferentially promotes the growth of memory human CD8+ T cells with minimal restimulation-induced cell death. Using CMV pp65 and melanoma gp100 Ags, we observe the in vitro numerical expansion of a clonally diverse polyfunctional population of Ag-specific CD8+ T cells from healthy individuals and vaccinated melanoma patients, respectively. Memory CD8+ T cells stimulated with AT-SCT presented on MHC class I/II-null cells show reduced cytokine production, slower kinetics of TCR downregulation, and decreased cell death compared with native nonamer MHC class I single-chain trimer (SCT)-activated T cells. However, both ERK phosphorylation and cell cycle kinetics are identical in AT-SCT– and SCT-activated T cells. Probing of SCT and AT-SCT peptide–MHC complexes using fluorochrome-conjugated TCR multimers suggests that nonamer- and decamer-linked peptides may be anchored differently to the HLA-A2 peptide-binding groove. Our findings demonstrate that modified peptide–MHC structures, such as AT-SCT, can be engineered as T cell agonists to promote the growth and expansion of memory human CD8+ T cells.
Identification of TLT2 as an Engulfment Receptor for Apoptotic Cells
Authors: de Freitas Andressa , Banerjee Sami , Xie Na , Cui Huachun , Davis Kasey I. , Friggeri Arnaud , Fu Mingui , Abraham Edward , Liu Gang
Published: May 2012

Clearance of apoptotic cells (efferocytosis) is critical to the homeostasis of the immune system by restraining inflammation and autoimmune response to intracellular Ags released from dying cells. TLRs-mediated innate immunity plays an important role in pathogen clearance and in regulation of the adaptive immune response. However, the regulation of efferocytosis by activation of TLRs has not been well characterized. In this study, we found that activation of TLR3 or TLR9, but not of TLR2, enhances engulfment of apoptotic cells by macrophages. We found that the activation of TLR3 upregulates the expression of triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells (TREM)-like protein 2 (TLT2), a member of the TREM receptor family, on the surface of macrophages. Blocking TLT2 on the macrophage surface by either specific anti-TLT2 Ab or soluble TLT2 extracellular domain attenuated the enhanced ability of macrophages with TLR3 activation to engulf apoptotic cells. To the contrary, overexpression of TLT2 increased the phagocytosis of apoptotic cells. We found that TLT2 specifically binds to phosphatidylserine, a major “eat me” signal that is exposed on the surface of apoptotic cells. Furthermore, we found that TLT2 mediates phagocytosis of apoptotic cells in vivo. Thus, our studies identified TLT2 as an engulfment receptor for apoptotic cells. Our data also suggest a novel mechanism by which TREM receptors regulate inflammation and autoimmune response.
Testing the forecast of aftershocks: a simple method with an example of application
Authors: Jiang Changsheng , Wu Zhongliang
Published: May 2012

Tests of aftershock forecast have to consider the temporal distribution of aftershocks, which differ from mainshocks. This paper uses as an example the 2008 Wenchuan aftershock sequence and the load-unload response ratio forecast of aftershocks. We discuss a simplified test scheme using the Ogata-transformed time to make the transformed aftershock sequence homogenously random. While an example was taken using the Molchan error diagram, other testing schemes are also valid for the transformed aftershock sequence.
Natural and laser-induced cavitation in corn stems: On the mechanisms of acoustic emissions
Authors: Fernández E. , Fernández R. J. , Bilmes Gabriel Mario
Published: May 2012

Water in plant xylem is often superheated, and therefore in a meta-stable state. Under certain conditions, it may suddenly turn from the liquid to the vapor state. This cavitation process produces acoustic emissions. We report the measurement of ultrasonic acoustic emissions (UAE) produced by natural and induced cavitation in corn stems. We induced cavitation and UAE in vivo, in well controlled and reproducible experiments, by irradiating the bare stem of the plants with a continuous-wave laser beam. By tracing the source of UAE, we were able to detect absorption and frequency filtering of the UAE propagating through the stem. This technique allows the unique possibility of studying localized embolism of plant conduits, and thus to test hypotheses on the hydraulic architecture of plants. Based on our results, we postulate that the source of UAE is a transient "cavity oscillation"' triggered by the disruptive effect of cavitation inception.Received: 14 March 2011,  Accepted: 23 April 2012; Edited by: V. Lakshminarayanan; Reviewed by: C. Negreira, Laboratorio de Acústica Ultrasonora, Universidad de la República, Uruguay;  DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4279/PIP.040003Cite as: E. Fernández, R. J. Fernández, G. M. Bilmes, Papers in Physics 4, 040003 (2012)
Cross-Country Growth Empirics and Model Uncertainty: An Overview
Authors: Ulaşan Bülent
Published: May 2012

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of empirical cross-country growth literature. The paper begins with describing the basic framework used in recent empirical crosscountry growth research. Even though this literature was mainly inspired by endogenous growth theories, the neoclassical growth model is still the workhorse for cross-country growth empirics. The second part of the paper emphasises model uncertainty, which is indeed immense but generally neglected in the empirical cross-country growth literature. The most outstanding feature of the literature is that a large number of factors have been suggested as fundamental growth determinants. Together with the small sample property, this leads to an important problem: model uncertainty. The questions which factors are more fundamental in explaining growth dynamics and hence growth differences are still the subject of academic research. Recent attempts based on general-to-specific modeling or model averaging are promising but have their own limits. Finally, the paper highlights the implications of model uncertainty for policy evaluation.
Lidar and radar measurements of the melting layer: observations of dark and bright band phenomena
Authors: Di Girolamo P. , Summa D. , Cacciani M. , Norton E. G. , Peters G. , Dufournet Y.
Published: May 2012

Abstract. Multi-wavelength lidar measurements in the melting layer revealing the presence of dark and bright bands have been performed by the University of BASILicata Raman lidar system (BASIL) during a stratiform rain event. Simultaneously radar measurements have been also performed from the same site by the University of Hamburg cloud radar MIRA 36 (35.5 GHz), the University of Hamburg dual-polarization micro rain radar (24.15 GHz) and the University of Manchester UHF wind profiler (1.29 GHz). Measurements from BASIL and the radars are illustrated and discussed in this paper for a specific case study on 23 July 2007 during the Convective and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study (COPS). Simulations of the lidar dark and bright band based on the application of concentric/eccentric sphere Lorentz-Mie codes and a melting layer model are also provided. Lidar and radar measurements and model results are also compared with measurements from a disdrometer on ground and a two-dimensional cloud (2DC) probe on-board the ATR42 SAFIRE. Measurements and model results are found to confirm and support the conceptual microphysical/scattering model elaborated by Sassen et al. (2005).
Impact of January 2005 solar proton events on chlorine species
Authors: Damiani A. , Funke B. , Marsh D. R. , López-Puertas M. , Santee M. L. , Froidevaux L. , Wang S. , Jackman C. H. , von Clarmann T. , Gardini A. , Cordero R. R. , Storini M.
Published: May 2012

Abstract. Sudden changes in stratospheric chlorine species in the polar northern atmosphere, caused by the Solar Proton Events (SPEs) of 17 and 20 January 2005, have been investigated and compared with version 4 of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM4). We used Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) measurements to monitor the variability of ClO, HCl, HOCl and Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounder (MIPAS) on ENVISAT to retrieve ClONO2. SPE-induced chlorine activation has been identified. HCl decrease occurred at nearly all the investigated altitudes (i.e., 10–0.5 hPa) with the strongest decrease (of about 0.25 ppbv) on 21 January. HOCl was found to be the main active chlorine species under nighttime conditions (with increases of more than 0.2 ppbv) whereas both HOCl and ClO enhancements (about 0.1 ppbv) have been observed at the polar night terminator. Further, small ClO decreases (of less than 0.1 ppbv) and ClONO2 enhancements (about 0.2 ppbv) have been observed at higher latitudes (i.e., at nighttime) roughly above 2 hPa. While WACCM4 reproduces most of the SPE-induced variability in the chlorine species fairly well, in some particular regions discrepancies between the modeled and measured temporal evolution of the abundances of chlorine species were found. HOCl changes are modelled very well with respect to both magnitude and geographic distribution. ClO decreases are reproduced at high latitudes, whereas ClO enhancements in the terminator region are underestimated and attributed to background variations. WACCM4 also reproduces the HCl depletion in the mesosphere but it does not show the observed decrease below about 2 hPa. Finally, WACCM4 simulations indicate that the observed ClONO2 increase is dominated by background variability, although SPE-induced production might contribute by 0.1 ppbv.