bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Interventions and Solutions in Gender and IT
Authors: Woszczynski Amy B. , Moody Janette
Published: May 2011

The role of women in technology-related fields began with promising contributions from pioneers like Grace Hopper. In recent years, women have moved away from information technology (IT) fields, and the number of women selecting IT majors in universities continues to decline. Likewise, the number of women employed in the IT workforce remains low and declining. Researchers have recognized the problem and have investigated the many reasons for low participation of women in IT-related fields. Researchers have proposed various interventions to fill the pipeline and retain women in computing. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the current state of women in IT. We focus on girls and women at various life stages, from early education to the IT workplace. We also provide a discussion of the various methods and appropriate interventions that may be employed to encourage women to become empowered users of technology worldwide. We use a broad definition of IT, which includes computer science (CS), computer engineering, information systems (IS), information technology (IT), and related professional fields. By examining research from multiple technologyrelated fields, we gain a clearer picture of the many ways that women may participate in IT. Recent research on gender and IT has used an interdisciplinary approach, which has greatly expanded our potential for understanding why women decide not to pursue IT-related fields and how to implement appropriate interventions. Researchers from topics as diverse as IS, psychology, social sciences, education, and feminism, have taken a distinctive approach to understanding why women are not better represented in the IT workplace. We believe this broad, interdisciplinary approach has great potential to understand motivations for women pursuing IT-related careers. As Trauth & Niederman (2006, p. 8) said, “…the IT profession is challenged with meeting the demand to enlarge the IT workforce by recruiting and retaining personnel from historically underrepresented groups.” This chapter looks at women in IT, shedding light on one historically underrepresented group.
Neo-Symbiosis
Authors: Griffith Douglas , Greitzer Frank L.
Published: May 2011

The purpose of this article is to re-address the vision of human- computer symbiosis expressed by J. C. R. Licklider nearly a half century ago, when he wrote: “The hope is that in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information- handling machines we know today” (Licklider, 1960). Unfortunately, little progress was made toward this vision over 4 decades following Licklider’s challenge, despite significant advancements in the fields of human factors and computer science. Licklider’s vision was largely forgotten. However, recent advances in information science and technology, psychology, and neuroscience have rekindled the potential of making the Licklider’s vision a reality. This article provides a historical context for and updates the vision, and it argues that such a vision is needed as a unifying framework for advancing IS&T.
Network Worms
Authors: Chen Thomas M. , Tally Greg W.
Published: May 2011

Internet users are currently plagued by an assortment of malicious software (malware). The Internet provides not only connectivity for network services such as e-mail and Web browsing, but also an environment for the spread of malware between computers. Users can be affected even if their computers are not vulnerable to malware. For example, fast-spreading worms can cause widespread congestion that will bring down network services. Worms and viruses are both common types of self-replicating malware but differ in their method of replication (Grimes, 2001; Harley, Slade, & Gattiker, 2001; Szor, 2005). A computer virus depends on hijacking control of another (host) program to attach a copy of its virus code to more files or programs. When the newly infected program is executed, the virus code is also executed. In contrast, a worm is a standalone program that does not depend on other programs (Nazario, 2004). It replicates by searching for vulnerable targets through the network, and attempts to transfer a copy of itself. Worms are dependent on the network environment to spread. Over the years, the Internet has become a fertile environment for worms to thrive. The constant exposure of computer users to worm threats from the Internet is a major concern. Another concern is the possible rate of infection. Because worms are automated programs, they can spread without any human action. The fastest time needed to infect a majority of Internet users is a matter of speculation, but some worry that a new worm outbreak could spread through the Internet much faster than defenses could detect and block it. The most reliable defenses are based on attack signatures. If a new worm does not have an existing signature, it could have some time to spread unhindered and complete its damage before a signature can be devised for it. Perhaps a greater concern about worms is their role as vehicles for delivery of other malware in their payload. Once a worm has compromised a host victim, it can execute any payload. Historical examples of worms have included: • Trojan horses: Software with a hidden malicious function, for example, to steal confidential data or open a backdoor; • Droppers: Designed to facilitate downloading of other malware; • Bots: Software to listen covertly for and execute remote commands, for example, to send spam or carry out a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. These types of malware are not able to spread by themselves, and therefore take advantage of the self-replication characteristic of worms to spread. This article presents a review of the historical development of worms, and an overview of worm anatomy from a functional perspective.
Overview of Electronic Auctions
Authors: Anthony Patricia
Published: May 2011

Online auctions are one of the most popular and effective ways of trading goods over the Internet (Bapna, Goes, & Gupta, 2001). Thousands of items are sold on online auctions everyday including books, toys, computers, antiques, and even services. As an example, eBay (http://www.ebay. com), the largest online auction house, has more than 241 million registered users today, and in the year 2006 alone, eBay recorded consolidated net revenue of $6 billion (eBay, 2007). On any given day, there are more than 78 million items listed on eBay, and approximately 6 million listings are added per day. It has also spread its wings to other countries outside the USA, and to date it is present in 24 countries. In addition to eBay, there are more than 2,600 auction houses that conduct online auctions (common sites include Amazon. com, http://www.amazon.com; Yahoo! Auctions, http://auctions. shopping.yahoo.com; priceline.com, http://www.priceline. com; and uBid, http://www.ubid.com). These auction houses conduct many different types of auctions according to a variety of rules and protocols.
Project-Based Software Risk Management Approaches
Authors: Misra Subhas C. , Kumar Vinod , Kumar Uma
Published: May 2011

The last few decades—especially the end of 20th century and the beginning of 21st century—have shown an increase in the interest in automation of different activities. Automation is dependent in its core on sound functional software. The complexity of software development has increased significantly over the years. Articles showing the failure of projects in the software industry are not surprising. Standish Group (1994) reports show that about 53% of projects get completed, but they do not meet the cost and schedule requirements, and about 31% are canceled before the completion of the projects. These failure reports are significantly alarming. With the tremendous growth in the complexity of software development in the last 10 to 15 years, the management of risks in software engineering activities is becoming an important and nontrivial issue from three perspectives: project, process, and product. Therefore, researchers and practitioners are continually trying to find effective risk management approaches. This article should help the academicians, researchers, and practitioners interested in the area of risk management in software engineering to gain an overall understanding of the area.
Recent Progress in Image and Video Segmentation for CBVIR
Authors: Zhang Yu-Jin
Published: May 2011

A simple search from EI Compendex by using the term “image segmentation” only in title field could produce around 5000 records (Zhang, 2006). However, as no general theory for image segmentation for different application domains, particular algorithms have been developed. The domain of Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) is such a typical example, where many specific techniques have been proposed. An introduction focused on research works before 2004 can be found in Zhang (2005). This paper is an up-to-date and extended version from CBIR to CBVIR (Content-Based Visual Information Retrieval) by including CBVR (Content- Based Video Retrieval), which focused on the progress in last 3 years, and especially on video segmentation.
Security and Privacy in Social Networks
Authors: Carminati Barbara , Ferrari Elena , Perego Andrea
Published: May 2011

Web-based social networks (WBSNs) are online communities that allow users to publish resources (e.g., personal data, annotations, blogs) and to establish relationships, possibly of a different type (“friend,” “colleague,” etc.) for purposes that may concern business, entertainment, religion, dating, and so forth. In the last few years, the usage and diffusion of WBSNs has been increasing, with about 300 Web sites collecting the information of more than 400 million registered users. As a result, the “net model” is today used more and more to communicate, share information, make decisions, and ‘do business’ by companies and organizations (Staab et al., 2005). Regardless of the purpose of a WBSN, one of the main reasons for participating in social networking is to share and exchange information with other users. Recently, thanks to the adoption of Semantic Web technologies such as FOAF and other RDF-based vocabularies (Brickley & Miller, 2005; Davis & Vitiello, 2005; Golbeck, 2004), accessing and disseminating information over multiple WBSNs has been made simpler (Ding, Zhou, Finin, & Joshi, 2005). If this has been quite a relevant improvement towards an easier sharing of information, it makes more urgent that content owners have control over information access. In fact, making available possibly sensitive and private data and resources implies that they can be used by third parties for purposes different from the intended ones. As a matter of fact, users’ personal data and resources are regularly exploited not only by companies for marketing purposes, but also by governments and institutions for tracking persons’ behaviors and opinions, and in the worst case, by online predators (Barnes, 2006). It is then a challenging issue to devise security mechanisms for social networks, able to protect private information and regulate access to shared resources. In this article, besides providing an overview of the characteristics of the WBSN environment and its protection requirements, we illustrate the current approaches and future trends to social network security, with particular attention paid to the emerging technologies related to the so-called Web 2.0.
Service Description Ontologies
Authors: Kantorovitch Julia , Niemelä Eila
Published: May 2011

Services can be Internet-based e-commerce services, business services that abstract company-level interactions, or any other software services that are provided by surrounding devices that are mobile or embedded in nearly any type of physical environment (e.g., home, office, or cars). In brief, services are ubiquitous and executed in heterogeneous environments. Surrounding the definitions and technologies that describe services, there are some important features that are in common. First, services always have some actions that are performed by an entity, possibly on behalf of another. Second, there always exists service interaction, including a service provider, service requestor, and service registry. Finally, services have inherent value that is transferred from the service provider to the service requestor as a result of the service’s execution. To invoke and operate a service in the most efficient way, the service is to be described via essential types of knowledge: a) what the service requires from the user/agent(s) and then provides for them; b) where and when the service is available; c) what quality level is to be guaranteed; d) how to access and interact with the service; and e) what access rights are granted over the service. An accurate service description, including the specifications of functional and nonfunctional properties, benefits and facilitates several important activities, such as service discovery, service composition, and service administration, including the monitoring and controlling of the service’s execution. However, due to the diversity of service contexts, service technologies shall be generic and adaptable to different domains and heterogeneous environments. Service description ontologies solve this problem by enabling a rich representation of services and a common understanding about their respective features. The use of ontologies enables computational entities and services to have a common set of concepts and properties for representing knowledge about a domain of interest. The deployment and customization of existing and emerging service systems can also be considerably facilitated by a common set of ontologies that is developed in order to describe service semantics.
3-D Digitization Methodologies for Cultural Artifacts
Authors: Lee K. , Xu X.W.
Published: May 2011

The three main methods of digitization can be broadly defined as contact digitization, image-based digitization (photogrammetry), and geometry-based digitization (laser scanning). With the development of the latter two digitization methods, and advanced rendering technologies, virtual displays and museums can now be used widely. (Hung, 2007) Furthermore, recent developments in interactive 3-D computer graphics technology have seen an increased interest in, and use of, 3-D digitization for cultural heritage objects. (Muller-Wittig, Zhu, & Voss, 2007) Technologies for reconstructing or remodeling physical components in 3- D formats are not new in the engineering field, in particular within manufacturing engineering. However, 3-D digitization used for the preservation and archiving of cultural artifacts is relatively recent.
Use Cases in the UML
Authors: Dobing Brian , Parsons Jeffrey
Published: May 2011

The unified modeling language (UML) emerged in the mid-1990s through the combination of previously competing object-oriented systems analysis and design methods, including Booch (1994), Jacobson, Christerson, Jonsson, and Overgaard (1992), Rumbaugh, Blaha, Premerlani, Eddy, and Lorensen (1991) and others. Control over its formal evolution was placed in the hands of the object management group (www.omg.org), which recently oversaw a major revision to UML 2.0 (OMG, 2005). The UML has rapidly emerged as a standard language and notation for object-oriented modeling in systems development, while the accompanying unified software development process (Jacobson, Booch, & Rumbaugh, 1999) has been developed to provide methodological support for applying the UML in software development. Use cases play an important role in the unified process, which is frequently described as “use case driven” (e.g., Booch et al., 1999, p. 33). The term “use case” was introduced by Jacobson (1987) to refer to a text document that outlines “a complete course of events in the system, seen from a user’s perspective” (Jacobson et al., 1992, p. 157). The concept resembles others being introduced around the same time. Rumbaugh et al. (1991), Wirfs-Brock, Wilkerson, and Wiener (1990), and Rubin and Goldberg (1992) use the terms “scenario” or “script” in a similar way. While use cases were initially proposed for use in object-oriented analysis and are now part of the UML, they are not inherently object-oriented and can be used with other methodologies.
Web-Based 3D Real Time Experimentation
Authors: Ko C.C. , Chen Ben M. , Cheng C.D.
Published: May 2011

Spurred by development in computer science and network technology, the use of the Internet has been expanding exponentially. It is now extensively used as a connectivity and reference tool for numerous commercial, personal, and educational purposes. In education, the Internet opens a variety of new avenues and methodologies for enhancing the experience of learning as well as expanding educational opportunities for a larger pool of students. Specifically, distance education and non-traditional classrooms have the capability to reach more students using specialized instruction and self-paced learning. In the area of distance education, many Web-based real time experimentation systems have been reported in the literature (Ando, Graziani, & Pitrone, 2003; Daponte, Grimaldi, & Marinov, 2002; Ko, Chen, Chen et al., 2000; Ko et al., 2001; Kumar, Sridharan, & Srinivasan, 2002; Yeung & Huang, 2003). These Internet-based remote laboratories allow users or students to carry out physical experimental work at their own pace anytime anywhere. They generally require very little physical space and minimal manpower to maintain, and are ideal for the sharing of expensive equipment. However, all these experimental systems can only provide 2D operation panels. Due to this limitation, the actual shapes of 3D instruments and equipment, some of which may have controls or display components on different sides, may not be possible to be reflected on the remote user’s client display window.
Aligning IT Teams' Risk Management to Business Requirements
Authors: Hirsch Corey , Ezingeard Jean-Noel
Published: May 2011

Achieving alignment of risk perception, assessment, and tolerance among and between management teams within an organisation is an important foundation upon which an effective enterprise information security management strategy can be built .We argue the importance of such alignment based on information security and risk assessment literature. Too often lack of alignment dampens clean execution of strategy, eroding support during development and implementation of information security programs . We argue that alignment can be achieved by developing an understanding of enterprise risk management plans and actions, risk perceptions and risk culture. This is done by examining context, context and process. We illustrate this through the case of LeCroy Corp., illustrating how LeCroy managers perceive risk in practice, and how LeCroy fosters alignment in risk perception and execution of risk management strategy as part of an overall information security program. We show that in some circumstances diversity of risk tolerance profiles aide a management teams’ function. In other circumstances, variances lead to dysfunction. We have uncovered and quantified nonlinearities and special cases in LeCroy executive management’s risk tolerance profiles.
Towards Google Earth
Authors: Halaoui Hatem F.
Published: May 2011

Using geographical information systems (GIS) has been of great interest lately. A lot of GIS applications are being introduced to regular and noncomputer-expert people through their everyday used machines such as cars (GPS), mobile (location systems), Internet (locating systems and direction guiders), and others. ”Google Earth,” a free online application, is one of those online geographical systems that provide users with a variety of functionalities towards exploring any place on the earth. The software uses Internet to connect to the online world database and travel in seconds between cities. This chapter briefly explores “Google Earth” and presents a possible future view and an extension of this GIS application by adding a time feature that gives “Google Earth” the ability to store the history of the geographical information that leads towards a new “Google Earth: A History of Earth Geography.” For this purpose, the chapter presents storage and indexing approaches to be used for the storage, indexing, retrieval, and manipulation of geographical data used by the geographical database of the world used by “Google Earth.”
Advanced Mobile Multimedia Services with IMS
Authors: van Thanh Do , Jørstad Ivar
Published: May 2011

Although promised for some time now, advanced multimedia services for mobile devices were not yet a reality. With IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), the fundaments for advanced multimedia services based on IP will be laid. However, there are still a lot of confusions about IMS that may hinder its success. In this chapter, a comprehensible presentation of IMS together with its potential regarding the development of advanced services is given. The chapter starts with a justification of the existence of IMS. The necessary adaptations of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) are explained. A concise description of IMS will be provided. Next, the deployment of IMS in fixed – mobile environments will be examined thoroughly. The heart of the chapter is the presentation of the strengths of IMS, that is, what can IMS be used for. A few advanced multimedia service scenarios are given as illustration. The chapter will also consider the most important but yet neglected component of the whole IMS, namely the IMS client. The chapter concludes with a summary of the challenges that must be resolved.
Differences in Computer Usage for U.S. Group Medical Practices
Authors: Sobol Marion , Prater Edmund
Published: May 2011

Research on the use of information technology in healthcare has focused on hospitals and Health Management Organizations (HMOs). However, little has been done to study the use of IT in group medical practices. In 1994, we conducted a pilot study of group medical practices and then repeated this pilot study in 2003 to obtain a longitudinal picture of the IT services used by these private practices. Researchers can use this to form ideas of the important issues and changes involved in IT usage in group medical practices over the past decade thus providing a needed benchmark to fill a gap in the existing literature and that can be used to compare domestic as well as international practices. For example, an expanded form of this study will be conducted in Taiwan this summer.
Key Performance Indicators and Information Flow
Authors: Berler Alexander
Published: May 2011

It is paradoxical that, although several major technological discoveries such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Nuclear Medicine and Digital Radiology, which facilitate improvement in patient care, have been satisfactorily embraced by the medical community, this has not been the case with Healthcare Informatics. Thus, it can be argued that issues such as Data Management, Data Modeling, and Knowledge Management have a long way to go before reaching the maturity level that other technologies have achieved in the medical sector. This chapter proposes to explore trends and best practices regarding knowledge management from the viewpoint of performance management, based upon the use of Key Performance Indicators in healthcare systems. By assessing both balanced scorecards and quality assurance techniques in healthcare, it is possible to foresee an electronic healthcare record centered approach which drives information flow at all levels of the day-to-day process of delivering effective and managed care, and which finally moves towards information assessment and knowledge discovery.
An Information Technology Architecture for Drug Effectiveness Reporting and Post-Marketing Surveillance
Authors: Gupta Amar , Woosley Ray , Crk Igor , Sarnikar Surendra
Published: May 2011

Adverse drug events impose a large cost on the society in terms of lives and health care costs. In this article, we propose an information technology architecture for enabling the monitoring of adverse drug events in an outpatient setting as a part of the post marketing surveillance program. The proposed system architecture enables the development of a Web-based drug effectiveness reporting and monitoring system that builds on previous studies demonstrating the feasibility of a system in which community pharmacists identify and report adverse drug events. We define the key technical requirements of such a monitoring and reporting system, identify the critical factors that influence the successful implementation and use of the system, and propose information technology solutions that satisfy these requirements.
Utilizing Mobile Phones as Patient Terminal in Managing Chronic Diseases
Authors: Kollmann Alexander
Published: May 2011

Mobile information and communication technologies are advancing rapidly and provide great opportunities for home monitoring applications in particular for outpatients and patients suffering from chronic diseases. Because of the ubiquitous availability of mobile phones, these devices can be considered as patient terminals of choice to provide a telemedical interaction between patients and caregivers. The most challenging part still is the patient terminal, that is, to offer the user a method to enter measured data into a system as well as to receive feedback in a comfortable way. The objective of this chapter is to present and compare solutions for mobile-phone-based patient terminals as developed by us and other authors.
Computerization of Primary Care in the United States
Authors: Anderson James G. , Balas E. Andrew
Published: May 2011

The objective of this study was to assess the current level of information technology use by primary care physicians in the U.S. Primary care physicians listed by the American Medical Association were contacted by e-mail and asked to complete a Web-based questionnaire. A total of 2,145 physicians responded. Overall, between 20% and 25% of primary care physicians reported using electronic medical records, e-prescribing, pointof- care decision support tools, and electronic communication with patients. This indicates a slow rate of adoption since 2000. Differences in adoption rates suggest that future surveys need to differentiate primary care and office-based physicians by specialty. An important finding is that one-third of the physicians surveyed expressed no interest in the four IT applications. Overcoming this barrier may require efforts by medical specialty societies to educate their members in the benefits of IT in practice. The majority of physicians perceived benefits of IT, but they cited costs, vendor inability to deliver acceptable products, and concerns about privacy and confidentiality as major barriers to implementation of IT applications. Overcoming the cost barrier may require that payers and the federal government share the costs of implementing these IT applications.
Benefits Derived from ICT Adoption in Regional Medical Practices
Authors: MacGregor R. C.
Published: May 2011

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are being used more and more by general practitioners (GPs) in their day-to-day activities. While a number of studies have shown that ICT adoption and use can provide real benefits to medical practices, there have been few studies to determine whether the perception of those benefits is uniform across the sector. This study examines whether differences in the perception of benefits exist between male and female GPs. The results suggest that the groupings and priorities of benefits arising from ICT use differ substantially between male and female GPs. Results also show, amongst other things, that male GPs are focussed on business efficiency, while female GPs are focussed on communication and practice expansion.
Privacy and Access to Electronic Health Records
Authors: Whiddett Dick
Published: May 2011

The special relationship of trust that needs to exist between a patient and his or her physician has been recognized since the origins of the profession, and the need for doctors to keep confidential any information disclosed to them is codified in the Hippocratic Oath. A distinctive feature of the health records which arises from this relationship is the intimate nature of the information that they may contain; consequently, it is vitally important to maintain the confidentiality of the records and to protect the privacy of the patients. Privacy has long been recognized as a fundamental right in most western societies (Westin, 2003), and unless a patient can be sure that personal information will not be distributed against his or her wishes, the patient may be reluctant to disclose information that may in fact be crucial to his or her correct treatment (Ford, Bearman, & Moody, 1999; NZHIS, 1995), or he or she may refrain from seeking treatment (Sankar, Moran, Merz, & Jones, 2003). This is particularly true when health records contain sensitive information concerning issues like drug and alcohol problems, sexual behavior, mental health, or a genetic predisposition towards certain diseases. In such circumstances, the consequences of the inappropriate release of information could be extensive and might impact on many aspects of a person’s life, such as the ability to gain employment, to maintain a marriage, or to obtain loans or life insurance (Chadwick, 1999; Woodward, 1995).
Mobile Public Relations Strategies
Authors: Galloway Chris
Published: May 2011

Public relations is about the “ethical and strategic management of communication and relationships” (Johnston & Zawawi, 2004, p. 6) with individuals and groups (“publics”) important to an organization. At one time such publics could safely be thought of in relatively static terms such as geographic location. This is, of course, still possible—but such fixed categories are of diminishing importance when it comes to building relationships with modern publics and communicating organizational messages to them. Even the motor vehicles that facilitate physical movement are becoming “smarter” and converging with technologies such as mobile telephony, personal entertainment systems and handheld computing (Sherry & Urry, 2000, as cited in Sheller, 2002). This article aims to explore the idea that mobile technologies mean PR practitioners must rethink both the notion of publics and also how to relate to them. A “mobile PR” will undermine takenfor- granted views about the nature of media, messages, and the kinds of relationships public relations people can expect to create on behalf of their clients. Many practitioners are still getting to grips with the online public relations they have known—through activities such as arranging the building of corporate Web sites, monitoring online discussions relevant to client interests and both disseminating company information online and responding to inquiries about it. The idea of an even more flexible communications environment enabled by mobile technologies may seem very daunting. No-one has so far worked out how to “do” PR in this new communications climate— there are no prescriptions or generally accepted approaches. Yet if practitioners do not confront the dilemma of how to reach mobile audiences they risk becoming irrelevant to many clients who must communicate in the mobile space or face unacceptable decay in their business.
"It's the Mobility, Stupid"
Authors: Roggenkamp Klas
Published: May 2011

This chapter looks at mobility and the term government to describe influencing factors for the process of designing mobile government. A detailed review of perspectives on mobility and a subsequent examination of the government term is given to reach a better understanding of what mobile government can be. Furthermore, four questions are refined which are aimed at helping to first justify and assess a possible m-government service and second to classify this service in a given context. By focusing on mobility as a key component of mobile government, the author hopes to aid developers and researchers alike with designing new and better mobile services within the public sector.
Evaluation of Mobile Technologies in the Context of Their Applications, Limitations, and Transformation
Authors: Ghanbary Abbass
Published: May 2011

Emerging mobile technologies have changed the way we conduct business. This is because communication, more than anything else, has become extremely significant in the context of today’s business. Organizations are looking for communication technologies and corresponding strategies to reach and serve their customers. Mobile technologies provide ability to communicate independent of time and location. Therefore, understanding mobile technologies and the process of transitioning the organization to a mobile organization is crucial to the success of adopting mobility in business. Such a process provides a robust basis for the organization’s desire to reach a wide customer base. This chapter discusses the assessment of a business in the context of mobile technology, describes the application and limitations of mobile technology, presents a brief history of mobile technology and outlines an initial approach for transitioning an organization to a mobile organization.
Embedded Agents for Mobile Services
Authors: Bradley John F. , Muldoon Conor , O’Hare Gregory M.P. , O’Grady Michael J.
Published: May 2011

A significant rise in the use of mobile computing technologies has been witnessed in recent years. Various interpretations of the mobile computing paradigm, for example, ubiquitous and pervasive computing (Weiser, 1991) and more recently, ambient intelligence (Aarts & Marzano, 2003)?have been the subject of much research. The vision of mobile computing is often held as one of “smart” devices operating seamlessly and dynamically, forming ad-hoc networks with other related devices, and presenting the user with a truly ubiquitous intelligent environment. This vision offers many similarities with the concept of distributed artificial intelligence where autonomous entities, known as agents, interact with one another forming ad-hoc alliances, and working both reactively and proactively to achieve individual and common objectives. This article will focus on the current state of the art in the deployment of multi-agent systems on mobile devices and smart phones. A number of platforms will be described, along with some practical issues concerning the deployment of agents in mobile applications.
Real-Time 3D Design Modelling of Outdoor Structures Using Mobile Augmented Reality Systems
Authors: Piekarski Wayne
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents a series of new augmented reality user interaction techniques to support the capture and creation of 3D geometry of large outdoor structures. Named construction at a distance, these techniques are based on the action at a distance concepts employed by other virtual environments researchers. These techniques address the problem of AR systems traditionally being consumers of information, rather than being used to create new content. By using information about the user’s physical presence along with hand and head gestures, AR systems can be used to capture and create the geometry of objects that are orders of magnitude larger than the user, with no prior information or assistance. While existing scanning techniques can only be used to capture existing physical objects, construction at a distance also allows the creation of new models that exist only in the mind of the user. Using a single AR interface, users can enter geometry and verify its accuracy in real-time. Construction at a distance is a collection of 3D modelling techniques based on the concept of AR working planes, landmark alignment, constructive solid geometry operations, and iterative refinement to form complex shapes. This chapter presents a number of different construction at a distance techniques, and are demonstrated with examples of real objects that have been modelled in the physical world.
Distributed Mobile Services and Interfaces for People Suffering from Cognitive Deficits
Authors: Giroux Sylvain , Pigot Hélène , Moreau Jean-François , Savary Jean-Pierre
Published: May 2011

The mobile device presented here is designed to offer several services to enhance autonomy, security, and communication for the cognitively impaired people and their caregivers. Two mobile devices are linked through a server; one is dedicated to the patient, the other one to the caregivers. The services fill three functions for patients: a simplified reminder, an assistance request service, and an ecological information gathering service. Three services are available for the caregiver: monitoring patients’ADLs, informing system and colleagues of an intervention, and planning patients’ ADLs.
Context-Aware Mobile Capture and Sharing of Video Clips
Authors: Lahti Janne , Westermann Utz , Palola Marko , Peltola Johannes
Published: May 2011

Video management research has been neglecting the increased attractiveness of using cameraequipped mobile phones for the production of short home video clips. But specific capabilities of modern phones — especially the availability of rich context data — open up new approaches to traditional video management problems, such as the notorious lack of annotated metadata for home video content. In this chapter, we present MobiCon, a mobile, context-aware home video production tool. MobiCon allows users to capture video clips with their camera phones, to semi-automatically create MPEG-7-conformant annotations by exploiting available context data at capture time, to upload both clips and annotations to the users’ video collections, and to share these clips with friends using OMA DRM. Thereby, MobiCon enables mobile users to effortlessly create richly annotated home video clips with their camera phones, paving the way to a more effective organization of their home video collections.
From CCTV to Biometrics through Mobile Surveillance
Authors: Gallo Jason
Published: May 2011

Surveillance is the act or process of observing, tracking, or recording personal details for the purpose of exercising control over the individual or population being watched. Control in this context can mean many things, from directly influencing the behavior of the observed to the use of gathered information for the purpose of management or governance. Mobile surveillance can be defined as two distinct, yet related, practices. The first is the ability to observe the physical movement of an individual through space. This is most often accomplished through documenting their interaction with a surveillance network. The object of surveillance is tracked from one node of the network to another, providing a record of behavior. The second practice is often referred to as dataveillance, or the ability to monitor an individual’s behavior through studying a trail of personally identifiable data, including credit card purchases, mobile phone calls, and health records. Mobile surveillance employs an array of technologies including video and photography cameras, visual recognition software, radio frequency identification (RFID), global positioning receivers (GPS), information and communication technologies (ICTs), and biometrics. Examples of mobile surveillance networks include the dense deployment of closed-circuit television (CCTV), video, and photographic technologies in a distinct geographic space to monitor activity, the tracking of automobiles and mobile phones via GPS, and radio frequency sensing that records motion as identity chips pass through a distributed network of receivers. As these networks proliferate, individuals are the exposed to overlapping layers of surveillance. Although many of these surveillance networks are deployed for limited purposes, the increasing ability to save and store personally identifiable information in searchable databases, and the ability to mine information from multiple sources raises privacy concerns for the individual. This is especially true in advanced capitalist societies that rely on sophisticated data gathering to track, model, and predict consumer behavior, as well as for citizen management.
E-Commerce and Mobile Commerce Applications Adoptions
Authors: Chen Charlie , Yang Samuel C.
Published: May 2011

E-commerce applications are primarily used at home and in the workplace. Utilitarian elements, including cognitive beliefs of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use (at the individual level), industry pressure, organizational readiness, economics, and trust (at the business level) are key determinants contributing to the usage of ecommerce applications. Mobile devices redefine the meaning of workplace. The use of mobile services could be in and outside the workplace. Hedonic elements, such as fun, culture, life style, and hype are key determinants contributing to the usage of mobile commerce applications. The purpose of our article is to discuss and clarify immediate determinants of e-commerce and mobile commerce applications based on the technology acceptance model.
Optimal Number of Mobile Service Providers in India
Authors: Prasad Rohit , Sridhar Varadharajan
Published: May 2011

With 225 million subscribers, India has the world’s third largest mobile subscriber base in the world. The Indian mobile industry is also one of the most competitive in the world with 4-7 operators in each service area. A large number of operators bring competition and its associated benefits such as decrease in price and hence corresponding growth of the market. On the other hand in the presence of economies of scale, too many operators may result in inefficient scales and high unit costs. This article analyses the trade-off between competition and economies of scale by estimating the production function for mobile subscribers and traffic carried. Analysis of panel data reveals the existence of economies of scale in the Indian mobile sector. We then derive an upper bound on the optimal number of operators in each license area and discuss policy implications.
Context-Awareness and Mobile Devices
Authors: Dey Anind K. , Häkkilä Jonna
Published: May 2011

Context-awareness is a maturing area within the field of ubiquitous computing. It is particularly relevant to the growing sub-field of mobile computing as a user’s context changes more rapidly when a user is mobile, and interacts with more devices and people in a greater number of locations. In this chapter, we present a definition of context and context-awareness and describe its importance to human-computer interaction and mobile computing. We describe some of the dif- ficulties in building context-aware applications and the solutions that have arisen to address these. Despite these solutions, users have difficulties in using and adopting mobile context-aware applications. We discuss these difficulties and present a set of eight design guidelines that can aid application designers in producing more usable and useful mobile context-aware applications.
Strategies for Business Process Outsourcing
Authors: Chakrabarty Subrata
Published: May 2011

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of business process outsourcing (BPO) strategies and analyzes related issues. The discussions in this chapter can serve as an aid to decision makers who face the great dilemma of whether to insource or outsource a process, and additionally how to handle outsourcing to offshore locations. While business processes themselves are activities that need to be performed efficiently, outsourcing them is essentially a strategic decision that can ultimately impact the competitiveness of the client firm. This chapter explores the risks and opportunities associated with the numerous strategies related to outsourcing and offshoring alternatives, business process migration, contracting and alliance building, the role of the vendor, the nature of the relationship, multiclient or multivendor relationships, infusing maturity and ushering transformations in business processes, locating required expertise and quantity of workers, and also utilizing on-demand software services from application service providers.
BSC-Based Framework for E-Business Strategy
Authors: Wang Fen , Forgionne Guisseppi
Published: May 2011

E-business is far more about strategy than technology (Raisinghani & Schkade, 2001). An effective e-business strategy is concerned with e-business multidimensional characteristics associated with different levels, parties, elements, and growth pattern features (Bakry & Bakry, 2001). In the process, the strategy must incorporate the effects of the instant and global Internet communication mechanism on the company’s business management architecture. The global reach and interconnectivity of the Internet have spawned new models of e-business strategy and radically transformed existing ones (Pant & Ravichandran, 2001). Indeed, what distinguishes many of the dot-coms is not their new technical power, but the radical new business models (Hamel, 2000). Aided by such innovative e-business models, managers will be able to identify the major decision factors involved in their business strategies and generate strategies that would improve their overall performance and profitability. In the current context, four essential perspectives are identified to be associated with an e-business strategy: financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth. These four perspectives were first introduced in early 1990s as the balanced scorecard concept (BSC) (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). Because the BSC methodology explicitly focuses on links among business decisions and outcomes, it is intended to guide strategy development, implementation, and provide reliable feedback for management control and performance evaluation. This BSC rationale is thereby appealing to managers who face new challenges in the current turbulent e-business climate. The real challenge is to determine how the BSC can be successfully applied in the context of e-business’s constantly changing environment of interdependencies (Hasan & Tibbits, 2000). E-business introduces new business objectives and strategies and the old measures of success may no longer apply. It is anticipated that the departure from the original BSC for a strategic ebusiness management framework would be more radical than the existing BSC adaptations (e.g., Martinson’s balanced IS scorecard; Martinsons, Davison, & Tse, 1999).
The Driving Forces of Customer Loyalty
Authors: Cheng T. C.E. , Lai L. C.F. , Yeung A. C.L.
Published: May 2011

In this study we examine the driving forces of customer loyalty in the broadband market in Hong Kong. We developed and empirically tested a model to examine the antecedents of customer loyalty towards Internet service providers (ISPs) in Hong Kong. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to evaluate the proposed model. A total of 737 valid returns were obtained through a questionnaire survey. The results show that customer satisfaction, switching cost, and price perception are antecedents that lead directly to customer loyalty, with customer satisfaction exerting the greatest influence. Although we found that service quality significantly influences customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to customer loyalty, we did not find a direct relationship between service quality and customer loyalty. Our results also reveal that corporate image is not related to customer loyalty. Our empirical investigation suggests that investing huge resources in building corporate image can indeed be a risky strategy for ISPs.