bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Expanding Desktop Libraries
Authors: Garten Edward D. , Meyer Donna K.
Published: May 2011

Virtual libraries, no longer a novelty, reflect the expectations of students in distance learning environments. The phenomenal growth of the Internet and public reliance on it as a primary information resource impacts library services to students learning at a distance. Major trends such as telecommuting and the changing profile of traditional college students have fueled the demand for distance education. Distance learning has become an attractive alternative especially for working adults, military servicepersons, and rural residents (Hanson, 2001). The proliferation of distance learning opportunities both within traditional universities, corporate training centers, virtual or online institutions, and other learning collaborations has had considerable implications for the provision of library services to distance students; indeed, it has been argued that distance learning without access to electronic information resources and services is simply impossible (Faulhaber, 1996). Concurrent with the emergence of the virtual university has been the rise of the virtual library. This essay defines the virtual library and situates it within the context of contemporary electronic learning and student expectations.
From R&D Project to Virtual Universities
Authors: Haugen Harald , Ask Bodil
Published: May 2011

Four Norwegian higher educational institutions—the University Colleges at Agder, Stord/Haugesund, and Sør-Trøndelag, and the University in Trondheim (NTNU)—had all participated in a European collaborative project on open learning, that is, JITOL (Just- In-Time Open Learning, 1992-1994) under the Delta program of the European Community. Building on experiences from this and other related projects, representatives from the four institutions decided to propose a national experiment along the same principles. Support was granted from a governmental agency, SOFF, and NITOL (Norway-net with IT for Open Learning) was established in April 1994. NITOL was in the beginning an open learning project for the training of students, teachers, IT professionals, and others. Research and development activities, particularly focusing on distribution of courses and learning material, required some “guinea pigs” to gain experience in the field. The project group therefore invited a group of around 30 students to participate in the experiment—and found that there was possibly a large potential for business, expanding the experimental group and perhaps demanding student fees for participation and examination.
Integrating New Technologies to Promote Distance Learning
Authors: Erlich Zippy
Published: May 2011

The development and emergence of new technologies in distance learning has opened a broad range of options for promoting learning. New technologies and the latest generation of Web-based tools have been increasingly adopted in distance learning. Integrating these technologies into education has a profound impact on all areas of learning, from course management to problem-solving instruction. The new technologies have provided a valuable addition to interactivity and interactions in the process of teaching and learning. In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the use of the latest generation of Web-based tools (Web 2.0), such as wikis, blogs, and podcasts, in distance learning. The possibilities of wikis and blogs and other new Web tools are countless. Any topic that needs to be discussed openly, quickly, or in a collaborative manner can benefit from these tools.
Internet Marketing Techniques for Online Programs
Authors: Gallatin Cynthia
Published: May 2011

The Internet has changed the way we live and work as well as the way we are educating our next generation workforce. Technology-mediated distance learning business models are providing new educational opportunities for students. According to the Sloan Foundation’s 2006 report, there were over 3.2 million students taking online courses in the fall of 2005 (Allen & Seaman, 2007). Not only are higher educational models changing, but the methods to market to prospective students are also shifting. The proliferation of media formats makes it more difficult to reach potential students interested in online programs. Consequently the average individual is bombarded by many different media messages, which results in a significant continual challenge for any online university. Success depends upon finding effective methods to break through media clutter and reach specific target audiences to recruit students for online programs.
A Learner-Centered Perspective on E-Learning
Authors: So Hyo-Jeong , Bonk Curtis J. , Wisher Robert A.
Published: May 2011

For the past decade, e-learning has emerged as a prominent delivery mechanism in educational settings. Now, it is not uncommon to find courses that are delivered fully online or in a blended learning (Bonk & Graham, 2006) mode. In addition, with the pervasive use of handheld, mobile, and wireless technologies, mobile learning (i.e., m-learning) and ubiquitous learning (i.e., u-learning) have received extensive attention as promising trends in the field of distance education. Indeed, our goals, related to the design of environments where learning happens at anytime and any place, seem more reachable with such emerging educational technologies that maximize mobility, connectivity, and versatility. Add to that options for learner participation and contribution within such an environment, as is seen with many online tools today, and there are many exciting opportunities for learnercentered online instruction.
Motivating the Adult Learner Online
Authors: Styer Audrey J.
Published: May 2011

An understanding of learner motivation is important to all educators, particularly those teaching online where learners need to be more motivated to achieve (Miltiadou & Savenye, 2003; Pintrich, 2003; Palloff & Pratt, 2003; Beffa-Negrini et al., 2002; Roblyer, 1999). As educators strive to create better online courses that motivate learners to be successful, substantive theories on online adult learner motivation are essential to have as benchmarks against which to pattern best practices.
The Quality Matters Program
Authors: Legon Ronald
Published: May 2011

The Quality Matters™ Program (www.qualitymatters. org) is a set of standards (or rubric) for the design of online college-level courses and the online components of hybrid/blended courses, and a peer review process for applying these standards. The Quality Matters Rubric is based on recognized best practices, built on the expertise of instructional designers and experienced online teachers, and supported by distance education literature and research. The goals of the program are to increase student retention, learning and satisfaction in online courses by implementing better course design.
Religion and Online Learning
Authors: Rogers P. Clint , Howell Scott L.
Published: May 2011

Internationally, religious institutions are developing online learning for a variety of reasons and purposes. The overall interaction of religion and the Internet has been varied (Dawson & Cowan, 2004). However, as Christopher Helland (2007) observes, “[By 2006] this medium has been embraced by most of the world religious traditions, to the point that not having Internet representation is a rarity for a religious organization, even if it is luddite in its beliefs and practices” (Introduction ¶4). The religious applications of formal online education comprise three main areas: extending the reach of theological education (primarily for the training of clergy), expanding opportunities for higher education from religious-sponsored universities and colleges, and facilitating other lifelong learning opportunities for members of the laity. It remains the case that “little has been written and published on distance education in North American theological education” (Amos, 1999, p. 126). Despite an expanding usage of online learning by religious institutions, there has been little published on any of these international efforts. Accordingly, this paper is a synthesis of original research, the authors having contacted leaders and academics from international institutions affiliated with major world religions to discover more about their various applications of online learning.
Researching Distance Education
Authors: Naidu Som
Published: May 2011

This chapter offers a framework for prosecuting research in distance education. The proposed framework is based on widely acknowledged practices in research design and topics of interest in distance education. The two critical components of this framework are key topics or areas of investigation in distance education (which is not an exhaustive list), and methods of research. A key contribution of this framework is that it has the potential to ensure that the most appropriate research method is selected for the topic or question that is to be investigated. The framework itself does not provide directions on how a piece of research ought to be carried out. Instead, it serves as a planning tool for matching research method with the research question or topic. This discussion is an extended version of an earlier discussion on the topic that was published in EduComm Asia (Volume 8, Number 4, June 2003, pages, 16-19), which is non-refereed quarterly newsletter of the Commonwealth Educational Media Center for Asia: New Delhi, India.
Rubrics as an Assessment Tool in Distance Education
Authors: MacGregor Bonnie L.
Published: May 2011

Effective communication of the grading process to students is a concern that many online instructors face. The purpose of this entry is to show how the use of a rubric as an assessment tool clarifies for distance education instructors and their students the expectations, criteria, and performance levels of assignments, plus – more importantly – how the rubric details the description of the earned grade. Many student activities can be assessed similarly in a distance learning situation to the building-based environment. There are traditional assignments, such as multiple choice tests and homework, which measure students’ ability to absorb content information. Alternate assessments—such as paintings, stories, projects, essays, portfolios, journals, web page designs, simulations, group activities, PowerPoint® presentations, self-evaluations, etc.—ask the student to demonstrate their knowledge about the learning process or the quality and effectiveness of some product that they have authored.
Security and Privacy in Distance Education
Authors: Yee George
Published: May 2011

Many applications and tools have been developed to support the design and delivery of distance learning courses. Unfortunately, many of these applications have only cursory provisions for security and privacy, such as authentication based only on user id and password. Given the increased attacks on networked applications and the increased awareness of personal privacy rights, this situation is unacceptable. Indeed, electronic services of all kinds, including distance learning, will never be fully successful until the users of these services are confident that their information is protected from unauthorized access and their privacy assured. In the literature, there are few papers dealing specifically with security and privacy for distance education. El-Khatib, Korba, Xu and Yee (2003) discuss security and privacy for e-learning in terms of legislative requirements, standards and privacy-enhancing technologies. Korba, Yee, Xu, Song, Patrick and El-Khatib (2004) investigate how security and privacy can promote user trust in agent-supported distributed learning. Yee and Korba (2003, 2004) discuss the use and negotiation of privacy policies for distance education. Lin, Korba, Yee and Shih (2004) describe the application of security and privacy technologies to distance learning tools. Yee, Korba, Lin and Shih (2005) present an approach for using context-aware agents to implement security and privacy in distance learning. Holt and Fraser (2003) discuss the psychological and pedagogical motivation for security and privacy.
Significance and Uniqueness of Personalized E-Coaching
Authors: Chang Ni
Published: May 2011

Students’ engagement in completing written assignments or learning activities may, in part, serve the purpose of achieving their learning goals. Assessing student work based on clearly stated course objectives, on the other hand, helps instructors to teach effectively by reaching out to each individual student with strategies compatible to the student’s needs and learning level. Such a teaching and learning process may be viewed as coaching through assessment (Chang & Petersen, 2006). It is an essential vehicle that students use to continuously reflect on and construct their particular knowledge and skills (Chang, 2007; Chang & Petersen, 2006; MacDonald & Twining, 2002). Without it, as found by Lim & Cheah (2003), students may feel lost and detach themselves from learning.
Technology Barriers and Opportunities
Authors: Wilkinson John C.
Published: May 2011

It is comforting to know that some things are timeless. The sound of the ocean surf. And now, the gulf between the highly trained networking and technology experts and the inexperienced technology users. Whether in business or education, there is at the very least a “tsk, tsk” uttered in private by the technology experts about the users. Stories abound about such user follies as using the CD-ROM drive bay as a cup holder. At its most extreme, there may be a desire to lock out, bolt down, shut off, and otherwise control the use of networks by the “damn users.” In a reflective, albeit impractical moment, a network engineer may be heard to mutter, “If it weren’t for the users, our network would never fail.”
Technology Enriched Active Learning (TEAL) for Summer Sessions
Authors: Morrow Marilyn J. , Miller Paulette
Published: May 2011

Faculty within academic departments, colleges, and universities are now routinely faced with the decision to offer courses or programs in an online environment in addition to the more traditional, face-to-face classroom format. These decisions are made both by an individual faculty member who wants to expand teaching and learning formats to include online learning, to entire departments that decide to offer an entire program/course of study online. The regular school year (August through May) offers faculty many opportunities to present both online and hybrid courses. There is much research in the efficacy of online learning as well as specific types of pedagogical tools such as type of feedback provided to students (Morgan & Toledo, 2006). However, little research has been done on the possibilities that the summer school session provides to meet the needs of students who are enrolled in traditional, residential programs but living at home during the summer as well as learners who are interested in completing a specific course but not enrolled during the regular school year. The summer school session offered by most universities opens unique opportunities for faculty and students as well as academic departments and colleges to be involved in online courses.
Trends in Distance Education in South America
Authors: Barrera Luis
Published: May 2011

This article reviews the history, state of the art, and future trends in distance education, in South American countries, through an overview of the main experiences in the region. South America is in the western hemisphere, connected to Central and North America by the Isthmus of Panama. Twelve countries form this continent: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela. As reported by the United Nations Development Programme (2007), all of them are developing countries, characterized by a difficult social reality as a result of political and economic crisis in the course of its history.
Ubiquitous Learning and Handhelds
Authors: Nicholas Howard , Ng Wan
Published: May 2011

The concept of ubiquitous computing or Ubicomp was first articulated by Mark Weiser in 1988 at the Computer Science Lab at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Centre). He asserted that the most profound technologies associated with ubiquitous computing are those that disappear as they weave themselves into the framework of our everyday lives. He described Ubicomp as the third wave of computing. The first wave of computing, from 1940 to about 1980, saw the use of one mainframe computer by many people. The second wave saw a one-to-one computer to human ratio where individuals were connected to desktops or laptops. We are now in the third wave of computing where many computers dispersed throughout the physical environment, service one person, and as these technologies recede into the background of people’s lives, they are increasingly being used unconsciously for task completion (Weiser, 1991, 1996). In this regard, ubiquitous computing is viewed as the age of “calm technology” (Weiser and Brown, 1996). In a similar analogy, O’Malley & Fraser (2006) describe technology associated with ubiquitous computing as “tangible” in which “the technology is so embedded in the world that it ‘disappears’ ” (p.2).
A Web-Based Tool for Teaching WLAN Design Fundamentals to Undergraduates
Authors: Sarkar Nurul I.
Published: May 2011

Wireless communication and networking courses are becoming increasingly popular in universities, polytechnical institutions, postsecondary colleges, and private training institutions around the globe. This popularity is partly because of rapid developments in wireless communication and networking technologies and the high demand for wireless networking skills in the industry worldwide. Unfortunately, motivating students to learn wireless local area network (WLAN) design is often difficult because students find the subject rather technical, and dry when presented. To overcome this problem, we have developed a Web-based software tool (named WLAN-Designer) that gives students an interactive learning experience in WLAN design concepts. The WLAN-Designer is suitable for classroom use in introductory wireless networking courses (undergraduate IT and CIS curricula). The effectiveness of WLAN-Designer has been evaluated by both students and teaching teams. The implementation of WLAN-Designer was judged to be successful because of the positive student feedback and also students scored better in the final examination. This chapter describes WLAN-Designer and its effectiveness as an aid to teaching and learning WLAN design concepts. The impact of WLAN-Designer on student learning and comprehension is also discussed.
Where Does Work End and Home Life Begin?
Authors: Berge Zane L. , Bichy Cassie , Grayson Candice , Johnson Anthony , Macadoff Stephen
Published: May 2011

Many years ago, it was a commonly held belief that technology would improve industries and service professions, which means that people could work shorter hours and their employers would make just as much money. Essentially, this is the central myth of modern capitalism. Modern technologies are the shackles that bind today’s employees to their jobs long after they get home from work. Beginning in the 1990s, technology made working from home possible for a growing number of people. At first this was perceived as the era of great things to come. At home, many people had personal computers connected to their corporate network. It quickly became clear that telecommuting and the rapidly proliferating “electronic leash” of cell phones made work inescapable in the 24/7, on-demand work accessibility (Curry, 2003).
The Extension of the Theory to the Trivariate Linear Interpolation Function
Authors: Ciulla Carlo
Published: May 2011

The organization of this chapter is similar to that of Chapter VII where it was outlined the theoretical approach to the improvement of the bivariate linear interpolation function. The methodological approach calculates the Intensity-Curvature Functional on the basis of the two intensity-curvature terms calculated before and after interpolation. The roots of the polynomial system consisting of the three first order partial derivatives of the Intensity-Curvature Functional constitute the SRE. The formula that belongs to the unifying theory and that allows the calculation of the novel re-sampling locations for the trivariate linear interpolation function is in this chapter seen in equation (1). The novel re-sampling locations (xr0, yr0 , zr0) are obtained through equations (14), (15) and (16).
On the Literature of B-Spline Interpolation Functions
Authors: Ciulla Carlo
Published: May 2011

This chapter reviews the extensive and comprehensive literature on B-Splines. In the forthcoming text emphasis is given to hierarchy and formal definition of polynomial interpolation with specific focus to the subclass of functions that are called B-Splines. Also, the literature is reviewed with emphasis on methodologies and applications of B-Splines within a wide array of scientific disciplines. The review is conducted with the intent to inform the reader and also to acknowledge the merit of the scientific community for the great effort devoted to B-Splines. The chapter concludes emphasizing on the proposition that the unifying theory presented throughout this book has for what concerns two specific cases of B-Spline functions: univariate quadratic and cubic models.
Assistive Technologies, Tools and Resources for the Access and Use of Information and Communication Technologies by People with Disabilities
Authors: Groba Betania , Pousada Thais , Nieto Laura
Published: May 2011

A person with disabilities can present difficulties in occupational performance. It is necessary to develop a set of resources, technological or otherwise, to offset these difficulties, and contribute to the integration of people with functional diversity in society. These resources are called support products or technology support, but do not eliminate the deficits, they can eliminate the limitation of the performance of persons with disabilities. Moreover, the Information Technology and Communications (ICT) were formed as an alternative to personal empowerment of people with disabilities. To access and use of these new technologies are used to support specific products. In the market there is a diversity and variety of assistive technology, so it is necessary the classification and analysis of various products before the person can use it. The purpose of this chapter is to provide information about assistive technology, and specifically those directly related to ICT.
Human-Centered Metal Hydride Actuator Systems for Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology
Authors: Ino Shuichi , Sato Mitsuru
Published: May 2011

Metal hydride materials can store a huge amount of hydrogen and can convert energy due to enthalpy change through a hydride reaction. Artificial actuation systems that employ this special physicochemical property are named metal hydride actuators. The actuators utilize the mechanical energy formed from hydrogen equilibrium pressure through thermal energy given to the metal hydride alloys as output. Metal hydride actuators have a simple structure and a number of features that make them attractive for use in rehabilitation engineering and assistive technology. They provide a high power-to-weight ratio, high strain actuation, human-compatible softness and noiselessness, and they are environmentally benign. The behavior of metal hydride actuators is also useful for overall human-machine interface applications. This article reviews the motivation for the development of some of the leading artificial muscle-like actuators, outlines the metal hydride actuators and describes its applications in quality-of-life technology.
Blind User Interfacing
Authors: Alonso Fernando , Fuertes José , González Ángel , Martínez Loïc
Published: May 2011

There are specific usability requirements for developing dual interfaces, that is, graphical user interfaces that are also adapted for blind users. These include task adequacy, dimensional trade-off, behavior equivalence, semantic loss avoidance and device-independence. Consequently, the development of human-computer interfaces based on task, domain, dialog, presentation, platform and user models has to be modified to take into account these requirements. This paper presents the requirements for blind user interfacing, the changes to be made to the human-computer interface models and a framework that improves the development of dual user interfaces. The framework includes a set of guidelines for interface design, a toolkit for the low effort implementation of dual user interfaces, and a programming library for the inclusion of speech and Braille in applications. A case study of the development of one such dual interface application is also presented.
Telegerontology®
Authors: Millán-Calenti José , Maseda Ana
Published: May 2011

One of the priorities of a modern society must be to offer all individuals the possibility to access all resources available. In this sense, there are still great differences even among well-developed countries when it comes to facing shortages in two important groups, elderly people and disabled people, even more so in the case of elderly people who are also disabled. The amazing progress of remote ICT applied to this field has meant spectacular advances, some of which will be described in this chapter. We will also devote one section to future tendencies and finally, we will focus on the system called Telegerontology®, which apart from including the basic principles of accessibility and usability, also includes those of gerontology attention, i.e., the capacity to assess the patient before the intervention.
Privacy and Security in the Age of Electronic Customer Relationship Management
Authors: Romano Nicholas C. , Fjermestad Jerry
Published: May 2011

New technologies have fostered a shift from a transaction-based economy through an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) informational-exchange economy to relationship-based Electronic Commerce (EC) one (Keen 1999.) We have moved from “first order” transactional value exchanges through “secondorder” informational value exchanges to “third-order” relational value exchanges (Widmeyer 2004.) Three important types of EC relationships have been identified: between enterprises and customers (B2C); between enterprises (B2B); and between customers (C2C) (Kalakota 1996.). Additional relationships between Governments (G2G), enterprises (G2B) and customers (G2C) have become more important as EC and e-government have matured and legislation, regulation and oversight have increased (Friel 2004; Reddick 2004); however these are not the focus of this paper. Relational value exchanges have become central to success and competitive advantage in B2C EC and it here that we focus on privacy and security in the age of virtual relationships.
Ignorance is Bliss
Authors: Van Dyke Thomas P.
Published: May 2011

Studies have shown that people claim that privacy matters to them but then they often do things while browsing that are risky in terms of privacy. The seeming inconsistency between professed privacy concerns and risky behavior on the internet may be more a consequence of ignorance rather than irrationality. It is possible that many people simply don’t understand the technologies, risks, and regulations related to privacy and information gathering on the Web. In this study, the authors conducted an experiment to determine the answer to the following question: If people understood the risks and technology, would that knowledge alter their level of privacy concern and their preferences concerning e-commerce Web site personalization? Results indicate that increased awareness of information gathering technology resulted in significantly higher levels of privacy concern and significantly reduced preferences for Web site personalization. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Learning Algorithms for Complex-Valued Neural Networks in Communication Signal Processing and Adaptive Equalization as its Application
Authors: You Cheolwoo , Hong Daesik
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, the complex Backpropagation (BP) algorithm for the complex backpropagation neural networks (BPN) consisting of the suitable node activation functions having multi-saturated output regions is presented and analyzed by the benchmark testing. And then the complex BPN is utilized as nonlinear adaptive equalizers that can deal with both quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and phase shift key (PSK) signals of any constellation sizes. In addition, four nonlinear blind equalization schemes using complex BPN for M-ary QAM signals are described and their learning algorithms are presented. The presented complex BP equalizer (CBPE) gives, compared with conventional linear complex equalizers, an outstanding improvement with respect to bit error rate (BER) when channel distortions are nonlinear.
Neuromorphic Adiabatic Quantum Computation
Authors: Sato Shigeo , Kinjo Mitsunaga
Published: May 2011

The advantage of quantum mechanical dynamics in information processing has attracted much interest, and dedicated studies on quantum computation algorithms indicate that a quantum computer has remarkable computational power in certain tasks. Quantum properties such as quantum superposition and quantum tunneling are worth studying because they may overcome the weakness of gradient descent method in classical neural networks. Also, the technique established for neural networks can be useful for developing a quantum algorithm. In this chapter, first the authors show the effectiveness of incorporating quantum dynamics and then propose neuromorphic adiabatic quantum computation algorithm based on the adiabatic change of Hamiltonian. The proposed method can be viewed as one of complex-valued neural networks because a qubit operates like a neuron. Next, the performance of the proposed algorithm is studied by applying it to a combinatorial optimization problem. Finally, they discuss the learning ability and hardware implementation.
Human Motion Analysis
Authors: Kim Daijin , Sung Jaewon
Published: May 2011

Human motion analysis (Moeslund et. al., 2006; Wang et. al., 2003) is currently one of the most active research areas in computer vision due both to the number of potential applications and its inherent complexity. This high interest is driven by many applications in many areas such as surveillance, virtual reality, perceptual, control applications or analysis of human behaviors. However, the research area contains a number of difficult, such as ill-posed problem. So, many researchers have investigated these problems. Human motion analysis is generally composed of three major parts: human detection, tracking and the behavior understandings.
Mining Tinnitus Database for Knowledge
Authors: Thompson Pamela L. , Zhang Xin , Jiang Wenxin , Ras Zbigniew W. , Jastreboff Pawel
Published: May 2011

This chapter describes the process used to mine a database containing data, related to patient visits during Tinnitus Retraining Therapy. The original collection of datasets containing diagnostic and treatment data on tinnitus patients and visits was collected by P. Jastreboff. This sparse dataset consisted of eleven tables primarily related by patient id, number, and date of visit. First, with the help of P. Jastreboff, we gained an understanding of the domain knowledge spanning different disciplines (including otology and audiology), and then we used this knowledge to extract, transform, and mine the constructed database. Complexities were encountered with temporal data and text mining of certain features.The researchers focused on analysis of existing data, along with automating the discovery of new and useful features in order to improve classification and understanding of tinnitus diagnosis.
Advancing Women in the Digital Economy
Authors: Braun Patrice
Published: May 2011

In view of the fact that women are playing an increasingly important role in the global economy, this chapter examines business skilling in the digital economy for women in general and women-led small businesses in Australia, in particular. With employability and entrepreneurial capacity of women increasing, so too is their need for a comprehensive skill set is increasing. It is proposed that business courses currently offered do not necessarily consider their target audience or include new economy considerations. This chapter discusses the need for meta-competencies that will allow women in both developed and emerging economies to operate more effectively in a changing work environment and an increasingly digital business environment. For meta-competency efficacy, it is further proposed that evidence-based learning models, gender-sensitive approaches to business learning, and collaborative uses of technology underpin content and (e-)business learning designs.
Impact of Computer and Video Games on the Development of Children
Authors: Malik Kalawati
Published: May 2011

This chapter analyses the impact of computer and video games on the development of children. First introductory part of this chapter informs its readers about the computer and video games followed by understanding the term development. The chapter details about how computer and video games affect the children and their behaviour. There is clear evidence from researches that shows the impact of computer and video games on the learning and development of children. On the positive side, they improve handeye coordination, logical skills, visual concentration, and so forth. They also provide an occasion for the child and parents to play together, which further helps in familial bonds and psychological development of children. Looking at the negative side, the computer and video games caused addictive, obsessive, and violent behaviour in children; taking away their time from other creative activities and sports, and so forth. In addition, some games desensitised children from other’s sufferings and made them more violent. The chapter concludes with some suggestions and recommendations as to what extent we should let children use these games, how to deviate their inclination to play these games, and to motivate them for other games and outdoor activities.
A Multi-Agent Modeling Approach to Simulate Dynamic Activity-Travel Patterns
Authors: Han Qi , Arentze Theo , Timmermans Harry , Janssens Davy , Wets Geert
Published: May 2011

Contributing to the recent interest in the dynamics of activity-travel patterns, this chapter discusses a framework of an agent-based modeling approach focusing on the dynamic formation of (location) choice sets. Individual travelers are represented as agents, each with their cognition of the environment, habits, and activity-travel patterns. Agents learn through their experiences with the transport systems, changes in the environments and from their social network. Conceptually, agents are assumed to have an aspiration level associated with choice sets that in combination with evaluation results determine whether the agent will start exploring or persist in habitual behavior; an activation level of each (location) alternative that determines whether or not the alternative is included in the choice set in the next time step, and an expected (utility) function to evaluate each (location) alternative given current beliefs. Each of these elements is dynamic. Based on principles of reinforcement learning, Bayesian learning, and social comparison theories, the framework specifies functions for experience-based learning, extended and integrated with social learning.
Knowledge Management Portals for Empowering Citizens and Societies
Authors: Rahman Hakikur
Published: May 2011

Knowledge management is not a simple technology driven modus operandi, rather it is policy driven issue that is intermingled with technology, decision, management and intellectuality. Along this route, empowering common citizens utilizing knowledge development utilities is a challenge to the researchers and development practitioners. Furthermore, dissemination of intellectual content on the Web for public view, their understanding, capacity development, and specifically for being utilized as a tool to increase their social, educational, political and economic ability is by far the most difficult part of the system. The process complicates further, when emerging technologies are being adopted to provide the solution, especially for the common people of the community with their social and political implications. However, in recent years, knowledge management has become a new branch of system management for achieving breakthrough in entrepreneurship, social and governance performance synergizing people, process, technology and policy. At the same time, emerging technologies like, data mining are being utilized for carrying out intelligent decision among dispersed source of huge data. Semantic Web Technologies are also being incorporated in the decision making processes. This chapter is focusing on knowledge management issues for developing knowledge management portals to empower citizens and societies. In this context, the chapter introduced critical aspects of knowledge management perspectives, justified establishment of knowledge management portals acting as a tool of empowerment, provided insight on data mining as a technology of implementation, throws a solution by introducing Semantic Web Technologies as an essential technology for establishing knowledge management portals, puts forward contemporary challenges during the establishment of knowledge management portal, illustrated a few cases that are acting as knowledge management portals, and concluded before giving a few hints on future research issues for empowering common element of the society.
The Science of Social Emergence
Authors: Sawyer R. Keith
Published: May 2011

Sociology should be the foundational science of social emergence. But to date, sociologists have neglected emergence, and studies of emergence are more common within microeconomics. Moving forward, I argue that a science of social emergence requires two advances beyond current approaches—and that sociology is better positioned than economics to make these advances. First, consistent with existing critiques of microeconomics, I argue that we need a more sophisticated representation of individual agents. Second, I argue that multi-agent models need a more sophisticated representation of interaction processes. The agent communication languages currently used by multi-agent systems researchers are not appropriate for modeling human societies. I conclude by arguing that the scientific study of interaction and emergence will have to migrate out of microeconomics and become a part of sociology. Sociologists, for their part, should embrace multi-agent modeling to pursue a more rigorous study of these traditional sociological issues.
Developing Relationships Between Autonomous Agents
Authors: Watson Scott , Dautenhahn Kerstin , Ho Wan Ching (Steve) , Dawidowicz Rafal
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses certain issues in the development of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) populated by autonomous social agents, with specific reference to existing applications designed to promote pro-social behaviour among children. We begin by describing the ways in which human groups are organised and maintained, and present the primary school class as a particular example of a social network. Contemporary psychological descriptions of bullying are explained, and current anti-bullying interventions are briefly reviewed. Two VLEs are described, which have been designed to counteract the problems inherent in bullying as exemplars of social and educational environments. This chapter concludes in Part II where the requirements for believable, autonomous agents, used in virtual learning environments, are outlined.
Construction of Meanings in Biological and Artificial Agents
Authors: Takác Martin
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, we focus on the issue of understanding in various types of agents. Our main goal is to build up notions of meanings and understanding in neutral and non-anthropocentric terms that would not exclude preverbal living organisms and artificial systems by definition. By analyzing the evolutionary context of understanding in living organisms and the representation of meanings in several artificially built systems, we come to design principles for building “understanding” artificial agents and formulate necessary conditions for the presence of inherent meanings. Such meanings should be based on interactional couplings between the agents and their environment, and should help the agents to orient themselves in the environment and to satisfy their goals. We explore mechanisms of action-based meaning construction, horizontal coordination, and vertical transmission of meanings and exemplify them with computational models.
Emergent Reasoning Structures in Law
Authors: Walker Vern R.
Published: May 2011

In modern legal systems, a large number of autonomous agents can achieve reasonably fair and accurate decisions in tens of thousands of legal cases. In many of those cases, the issues are complicated, the evidence is extensive, and the reasoning is complex. The decision-making process also integrates legal rules and policies with expert and non-expert evidence. This chapter discusses two major types of reasoning that have emerged to help bring about this remarkable social achievement: systems of rule-based deductions and patterns of evidence evaluation. In addition to those emergent structures, second-order reasoning about legal reasoning itself not only coordinates the decision-making, but also promotes the emergence of new reasoning structures. The chapter analyzes these types of reasoning structures using a many-valued, predicate, default logic – the Default-Logic (D-L) Framework. This framework is able to represent legal knowledge and reasoning in actual cases, to integrate and help evaluate expert and non-expert evidence, to coordinate agents working on different legal problems, and to guide the evolution of the knowledge model over time. The D-L Framework is also useful in automating portions of legal reasoning, as evidenced by the Legal Apprenticetm software. The framework therefore facilitates the interaction of human and non-human agents in legal decision- making, and makes it possible for non-human agents to participate in the evolution of legal reasoning in the future. Finally, because the D-L Framework itself is grounded in logic and not on theories peculiar to the legal domain, it is applicable to other knowledge domains that have a complexity similar to that of law and solve problems through default reasoning.
Spatial Data in Multidimensional Conceptual Models
Authors: Malinowski Elzbieta
Published: May 2011

Data warehouses (DWs) are used for storing and analyzing high volumes of historical data. The structure of DWs is usually represented as a star schema consisting of fact and dimension tables. A fact table contains numeric data called measures (e.g., quantity). Dimensions are used for exploring measures from different analysis perspectives (e.g., according to products). They usually contain hierarchies required for online analysis processing (OLAP) systems in order to dynamically manipulate DW data. While traversing hierarchy, two operations can be executed: the roll-up operation, which transforms detailed measures into aggregated data (e.g., daily into monthly sales); and the drill-down operation, which does the opposite.
Database Engineering Supporting the Data Evolution
Authors: Camolesi Júnior Luiz , Vieira Marina Teresa Pires
Published: May 2011

Researchers in several areas (sociology, philosophy and psychology), among them Herbert Spencer and Abraham Maslow, attribute human actions resulting in continual environmental changes to the search for the satisfaction of individual and collective needs. In other fields of science, this behavior represents a challenge in ethical researches on concepts, methodologies and technologies aimed at optimizing and qualifying the actions involved in these continual changes to obtain better results.
A Survey of Data Warehouse Model Evolution
Authors: Favre Cécile , Bentayeb Fadila , Boussaid Omar
Published: May 2011

A data warehouse allows the integration of heterogeneous data sources for analysis purposes. One of the key points for the success of the data warehousing process is the design of the model according to the available data sources and the analysis needs (Nabli, Soussi, Feki, Ben-Abdallah & Gargouri, 2005). However, as the business environment evolves, several changes in the content and structure of the underlying data sources may occur. In addition to these changes, analysis needs may also evolve, requiring an adaptation to the existing data warehouse’s model. In this chapter, we provide an overall view of the state of the art in data warehouse model evolution. We present a set of comparison criteria and compare the various works. Moreover, we discuss the future trends in data warehouse model evolution.
Automatic Data Enrichment in GIS Through Condensate Textual Information
Authors: Mahmoudi Khaoula , Faïz Sami
Published: May 2011

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) (Faïz, 1999) are being increasingly used to manage, retrieve, and store large quantities of data which are tedious to handle manually. The GIS power is to help managers make critical decisions they face daily. The ability to make sound decisions relies upon the availability of relevant information. Typically, spatial databases do not contain much information that could support the decision making process in all situations. Besides, Jack Dangermond, president of a private GIS software company, argued that “The application of GIS is limited only by the imagination of those who use it”. Hence, it is of primary interest to provide other data sources to make these systems rich information sources.
Inconsistency-Tolerant Integrity Checking
Authors: Decker Hendrik , Martinenghi Davide
Published: May 2011

Integrity checking has been a perennial topic in almost all database conferences, journals, and research labs. The importance of the issue is testified by very large amounts of research activities and publications. They are motivated by the fact that integrity checking is practically unfeasible for significant amounts of stored data without a dedicated approach to optimize the process. Basic early approaches have been extended to deductive, object-relational, XML- (extensible markup language) based, distributed, and other kinds of advanced database technology. However, the fundamental ideas that are already present in the seminal paper (Nicolas, 1982) have not changed much. The basic principle is that, in most cases, a so-called simplification, that is, a simplified form of the set of integrity constraints imposed on the database, can be obtained from a given update (or just an update schema) and the current state of the database (or just the database schema). Thus, integrity, which is supposed to be an invariant of all possible database states, is checked upon each update request, which in turn is authorized only if the check of the simplification yields that integrity is not violated. Here, simplified essentially means more efficiently evaluated at update time. A general overview of the field of simplified integrity checking is provided in Martinenghi, Christiansen, and Decker (2006).
The Challenges of Checking Integrity Constraints in Centralized, Distributed, and Parallel Databases
Authors: Ibrahim Hamidah
Published: May 2011

A vital problem that should be tackled in today’s database system is guaranteeing database consistency. Many techniques and tools have been devised to fulfill this requirement in many interrelated research areas such as concurrency control, security control, reliability control, and integrity control (Eswaran & Chamberlin, 1975; Grefen, 1993). Concurrency control deals with the prevention of inconsistencies caused by concurrent access by multiple users or applications to a database. Security control deals with preventing users from accessing and modifying data in a database in unauthorized ways. Reliability control deals with the prevention of errors due to the malfunctioning of system hardware or software. Integrity control deals with the prevention of semantic errors made by users due to their carelessness or lack of knowledge. This chapter is concerned only with integrity control.