bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Humeral Fracture Between a Total Elbow and Total Shoulder Arthroplasty
Authors: Mavrogenis Andreas F. , Angelini Andrea , Guerra Enrico , Rotini Roberto
Published: February 2013

This article presents a case of a 71-year-old woman with a humeral fracture between a cementless reverse total shoulder arthroplasty and a cemented total elbow arthroplasty and discusses our treatment plan. Surgical treatment was performed after the patient was informed of possible complications and the benefits of surgery including: early, complete restoration of arm anatomy, greater functional improvement of the adjacent joints, and increased risk of nonunion with nonoperative treatment.

The fracture was comminuted and extended proximally around the shoulder prosthesis. Through the posterior approach, the radial nerve was identified and protected. Both prostheses were found firmly fixed to bone. The fracture around the shoulder prosthesis was reduced first using a strut allograft and reduction clamps. Next, arm alignment restoration and distal humerus reduction were performed. The construct was neutralized with a 3.5-mm locking plate spanning the whole length of the humerus. The locking plate was positioned posterolaterally and the strut medially in a 90° to 90° configuration secured with wires and cables.

A hinged elbow brace was applied for 6 weeks postoperatively. Active range of motion exercises of the wrist and hand and passive motion of the elbow and shoulder were started at 4 to 5 days postoperatively. At 2 weeks postoperatively, passive motion of the elbow and shoulder progressed to strengthening exercises. Thereafter, the patient underwent several weeks of physical therapy to restore motion, strength, and function of the upper extremity with instructions not to overload the arm and avoid heavy work and sports for as long as 1 year. At 10 months postoperatively, radiographs of the arm showed a stable construct; the patient had resumed full activities of daily living.
Isolated U-Shaped Sacral Fracture with Cauda Equina Injury
Authors: Chen Hong-wei , Liu Guo-dong , Zhao Gang-sheng , Pan Jun
Published: February 2013

A highly unstable and neurological injury, the isolated U-shaped sacral fracture without pre-pelvic ring fracture but combined with cauda equina injury is rare in clinics, and the treatment method remains unclear. It can occur when patients fall from a height, the lower extremities hit the ground in extreme flexion, and the sacrum is the direct touchdown point. The direct impact on the sacrum and the vertical extrusion energy through the spinal column may be the main mechanism of injury. The U-shaped sacral fracture is easily missed, and diagnosis is often delayed as it is difficult to detect on anteroposterior view pelvic radiograph due to angulation of the fracture and bowel shadow. When clinical signs suggested a possible U-shaped sacral fracture, a 2- to 3-mm cut computed tomography scan with coronal and sagittal reconstruction can provide optimal imaging to identify and evaluate the sacral fracture.

This article describes 2 patients, a 16-year-old girl and a 40-year-old man, with U-shaped sacral fractures. The patients were treated with posterior sacral laminectomy within 1 week after injury and achieved satisfactory postoperative recovery. Follow-up showed bony union with no further displacement or internal fixation failure, wound infection, delayed healing, or compression of the skin by the plate and screws. The results show that posterior vertebral plate decompression and reconstructive plate internal fixation can obtain a satisfactory outcome with minor operation trauma and few complications.
Power Electronics and Controls in Solar Photovoltaic Systems
Authors: Belu Radian
Published: February 2013

The use of renewable energy sources is increasingly being pursued as a supplemental and an alternative to traditional energy generation. Several distributed energy systems are expected to a have a significant impact on the energy industry in the near future. As such, the renewable energy systems are presently undergoing a rapid change in technology and use. Such a feature is enabled clearly by power electronics. Both the solar-thermal and photovoltaic (PV) technologies have an almost exponential growth in installed capacity and applications. Both of them contribute to the overall grid control and power electronics research and advancement. Among the renewable energy systems, photovoltaic (PV) systems are the ones that make use of an extended scale of the advanced power electronics technologies. The specification of a power electronics interface is subject to the requirements related not only to the renewable energy source itself but also to its effects on the operations of the systems on which it is connected, especially the ones where these intermittent energy sources constitute a significant part of the total system capacity. Power electronics can also play a significant role in enhancing the performance and efficiency of PV systems. Furthermore, the use of appropriate power electronics enables solar generated electricity to be integrated into power grid. Aside from improving the quality of solar panels themselves, power electronics can provide another means of improving energy efficiency in PV and solar-thermal energy systems.
Photovoltaic Devices
Authors: Uddin Ashraf
Published: February 2013

Photovoltaics (PV) have been the world’s most rapidly growing energy source, with markets increasing at a compounded rate over the years. The electricity generating capacity of new photovoltaic product manufactured in 2006 exceeded new nuclear power capacity for the first time, with the gap widening in each year. The present continues to be a most exciting and challenging time for photovoltaics. More are recognising the possibility of a future where solar cells provide a significant part of the world’s energy needs, without the environmental problems and escalating costs associated with the present mainstream approaches. Silicon is a semiconductor material which is mostly used for PV devices. Silicon is available in different forms like single crystal, poly crystalline, and amorphous. Most photovoltaic sales are of “first-generation” solar cells made from silicon wafers. First-generation PV research challenges are the cost reduction and further improving efficiency. The rapid growth of the photovoltaic industry is generating widespread interest in past and ongoing innovations of the PV technology. Silicon is quite brittle, so silicon wafers have to be reasonably thick, at least a fraction of a millimetre, to be sufficiently rugged for processing into solar cells with reasonable yields. Without this mechanical constraint, silicon would perform well even if very thin, over 100 times thinner than present wafers.
Nanotechnology for Photovoltaic Energy
Authors: Qazi Salahuddin , Qazi Farhan A.
Published: February 2013

Solar radiation is plentiful and a clean source of power. However, despite the first practical use of silicon based solar cell more than 50 years ago, it has not been exploited to its full potential due to the high cost of electrical conversion on a per Watt basis. Many new kinds of photovoltaic cells such as multi-junction solar cells dye –sensitized solar cells and organic solar cell incorporating element of nanotechnology have been proposed to increase the efficiency and reduce the cost. Nanotechnology, in the form of quantum dots, nanorods, nanotubes, and grapheme, has been shown to enhance absorption of sunlight, makes low cost flexible solar panels and increases the efficiency of photovoltaic cells. The chapter reviews the state of current photovoltaic cells and challenges it presents. It also discusses the use of nanotechnology in the application of photovoltaic cells and future research directions to improve the efficiency of solar cells and reduce the cost.
Nanoparticle Scattering, Absorption, and Interface Effects for Surface Plasmon Enhanced Thin Silicon Solar Cells
Authors: Kadakia Nirag
Published: February 2013

Recently, surface plasmons have been employed in a variety of methods to increase the efficiency of solar cells. Surface plasmons are oscillations of electrons that arise from surface effects of light interaction with materials that have appreciable free carrier densities; their resonance is confined to a region that depends on the dielectric response of the medium. It has been observed that noble metals exhibit this resonance within visible- near IR range, making them an attractive candidate for silicon solar cells whose primary absorption bands are in this region. Research in silicon-based plasmonic solar cells has utilized the high scattering cross section and favorable angular distributions of noble metal nanoparticle-scattered radiation to increase absorption of thin silicon devices, which are normally weakly absorbing for photons of energy below 2 eV. The interaction is subject to interface effects, interferences of scattered and incident radiation, and the dielectric nature of the embedding medium or surface. In addition, perturbations caused by the longitudinal field of the metal nanoparticle may theoretically enhance the direct interband transitions of free carriers near the particle surface, further enhancing the photocurrent. This latter possibility has yet to be fully explored experimentally in crystalline silicon photovoltaics.
Nanotechnology and Polymer Solar Cells
Authors: Buxton Gavin
Published: February 2013

In response to environmental concerns there is a drive towards developing renewable, and cleaner, energy technologies. Solar cells, which harvest energy directly from sunlight, may satisfy future energy requirements, but photovoltaic devices are currently too expensive to compete with existing fossil fuel based technologies. Polymer solar cells, on the other hand, are cheaper to produce than conventional inorganic solar cells and can be processed at relatively low temperatures. Furthermore, polymer solar cells can be fabricated on surfaces of arbitrary shape and flexibility, paving the way to a range of novel applications. Therefore, polymer solar cells are likely to play an important role in addressing, at least in some small part, man’s future energy needs. Here, the physics of polymer photovoltaics are reviewed, with particular emphasis on the computational tools which can be used to investigate these systems. In particular, the authors discuss the application of nanotechnology in self-assembling complex nanoscale structures which can be tailored to optimize photovoltaic performance. The role of computer simulations, in correlating these intricate structures with their performance, can not only reveal interesting new insights into current devices, but also elucidate potentially new systems with more optimized nanostructures.
Low-Cost III-V Compound Semiconductor Solar Cells
Authors: Mauk Michael G.
Published: February 2013

The prospects for cost-effective flat plate (non-concentrator) solar cells based on III-V compound semiconductors (e.g., GaAs, InP, AlAs, and their alloys) are reviewed. Solar cells made in III-V materials are expensive, but outperform solar cells in every other materials system. The relatively high cost of compound semiconductor wafers necessitates a means to eliminate their use as substrates for epitaial growth of conventional III-V solar cells. There are several approaches to this end, including thin-film solar cells on low-cost, dissimilar substrates such as glass, ceramics, and metal sheets; III-V solar cells epitaxially grown on silicon wafers; film transfer (‘epitaxial lift off’) techniques that allow re-use of the seeding substrate; and assembled arrays of small III-V solar cells on low-cost substrates. Grain boundary effects in polycrystalline III-V films can severely degrade solar cell performance, and impede the application of established thin-film technologies, as developed for amorphous silicon and II-VI semiconductor photovoltaics, to III-V semiconductor-based solar cells. The nearly fifty years of effort in developing thin-film III-V solar cells has underscored the difficulty of achieving large-grain sizes and/or low recombination grain boundaries in polycrystalline films of III-V semiconductors.
Mechatronics Technology for Solar Cells
Authors: Zhang H. Henry , Rodriguez Danny , Li Qiong
Published: February 2013

A mechatronic real-time solar tracker is developed with National Instruments Compact Rio programming module, photoresistors sensor, stepper motors, and a set of nickel metal hydride (NiMH) cells. The tracking array is able to pivot on two axes by way of the stepper motors to reflect the effect of daily and seasonal trajectories of the sun. This design will keep the solar cell perpendicular to the sunlight. This project furthers the application of mechatronics to the field of renewable energy.
Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Applications
Authors: Belu Radian
Published: February 2013

Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques play an important role in modeling, analysis, and prediction of the performance and control of renewable energy. The algorithms employed to model, control, or to predict performances of the energy systems are complicated involving differential equations, large computer power, and time requirements. Instead of complex rules and mathematical routines, AI techniques are able to learn the key information patterns within a multidimensional information domain. Design, control, and operation of solar energy systems require long-term series of meteorological data such as solar radiation, temperature, or wind data. Such long-term measurements are often non-existent for most of the interest locations or, wherever they are available, they suffer of a number of shortcomings (e.g. poor quality of data, insufficient long series, etc.). To overcome these problems AI techniques appear to be one of the strongest candidates. The chapter provides an overview of commonly used AI methodologies in solar energy, with a special emphasis on neural networks, fuzzy logic, and genetic algorithms. Selected AI applications to solar energy are outlined in this chapter. In particular, methods using the AI approach for the following applications are discussed: prediction and modeling of solar radiation, seizing, performances, and controls of the solar photovoltaic (PV) systems.
Greenhouse Solar Thermal Application
Authors: Das Tribeni , Bora Ganesh C
Published: February 2013

This chapter includes brief description of different solar thermal applications of greenhouse structure based on the different research work done in this area. It provides the basic knowledge of the use of solar energy to increase the production of different agricultural products using greenhouse system, e.g., crop production and drying of agricultural products. The chapter includes the introduction of greenhouse system, the definition, the concept, and the importance of greenhouse technology. The uses of various solar thermal applications in different greenhouse systems such as flat plate collector in greenhouse fish pond system and application of photovoltaic system in greenhouse drying are covered in this chapter.
Technology Selection for Solar Power Generation in the Middle East
Authors: Daim Tugrul , Newman Paul R. , Sughi Hithem , Bakhsh Eyad
Published: February 2013

Saudi Arabia is moving towards economical and technological development and to be an active player in the dynamics of the international community. The economic growth in the country requires significant additional electrical power generation in order to supply this increasing demand. At present, fossil fuel (petroleum and natural gas) reserves in Saudi Arabia are reliable in terms of feeding the needs of its conventional power plants. Fossil fuels, however, are not sustainable, are subject to eventual depletion and plants using these fuels produce large amounts of CO2 emissions. The authors have examined other power generation alternatives with an eye towards achieving sustainability. These requirements have led them to propose a renewable energy source—radiant energy from the sun as the way to achieve long-term success. The region is blessed with an abundant solar flux throughout most of the year. Recognizing this, the authors propose building solar-powered electrical generation plants in the Saudi deserts, but are faced with the problem: “Which solar technology is the ideal choice for this application?” Several different technologies have been identified and analyzed. A mathematical model was constructed and used to make a selection of the optimal technology. The decision model employed to determine the optimal technology, taking account of the fact that in making such a technology selection subjective judgment is required, is the Hierarchal Decision Model (HDM). This research relied on data extracted from scientific journals and industry sources as the inputs for the Decision Model. The authors also validated their research and derived expert opinion weighting factors with international experts in the solar technology. They have applied the model to a case study to demonstrate the use of it.
Solar Energy Education and Training Programs in the USA
Authors: Anwar Sohail , Anwar Shamsa S.
Published: February 2013

In the past, solar energy education was limited to scientists and engineers who could develop new technologies and conduct research. Later on, a need was recognized to educate those who design and construct buildings, because solar energy applications were well developed for such applications. At present, numerous solar energy applications have been developed. Solar energy is currently used for heating and cooling of buildings, production of electricity for stationary and mobile applications, solar lighting systems, crop drying, water treatment, and environmental cleanup. Given the expanding use of solar energy, there is a need to educate society about solar energy. Thus, solar energy education and training programs should be developed at different educational levels to fulfill this need. Such programs need to recognize the environmental value of solar energy and the life cycle advantages of solar energy systems. This manuscript provides an overview of the status of solar energy education and training in the United States. Though the focus of this chapter is on the solar energy education and training programs provided by the academic institutions in the USA, a short description of non-academic programs is also provided.
Introduction to Continuous Authentication
Authors: Traoré Issa , Ahmed Ahmed Awad E.
Published: February 2013

Continuous Authentication (CA) systems represent a new generation of security mechanisms that continuously monitor user behavior and use this as basis to re-authenticate periodically throughout a login session. CA has been around for about a decade. As a result a limited amount of research work has been produced to date, and the first commercial products have only recently started reaching the market. We attempt, in this chapter, to provide some general perspectives in order to help achieve some common and better understanding of this emerging field. The chapter introduces basic CA concepts and terminologies, discusses the characteristics of CA data sources, and identifies major areas of application for CA systems.
Trust Management and User’s Trust Perception in e-Business
Authors: Costante Elisa , Petkovic Milan , den Hartog Jerry
Published: February 2013

Trust is essential in the e-business world: to allow the cooperation needed in this setting, independent service providers have to trust each other and, also, end-users have to trust service providers. Trust Management, i.e. the process of establishing trust amongst the parties involved in a transaction, can be carried out using different approaches, methods and technologies. The end-user is an important party involved in this process. Trust Perception models attempt to understand the end-user’s point of view and the pattern he adopts to trust a service over the Internet. In this chapter the authors provide a state of the art for Trust Management in e-business. They review the most important Trust Management technologies and concepts including credentials and PKI, reputation, authorization and access control, trust policies, and trust languages. A conceptual map is presented clarifying the meaning and the links between different elements of a Trust Management system. Moreover, the authors discuss the end-user’s Trust Perception. The chapter presents a literature study on Trust Perception models and introduces the new model, able to list the trust signals the end-user considers to make trust decision. Examples of such signals can be the reputation of a website, the use of security protocols, the privacy policies adopted, and the look and feel of its user interface. Finally, the directions of future work are presented, and conclusions are drawn.
Public Key Infrastructure
Authors: Petty Reed H. , Bian Jiang , Seker Remzi
Published: February 2013

Electronic forms of communications are becoming increasingly pervasive. The Internet links not only senders and receivers of e-mail, but also consumers to suppliers, businesses to businesses, citizens to governments, and so forth. The potential for communications to be intercepted, hijacked, emulated, or otherwise manipulated for nefarious purposes is an area of grave concern. The security of message traffic relies heavily upon encryption. Encryption relies upon keys. Public key infrastructure (PKI) addresses keys – how they are used, how they are exchanged, and how they are validated. Furthermore, public key cryptography provides confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. In general, PKI is a broad subject matter and is constantly evolving to meet the rapid growth in today’s information world. This chapter is intended to reveal the mystery, and perhaps misconceptions, of the PKI as well as offering readers a broad high-level view of the PKI.
Access Control in Federated Clouds
Authors: Casola Valentina , Cuomo Antonio , Villano Umberto , Rak Massimiliano
Published: February 2013

Resource sharing problem is one of the most important aspects of Cloud architectures whose primary goal is to fully enable the concept of accessing computing resources on-demand. Access control and resource federation are hot research topics and a lot of open issues should be addressed on functionalities, technological interoperability, quality of services and security of the federated infrastructures. This chapter aims at offering a view on the problems of access control on federated Clouds; since they strongly depend on chosen architectures and platforms, the chapter will discuss some solutions applied on a real case study: the PerfCloud framework, which is based on the integration of Grid and Cloud platforms. The proposed architecture is based on the adoption of an interoperability system to cope with identity federation and access control, it is strictly related to the adopted framework nevertheless it helps the reader to have an idea of the involved open issues and available solutions in commercial or experimental clouds.
Near Field Authentication
Authors: Lakafosis Vasileios , Gebara Edward , Tentzeris Manos M. , DeJean Gerald , Kirovski Darko
Published: February 2013

Counterfeiting affects many different sectors of the world trade, including the pharmaceutical and the aerospace industries, and, therefore, its impact is not only of financial nature but can also have fatal consequences. This chapter introduces a new robust RFID system with enhanced hardware-enabled authentication and anti-counterfeiting capabilities. The system consists of two major components, namely the near-field certificates of authenticity (NF-CoAs), which complement typical RFID tags and serve as authenticity vouchers of the products they are attached to, and a microcontroller-enabled, low-power and low-cost reader. The high entropy and security of this framework stem from the unique, conductive, and dielectric, physical structure of the certificate instances and the highly complex electromagnetic effects that take place when such a certificate is brought in the reactive near-field area of the reader’s antenna array. In particular, the reader’s main task is to accurately extract the 5 to 6 GHz near-field response (NF fingerprint) of the NF-CoAs. The characterization of the reader’s components, with an emphasis on the accuracy achieved, is provided. Rigorous performance analysis and security test results, including uniqueness among different instances, repeatability robustness for same instance and 2D to 3D projection attack resistance, are presented and verify the unique features of this technology. Rendering typical RFID tags physically unique and hard to near-exactly replicate by complementing them with NF-CoAs can prove a valuable tool against counterfeiting.
Grid Data Handling
Authors: Costan Alexandru
Published: February 2013

To accommodate the needs of large-scale distributed systems, scalable data storage and management strategies are required, allowing applications to efficiently cope with continuously growing, highly distributed data. This chapter addresses the key issues of data handling in grid environments focusing on storing, accessing, managing and processing data. We start by providing the background for the data storage issue in grid environments. We outline the main challenges addressed by distributed storage systems: high availability which translates into high resilience and consistency, corruption handling regarding arbitrary faults, fault tolerance, asynchrony, fairness, access control and transparency. The core part of the chapter presents how existing solutions cope with these high requirements. The most important research results are organized along several themes: grid data storage, distributed file systems, data transfer and retrieval and data management. Important characteristics such as performance, efficient use of resources, fault tolerance, security, and others are strongly determined by the adopted system architectures and the technologies behind them. For each topic, we shortly present previous work, describe the most recent achievements, highlight their advantages and limitations, and indicate future research trends in distributed data storage and management.
Mass Media Strategies
Authors: Ortiz Zezzatti Carlos Alberto Ochoa , Young Darwin , Chira Camelia , Azpeitia Daniel , Calvillo Alán
Published: February 2013

Evolve computing is a generic name given to the resolution of computational problems with base in models of an evolutionary process. Most of the evolutionary algorithms propose biological paradigms, and concepts of natural selection, mutation, and reproduction. Nevertheless other paradigms exist and can be adopted in the creation of evolutionary algorithms. Many problems involve environments not structured which can be solved from the perspective of cultural paradigms, which offer plenty of category models, where one does which do not know the possible solutions at problem, a common situation in the real life. The intention of this research is analyze the Crowdfunding Model, supporting to a social networking to an Indie Pop Band. Sociological research shows that Crowdfunding tends to reveal a bias toward social similarity. Therefore, in order to model this Project supported with Crowdfunding developing an Agent-Based Model that already manages the social interaction, together with featuring information of MySpace Music evolutionary belief spaces. To introduce these theoretical concepts the authors decided use Cultural Algorithms in our approach, explaining the process in detail.
Reversible Information Hiding and Its Application to Image Authentication
Authors: Fujiyoshi Masaaki , Kiya Hitoshi
Published: February 2013

This chapter addresses a new class of Reversible Information Hiding (RIH) and its application to verifying the integrity of images. The method of RIH distorts an image once to hide information in the image itself, and it not only extracts embedded information but also recovers the original image from the distorted image. The well-known class of RIH is based on the expansion of prediction error in which a location map, which indicates the pixel block positions of a certain block category, is required to recover the original image. In contrast, the method described in this chapter is free from having to memorize any parameters including location maps. This feature suits the applications of image authentication in which the integrity of extracted information guarantees that of a suspected image. If image-dependent parameters such as location maps are required, the suspected image should first be identified from all possible images. The method described in this chapter reduces such costly processes.
Multimodal Biometric Hand-Off for Robust Unobtrusive Continuous Biometric Authentication
Authors: Tsatsoulis P. Daphne , Jaech Aaron , Batie Robert , Savvides Marios
Published: February 2013

Conventional access control solutions rely on a single authentication to verify a user’s identity but do nothing to ensure the authenticated user is indeed the same person using the system afterwards. Without continuous monitoring, unauthorized individuals have an opportunity to “hijack” or “tailgate” the original user’s session. Continuous authentication attempts to remedy this security loophole. Biometrics is an attractive solution for continuous authentication as it is unobtrusive yet still highly accurate. This allows the authorized user to continue about his routine but quickly detects and blocks intruders. This chapter outlines the components of a multi-biometric based continuous authentication system. Our application employs a biometric hand-off strategy where in the first authentication step a strong biometric robustly identifies the user and then hands control to a less computationally intensive face recognition and tracking system that continuously monitors the presence of the user. Using multiple biometrics allows the system to benefit from the strengths of each modality. Since face verification accuracy degrades as more time elapses between the training stage and operation time, our proposed hand-off strategy permits continuous robust face verification with relatively simple and computationally efficient classifiers. We provide a detailed evaluation of verification performance using different pattern classification algorithms and show that the final multi-modal biometric hand-off scheme yields high verification performance.
Denial of Service Resilience of Authentication Systems
Authors: Bocan Valer , Fagadar-Cosma Mihai
Published: February 2013

Cryptographic authentication systems are currently the de facto standard for securing clients access to network services. Although they offer enhanced security for the parties involved in the communication process, they still have a vulnerable point represented by their susceptibility to denial of service (DoS) attacks. The present chapter addresses two important aspects related to the security of authentication systems and their resistance against strong DoS attacks, represented by attack detection and attack prevention. In this respect, we present a detailed analysis of the methods used to evaluate the attack state of an authentication system as well as of the countermeasures that can be deployed to prevent or repel a DoS attack.
Point-of-Sale Technologies at Retail Stores
Authors: Clodfelter Richard
Published: February 2013

This chapter provides a review and synthesis of information related to technologies available at the retail POS (point-of-sale) checkout. Several POS technologies available to retailers are described, detailing their benefits and drawbacks for both retailers and consumers. The five technologies described and analyzed are barcode scanning, electronic shelf tags, shelf-checkouts, RFID tags, and fingerprint authentication. The extent to which retailers have implemented these available technologies is described, and perspectives on the future implementation of these technologies and emerging trends are also presented. Findings would indicate that there will continue to be innovations in retail technology at POS, and shopper expectations will continue to change. At the same time, retailers will probably remain cautious in deciding if and when to adopt new technologies. They must be convinced that the innovations will deliver sufficient value to offset their expenses.
Using a Social Learning Community to Actively Engage Students’ Participation in a Virtual Classroom
Authors: Mohan Fariel
Published: February 2013

This case describes an experiment to motivate first year university students to use a virtual classroom through social and academic interactions. This approach augments the virtual classroom approach with concepts from social networking to create a social virtual classroom. The aim of the approach taken was to determine if social media included in a virtual classroom can actively engage students’ participation in social networking as well as be used as a tool for learning. Results from the experiment indicate that using a social virtual classroom encouraged social networking among the students. The social virtual classroom was also highly used for learning. The blend of social and academic in the virtual classroom engaged the students in creative ways that was not anticipated. A survey was conducted at the end and seventy-seven percent of the students agreed that the social aspect of the virtual classroom was intrinsically motivating.
Creating Ongoing Online Support Communities through Social Networks to Promote Professional Learning
Authors: Corbeil Maria Elena , Corbeil Joseph Rene
Published: February 2013

Professionals who want to remain competitive in their fields are turning to Web 2.0 to learn the knowledge and skills they need in order to do their work more efficiently and effectively. Through a detailed description of how one instructor transformed his online graduate courses into dynamic, interactive, ongoing online learning communities that extended beyond the classroom, this chapter provides academics and practitioners a model for establishing a professional network that learners can participate in, and replicate in their workplaces for their professional development and informal learning. An overview of the role of social networking in creating professional development and informal learning opportunities for cognitive apprenticeship, knowledge brokering, and ongoing online support communities, as well as the results of a survey conducted on students’ perceptions of the impact of the social networking strategies and tools on their professional development and informal learning in and out of class will also be discussed.
Building a Cloud-Based Mobile Application Testbed
Authors: Turner Hamilton , White Jules , Reed Jeff , Galindo José , Porter Adam , Marathe Madhav , Vullikanti Anil , Gokhale Aniruddha
Published: February 2013

A proliferation of mobile smartphone platforms, including Android devices, has triggered a rise in mobile application development for a diverse set of situations. Testing of these smartphone applications can be exceptionally difficult, due to the challenges of orchestrating production-scale quantities of smartphones such as difficulty in managing thousands of sensory inputs to each individual smartphone device. This work presents the Android Tactical Application Assessment and Knowledge (ATAACK) Cloud, which utilizes a cloud computing environment to allow smartphone-based security, sensing, and social networking researchers to rapidly use model-based tools to provision experiments with a combination of 1,000+ emulated smartphone instances and tens of actual devices. The ATAACK Cloud provides a large-scale smartphone application research testbed.
National Interoperability Frameworks
Authors: Lampathaki Fenareti , Tsiakaliaris Christos , Stasis Antonis , Charalabidis Yannis
Published: February 2013

National Interoperability Frameworks (NIFs) have been established during the last years as the governmental policy cornerstones for deploying joined-up information systems and providing one-stop services to citizens and businesses all over the world. In order to meet the rising expectations of their stakeholders, to cope with technological evolutions in the future internet era, and to achieve efficient resolution of the evolving interoperability problems, NIF’s developers face new challenges: The scope of the frameworks needs to be extended, including service composition and discovery, development and management of semantic elements, certification mechanisms and authentication standards. Moreover, a shift from a paper-based specification towards a repository of services, data schemas, process models and standards is needed, in order to serve the ever-changing requirements of governments under transformation. Going beyond an analysis of relevant frameworks at an international level, this chapter illustrates the best practices and the future directions for NIF’s, proposing an infrastructure that can meet the demands for modelling, storing, managing and transforming vast numbers of service descriptions, XML hierarchies, as well as specific technical, semantic, organisational and legal interoperability standards.
Medium Access Control Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: Kumar Pardeep , Gunes Mesut
Published: February 2013

This chapter provides an overall understanding of the design aspects of Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). A WSN MAC protocol shares the wireless broadcast medium among sensor nodes and creates a basic network infrastructure for them to communicate with each other. The MAC protocol also has a direct influence on the network lifetime of WSNs as it controls the activities of the radio, which is the most power-consuming component of resource-scarce sensor nodes. In this chapter, the authors first discuss the basics of MAC design for WSNs and present a set of important MAC attributes. Subsequently, authors discuss the main categories of MAC protocols proposed for WSNs and highlight their strong and weak points. After briefly outlining different MAC protocols falling in each category, the authors provide a substantial comparison of these protocols for several parameters. Lastly, the chapter discusses future research directions on open issues in this field that have mostly been overlooked.
The Integration of Social Networking in Creating Collaborative Partnerships in Education
Authors: Tinnerman Larry S. , Johnson James
Published: February 2013

Technological communication advancements in recent years, including, but not limited to, the Internet, cell phones, PDAs and texting, have changed communication, accessing information, and doing business. Unfortunately, education has often lagged behind in the effective implementation of these technological advances. This chapter examines one technological development that has the potential to change the higher educational landscape. The use of online social networking tools can be used to help establish connections student to student, student to faculty, faculty to student and faculty to faculty. These tools can be used to encourage scholarly collaboration in a constructivist manner that builds upon the social learning theories of Albert Bandura and Lev Vygotski.
E-Simulations for Educating the Professions in Blended Learning Environments
Authors: Holt Dale , Segrave Stephen , Cybulski Jacob L.
Published: February 2013

This chapter introduces digital, role-based simulations as an emerging and powerful educational approach for the professions and for broader workforce development purposes. It is acknowledged that simulations used for education, professional development, and training, have a long history of development and use. The focus is on digital simulations (e-simulations) situated in blended learning environments and the improved affordances of the newer digital media used via the web to enhance the value of their contribution to learning and teaching in professional and vocationally-oriented fields. This is an area which has received less attention in the whole “e-learning” literature compared with the voluminous body of knowledge and practice on computer-mediated communication, online community building, social networking, and various forms of online (usually automated) assessment. A framework of blended e-simulation design is outlined. The chapter concludes by examining what the future might hold for simulations in further and higher education, and ongoing work-based learning.
Crowdfunding to Improve Environmental Projects’ Logistics
Authors: Ortiz Zezzatti Carlos Alberto Ochoa , Bustillos Sandra , Reyes Yarira , Tagliarducci-Tcherassi Alessandra , Jaramillo Rubén
Published: February 2013

Evolve computing is the generic name given to the resolution of computational problems, based in models of an evolutionary process. Most evolutionary algorithms propose biological paradigms, and concepts of natural selection, mutation, and reproduction. Nevertheless other paradigms exist which can be adopted in the creation of evolutionary algorithms. Many problems involve environments not structured which can be solved from the perspective of cultural paradigms, which offer plenty of category models where one does not know the possible solutions of a problem, a common situation in real life. This research analyzed the organization of a project using a Crowdfunding Model, supporting to social networking. Sociological research shows that Crowdfunding tends to reveal a bias toward social similarity. Therefore, in order to model this Project supported with Crowdfunding, the authors developed an Agent-Based Model that already manages the social interaction, together with featuring information of issues in different habitats and evolutionary belief spaces. To introduce these theoretical concepts Cultural Algorithms were used in the approach, explaining the process in detail. In recent decades, in all World supporting Environmental Projects evolved from its traditional form of swapping issues with another friend’s and stashing those involving too many people from diverse countries all dedicated to conservation of habitats, Natural Reserve or National Parks.
Online Political Participation in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election
Authors: Nam Taewoo , Sayogo Djoko Sigit
Published: February 2013

This chapter investigates how the democratic divide has been established due to socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, by analyzing the data from the Pew Research Center’s survey conducted during the campaign season of the 2008 U.S. presidential election. The study compares five different types of online political activity: communication, mobilization, information consumption, information production, and involvement in social networking websites. Sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender, race, education, and income determine the degree of online political involvement. The conventional notion that better-educated and more affluent citizens actively participate in politics is magnified on the Internet for white males more than non-whites or females. The generational divide is salient for adoption of social networking sites, but the websites serve a political function to encourage participation by those disadvantaged in terms of education and economic means.
The Role of Social Networking in Civilizational Development
Authors: Targowski Andrew
Published: February 2013

This study defines the nature, scope, pace, and consequences of the rapid development of social networking in the 21st century. The impact of INFOCO systems upon civilizational development is investigated and predicted for the future. Such concepts as Global Virtual Society, Global Virtual Nation, Virtual Nation, Virtual Users, National Virtual Citizens, and Global Virtual Citizens are defined. Their electronic culture is defined, too. Finally some recommendations for further research are provided. In particular, the question of whether the concept of one world government is good or bad for mankind should be answered soon, in order to properly steer the further development of large-scale social networks.
Technological Approaches to Maintaining Academic Integrity in Management Education
Authors: Heisler William , Westfall Fred , Kitahara Robert
Published: February 2013

Challenges to academic integrity in management education appear to be on the rise in U.S. institutions of higher education. In an effort to reduce cheating and plagiarism in business education, universities have turned to a variety of technological approaches. However, technology cannot be considered a panacea for ensuring academic integrity and is probably best viewed as a “stop gap” measure that can eventually be compromised. The authors begin this chapter by describing how declining ethics has been evidenced recently in business. Then, they present a review of the literature describing the extent and causes of academic dishonesty and discuss what some educational institutions are doing to address academic integrity, including calls for an increase in ethics education. Finally, they review technological approaches used by many colleges and universities to prevent cheating and plagiarism, examining the features, strengths, weaknesses, and current status of each technology.
Security Policy Issues in Internet Banking in Malaysia
Authors: Kassim Normalini Md , Ramayah T.
Published: February 2013

As a continually growing financial services of electronic commerce, Internet banking requires the development and implementation of a sound security procedure. The existing literature highlights security as the primary factor which determines the adoption of Internet banking technology. The secondary information on Internet banking development in Malaysia shows a very slow growth rate. Hence, this study aims to investigate risk and security requirements factors which influence the adoption of Internet banking application through the information collected from an interviews with managers from Bank M, Bank C and Bank P. The results reveal that the customers have great concerns for security and privacy issues in adoption of Internet banking. Hence, several methods of ensuring a more secure Internet banking was suggested like a two factor authentication and three factor authentication. For future research directions biometric techniques, such as fingerprint verification, iris or face recognition, retina analysis and hand-written signature verification are increasingly becoming basic elements of authentication and identification systems in order to be privacy-friendly, minimize the social risks and prevent misuse of biometric data.
The Paradox of the Interactive Web in the U.S. Public Sector
Authors: Mergel Ines A. , Schweik Charles M.
Published: February 2013

Web 2.0 technologies—what we prefer to call the “Interactive Web”—have become frequently used tools in the public sector. These tools include social networking applications such as Twitter, Facebook, Wikis, or RSS feeds. Public sector agencies are using blogs to communicate information on public hearings, wikis to coordinate work or share expertise and intelligence information, and social networking sites to communicate with citizens. These kinds of applications create a public sector paradox. On the one hand, they have the potential to create opportunities related to key public sector issues of transparency, accountability, communication and collaboration, and to promote deeper levels of civic engagement. On the other hand, information flow within government, across government agencies, and between government and the public is often highly restricted through regulations and specific reporting structures, and therefore usually delayed through the filter of bureaucratic constraints. The authors provide an overview of drivers encouraging the adoption of Interactive Web applications, but also transformative organizational, technological, and informational challenges ahead that might lead to resistance to that change.