bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Communicative Mechanisms of Governance
Authors: Anderson Lori , Bishop Patrick
Published: May 2011

Significant claims have been made that developments in Information Communication Technology (ICT) can lead to e-democracy. The league tables that are regularly published rating different governments’ performance and the laudatory tones in which governments identify their own actions as more democratic in the field of e-government need to be treated with some caution. This chapter starts with a review of some of these studies of e-government and e-democracy trials. Finding these studies largely unsatisfactory for determining advances in democracy, the chapter then looks at the kinds of communication that are needed to facilitate the political conversation of deliberative democracy. In particular, the chapter introduces a communication typology, based on the work of David Bohm, to see how the new technology might be used to shape the architecture of the public sphere to create political conversation.
The Role of Trust in the Global Acceptance of E-Government
Authors: Burbridge John , Das Jayoti , DiRienzo Cassandra
Published: May 2011

Throughout the world, the number of e-government applications enabled by information and communication technologies (ICT) is proliferating. Some of the newer applications allow for interaction between government officials and its citizenry. As a result, the concept of a public sphere and e-democracy is becoming more of a reality. In all of these applications, one would expect that the level of trust within the society would be an important factor in determining the level of adoption. Using cross-country data from 140 countries, this empirical study extends past research by examining the impact of trust on the level of e-government where national diversity is used as a proxy of trust within a nation. The major empirical finding of this research shows that, even after controlling for the level of economic development and other socio-economic factors, trust as measured by ethnic and religious diversity, was a significant factor affecting e-government usage.
Exploring the ICT Capabilities of Civil Society in Sub Saharan Africa
Authors: Nyirenda Joshua C.
Published: May 2011

Civil society is argued to have been the most significant force of many forces that eradicated entrenched authoritarianism in Africa, in the early 1990s, ushering most of these countries to multi-party democracies. And yet after such accomplishment, many of these new democracies have receded to undemocratic practices. With weak economies, civil society faces many challenges in resource mobilization and in mobilizing the masses for national causes. Information communication technologies, or ICTs, are increasingly being seen as an aid to the mobilization and organization challenges of civil society. However, advanced ICT capabilities are mostly in developed countries where civil society is already strong. Using e-governance as a proxy measure for ICT capabilities for civil society, this chapter conducts an exploratory study using secondary baseline data collected by international institutions on Sub Saharan Countries. The relationship between ICT capabilities and the several civil society development indicators (press freedom, civil liberties, and various other variables) is investigated. Later, the Nation of Zambia (a country with moderate ICT capabilities in the region) is used for a qualitative case study to explore how ICT capabilities and various contextual issues influence ICT applications by civil society organizations to enhance operational capabilities such as collaboration and mobilization efforts.
Challenges of e-Disclosure in Romanian Local Public Authorities
Authors: Tudor Adriana Tiron , Popa Adina Simona , Blidisel Rodica Gabriela
Published: May 2011

There is a growing pressure on governments to broaden the scope of their financial responsibilities from accounting to accountability. Therefore, local public authorities (LPA) must provide clear, understandable and reliable information and should increase their transparency as part of their policy of good governance practice. Starting from the international context of good corporate governance characteristics, this chapter examines the implication level of the Internet in Romanian LPA as a tool of transparency improvement for the citizen’s use. Due to the pivotal role played by citizens in participatory governance, the chapter analyzes the information disclosed by LPA websites focusing mainly on the financial information, as the financial resources have a special role in the local development and represent the base for a prompt reply to the citizen’s needs. The final part proposes a Romanian LPA good e-governance model as well as e-disclosure improvements for citizen’s trust in LPA information.
Global E-Government and the Role of Trust
Authors: Das Jayoti , DiRienzo Cassandra , Burbridge John
Published: May 2011

Using cross-country data from 140 countries, this empirical study extends past research by examining the impact of trust on the level of e-government. The major empirical finding of this research shows that, after controlling for the level of economic development and other socio-economic factors, trust as measured by ethnic and religious diversity, is a significant factor affecting e-government usage.
Determining Types of Services and Targeted Users of Emerging E-Government Strategies
Authors: Kaaya Janet
Published: May 2011

E-government strategies empower citizens through online access to services and information. Consequently, governments – including in developing countries – are implementing e-government. In this study, a survey examined available services and targeted users in Tanzania. Ninety-six government agencies responded: 46% had implemented e-government using websites. Most services (60-90%) relate to disseminating information; online transactions were the least available services. Government-affiliated staff constituted the majority (60-85%) of users. This implies that emerging e-government services mostly address internal needs (government-to-government), and one-way dissemination of information (government-to-citizen). While agencies exhibited a gradual extension to businesses (government-to-business), citizen-to-government and business-to-government relationships were minimal. Finally, the study compares Tanzania’s web-presence with select countries, draws its wider implications, and advocates further research on the nature and needs of users. Keywords: IT in Developing Countries; E-Government User Groups; E-Management; E-Services; G2C Interactions; G2G Interactions; Tanzania
Towards eGovernment in the Large
Authors: Matheis Thomas , Ziemann Jörg , Loos Peter , Schmidt Daniel , Wimmer Maria
Published: May 2011

An increasing level of cooperation between public administrations nowadays on national, regional and local level requires methods to develop interoperable eGovernment solutions and leads to the necessity of an efficient evaluation and requirements engineering process that guides the establishment of systems and services used by public administrations in the European Union. In this chapter, the authors propose a framework to systematically gather and evaluate requirements for eGovernment in the large. The evaluation framework is designed to support requirements engineers to develop a suitable evaluation and requirements engineering process with respect to interoperable eGovernment solutions. The methodology is motivated and explained on the basis of a European research project.
Relating Acceptance and Optimism to E-File Adoption
Authors: Carter Lemuria , Schaupp Ludwig Christian
Published: May 2011

Electronic tax filing is an emerging area of e-government. This research proposes a model of e-filing adoption that identifies adoption factors and personal factors that impact citizen acceptance of electronic filing systems. A survey administered to 260 participants assesses their perceptions of adoption factors, trust and self-efficacy as they relate to e-file utilization. Multiple linear regression analysis is used to evaluate the relationships between adoption concepts and intention to use e-filing systems. Implications for practice and research are discussed.
Leaders as Mediators of Global Megatrends
Authors: Giritli-Nygren Katarina , Lindblad-Gidlund Katarina
Published: May 2011

The idea of eGovernment is moving rapidly within supra-national and national and local institutions. At every level leaders are interpreting the idea, attempting to grasp either the next step or indeed the very essence of the idea itself. This chapter outlines a diagnostic framework, resting on three different dimensions; translation, interpretative frames and sensemaking, to create knowledge about the translation processes and by doing so, emphasize enactment rather than vision. The diagnostic framework is then empirically examined to explore its possible contribution to the understanding of the complexity of leader’s translating and mediating the idea of eGovernment in their local context. In conclusion it is noted that the diagnostic framework reveals a logic of appropriateness between local mediators, eGovernment, different areas of interest and appropriate organisational practices.
Statistical Properties of Social Group Evolution
Authors: Palla Gergely , Vicsek Tamás
Published: May 2011

The authors’ focus is on the general statistical features of the time evolution of communities (also called as modules, clusters or cohesive groups) in large social networks. These structural sub-units can correspond to highly connected circles of friends, families, or professional cliques, which are subject to constant change due to the intense fluctuations in the activity and communication patterns of people. The communities can grow by recruiting new members, or contract by loosing members; two (or more) groups may merge into a single community, while a large enough social group can split into several smaller ones; new communities are born and old ones may disappear. According to our results, the time evolution of social groups containing only a few members and larger communities, e.g., institutions show significant differences.
Enhancing the Adaptation of BDI Agents Using Learning Techniques
Authors: Airiau Stéphane , Padgham Lin , Sardina Sebastian , Sen Sandip
Published: May 2011

Belief, Desire, and Intentions (BDI) agents are well suited for complex applications with (soft) real-time reasoning and control requirements. BDI agents are adaptive in the sense that they can quickly reason and react to asynchronous events and act accordingly. However, BDI agents lack learning capabilities to modify their behavior when failures occur frequently. We discuss the use of past experience to improve the agent’s behavior. More precisely, we use past experience to improve the context conditions of the plans contained in the plan library, initially set by a BDI programmer. First, we consider a deterministic and fully observable environment and we discuss how to modify the BDI agent to prevent re-occurrence of failures, which is not a trivial task. Then, we discuss how we can use decision trees to improve the agent’s behavior in a non-deterministic environment.
Governance Mechanisms in Web 2.0
Authors: Goldspink Christopher
Published: May 2011

This chapter documents the findings of research into the governance mechanisms within the distributed on-line community known as Wikipedia. It focuses in particular on the role of normative mechanisms in achieving social self-regulation. A brief history of the Wikipedia is provided. This concentrates on the debate about governance and also considers characteristics of the wiki technology which can be expected to influence governance processes. The empirical findings are then presented. These focus on how Wikipedians use linguistic cues to influence one another on a sample of discussion pages drawn from both controversial and featured articles. Through this analysis a tentative account is provided of the agent-level cognitive mechanisms which appear necessary to explain the apparent behavioural coordination. The findings were to be used as a foundation for the simulation of ‘normative’ behaviour. The account identifies some of the challenges that need to be addressed in such an attempt including a mismatch between the case findings and assumptions used in past attempts to simulate normative behaviour.
Accounting Implications in Virtual Worlds
Authors: Romero Jorge A.
Published: May 2011

In fact, many users are making a substantial living out of their virtual income, even generating an equivalent of more than $100,000 in real world dollars (Hemp, 2006). On average, Second Life members spend $1.5 million per day on virtual transactions, including virtual real estate transactions (Alter, 2008). While it is difficult to get an accurate estimate of the number of Second Life users due to the dynamic environment, and one in which one user may be represented by more than one avatar, Second Life is estimated to have more than 6.6 million active users from around the world (Moran, 2007), up from a handful of users in 2003 when Second Life started to gain popularity (Wiki Second Life, 2010).
Impact on Learner Experience
Authors: Welzant J. Heather
Published: May 2011

This qualitative case study investigated how the integration of a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) curriculum in an online MBA program impacted the learner experience. The learner experience included three stances as created by Savin-Baden (2000). The stances were personal, pedagogical and interactional. The overarching theme was to examine the experiences of eight learners all in different BPL courses and at different stages in an online MBA program (the beginning, the middle and at the end of the program). The primary research question was: How does problem-based learning (PBL) in online MBA courses impact the learner experience? Purposeful sampling, specifically multiple variation sampling was chosen. The data was collected in accordance with Yin’s (2003) five key components derived from documentation, archival records and interviews. The variety of data collection methods served to triangulate sources corroborating findings and offsetting the pitfalls of any one given method. Data analysis consisted of the constant comparison method using NVivo7 as the primary data management tool. Key findings correlated with the Savin-Baden (2000) study revealing how the stances were interdependent upon one another.
Hippocratic Database and Active Enforcement
Authors: Dillard Terry
Published: May 2011

There are an increasing number of laws and statutes being passed globally to protect the privacy of sensitive healthcare information. This complexity of legislation creates legal concerns for those stakeholders in the healthcare systems that collect and store this sensitive data. This chapter seeks to explore some technology based solutions for managing these complexities and that aim to mitigate some of the potential legal concerns associated with these activities.
Health Kiosk Technologies
Authors: McIndoe Robert S.
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the recent rise in the adoption and spread of kiosks in UK healthcare: The leading players in the healthcare market, their technologies, the main uses of the kiosks and software, including possible future developments into clinical care.
Usability Engineering and E-Health
Authors: Haniff David
Published: May 2011

The chapter presents case studies of e-health applications that the author has been involved in such as a paramedic application that presented treatment information to the paramedic. Furthermore, a review of e-health applications to help people with medical issues and in particular people with mental health problems is discussed. In addition, various tools to use in the development of e-health systems such learning models, focus groups and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) are presented. Finally a methodology that combines technological consideration as well as human factors issues is proposed.
An Approach to Adapt the Product Functionality to the Abilities of Seniors
Authors: Paetzold Kristin
Published: May 2011

Elderly people are restricted in their efficiency due to the aging process. Technical systems provide a considerable potential to support the elderly in their domestic environment. It is important, to focus not only on aspects of ergonomics and operability, but the functionality of the products themselves should be stronger in these considerations. To be able to support the designers in their complex development tasks at first typical age-related restrictions and medical conditions from an engineer’s point of view will be described in the framework of this presentation, as well as, the influence of the biography on the use of technique will be analyzed. Considering these aspects, an approach for classification and structuring can be derived, in which typical symptoms and their characteristics are related to appropriate product requirements.
Neurocognitive and Psychophysiological Interfaces for Adaptive Virtual Environments
Authors: Parsons Thomas D. , Courtney Christopher G.
Published: May 2011

The use of neuropsychological and psychophysiological measures in studies of patients immersed in high-fidelity virtual environments offers the potential to develop current psychophysiological computing approaches into affective computing scenarios that can be used for assessment, diagnosis and treatment planning. Such scenarios offer the potential for simulated environments to proffer cogent and calculated response approaches to real-time changes in user emotion, neurocognition, and motivation. The value in using virtual environments to produce simulations targeting these areas has been acknowledged by an encouraging body of research. Herein the authors describe (1) literature on virtual environments for neurocognitive and psychophysiological profiles of users’ individual strengths and weaknesses; and (2) real-time adaptation of virtual environments that could be used for virtual reality exposure therapy and cognitive rehabilitation. Specifically, the authors discuss their approach to an adaptive environment that uses the principles of flow, presence, neuropsychology, psychophysiology to develop a novel application for rehabilitative applications.
Evaluating the Usability of Home Healthcare Applications
Authors: Bruun Anders , Stage Jan
Published: May 2011

Home healthcare applications have the potential to reduce healthcare costs and improve the quality of life for elderly people who prefer to stay in their own homes instead of making frequent visits to the hospital. This requires ambient assisted living applications that fulfil relevant needs of the users; yet it also requires applications with a high level of usability in order to achieve user acceptance, especially when the target user group is elderly people. This chapter proposes a method to be used for conducting usability evaluations of smart healthcare applications. It includes a report from a usability evaluation where the method was used to evaluate a simple home healthcare application for collecting personal health data in the home. The usability evaluation demonstrates that the method presented here facilitates identification of key usability problems, while the efforts required to conduct the evaluation are considerably reduced compared to conventional methods.
Next Generation Body Area Networks and Smart Environments for Healthcare
Authors: Fergus Paul , Taylor Mark , Haggerty John , Bracegirdle Lorna , Merabti Madjid
Published: May 2011

The evolution of wireless network protocols such as Bluetooth and ZigBee, and the reducing size, cost (and power consumption) of small scale sensor devices means that new approaches to healthcare monitoring and provision are now possible. From the technological side, new wireless devices can be envisaged that can monitor patients both externally (in terms of movement, flexibility and mobility) and even internally (in terms of embedded devices). From the health and social care side, such wireless devices can allow home monitoring of patients. This can allow more efficient and effective use of health and social care professionals, and also allow patients in remote areas to potentially receive as much healthcare monitoring as patients in urban environments. However, it is important that any use of such new technologies is carefully piloted and integrated with traditional health and social care approaches, especially in terms of the reliability and security of patient data. In this chapter, the authors provide a discussion on the state-of-the-art research initiatives that are trying to address these challenges. A discussion is presented on some of the more recent background work and a view of what future body area networks and smart environments might look like. Throughout the discussion the authors present the challenges faced by many research communities and the likely trends that will emerge given such challenges.
From Idea to Use
Authors: Enquist Henrik
Published: May 2011

The objective of the case study presented here was to develop and investigate the use of a novel e-health technology called the Memory Stone. This personal device was intended to be used for storing information and enabling communication with the healthcare information system. It would also serve as an intimate repository during the pregnancy, and as such, function as a learning tool during the course of a pregnancy. Using a participatory design approach, the work was performed in collaboration between a multidisciplinary research team, ten pregnant women, and eight healthcare professionals including midwives, general practitioners and medical specialists. In this chapter, some more or less problematic issues encountered during the case study will be discussed and put forward as topics to be considered in future research concerning e-health technology. This discussion includes areas such as initiative versus creativity, methodological issues, stakeholder interests, and other difficulties when introducing novel information technology in a healthcare context.
A Highly-Interactive and User-Friendly PHR Application for the Provision of Homecare Services
Authors: Koufi Vasso , Malamateniou Flora , Vassilacopoulos George
Published: May 2011

Homecare is an important component of the continuum of care as it provides the potential to improve quality of life and quality of healthcare delivery while containing costs. Personal Health Record (PHR) systems constitute a technological infrastructure that can support greater flexibility for healthcare professionals and patients, thus allowing for more effective homecare services. In particular, PHRs are intended to reach patients outside of care settings, influence their behaviors and satisfy their demand for greater information and access. Moreover, PHRs can facilitate access to comprehensive real-time patient data for healthcare professionals thus enabling them to identify problems quickly (e.g. prior to scheduled appointments) and steer patients to appropriate facilities when needed. To this ends, PHR technology needs to evolve well beyond providing a consolidated patient record, in ways that make it more widely applicable and valuable to health systems. The development of applications and tools on top of PHR systems can allow the PHR to function as a platform for both patients and healthcare professionals to exchange information and interact with the health system (e.g., scheduling appointments electronically). This chapter presents a prototype PHR-based system that aims at supporting chronic disease management. In particular, it assists healthcare professionals in assessing an individual’s condition and in forming the appropriate treatment plan for him/her while it provides individuals with a user-friendly application for step-to-step guidance to their treatment plans. The system has been developed on the grounds of a service-oriented architecture where healthcare process automation is realized by means of dynamic, patient-related workflows.
The Portal Monitor
Authors: Duncan John F. , Camp L. Jean , Hazlewood William R.
Published: May 2011

The authors describe an innovative monitoring system designed for elder care. This system is an example of privacy-aware design that addresses specific risks based on gerontology literature and confirmed by focus groups with representations of the target group. The design emphasizes data transparency, minimizes data collection and storage, and balances elder control with elder risks. By being event-driven, this monitor enables a caregiver to react more efficiently than with passive monitoring technologies such as traditional security cameras. By reducing cognitive load, the system empowers caregivers, and allows them to provide a higher quality of care – thus allowing the elder to remain in their home as long as possible. The authors make innovative use of arguably the most pervasive communications infrastructure – the cellular network – to enhance elder autonomy without sacrificing their privacy.
A Home-Based System to support Delivery of Health and Social Care
Authors: Turner Kenneth J.
Published: May 2011

The world-wide problem of an ageing population is introduced. This will require older people to be looked after for longer in their own homes. A brief overview is given of care delivery in the home, focusing on computer-based home care as a likely component of future solutions. The challenges faced by home care technology are discussed. It is explained how the Match project (Mobilising Advanced Technologies for Care at Home) is addressing these issues. The philosophy, architecture and approach of this project are discussed.
Implementing E-Procurement in Public Healthcare
Authors: Resca Andrea , Federici Tommaso
Published: May 2011

The aim of this work is to analyze, adopting a knowledge management perspective, the steps that have led to the introduction of e-procurement as a new operating practice. The subsequent organisational interventions for redesigning purchasing activities, supply chain and logistic processes are then examined. Finally, main organizational issues at stake for a full deployment of e-procurement were taken into consideration.
SMART
Authors: Pino Esteban , Curtis Dorothy , Stair Thomas , Ohno-Machado Lucila
Published: May 2011

Patient monitoring is important in many contexts: at mass-casualty disaster sites, in improvised emergency wards, and in emergency room waiting areas. Given the positive history of use of monitoring systems in the hospital during surgery, in the recovery room, or in an intensive care unit, the authors sought to use recent technological advances to enable patient monitoring in more diverse circumstances: at home, while traveling, and in some less well-monitored areas of a hospital. This paper presents the authors’ experiences designing, implementing and deploying a wireless disaster management system prototype in a real hospital environment. In addition to a review of related systems, the sensors, algorithms and infrastructure used in our implementation are presented. Finally, general guidelines for ubiquitous methodologies and tools are shared based on the lessons learned from the actual implementation.
A Transaction Cost Economics Assessment of a Diabetes Self-Management Solution
Authors: Troshani Indrit , Wickramasinghe Nilmini , Goldberg Steve
Published: May 2011

Diabetes is one of the leading chronic diseases affecting Australians and is increasingly becoming a serious challenge and threat for both the quality of healthcare while increasing cost pressures on the Australian healthcare system. The goal of this study is to provide a transaction cost economics framework which can be used as a tool for high-level assessments of the economic viability of a pervasive technology solution developed by INET in the form of a wireless enabled mobile solution to facilitate superior diabetes self-management. In doing so, we prepare the inroads for proposing an approach for refined quantifiable assessments of a pervasive IT-enabled healthcare solution.
Optimal DNA Codes for Computing and Self-Assembly
Authors: Garzon Max H. , Phan Vinhthuy , Neel Andrew
Published: May 2011

DNA has been re-discovered and explored in the last decade as a “smart glue” for self-assembly from the “bottom-up” at nanoscales through mesoscales to micro- and macro-scales. These applications require an unprecedented degree of precision in placing atom-scale components. Finding large sets of probes to serve as anchors for such applications has been thus explored in the last few years through several methods. We describe results of a tour de force to conduct an exhaustive search to produce large codes that are (nearly) maximal sets while guaranteeing high quality, as measured by the minimum Gibbs energy between any pair of code words, and other criteria. We also present a quantitative characterization of the sets for sizes up to 20-mers and show how critical building blocks can be extracted to produce codes of very high quality for larger lengths by probabilistic combinations, for which an exhaustive search is out of reach.
Investigation on Stochastic Resonance in Quantum Dot and its Summing Network
Authors: Kasai Seiya
Published: May 2011

Stochastic resonance behavior of single electrons in a quantum dot and its summing network is investigated theoretically. Dynamic behavior of the single electron in the system at finite temperature is analyzed using a master equation with a tunneling transition rate. The analytical model indicates that an input-output correlation has a peak as a function of temperature, which confirms the appearance of the stochastic resonance. The peak position and height depend on charging energy, tunnel resistance, and input signal frequency. It is also found that the correlation is enhanced by formation of a summing network integrating quantum dots in parallel. The present model quantitatively explains the stochastic resonance behaviors of the single electrons predicted by a circuit simulation (Oya, Asai, & Amemiya, 2007).
Toward Biomolecular Computers Using Reaction-Diffusion Dynamics
Authors: Hiratsuka Masahiko , Ito Koichi , Aoki Takafumi , Higuchi Tatsuo
Published: May 2011

This article investigates a possibility of constructing massively parallel computing systems using molecular electronics technology. By employing the specificity of biological molecules, such as enzymes, new integrated circuit architectures that are free from interconnection problems could be constructed. To clarify the proposed concept, we present a functional model of an artificial catalyst device called an enzyme transistor. In this article, we develop artificial catalyst devices as basic building blocks for molecular computing integrated circuits, and explore the possibility of a new computing paradigm using reaction-diffusion dynamics induced by collective behavior of artificial catalyst devices.
The Advent of Play and Pursuit
Authors: Ibrahim Yasmin
Published: May 2011

Multimedia advertising on the internet has demanded that advertisers and marketers become more creative and adventurous in their pursuit of consumers. This chapter argues that the notions of play and pursuit are intrinsic components of persuading consumers to interact and engage with advertising. Online advertising is also simulating game environments to reach consumers through an alternate reality. These techniques elevate play as a persuasive tool to entice consumers and to capture data for advertisers. It tacitly thwarts the assumption that the internet is a space of consumer empowerment and control. Instead it reinforces the hand of capital and uses the architecture and features of the internet to make virtual environments a productive space for advertisers.
Content and Attention Aware Overlay for Online Video Advertising
Authors: Ning Huazhong , Wang Junxian , Liu Xu , Shan Ying
Published: May 2011

Recent proliferation of online video advertising brings new opportunities and challenges to the multimedia community. A successful online video advertising system is expected to have the following essential features: effective targeting, scalability, non-intrusiveness, and attractiveness. While scalable systems with targeting capability are emerging, few have achieved the goal of being both non-intrusive and attractive. To our knowledge, this work is the first attempt to generate video overlay ads that balances the two conflicting characteristics. We achieve the goal by jointly optimizing a non-intrusive metric and a set of metrics associated with video ad templates designed by UI experts. The resulting system is able to dynamically create a video overlay ad that effectively attracts user attention at the least intrusive spatial-temporal spots of a video clip. The system is also designed to enable a scalable business model with effective targeting capabilities, and later will be tested with live traffic on a major video publisher site. In this work, we conducted intensive experiments and user studies on the samples of a large-scale video dataset. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.
An Explorative Study of Virtual Product Placement
Authors: Chang Chia-Hu , Wu Ja-Ling
Published: May 2011

With the aid of content-based multimedia analysis, virtual product placement opens up new opportunities for advertisers to effectively monetize the existing videos in an efficient way. In addition, a number of significant and challenging issues are raising accordingly, such as how to less-intrusively insert the contextually relevant advertising message (what) at the right place (where) and the right time (when) with the attractive representation (how) in the videos. In this chapter, domain knowledge in support of delivering and receiving the advertising message is introduced, such as the advertising theory, psychology and computational aesthetics. We briefly review the state of the art techniques for assisting virtual product placement in videos. In addition, we present a framework to serve the virtual spotlighted advertising (ViSA) for virtual product placement and give an explorative study of it. Moreover, observations about the new trend and possible extension in the design space of virtual product placement will also be stated and discussed. We believe that it would inspire the researchers to develop more interesting and applicable multimedia advertising systems for virtual product placement.
Audience Intelligence in Online Advertising
Authors: Wang Bin
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces the fundamentals of audience intelligence’s important aspects. The goal is to present what are related to audience intelligence, how online audience intelligence could be done, and some representative methods. In this chapter, the author will first address the fundamentals of the audience intelligence, including the brief introduction of the online ad eco-system, the relationship between audience intelligence and existing online ad types, performance measures and the challenges in this field. Next, some classical methods of audience intelligence on end-users will be introduces, namely, demographic, geographic, behavioral targeting and online commercial intent (OCI) detection. Then, audience intelligence on advertisers will be presented. Finally, related topics of online advertising, such as the privacy issue, will be addressed.
Targeted Mobile Advertisement in the IP Multimedia Subsystem
Authors: Tselios C. , Perkuhn H. , Vandikas K. , Kampmann M.
Published: May 2011

This chapter provides an overview on targeted advertisement in the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). A new entity called Personalization and Advertisement Insertion Logic (PAIL) is introduced, which enables a mobile network operator to exploit contextual data stored in its network for personalized advertisement selection. PAIL combines location information with user profile information in order to select the best match from a pool of advertisement clips. This selection is based on the Vector Space Model. For the evaluation of this framework a series of tests with users were executed. These tests show that using contextual information from the IMS network a subjective better match of advertisement clips with user interests is achievable.
Ontological and Semantic Technologies for Geospatial Portals
Authors: Zhou Naijun
Published: May 2011

A geospatial portal is a repository of distributed geospatial data, tools and services, and supports the publishing, management, search, use and sharing of the resources. Geospatial portals have been developed as clearinghouses, metadata portals, data warehousing, and recently geospatial portals incorporated the Service Oriented Architecture and distributed computing to make service-oriented portals. In addition to software and computational challenges, ontology and semantics play an increasingly important role in geospatial portals due to the demand of interoperability. The interoperation and communication of data, tools and services become critical when heterogeneous resources are consolidated and exchanged on geospatial portals. This chapter provides an updated overview of geospatial portals followed by detailed discussion on how the ontological and semantic technologies are incorporated into geospatial portals. Three recent research and practice of geospatial portals are briefly introduced as the case studies of service-oriented portals.
Augmented Reality Gaming in Education for Engaged Learning
Authors: Cavanaugh Cathy
Published: May 2011

In augmented reality games, game experiences combining electronic game content take the form of narrative materials and game-play elements exchanged through a wide range of communication media that are used in a related physical setting. Educational game developers design these games to maximize transfer of learning through close approximation of the game-scaffolded skills and the game environment to real skills and contexts. The games immerse players in electronic and actual learning situations using features that make them effective learning experiences for fostering meaningful learning. The situated learning experienced by augmented reality game players transfers to deep learning, often in social contexts. Research into the uses of these games as educational platforms has focused on developing the technologies for the games and on studies of games for learning. Results demonstrate the strengths and areas for continued development in the application of augmented reality games for childhood and adult learning in formal and informal settings.
Educational Simulations
Authors: Guralnick David A. , Levy Christine
Published: May 2011

Learn-by-doing simulations can provide tremendously effective learning. This chapter examines previous and current work in the area of educational simulations and looks ahead toward several potential futures in the field. The chapter includes a number of simulation-based success stories and case studies from past years, along with a discussion of why they worked as well as what could have been done better. It also describes approaches to ensure that a simulation is educationally effective while still being engaging and even entertaining. In addition, the chapter includes a design and development process that can be followed in order to maximize the educational value and usability of a simulation.
Subject Matter Content Creation for Second Life Delivery
Authors: DeMers Michael N.
Published: May 2011

Worldwide, educators are experimenting with the myriad possibilities that Second Life and other multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) provide for teaching and learning for online courses. Some find the ability to collaborate enhanced, others see the social presence improved, more acknowledge the ease of employing role play intriguing, and a few have employed highly complex simulations as means of delivering complex material. The ability of educators to develop, test, and effectively deliver meaningful educational content within virtual worlds is often limited by the rather steep learning curve such environments present. This chapter provides first a set of basic guidelines for preparing instructors for an incremental approach to content delivery and predisposes learners for successful implementation and performance. Second, using examples from the discipline of geography, specifically my subspecialty of geographic information systems (GIS), it describes the use of some basic tools contained within Second Life for creation of active course content through small learning objects. Finally, it demonstrates real-world examples of such in-world learning objects from a laboratory-based course to illustrate how traditional course content can be transformed to hands-on exercises in the virtual environment.
Communicability in Educational Simulations
Authors: Nicol Emma
Published: May 2011

Simulation and game-based learning are powerful modes of learning that are used in many fields including subjects as diverse as medicine and aviation. While institutes of further and higher education are making increasing use of VLEs to deliver teaching and learning, there are currently few examples of simulated environments for learning. The SIMPLE (Simulated Professional Learning Environment) and Cyberdam environments are two of the few dedicated simulation environments. This chapter will look at both of these environments and the results of user evaluations to determine what makes a simulation environment successful and what aspects of a simulation environment would have to be evaluated in order to establish its communicability.
Electronic Gaming in Germany as Innovation in Education
Authors: Breiter Andreas , Kolo Castulus
Published: May 2011

Electronic gaming in education remains a theoretical or at best marginal issue as long as it is not adopted in general educational settings. The latter, however, not only depends on the intrinsic values or advantages discussed in other contributions to this volume. Rather, electronic gaming in education provides an interesting example for a complex adoption process where individual choices, organizational frameworks, and educational policies, as well as attitudes in the society at-large, interfere in the diffusion of gaming devices and the adoption of gaming for learning processes. After introducing an analytical framework for structuring such processes of the diffusion of innovations, the authors present empirical evidence from the adoption process of electronic gaming in Germany. The results are discussed focusing on the role of several influencing factors on the scope and the speed of innovations. The chapter concludes with possible generalizations departing from the specific situation and the tradition of education in Germany.
Enhancing Intelligent Tutoring Systems with the Agent Paradigm
Authors: Bai Xin , Black John B.
Published: May 2011

A cognitive framework called REflective Agent Learning environment (REAL) is developed in this study. REAL is a reusable framework that allows researchers to develop a simulation-based learning environment where users can learn through passing their thoughts to some computer-based agents and observe how the agents embodying their knowledge behave as the result of their instruction. Our research benefits from the research in Intelligent Tutoring Systems, game based learning systems, and agent technologies, stressing reflection as part of the thinking processes. It focuses on the design of the framework and the testing of its usability. The external evaluation of specific implementations serves as the guidance for the future design of the REAL applications. We hope, by grounding themselves in the needs of local practice, the REAL applications can give us opportunities to understand how theoretical claims about teaching and learning can be effectively transformed into meaningful learning.
Epistemological Framework and Mathematical Learning
Authors: Fregola Cesare
Published: May 2011

The aim of this chapter is to provide some indications on the background of our research regarding the use of simulation games for learning geometry and arithmetic. We reinterpret certain educational goals from the perspective of the anthropology of the virtual. Within this context, a number of important international commissions on math teaching are analyzed with particular reference to the difficulties involved in finding the right balance between the need for a formal mathematical language and teaching solutions to guide learning.
GaME Design for Intuitive Concept Knowledge
Authors: Reese Debbie Denise
Published: May 2011

Game-based, metaphor-enhanced (GaME) design is a process for engineering instructional games to prepare learners with the prior knowledge they need to learn later, more complex science concepts. The key step in the method is specifying a domain’s relational structure and then developing a game world based upon that structure. Reviewing relevant game design, cognitive science, and learning science theories, the author argues: (a) the need for GaME design; (b) that game worlds, complex concepts, and mental models are analogous systems; (c) how game-based technologies can provide a pragmatic and embodied context for making complex, introductory concepts intuitive; and (d) that the pragmatic, physical, and procedural aspects of games make them powerful learning tools that must be carefully designed. The author illustrates GaME design using Selene: A Lunar Creation GaME. Rigorous methods for design of instructional games will enhance control over learning outcomes.
Motivation, Learning, and Game Design
Authors: Asgari Mahboubeh , Kaufman David
Published: May 2011

While there are thousands of educational computer and video games in the market today, few are as engaging and compelling as entertainment games. Some entertainment games have also been used in classrooms and have proven to produce incidental learning (e.g., Civilization III, SimCity). This has demonstrated that learning can occur through playing computer and video games, although it does not address the question of how to design engaging games for learning that incorporate specific learning objectives. As educators, we generally design instruction by specifying our learning objectives and then developing our learning materials to address these objectives. The authors of this chapter argue that there are a number of elements used in entertainment games that motivate players, and using these elements in the design process for educational games based on learning objectives would create motivational and engaging educational games. This chapter outlines the elements needed to develop such games.
The Design and Development of Educational Immersive Environments
Authors: Price Collin B. , Moore Miss J.S.
Published: May 2011

Computer game technology is poised to make a significant impact on the way our youngsters will learn. Our youngsters are ‘Digital Natives’, immersed in digital technologies, especially computer games. They expect to utilize these technologies in learning contexts. This expectation, and our response as educators, may change classroom practice and inform curriculum developments. This chapter approaches these issues ‘head on’. Starting from a review of the current educational issues, an evaluation of educational theory and instructional design principles, a new theoretical approach to the construction of “Educational Immersive Environments” (EIEs) is proposed. Elements of this approach are applied to development of an EIE to support Literacy Education in UK Primary Schools. An evaluation of a trial within a UK Primary School is discussed. Conclusions from both the theoretical development and the evaluation suggest how future teacher-practitioners may embrace both the technology and our approach to develop their own learning resources.