bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Web Mining in Thematic Search Engines
Authors: Caramia Massimiliano , Felici Giovanni
Published: May 2011

In the present chapter we report on some extensions on the work presented in the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Data Mining. In Caramia and Felici (2005) we have described a method based on clustering and a heuristic search method- based on a genetic algorithm - to extract pages with relevant information for a specific user query in a thematic search engine. Starting from these results we have extended the research work trying to match some issues related to the semantic aspects of the search, focusing on the keywords that are used to establish the similarity among the pages that result from the query. Complete details on this method, here omitted for brevity, can be found in Caramia and Felici (2006). Search engines technologies remain a strong research topic, as new problems and new demands from the market and the users arise. The process of switching from quantity (maintaining and indexing large databases of web pages and quickly select pages matching some criterion) to quality (identifying pages with a high quality for the user), already highlighted in Caramia and Felici (2005), has not been interrupted, but has gained further energy, being motivated by the natural evolution of the internet users, more selective in their choice of the search tool and willing to pay the price of providing extra feedback to the system and wait more time to have their queries better matched. In this framework, several have considered the use of data mining and optimization techniques, that are often referred to as web mining (for a recent bibliography on this topic see, e.g., Getoor, Senator, Domingos, and Faloutsos, 2003 and Zaïane, Srivastava, Spiliopoulou, and Masand, 2002). The work described in this chapter is bases on clustering techniques to identify, in the set of pages resulting from a simple query, subsets that are homogeneous with respect to a vectorization based on context or profile; then, a number of small and potentially good subsets of pages is constructed, extracting from each cluster the pages with higher scores. Operating on these subsets with a genetic algorithm, a subset with a good overall score and a high internal dissimilarity is identified. A related problem is then considered: the selection of a subset of pages that are compliant with the search keywords, but that also are characterized by the fact that they share a large subset of words different from the search keywords. This characteristic represents a sort of semantic connection of these pages that may be of use to spot some particular aspects of the information present in the pages. Such a task is accomplished by the construction of a special graph, whose maximumweight clique and k-densest subgraph should represent the page subsets with the desired properties. In the following we summarize the main background topics and provide a synthetic description of the methods. Interested readers may find additional information in Caramia and Felici (2004), Caramia and Felici (2005), and Caramia and Felici (2006).
Online Privacy and Marketing
Authors: Parker Betty J.
Published: May 2011

Marketing practices have always presented challenges for consumers seeking to protect their privacy. This chapter discusses the ways in which the Internet as a marketing medium introduces additional privacy concerns. Current privacy issues include the use of spyware and cookies, word-of-mouth marketing, online marketing to children, and the use of social networks. Related privacy practices, concerns, and recommendations are presented from the perspectives of Internet users, marketers, and government agencies. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ways in which consumers’ privacy concerns, as they apply to Internet marketing, would benefit from additional research.
Automatic Lecture Recording for Lightweight Content Production
Authors: Hürst Wolfgang
Published: May 2011

Today, classroom lectures are often based on electronic materials, such as slides that have been produced with presentation software tools and complemented with digital images, video clips, and so forth. These slides are used in the live event and verbally explained by the teacher. Some lecture rooms are equipped with pen-based interfaces, such as tablet PCs, graphics tablets, or electronic whiteboards (Figure 1). These are used for freehand writing or to graphically annotate slides. Lecturers put a tremendous effort into the preparation of such electronic materials and the delivery of the respective live event. The idea of approaches for so-called automatic lecture recording is to exploit this effort for the production of educational learning material. Although it is still controversial if such documents could ever be a substitute for actual classroom teaching, it is generally agreed that they make useful, gaining complements to existing classes, and their value for education is generally accepted (Hürst, Müller, & Ottmann, 2006). While manual production of comparable multimedia data is often too costly and time consuming, such “lightweight” authoring via automatic lecture recording can be a more effective, easier, and cheaper alternative to produce high quality, up-to-date learning material. In this article, we first give a general overview of automatic lecture recording. Then, we describe the most typical approaches and identify their strengths and limitations.
Broadband Fiber Optical Access
Authors: Heliotis George
Published: May 2011

We are currently witnessing an unprecedented growth in bandwidth demand, mainly driven by the development of advanced broadband multimedia applications, including video-on-demand (VoD), interactive highdefinition digital television (HDTV) and related digital content, multiparty video-conferencing, and so forth. These Internet-based services require an underlying network infrastructure that is capable of supporting high-speed data transmission rates; hence, standards bodies and telecom providers are currently focusing on developing and defining new network infrastructures that will constitute future-proof solutions in terms of the anticipated growth in bandwidth demand, but at the same time be economically viable. Most users currently enjoy relatively high speed communication services through digital subscriber line (DSL) access technologies, but these are widely seen as short-term solutions, since the aging copper-based infrastructure is rapidly approaching its fundamental speed limits. In contrast, fiber optics-based technologies offer tremendously higher bandwidth, a fact that has long been recognized by all telecom providers, which have upgraded their core (backbone) networks to optical technologies. As Figure 1 shows, the current network landscape thus broadly comprises of an ultrafast fiber optic backbone to which users connect through conventional, telephone grade copper wires. It is evident that these copper-based access networks create a bottleneck in terms of bandwidth and service provision. In Figure 1, a splitter is used to separate the voice and data signals, both at the user end and at the network operator’s premises. All data leaving from the user travel first through an electrical link over telephonegrade wires to the operator local exchange. They are then routed to an Internet service provider (ISP) and eventually to the Internet through fiber-optic links. In contrast to the access scheme depicted in Figure 1, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) architectures are novel optical access architectures in which communication occurs via optical fibers extending all the way from the telecom operator premises to the customer’s home or office, thus replacing the need for data transfer over telephone wires. Optical access networks can offer a solution to the access network bottleneck problem, and promises extremely high bandwidth to the end user, as well as future-proofing the operator’s investment (Green 2006; Prat, Balaquer, Gene, Diaz, & Fiquerola, 2002). While the cost of FTTH deployment has been prohibitively high in the past, this has been falling steadily, and FTTH is now likely to be the dominant broadband access technology within the next decade (Green, 2006).
Cell Broadcast as an Option for Emergency Warning Systems
Authors: Belesioti Maria
Published: May 2011

OTE S.A., General Directorate for Technology, Greece; OTE S.A., General Directorate for Technology, Greece; OTE S.A., General Directorate for Technology, Greece; OTE S.A., General Directorate for Technology, Greece; General Prefectorial Hospital “G. Gennimatas”, Greece
A Comparison of Human and Computer Information Processing
Authors: Whitworth Brian , Ryu Hokyoung
Published: May 2011

Over 30 years ago, TV shows from The Jetsons to Star Trek suggested that by the millennium’s end computers would read, talk, recognize, walk, converse, think, and maybe even feel. People do these things easily, so how hard could it be? However, in general we still don’t talk to our computers, cars, or houses, and they still don’t talk to us. The Roomba, a successful household robot, is a functional flat round machine that neither talks to nor recognizes its owner. Its “smart” programming tries mainly to stop it getting “stuck,” which it still frequently does, either by getting jammed somewhere or tangling in things like carpet tassels. The idea that computers are incredibly clever is changing, as when computers enter human specialties like conversation, many people find them more stupid than smart, as any “conversation” with a computer help can illustrate. Computers do easily do calculation tasks that people find hard, but the opposite also applies, for example, people quickly recognize familiar faces but computers still cannot recognize known terrorist faces at airport check-ins. Apparently minor variations, like lighting, facial angle, or expression, accessories like glasses or hat, upset them. Figure 1 shows a Letraset page, which any small child would easily recognize as letter “As” but computers find this extremely difficult. People find such visual tasks easy, so few in artificial intelligence (AI) appreciated the difficulties of computer-vision at first. Initial advances were rapid, but AI has struck a 99% barrier, for example, computer voice recognition is 99% accurate but one error per 100 words is unacceptable. There are no computer controlled “auto-drive” cars because 99% accuracy means an accident every month or so, which is also unacceptable. In contrast, the “mean time between accidents” of competent human drivers is years not months, and good drivers go 10+ years without accidents. Other problems easy for most people but hard for computers are language translation, speech recognition, problem solving, social interaction, and spatial coordination.
Content-Based Multimedia Retrieval
Authors: Wei Chia-Hung
Published: May 2011

In the past decade, there has been rapid growth in the use of digital media, such as images, video, and audio. As the use of digital media increases, retrieval and management techniques become more important in order to facilitate the effective searching and browsing of large multimedia databases. Before the emergence of content-based retrieval, media was annotated with text, allowing the media to be accessed by text-based searching. Through textual description, media is managed and retrieved based on the classification of subject or semantics. This hierarchical structure, like yellow pages, allows users to easily navigate and browse, or search using standard Boolean queries. However, with the emergence of massive multimedia databases, the traditional text-based search suffers from the following limitations (Wei, Li, & Wilson, 2006): Manual annotations require too much time and are expensive to implement. As the number of media in a database grows, the difficulty in finding desired information increases. It becomes infeasible to manually annotate all attributes of the media content. Annotating a 60-minute video, containing more than 100,000 images, consumes a vast amount of time and expense. Manual annotations fail to deal with the discrepancy of subjective perception. The phrase, “an image says more than a thousand words,” implies that the textual description is sufficient for depicting subjective perception. To capture all concepts, thoughts, and feelings for the content of any media is almost impossible. Some media contents are difficult to concretely describe in words. For example, a piece of melody without lyric or irregular organic shape cannot easily be expressed in textual form, but people expect to search media with similar contents based on examples they provided. In an attempt to overcome these difficulties, content- based retrieval employs content information to automatically index data with minimal human intervention.
Cross-Channel Cooperation
Authors: Kollmann Tobias
Published: May 2011

The rapid growth of Internet technologies induced a structural change in both social and economic spheres. Digital channels have become an integral part of daily life, and their influence on the transfer of information has become ubiquitous. An entirely new business dimension that may be referred to as the Net economy has emerged. Internet-based e-ventures that are operating at this electronic trade level are based on innovative and promising online business models (Kollmann, 2006). But also traditional enterprises that are operating at the physical trade level (real economy) increasingly utilize digital channels to improve their business processes and to reach new customer segments. With the Internet, the cooperation between enterprises reached a new level of quality. The wide, open, and cost-effective infrastructure allows a simple, fast exchange of data and thus a synchronization of business processes over large distances. Particularly for e-ventures introducing their new business ideas, online cooperation is a promising strategy as it enables the partners to create more attractive product offers and represents a basis for more efficiently and effectively communicating and distributing their product offers (Kollmann, 2004; Volkmann & Tokarski, 2006). Online cooperation, however, does not incorporate off-line channels such as print media, stores, or sales forces. For the combined management of online and offline channels, cooperation can be expected to hold an outstanding potential. Partnering with companies from the Net economy may help traditional enterprises to reach new market segments without extending themselves beyond their core competencies—and vice versa. In this context, cross-channel cooperation can be defined as the collaborative integration of online and offline business models aiming at attaining positive synergetic effects for the involved partners by a complement of competencies. (Kollmann & Häsel, 2006, p. 3) Cross-channel cooperation can be regarded a new management task that is worthwhile to be examined in more detail. Although researchers have broadly covered the area of online cooperation, a comprehensive study on cross-channel cooperation has not been undertaken up to now. Particularly the question arises, which cooperation forms represent feasible strategies for both e-ventures and traditional enterprises. Besides its contribution to literature, this article is intended to assist practitioners in evaluating the benefits of crosschannel cooperation for their own businesses.
Developing Content Delivery Networks
Authors: Chochliouros Ioannis , Spiliopoulou Anastasia S. , Chochliouros Stergios P.
Published: May 2011

Over the past decades, the expansion of the converged Web-based facilities/infrastructures, together with new business perspectives, have created new needs for all (potential) categories of end-users. Although various effects were significant in most sectors (European Commission, 2005) the fast progress has, however, promoted more complex issues, especially for the delivery of multimedia-based applications. It is now a common view that there is a growing need for delivering high-quality services in the scope of liberalized and competitive markets, where multiple factors of different origin (i.e., technological, business, economic, regulatory, social, etc.) can drastically affect further deployment, establishment or upgrading of existing infrastructures and of any possible (innovative) services offered through them, especially if considering the continuous expansion of the broadband perspective (Chochliouros, & Spiliopoulou, 2005). Furthermore, multimedia applications are bandwidth consuming and new applications for absorbing the available assets appear. As the “converged” sector of information technologies, communication, and media industries is currently on the “edge” of a crucial phase of growth, several challenges appear in the global scene: Appropriate infrastructures for delivering mails, exchanging data files (of various forms of content) and simple Web browsing are now required to be adopted and used, to support the streaming of multimedia content and, simultaneously, to “compose” a reliable means of transmitting information between several entities (physical and legal persons) using digital facilities. Although technological advances have enhanced the deployment of faster (lesser latency) and greater (more bandwidth) “network lines” possessing significant advantages, the demands of the extravagant use of Internet from users worldwide (Dilley, Maggs, Parikh, Prokop, Sitaraman, & Weihl, 2002; Shoniregun, Chochliouros, Laperche, Logvynovskiy, & Spiliopoulou-Chochliourou, 2004), together with an extensive variance of services offered, were primary motives for researchers to develop a specific category of modern infrastructures, known as content distribution (or delivery) networks (CDNs) (Hull, 2002; Verma, 2002). The development of suitable content delivery networking comprises one of the most important challenges in the global networking area, together with the expansion of various IP trends. Content networks influence high-layer network intelligence to efficiently manage the delivery of various forms of data (which is becoming progressively more multimedia in nature). At an initial stage, they were built upon the structure of the public Internet (Saroiu, Gummadi, Dunn, Gribble, & Levy, 2002), to accelerate Web site performance (Johnson, Carr, Day, & Frans Kaashoek, 2000). This option has been fulfilled in numerous cases, and such intelligent network tools can be applied in other beneficial and profitable ways.
E-Learning Applications through Space Observations
Authors: Chochliouros Ioannis , Spiliopoulou Anastasia S. , Doukoglou Tilemachos D. , Chochliouros Stergios P.
Published: May 2011

In the context of the present work, we discuss several fundamental issues originating from the work already performed in the scope of the Discovery Space (DSpace) Research Project, founded by the European eTEN Work Program. The Project has been awarded as the “Project of the Month - November, 2006” and the “second best European research activity” in the scope of e-learning thematic activities (http://www. discoveryspace.net/). The prime purpose of the work was the development of a virtual science center, able to integrate robotic telescopes from all over the world into one “virtual observatory” through a proper Web-based interface, to provide an automated scheduling of the telescopes to end-users (i.e., students, teachers, and researchers) and access to a library of data and resources for lifelong learners. Potential users can benefit from professional-quality data from their local sites, using modern broadband (Internet-based) facilities (European Commission, 2002). Following the echo from the market request for more cost-effective and compelling applications to be delivered over the currently-launched broadband networks supporting the expansion of the global information society (The European Survey of National Priorities in Astronomy, 2004), the relevant service application aimed to take advantage of the convenience of the high-speed Internet access to involve its various users (originating from distinct thematic categories) in extended episodes of playful learning. The basic issue was the creation and presentation, to the market, of an entirely interoperable worldwide service, able to support options for further enhancement of e-learning facilities for teachers, students, researchers, and other practitioners. The approach has been considered the existing Internet-based facilities as the basis to “transform the today’s classroom to a research laboratory” and to develop further the European e-learning market (Chochliouros & Spiliopoulou, 2004; Danish Technological Institute, 2004).
Elementary School Students, Information Retrieval, and the Web
Authors: Nesset Valerie
Published: May 2011

In today’s modern world, elementary school students (aged 5 to 12 years) use computers for a wide variety of tasks. These include communication (e-mail, instant messaging, and chatrooms), entertainment (games, video, music, etc.), leisure (such as information relating to hobbies and general interests), and information retrieval to support class-based learning. Internet access is now very widely available from home, school, and public library. A major reason for accessing the Internet is to find Web-based information relevant to classroom learning activities. Undoubtedly the Web represents an enormous and potentially rich source of multimedia information on topics within the elementary school curriculum, but accessing this information does pose a number of challenges. We identify in this article three major problem areas that currently impede effective exploitation by elementary school students of Webbased information resources: information systems are not necessarily intuitive or straightforward for children to use; basic information literacy skills too often are inadequate; and too little content appropriate for young users is available on the Web. The first technology to gain popularity as a means for children to retrieve information was the CD-ROM. By the early 1990s, a wide variety of multimedia information resources targeted specifically at children were available in this medium. Many were children’s encyclopedias, designed to facilitate rapid retrieval of discrete information “chunks,” and often multimedia versions of an original print title. These CD-ROMs could offer an engaging, interactive experience for the young student. Although students were willing to explore and experiment with interfaces (Large, Beheshti, Breuleux, & Renaud, 1994; Large, Beheshti, & Breuleux, 1998), they were not necessarily effective at retrieving information from these CD-ROM titles (Marchionini, 1989; Oliver, 1996). In any event, regardless of its strengths and weaknesses as a classroom resource, CD-ROM technology proved transient and was quickly superseded by the expansion of the Internet and the rise of the Web. Yet the information retrieval problems revealed by CD-ROMs would continue to plague the Web.
Evaluation of Interactive Digital TV Commerce Using the AHP Approach
Authors: Lin Koong , Lin Chad , Shen Chyi-Lin
Published: May 2011

The popularity of interactive digital television (IDTV) has been increasing rapidly over the last few years and is likely to be the growth star of the future. According to Forrester Research, more than 10% of Europeans are now using interactive digital television (IDTV) services (Jennings, 2004). Indeed, the introduction of IDTV in the diffusion of television has brought about many benefits to the customers (e.g., more TV channels) (Buhalis & Licata, 2002). The proliferation of IDTV has also given customers easier access to products and services. Nevertheless, according to Pagani (2003), this has a profound effect on the market outlook for the existing TV operators. Although IDTV contributes many benefits to the quality and the transmission of the TV channels for the customers, it has also resulted in fierce market competition and decreased profit margins for the TV industry as a whole. Therefore, the industry needs to look for new ways to utilize the technology to be competitive. However, organizations often encounter challenges and problems when implementing new information technology (IT) (Lin, Pervan, & McDermid, 2005). For instance, organizations are likely to face uncertainties when assessing the new adopted IT (Lin & Pervan, 2003) such as IDTV. Moreover, very few studies have carried out proper examination and evaluation of how the TV industry as a whole conducts its business using IDTV (i.e., IDTV commerce). Thus, the objective of this short article is to establish a decision analysis mechanism that can assist the TV operators in adopting IDTV as their commerce platform. A survey was employed to investigate and identify the key issues for adopting IDTV commerce by TV operators. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology was used to analyze the IDTV adoption decision processes of these TV operators. The AHP methodology was developed by Saaty (1980) to reflect the way people actually think, and it continues to be the most highly regarded and widely used decision-making theory (Lin et al., 2005). One contribution of the short article is that our results indicate that the three most important adoption drivers for implementation IDTV as a commerce platform are: (1) the operational capability for the IDTV services; (2) the innovation and strategy execution capabilities; and (3) the level of maturity in technological development. Finally, most respondents indicate that the adoption of IDTV commerce should be fully operated and managed in-house, rather than outsourced (partial or total outsourcing).
An Examination of Website Usability
Authors: Falk Louis K. , Sockel Hy , Chen Kuanchin
Published: May 2011

Strictly speaking, the term Usability has evolved from ease of use to also include design and presentation aspects. A large amount of research has been conducted using this wider definition. These studies include everything from model development (Cunliffe, 2000), to personal self image on Web sites (Dominick, 1999), to the purpose of a Web site (Falk, 2000; Neilsen, 1999, 2000), and to Web site effectiveness (Briggs & Hollis, 1997; Fichter, 2005). Ultimately, these topics are related to Usability and the success that a Web site enjoys. The construct of Usability covers a range of topics. This article specifically addresses Web Usability from the perspective of how easy a system is to learn, remember, and use (Rosen, Purinton, & Lloyd, 2004). The system features should emphasize subjective satisfaction (Cheung & Lee, 2005), low error rate, and high task performance (Calongne, 2001). In this regard, Usability is a combination of the underlying (hypermedia) system engine and the contents and structure of the document, and how these two elements fit together (Lu & Yeung, 1998).
Fine-Grained Data Access for Networking Applications
Authors: Indraratne Harith , Hosszú Gábor
Published: May 2011

Current-day network applications require much more secure data storages than anticipated before. With millions of anonymous users using same networking applications, security of data behind the applications have become a major concern of database developers and security experts. In most security incidents, the databases attached to the applications are targeted, and attacks have been made. Most of these applications require allowing data manipulation at several granular levels to the users accessing the applications—not just table and view level, but tuple level. A database that supports fine-grained access control restricts the rows a user sees, based on his/her credentials. Generally, this restriction is enforced by a query modification mechanism automatically done at the database. This feature enables per-user data access within a single database, with the assurance of physical data separation. It is enabled by associating one or more security policies with tables, views, table columns, and table rows. Such a model is ideal for minimizing the complexity of the security enforcements in databases based on network applications. With fine-grained access controls, one can create fast, scalable, and secure network applications. Each application can be written to find the correct balance between performance and security, so that each data transaction is performed as quickly and safely as possible. Today, the database vendors like Oracle 10g, and IBM DB2 provides commercial implementations of fine-grained access control methods, such as filtering rows, masking columns selectively based on the policy, and applying the policy only when certain columns are accessed. The behavior of the fine-grained access control model can also be increased through the use of multiple types of policies based on the nature of the application, making the feature applicable to multiple situations. Meanwhile, Microsoft SQL Server2005 has also come up with emerging features to control the access to databases using fine-grained access controls. Fine-grained access control does not cover all the security issues related to Internet databases, but when implemented, it supports building secure databases rapidly and bringing down the complexity of security management issues.
Interactive Playout of Digital Video Streams
Authors: Rivas Samuel , Barreiro Miguel , Gulías Víctor M.
Published: May 2011

Even though digital systems have many advantages over traditional analogue systems, end users expect that they will not loose any functionality in the transition. Concretely, capabilities of video cassette recorders (VCR) should be ported to stand alone digital media players (e.g., DVD players) and streaming services (e.g., digital TV and VoD services). Those capabilities are usually known as interactive playout or, simply, digital VCR functionality. Typical VCR features are random access, pause/resume, reverse play, fast forward/ backward, and slow motion. Random access and pause/resume functionalities are relatively easy to implement in digital systems. On the other hand, video coding techniques and bandwidth restrictions severely complicate the implementation of the other VCR operations. Usually, VCR capabilities apply only to video streams. In interactive playout mode, audio streams are commonly discarded. Also, the quality of video streams in interactive mode may be downgraded due to system limitations.
Issues with Distance Education in Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Millham Richard
Published: May 2011

What are some of the issues relevant to distance education in sub-Saharan Africa? Some of these issues relate to the ‘push’ factors of distance education in sub-Saharan Africa, which include overcrowded tertiary institutions, the need for training in a globalised high-technology world, and the problem of government funding. These ‘push’ factors seem to match the alleged advantages of distance education such as its nonrequirement of residential facilities and its ability to accommodate a flexible number of students at a low cost. It was hoped that new technology, such as computer-based training and the Internet, would provide a medium to which individualised and flexible learning materials could be supplied and which, through online interaction, a form of support for distance education learning could be provided. In this article, we focus on the particular distance education issues in sub-Saharan Africa, such as the lack of government funding and the lack of affordability by potential distance education students, as well as reasons why new technology, such as computerbased learning and online courses which are popular in the developed world, are impractical in developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa. A case study of a sub- Saharan country, Ghana, is provided to demonstrate why various distance education programmes have failed and why information and communications technology (ICT)-based training, despite its promising future, lacks the supporting infrastructure in Ghana that it requires in order to operate effectively.
Latest Trends in Mobile Business
Authors: Gupta Sumeet
Published: May 2011

Since the 1990s, a surge in the popularity and usage of e-commerce has led to the recent emergence of conducting business transactions using handheld mobile devices connected by wireless networks (Andrew, Valacich, & Jessup, 2003). Known as mobile commerce, m-commerce allows for anytime and anywhere commercial transactions. M-commerce is an upcoming technology whereby commercial transactions are made through handheld devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDA), which are connected by wireless networks. The ability to conduct business anytime and anywhere through mobile commerce will remove the space and time constraints on an individual for conducting business. Different kinds of services have since emerged for conducting m-commerce, such as location-based services (LBS) (e.g., mobile advertising), pervasive computing, and mobile gaming. These services allow for conducting not only commerce but also business activities using mobile devices. Mobile business (mbusiness) allows for mainly two kinds of services, namely, push-based and pull-based. Push-based services are initiated by the vendor while pull-based services are initiated by the customer. We will discuss these services in m-business together with their advantages and disadvantages.
Multimedia for Direct Marketing
Authors: Wagner Ralf , Meißner Martin
Published: May 2011

Multimedia technologies provide direct marketers with an incredible diversity of opportunities for communication to as well as with customers in a more appealing manner than old-fashioned printed advertisements or mailings (Coviello, Milley, & Marcolin, 2003). Direct marketing is one of the most important application domains of innovative multimedia products. An increasing share of marketing spending is invested in network activities, particularly WWW advertising and online shops. Online marketing activities have become so prominent that the 2000 Superbowl has been labeled the “Dot com Bowl” (Noe & Parker, 2005). In this article, we outline: • how companies improve their business by multimedia and networks, and • the challenges for direct marketing brought about by multimedia. The remainder of the article is structured as follows: in the first section, we provide a definition of direct marketing, illustrate the opportunities opening up for marketers by the new technologies, and present a scheme of tasks in direct marketing. Additionally, we describe the features of direct marketing using multimedia in the four domains of product, price, place, and promotion. In the subsequent section we address the possibilities for contemporary relationship marketing in the framework of content, commerce, and community. Thereafter, we discuss innovative direct marketing activities using the examples of advertising in personalized digital TV environments and mobile telephony. The article concludes with a comparison of different direct marketing media and a synopsis of success factors.
Network-Based Information System Model for Research
Authors: Maris Jo-Mae B.
Published: May 2011

Cross-discipline research requires researchers to understand many concepts outside their own discipline. Computing has increased in our everyday lives to the point that “ubiquitous computing” has become an entry in the Wikipedia (Wikepedia). Research is no different. Researchers outside of computer networkrelated disciplines must account for the effects of network-based information systems on their research. This article presents a model to aid researchers with the tasks of properly identifying the elements and effects of a network-based information system within their studies. The complexity associated with network-based information systems may be seen by considering a study involving the effectiveness of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system on a mid-sized company. A study becomes muddled when it fails to recognize the differences between the myriad of people, procedures, data, software, and hardware involved in the development, implementation, security, use, and support of an ERP system. If a researcher confuses network security with ERP configuration limitations, then two important aspects of the information system are obscured. Networks limit access to network resources so that only authorized users have access to their data. ERP applications allow an organization to restrict access to data to safeguard the data (Colt & Yang, 2004). Both aspects relate to the availability of data, but they come from different parts of the system. The two aspects should not be addressed as if both are attributable to the same source. Misidentifying network-based information system elements reflects negatively upon the legitimacy of an entire study.
A New Framework for Interactive Entertainment Technologies
Authors: Wood-Bradley Guy
Published: May 2011

The relative infancy of digital television technology (and as a correlative, iTV, or, interactive television) in Australia offers an excellent opportunity for the examination of potential issues regarding the acceptance and take-up of new technologies. This work will explore the design and development of a new paradigm for digital interactive television (DiTV) being interactive digital vision (iDV) in which the television is no longer the focal point, but rather, the possibilities for potential interactivity and engagement with such technologies. The premise of this research is firmly founded in the acknowledgement of the specific elements required to provide a truly interactive experience. These fundamental elements are referred to as the “3 E’s”: engagement, enrichment, and entertainment.
An Open E-Learning Specification for Multiple Learners and Flexible Pedagogies
Authors: Tattersall Colin
Published: May 2011

Significant investments have been made by universities, colleges, distance learning providers, and corporate training departments in the area of e-learning. Moving from early use of static HTML pages providing course details, the use of the Internet as a delivery technology for education and training is now commonplace, with both distance and presential learning providers exploiting e-learning in their offerings. A standards-based IT infrastructure is in place in educational institutions around the world, simplifying the delivery of e-learning courses and opening the doors to mainstream, largescale, Web-based education (Brusilovsky & Vassileva, 2003). Many different virtual learning environments (VLEs) exist (Everett, 2002), including significant contributions from the open source community (Dougiamas, 2004; Sakai, 2005). Above the underlying IT standards rest a significant number of e-learning standards, specifications, and reference models (IMSCP, 2003; Loidl Reisinger & Paramythis, 2003; Wisher & Fletcher, 2004), designed to improve the interoperability between systems and remove islands of e-learning. These infrastructural changes have been mirrored by developments in the area of learning objects (Littlejohn, 2003; Wiley, 2002). The learning objects movement is based upon the idea that reusable units of content can be created, shared, and reused between different communities, and is viewed as a solution to the significant production costs associated with the development of high-quality learning resources—see Sloep (2004) for a discussion of this issue. Critics of the learning objects movement have expressed their uneasiness with e-learning as page turning that leads to “static, fossilized, dead [content], low learner motivation and engagement, impersonal and isolating environments” (Stacey, 2003). This debate has brought pedagogy in the e-learning community to the fore. How should different groups of learners best be taught? What does existing educational theory have to teach e-learning, and how could the results of this work be brought into e-learning systems? How could new information and communication technology developments, particularly in the area of collaboration and cooperation, be brought into e-learning offerings? How could ongoing R&D in the area of pedagogy and e-learning be more easily brought together and compared? This article describes the IMS learning design specification (IMSLD, 2003). IMSLD is an open specification, freely downloadable, maintained by an international consortium of universities, system vendors, and learning providers. The specification provides a counter to the trend toward designing for lone-learners reading from screens. Instead, it guides staff and educational developers to start not with content, but with learning activities and the achievement of learning objectives.
Opportunities and Challenges from Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) Technology
Authors: Chochliouros Ioannis , Spiliopoulou Anastasia S. , Chochliouros Stergios P. , Agapiou George
Published: May 2011

The tremendous growth in the mobile communications sector has had a profound technical, economic/business, and social impact in Europe and worldwide (Chochliouros & Spiliopoulou, 2005). In particular, various sectors’ effects combined with the rapid expansion of (fixed) broadband wireless technologies have generated, in several instances, suitable prerequisites (and/or conditions) for further development and exploitation, to successfully realize a diversity of convergencebased opportunities (Chochliouros, Spiliopoulou, & Lalopoulos, 2004; Yoon, Yoon, & Lee, 2005). Mobile devices are currently used in virtually every domain of human activity (i.e., private, business, and governmental). While the relevant penetration levels are likely to continue to enlarge (in fact, mobile phone penetration has now reached well over two billion subscribers globally), the most important future evolutionary progress will be the development of innovative broadband facilities-applications. Potential offerings of third-generation mobile (3G) infrastructure (and of its enhancements), together with other modern wireless technologies, especially Radio Local Area Networks (RLANs) and Wi-Fis (Kumar, 2004; Siau & Shen, 2003) affect the growth of the modern economy. The fast expansion of these technologies creates a paradigm shift that will make possible the appearance (and the adoption) of new data services, able to combine the advantages of broadband with mobility features (Commission of the European Communities, 2004a). To this important perspective, all related applications can exercise an essential impact in various fields (technical, commercial, financial, regulatory, social, etc.) and, most significantly, they can produce considerable economic effects by potentially modifying the way that business is done. However, as most of the innovative electronic communications offerings can be accessed and exploited by converged means and resources, the “combined” usage of fixed and mobile infrastructures/facilities can be the basis for further development and progress. Moreover, if looking forward, the convergence of telecommunications-, broadcasting-, and Internet- based facilities will result in the proliferation of high-speed multimedia services, delivered over such networks/infrastructures. Recent market experiences have demonstrated that 2.5G/3G infrastructures (and RLANs) will coexist and provide complementary services (Commission of the European Communities, 2004b). Users can thus benefit themselves of high-speed wireless access when near a hot-spot, and receive 3G services over a broader area. Therefore, convergence of fixed and mobile services, through unified fixed/mobile offerings, is expected to bring additional opportunities for novelty.
Polymer Optical Fibers (POF) Applications for Indoor Cell Coverage Transmission Infrastructure
Authors: Louvros Spiros , Iossifides Athanassios C.
Published: May 2011

The role of transmission network design is diverse. Basically, it includes the preparation of transmission solutions for access and core (backbone) transmission networks. In the design of a transmission network, the engineer must have knowledge about existing transmission products and also operator budget analysis. For this reason, the transmission engineer might also act in early discussions with an operator and, in that case, support the marketing unit with technical competence within the area of transmission. In GSM/GPRS networks the user traffic is circuit switched through the GSM network and the signaling messages (including SMS) are transported on dedicated circuits, while the packet traffic is packet switched through the GPRS infrastructure. One of the most important parameters to consider is the design of GSM/PRS networks is the access radio topology. The network topology selection is an evaluation process, which incorporates business strategy, investment costs, technology roadmap, network redundancy and robustness, network evolution path, and the migration strategy from the current network to the planned target network. The topology selection produces a preferred network topology plan for the target network. The topology provides information about the network such as node/site location, geographical information, existing network infrastructure, and capacity, new node/site to be added, and new network configuration, such as new hub sites. The information contained in the topology plan allows the radio transmission network planner to formulate an expansion strategy to meet future cellular network growth (Figure 1). Cell plan is a graphical representation of the network which simply looks like a cell pattern on a map. However, there is a lot of work behind it, regarding the correct geographical position of the site, the antenna parameters and types, the dimensioning analysis regarding the offered and designed capacity and interference predictions. Such planning needs computer-aided analysis tools for radio propagation studies, for example, planning tools like TEMS CellPlanner Universal or NetHawk analyzer.
Public Opinion and the Internet
Authors: Murphy Peter
Published: May 2011

The development of the “World Wide Web” has had a significant impact on the formation of public opinion in democratic societies. This impact, though, has not been exactly that predicted by early 1990’s prophets of the Web, who expected a decentralization of traditional mass media. If anything, the easy accessibility of the Web-enabled Internet (hereafter, “the Net”) has extended the audience reach of traditional network media. Despite this, the Net is fundamentally changing the nature of public opinion. One should be wary of thinking of this change as a technology-enabled extension of the 19th-century liberal public. In the liberal view, the Net is a difficult- to-control free speech medium. It engenders a babble of voices devoted to persuading citizens and governments of the merits and otherwise of laws and policies. Because the Web’s infrastructure of servers is global, dictatorial, or even legal, control of it is difficult to achieve. This is especially true for governments that want to encourage the pragmatic benefits of computermediated commerce. Yet, to see the Net simply as a free-speech medium does not do full justice to its nature. It began life as a powerful document delivery system, and, in important ways, its long-term impact on public opinion derives from that fact. The Web leveraged existing inter-networked computing to enable a new way of creating, collecting, storing, transforming, and disseminating documents and information objects. The frothy activity of instant commentary and interest group campaigning that the Net facilitates disguises the extent to which the logic of the public sphere is undergoing a long-term paradigmatic shift shaped by its origins as a document archive.