bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Business Processes
Authors: Portougal Victor
Published: May 2011

Organisations are fundamentally systems that convert inputs to certain outputsand hopefully, in the process, add value. Inputs could be anything from people,to materials, to money to information, while the outputs could be products,services, waste, or even intellectual property (Figure 1.1). To support thisconversion, most organisations would carry out hundreds to thousands ofprocesses that span functions such as production, research, development, andmarketing. These processes, in turn, would be overseen by planning, organisingand control mechanisms. While the flow of products and services occurs in theforward direction, there is an equally important flow of information backwardthat enables feedback and control. But for these mechanisms and flows tofunction effectively, business, information and decision processes need to beinterwoven together synergistically. We club all these processes together underthe umbrella term “business processes.”
Business Processes
Authors: Portougal Victor
Published: May 2011

In the previous chapter, we introduced a useful process management life cycle,and we explored the first step of the same. In this chapter, we delve into detailof the other steps of the life cycle: modelling, analysis, and implementation, andwe conclude the chapter by looking at a topic that has not had sufficientexposure in literature, namely mal-processes.
A Tutorial Case Study
Authors: Portougal Victor
Published: May 2011

This case study is intended as a tutorial. The case solution is given up to the endof the business process redesign stage. The SAP implementation (quite similarto that described for EA Cakes Ltd.) is left to the readers of the book (or tothe students, if the book is used in education). The main lesson of this case isthe following: though the company does not look like EA Cakes Ltd., and thegoals of the production planning systems are different, nevertheless, analogousSAP solutions can be used to give computer support to the production planningstaff.
Care2x in Medical Informatics Education
Authors: Holzinger Andreas , Burgsteiner Harald , Maresch Helfrid
Published: May 2011

In this chapter the authors report about their experiences in education of both students of healthcare engineering at Graz University of Applied Sciences, and students of medicine at the Medical University Graz, gained during the winter term 2004. Care2x is an open source Web-based integrated healthcare environment (IHE). It allows the integration of data, information, functions, and workflows in one environment. The system is currently consisting of four major components, which can also function independently: hospital information system (HIS), practice management (PM), a central data server (CDS) and a health exchange protocol (HXP). Although the components are under heavy development, the HIS has reached a degree of stability, where one can use it at least for educational purposes. Various groups also report the usage of enhanced versions of Care2x in real life settings. Our experiences in both—very different—student groups have been very promising. In both groups the acceptance was high and Care2x provided good insights into the principles of a hospital information system. The medical students learned the principal handling of a HIS, whereas the engineering students had the possibility to go deeper into technical details.
Motivating Healthcare Students in Using ICTs
Authors: Zvanut Boštjan
Published: May 2011

Motivating and teaching healthcare students to use information and communication technologies represent a challenge. For the successful integration of healthcare and technology, there must be an investment in the organization, but particularly in its people. Motivation and a lot of practical work are mandatory for teaching informatics in healthcare. A practical knowledge of informatics is an investment for healthcare students that can improve their quality of study, work efficiency, and everyday life. In this article, four examples of connecting healthcare jobs with informatics are presented. Connecting healthcare students’ work and everyday lives is an efficient way of motivating them to use information and communication technologies.
ECG Diagnosis Using Decision Support Systems
Authors: Exarchos Themis P. , Papaloukas Costas , Tsipouras Markos G. , Goletsis Yorgos , Fotiadis Dimitrios I. , Michalis Lampros K.
Published: May 2011

ECG is one of the most common signals used in medical practice due to its noninvasive nature and the information it contains. Several systems and various automated approaches have been developed that use computer technology to provide ECG diagnosis. These systems detect abnormalities and other features in the ECG signal and produce a decision which helps the physician when performing diagnosis. ECG decision support systems can serve as a diagnostic tool for specific cardiac anomalies such as myocardial ischaemia and arrhythmia.
The Data-Information-Knowledge Model
Authors: Georgiou Andrew
Published: May 2011

The generation and transformation of data into information and knowledge is a basic formula in health informatics. This process is often represented in a model that portrays each component hierarchically with data at the bottom followed by an intermediary layer of information and topped by the knowledge layer. This model is a simple way to conceptualize important components of the informatics process, but it also has major limitations. The capture of data does not lead seamlessly to information or knowledge. The process is much more complex involving a multi-faceted web of interactions and issues.
Telepathology and Digital Pathology
Authors: Mea Vincenzo Della.
Published: May 2011

The present chapter deals with state-of-the-art topics related to the application of information and communication technologies to the field of pathology, in particular for what regards telepathology and the so-called digital pathology. A classification of telepathology techniques is provided together with their typical applications. Starting from a definition of virtual or digital slide, digital pathology techniques and issues are then discussed.
Medical Image Compression Using Integer Wavelet Transformations
Authors: Ramakrishnan B. , Sriraam N.
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, we have focused on compression of medical images using integer wavelet transforms. Lifting transforms such as S, TS, S+P(B), S+P(C), 5/3, 2+@, 2, 9/7-M and 9/7-F transforms are used to evaluate the performances of lossless and lossy compression. Four medical images, namely, MRI, CT, ultrasound, and angiograms are used as test data sets. It is found from the experiments that, among the different transforms, the 9/7-M wavelet transform is identified as the optimal method for lossless and lossy compression of medical images.
Nonlinear Signal Processing Techniques Applied to EEG Measurements
Authors: Papadelis Christos L. , Koutidou-Papadeli Chrysoula , Bamidis Panagiotis D. , Maglaveras Nicos
Published: May 2011

The electrical activity of the brain is sensitive to its oxygen supply, and electroencephalography (EEG) has been proposed as a suitable measurement to detect brain activity alterations induced by hypoxia. Since, linear processing techniques that have been used so far in hypoxia studies are based on false linearity assumptions about the generation of the EEG signal, there is a definite need for nonlinear approaches to be applied on EEG data derived from hypoxic conditions. The aim of the present study is to compare nonlinear techniques’ effectiveness to identify significant variations in EEG due to hypoxia. EEG data from two channels were derived from ten healthy subjects participated in the present study. Oxygen and nitrogen mixture was used to simulate hypoxic conditions that correspond to an altitude of 25.000 feet. Non-linear measurements such as correlation dimension, approximate entropy, Lyapunov exponent and detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) parameters were estimated for EEG signals. The results of the present study confirm the effectiveness of nonlinear techniques to identify significant variations in EEG, which reflect alterations in cerebral function induced by cerebral hypoxic conditions.
Medical and Biomedical Devices for Clinical Use
Authors: Doumouchtsis Evangelos K.
Published: May 2011

Medical technology has been rapidly growing over the last decades. It is characterized by a constant flow of innovations and a high level of research and development. Many medical and biomedical devices have changed dramatically the way that medicine diagnoses and treats human disease, such as getting three-dimensional images of the internal human body. This chapter describes medical and biomedical devices, the regulatory framework about them, as well as the most active areas of research of medical technology. It also discusses the future trends of the medical industry and biosciences that constantly provide new possibilities of improving health care and patient quality of life.
Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Biomedicine
Authors: Zekios Athanasios , Petroudi Dimitra
Published: May 2011

Man has always strived to augment his abilities by inventing tools. Artificial intelligence in medicine (AIM), has taken up the challenge of creating and distributing advanced tools, utilising technical developments aimed at augmenting man’s reasoning. Increasing quality healthcare needs and advances in medical and pharmaceutical sciences, yet restrictions on physicians’ time for learning while practicing, indicate these tools will prove invaluable in effecting changes (i.e. Simpler organising, storing, and retrieving of important medical facts/new findings) especially when treating difficult cases; continual availability of same for learning purposes; assisting with appropriate diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic decisions/decision making techniques, using databases, flowcharts and decision theory. Proof of these tools’ indispensability through actual trials, is pending.
Evaluation Methods for Biomedical Technology
Authors: Sevdali Maria
Published: May 2011

Over the past few years specialized tools for the measurement of the health level have been developed related to the quality of life (health-related quality of life—HRQOL) and in general they include both the objective and subjective criteria of human operation as it is illustrated through a person’s individual and social activities. These psychometric tools are addressed either to adults or to children and actually elevate the health services user to a basic assessor of the effectiveness of medical interventions (medication, modern surgical techniques, biomedical equipment, etc.) and generally of the entire health system.
Alarm Design in Computerized Medical Equipment
Authors: Doyle D. John
Published: May 2011

Alarms are frequently employed in safety-critical environments such as in aviation and nuclear power plants. Now that microcomputer technology has revolutionized the design of patient monitors for use in modern hospital operating rooms (ORs) and intensive care units (ICUs), alarms are used in countless medical products ranging from infusion pumps to ventilators. This is especially true in anesthesia/surgical and critical care environments. In this chapter we examine the use of alarms in the acute care clinical environment, focusing on their strengths and limitations in the setting of patient monitoring equipment.
Genetic Programming
Authors: Collet P.
Published: May 2011

The aim of genetic programming is to evolve programs or functions (symbolic regression) thanks to artificial evolution. This technique is now mature and can routinely yield results on par with (or even better than) human intelligence. This chapter sums up the basics of genetic programming and outlines the main subtleties one should be aware of in order to obtain good results.
A Dynamic Agent-Based Model of Corruption
Authors: Chakrabarti R.
Published: May 2011

The author builds an agent-based model wherein the societal corruption level is derived from individual corruption levels optimally chosen by heterogeneous agents with different risk aversion and human capital. The societal corruption level, in turn, affects the risk-return profile of corruption for the individual agents. Simulating a multi-generational economy with heterogeneous agents, the author shows that there are locally stable equilibrium corruption levels with certain socio-economic determinants. However, there are situations when corruption can rise until it stifles all economic activity. “You live in a society where everybody steals. Do you choose to steal? The probability that you will be caught is low ... and, even if you are caught, the chances of your being punished severely for a crime so common are low. Therefore you too steal. By contrast, if you live in a society where theft is rare, the chances of your being caught and punished are high, so you choose not to steal.” (Mauro, 1998, p. 12)
A Simulation of Strategic Bargainings within a Biotechnology Cluster
Authors: Berro A. , leroux I.
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces artificial life as a means of exploring strategic relations dynamics between firms and local authorities within a local biotechnology cluster. It argues that artificial life, combined with a conception of bioclusters as complex adaptive systems, offers a significant approach to understanding the co-evolution of strategies and the potential vulnerability of such systems. The simulation model involves firms and local government administrations that negotiate to share a quasi-rent, and which, to this end, use strategies that are to a greater or lesser extent sophisticated or opportunistic. The results show that the firms adjust their bargaining strategies according to their assessment of gains which might be collectively generated. The results also bring to light that the local authorities play a regulatory role against opportunism and that they are the key players in local coordination. Stemming from these simulations, the authors develop promising new avenues of theoretical and empirical research.
Autonomous Systems with Emergent Behavior
Authors: Serugendo G. D.M.
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents the notion of autonomous engineered systems working without central control through self-organization and emergent behavior. It argues that future large-scale applications from domains as diverse as networking systems, manufacturing control, or e-government services will benefit from being based on such systems. The goal of this chapter is to highlight engineering issues related to such systems, and to discuss some potential applications.
An Evolutionary Algorithm for Decisional Assistance to Project Management
Authors: Rochet S.
Published: May 2011

Manufacturers must always develop products faster and better to satisfy their client’s requirements. To help them, we have developed and experimented with a methodology to improve the management process by connecting it with the design process. An issue for the project manager is to select an organization from among the possible ones to schedule the project tasks in order to reach the targets in terms of costs, duration, quality, and so forth. This constitutes a tricky operation, because many options defined during the design can be associated to each task of the project. Choosing and optimizing the schedules is a combinatorial problem which can be solved by heuristic. This document explores the use of evolutionary algorithms to help the decision maker. It introduces the industrial context and presents our methodology to connect the design and project management processes, expressing the problem as a multi-objective optimization one. We detail the scenarios selection process and demonstrate which performances are obtained.
Ant Colony Optimization and Multiple Knapsack Problem
Authors: Fidanova S.
Published: May 2011

The ant colony optimization algorithms and their applications on the multiple knapsack problem (MKP) are introduced. The MKP is a hard combinatorial optimization problem with wide application. Problems from different industrial fields can be interpreted as a knapsack problem including financial and other management. The MKP is represented by a graph, and solutions are represented by paths through the graph. Two pheromone models are compared: pheromone on nodes and pheromone on arcs of the graph. The MKP is a constraint problem which provides possibilities to use varied heuristic information. The purpose of the chapter is to compare a variety of heuristic and pheromone models and different variants of ACO algorithms on MKP.
Caste-Centric Development of Agent-Oriented Information Systems
Authors: Shan L. , Shen R. , Wang J.
Published: May 2011

Based on the meta-model of information systems presented in Zhu (2006), this chapter presents a caste-centric agent-oriented methodology for evolutionary and collaborative development of information systems. It consists of a process model called growth model, and a set of agent-oriented languages and software tools that support various development activities in the process. At the requirements analysis phase, a modelling language and environment called CAMLE supports the analysis and design of information systems. The semi-formal models in CAMLE can be automatically transformed into formal specifications in SLABS, which is a formal specification language designed for formal engineering of multi-agent systems. At implementation, agent-oriented information systems are implemented directly in an agent-oriented programming language called SLABSp. The features of agent-oriented information systems in general and our methodology in particular are illustrated by an example throughout the chapter.
Virtual Organization Support through Electronic Institutions and Normative Multi-Agent Systems
Authors: Cardoso H. L.
Published: May 2011

The multi-agent system (MAS) paradigm has become a prominent approach in distributed artificial intelligence. Many real-world applications of MAS require ensuring cooperative outcomes in scenarios populated with self-interested agents. Following this concern, a strong research emphasis has been given recently to normative MAS. A major application area of MAS technology is e-business automation, including the establishment and operation of business relationships and the formation of virtual organizations (VOs). One of the key factors influencing the adoption of agent-based approaches in real-world business scenarios is trust. The concept of an electronic institution (EI) has been proposed as a means to provide a regulated and trustable environment, by enforcing norms of behavior and by providing specific services for smooth inter-operability. This chapter exposes our work towards the development of an agent-based EI providing a virtual normative environment that assists and regulates the creation and operation of VOs through contract-related services. It includes a presentation of the EI framework, knowledge representation structures for norms in contracts, and a description of two main institutional services, namely negotiation mediation and contract monitoring.
Co-Evolving Better Strategies in Oligopolistic Price Wars
Authors: Marks R. , Midgley D. , Cooper L.
Published: May 2011

Using empirical market data from brand rivalry in a retail ground-coffee market, we model each idiosyncratic brand’s pricing behavior using the restriction that marketing strategies depend only on profit-relevant state variables, and use the genetic algorithm to search for co-evolved equilibria, where each profit-maximizing brand manager is a stimulus-response automaton, responding to past prices in the asymmetric oligopolistic market. This chapter is part of a growing study of repeated interactions and oligopolistic behavior using the GA.
Multiattribute Methodologies in Financial Decision Aid
Authors: Ciprian M. , Kaucic M.
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces the capability of the numerical multi-dimensional approach to solve complex problems in finance. It is well known how, with the growth of computational resource, scientists have developed numerical algorithms for the resolution of complex systems, in order to find the relations between the different components. One important field in this research is focused on the mimic of nature behavior to solve problems. In this chapter two technologies based on these techniques, self-organizing maps and multi-objectives genetic algorithm, have been used to solve two important fields in finance: the country risk assessment and the time series forecasting. The authors, through the examples in the chapter, would like to demonstrate how a multi-dimensional approach based on the mimic of nature could be useful to solve modern complex problems in finance.
B-POS Secure Mobile Payment System
Authors: Grillo Antonio
Published: May 2011

The B-POS (Bluetooth Point of Sale) is the prototype of a secure, mobile macropayment system. Since heterogeneous wireless network technologies such as PANs, LANs, and WANs have well-known security weaknesses, it is mandatory to enforce security services, such as authentication, confidentiality, integrity, and non-repudiation. This article describes a Java-based macropayment system prototype featuring security and independence from an e-money third party acting as an intermediary. This system can rely on the existing financial network infrastructure (e.g., credit card, ATM networks).
Classifying Articles in Information Ethics and Security
Authors: Jourdan Zack
Published: May 2011

Practitioners and researchers have been working to develop information systems (IS) that are functional and yet secure from a variety of threats at a reasonable cost (Austin & Darby, 2003; Mercuri, 2003; Cavusoglu, Cavusoglu, & Raghunathan, 2004; Sipponen, 2005). Information security and ethics (ISS/E) research involves a number of diverse subjects, including networking protocols (Sedaghat, Pieprzyk, & Vossough, 2002), database management (Sarathy & Muralidhar, 2002), cryptography (Anderson, 1994), ethics (Tavani, 2004; Straub & Welke, 1998), coping with risk (Banerjee, Cronan, & Jones, 1998), end-user attitudes (Harrington, 1996), and passwords (Zviran & Haga, 1999).
Content Filtering Methods for Internet Pornography
Authors: Chen Jengchung V.
Published: May 2011

The Internet is widely recognized as an important information and communication medium. It has also become a useful tool for children’s education, but since the Internet is an open environment, it contains much information unsuitable for the under aged. This article introduces several content-filtering methods that can assist parents and educators in protecting children from harmful material. However, it must be noted that these are of limited value unless they are supported by sex education and parental monitoring of children’s Internet use.
Dilemmas of Online Identity Theft
Authors: Mahmood Omer
Published: May 2011

Identity theft is a rapidly growing problem in the electronic environment. It has been recognized as the most widespread and fastest growing crime in the United States (Ahern, 2003). It is of great concern to online users, online service providers, governments, and law enforcement agencies. Identity theft could happen as a result of highly specialized electronic attacks (Sweeney, 2005), bugs in the system of the service providers, physical theft, misplaced paperwork, or just because of human negligence. Victims of identity theft sometimes spend considerable time and money to fix the problem; however their personal loans, mortgage, credit cards, and car loans can still be refused (FTC, 2002). This is shattering the confidence of users, thus creating a distrustful environment while making it very hard for small and medium-sized online service providers to compete with both established online and physically present service providers.
Electronic Signatures and Ethics
Authors: Srivastava A.
Published: May 2011

The advent of the Internet once again raised the question as to what constitutes a signature and what form of signature should be used to sign electronic documents. This led legal jurists and academics to examine what a signature is. Traditionally, a signature is “the name of a person written with his or her own hand” (Merriam- Webster Online Dictionary, 2006), and since 439 AD in the Roman Empire, a signature authenticated wills (Nicholas, 1965). However, courts have accepted various other forms of signature such as initials, marks, rubber stamp, typed name, and a printed name.1 Thus the validity of a signature is not to be tested by its form but rather by the functions it performs (Reed, 2000).
Ethical Approach to Gathering Survey Data Online
Authors: Nichol Sophie
Published: May 2011

Using the Internet to conduct online surveys is not a new form of data collection. A large proportion of marketing analysis or customer surveys are now done online (Burns & Bush, 2006). However the uptake in tertiary education and research has proven to be slower. This could be attributed to the fact that high-visibility institutions such as universities are subject to stringent codes of ethics (Kizza, 2003). This article discusses techniques university researchers may use when implementing an online survey, premised on McNiff, Lomax, and Whitehead’s (2003) action research checklist of ethical considerations.
Ethics Education for the Online Environment
Authors: Leonard Lori N.K.
Published: May 2011

As a greater number of business transactions and communications are facilitated by the Internet, understanding individual behavior in this arena is becoming issue that distinguishes transactions conducted via the Internet from those in traditional business settings is that of anonymity (Davenport, 2002). The sense of being anonymous and having little accountability allows individuals to behave in ways that they “traditionally” would not behave if they were known to the other parties involved.
Fair Use
Authors: Tyrväskylä Pasi
Published: May 2011

Intellectual property legislation has continuously redefined the balance between the interests of stakeholders, especially the authors of creative works, and the users of the works. The contemporary balance of legal, technical, social, political, and economical interests has typically been formulated into the copyright law stating the limits of the exclusive rights of the authors of creative works and the exceptions to the exclusive rights, defining the fair use of the works by other stakeholders. National legislation reflects the changes in the surrounding society, its technical development, and so forth, but global technical development and international treaties have harmonized the laws and user expectations to some extent.
Information Ethics as Ideology
Authors: Stahl Bernd Carsten
Published: May 2011

If we live indeed in the early stages of what has been termed the “information society,” then it is clear that ethical concerns with regards to information are of central importance. This can explain the growing interest in issues of information ethics. The use of the word “ethics” seems to suggest that there is something wrong or bad and that this can be addressed by morally acceptable means.
Modelling Context-Aware Security for Electronic Health Records
Authors: Shetty Pravin , Loke Seng
Published: May 2011

The Internet has proven to be the most convenient and demanding facility for various types of businesses and transactions for the past few years. In recent years, business information systems have expanded into networks, encompassing partners, suppliers, and customers. There has been a global availability (Anderson, 2001; BSI Global, 2003) of resources over the Internet to satisfy different needs in various fields. The availability factor has called for various security challenges in fields where information is very valuable and not meant for all. Potential threats to information and system security come from a variety of sources. These threats may result in violations to confidentiality, interruptions in information integrity, and possible disruption in the delivery of services. So it is essential to manage the flow of information over the network with the required level of security.
Objective Ethics for Managing InformationTechnology
Authors: Drake John R.
Published: May 2011

Businessmen have faced ethical dilemmas throughout history in many varying contexts. Today, chief information officers (CIOs) and information technology (IT) managers, in particular, face many ethical dilemmas from not only traditional business dilemmas, but also in managing IT. Traditional ethical issues of business, such as receiving gifts and promotional items from vendors, affect any manager in charge of purchases. In addition, IT managers must also make decisions with regards to technological issues such as information privacy, security, and accountability. IT facilitates action, both good and bad. This means that individuals can act good with far more efficiency and act bad with more malevolence. Actions that may not have been possible without IT now become issues because people have the means to do them. Managers need not only to adopt a moral code for themselves, but to encourage their employees to adopt a moral code or guard against and appropriately
Patient Centric Healthcare InformationSystems in the U.S.
Authors: Wickramasinghe Nilmini
Published: May 2011

Healthcare expenditure is increasing exponentially, and reducing this expenditure (i.e., offering effective and efficient quality healthcare treatment) is becoming a priority not only in the United States, but also globally (Bush, 2004; Oslo Declaration, 2003;Global Medical Forum, 2005). In the final report compiled by the Committee on the Quality of Healthcare in America (Institute of Medicine, 2001), it was noted that improving patient care is integrally linked to providing high quality healthcare.
Pedagogical Framework for EthicalDevelopment
Authors: Dark Melissa , Epstein Richard , Morales Linda , Countermine Terry , Yuan Qing
Published: May 2011

The Internet has had an enormous impact on society. The benefits are numerous and so is the potential for misuse and abuse. Hacking, spam, denial-of-service attacks, identity theft, digital rights infringement, and other abuses are now commonplace. Malice and criminal intent motivate some of these attacks, yet for others the motivation is not so clear.
Privacy in Data Mining Textbooks
Authors: Lawler James P.
Published: May 2011

Many companies, such as Wal-Mart, store much of their business and customer data in large databases called data warehouses. Their customers are not told the extent of the information accumulated on them, how long it will be kept, nor the uses to which it will be put (Hays, 2004). This data is subsequently analyzed to produce new information to help the companies evaluate business processes and customer behavior. Data mining is usually used to do the analysis. Much of the mined data is public or semi-public what we purchase at the supermarket, where we surf the Web, where we work, our salary.
Security Model for Educational Satellite Networks
Authors: Jasola Sanjay , Sharma Ramesh C.
Published: May 2011

Education has been the greatest tool for human resources development. The advances in information and communication technology has brought out a paradigm shift in the educational sector by making it more accessible, relevant, qualitative, and equitable for the masses. The use of satellite technology like INTELSAT, PEACESAT, and ATS in education has enhanced the opportunities for learners to acquire new skills (Moore & Kearsley, 1996). Both on-campus and distance mode students can be benefited by it. The satellite technology can serve a large geographical area. It allows audio and video signals uplinked from a station to be received to any number of downlink earth stations (Willis, 1995). Oliver (1994) reported that the transmission costs do not increase with the increase in the number of downlink stations. Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), one of the India’s early experiments conducted during 1975 to 1976, produced and transmitted 150 different science programs of 10 to 12 minutes duration, offering them to more than 2,330 villages in six geographical clusters. According to Shrestha (1997) and Govindaraju and Banerjee (1999), this experiment demonstrates the effectiveness of satellite communication for educational purposes.
Sustainable Information Society
Authors: Isenmann Ralf
Published: May 2011

As a development goal, a sustainable information society is emerging at present, with the aims of sustainability and an information society as its converging elements. This article introduces the conceptual elements of sustainability and the information society, while bringing to the surface underlying normative issues. Further, a series of opportunities is presented on how to develop towards such a promising approach. Finally, examples of using information and communication technologies (ICTs) from the ‘Memorandum Sustainable Information Society’ are discussed. That publication was recently released by a working group of the German Society for Informatics. The memorandum provides a valuable source of the role modern ICT is playing on the road to a forward-looking society which is based on increasing use of ICT on the one hand, while at the same time it meets the fundamental sustainability criteria of human, social, and ecological comparability on the other hand.
The Beijing Olympics (2008) Advertainment Portal
Authors: Pang Natalie , Schauder Don
Published: May 2011

As communities develop their sense of identities, the Web reflects such identities through the appearances of Web portals. This short article argues that it is not only technologies that drive the emergence and popularity of portals, but the very sense of commonality that communities share fuels and propels the development and growth of portals. Such commonalities contribute to the establishment of a “knowledge commons” within the community; a virtual space dedicated to the sharing of understanding, memory, and practical know-how. Using a case study of a portal developed for the purpose of producing “advertainment” content in the upcoming Beijing Humanistic Olympics, the role of portals in contributing to the establishment of the knowledge commons is investigated.
Biotechnology Portals in Medicine
Authors: Cader Yoosuf
Published: May 2011

The 2005 global revenues of publicly traded biotechnology companies have grown by 18.1% to $63.1 billion (Donn, 2006). Many countries are now investing in research and development in the biotechnology industry as it is believed this 30 year-old industry is moving toward profitability. The stock value in this industry has outperformed the average stock value in many countries. In the pre-genomic era, a typical life sciences company would have marketed diagnostic kits, assays, chemicals, measuring equipment, and research products to name a few. In the genomic era, a new range of products is marketed focusing on molecular medicine. Among these new products are bioinformatics software solutions, storage systems, biotechnology systems, and solutions researching into genes and proteins, tools for analysis of genetic sequence data, integrated systems and solutions for disease research, and new drug discovery (Cader, 2004). The need for biotechnology portals is now more than justified and will be a useful information and knowledge source.
The Bluegem Portal
Authors: Bax Samantha
Published: May 2011

“Portal technologies” in recent times have become a catchphrase within information technology circles. The concept of the “portal” (more commonly termed Internet portal), has initially been used to refer to Web sites, which presented the user with the ability to access rich content, resources, and services on the World Wide Web (Kakumanu & Mezzacca, 2005; Smith, 2004; White, 2000). As such, the Internet portal provides its users with a one-stop entry point to the resources of the World Wide Web.
A Case Study of an Integrated University Portal
Authors: Stewart Tracy R.
Published: May 2011

The increasing complexity and interdependence of campus technology systems poses a significant challenge to universities. Such efforts cannot be solely the domain of a university technology department but requires participation across the institution in order to ensure success. As Irvine (2003) noted, “a decision about course management platforms or portals and their interoperability with other campus systems is a critical institution-wide issue that involves the whole university community” (p. 5). This case study considers the development of an Oracle-powered database-driven student and faculty information single-sign-on portal at Regent University called myRegent. This recently developed portal integrates with our existing student information and learning management systems, SCT Banner, and Blackboard Learning System respectively.
Collaborative Enterprise Portals
Authors: Wojtkowski Wita
Published: May 2011

The strategic goal of an enterprise portal is to provide a simple- to-use view into content, applications and collaboration tools for all who interact with an enterprise: its employees, customers, suppliers, and business partners. While there are multitudes of enterprise portal deployments, each can be assigned to one of the three distinct groups. These groups, in an increasing order of complexity, are classified as fundamental, integrated, and collaborative (BEA, 2005; Bisconti, 2004; Bristow, Dickinson, Duke, Henry, & Makey, 2001; IBM, 2005; Moore, 2002; Strauss, 1999; Terra & Gordon, 2002).
The Content of Horizontal Portals
Authors: Bingley Scott
Published: May 2011

The word “portal” has been around for quite some time, but its use to describe a tool for electronic commerce has emerged only recently. This paper examines the definition of Web portals and a general method by which they might be classified. Literature related to the business model associated with horizontal portals is examined and synthesized to match revenue models with different types of horizontal portal content.
The Development Strategy of Sina and Sohu
Authors: Libing Shen
Published: May 2011

Though it was in 1993 that China entered the Internet for the first time, the real rise of the Chinese Internet was in 1998. In this year, the former of Sina-Rich Win Co. Ltd, claimed that it merged the biggest Chinese Web site, Huayuan Information, and set up the largest Chinese Web site, Sina. This event aroused the attention of people both home and abroad. Just in this year, Ericsson put out a Chinese search engine—Sohu, which developed into a comprehensive portal on this basis. In the same year, NetEase bought back the www.netease.com domain name, succeeded in putting out the NetEase comprehensive Web site. Generally speaking, 1998 is not only the year that the Internet rose up in China but also the year that portals began to play an important role in China. In fact, the three portals have always received much concern since their establishment. From the marching into NASDAQ in 2000 to the “Wang Zhidong” incident and NetEase stopping brand incident in 2001, the first severe winter of Internet industry comes followed by the transition of portal in 2002, Wireless World War in 2003. We can find out that the development of the portal has vividly reflected the development of Chinese Internet enterprise since 1998.
Helping Chinese Enterprises be Successful in Global Markets
Authors: Xiyan Lu
Published: May 2011

Chinese enterprises are developing their global business very quickly and strong national players, such as Haier, HuaWei, TCL, and Pearl River Pianos, are part of this trend. After years of rapid expansion at home and developing an important export business for established overseas producers, these players now have the size, financial strength, and product quality to take on the competition on an international or even global scale. Different from before, when Chinese enterprise was government centered, they are now more driven by economic considerations, such as growing the business overseas and reaping higher profit margins; accessing advanced technology; realizing cost synergies in areas like production, sourcing, and R&D; and creating competitive advantage for the fierce competition in the home market (Wharton, 2005).
How to Promote Community Portals
Authors: Vainio Aki , Salmenjoki Kimmo
Published: May 2011

Information content of the Web has, in the last 10 years, changed from informative to communicative. Web pages, especially homepages, were the foremost places where companies, organizations, and individuals alike expressed their existence online and provided some information about themselves, like their products, services, or artefacts that they related to. On the common Web environment, the search engines were harvesting this information and made it available and meaningful for the masses of Web users. In the early days of Web, this factor alone justified the usage of Web as a marketing tool and as an easy way to share important information between collaborating partners.
Mobile Portal Technologies and Business Models
Authors: Parsons David
Published: May 2011

Mobile portals have become a common entry point to the mobile Internet, and take a number of forms. They may be service provider portals, such as Vodafone’s Live! Portal (Vodafone, 2006), offering access to both in-house and brokered external services. Alternatively, they may be public pure play sites that provide some kind of managed access to resources using a yellow-pages approach. Good examples of this kind of mobile portal are WordDial (WordDial, 2006) and graBBit (Grabbit, 2006), though they have very different approaches to the way that they provide targeted access to resources, with WordDial using a keyword approach and graBBit modeled on more traditional search engines. As well as mobile and pure play operators, mobile portals are also provided by device manufacturers (e.g., Palm (Palm, 2006)), software companies (e.g., MSN (Microsoft, 2006)) existing Web portal providers (e.g., Yahoo (Yahoo, 2006)), mass media companies (e.g., AOL (AOL, 2006)) and transaction providers (m-commerce sites).
Mobile Portals as Innovations
Authors: Serenko Alexander , Turel Ofir
Published: May 2011

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze mobile portals (mportals) as an innovation. M-portals are wireless Web pages that help portable device users interact with mobile content and services (based on the definition by Clarke & Flaherty, 2003). Previous works in the area of mobile portals mostly concentrated on their technical aspects, implementation issues, classifications, and user acceptance (e.g., Gohring, 1999; GSA, 2002; Koivumäki, 2002). At the same time, these studies did not view mobile portals as innovations themselves, nor discussed the innovative potential of this novel technology. Analyzing technological artifacts as innovations is important for two reasons. First, such analysis can help m-portal developers and providers pinpoint the salient m-portal characteristics that drive service diffusion. Second, it can assist potential m-portal developers and providers understand the risks associated with entering this segment of wireless services.
Modelling Public Administration Portals
Authors: Foglia Pierfrancesco , Prete Cosimo Antonio , Zanda Michele
Published: May 2011

Portals for the public administration (PA) are Internet gateways leading to a broad range of services, devoted to a great number of users. The offered services can potentially be all the ones offered by the PA offices. The final users involved are potentially all the citizens, thus ranging from young people to retired ones, to impaired ones. The benefits offered by putting PA services on the Internet are various: a reduced number of employees at the PA offices, an increased number of citizens that can interact with the PA, immediately available information (news, laws, regulations), faster data integration in PA informative systems, and overall costs reductions (citizen mobility, time consumption, etc.). Such benefits are driving a wide diffusion of PA portals with an increasing number of accesses and users (Reis, 2005).
Portal Development Tools
Authors: Robotis Konstantinos
Published: May 2011

A number of customer and company needs can be identified, to which Web portal services appear to provide the best answer. These needs include information sharing and accessibility, content management and abstraction with the use of interfaces to multiple data formats, such as physical data, documents, files and databases. The main purpose of a Web portal is to enable users to access and modify information.
Portal for Artificial Intelligence in Education
Authors: Woolf Beverly Park , Aïmeur Esma
Published: May 2011

The goal of this portal is to provide Internet information and products relevant to the field of artificial intelligence in education (AIED). This large international community designs, develops, researches and disseminates intelligent computer tutors that dynamically estimate a student’s proficiency and motivation before adapting their responses. The AIED community has more than 1,000 members, including teachers who use these products, researchers who develop new techniques, industries who disseminate and evaluate new systems and students who pursue further academic training. Currently no portals exist for this community. A Web portal is a Web site that acts as a gateway to the Internet. It can provide information and links on a wide range of topics (www.netscape.com), or it can be specialized with a specific subject, such as a governmental portal.
Portal Models and Applications in Commodity-Based Environments
Authors: Welsh Karyn , Hassall Kim
Published: May 2011

Businesses use many portals and for a variety of reasons. Some portals are used for inter-organisational collaboration between suppliers, buyers, and customers or as electronic marketplaces for users to browse and search for genuine savings in the purchase of goods or services. Portals support interorganisational networks by defining function and content on the basis of the customer process, and provides availability to the user via role-based and personalised interface while e-markets offer to the user a restricted or open view of the products and services on offer. Each profile is determined by the participant or its administrator. Today’s portal technology, paired tightly with tools and services, support user activity in an integrated way. The use of portals is still in its infancy among a number of organisations while early adopters are at the point of experiencing some genuine rewards. Portal technology provides a modular service-oriented architecture for integrating content and services and for managing user profiles and security settings from other systems. Portal technology provides customers the basis for constructing, building, and deploying a variety of Web applications designed to meet the changing business requirements.
Portals and Interoperability in Local Government
Authors: Shackleton Peter , Molony Rick
Published: May 2011

While the popularity of electronic government is evident in most countries, the true benefits to communities can only be obtained if there is access to services across all levels of government. Sadly, the multilevel nature of government often means that citizens are frustrated when accessing services that span many bureaucracies. Interoperability, which is the breaking down of barriers between the different layers of government to support the seamless delivery of services, is enhanced by the use of portals. This article looks at the limited use of portals in the local government sector in Australia, and how they have been used to assist staff within councils, and to support communities and businesses. It also examines the problems faced by local governments in implementing portals. The article concludes with a discussion of interoperability in the local Australian government sector, and how it can be used to support portal development.