bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Examining the Diversity Curriculum of Leading Executive MBA Programs in the United States
Authors: Aguilar Mariya Gavrilova , Bracey Pamela , Allen Jeff
Published: October 2012

Properly managed diversity practices enable organizations to maximize human capital, create a sustainable competitive advantage, attract more customers, and become more profitable. Many organizations conduct diversity training to address workplace diversity issues. Top management communicates the value of and commitment to diversity, whereas managers facilitate an environment that embraces diversity. Diversity management has emerged as a prominent strategy to handle diversity issues. This chapter examines diversity curriculum of leading Executive MBA (EMBA) programs in the United States and highlights the current state of the educational environment in addition to explaining how curriculum supports diversity and inclusion reforms at the organizational level. Through content analysis, the authors summarized the diversity topics featured in 20 leading EMBA programs in the United States. None of the reviewed programs explicitly utilized the word “diversity” in any of their core or elective course titles, and only three (3) explicitly mentioned the words “diverse” or “diversity” within course descriptions. Nevertheless, the data suggest that programs do seek to offer some form of experiences which have the potential and intent to enhance cultural awareness. The majority of programs under study require students to travel to a foreign country to participate in global travel exploration. The authors provide recommendations for future research related to effectively implementing diversity practices and curriculum so that leaders become better equipped to address the challenges of diversity for their organizations.
Theorizing African American Women’s Learning and Development
Authors: Byrd Marilyn Y. , Chlup Dominique T.
Published: October 2012

This study is a qualitative, interpretative examination of nine African American women’s encounters with race, gender, and social class (intersectionality) in predominantly white organizations and the learning experiences that emerged from these encounters. Rather than continuing to operate from a Eurocentric view of learning, this study contributes to the scholarly discussion the learning perspectives of African American Women (AAW). Black feminist theory is used as a socio-cultural framework to explain how AAW learn from issues emerging from intersectionality. A narrative approach to inquiry was the research strategy employed. Three major learning orientations emerged from the women’s narratives: learning from influential sources, learning through divine guidance, and learning through affirmation of self. The authors contend that expanding the conversation of adult learning theories to include socio-cultural theories derived from black women’s scholarship may be necessary to move the field of adult education toward more inclusive ways of theorizing adult learning. Implications for the field of adult education and the emerging workforce diversity paradigm are provided.
Leveraging Workforce Diversity through a Critical Examination of Intersectionalities and Divergences between Racial Minorities and Sexual Minorities
Authors: Gedro Julie
Published: October 2012

Using a multi-disciplinary survey of educational studies, sociology, adult education, and human resources literature, this chapter explores the ways that racial minorities and sexual minorities (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) face oppression in organizational contexts. It examines and critiques organizational responses to diversity, and it uncovers the ways that these populations differ. Implications for diversity training programs are articulated, suggestions for training practice are offered, and recommendations for further research are provided.
Leadership’s Role in Leveraging Workforce Diversity
Authors: Carr-Ruffino Norma
Published: October 2012

The purpose of this chapter is to examine some key trends in the workplace and marketplace that require successful corporate leaders to leverage workforce diversity. Such diversity poses certain challenges, which leaders can tackle and turn into lucrative opportunities to enhance not only productivity, sales, revenues, profits, brand, and reputation, but also the innovation so necessary for corporate survival. At the national level, the ability to compete in a global marketplace depends on successful innovation and has been a key driver of American eminence in the world. At the global level, innovation can empower people to move beyond fear of the future to actually shape their future; for example, we are currently seeing how technological innovations, such as cell phones and the Internet, are empowering people in the Middle East. The ability to understand and connect with people from diverse cultures also generates major opportunities to create peaceful relations as well as material abundance.
Managing Privilege as a Key to Inclusive Leadership
Authors: Harris Doug , Ganko-Rodriguez Kasia
Published: October 2012

The field of diversity and inclusion has experienced exponential growth over last 30 years. Yet, while these progressions have occurred, many of the core diversity and inclusion concepts have remained fairly stagnant. One critical example is around the concept of privilege. All of us find ourselves privileged in some way, but leaders in particular need to recognize and manage privilege to ensure inclusion in the workplace. Through personal examples and real stories, this chapter highlights the many positive outcomes leaders will experience by effectively managing privilege. These powerful outcomes include areas such as personal growth and effectiveness, more authentic relationships, increased levels of respect, expanded circle of influence, and maximized employee performance. To conclude, the authors look at the stages leaders go through before they are able to effectively manage this expanded view of privilege. These stages can be described as bliss, awareness, overprotection, enlightened, and ultimately managing privilege.
Leveraging Age Diversity in Times of Demographic Change
Authors: Janz Katharina , Buengeler Claudia , Eckhoff Robert A. , Homan Astrid C. , Voelpel Sven C.
Published: October 2012

With demographic change, organizations today are seeing changes in societal make-up translated to the composition of their workforce. In the future, younger and older employees will have to work together synergistically to achieve good performance. The authors argue that it will be largely up to leaders to prevent the negative effects of age diversity, i.e. social categorization and intergroup bias, and to facilitate the positive effects of age diversity, i.e. the sharing of unique knowledge resources held by young and old. The authors argue that certain leadership behaviors and especially their combinations have great promise in leading diverse teams, and highlight why they should be used in conjunction with positive beliefs about diversity.
Leveraging Workforce Diversity using a Multidimensional Approach
Authors: Taylor Aisha S. , James Keith , Murry Adam
Published: October 2012

This chapter describes the need for and development of a taxonomy of workplace diversity. It also examines the taxonomy’s implications for understanding and predicting diversity outcomes at work. The context of diversity research is described, along with a problem the field is facing concerning consensus for a practical, operational definition. A seven-dimension taxonomy grounded in Social Identity Theory was developed by reviewing contemporary literature on diversity in the workplace. Preliminary research found that each of the seven dimensions of the taxonomy were present in 78 critical incidents describing work-relevant diversity scenarios. An instrument, the Workplace Diversity Inventory, has been developed and administered in order to empirically examine the seven-factor model of the taxonomy. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Training and Development
Authors: Philpot Denise , Pasquini Laura
Published: October 2012

As the world becomes smaller through globalization and the definition of diversity expands to accommodate new dimensions, it becomes increasingly important to identify and measure these changes and interpret how they influence strategic decision-making within organizations. To achieve an organization’s stated goals, it is not only important to recognize this diversity, but also build programs to incorporate the benefits of diversity while minimizing any negative aspects associated with this construct. Sharing case studies of best practices will highlight successes that can be used as models for those organizations that are addressing their training needs in the area of organizational diversity. This chapter will share tools designed to help organizations evaluate their needs in terms of diversity training and development. These resources can help training and development professionals identify needs, design curriculum, create evaluation tools for assessment, and evaluate costs to deploy strategic training and development programs.
Leveraging Workforce Diversity through a Career Development Paradigm Shift
Authors: Hughes Claretha , Stephens DeVaughn
Published: October 2012

Many diverse individuals may not have previously been considered mainstream within organizational career development strategies (Avery, 2011). The objectives of this chapter are to 1) introduce the idea of leveraging diversity through a career development paradigm shift and 2) to offer researchers ways to further explore this shift in thinking and enhance organizational and individual career development strategies. The suggestion is not for organizational leaders to choose diverse employees over others, but that they acknowledge and understand all employees and use that knowledge to enhance and improve organizational performance. To accomplish organizational success through career development, they must acknowledge the value of all employees.
Diversity Training in Organizations
Authors: McGuire David , Patterson Nicola
Published: October 2012

Diversity training is an area of growing interest within organizations. As organizations and society become more culturally diverse, there is a need to provide training across all hierarchical levels to make individuals more aware of and sensitized to elements of difference. Managing and valuing diversity is becoming increasingly important to delivering higher levels of performance and creativity, enhancing problem solving and decision-making, and gaining cultural insights into domestic and overseas markets. As facilitators of diversity training, line managers are increasingly tasked with the important role of equipping employees with the skills and competencies to work effectively in diverse multicultural teams. Consequently, this chapter looks at the mechanics of how diversity is discussed and delivered in organizations. It explores the necessity of diversity training in safeguarding and respecting individual identity and in fostering more welcoming inclusive workplaces.
Demographic Changes and Equal Employment Opportunity Legislation
Authors: Carter Shani D.
Published: October 2012

This chapter reviews the relationship between a selection of United States federal laws and Human Resource Development (HRD). The chapter specifically reviews United States federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws related to race, gender, age, and national origin, discusses how the passage of these laws led to an increased diversity of the labor force, and demonstrates how utilizing this legislation can improve the research and practice of HRD. A comprehensive group of employment laws were passed between 1960 and 2000, and data from the U.S. Departments of Labor and Census indicate that these laws have served to substantially increase the percentage of minorities and women in the labor force. This increasing diversity requires practitioners to rethink the methods they use to deliver training and development programs to employees. In addition, researchers should examine how the increase in diversity impacts all areas of HRD, such as training, mentoring, and work-life balance.
Leveraging Workforce Diversity through Human Resource Management Initiatives
Authors: Sánchez-Apellániz Mercedes , Triguero-Sánchez Rafael
Published: October 2012

Workforce diversity and the benefits resulting from its appropriate management is a topic that must be addressed from a strategic and not an emotional perspective; and more specifically, from the Human Resources Strategic Management perspective. This chapter intends to explore the Human Resources initiatives and practices in use, analyze which of them can be employed, and which are more appropriate for an optimal management of workforce diversity, creating a competitive advantage for companies.
Critical Race Theory
Authors: Byrd Marilyn Y.
Published: October 2012

This chapter is a qualitative, narrative case study that seeks to unveil the social identity diversity of leadership from the perspective a Black woman leader. Social identity diversity is a form of difference that marginalized groups, such as Black women, experience in predominantly White organizational and institutional settings as a result of intersectionality. Social identity diversity creates multiple dynamics for groups such as Black women who hold leadership positions in the aforementioned settings. This study highlights the need for more inclusive and cultural perspectives of leadership, which calls for more inclusive theoretical frameworks that consider the social identity diversity of the leader. Critical race theory is presented as a theoretical framework that is useful for explaining how systems of power sustain domination and oppression in organizational and institutional settings. Implications for an emerging social justice paradigm are given.
Theoretical Frameworks and Models Supporting the Practice of Leveraging Workforce Diversity
Authors: Zaballero Aileen G. , Kim Yeonsoo
Published: October 2012

This chapter will include a brief description of the history of diversity; advantages of being culturally competent; paradigms/perspectives of diversity management; and a summary of the business case for diversity. In addition, theories and models of organization development and change management are further explained as a way to understand the organizational context surrounding diversity interventions.
Using Global Virtual Teams to Leverage Workforce Diversity in Global Environments
Authors: Santillan Cecilia , Horwitz Sujin K.
Published: October 2012

Although Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) provide organizations with increased competitive advantages and greater flexibility due to their unique ability to transcend the traditional boundaries of time, location, and organizational constraints, managing globally dispersed and culturally diverse GVTs also poses unique challenges. This chapter explores some of the challenges affecting GVTs by examining extant literature on team diversity, team conflict, and collaboration technology. Additionally, it further argues that organizations can greatly benefit from integrating the tenets of adaptable Collaboration Engineering technology and thinkLets into their GVT processes to develop sustainable team collaboration and a sense of structure in the virtual team context.
Leveraging Diversity in a Virtual Context
Authors: Berkley Robyn A. , Beard Roxanne , Kaplan David M.
Published: October 2012

In this chapter, the authors present a model for understanding the context and determinants of aggression within an on-line environment, known as cyber-aggression. They propose that the heterogeneity of global virtual teams along with other key individual characteristics such as Social Dominance Orientation, Identification Threat, and past experience with aggression/harassment will lead to greater likelihood of cyber-aggression occurring or being perceived by group members. Additionally, the use of lean communication media, as well as the distance between team members and the social and professional isolation that goes along with global virtual team work also contributes to greater likelihood of cyber-aggression occurring. Lastly, without any way to build meaningful trust in a virtual setting and a lack of cross-cultural competence, members of global virtual teams are more likely to engage in behaviors that do not demonstrate cultural sensitivity or cohesion on the team, resulting in poor communication which can lead to more aggressive behaviors. The authors conclude their chapter with recommendations on how to best combat these pitfalls of working in a virtual environment.
Connected Government as the New Normal
Authors: Saha Pallab
Published: October 2012

Around the world, governments are constantly facing new demands, greater expectations, and an increasingly more vociferous and assertive citizenry calling for better governance. In such a scenario, governments can ill-afford to ignore such demands and expectations. The current challenges faced by governments, for example in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East, represent a complex mix of political, legal, social, and economic issues. These are increasingly not limited to national boundaries, and the underlying inter-linkages cannot be overstated. This confluence of demands, expectations, challenges, and trends require governments to be connected in the broadest and deepest sense. The traditional governments operating in relative isolation and projecting an image of infallibility are rapidly being replaced by governments that are more networked, responsive, collaborative, and participative. Co-creation of services leading to co-production of government is the new paradigm. This transition requires fundamental change in current mental models, supported by a structured and disciplined approach to conceive and design the connected government. Taking a whole-of-government perspective is a critical success factor. It is imperative to think strategically to elevate the role of enterprise architecture. This chapter identifies the key dimensions of connected government, presents their distinctive attributes, explores the powerful, but, in some cases, controversial, concepts of connected government, and by embracing a systemic approach, investigates the criticality of enterprise architecture in powering connected government. The foundational ideas in this chapter lay out a broad framework for understanding and benefiting from enterprise architecture, actualized via the edifice of connected government.
A Problem Oriented Enterprise Architecture Approach Applied to Wicked Problems
Authors: Robertson-Dunn Bernard , Robertson-Dunn Bernard
Published: October 2012

This chapter proposes that a problem oriented approach to Enterprise Architecture can deliver a better outcome than one based upon needs and requirements, especially when dealing with Wicked Problems. A distinction is drawn between what an Enterprise Architect does, solve business problems, and what the architect produces, descriptions of end states. It also suggests that the approach to modeling and understanding a problem can have significant impacts on the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of potential solutions and the decisions made in identifying optimal solutions and implementation projects. Finally, the chapter discusses the use of the proposed problem oriented Enterprise Architecture approach to Wicked Problems in the context of e-Government.
Government Enterprise Architecture
Authors: AlSoma Ali S. , Hourani Hasan M. , Masduki Dato’ Mohd Salleh
Published: October 2012

The growth of ICT-mediated services in the private and public sectors demands that organizations become more focused in delivering efficient services to well-informed and demanding consumers. Governments, being very large enterprises, are increasingly under pressure to optimize and align their Information and Communications Technology (ICT) strategies and resources to support the business of government. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia responds to this challenge by adopting the use of Enterprise Architecture (EA) to transform traditional government services into eGovernment services or eServices. Yesser Enterprise Level Architecture Framework (Y-ELAF) is an Enterprise Architecture Framework that is an adaptation of the industry-recognized framework, The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) Version 9, modified to fit the government environment of Saudi Arabia. This chapter describes the seven iterative phases of Y-ELAF to develop the Enterprise Architecture of a government agency, the outcomes, and lessons learned.
Towards Whole-of-Government EA with TOGAF and SOA
Authors: Dico Awel S
Published: October 2012

Governments around the world have acknowledged the complexity associated with public sector transformation and have initiated enterprise architecture programs to help manage those complexities and enable the desired strategic transformation. Along with the EA program, governments have adopted some sort of EA framework and/or Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) individually or in integrated form. However, the majority of those EA programs are of limited scope in both EA and SOA practices, and are not comprehensive enough to deal with and manage the associated complexities. As a result, those EA programs suffer from the inability to leverage EA and SOA benefits across agencies or jurisdictional boundaries. Currently, the majority of government agencies use EA and SOA within the agency boundaries to deliver solutions by focusing on technical factors that define detailed blueprints of systems, data, and technology. What is needed rather is effective Whole-of-Government Enterprise Architecture (EA) that facilitates the alignment of individual agencies’ visions with the Whole-of-Government vision to enable sustainable government transformation. Research has pointed out that the Whole-of-Government EA is currently at the conceptual level and still has a long way to go to reach the maturity level required for value realization. This chapter first gives a brief analysis of the current state of enterprise architecture in governments to highlight the current challenges. It then discusses the various scopes of Whole-of-Government EA and recommends the plausible EA approach to enable sustainable connected government based on The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) and SOA.
Enterprise Architecture in Countries with Volatile Governance
Authors: Zoughbi Saleem , Al-Nasrawi Sukaina
Published: October 2012

The growing adoption and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in public administration enables global alteration of functions and business processes used by Governments hoping to convert into viable and successful e-governances. The main objectives are not limited to the traditional e-government goals, but also to improve public sector efficiency, transparency, and accountability, and lower cost across all government administrations, thus leading to the reengineering of the public sector. This could happen at different levels. The success rate is related to results achieved in e-democracy, e-transparency, citizen’s involvement in public management, and other controversial outcomes, which may not be welcome in some countries. With the advent of EA, one sees a more comprehensive method of solving customization problems. The number of difficulties and obstacles may increase when dealing with issues related to the transformation into e-governance at the micro level; hence, a more efficient way is to introduce an EA framework where one can leverage these difficulties before the actual transformation.
The Role of Services in Governmental Enterprise Architectures
Authors: Birkmeier Dominik , Buckl Sabine , Gehlert Andreas , Matthes Florian , Neubert Christian , Overhage Sven , Roth Sascha , Schweda Christian M. , Turowski Klaus
Published: October 2012

In the public sector, Information Technology (IT) as a means to support governmental processes is as important as in industry today. Delivering high quality eGovernment services requires an efficient and effective IT support. This IT support can only be provided if the requirements specified in the processes are correctly and completely transformed into IT solutions. Services are seen as major means to support this transformation. In this chapter, the authors propose a method which systematically translates business processes into services. The method contains 1) a data model describing the structure of the work products of the method, 2) a technique for emergent data modeling, which allows its users to customize the data model according to the government’s needs, 3) a role model describing the required competencies for each step, and 4) a process model describing the required steps to derive services from business processes. To succeed in a governmental context with diverse, federative organizational structures, the method needs a high degree of flexibility. In particular, the proposed method has been designed to be compatible with different process modeling techniques.
An Approach to Multi-Agency and Intra-Agency Unification with Enterprise Architecture Driven e-Government in South Africa
Authors: Benjamin Robert , Benjamin R.
Published: October 2012

The diplomatic path towards standardizing data-administration practices within government is not always direct. Due consideration was given to technology, organization, people and process aspects. It would seem that the outcomes, which resulted from employing the ontology, addressed an underlying need of governmental agencies across the board, namely the need for unification. This chapter explains how multi-agency and intra-agency unification was facilitated.
An Architecture Driven Methodology for Transforming from Fragmented to Connected Government
Authors: Castelnovo Walter
Published: October 2012

Connected government implies that citizens and enterprises can interact with government as with a single entity rather than with a number of different public authorities. In countries characterized by a highly fragmented system of Local Government, connected government at the local level can be achieved only through a process of progressive integration on a wider area of systems of local government already integrated at the local level. In the chapter, the author argues that this process should be based on a maturity model and a reference model that define the technological and organizational conditions that allow the establishment of more and more integrated aggregations of municipalities. With reference to a study funded by the Region Lombardia (Italy), the chapter introduces the concept of Integrated System of Local Government (ISLG) and describes the process that leads to the establishment of ISLGs as an intermediate step toward connected government at the local level. Moreover, the chapter discusses the conditions that can induce different aggregations of municipalities to comply with a set of standard requirements in the implementation of their integration processes.
Enterprise Architecture for Personalization of e-Government Services
Authors: Erdem Alpay , Medeni Ihsan Tolga , Medeni Tunç D.
Published: October 2012

As there has not yet been enough work on enterprise architectures for fully integrated knowledge-based, highly-sophisticated (citizen-oriented) personalized services, this chapter aims to articulate a perspective to design architectures for the development and provision of sophisticated, personalized services. Doing so, the authors benefit from their knowledge and experience in the Turkish e-Government Gateway (eGG) and general e-Government services development and provision. First providing an introduction and background information, the chapter discusses the development of eGG services in Turkey, and then provides a visionary suggestion for knowledge-based personalized, citizen-centric e-Government. Among the suggested perspectives, an E-Citizen Decision Support System, and Entity-Utility and Information Flow Model could be useful for eGG development in Turkey and elsewhere.
IT and Enterprise Architecture in US Public Sector Reform
Authors: Buss Terry F. , Shillabeer Anna , Shillabeer Anna
Published: October 2012

This chapter looks at public sector whole-of-government reform from an Information Technology (IT) focused Enterprise Architecture (EA) perspective. The chapter summarizes reforms undertaken under three US presidents—Clinton, Bush, and Obama—and discusses how they have too frequently failed to meet expectations of policy makers, public servants, the public, and other stakeholders. We find that IT reforms in support of larger public sector reform have been ineffective and unsustainable, although many IT reforms have been successful in a narrower context. EA has suffered as a once promising methodology: it has not become the “silver bullet” in managing the IT and information infrastructure to support reform, knowledge management, and decision making. It was also seen as an important tool for reducing information management silos that successive governments have unsuccessfully tried to reduce. This chapter raises the spectre of endemic barriers to reform that must be overcome if EA and IT reform are to realize their potential, and offers recommendations for overcoming these hurdles in the context of whole-of-government public sector reforms.
Assessing the Value of Investments in Government Interoperability
Authors: Cresswell Anthony M. , Sayogo Djoko Sigit , Madrid Lorenzo
Published: October 2012

Government investments in enhancing the interoperability of ICT systems have the potential to improve services and help governments respond to the diverse and often incompatible needs and interests of individual citizens, organizations, and society at large. These diverse needs and interests encompass a broad range of value propositions and demands that can seldom be met by single programs or assessed by simple metrics. The diversity of stakeholder needs and the complexity inherent in interoperable systems for connected government require an architecture that is up to the task. Such an architecture must include the reference models and components that can accommodate and integrate large portfolios of applications and support multiple kinds of performance assessments. The value propositions that underlie the architecture’s performance assessment or reference model are fundamental. The propositions must be broad enough to span the full scope of the government program’s goals, a substantial challenge. In recognition of that challenge, this chapter puts forward two perspectives for assessing the value of interoperable ICT investments, incorporating outcomes beyond financial metrics. The first is the network value approach to assessment of investments in interoperable ICT systems for government. The second is the public value framework developed by the Center for Technology in Government, which expands on the network value approach to include a broader range of public value outcomes. These approaches are illustrated in two case studies: the I-Choose project designed to produce interoperable government and private sector data about a specific agricultural market and the government of Colombia’s interoperability efforts with expanded metrics based on the expansion of interoperability networks.
A Public Economics Approach to Enabling Enterprise Architecture with the Government Cloud in Belgium
Authors: Rabaey Marc
Published: October 2012

In this framework, the move of legacy systems to the Cloud and the overall risks related to the implementation of cloud computing are discussed. The main question is if a government can implement ambitious cloud computing projects without EA, and if not, which stage should be used?
Addressing the U.S. Federal Government Financial Crisis
Authors: Boddie William S.
Published: October 2012

The United States (U.S.) Federal Government is in an extreme financial crisis. The U.S. national debt is $14T and the national deficit is $1.3T. The U.S. Government seeks to improve government-wide performance, reduce operating costs, reduce the national debt, and reduce the national deficit. If the U.S. Government continues its current enterprise management approach, the national debt and national deficit could become greater and the Government could default on its debt. The DoD institutionalized a Business Mission Area Enterprise Architecture (EA) and improved performance and reduced operating costs. Leaders in the DoD leveraged an EA-based approach to improve department-wide performance and reduce costs in selected instances. This chapter proposes that the DoD institutionalize an EA-based approach to improve department-wide performance, reduce operating costs, reduce the national debt, and reduce the national deficit.
Multi-Sensor Multi-Network Positioning
Authors: Kuusniemi Heidi , Chen Yuwei , Chen Liang
Published: October 2012

This chapter discusses methods for positioning utilizing multiple sensors and networks. For achieving seamless positioning and navigation in a smartphone from satellite signal denied areas such as indoors to everywhere outdoors, various technologies to replace and assist satellite navigation, and flexible integration algorithms for measurement fusion are necessary. Merging positioning technologies and network infrastructures together is necessary for attaining ubiquitous navigation and mobile location aware services. The key is to utilize multiple technologies - sensors and networks. This chapter discusses fusion methods for smartphone positioning utilizing the various available technologies to provide location and motion information. Self-contained sensors, wireless technologies, and satellite navigation are briefly summarized, after which their fusion methodologies introduced. Sensor hardware aspects are also discussed as well as the currently achievable performance of existing solutions. Reliability monitoring is also introduced as well as aspects needed to be taken into account in mobile platform implementation. Finally, an overview of future directions and trends within multi-sensor multi-network fusion for mobile positioning are given.
Hybrid Positioning with Smart Phones
Authors: Liu Jingbin
Published: October 2012

Ubiquitous positioning is intended for providing smooth and seamless positioning solution across indoor and outdoor environments, and it is usually achieved through a hybrid positioning scheme that integrates multiple positioning technologies. This chapter explores various aspects of hybrid positioning with smartphones. First, it presents a hybrid positioning solution based on hidden Markov models (HMM). The hybrid positioning solution utilizes multiple location sensors and signals of opportunity that are available in smartphones, and integrates multiple relative and absolute positioning technologies to achieve ubiquitous positioning. The hybrid positioning solution provides a significant improvement over individual positioning technologies in positioning availability, accuracy, and reliability. Then, this chapter generalizes the concept and the methodology of hybrid positioning. Different relative and absolute positioning technologies are comprehensively reviewed based on their respective operation principles. These positioning technologies have the potential to be integrated in a specific hybrid positioning scheme. This chapter is concluded with some considerations for designing a deliberate hybrid positioning solution followed by a short summary of the whole chapter.
3D City Modeling and Visualization for Smart Phone Applications
Authors: Hyyppä Juha , Zhu Lingli , Liu Zhengjun , Kaartinen Harri , Jaakkola Anttoni
Published: October 2012

Smartphones with larger screens, powerful processors, abundant memory, and an open operation system provide many possibilities for 3D city or photorealistic model applications. 3D city or photorealistic models can be used by the users to locate themselves in the 3D world, or they can be used as methods for visualizing the surrounding environment once a smartphone has already located the phone by other means, e.g. by using GNSS, and then to provide an interface in the form of a 3D model for the location-based services. In principle, 3D models can be also used for positioning purposes. For example, matching of images exported from the smartphone and then registering them in the existing 3D photorealistic world provides the position of the image capture. In that process, the central computer can do a similar image matching task when the users locate themselves interactively into the 3D world. As the benefits of 3D city models are obvious, this chapter demonstrates the technology used to provide photorealistic 3D city models and focus on 3D data acquisition and the methods available in 3D city modeling, and the development of 3D display technology for smartphone applications. Currently, global geoinformatic data providers, such as Google, Nokia (NAVTEQ), and TomTom (Tele Atlas), are expanding their products from 2D to 3D. This chapter is a presentation of a case study of 3D data acquisition, modeling and mapping, and visualization for a smartphone, including an example based on data collected by mobile laser scanning data from the Tapiola (Espoo, Finland) test field.
A Dependable Infrastructure for Cooperative Web Services Coordination
Authors: Alchieri Eduardo Adilio Pelinson , Bessani Alysson Neves , Fraga Joni da Silva
Published: October 2012

A current trend in the web services community is to define coordination mechanisms to execute collaborative tasks involving multiple organizations. Following this tendency, in this paper the authors present a dependable (i.e., intrusion-tolerant) infrastructure for cooperative web services coordination that is based on the tuple space coordination model. This infrastructure provides decoupled communication and implements several security mechanisms that allow dependable coordination even in presence of malicious components. This work also investigates the costs related to the use of this infrastructure and possible web service applications that can benefit from it.
Specifying and Composing Web Services with an Environment Ontology-Based Approach
Authors: Wang Puwei , Jin Zhi , Liu Lin , Wu Budan
Published: October 2012

Precise capability specification is the key for identifying and composing the right Web services. This paper specifies service capabilities in terms of the environment entities from the application domain and the effects imposed by the Web service on these entities. An environment ontology for Web services is adopted to provide formal sharable representations of the domain-specific environment entities. A hierarchical state machine is constructed for each environment entity to describe its behaviors, and the effects imposed by a Web service are described as the state transitions traces of environment entities, which define the capability of the Web service. Web service composition that satisfies a set of requested effects is then conducted by reasoning on the effects of services. The proposed approach emphasizes the external manifestation of Web services and service composition based on the effect reasoning. An example of online travel service illustrates the proposed approach.
Service Flavors
Authors: Jegadeesan Harshavardhan , Balasubramaniam Sundar
Published: October 2012

In a services marketplace where a particular service is provided by multiple service providers, service offerings have to be differentiated against competitor services in order to gain market share. Differentiation of services is also needed for different markets and for different consumer segments. Strategies to differentiate service offerings have to be unintrusive—without requiring major changes to the existing service realization mechanisms. In this article, the authors present Service Flavors, a strategy for service providers to differentiate services. By using this strategy, it is possible to analyze and adapt various aspects of a service that help differentiate it from that of the competitors. The authors model differentiating aspects as policies and also provide a mechanism for enforcing these policies in the middleware.
Analyzing Communities of Web Services Using Incentives
Authors: Khosravifar Babak , Bentahar Jamal , Moazin Ahmad , Thiran Philippe
Published: October 2012

This paper proposes an effective mechanism dealing with reputation assessment of communities of web services (CWSs) known as societies composed of a number of functionally identical web services. The objective is to provide a general incentive for CWSs to act truthfully. The considered entities are designed as software autonomous agents equipped with advanced communication and reasoning capabilities. User agents request CWSs for services and accordingly rate their satisfactions about the received quality and community responsiveness. The strategies taken by different parties are private to individual agents, and the logging file that collects feedback is investigated by a controller agent. Furthermore, the accurate reputation assessment is achieved by maintaining a sound logging mechanism. To this end, the incentives for CWSs to act truthfully are investigated and analyzed, while the proposed framework defines the evaluation metrics involved in the reputation assessment of a community. In this paper, the proposed framework is described, a theoretical analysis of its assessment and its implementation along with discussion of empirical results are provided. Finally, the authors show how their model is efficient, particularly in very dynamic environments.
Selective Service Provenance in the VRESCo Runtime
Authors: Michlmayr Anton , Rosenberg Florian , Leitner Philipp , Dustdar Schahram
Published: October 2012

In general, provenance describes the origin and well-documented history of a given object. This notion has been applied in information systems, mainly to provide data provenance of scientific workflows. Similar to this, provenance in Service-oriented Computing has also focused on data provenance. However, the authors argue that in service-centric systems the origin and history of services is equally important. This paper presents an approach that addresses service provenance. The authors show how service provenance information can be collected and retrieved, and how security mechanisms guarantee integrity and access to this information, while also providing user-specific views on provenance. Finally, the paper gives a performance evaluation of the authors’ approach, which has been integrated into the VRESCo Web service runtime environment.
The Evolution of Inter-Firm Collaboration in Supply Chain Networks
Authors: Gravier Michael J. , Farris M. Theodore
Published: October 2012

To date, no published study has measured the evolution of supply chain structure and relationships in response to changing product-market development requirements. This research draws upon production literature and exchange governance theory to simulate the interaction of supply and demand environment factors on the growth and development of supply chain relationships. Experiments were conducted to study the effects of different rates of product change, different demand environments, and different economies of scale on the level of integration between firms at different levels in the supply chain. It synthesizes the interrelationships of the simulation variables in order to extend TCA theory into a dynamic network environment by using the CAS paradigm. The study reveals definite patterns of evolution under conditions of differing product-market conditions, it confirms the importance of the balancing transaction and production costs, and it highlights the asymmetries of transactional and production costs in relationships.
Exploring the Relationship between Organizational Memory and Business Innovation
Authors: Alhashem Adel , Shaqrah Amin A.
Published: October 2012

This study investigated significant contribution to organizational memory (OM) and business innovation (BI) field as an integration strategy to developed conceptual model. Proposed model incorporated principles of OM strategies (i.e., sharing knowledge, representing knowledge, and saving knowledge) and BI outcomes (i.e., new ideas, new services, and new processes) potentially powerful competitive strategy and contributing to improve competitive advantage at Jordanian banks sector. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to infer fitting proposed model. This study has reached to the following: There is a positive relationship between organizational memory and business innovation, and there is a significant statistical impact of organizational memory upon business innovation. In addition, the study recommended that the researched Jordanian banks should pay more attention to the organizational memory and business innovation to gain competitive advantage.
Research on Letter and Word Frequency in the Modern Bulgarian Language
Authors: Trifonov Tihomir , Georgieva-Trifonova Tsvetanka
Published: October 2012

In this paper, an information system for the management of the electronic archive with texts in Bulgarian language is proposed. The developed information system provides the possibility for processing the collected text information. The detailed and comprehensive researches on the letter and the word frequency in the modern Bulgarian language from varied sources (fiction, scientific, and popular science literature, press, legal texts, government bulletins, etc.) are performed and the obtained results are represented. They can be utilized by different specialists – computer scientists, linguists, cryptanalysts and others.
FINGERPRINT
Authors: Ntoutsi Eirini , Spiliopoulou Myra , Theodoridis Yannis
Published: October 2012

Monitoring and interpretation of changing patterns is a task of paramount importance for data mining applications in dynamic environments. While there is much research in adapting patterns in the presence of drift or shift, there is less research on how to maintain an overview of pattern changes over time. A major challenge is summarizing changes in an effective way, so that the nature of change can be understood by the user, while the demand on resources remains low. To this end, the authors propose FINGERPRINT, an environment for the summarization of cluster evolution. Cluster changes are captured into an “evolution graph,” which is then summarized based on cluster similarity into a fingerprint of evolution by merging similar clusters. The authors propose a batch summarization method that traverses and summarizes the Evolution Graph as a whole and an incremental method that is applied during the process of cluster transition discovery. They present experiments on different data streams and discuss the space reduction and information preservation achieved by the two methods.
The problem of money in the hand of a fool
Authors: Loader James Alfred
Published: October 2012

This article focused on a single proverb, viz. Proverbs 17:16. The syntax and stylistic features were analysed to demonstrate the extreme polyvalence that can characterise terse aphorisms. Fifteen readings were examined and evaluated, resulting in the distillation of four equally valid clusters of meaning. This informed the argument that the terseness of aphorisms is con­ducive to multiple legitimate interpretations which constitute the ‘read ings’. The implications were considered in terms of intentionality and text­im man ence in detailed exegesis. It was concluded that a combination of sophisticated linguistics and styl istic sensitivity in proverb exegesis can, in the sense of Her derian and Gunkelian ‘Ein­füh­lung’ in minutiae, uncover a richness in ostensibly simple texts – which is to be distinguished from traditional methods claiming to probe ‘under the surface’.