bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
TP53inp1 Gene Is Implicated in Early Radiation Response in Human Fibroblast Cells
Authors: Sándor Nikolett , Schilling-Tóth Boglárka , Kis Enikő , Fodor Lili , Mucsányi Fruzsina , Sáfrány Géza , Hegyesi Hargita
Published: October 2015

Tumor protein 53-induced nuclear protein-1 (TP53inp1) is expressed by activation via p53 and p73. The purpose of our study was to investigate the role of TP53inp1 in response of fibroblasts to ionizing radiation. γ-Ray radiation dose-dependently induces the expression of TP53inp1 in human immortalized fibroblast (F11hT) cells. Stable silencing of TP53inp1 was done via lentiviral transfection of shRNA in F11hT cells. After irradiation the clonogenic survival of TP53inp1 knockdown (F11hT-shTP) cells was compared to cells transfected with non-targeting (NT) shRNA. Radiation-induced senescence was measured by SA-β-Gal staining and autophagy was detected by Acridine Orange dye and microtubule-associated protein-1 light chain 3 (LC3B) immunostaining. The expression of TP53inp1, GDF-15, and CDKN1A and alterations in radiation induced mitochondrial DNA deletions were evaluated by qPCR. TP53inp1 was required for radiation (IR) induced maximal elevation of CDKN1A and GDF-15 expressions. Mitochondrial DNA deletions were increased and autophagy was deregulated following irradiation in the absence of TP53inp1. Finally, we showed that silencing of TP53inp1 enhances the radiation sensitivity of fibroblast cells. These data suggest functional roles for TP53inp1 in radiation-induced autophagy and survival. Taken together, we suppose that silencing of TP53inp1 leads radiation induced autophagy impairment and induces accumulation of damaged mitochondria in primary human fibroblasts.
Cell Death Conversion under Hypoxic Condition in Tumor Development and Therapy
Authors: Qiu Yu , Li Peng , Ji Chunyan
Published: October 2015

Hypoxia, which is common during tumor progression, plays important roles in tumor biology. Failure in cell death in response to hypoxia contributes to progression and metastasis of tumors. On the one hand, the metabolic and oxidative stress following hypoxia could lead to cell death by triggering signal cascades, like LKB1/AMPK, PI3K/AKT/mTOR, and altering the levels of effective components, such as the Bcl-2 family, Atg and p62. On the other hand, hypoxia-induced autophagy can serve as a mechanism to turn over nutrients, so as to mitigate the adverse condition and then avoid cell death potentially. Due to the effective role of hypoxia, this review focuses on the crosstalk in cell death under hypoxia in tumor progression. Additionally, the illumination of cell death in hypoxia could shed light on the clinical applications of cell death targeted therapy.
Why Don’t More Farmers Go Organic? Using A Stakeholder-Informed Exploratory Agent-Based Model to Represent the Dynamics of Farming Practices in the Philippines
Authors: Olabisi Laura , Wang Ryan , Ligmann-Zielinska Arika
Published: October 2015

In spite of a growing interest in organic agriculture; there has been relatively little research on why farmers might choose to adopt organic methods, particularly in the developing world. To address this shortcoming, we developed an exploratory agent-based model depicting Philippine smallholder farmer decisions to implement organic techniques in rice paddy systems. Our modeling exercise was novel in its combination of three characteristics: first, agent rules were based on focus group data collected in the system of study. Second, a social network structure was built into the model. Third, we utilized variance-based sensitivity analysis to quantify model outcome variability, identify influential drivers, and suggest ways in which further modeling efforts could be focused and simplified. The model results indicated an upper limit on the number of farmers adopting organic methods. The speed of information spread through the social network; crop yields; and the size of a farmer’s plot were highly influential in determining agents’ adoption rates. The results of this stylized model indicate that rates of organic farming adoption are highly sensitive to the yield drop after switchover to organic techniques, and to the speed of information spread through existing social networks. Further research and model development should focus on these system characteristics.
Highly Selective Bioconversion of Ginsenoside Rb1 to Compound K by the Mycelium of Cordyceps sinensis under Optimized Conditions
Authors: Wang Wei-Nan , Yan Bing-Xiong , Xu Wen-Di , Qiu Ye , Guo Yun-Long , Qiu Zhi-Dong
Published: October 2015

Compound K (CK), a highly active and bioavailable derivative obtained from protopanaxadiol ginsenosides, displays a wide variety of pharmacological properties, especially antitumor activity. However, the inadequacy of natural sources limits its application in the pharmaceutical industry. In this study, we firstly discovered that Cordyceps sinensis was a potent biocatalyst for the biotransformation of ginsenoside Rb1 into CK. After a series of investigations on the biotransformation parameters, an optimal composition of the biotransformation culture was found to be lactose, soybean powder and MgSO4 without controlling the pH. Also, an optimum temperature of 30 °C for the biotransformation process was suggested in a range of 25 °C–50 °C. Then, a biotransformation pathway of Rb1 → Rd → F2 → CK was established using high performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (HPLC-Q-TOF-MS). Our results demonstrated that the molar bioconversion rate of Rb1 to CK was more than 82% and the purity of CK produced by C. sinensis under the optimized conditions was more than 91%. In conclusion, the combination of C. sinensis and the optimized conditions is applicable for the industrial preparation of CK for medicinal purposes.
Control of Partial Coalescence of Self-Assembled Metal Nano-Particles across Lyotropic Liquid Crystals Templates towards Long Range Meso-Porous Metal Frameworks Design
Authors: Dumée Ludovic , Lemoine Jean-Baptiste , Ancel Alice , Hameed Nishar , He Li , Kong Lingxue
Published: October 2015

The formation of purely metallic meso-porous metal thin films by partial interface coalescence of self-assembled metal nano-particles across aqueous solutions of Pluronics triblock lyotropic liquid crystals is demonstrated for the first time. Small angle X-ray scattering was used to study the influence of the thin film composition and processing conditions on the ordered structures. The structural characteristics of the meso-structures formed demonstrated to primarily rely on the lyotropic liquid crystal properties while the nature of the metal nano-particles used as well as the their diameters were found to affect the ordered structure formation. The impact of the annealing temperature on the nano-particle coalescence and efficiency at removing the templating lyotropic liquid crystals was also analysed. It is demonstrated that the lyotropic liquid crystal is rendered slightly less thermally stable, upon mixing with metal nano-particles and that low annealing temperatures are sufficient to form purely metallic frameworks with average pore size distributions smaller than 500 nm and porosity around 45% with potential application in sensing, catalysis, nanoscale heat exchange, and molecular separation.
Kinase Inhibitors that Increase the Sensitivity of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus to β-Lactam Antibiotics
Authors: Vornhagen Jay , Burnside Kellie , Whidbey Christopher , Berry Jessica , Qin Xuan , Rajagopal Lakshmi
Published: October 2015

Staphylococcus aureus are Gram-positive bacteria that are the leading cause of recurrent infections in humans that include pneumonia, bacteremia, osteomyelitis, arthritis, endocarditis, and toxic shock syndrome. The emergence of methicillin resistant S. aureus strains (MRSA) has imposed a significant concern in sustained measures of treatment against these infections. Recently, MRSA strains deficient in expression of a serine/threonine kinase (Stk1 or PknB) were described to exhibit increased sensitivity to β-lactam antibiotics. In this study, we screened a library consisting of 280 drug-like, low-molecular-weight compounds with the ability to inhibit protein kinases for those that increased the sensitivity of wild-type MRSA to β-lactams and then evaluated their toxicity in mice. We report the identification of four kinase inhibitors, the sulfonamides ST085384, ST085404, ST085405, and ST085399 that increased sensitivity of WT MRSA to sub-lethal concentrations of β-lactams. Furthermore, these inhibitors lacked alerting structures commonly associated with toxic effects, and toxicity was not observed with ST085384 or ST085405 in vivo in a murine model. These results suggest that kinase inhibitors may be useful in therapeutic strategies against MRSA infections.
Transdermal Drug Delivery: Innovative Pharmaceutical Developments Based on Disruption of the Barrier Properties of the Stratum Corneum
Authors: Alkilani Ahlam , McCrudden Maelíosa T. , Donnelly Ryan
Published: October 2015

The skin offers an accessible and convenient site for the administration of medications. To this end, the field of transdermal drug delivery, aimed at developing safe and efficacious means of delivering medications across the skin, has in the past and continues to garner much time and investment with the continuous advancement of new and innovative approaches. This review details the progress and current status of the transdermal drug delivery field and describes numerous pharmaceutical developments which have been employed to overcome limitations associated with skin delivery systems. Advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches are detailed, commercially marketed products are highlighted and particular attention is paid to the emerging field of microneedle technologies.
Microengineered Conductive Elastomeric Electrodes for Long-Term Electrophysiological Measurements with Consistent Impedance under Stretch
Authors: Hu Dinglong , Cheng Tin , Xie Kai , Lam Raymond
Published: October 2015

In this research, we develop a micro-engineered conductive elastomeric electrode for measurements of human bio-potentials with the absence of conductive pastes. Mixing the biocompatible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) silicone with other biocompatible conductive nano-particles further provides the material with an electrical conductivity. We apply micro-replica mold casting for the micro-structures, which are arrays of micro-pillars embedded between two bulk conductive-PDMS layers. These micro-structures can reduce the micro-structural deformations along the direction of signal transmission; therefore the corresponding electrical impedance under the physical stretch by the movement of the human body can be maintained. Additionally, we conduct experiments to compare the electrical properties between the bulk conductive-PDMS material and the microengineered electrodes under stretch. We also demonstrate the working performance of these micro-engineered electrodes in the acquisition of the 12-lead electrocardiographs (ECG) of a healthy subject. Together, the presented gel-less microengineered electrodes can provide a more convenient and stable bio-potential measurement platform, making tele-medical care more achievable with reduced technical barriers for instrument installation performed by patients/users themselves.
Step Detection Robust against the Dynamics of Smartphones
Authors: Lee Hwan-hee , Choi Suji , Lee Myeong-jin
Published: October 2015

A novel algorithm is proposed for robust step detection irrespective of step mode and device pose in smartphone usage environments. The dynamics of smartphones are decoupled into a peak-valley relationship with adaptive magnitude and temporal thresholds. For extracted peaks and valleys in the magnitude of acceleration, a step is defined as consisting of a peak and its adjacent valley. Adaptive magnitude thresholds consisting of step average and step deviation are applied to suppress pseudo peaks or valleys that mostly occur during the transition among step modes or device poses. Adaptive temporal thresholds are applied to time intervals between peaks or valleys to consider the time-varying pace of human walking or running for the correct selection of peaks or valleys. From the experimental results, it can be seen that the proposed step detection algorithm shows more than 98.6% average accuracy for any combination of step mode and device pose and outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms.
Typology of Cities Based on City Biodiversity Index: Exploring Biodiversity Potentials and Possible Collaborations among Japanese Cities
Authors: Uchiyama Yuta , Hayashi Kengo , Kohsaka Ryo
Published: October 2015

A City Biodiversity Index (CBI) has been proposed and applied at the international level to enable local municipalities and cities to manage biodiversity and ecosystem services in a sustainable manner. CBI databases are being constructed as global platforms, though the available dataset is limited. The land-use dataset is one of the datasets that can be utilized to apply the CBI on the national level in countries including Japan. To demonstrate the importance and potential of the CBI under the limitation of the available dataset, we attempted to apply the CBI to the 791 Japanese cities by using available land-use indicators, and categorized the cities based on the indicators. The focus of the CBI is self-assessment, but we propose that grouping of cities with similar profiles is possible and can serve as a basis for potential collaboration. Coordinating policies on various scales is necessary in order to enhance biodiversity on a global scale; one option is to increase collaboration among cities. As a result, we found three groups with similar characteristics amongst cities with forests, paddies, and croplands as major compositions in terms of biodiversity. These findings will contribute to policy formation and efficient information sharing for ecosystem services management.
Long-Term Efficacy and Safety of Repeated Intravescial OnabotulinumtoxinA Injections Plus Hydrodistention in the Treatment of Interstitial Cystitis/Bladder Pain Syndrome
Authors: Lee Cheng-Ling , Kuo Hann-Chorng
Published: October 2015

Intravesical onabotulinumtoxinA (BoNT-A) injection can relieve symptoms of interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS), but lacks sustainability. Repeated injections have been shown to provide a superior outcome to a single injection, but data on long-term efficacy and safety is limited. In this prospective study, we enrolled patients with refractory IC/BPS, and treated them with 100 U of BoNT-A injection plus hydrodistention followed by repeated injections every six months for up to two years or until the patient wished to discontinue. A “top-up” dose was offered after the fourth injection. Of these 104 participants, 56.7% completed four BoNT-A injections and 34% voluntarily received the fifth injection due to exacerbated IC symptoms. With a follow-up period of up to 79 months, O’Leary-Sant symptom and problem indexes (ICSI, ICPI, OSS), pain visual analogue scale (VAS) functional bladder capacity, frequency episodes, and global response assessment (GRA) all showed significant improvement (p < 0.0001). Those who received repeated injections had a better success rate during the long-term follow-up period. The incidence of adverse events did not rise with the increasing number of BoNT-A injections. A higher pre-treatment ICSI and ICPI score was predictive for successful response to repeated intravesical BoNT-A injections plus hydrodistention.
Identifying Recent HIV Infections: From Serological Assays to Genomics
Authors: Moyo Sikhulile , Wilkinson Eduan , Novitsky Vladimir , Vandormael Alain , Gaseitsiwe Simani , Essex Max , Engelbrecht Susan , De Oliveira Tulio
Published: October 2015

In this paper, we review serological and molecular based methods to identify HIV infection recency. The accurate identification of recent HIV infection continues to be an important research area and has implications for HIV prevention and treatment interventions. Longitudinal cohorts that follow HIV negative individuals over time are the current gold standard approach, but they are logistically challenging, time consuming and an expensive enterprise. Methods that utilize cross-sectional testing and biomarker information have become an affordable alternative to the longitudinal approach. These methods use well-characterized biological makers to differentiate between recent and established HIV infections. However, recent results have identified a number of limitations in serological based assays that are sensitive to the variability in immune responses modulated by HIV subtypes, viral load and antiretroviral therapy. Molecular methods that explore the dynamics between the timing of infection and viral evolution are now emerging as a promising approach. The combination of serological and molecular methods may provide a good solution to identify recent HIV infection in cross-sectional data. As part of this review, we present the advantages and limitations of serological and molecular based methods and their potential complementary role for the identification of HIV infection recency.
JOB SATISFACTION OF IT PROFESSIONALS IN POLAND: DOES BUSINESS COMPETENCE MATTER?
Authors: Kowal Jolanta , Roztocki Narcyz
Published: October 2015

This paper examines the effects of business competence on the job satisfaction of Information Technology (IT) professionals in Poland. The necessary data is collected from a survey conducted among 391 IT professionals working in various companies in Poland. The results of the analysis indicate that business competence, in general, positively affects the job satisfaction of IT professionals in transition economies. However, business competence seems to have mixed effects on various aspects of job satisfaction. Although business competence affects satisfaction with co-workers, supervision and work itself, the surveyed IT professionals feel that business competence does not have any substantial effect on their salary level and professional promotions. The theoretical implication of this study is that systematic development of human capital by building business competence will have positive effects on the job satisfaction of IT professionals in transition economies. This paper also has a practical implication for managers in transition economies seeking improvements in productivity as it may help them to devise a compensation and promotion system that would better account for competency in their employees.
Achieving Useful Government Accountability and Transparency Websites
Authors: Carstens Deborah S. , Kies Stephen , Stockman Randy
Published: October 2015

With the transition from government to e-government, greater transparency in government accountability has occurred. However, state government budgets and performance reports are voluminous and difficult to understand by the average citizen. There is a need for government Websites to promote public trust while providing understandable, meaningful, and usable government accountability information. The public needs to have access to information that links the outcome of government spending so that government can be accountable for their spending. There are three fundamental functions for government: accountability, budgeting, and policy-making. The chapter discusses literature specifically relating to government accountability resulting in a checklist being developed to provide a mechanism for evaluation of government Websites from a technical and usability perspective. Therefore, it is not only important for a Website to have the government accountability information but to also display it in a useful and meaningful format understandable by citizens accessing the Website.
Democratising E-Democracy
Authors: Molinari Francesco , McPherson Maggie , Singh Gurmit
Published: October 2015

As tensions and conflicts are inherent in modern society, the Internet can do little but project tension and conflict back to the socio-political reality. As a result, although there has been significant progress in developing e-democracy over the last decades, the authors observe that many scholars/practitioners still pay little attention to three fundamental action items for overcoming these tensions and conflicts: catering for social justice outcomes in the design stage of programmes, projects, and initiatives; appraising the ways in which people change themselves through their interaction with technologies; linking local enactments of e-democracy to global agendas and evaluation experiences. Ignoring these aspects has impeded a full appreciation of the impact of e-democracy on democracy itself. Adopting a systems change approach derived from Hargrave and Van de Ven's (2006) collective action model to define a roadmap for impact, the authors propose to leverage international e-democracy events for eliciting a collective reflection on how to dynamically (re-)configure the priorities of e-democracy. They use the example of their attempt to do this with the We Decide learning landscape to show how they are starting this reconfiguration. Basically, the intention is to enable both practitioners and researchers to build bridges that have never been there, and to open up new conversations about “democratising e-democracy.”
Sentiment Analysis, Social Media, and Public Administration
Authors: Oliveira Daniel José Silva , Bermejo Paulo Henrique de Souza , Aparecida dos Santos Pamela
Published: October 2015

This chapter describes how sentiment analysis, based on texts taken from social media, can be an instrument for measuring popular opinion about government services and can contribute to evaluating and developing public administration. This is an applied, interdisciplinary, qualitative, exploratory, and technological study. Throughout the chapter, the main theoretical and conceptual formulations about the subject are reviewed, and practical demonstrations are made using opinion-mining tools that provide high accuracy in data processing. For demonstration purposes, topics that triggered the popular protests of June 2013 in Brazil were selected, involving million people across the country. A total of 51,857 messages posted on social media about these topics were collected, processed, and analyzed. Through that analysis, it can be observed that even after six months, the factors that motivated the protests continued generating citizen dissatisfaction.
Ontology Development and the Role of Knowledge in E-Government Project Management
Authors: Ngwenya Bongani
Published: October 2015

The literature suggests that the elaboration of ontology contributes to the standardization and classification of concepts and terminologies, and it has been happening in some sectors, such as software engineering, e-Government services implementation, and project management. In the area of e-Government, knowledge plays a critical role in the development of e-Government transformation project management ontology, which aims at adopting and customizing the existing project management approaches according to the specific challenges encountered in the e-Government environment. It is in this context that this chapter presents an ontological representation of the concepts of e-Government project management in one of the developing countries in southern Africa. The chapter further intends to collaborate in the excellence and productivity of the management of the e-Government project process. This will also enable the interoperability and knowledge reuse between all factors and stakeholders related with the implementation of such types of projects as a lesson for developing countries. The data was collected by use of an interview protocol or schedule, and the researcher interviewed relevant employees of the two ministries, the Ministry of Information Technology and the Ministry of Information and Communication. The data was then analyzed qualitatively to draw a model that the Zimbabwean government is adopting.
Towards E-Government Information Platforms for Enterprise 2.0
Authors: Rodrigues Mário , Dias Gonçalo Paiva , Teixeira António
Published: October 2015

Enterprise 2.0 aims to help employees, customers, and suppliers collaborate, share, and organize information. As governments are relevant partners for enterprises (legislation, contracts, etc.) e-government platforms need to be ready for Enterprise 2.0 to what concerns e-government interactions. The public sector holds huge quantities of information and just a small proportion is relevant to each enterprise. Enterprises should only be confronted with relevant information and not flooded with lots of data. This implies data organization with semantic description and services using open standards. The goal is to build a durable information infrastructure for government that can be readily accessed by enterprises. The authors propose a conceptual model for government information provisioning. The rationale for this proposal is to motivate the creation of durable, standard, and open government information infrastructures. The model acquires information from natural language documents and represents it using ontology. A proof-of-concept prototype and its preliminary results are presented.
IT and Collaborative Community Services
Authors: Taylor Natalie Greene , Gorham Ursula , Jaeger Paul T. , Bertot John Carlo
Published: October 2015

The role that the Internet has played in redefining the activities of public sector organizations is well-documented. What has yet to be fully explored, however, are recent collaborations among community-oriented entities (local government agencies, public libraries, and non-profit organizations) to provide enhanced services through innovative uses of information technology. These collaborative community services are enhanced by information technology, but also framed within the context of the organizations supporting the services. Using data from the 2011-2012 Public Library Funding and Technology Access Survey (PLFTAS), and drawing upon ongoing research into e-government partnerships between libraries, government agencies, and community organizations as well as community-based civic engagement initiatives, this paper will frame this issue within the contexts of local e-government in the United States; the relationship between public libraries, e-government, and the Internet; and innovative partnerships between public libraries, local government, and nonprofit entities. The article discusses both best practices and common challenges among these partnerships as a guide to future projects.
Cloud Computing and Gov 2.0
Authors: Roy Jeffrey
Published: October 2015

This article seeks to dissect the evolution of digital governance within the Canadian public sector at an expansionary time for cloud computing and wider reforms often referred to as Gov 2.0. Beyond infrastructure, the notion of the cloud may also be viewed as a proxy for a wider societal transformation that, in turn, impacts government both administratively and politically. This wider transformational nonetheless faces tensions between traditional proprietary concepts and mindsets and newer emerging models of open source and shared openness. The future of the Canadian public sector requires a careful navigation and blending of these two worldviews. While some observers may prefer to decouple cloud computing from new governance capacities associated with Gov 2.0 (viewing the cloud instead strictly through a prism of internal architecture and infrastructure), the evidence presented in this article suggests that both directions are intimately related in shaping the public sector going forward.
Technology-Enhanced Pedagogical Models to Learn Critical Citizenship at a South African University
Authors: Rambe Patient , Agbobli Edem
Published: October 2015

Although knowledge-centred approaches anchored in students' knowledge production abilities, heterogeneous learning styles and diverse learning needs are widely celebrated, perplexing questions persist on how these learning capabilities and enablements can be sufficiently harnessed to support technology-enhanced pedagogical designs. This chapter contributes to this discourse by proposing knowledge-centred models that integrate sound pedagogical strategy, ubiquitous technologies and situated learning to address student learning priorities and challenges in a Global Citizenship course at a South African university. Laurillard's (2001) Conversational Framework rendered a theoretical lens for interpreting the learning priorities, challenges experienced and the appropriateness of the proposed technology-mediated pedagogical interventions. Findings suggest that although collective engagement and peer-based networking were salient in the course, challenges of fostering deep learning, scaling the course, enhancing sustainable course delivery and accommodating diverse learning needs of students were reported. Technology-mediated pedagogical models that drew on emerging Web based technologies were designed to resolve these challenges.
Transformation in Daytime Television Programs in Turkey since 2000
Authors: Doruk Ece Karadogan
Published: October 2015

The research conducted in Turkey indicates that the television viewers usually spend their leisure daytime watching television programs such as health, cooking, beauty, fashion, shopping, and competitions. These programs that mostly refer to entertainment function enable viewers to learn as well as have an enjoyable time. Among the reasons why the television viewers prefer to watch these programs are migration to larger cities and the need of the viewers, who spend more time together at home with the family and have nothing but the television at home as the neighborhood culture has disappeared, to see their equivalents and communicate their troubles. This chapter discusses the changing program preferences of the television audience and the causes affecting the transforming program contents since the early 2000s in Turkey, which is one of the countries with the highest television-viewing rate and uses the method of in-depth interview with the experts in the field.
An Assessment of E-Government in a West African Country
Authors: Amagoh Francis
Published: October 2015

Governments around the world are using e-government to improve their modes of governance and the delivery of public services to citizens. Similarly, almost all countries are assessed and ranked by international organizations (such as the United Nations) on their level of e-government development. This paper examines Nigeria's e-government development rankings in light of the government's efforts to develop the country's infrastructure and human capital. While Nigeria is one of the richest country in Africa and has the one of the fastest growing ICT market in the continent, it is ranked low in Africa and globally in terms of e-government provision of public services to its citizens. The analysis suggests that more efforts should be made by the government to address the barriers to effective deployment of e-government initiatives in Nigeria.
E-Government Transparency and Citizen Engagement Increasing Accountability
Authors: Carstens Deborah S. , Kies Stephen , Stockman Randy
Published: October 2015

The chapter focus is on accountability and transparency through E-Government. With the increasing trend of users getting online and the opportunity for ubiquitous reach, state governments have begun to utilize social media to engage, communicate and inform their citizens. Therefore, this chapter also discusses ways to better engage citizens in government accountability and transparency discussions. With the transition from government to E-Government, greater transparency in government accountability has occurred. There is a need for government Websites to promote public trust while providing understandable, meaningful and usable government accountability information securely. The recommendations and solutions discussed are centered on enhancing E-Government transparency and citizen engagement resulting in enhanced government accountability.
Towards a Citizen-Centric E-Government Service Index Model
Authors: Zakaria Mohamed R. , Gebba Tarek R. , Aboelmaged Mohamed Gamal
Published: October 2015

The purpose of this chapter is three-fold. First, it proposes a novel E-Government Service Index (ESI) that is a citizen-centric maturity model. Second, the model uses Egypt's E-Government services as an experimental arena to spot the maturity of the provided services and highlights e-government development in Egypt. Finally, the chapter explores the impediments of citizen-centric e-government implementation within the Egyptian context and recommends specific interventions within the frame of the proposed model.
Interactions between the Governed and Their Governments
Authors: Santos Diogo
Published: October 2015

The relationship between citizens and their states is omnipresent: even in the most authoritarian or totalitarian regimes there is always some interaction between the government and its society. The advent and widespread use of modern digital communications has added new instruments through which all sectors of society, especially the least represented, can make their voices heard. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a theoretical base for analyzing how citizens and government interact in the age of digital communications. Dictatorships rely on performance and resort to violence to obtain support. Leaders in democracies can usually rely on the principles of the regime itself and governmental procedures or popular elections. The legitimacy brought by policy efficiency can support despotic governments over time. Lack of controls over the actions of a ruler exposes the whole polity to the risk of abuse of power and deterioration of the people's liberty. Digital communication tools arise as new channels for governments to promote their views to the people, convincing them of their policies' usefulness and value; monitor the population's activities in support or against the government; and block information contrary to the interests of the government, the dictator, or the ruling elite. The population too can use the new digital interfaces to obtain information, share approval or discontent with others, organize protests or support. The traditional mechanisms of democracy to provide legitimacy to the regimes are deeply impacted by the new communication technologies.
Shaping Digital Democracy in the United States
Authors: Baarda Rachel , Luppicini Rocci
Published: October 2015

Ethical challenges that technology poses to the different spheres of society are a core focus within the field of technoethics. Over the last few years, scholars have begun to explore the ethical implications of new digital technologies and social media, particularly in the realms of society and politics. A qualitative case study was conducted on Barack Obama's campaign social networking site, my.barackobama.com, in order to investigate the ways in which the website uses or misuses digital technology to create a healthy participatory democracy. For an analysis of ethical and non-ethical ways to promote participatory democracy online, the study included theoretical perspectives such as the role of the public sphere in a participatory democracy and the effects of political marketing on the public sphere. The case study included a content analysis of the website and interviews with members of groups on the site. The study's results are explored in this chapter.
Quality Approaches for Performance Measurement in Jordanian E-Government Services
Authors: Venkatraman Sitalakshmi , Alazab Mamoun
Published: October 2015

Improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of public services has become a growing concern for many governments across the world, and more so with recent popularity of online services, widely referred as e-government services. The application of quality approaches for measuring and improving e-government services has been the subject of much research within the academic world over the last two decades. This chapter discusses the use of key quality approaches to improve services in Jordan's e-government initiatives. As more and more developing countries are adopting e-services as a means of providing quality services to their community and people through the Web, the necessary benchmarking plays an important role. Many traditional quality benchmarking performance measurements have proved futile in improving e-government services due to their quantitative focus. Though qualitative frameworks and measurement approaches such as Six Sigma and Balanced Scorecard have found their success in certain industry sectors, their relevance in the service sector has drawn attention only recently. While some studies have employed such approaches for evaluating projects in information and communication technologies, literature lacks investigations in the e-government sector. To fill this gap, this chapter investigates the application of Six Sigma and Balanced Scorecard approaches to improve quality in Jordanian e-government services.
What Does E- add to Democracy?
Authors: Mindus Patricia
Published: October 2015

Technologies carry politics since they embed values. It is therefore surprising that mainstream political and legal theory have taken the issue so lightly. Compared to what has been going on over the past few decades in the other branches of practical thought, namely ethics, economics, and the law, political theory lags behind. Yet the current emphasis on Internet politics that polarizes the apologists holding the Web to overcome the one-to-many architecture of opinion building in traditional representative democracy, and the critics who warn that cyber-optimism entails authoritarian technocracy has acted as a wake up call. This chapter sets the problem, “What is it about ICTs, as opposed to previous technical devices, that impact on politics and determine uncertainty about democratic matters?,” into the broad context of practical philosophy by offering a conceptual map of clusters of micro-problems and concrete examples relating to “e-democracy.” The point is to highlight when and why the hyphen of e-democracy has a conjunctive or a disjunctive function in respect to stocktaking from past experiences and settled democratic theories. The chapter's claim is that there is considerable scope to analyse how and why online politics fail or succeed. The field needs both further empirical and theoretical work.
A Democratic Approach to Strategic Management in Sport Organizations
Authors: Schneider Robert C.
Published: October 2015

The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with an understanding and working knowledge of a democratic management approach to sport organizations. Referenced narrative is supplemented by case studies, critical thinking questions, and defined terms that support the discussion of democratic management theory from the organizational mission development to implementation strategies. A range of strategic management approaches featuring a democratic approach for various types of sport organizations centers on influences of diversity, the sporting community and member input, voting as a cornerstone, fostering a culture of mutual sharing, managerial transparency, willful employee commitment and engagement, and threats to democratic management such as commercialism. Challenges to democratic management including maintaining a moral focus, its time intensive nature, and balancing stakeholder wants with adherence to the democratic process are addressed.
Early Warning System for Banking Crisis
Authors: Munir Qaiser , Kok Sook Ching
Published: October 2015

The purpose of this chapter is to present with an overview of the early warning systems (EWS) applied to global banking crises. Numerous past studies have focused on the EWS of banking crisis. The majority of these studies have developed a predictive model to forecast the likelihood of banking crisis. Relatively less studies in the past show an attempt to predict both crisis likelihood and timing of the crisis likelihood. Precision of timing with respects to a specific type of financial crisis is undeniably difficult. Nonetheless, knowing the timing of crisis likelihood will make policy more effective. Policy makers will be able to response promptly to the upcoming banking crisis by taking pre-emptive measures which are crucial to mitigate the impact from the crisis. Specifically, this would help to avoid the widespread of crisis. It is aware that a banking crisis can transform into a systemic banking crisis which possibly ruins the function of the domestic financial system.
Predicting Global Financial Meltdown and Systemic Banking Failure
Authors: Virkar Shefali
Published: October 2015

The last two decades of international financial history have witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of episodes of financial distress; wherein the incidence of these episodes has not been restricted to national boundaries as localised systemic incidents but have instead been spread to other countries and across regions in the form of financial contagion. This book chapter proposes a detailed discussion and analysis of the scholarly and practitioner literature used to conceptualise and to encapsulate the theoretical construct of an Early Warning System (EWS) developed to predict and mitigate the onset and persistence of systemic banking failures and financial crises. The models that constitute the focus of this overview are pivotal to the prediction of systemic banking meltdowns, either on their own or as constituent elements of other methodological approaches that contribute significantly towards the design and development of an Early Warning System.
Accounting Standards in the U.S. Banking Industry during the Financial Crisis
Authors: Romero Jorge A.
Published: October 2015

The global financial crisis became evident when U.S. house prices fell related to the subprime mortgage-backed securities crisis. In the years preceding the financial crisis of 2008, there was a real estate bubble that pushed U.S. real estate prices to high levels, and at the same time financial institutions were holding large amounts of subprime mortgage-backed securities. Fair value accounting (FVA) and its link to the recent global financial crisis has been a focus of discussion and interest for accounting researchers, financial analyst and policy makers. During the financial crisis, a large percentage of assets in the balance sheets of banks were calculated using fair value. The main concern was that those assets were calculated using mark-to-model accounting (Goh, Ng, & Yong 2009). There are still contradictory conclusions on the implications of fair value accounting and the global financial crisis (Laux & Leuz, 2009). The main objective of this chapter is to provide a better understanding of the global financial crisis and of the mechanisms of fair value accounting.
Building a Surveillance Framework for Currency Crises in Indonesia
Authors: Wiranatakusuma Dimas Bagus , Apriyono Ricky Dwi
Published: October 2015

There seems to be no single country that can escape from currency crises. This paper aims to answer: (i) How to determine exchange market pressure (EMP)? and (ii) To what extent the contribution of selected indicators to the prediction of currency crises?. The study adopts indicators developed by Kaminski, et.al (1999) by using signal extraction method as the early warning system (EWS) mechanism. By employing four selected variables, International reserve, real exchange rates, credit growth, and domestic inflation, the findings suggest the periods of crises fluctuated over the observations under various thresholds. The EMP touched the Kaminsky's line only during the Asian and global financial crises. Meanwhile, the Garcia's, Park's and Lestano's line was passed through frequently over the observations, and it implies that the financial system was cyclically under shocks. In conclusion, the currency crises frequently appear attacking Indonesia's financial system so that need to be mitigated by net open position (NOP) as macroprudential instrument.
KLR Approach as an Early Warning Indicator of Turkish Currency and Banking Crisis in 2000 and 2001
Authors: Eryılmaz Filiz
Published: October 2015

International organizations as private sector institutions started to develop Early Warning System [EWS] models aiming to anticipate whether and when individual countries can collide with a financial crisis. EWS models can be made most useful to help sustain global growth and maintain financial stability, especially in light of the lessons learned from the current and past crises. This paper proposes Early Warning Systems (EWS) for Turkish Currency and Banking Crisis in 2000 and 2001. To that end “KLR model” or “signaling window” approach developed by Kaminski, Lorezondo and Reinhart (1998) is testified in the empirical part of this research and applied to a sample of Turkey macroeconomic data for the 1998-2003 monthly periods.
The Twin Deficit as an Early Warning Sign in Avoiding Crises
Authors: Papadamou Stephanos , Spyromitros Eleftherios
Published: October 2015

By analyzing the causes and consequences of Greek debt crisis, we identify early warning fiscal and financial signals. The existence of twin deficits for a number of years can be characterized as the key fiscal indicator concerning the debt problems faces Greece. Moreover, indicators from the banking sector also reveal significant information for the Greek crisis. The interdependence of banking and government sectors and opportunistic political behavior can affect dramatically a small economy. Common currency reveals structural weaknesses of the Greek economy.
Developing EWS Models for Contemporary Crises Using Extreme Value Binary Models
Authors: Dapontas Dimitrios K.
Published: October 2015

This chapter is presenting the most contemporary crises following the 2008 credit crunch and small scale following crises. Our sample consists of five countries (Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Argentine respectively) hit by crisis during 2010's. The Early Warning System (EWS) proposed is the Extreme Value Model (EVA) used previously for natural disasters and irregular phenomena. Its major advantage compared to other binary models is its focus to the turbulence periods and their characteristics contrast to possible trend models which exclude them. The results show that EVA fits better forecast and it gave positive and calm signals than similar logit and probit models for all five cases examined.
A Study on Phase Behavior and its Application to Cryogenic Technologies for Treatment of High CO2 Gas Fields
Authors: Turunawarasu Dhanaraj , Norpiah Rohaizad B. M. , Pottayil Adil
Published: October 2015

In Malaysia more than 13 Tscf of natural gas reserve remain undeveloped due to high carbon dioxide (CO2) content of up to 70 mole% (Darman & Harun, 2006). High CO2 content gas fields will have to be developed to meet gas demand in Malaysia despite the technical and economical challenges. Cryogenic technology has been identified to be the most suitable technology for offshore since it is capable of handling a wide range of CO2 content. However, proper phase behavior study should be undertaken as CO2 may freeze-out to become solid at certain cryogenic conditions. The objective of this study is to validate the prediction of commonly used Equation of State (EOS) models on the Vapor, Liquid & Solid Equilibrium (VLSE) of CO2 - hydrocarbon system against existing experimental data and to simulate cryogenic process to remove CO2 for offshore application.

Primary focus is given to the accurate prediction of solid CO2 behavior using conventional EOS models. Based on the selected EOS model, a phase behavior study under cryogenic condition has been conducted on a gas field containing CO2 level up to 52 mole% in the wellstream. A process simulation model is developed based on Ryan Holmes and Controlled Freeze Zone#x2122; (CFZ#x2122;) processes. In this study various feed and process conditions were evaluated to determine the optimal removal of CO2 from the wellstream.

The proper representation of the actual high CO2 gas reservoir VLSE phase behavior using the available EOS model is very important to avoid unnecessary facility problem for a cryogenic technology application. From this study, advanced Redlich-Kwong-Soave (RKSA) model is recommended to be used for high CO2 fluid characterization and simulation.