bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Toward Building the Knowledge Culture
Authors: Bakry Saad Haj , Alfantookh Abdulkader
Published: April 2010

Building the knowledge culture is of increasing importance, not only because of its role in providing sound knowledge management and effective knowledge-based economic development, but also because of its support to environment protection, intercultural harmony and human well-being. This paper provides a review of the knowledge culture and its related issues, and introduces a development framework for building this culture. The proposed framework integrates the main knowledge activities of knowledge generation, diffusion and utilization into an activated “Knowledge Circle: KC”. It uses the five-domain structure of “Strategy, Technology, Organization, People and Environment: STOPE” to map and interrelate the various issues associated with the knowledge culture. In addition, it adopts the “Six-Sigma” principles, and its continuous process of “Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control: DMAIC” as an approach to the work toward building the target culture. The paper calls for building the knowledge culture, not only at an organization, or a country level, but also at the global level. It provides its KC-STOPE with Six-Sigma framework for this purpose and strongly recommends its use for future development toward building the target culture.
MuseumScrabble
Authors: Sintoris Christos , Stoica Adrian , Papadimitriou Ioanna , Yiannoutsou Nikoleta , Komis Vassilis , Avouris Nikolaos
Published: April 2010

Mobile technology has created new possibilities for location-based playful learning experiences. This article describes the MuseumScrabble mobile game, aimed at children visiting a historical museum. The game requires that the players explore the museum and link abstract concepts with physical artefacts using a mobile device. The focus of this article is on the interaction design process and the subsequent observations made during field evaluation of the game. Design principles that guide the development of such a game are presented and concern playfulness, learning, social interaction, physical aspects of the game and flow between physical and digital space. This article explores how these design principles are reflected in the study and how problem-solving strategies and collaboration and competition patterns are developed by children in this multi-player educational game.
Application of Gabor Wavelet in Quantum Holography for Image Recognition
Authors: Tay Nuo Wi , Loo Chu Kiong , Perus Mitja
Published: April 2010

Gabor wavelet is considered the best mathematical descriptor for receptive fields in the striate cortex. As a basis function, it is suitable to sparsely represent natural scenes due to its property in maximizing information. It is argued that Gabor-like receptive fields emerged by the sparseness-enforcing or infomax method, with sparseness-enforcing being more biologically plausible. This paper incorporates Gabor over-complete representation into Quantum Holography for image recognition tasks. Correlations are performed using sampled result from all frequencies as well as the optimum frequency. Correlation is also performed using only those points of least activity, which shows improvements in recognition. Analysis on the use of conjugation in reconstruction is provided. The authors also suggest improvements through iterative methods for reconstruction.
CSMA
Authors: Boukadi Khouloud , Vincent Lucien , Ghedira Chirine , Maamar Zakaria
Published: April 2010

Since the beginning of the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm, with its various implementation technologies such as Web services, the focus of industrial communities has been on providing tools that would allow seamless and flexible application integration within and across enterprises’ boundaries. In this paper, the authors present a Context-based, Service-oriented Modeling and Analysis (CSMA) method that guides service engineers in their choices of identifying, defining, and analyzing adaptable business services. The proposed method is business centric and comprises a set of structured steps grouped in two phases. Besides, the CSMA embraces Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) principles to model and refine adaptable business services models in the PIM level. The results from a pilot validation of CSMA for SOA enablement of a realistic enterprise training solutions are also presented.
Towards a Trust Management Enabled Identity Metasystem
Authors: Zhao Weiliang , Yang Jian
Published: April 2010

Existing identity metasystems provide enabling tools to manage, select, and control of digital identities but they have not provided the support of trust management that should cover how trust requirements associated with digital identities are modeled, how runtime conditions for trust are evaluated, and how the results of trust evaluation are consumed by systems/applications. In this paper, the authors propose an approach toward a trust management enabled identity metasystem that covers the analysis of trust requirements and the development of trust management system in a consistent manner. The proposed trust management architecture extends the existing identity metasystems by introducing computing components for carrying out typical trust management tasks associated with digital identities. The computing components in proposed architecture provide intelligent services for these tasks. The proposed high level architecture targets the automation of the development of the trust management layer for digital identities.
Insurance-Based Business Web Services Composition
Authors: Liu An , Wenyin Liu , Huang Liusheng , Li Qing , Xiao Mingjun
Published: April 2010

As more web services that implement core functions of business are delivered to customers with service charges, an open and competitive business web services market must be established. However, the qualities of these business web services are unknown without real experiences and users are unable to make decisions on service selection. To address this problem, the authors adopt insurance into business web services composition. In this paper, the authors propose three insurance models for business web services. Based on the insurance models, the authors propose an approach to compute the expected profit of composite business web services, which can be used as a criterion for business web services composition. The insurance of business web services and the criterion for business web services composition will help service competition and boost the development of more business web services and the software industry.
Security Constrained Economic Dispatch
Authors: Wang Lizhi , Kong Nan
Published: April 2010

The main objective of electric power dispatch is to provide electricity to the customers at low cost and high reliability. Transmission line failures constitute a great threat to the electric power system security. We use a Markov decision process (MDP) approach to model the sequential dispatch decision making process where demand level and transmission line availability change from hour to hour. The action space is defined by the electricity network constraints. Risk of the power system is the loss of transmission lines, which could cause involuntary load shedding or cascading failures. The objective of the model is to minimize the expected long-term discounted cost (including generation, load shedding, and cascading failure costs). Policy iteration can be used to solve this model. At the policy improvement step, a stochastic mixed integer linear program is solved to obtain the optimal action. We use a PJM network example to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.
Optimizing Cash Management for Large Scale Bank Operations
Authors: Frost Mark , Kennington Jeff , Madhavan Anusha
Published: April 2010

The Federal Reserve System (Fed) provides currency services to banks, including sorting currency into fit and non-fit bills and repackaging bills for redistribution. To reduce the cost of currency management operations, many banks make Fed deposits and withdrawals of the same denomination each week. In July 2007, the Fed introduced fees for making both deposits and withdrawals during a given Monday through Friday. Recognizing an opportunity, Fiserv Corporation initiated a project to optimize bank vault inventories across time and space. This article presents the integer programming model developed to assist Fiserv clients reduce the logistics cost component of cash management. The model is implemented in software using OPL. The underlying configuration is a time-space multi-commodity network with a fixed-charge cost structure. The authors report on a successful pilot study and present an efficient heuristic procedure that can be used to reduce computational solution times from hours to a few minutes.
Automatic Partitioning of Large Scale Simulation in Grid Computing for Run Time Reduction
Authors: Celik Nurcin , Mazhari Esfandyar , Canby John , Kazemi Omid , Sarfare Parag , Al-Otaibi Majed S. , Son Young-Jun
Published: April 2010

Simulating large-scale systems usually entails exhaustive computational powers and lengthy execution times. The goal of this research is to reduce execution time of large-scale simulations without sacrificing their accuracy by partitioning a monolithic model into multiple pieces automatically and executing them in a distributed computing environment. While this partitioning allows us to distribute required computational power to multiple computers, it creates a new challenge of synchronizing the partitioned models. In this article, a partitioning methodology based on a modified Prim’s algorithm is proposed to minimize the overall simulation execution time considering 1) internal computation in each of the partitioned models and 2) time synchronization between them. In addition, the authors seek to find the most advantageous number of partitioned models from the monolithic model by evaluating the tradeoff between reduced computations vs. increased time synchronization requirements. In this article, epoch- based synchronization is employed to synchronize logical times of the partitioned simulations, where an appropriate time interval is determined based on the off-line simulation analyses. A computational grid framework is employed for execution of the simulations partitioned by the proposed methodology. The experimental results reveal that the proposed approach reduces simulation execution time significantly while maintaining the accuracy as compared with the monolithic simulation execution approach.
Communication Network Characteristics of Open Source Communities
Authors: Hinds David , Lee Ronald M.
Published: April 2010

Empirical research has shown that social network structure is a critical success factor for various kinds of work groups. The authors extended this research to a new type of work group—the open source software project community—with the objective of exploring the role of communication networks within these intriguing projects. Using archival data from 143 open source project groups, the authors compiled six measures of social network structure and analyzed these in relation to four measures of group success. This study found that the social network structures of these project communities did not appear to be critical success factors at all, but rather they had no significant impact on success or their effect was opposite of that seen in prior studies of work groups. Various conjectures were suggested that might explain these results, offering opportunities for further research.
Motivation of Open Source Developers
Authors: Allyn Mark R. , Misra Ram B.
Published: April 2010

The motivational drivers of open source software developers have been researched by various investigators since about 2000. This work shows that developers are motivated by different extrinsic and intrinsic drivers, among them community aspirations, reciprocity and fairness, creative impulses, and monetary and career ambitions. There has been some work done in studying whether the profile of developer motivations is constant across open source projects or is sensitive to project organizational design. Among the many factors that could influence the mix of motives of OS developers is the license under which the work is performed. Licenses range in openness between those such as the GNU GPL that severely restrict the freedom of developers to mingle their OS code with proprietary code to those such as BSD licenses which allow programmers much greater latitude in integrating open source code with proprietary code. In addition to formal rules, meritocracies emerge to reward effort and performance, and also to direct, coordinate, and control other participants. The authors discuss these variables and how they may be related to motivations.
What's all the FOSS?
Authors: Huett Jason B. , Sharp Jason H. , Huett Kimberly C.
Published: April 2010

Philosophical, financial, practical, and pedagogical considerations have prompted educators to take a serious look at Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) as an alternative to proprietary software. To better understand the overall concept of FOSS, this article provides a brief history of FOSS as well as a summary of its definition, philosophy, and major areas of research, including strengths and limitations, diffusion in education and educational uses as well as a look at the opportunities, issues, and challenges associated with FOSS. In conclusion, the authors speculate how FOSS, along with advances in E-Learning and other emerging technologies, will positively shape our educational future.
On the Dynamic Mechanism of Developing Recycling Economy for Enterprises in China
Authors: Cheng Huiqiang , Du Xiang-Yun
Published: April 2010

Recycling economy, as a new type of development model and economic growth mode, will form a social resultant force in government promotion, enterprise entities and public participation. Thus, it is quite necessary to discuss on the economic behavior, development restriction and profit motive of the Government, enterprises and the public as the micro-economic entities. Especially in the process of current recycling economic development of China, the sticking point for further development and achievement of Chinese recycling economy lies so much on how to enhance the intrinsic dynamics of the enterprises for developing the recycling economy.
China-European Union Trade and Global Warming
Authors: Laike Yang , Chun Liao
Published: April 2010

The globalization of trade has numerous environmental implications. Trade results from a geographic separation of consumption and production. This creates a mechanism for consumers to shift environmental pollution to other countries. China is now the world third biggest trader and the second biggest trade partner of EU. China has also overtaken the U.S. as the world biggest CO2 emitter since 2005. As China’s biggest trade partner, EU has a large trade deficit with China, but on the other hand, CO2 emissions embodied in Sino-EU trade are much more unbalanced than the trade imbalance itself. EU avoided a huge amount of CO2 emissions through trading with China. This lowers CO2 emissions in the EU and facilitates EU meeting its CO2 emission reduction targets, but it creates additional environmental burdens for China. In this paper, the dual imbalances between China and the EU, its mechanism, and policy implications will be presented.
Triple Helix, Quadruple Helix and Quintuple Helix and How Do Knowledge, Innovation and the Environment Relate To Each Other?
Authors: Carayannis Elias G. , Campbell David F.J.
Published: April 2010

This article develops an inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary framework of analysis that relates knowledge, innovation and the environment (natural environments) to each other. For that purpose the five-helix structure model of the Quintuple Helix is being introduced. The Triple Helix model, designed by Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000), focuses on the relations of universities, industry and governments. The Quadruple Helix (Carayannis & Campbell, 2009) blends in the perspective of a media-based and culture-based public. The Quintuple Helix finally frames knowledge and innovation in the context of the environment (natural environments). Therefore, the Quintuple Helix can be interpreted as an approach in line with sustainable development and social ecology. “Eco-innovation” and “eco-entrepreneurship” should be processed in such a broader understanding of knowledge and innovation.
Model-Driven Engineering of Service-Oriented Systems
Authors: Gaševic Dragan , Hatala Marek
Published: April 2010

Service-oriented architectures (SOA) are an essential platform to provide infrastructures that support widespread collaboration between organizations. These service-oriented systems are a new context for software developers, who must now be equipped with new development methods and technologies. This new context has specific requirements, such as better collaboration and communication between business users and software engineering across organizations and increased agility of the development and maintenance processes to better respond to newly emerged or changed requirements. In this paper, the authors present a research agenda that looks at the use of a novel software engineering discipline—model-driven engineering. By switching the focus from low-level technical details to high-level problem-specific details, model-driven engineering addresses challenges in the development of service-oriented systems. This paper particularly discusses the approach to the development of service-oriented systems based on business process modeling, which integrate business vocabularies and rules in different stages of the development lifecycle. Here, model-driven engineering can provide many promising solutions.
Fundamental Patterns for Enterprise Integration Services
Authors: Aier Stephan , Winter Robert
Published: April 2010

Enterprise integration projects link or merge artifacts across many functions, processes and management levels in a company or government agency. In the absence of methods generic enough to cover the diverse range of enterprise integration projects and adaptable enough to support specific projects effectively, integration services promise to constitute a suitable “middle layer”. Since patterns and reference models could serve as such a middle layer, existing work in the fields of patterns in computer science and reference modeling in information systems engineering is analyzed. In a bottom-up manner, alignment, derivation, binding and merge are proposed as fundamental patterns for enterprise integration. Integration services are identified as integration tasks associated with these base patterns. Such integration services are clustered into enterprise integration patterns that serve as fragments for composing a context and project type specific enterprise integration project. Two case studies illustrate the concept and gain initial validation insights.
Information Stewardship in Cloud Computing
Authors: Pym David , Sadler Martin
Published: April 2010

Cloud computing ecosystems of service providers and consumers will become a significant part of the way information services are provided, allowing more agile coalitions, cost savings and improved service delivery. Existing approaches to information security do not readily extend to this complex multi-party world. The authors argue for a mathematical model-based framework for the analysis and management of information stewardship that makes explicit both the expectations and responsibilities of cloud stakeholders and the design assumptions of systems. Such a framework supports integrated economic, technology, and behavioural analyses, so providing a basis for a better understanding of the interplay between preferences, policies, system design, regulations, and Service Level Agreements. The authors suggest approaches to constructing economic, technology, and behavioural models and discuss the challenges in integrating them.
Servitized Enterprises for Distributed Collaborative Commerce
Authors: Demirkan Haluk , Spohrer James C.
Published: April 2010

Agility and innovation are essential for survival in today’s business world. Mergers and acquisitions, new regulations, rapidly changing technology, increasing competition and heightened customer expectations mean companies must become more responsive to changing demands. This move to agility through innovation can be possible with the service oriented solutions offered by Collaborative Servitized Enterprises (CSE). In this article, the authors demonstrate the architecture of a CSE and develop a multidisciplinary research program, incorporating a more science-based approach to the effective, scalable, secure, and knowledge-driven design and development of collaborative servitized enterprises, to address some of today’s commoditization lead issues. The authors’ primary objective is to lay the foundation of an integrated service culture, which is characterized by a cross-disciplinary attitude that fulfills customers’ needs. A secondary attitude within that culture is an awareness of the complexities associated with service tradeoff decision-making, requiring a careful balance of value, risk, cost, and quality of service.
An Idea Ontology for Innovation Management*
Authors: Riedl Christoph , May Norman , Finzen Jan , Stathel Stephan , Kaufman Viktor , Krcmar Helmut
Published: April 2010

Exchanging and analyzing ideas across different software tools and repositories is needed to implement the concepts of open innovation and holistic innovation management. However, a precise and formal definition for the concept of an idea is hard to obtain. In this paper, the authors introduce an ontology to represent ideas. This ontology provides a common language to foster interoperability between tools and to support the idea life cycle. Through the use of an ontology, additional benefits like semantic reasoning and automatic analysis become available. Our proposed ontology captures both a core idea concept that covers the ‘heart of the idea’ and further concepts to support collaborative idea development, including rating, discussing, tagging, and grouping ideas. This modular approach allows the idea ontology to be complemented by additional concepts like customized evaluation methods. The authors present a case study that demonstrates how the ontology can be used to achieve interoperability between innovation tools and to answer questions relevant for innovation managers that demonstrate the advantages of semantic reasoning.
A Comparison of Corpus-Based and Structural Methods on Approximation of Semantic Relatedness in Ontologies
Authors: Ruotsalo Tuukka , Mäkelä Eetu
Published: April 2010

In this paper, the authors compare the performance of corpus-based and structural approaches to determine semantic relatedness in ontologies. A large light-weight ontology and a news corpus are used as materials. The results show that structural measures proposed by Wu and Palmer, and Leacock and Chodorow have superior performance when cut-off values are used. The corpus-based method Latent Semantic Analysis is found more accurate on specific rank levels. In further investigation, the approximation of structural measures and Latent Semantic Analysis show a low level of overlap and the methods are found to approximate different types of relations. The results suggest that a combination of corpus-based methods and structural methods should be used and appropriate cut-off values should be selected according to the intended use case.
Enhancing Folksonomy-Based Content Retrieval with Semantic Web Technology
Authors: Ungrangsi Rachanee , Anutariya Chutiporn , Wuwongse Vilas
Published: April 2010

While Flickr, a widely-known photo sharing system, allows users to describe their own photos with tags (aka. folksonomy tags) for indexing purposes, its tag-based photo retrieval function is severely hampered by the inherent nature of folksonomy tags. This paper presents SemFlickr, an application which enhances the search in Flickr with its semantic query suggestion feature. SemFlickr employs SQORE, an ontology retrieval system, to retrieve relevant ontologies from the Semantic Web and then derives query term suggestions from those ontologies. To ensure that the highly related photos will appear at the top of the results, SemFlickr takes the ontological relations among the given query terms to assign tag scores and then generates its ranked results. Experimental outcomes are encouraging and reveal a number of useful insights for developing applications that integrate the Semantic Web and Web 2.0 together.
An Ontology-Based, Cross-Application Context Modeling and Management Service
Authors: Mitschick Annett , Pietschmann Stefan , Meißner Klaus
Published: April 2010

Context awareness is a key issue for applications within heterogeneous and networked environments. In terms of efficiency and reusability, such applications need to be separated from the problems of context gathering and modeling, but should instead profit from and contribute to cross-application context information. For this purpose, an ontology-based, cross-application context modeling and management service is required to provide appropriate support for the variety of conceivable application scenarios. Although there have been numerous approaches dealing with application-independent context management, none of them sufficiently supports the vision of cross-application context handling. Therefore, this paper presents CroCo, an ontology-based context management service that allows for cross-application context gathering, modeling, and provision. The authors successfully verified and tested the application independency and practicability of this novel concept within three different projects with disparate application scenarios.
The Emerging Story of the Machine
Authors: Carter Philip D.
Published: April 2010

In this paper, the author is concerned with “stories” society makes about “the machine”. A story that holds consensual elements is of great interest if one accepts the premise that story in itself has a strong influence on what we seek to create. Given that many popular stories present nightmare scenarios, a self-fulfilling prophesy would not want to be created. The psychodramatic method was used to produce several unscripted enactments of people’s feelings, thoughts and experiences concerning the machine. Certain elements of setting, character, metaphor and action were then drawn from the enactments and formed into a story.
Adoption Barriers in a High-Risk Agricultural Environment
Authors: Veil Shari R.
Published: April 2010

To lessen the threat of an intentional or naturally occurring livestock disease, the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service of the United States Department of Agriculture introduced the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), encouraging the use of innovative tools such as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to track cattle across the country. In this study, the author examines the barriers to adoption of NAIS and RFID technology as risk-reduction tools. Diffusion of innovation literature is used to analyze a case study of a state livestock association advocating the rejection of NAIS and RFID technology. Implications for the diffusion of risk reduction tools are provided.
Exploring the Player Flow Experience in E-Game Playing
Authors: Hsu Chin-Lung
Published: April 2010

Flow theory has been widely applied in the context of information technology and is useful in understanding users’ behavior; however, few studies empirically examine what factors influence players’ flow, and what the facets and consequences of flow are in the context of electronic games (e-games). In this study, the author reviews previous flow-related literature to develop the proposed model to explore these research questions. The proposed model is empirically evaluated using survey data collected from 277 users responding about their perception of e-game. Results of this empirical study show that perceived ease of use, immediate feedback, skill and challenge are antecedents of flow, while enjoyment is the most salient facet of flow. The results provide further insights into e-game design and development.
The Role of Virtual Communities in the Customization of e-Services
Authors: Karakostas Bill , Kardaras Dimitris , Zichová Adéla
Published: April 2010

Virtual communities are groups of people with similar interests who meet online and together act as a learning environment, place for social support, or as bodies for influencing public opinion. In this paper, the authors identify characteristics of a virtual community that influence its members to customize e- services provided to or received by the virtual community. The authors propose a theoretical framework of factors influencing service customization in a virtual community that has been validated with two case studies conducted in health-focused virtual communities. The findings confirm that the quality of the learning environment, social support, and the virtual communityâ€™s ability to influence public opinion, positively contribute to the perceived usefulness and active participation in the community by its members. In turn, these factors were found to have a positive influence on customization of e-services by the members, based on the communityâ€™s suggestion. The research also suggests several areas of focus to enhance e-service customization through virtual communities.
Team Identification, Team Performance and Leader-Member Exchange Relationships in Virtual Groups
Authors: Eveleth Daniel M. , Eveleth Alex B.
Published: April 2010

While previous research has identified group identification as an important factor in affecting relevant outcomes (e.g., satisfaction, turnover, commitment) in face-to face environments, this paper provides initial evidence to support the proposition that group identification also matters in virtual environments. In particular, the authors found that team membersâ€™ perceptions of the leader-member exchange relationship and the teamâ€™s past performance are related to individualsâ€™ identification with the virtual team and that identification affects satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Individuals who perceive leader-member exchange as high (e.g., the leader displays a willingness to help the team member solve problems and the leader recognizes the memberâ€™s potential) and who report that their teams perform well had stronger identification with the team. Individuals who reported strong identification with their team were more satisfied with the team and had greater intentions to perform positive behaviors in the future.
The Impact of Social Networking Websites on the Education of Youth
Authors: Kuppuswamy Sunitha , Narayan P. B. Shankar
Published: April 2010

Social networking websites like Orkut, Facebook, Myspace and Youtube are becoming more and more popular and has become part of daily life for an increasing number of people. Because of their features, young people are attracted to social networking sites. In this paper, the authors explore the impact of social networking sites on the education of youth. The study argues that these social networking websites distract students from their studies, but these websites can be useful for education based on sound pedagogical principles and proper supervision by the teachers. Moreover, the research concludes that social networking websites have both positive as well as negative impact on the education of youth, depending on oneâ€™s interest to use it in a positive manner for his or her education and vice versa.
Cognitive Apprenticeship in an Online Research Lab for Graduate Students in Psychology
Authors: Cawthon Stephanie W. , Harris Alycia , Jones Robin
Published: April 2010

In this paper, the authors present a qualitative study of student perceptions of a cognitive apprenticeship in an Online Research Lab (Lab). The Lab’s purpose was to provide psychology graduate students in an online university with hands-on experience in the full trajectory of a research project. Interview data were analyzed using the four categories of the Cognitive Apprenticeship theoretical framework: Content, Method, Sequencing, and Sociology. When discussing their content of the course, students focused on the challenges of tasks that went beyond their previous coursework and knowledge of statistics. Methodologically, students focused on the multiple ways course members communicated with one another. The sequence of the course, both internally as a research project and externally as part of the graduate program, were both important aspects of the experience. From a sociological perspective, social loafing, or non-responsiveness from colleagues, had a negative impact. Instructors seeking to develop online research opportunities for students must consider multiple modes of communication, provide ongoing narratives of the study context, and encourage students to use each other as well as the instructor for support.
A Knowledge Management Process in Communities of Practice of Engineering Based on the SECI Model for Knowledge
Authors: Sarirete Akila , Chikh Azeddine
Published: April 2010

With the vast movement toward promoting and developing models, practices, and technological environments in the engineering domain, a need exists to facilitate communication, collaboration, and coordination among its actors. Communities of Practice (CoPs) represent the natural and logical solution to answer these needs. In this paper, the authors propose a knowledge management process to exploit tacit and explicit knowledge in the engineering domain within the framework of a CoP of engineering. The approach used in this work introduces new elements in the Nonaka’s SECI model for knowledge creation. To validate the proposed process, a qualitative case study has been conducted on two CoPs, “CPsquare” and “The Cisco Learning Network”. It has been shown that CoPs and social learning impact learning as well as knowledge sharing. The use of web technologies and socio-technical approach in the management of knowledge is of high importance.
Reifying, Participating and Learning
Authors: Daele Amaury
Published: April 2010

This paper presents observations and analysis of an activity of reification of professional practices within a community of practice. A case is examined of a distance community of tutors using a semantic Wiki for formalising their practices and a tool for storing and classifying documents. On the basis of the instrumental genesis theory, the author highlights the process of appropriation of the tools by the community of practice. This community participated in the development and conception of uses for the tools through a research and development project based on participatory design. This appropriation process, even if it did not occur to the expected extent, did nonetheless allow the community’s members to develop their representations regarding the reification of their practices and, gradually, to elaborate broader uses of the tools.
Web Services Compositions Modelling and Choreographies Analysis
Authors: Rouached Mohsen , Fdhila Walid , Godart Claude
Published: April 2010

In Rouached et al. (2006) and Rouached and Godart (2007) the authors described the semantics of WSBPEL by way of mapping each of the WSBPEL (Arkin et al., 2004) constructs to the EC algebra and building a model of the process behaviour. With these mapping rules, the authors describe a modelling approach of a process defined for a single Web service composition. However, this modelling is limited to a local view and can only be used to model the behaviour of a single process. The authors further the semantic mapping to include Web service composition interactions through modelling Web service conversations and their choreography. This paper elaborates the models to support a view of interacting Web service compositions extending the mapping from WSBPEL to EC, and including Web service interfaces (WSDL) for use in modelling between services. The verification and validation techniques are also exposed while automated induction-based theorem prover is used as verification back-end.
Soil development rates from an optically stimulated luminescence-dated beach ridge sequence in Northern Jutland, Denmark
Authors: Nielsen A H , Elberling B. , Pejrup M.
Published: April 2010

Rates of podzolic soil development in sandy, temperate soils were quantified based on 14 soil pedons with five substrata from a beach ridge chronosequence near Jerup, Northern Denmark (57°N). Soil pH, organic carbon (C) as well as extractable iron (Fe) and aluminium (Al) were measured. The age of each pedon and soil stratum was measured by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating and used to estimate soil development rates. Soils were divided into five groups from Typic Haplorthods and Entic Alorthods with a mean OSL age of 2965 ± 294 yr to Typic Quartzipsamments with a mean OSL age of 22 ± 11 yr. Acidification rates during the first 200 yr were ~1.9 pH units per 100 yr in the A horizons and C-sequestration rates were ~25 g C m-2 yr-1 (excluding litter accumulation). After ~1500 yr, the mineral soil C stocks stabilised around 13.0 ± 2.0 kg C m-2. Translocation rates of Al into B horizons were ~0.3 kg Al m-2 per 1000 yr, while translocation rates for Fe were scattered. Our study illustrates the potential of OSL dating in chronosequence studies to quantify soil development rates.Key words: Soil development rates, chronosequence, OSL-dating, C-sequestration rates and translocation rates
Phosphorus accumulation and leaching in two irrigated soils with incremental rates of cattle manure
Authors: Olson B M , Bremer E. , McKenzie R H , Bennett D R
Published: April 2010

The risk of P leaching increases on land that receives manure at rates sufficient to meet crop N requirements, but calcareous subsoils may minimize P loss due to P adsorption. An 8-yr field experiment was conducted to determine the effects of different rates of manure on the accumulation and leaching of soil P in a coarse-textured (CT) soil and a medium-textured (MT) soil under typical irrigation management in southern Alberta. Treatments included a non-manured control and four rates of cattle (Bos taurus) manure (20, 40, 60, and 120 Mg ha-1 yr-1, wet-weight basis). In manured treatments, P addition ranged from about 80 to 450 kg P ha-1 yr-1, while P removal by annual cereal silage crops ranged from 15 to 22 kg P ha-1 yr-1. High soil test P (STP) concentrations occurred to a depth of 0.6 m at the CT site and 0.3 m at the MT site. Increase in STP concentration to 0.6 m was equivalent to 43% of net P input, and increase in total soil P was equivalent to 78% of net P input. Non-recovery of net P input suggests that P loss by leaching occurred at these sites and that leaching was more prevalent at the CT site. These calcareous soils have considerable potential to hold surplus P, but may still allow P leaching.Key words: Manure, phosphorus dynamics, soil test phosphorus, phosphorus leaching, soil texture
Legume and gramineous crop residues stimulate distinct soil bacterial populations during early decomposition stages
Authors: Diouf M. , Baudoin E. , Dieng L. , Assigbetsé K. , Brauman A.
Published: April 2010

This study characterized the genetic structure of the active soil bacterial populations involved in the decomposition of maize and soybean residues over 3 d. Significant compositional differences between the total bacterial community and its active component were observed that were residue specific, suggesting that residue management should be further evaluated as a driver of soil C cycle through selection of bacterial populations.Key words: 16S rRNA DGGE, active bacterial community, organic matter, crop residue
Capillary pressure-dependent anisotropy of layered unsaturated soils
Authors: Zhu J. , Sun D.
Published: April 2010

This paper presents an approach based on a conceptualization of combining the neural network based pedo-transfer function (PTF) results with the thin layer concept to explore capillary-pressure-dependent anisotropy in relation to soil texture and soil bulk density. The effects of capillary pressure (or saturation degree) on the hydraulic conductivity anisotropy of unsaturated soils are still poorly understood. The main objective is to examine how anisotropy characteristics are related to the relationships between hydraulic parameters and the basic soil attributes such as texture and bulk density. The hydraulic parameters are correlated with the texture and bulk density based on the pedo-transfer function (PTF) results. It is demonstrated that non-monotonic behavior of the unsaturated soil anisotropy in relation to the capillary pressure is only observed when the saturated hydraulic conductivity and the shape parameter are both related to the particle diameter. Therefore, it is suggested that this behavior is mainly due to the coupled dependence of the layer saturated hydraulic conductivities and the shape factors on the texture and bulk density. The results illustrate that the inter-relationships of soil texture, bulk density, and hydraulic properties may produce vastly different characteristics of anisotropic unsaturated soils.Key words: Anisotropy, unsaturated soils, capillary pressure-dependent
Soil test phosphorus and nitrate adjacent to artificial and natural cattle watering sites in southern Alberta
Authors: Miller J J , Curtis T W , Bremer E. , Chanasyk D S , Willms W D
Published: April 2010

Off-stream watering troughs may reduce surface water pollution by keeping nutrients away from natural water bodies, but may increase nutrient contaminant of groundwater. The objective of this study was to determine to what extent off-stream watering troughs active for 2 to 7 yr caused enrichment and leaching of soil test P (STP) and KCl-extractable NO3-N. The study was conducted in the Lower Little Bow (LLB) River watershed of southern Alberta, Canada. Soil samples were obtained at three recently installed off-stream watering troughs, four active cattle watering sites adjacent to the LLB River, and at two sites along a fenced reach of the river with no cattle access. At each location, samples were obtained along four 100-m transects. Surface (0-5 cm) soil immediately adjacent to the LLB River was not enriched in STP or NO3-N, which was attributed to flushing of nutrients during periods of high flow. Surface soil at distances ≤ 5 m from the three water troughs was approximately three times higher in STP than surface soil obtained at distances ≥10 m and was seven times higher in NO3-N. Subsurface soil layers adjacent (3 m distance) to the three water troughs were not enriched in STP compared with background levels (100 m distance). The subsurface soil adjacent (3 m) to the longest active watering trough was enriched in NO3-N to the 60 cm depth compared with background levels (100 m). Greater nutrient enrichment at the off-stream watering troughs than at the cattle watering sites adjacent to the river suggested that this beneficial management practice (BMP) was effective in shifting nutrient distribution away from the river. Key words: Pasture, nutrient leaching, nitrate, best management practices
Development and evaluation of a Canadian agricultural ecodistrict climate database
Authors: Xu H. , De Jong R. , Gameda S. , Qian B.
Published: April 2010

Spatially representative climate data are required input in various agricultural and environmental modelling studies. An agricultural ecodistrict climate database for Canada was developed from climate station data using a spatial interpolation procedure. This database includes daily maximum and minimum air temperatures, precipitation and incoming global solar radiation, which are necessary inputs for many agricultural modelling studies. The spatial interpolation procedure combines inverse distance squared weighting with the nearest neighbour approach. Cross-validation was performed to evaluate the accuracy of the interpolation procedure. In addition to some common error measurements, such as mean biased error and root mean square error, empirical probability distributions and accurate rates of precipitation occurrence were also examined. Results show that the magnitude of errors for this database was similar to those in other studies that used similar or different interpolation procedures. The average root mean square error (RMSE) was 1.7°C, 2.2°C and 3.8 mm for daily maximum and minimum temperature, and precipitation, respectively. The RMSE for solar radiation varied from 16 to 19% of the climate normal during April through September and from 21 to 28% of the climate normal during the remainder of the year.Key words: Maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, ecodistrict, interpolation, cross validation
Air Pollution Control Methods
Authors: Cooper C. David
Published: April 2010

Air pollution is defined as the presence in the outdoor atmosphere (ambient air) of one or more contaminants in such quantities and for such duration as to be harmful or injurious to human health or welfare, animal or plant life, or property, or may unreasonably interfere with the enjoyment of life or property. It is useful to study the causes and sources of the various air pollutants, as well as their physical and chemical characteristics and these are discussed. There are many different air pollutants, all with differing physical and chemical characteristics, as well as a vast number and variety of air pollution sources. Therefore, a good understanding of the pollutants and their sources is necessary before a particular control technology can be selected for best application to any particular situation.

Some of the most common pollutants have been well known for decades, and continue to be emitted at rates exceeding millions of tons per year (in the United States alone). These “traditional” air pollutants include particulate matter (PM), sulfur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and carbon monoxide (CO). Another major pollutant is ground‐level ozone (O3). Ozone is not emitted directly; rather it is formed by photochemical reactions in the atmosphere between NOxand VOCs. Other important pollutants include lead (as leaded gasoline was phased out in the 1980s, the U.S. emissions of lead into the atmosphere dropped by 95% or more), hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), including lead, mercury, formaldehyde, benzene, and many others, several ozone‐depleting compounds (such as chlorofluorocarbons), and greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). A brief review of the pollutants is presented here. Air pollution regulations are discussed. Sampling and control of air pollution is detailed. This includes information on the control of gaseous emissions, particulate matter emissions and mobile source emissions. Methods and sampling for control of odors is included.
Semiconductors, Amorphous
Authors: Madan Arun
Published: April 2010

Amorphous hydrogenated silicon (a‐Si:H)‐based semiconductors dominate many application areas, such as flat‐panel liquid crystal displays, high electrophotography, and photovoltaics. The uniqueness of amorphous silicon from a basic physics point of view is discussed with respect to its crystalline counterpart. The growth mechanism ofa‐Si:H using the plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technique and the interrelationship between some deposition parameters and the resulting optoelectronic properties of the film are outlined. This discussion is expanded to the use of these materials in various important applications and the primary companies involved in their manufacture.