bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Aphasic Communities of Learning on the Web
Authors: Spaniol Marc , Klamma Ralf , Springer Luise , Jarke Matthias
Published: February 2011

This article presents the case study of a cooperative Web-learning environment — SOCRATES — to foster barrier-free learning on the Web. While the growth of the Internet was exponential in the last years, still many communities don’t benefit from Web-learning technology due to improper tools and constricted communication processes. These problems increase when developing applications for communities of people with special needs. SOCRATES supports a community of learning comprising patients suffering from aphasia (aphasics), therapists, researchers on linguistics, and system developers. Aphasics can improve their conversation skills with a specially designed talk/chat tool, while therapists and linguistic researchers can monitor conversations from automatically generated transcripts. Aphasics in remote areas using SOCRATES are now able to communicate freely among each other without being afraid that they might get lost in rapid conversation in a distributed privacy protecting virtual community.
Web-Based Handwriting Education with Animated Virtual Teacher
Authors: Leung Howard , Komura Taku
Published: February 2011

This article introduces our Web-based handwriting education system developed with 3D computer graphics and pen computing technologies. Traditionally, in teaching handwriting, the teacher writes a character on the blackboard, and then students try to follow the teacher in order to write the same character. The teacher can check whether a student’s handwriting is spatially correct by looking at its shape, but the teacher is not able to verify if the student is writing in the correct stroke order with the correct number of strokes. As a result, we design a Web-based handwriting education system. With our proposed system, students can stay at home to do the exercises for learning the handwriting of characters. A student’s handwriting can be captured in digital format with the information in both temporal and spatial domain, and the results can be sent to the teacher for evaluation. In addition, we propose to animate a virtual teacher on the student’s terminal for demonstrating the handwriting of the characters to give students a sense of presence.
A Web-Based Tutor for Java
Authors: Emurian Henry H.
Published: February 2011

Students in a graduate class and an undergraduate class in Information Systems completed a Web-based programmed instruction tutor that taught a simple Java applet as the first technical training exercise in a computer programming course. The tutor is a competency-based instructional system for individualized distance learning. When a student completes the tutor, the student has achieved a targeted level of understanding the code and has written the code correctly from memory. Before and after using the tutor in the present study, students completed a software self-efficacy questionnaire and a test of the application of general Java principles (far transfer of learning). After completing the tutor, students in both classes showed increases in software self-efficacy and in correct answers on the test of general principles. These findings contribute to the stream of formative evaluations of the tutoring system. They show the capacity of the Web-based tutor to generate meaningful learning (i.e., understanding of concepts) at the level of the individual student.
A Virtual Laboratory for Digital Signal Processing
Authors: Dow Chyi-Ren , Li Yi-Hsun , Bai Jin-Yu
Published: February 2011

This work designs and implements a virtual digital signal processing laboratory, VDSPL. VDSPL consists of four parts: mobile agent execution environments, mobile agents, DSP development software, and DSP experimental platforms. The network capability of VDSPL is created by using mobile agent and wrapper techniques without modifying the source code of the original programs. VDSPL provides human-human and human-computer interaction for students and teachers, and it also can lighten the teacher’s load, increase the learning result of students, and improve the usage of network bandwidth. A prototype of VDSPL has been implemented by using the IBM Aglet system and Java Native Interface for DSP experimental platforms. Also, experimental results demonstrate that our system has received many positive feedbacks from both students and teachers.
Distance Learning in Hong Kong
Authors: Leung Elvis Wai Chung , Li Qing
Published: February 2011

In response to the government’s push toward a “knowledge-based economy society”, the development and applications of e-learning technologies have become more and more popular in Hong Kong. E-learning provides a student-centered learning environment and delivers knowledge on-demand with up-to-the-minute information. However, a high student-dropout rate and low satisfaction with the learning processes remain to be the drawbacks currently. In this paper, we review several universities’ initiatives in launching e-learning programs and/or conducting projects in this direction. We also look at some of the trendy directions in addressing the current problems of existing e-learning systems.
An Agent-Based Framework for Personalized Learning in Continuing Professional Development
Authors: Fok Apple W.P. , Ip Horace H.S.
Published: February 2011

In order to stay competent and update in the fast changing landscape of technological advances, professionals nowadays are expected to continuously upgrade themselves of professional knowledge and expertise in their respective fields. Many professional organizations stipulate that their members should take part in a minimum number of hours or training units of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities in order to stay qualified for their membership. The requirements of CPD for modern day professionals who are very much mobile and work within tight schedules point to the need of an asynchronous learning environment that provides a learner-centered approach and offers learners greater flexibility and choices. In this article we argue that “Personalization Learning” (PL) that exploits the abundance of information and e-learning materials on the Web can be harnessed effectively to serve the diversity of CPD training needs. Moreover, we specialize in the concept of PL to Personalized CPD Learning and highlight the emerging technologies that are relevant to the development of personalized learning for CPD. We further proposed an agent-based architectural and conceptual framework for a Personalized CPD Learning Portal (Personalized-CPD) which integrates these technologies to provide supportive functions for professionals to conduct CPD activities in a personalized manner.
Online Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Software Training Through the Behavioral Modeling Approach
Authors: Chen Charlie C. , Shaw R. S.
Published: February 2011

The continued and increasing use of online training raises the question of whether the most effective training methods applied in live instruction will carry over to different online environments in the long run. Behavior Modeling (BM) approach – teaching through demonstration — has been proven as the most effective approach in a face-to-face (F2F) environment. A quasi-experiment was conducted with 96 undergraduate students who were taking a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 course in a university in Taiwan. The BM approach was employed in three learning environments— F2F, online synchronous and online asynchronous classes. The results were compared to see which produced the best performance, as measured by knowledge near-transfer and knowledge far-transfer effectiveness. Overall satisfaction with training was also measured. The results of the experiment indicate that during a long duration of training no significant difference in learning outcomes could be detected across the three learning environments.
A SCORM Thin Client Architecture for E-Learning Systems Based on Web Services
Authors: Casella Giovanni , Costagliola Gennaro , Ferrucci Filomena , Polese Giuseppe , Scanniello Giuseppe
Published: February 2011

In this paper we propose an architecture of e-learning systems characterized by the use of Web services and a suitable middleware component. These technical infrastructures allow us to extend the system with new services as well as to integrate and reuse heterogeneous software e-learning components. Moreover, they let us better support the “anytime and anywhere” learning paradigm. As a matter of fact, the proposal provides an implementation of the run-time environment suggested in the sharable content object reference model (SCORM) to trace learning processes, which is also suitable for mobile learning.
Expanding Distance Education in the Spatial Sciences Through Virtual Learning Entities and a Virtual GIS Computer Laboratory
Authors: Grunwald S. , Ramasundaram V. , Bruland G.L. , Jesseman D.K.
Published: February 2011

In this article we describe the implementation of an emerging virtual learning environment to teach GIS and spatial sciences to distance education graduate students. We discuss the benefits and constraints of our mixed architecture with the main focus on the innovative hybrid architecture of the virtual GIS computer laboratory. Criteria that were used to develop the virtual learning environment included: (1) Facilitating student-instructor, student-computer, and student-student interactivity using a mix of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools; (2) Developing a liberal online learning environment in which students have access to a suite of passive and active multi-media tools; and (3) Allowing student access to a mixed Web-facilitated/hybrid architecture that stimulates their cognitive geographic skills and provides hands-on experience in using GIS.
Refining the Results of Automatic E-Textbook Construction by Clustering
Authors: Chen Jing , Li Qing , Feng Ling
Published: February 2011

The abundance of knowledge-rich information on the World Wide Web makes compiling an online e-textbook both possible and necessary. In our previous work, we proposed an approach to automatically generate an e-textbook by mining the ranked lists of the search engine. However, the performance of the approach was degraded by Web pages that were relevant but not actually discussing the desired concept. In this article, we extend the previous work by applying a clustering approach before the mining process. The clustering approach serves as a post-processing stage to the original results retrieved by the search engine, and aims to reach an optimum state in which all Web pages assigned to a concept are discussing that exact concept.
Adaptive Animation of Human Motion for E-Learning Applications
Authors: Li Frederick W.B. , Lau Rynson W.H , Komura Taku , Wang Meng , Siu Becky
Published: February 2011

Human motion animation has been one of the major research topics in the field of computer graphics for decades. Techniques developed in this area help present human motions in various applications. This is crucial for enhancing the realism as well as promoting the user interest in the applications. To carry this merit to e-learning applications, we have developed efficient techniques for delivering human motion information over the Internet to collaborating e-learning users and revealing the motion information in the client machines with different rendering capability. Our method offers a mechanism to extract human motion data at various levels of detail (LoD). We also propose a set of importance factors to allow an e-learning system to determine the LoD of the human motion for rendering as well as transmission, according to the importance of the motion and the available network bandwidth. At the end of the paper, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the new method with some experimental results.
How Did They Study at a Distance? Experiences of IGNOU Graduates
Authors: Srivastava Manjulika , Reddy Venugopal
Published: February 2011

The question why some learners successfully study through distance mode and others do not is increasingly becoming important as open and distance learning (ODL) has come to occupy a prominent place in providing higher education to large segments of the population in India. With barely 1112 students studying through distance mode in 1962, the number has crossed 2.8 million in 2006. This article presents the findings of an empirical research study conducted to investigate the study habits of successful distance learners of the India Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). Every year, nearly 70,000-80,000 pass out of IGNOU. What strategies were adopted by these diverse groups, what media they utilized, and what modes of support they prefered are some of the major issues addressed in this study.
Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses
Authors: Hwang Gwo-Jen , Cheng Hsiang , Chu Carol H.C. , Tseng Judy C.R. , Hwang Gwo-Haur
Published: February 2011

In the past decades, English learning has received lots of attention all over the world, especially for those who are not native English speakers. Various English learning and testing systems have been developed on the Internet. Nevertheless, most existing English testing systems represent the learning status of a student by assigning that student with a score or grade. This approach makes the student aware of his/her learning status through the score or grade, but the student might be unable to improve his/her learning status without further guidance. In this paper, an intelligent English tense learning and diagnostic system is proposed, which is able to identify student learning problems on English verb tenses and to provide personalized learning suggestions in accordance with each student’s learning portfolio. Experimental results on hundreds of college students have depicted the superiority of the novel approach.
Inhabited Virtual Learning Worlds and Impacts on Learning Behaviors in Young School Learners
Authors: Lin Chi-Syan , Chou C. Candace , Kuo Ming-Shiou
Published: February 2011

The paper outlines a new paradigm and its underlying rationales for implementing networked learning environments that is emerging from new technologies such as multi-user platform, virtual worlds, virtual learning community, and intelligent agents. The proposed paradigm of the networked learning environments is described as inhabited virtual learning worlds (IVLW), which is a shared learning space in 3-D format and populated with avatars that are the representations of learners who are geographically dispersed around the world. The virtual learning worlds are also composed of objects such as intelligent agents and learning materials. A pilot system is created based on the discussed rationales of inhabited virtual learning worlds. A preliminary empirical study focusing on the selected learning behaviors in young learners also has been conducted with the pilot system. The results of the empirical study and suggestions for enhancing the pilot system are discussed in the closing section of the article.
WEBCAP
Authors: Habib Sami , Safa Maytham
Published: February 2011

In many web applications, such as the distance learning, the frequency of refreshing multimedia web documents places a heavy burden on the WWW resources. Moreover, the updated web documents may encounter inordinate delays, which make it difficult to retrieve web documents in time. Here, we present an Internet tool called WEBCAP that can schedule the retrieval of multimedia web documents in time while considering the workloads on the WWW resources by applying capacity planning techniques. We have modeled a multimedia web document as a 4-level hierarchy (object, operation, timing, and precedence.) The transformations between levels are performed automatically, followed by the application of Bellman-Ford’s algorithm on the precedence graph to schedule all operations (fetch, transmit, process, and render) while satisfying the in time retrieval and all workload resources constraints. Our results demonstrate how effective WEBCAP is in scheduling the refreshing of multimedia web documents.
A Computer-Assisted Approach to Conducting Cooperative Learning Process
Authors: Tsai Pei-Jin , Hwang Gwo-Jen , Tseng Judy C.R. , Hwang Gwo-Haur
Published: February 2011

Cooperative learning has been proven to be helpful in enhancing the learning performance of students. The goal of a cooperative learning group is to maximize all members’ learning, which is accomplished via promoting each other’s success, through assisting, sharing, mentoring, explaining, and encouragement. To achieve the goal of cooperative learning, it is very important to organize well-structured cooperative learning groups, in which all group members have the ability to help each other during the learning process. In this article, a concept-based approach is proposed to organize cooperative learning groups, such that, for a given course each concept is precisely understood by at least one of the students in each group. An experiment on a computer science course has been conducted in order to evaluate the efficacy of this new approach. From the experimental results, we conclude that the novel approach is helpful in enhancing student learning efficacy.
Multipoint Multimedia Conferencing System with Group Awareness Support and Remote Management
Authors: Osawa Noritaka , Asai Kikuo
Published: February 2011

A multipoint, multimedia conferencing system called FocusShare is described that uses IPv6/IPv4 multicasting for real-time collaboration, enabling video, audio, and group awareness information to be shared. Multiple telepointers provide group awareness information and make it easy to share attention and intention. In addition to pointing with the telepointers, users can add graphical annotations to video streams and share them with one another. The system also supports attentionsharing using video processing techniques. FocusShare is a modularly designed suite consisting of several simple tools, along with tools for remotely controlling them. The modular design enables the system to be easily adapted to various situations entailing different numbers of displays with different resolutions at multiple sites. The remote control tools enable the chairperson or conference organizer to simultaneously change the settings for a set of tools distributed at multiple sites. Evaluation showed that the implemented attention-sharing techniques are useful; FocusShare was more positively evaluated than conventional video conferencing.
Toward Development of Distance Learning Environment in the Grid
Authors: Li Kuan-Ching , Tsai Yin-Te , Tsai Chuan-Ko
Published: February 2011

In recent years, with the rapid development of communication and network technologies, distance learning has been popularized and it became one of the most well-known teaching methods, due to its practicability. Over the Internet, learners are free to access new knowledge without restrictions on time or location. However, current distance learning systems still present restrictions, such as support to interconnection of learning systems available in scalable, open, dynamic, and heterogeneous environments. In this chapter, we introduce a distance learning platform based on grid technology to support learning in distributed environments, where open source and freely available learning systems can share and exchange their learning and training contents. We have envisioned such distance learning platform in heterogeneous environment using grid technology. A prototype is designed and implemented, to demonstrate its effectiveness and friendly interaction between learner and learner resources used.
An Understanding Information Management System for a Real-Time Interactive Distance Education Environment
Authors: He Aiguo
Published: February 2011

A real-time interactive distance lecture is a joint work that should be accomplished by the effort of the lecturer and his students in remote sites. It is important for the lecturer to get understanding information from the students which cannot be efficiently collected by only using video/audio channels between the lecturer and the students. This article proposes RIDEE-UIM (Understanding Information Management system for Real-time Interactive Distance Education Environment) for collecting understanding information from each participant to the lecturer during real time distance education activities. The usefulness of RIDEE-UIM has been confirmed by experiments. This article describes the basic idea, implementation and experiments of RIDEE-UIM.
A Systematic Framework of Virtual Laboratories Using Mobile Agent and Design Pattern Technologies
Authors: Li Yi-Hsung , Dow Chyi-Ren , Lin Cheng-Min , Chen Sheng-Chang , Hsu Fu-Wei
Published: February 2011

Innovations in network and information technology have transformed traditional classroom lectures into new approaches that have given universities the opportunity to create a virtual laboratory. However, there is no systematic framework in existing approaches for the development of virtual laboratories. Further, developing a virtual laboratory from scratch is time consuming and costly. This article proposes a systematic framework to classify the activities between learners and instructors in the laboratory and to design the mobile agent-based virtual laboratory by wrapping the existing CAI tools without knowing the source code. Using the existing CAI tools can reduce the time and cost in constructing a virtual laboratory. The framework consists of three parts: mobile agent execution environment, mobile agent and learning platform. Moreover, various mobile agent design patterns are provided for users to design and implement virtual laboratories. This framework of patterns could make mobile agent based virtual laboratories easier to design and understand. The authors’ framework has the following merits: adaptability, cost-effectiveness and collaboration. Their framework has demonstrated its feasibility in several applications, including digital circuit, language learning and digital signal processing laboratories.
E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School
Authors: Nishimura Shoji , Scott Douglass J. , Kato Shogo
Published: February 2011

In 2003, the School of Human Sciences, Waseda University, Japan, established the e-School, Japan’s first complete undergraduate correspondence courses enabling students to acquire their bachelor degrees solely through e-learning. Supported by the widespread availability of high-speed Internet connections, it has become possible to transmit videotaped lectures with an image quality close to that of television, not only throughout Japan, but also throughout the world at affordable rates. In addition, the lecture contents are transmitted in an image quality that allows students to easily read what is written on the blackboard. Waseda’s e-School has many features that contribute to its success. Among these are the coupling of online and on-campus courses enhancing the educational experience of all students. In addition, online courses are relatively small—most courses are capped at 30 students—and new courses are created to respond to students’ needs and interests. This article outlines the e-School’s curriculum, management structure, and system and reports on the current status of the courses by analyzing the results of a questionnaire survey conducted after one year from their establishment and the state of credits registered and earned by students.
A New Diagnostic Mechanism of Instruction
Authors: Hsu Pi-Shan , Chang Te-Jeng , Wu Ming-Hsiung
Published: February 2011

The level of learners’ expertise has been used as a metric and diagnostic mechanism of instruction. This metric influences mental effort directly according to the applications of cognitive load theory. Cognitive efficiency, an optimal measurement technique of expertise, was developed by Kalyuga and Sweller to replace instructional efficiency in e-learning environment for dynamically adapting instruction. But mental effort, a factor of cognitive efficiency, is assessed by a node mode measurement technique which discontinues instruction and causes interference. This research proposes a new adaptive e-learning measurement technique which assesses learning effort in a dynamic, real-time, and non-interference instructional process. The learning effort curve is a key diagnostic to enhance interaction between instructors and learners in an adaptive e-learning instructional process.
EIIS
Authors: Huang Chang-Qin , Duan Ru-Lin , Tang Yong , Zhu Zhi-Ting , Yan Yong-Jian , Guo Yu-Qing
Published: February 2011

The semantic web brings a new opportunity for efficient information organization and search. To meet the special requirements of the educational field, this paper proposes an intelligent search engine enabled by educational semantic support service, where three kinds of searches are integrated into Educational Information Intelligent Search (EIIS) framework, and web-based resources and local e-resources are both identically semantically processed. During the design, the EIISReasoning and its relevant rule sets are constructed to automatically reason semantic concepts to diverse levels by a semantic factor and a response time factor. Furthermore, the EIISRanking algorithm applies two-level ranking by a factor of semantic similarity, and the same relevance is differentiated in terms of the educational field’s needs. The experiments show that the EIIS engine with semantic services has a better precision rate and improved ranking performance.
Research on Key Technology in Remote Education System of Spirit Diagnosing by Eye in TCM
Authors: Guo Feng , Li Shaozi , Dai Ying , Zhou Changle , Lin Ying
Published: February 2011

Spirit diagnosing is an important theory in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), by which a TCM doctor can diagnose a patient’s body state. But this theory is complicated and difficult to master simply learned from books. To further the theory and skill of spirit diagnosing, in this paper, the authors propose a remote education system that can accept videos from a user and give the user an auto-diagnosed spirit. The key technology in this system is eye feature computation in spirit diagnosing, for which rules describing “the spirit” (spirit in TCM refers to the human’s mental state which reflects the one’s general physical condition) state are mined by the quantitative features regarding the human eyes. With videos capturing eye condition during a short period, a set of eye features are extracted. On this basis, attribute intervals of the eye feature space is generated by CAIM (class-attribute interdependence maximization). Several of the candidate rules are then mined by the association rule based on the cloud model. Finally, three complementary rule-pruning methods are modified and combined to trim the candidate rules. The cross validation test for mined rules has an average accuracy of 93%, which shows the high performance of the proposed method.
Free Software Implementation Experiences for the Promotion of the Liquid Society
Authors: Heredero C. De Pablos , Berzosa D. López
Published: February 2011

Information and communication technologies have changed the way in which citizens interact with Public Administrations. Digital literacy is key for the development of the Liquid Society, and Public Administrations must take the lead in promoting more efficient, universal, and user oriented public services. The migration to open source standards allows Public Administration to offer more democratic, universal, and efficient channels for establishing relationships with citizens. In this article, the authors present international experiences that show how certain Public Administrations have migrated to open source software to promote digital literacy in the contexts they are operating. The final results depend on contextual and organizational factors, including the need to change, the political support and the existence of available technological resources, the organizational climate, motivation levels of human resources, and the kind of leadership for the project or the organizational complexity. Change efforts have strategic and organizational impacts that the organization must evaluate beforehand.
Distributed Database Design for Mobile Geographical Applications
Authors: Choy Manhoi , Kwan Mei-Po , Leong Hong V.
Published: February 2011

Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) require efficient information retrieval and updating in a dynamic environment at different geographical scales. ATIS applications are useful in yielding a better utilization of the limited costly transportation arteries and providing value-added traveler information. Many ATIS applications are built on the functionalities provided by Geographical Information Systems (GIS), which often cannot meet extra requirements like real-time response. We investigate GIS-based systems in ATIS and propose a system architecture based on GIS and distributed database technology. Issues on data modeling, data representation, storage and retrieval, data aggregation, and parallel processing of queries are discussed. This paper introduces a distributed system architecture for ATIS based on recent technology. It presents new data models for information representation and proposes data shipping for efficient query processing and function shipping for reducing communication overhead. The paper also examines the use of a network of computers for solving complex problems more timely and privacy protection for sensitive data.
Rich Base Schema
Authors: Lee Sang-Won , Kim Hyoung-Joo
Published: February 2011

In this paper, we propose a model of schema versions for object-oriented databases called RiBS. At the heart of this model is the concept of the Rich Base Schema (RiBS). Each schema version is in the form of a class hierarchy view over one base schema, RiBS, which accumulates all the schema information ever defined in the schema versions. Users, insulated from RiBS layer, access databases only through schema versions. Users impose schema evolution directly on schema versions, and the effects are, if necessary, automatically propagated to RiBS. We first describe the structure of the model and then introduce a set of invariants that should be satisfied by the model structure. As the third element of our model, we give a set of schema update operations, of which semantics are defined so as to preserve all the invariants.
Database Cooperation
Authors: Atzeni Paolo , Cabibbo Luca , Mecca Giansalvatore
Published: February 2011

We propose new criteria for the classification of systems for database cooperation, based on the nature of the component databases. In fact, the traditional criteria - heterogeneity, distribution, and autonomy - are often constraints for the design process, rather than design parameters. In this case, other features of the component databases should be addressed. We claim that a more useful classification can be based on three new criteria: (a) degree of transparency, (b) complexity of operations, and (c) level of liveliness of data. This leads us to distinguish three main categories of systems: (i) multidatabases, (ii) data warehouses, and (iii) local information systems with external data. For each of these categories, we discuss implementations based on tools offered by currently available technology
Benchmarking OODBs with a Generic Tool
Authors: Darmont Jerome , Schnieder Michel
Published: February 2011

We present in this paper a generic object-oriented benchmark (OCB: the Object Clustering Benchmark) that has been designed to evaluate the performances of Object-Oriented Databases (OODBs), and more specifically the performances of clustering policies within OODBs. OCB is generic because its sample database may be customized to fit any of the databases introduced by the main existing benchmarks, e.g., OO1 (Object Operation 1) or OO7. The first version of OCB was purposely clustering-oriented due to a clustering-oriented workload, but OCB has been thoroughly extended to be able to suit other purposes. Eventually, OCB’s code is compact and easily portable. OCB has been validated through two implementations: one within the O2 OODB and another one within the Texas persistent object store. The performances of a specific clustering policy called DSTC (Dynamic, Statistical, Tunable Clustering) have also been evaluated with OCB.
Performance Evaluation of Parallel S-Trees
Authors: Tousidou Eleni , Vassilakopoulos Michael , Manolopoulos Yannis
Published: February 2011

The S-tree is a dynamic height-balanced tree similar in structure to B+trees. S-trees store fixed length bit-strings, which are called signatures. Signatures are used for indexing textbases, relational, object oriented and extensible databases as well as in data mining. In this article, methods of designing multi-disk B-trees are adapted to S-trees and new methods of parallelizing S-trees are developed. The resulting structures aim at achieving performance gain by accessing two or more disks simultaneously. In addition, two different searching techniques that exploit parallel disk accessing are devised. Performance results of experiments based on the new structures and searching techniques are also presented and discussed.
Unified Modeling Language
Authors: Siau Keng , Cao Qing
Published: February 2011

Unified Modeling Language (UML) has emerged as the software industry’s dominant modeling language. It is the de facto modeling language standard for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting the components of software systems. Despite its prominence and status as the standard modeling language, UML has its critics. Opponents argue that it is complex and difficult to learn. Some question the rationale of having nine diagramming techniques in UML and the raison d’être of those nine techniques in UML. Others point out that UML lacks a comprehensive methodology to guide its users, which makes the language even more convoluted. A few studies on UML can be found in the literature. However, no study exists to provide a quantitative measure of UML complexity or to compare UML with other object oriented techniques. In this research, we evaluate the complexity of UML using complexity metrics. The objective is to provide a reliable and accurate quantitative measure of UML complexity. A comparison of the complexity metrical values of UML with other object-oriented techniques was also carried out. Our findings suggest that each diagram in UML is not distinctly more complex than techniques in other OO methods. But as a whole, UML is very complex - 2-11 times more complex than other OO methods.
Hypermedia Document Management
Authors: Suh Woojong , Lee Heeseok
Published: February 2011

Recently, many organizations have attempted to build hypermedia systems to expand their working areas into Internet-based virtual workplaces. Thus, it is important to manage corporate hypermedia documents effectively. Metadata plays a critical role for managing these documents. This paper identifies metadata roles and components to build a metadata schema. Furthermore, a meta-information system, HyDoMiS (Hyperdocument Meta-information System) is proposed by the use of this metadata schema. HyDoMiS performs three functions: metadata management, search, and reporting. The metadata management function is concerned with workflow, documents, and databases. The system is more likely to help implement and maintain hypermedia information systems effectively.
Mobile Commerce
Authors: Siau Keng , Lim Ee-Peng , Shen Zixing
Published: February 2011

Advances in wireless technology increase the number of mobile device users and give pace to the rapid development of e-commerce using these devices. The new type of e-commerce, conducting transactions via mobile terminals, is called mobile commerce. Due to its inherent characteristics such as ubiquity, personalization, flexibility, and dissemination, mobile commerce promises businesses unprecedented market potential, great productivity, and high profitability. This paper presents an overview of mobile commerce development by examining the enabling technologies, the impact of mobile commerce on the business world, and the implications to mobile commerce providers. The paper also provides an agenda for future research in the area.
A Prediction-Based Query Processing Strategy in Mobile Commerce Systems
Authors: Lee Chiang , Ke Chih-Horng
Published: February 2011

The rapid advances and popularity of the Internet encourages the wide dissemination of electronic commerce. Various applications of electronic commerce, e.g., querying supermarket catalogs, purchasing products, booking a hotel room of a trip, etc., are rapidly increasing. Moreover, the emergence of mobile computing makes it possible for users to access information anywhere and at anytime. With the merging of these two technologies, millions of users in the near future could carry a mobile device requesting services through electronic commerce applications. While serving such a mobile user, the server should consider how to minimize the response time of the request. However, conventional strategies for query processing are no longer adequate in the mobile environment. This is mainly because the user may not be at the same site as where he/she issued the request when the result of the request is ready to be delivered to the user. The issue becomes more complicated when the user’s request involves data residing in multiple data sources. This paper proposes some strategies for query processing in a mobile commerce environment. All the strategies are presented, along with a cost analysis as the theoretical basis for the support of our design. Through the analysis of each strategy, we find the weakness of the strategy and improve it by a new design. Finally, the performances of all strategies are studied and compared to find the performance difference of the strategies.
Mobile Commerce Agents in WAP-Based Services
Authors: Matskin Mihhail , Tveit Amund
Published: February 2011

With the increasing number of e-commerce services for mobile devices, there are challenges in making these services more personalized and to take into account the severely constrained bandwidth and restricted user interface these devices currently provide. In this paper we consider an agent-based platform for support of mobile commerce using wireless (WAP-based) devices. Agents represent mobile device customers in the network by implementing highly personalized customer profiles. The platform allows customization and adaptation of mobile commerce services as well as pro-active processing and notification of important events. Information to the customers is delivered both via WML-decks and SMS messages. Usage of the platform is illustrated by examples of valued customer membership services and subscription services support. Some details of a prototype platform implementation are briefly considered.
An Adaptive Probe-Based Technique to Optimize Join Queries in Distributed Internet Databases
Authors: Khan Latifur , McLeod Dennis , Shahabi Cyrus
Published: February 2011

An adaptive probe-based optimization technique is developed and demonstrated in the context of an Internet-based distributed database environment. More and more common are database systems, which are distributed across servers communicating via the Internet where a query at a given site might require data from remote sites. Optimizing the response time of such queries is a challenging task due to the unpredictability of server performance and network traffic at the time of data shipment; this may result in the selection of an expensive query plan using a static query optimizer. We constructed an experimental setup consisting of two servers running the same DBMS connected via the Internet. Concentrating on join queries, we demonstrate how a static query optimizer might choose an expensive plan by mistake. This is due to the lack of a priori knowledge of the run-time environment, inaccurate statistical assumptions in size estimation, and neglecting the cost of remote method invocation. These shortcomings are addressed collectively by proposing a probing mechanism. Furthermore, we extend our mechanism with an adaptive technique that detects sub-optimality of a plan during query execution and attempts to switch to the cheapest plan while avoiding redundant work and imposing little overhead. An implementation of our run-time optimization technique for join queries was constructed in the Java language and incorporated into an experimental setup. The results demonstrate the superiority of our probe-based optimization over a static optimization.
Human Factors Research on Data Modeling
Authors: Topi Heikki , Ramesh V.
Published: February 2011

This study reviews and synthesizes human factors research on conceptual data modeling. In addition to analyzing the variables used in earlier studies and summarizing the results of this stream of research, we propose a new framework to help with future efforts in this area. The study finds that prior research has focused on issues that are relevant when conceptual models are used for communication between systems analysts and developers (Analyst – Developer models) whereas the issues important for models that are used to facilitate communication between analysts and users (User – Analyst models) have received little attention and, hence, require a significantly stronger role in future research. In addition, we emphasize the importance of building a strong theoretical foundation and using it to guide future empirical work in this area.
On Conceptual Micro-Object Modeling
Authors: Chua Cecil E. , Chiang Roger H. , Lim Ee-Peng
Published: February 2011

While much research has been devoted to data modeling, little attention has been paid to developing constructs for modeling micro-objects, i.e. constructs for modeling low dimension objects such as the attribute Birth_Date and the data type Boolean. Most data models consider attributes as functions of macro-objects (i.e. objects formed from constructs such as entity sets, relations, and object sets). For example, the attribute Birth_Date is often modeled as a function of the entity set Person. This research proposes a Conceptual Micro-Object Model (CMoM), which considers the attribute as the foundation of data modeling. Other constructs such as the Conceptual Data Type Primitive (CDTP) and Attribute Group (AG) are developed to model the constituent components of attributes and objects that can be formed from attributes respectively. CMoM is useful for modeling intricate micro-objects such as dates. It also allows one to identify and resolve redundancy between conceptual macro-objects such as those modeled as entity sets and relations. For example, redundancies between attributes in different relations can be detected. Finally, it facilitates a formal foundation for defining object-oriented concepts such as inheritance, aggregation, and encapsulation.
Dynamic Semantics of UML State Machines
Authors: Dominguez Eladio , Rubio Angel L. , Zapata Maria A.
Published: February 2011

A clear understanding of the dynamic semantics of UML State Machines is essential for a large and varied audience such as final users of the language, CASE tool builders or method engineers. Our proposal aims at achieving such an understanding by suggesting a different metamodeling approach. This approach is based on a two-layer architecture which puts forward the explicit distinction between the generic behavior represented in a dynamic model (Base Layer) and the behavior represented in relation to a particular situation (Snapshot Layer). Using this architecture as a starting point, a metamodel of UML State Machines is proposed, which consists basically of two UML class diagrams (one diagram for each layer of the architecture) and two maps. These maps represent, respectively, the determination of the initial status and the process performed by a run-to-completion step as defined in the UML semantics.
Protecting Data through Perturbation Techniques
Authors: Wilson Rick L. , Rosen Peter A.
Published: February 2011

Data perturbation is a data security technique that adds ‘noise’ to databases allowing individual record confidentiality. This technique allows users to ascertain key summary information about the data that is not distorted and does not lead to a security breach. Four bias types have been proposed which assess the effectiveness of such techniques. However, these biases only deal with simple aggregate concepts (averages, etc.) found in the database. To compete in today’s business environment, it is critical that organizations utilize data mining approaches to discover additional knowledge about themselves ‘hidden’ in their databases. Thus, database administrators are faced with competing objectives: protection of confidential data versus data disclosure for data mining applications. This paper empirically explores whether data protection provided by perturbation techniques adds a so-called data mining bias to the database. The results find initial support for the existence of this bias.
Modeling Temporal Dynamics for Business Systems
Authors: Allen Gove N. , March Salvatore T.
Published: February 2011

Research in temporal database management has viewed temporal dynamics from a structural perspective, posing extensions to the entity-relationship (E-R) model to represent the state history of time-dependent attributes and relationships. We argue that temporal dynamics are semantic rather than structural and that the existing constructs in the E-R model are sufficient to represent them. Practitioners have long used E-R models without temporal extensions to design systems with rich support for temporality by modeling both things and events as entities — a practice that is consistent with the original presentation of the E-R model. This approach supports methodologies that leverage narrative and human cognitive processing capabilities in the development and verification of data models. Furthermore it maintains modeling parsimony and facilitates the representation of causality — why a particular state exists.
Transformations Between UML Diagrams
Authors: Selonen Petri , Koskimies Kai , Sakkinen Markku
Published: February 2011

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) provides various diagram types for describing a system from different perspectives or abstraction levels. Hence, UML diagrams describing the same system are dependent and strongly overlapping. In this paper we study how this can be exploited for specifying transformation operations between different diagram types. We discuss various general approaches and viewpoints of model transformations in UML. The source and target diagram types for useful transformations are analyzed and given categories. The potentially most interesting transformation operations are discussed in detail. It is concluded that the transformation operations can automate a substantial part of both forward and reverse engineering. These operations can be used, for example, for model checking, merging, slicing, and synthesis.
An Ontology of Data Modelling Languages
Authors: Milton Simon K. , Kazmierczak Ed
Published: February 2011

Data modelling languages are used in today’s information systems engineering environments. Many have a degree of hype surrounding their quality and applicability with narrow and specific justification often given in support of one over another. We want to more deeply understand the fundamental nature of data modelling languages. We thus propose a theory, based on ontology, that should allow us to understand, compare, evaluate, and strengthen data modelling languages. In this paper we present a method (conceptual evaluation) and its extension (conceptual comparison), as part of our theory. Our methods are largely independent of a specific ontology. We introduce Chisholm’s ontology and apply our methods to analyse some data modelling languages using it. We find a good degree of overlap between all of the data modelling languages analysed and the core concepts of Chisholm’s ontology, and conclude that the data modelling languages investigated reflect an ontology of commonsense-realism.