bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Using Technology in Research-Methods Teaching
Authors: Joyes Gordon , Banks Sheena
Published: May 2011

The focus of this chapter is on the use of technology in the teaching and learning of research methods in masters’ and doctoral programmes in higher education, with particular reference to the field of educational research. The current challenges in research-methods teaching are taken up with the aim of, first, reflecting on questions about developing innovative and engaging flexible learning practices that are appropriate to the ways in which researchers (in particular, new researchers) can develop their skills, knowledge, and practice in diverse academic and professional settings. Second, the chapter explores how technology can be effectively used in the teaching and learning of research methods and how technology and pedagogy can be integrated to achieve a successful e-learning design. We explore these issues through a case study of the V-ResORT project (Virtual Resources for Online Research Training). Third, we describe an action research approach we have developed in the project to build an effective theoretical framework that underpins the production of video narratives and other online learning and teaching resources. Fourth, we present our approach to learning design and reusability as requirements to enable online materials to be embedded within course settings and across institutions using an “invented everywhere” approach. We present some practical examples of how our ideas have been translated into practice. Finally, we draw some conclusions from our action research study and present some ideas about trends for future developments of online research-methods learning and teaching.
Instructional Design for Class-Based and Computer-Mediated Learning
Authors: Walker Richard , Baets Walter
Published: May 2011

Blended learning occupies a prominent place within higher education teaching strategies, yet there is no clear definition for what we mean by this term as an instructional approach. In this chapter, we present a working definition for blended learning that is based around a learner-centred framework, and outline three instructional models for blended course design in support of student-centred learning. We have applied these models to a series of course experiments that were undertaken at two international business schools: Nyenrode Business University (The Netherlands) and Euromed Marseille École de Management (France). Common to each course design was the use of e-tools to solicit and share knowledge for the out-of-class phase of student learning. We discuss the reception of these models by students and their relevance to Net Generation learners in promoting socially active learning through collaboration and experience sharing. Drawing together the lessons learned from these experiments, we present an instructional framework for course designers, focusing on the key phases in the delivery of a blended course and the accompanying instructional responsibilities that underpin this instructional approach.
Mastering the Online Summative-Assessment Life Cycle
Authors: Wilkinson Simon , Rai Heather
Published: May 2011

This chapter focuses on the use of computers for online summative assessment, in particular for objectively marked items. The aim of this chapter is to try and address the concerns of individuals wishing to pilot the introduction of online summative assessments in their own institutions. A five-stage development life cycle of online summative assessment—item development, quality assurance, item selection, examination delivery, and results analysis—is presented and discussed.
The Centrality of Team Leaders in Knowledge-Sharing Activities
Authors: Siachou Evangelia , Ioannidis Anthony
Published: May 2011

This chapter focuses on the extraction of accurate knowledge embedded in various Internet repositories, liable to frequent updates of content, and the effective sharing within organizational teams; an area that has not been extensively researched. We will address this issue by exploring the central and dual role of team leaders in their capacity as knowledge processors, functioning both as “sources” and “recipients” of net-based knowledge. The case of action teams that have to deal with unpredictable situations and thus, need to obtain and make instant use of accurate knowledge, is also considered. Further suggestions are made regarding team leaders’ active participation in particular knowledge-sharing channels, the multifaceted nature of the knowledge exchange, the essentiality of time boundaries, as well as knowledgesearch and knowledge-sharing costs. Besides making concrete suggestions, and far from exhausting the various issues in the literature of knowledge sharing, this study offers a potentially new scope for the team leader’s role in the knowledge society on the Internet.
Computer-Mediated Knowledge Sharing
Authors: Dalkir Kimiz
Published: May 2011

Computer-mediated communication has become the foremost means of sharing knowledge in today’s knowledge-based economy. However, not all Internet-based knowledge-sharing channels are created equal: they differ in their effectiveness when used for exchanging knowledge. A number of factors influence the efficacies of knowledge exchange, including: (1) characteristics of the knowledge being exchanged and, (2) characteristics of the channels used. It is therefore necessary to define key knowledge and channel attributes in order to understand how knowledge can be effectively shared using computers. This chapter examines the computer-mediated knowledge sharing mechanisms and proposes a typology based on media richness and social presence characteristics that can serve as a preliminary conceptual basis to select the most appropriate channel. The chapter concludes with a discussion of key issues and future research directions. While much of the research has been done in organizational settings, the chapter is applicable to all forms of computer-mediated communication.
Product Classifications Systems in E-Commerce Organizations
Authors: Abels Sven , Hahn Axel
Published: May 2011

This article presents the results of an empirical study recently performed in e-commerce organizations. The purpose of this empirical study was to figure out the usage of electronic product catalogs and especially their systems used for product classification, such as UNSPSC or eCl@ss. The study was performed with the help of a survey, which was sent out to a selection of those product suppliers and manufacturers, where product catalogs are crucial for business. This article firstly presents the necessary fundamentals needed for understanding the results of the survey. Afterwards it presents the results and identifies problematic areas that should be improved. It will furthermore give some advice for e-commerce organizations, standardization committees and further research activities to foster the usage of modern classification systems in electronic product catalogs.
The King is Naked
Authors: Antonio Joia Luiz , Sergio Sanz Paulo
Published: May 2011

The scope of this work is to explore the transaction profitability of frequent and sporadic buyers in the e-commerce arena. Evidence in relationship marketing literature stressing the impact of purchase frequency on customer profitability, as well as recent academic research challenging this approach and pointing out the importance of sporadic clients, is analyzed and presented. A single case study research methodology was chosen for this article, due to the exploratory facets associated with the subject and the industry under investigation. In order to gather relevant input to carry out this research, one of the largest retailing groups in Brazil was investigated. Conclusions are drawn showing that greater frequency of purchases does not necessarily translate into increased customer transaction profitability. Implications are presented, enabling practitioners and academics to grasp fully the real value of customers – both frequent and sporadic buyers – in order to develop coherent approaches for dealing with them adequately.
Personas of E-Commerce Adoption in Small Businesses in New Zealand
Authors: Al-Qirim Nabeel
Published: May 2011

Focus group methodology is introduced in this paper as one appropriate methodology to study the impact of technological innovation factors on eCommerce (EC) adoption in small businesses (SMEs) in New Zealand. The research results suggested two emerging issues pertaining to EC adoption in SMEs in this research. Firstly, SMEs would not invest their scant resources on perceived risky advanced EC initiatives. In adopting simple EC technologies such as Web page and email, factors like cost and compatibility were found not hindering the adoption decision. On the other hand, the proposed drivers to adopt these simple technologies were not highly significant as such. Secondly, the SMEs retained a particular view about advancing their simple EC initiatives. They envisaged that advancing their EC initiatives such as adopting “fully-blown” and interactive Web sites will give more weight to the impact of the different factors in this research on their adoption decisions of EC. The gulf between the current adoption and usage levels and the envisaged advanced EC initiatives seemed to be increasing further suggesting the weakness of the EC phenomenon in SMEs in this research. The research portrays a path were such gaps could be addressed and hence, this path should guide the SMEs in advancing their EC initiatives. Implications arising from this research with respect to theory and to practice are discussed in this research.
Motivators for IOS Adoption in Denmark
Authors: Zinner Henriksen Helle
Published: May 2011

Organizational adoption of innovations does not always follow easily comprehendible patterns. This is often the case with interorganizational information systems (IOS), where adoption is dependent on attributes related both to the organization and its environment. The present study operationalizes the Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990) model for organizational adoption in order to investigate reasons for adoption and non-adoption among businesses in the Danish steel and machinery industry. This particular industry segment had been subject to massive information campaigns focusing on the benefits of IOS in the form of EDI from business associations. The study suggests that environmental and organizational attributes rather than technological attributes are the main determining forces for adoption of EDI.
The Critical Success Factors Across ERP Implementation Processes
Authors: Lai Ivan K.W.
Published: May 2011

It is very important to identify what are the key factors across different steps within enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation models. This study consists of two phases. The first phase involves a questionnaire survey among experienced ERP consultants in order to identify the key successful factors of each step within ERP implementation models. In the second phase, experienced ERP consultants are interviewed to examine why these factors are important at each of the implementation steps and what are the difficulties of using Western ERP implementation models in China. The results suggest that ERP implementation is likely to be more successful if ERP implementation models address implementation challenges and leverages. This study provides guidance to ERP consultants on how to utilize their limited resources by considering these factors at each step within the ERP implementation models.
The Holding and Transfer of Interests in Securities in England and Japan
Authors: Fujiike Tomonori
Published: May 2011

This chapter compares account-based securities settlement systems with payment systems in which funds are transferred through bank accounts in England and Japan and examines a desirable securities system to harmonize the relevant countries’ jurisprudence considering US securities system and relevant international trends. It argues that there should be two broad areas of similarity in both systems; compartmentalization of a legal relationship between related parties and the method of transfer of securities and funds. It also argues, however, that, due to the differences in the legal nature of both financial assets, there are some differences between both systems in order to response intermediary risk. The purpose of this chapter is not only to propose that similar legal issues in both systems should be resolved in same ways as much as possible, but also to distinguish issues which could be resolved in commercial law from issues which should be resolved in the field of regulations by financial authorities in securities system.
Assessing the Potential Impact of Web Services on Business Processes
Authors: Sewing Jan-Hendrik , Rosemann Michael
Published: May 2011

Though web services offer unique opportunities for the design of new business processes, the assessment of the potential impact of Web services on existing business information systems is often reduced to technical aspects. This paper proposes a four-phase methodology which facilitates the evaluation of the potential use of Web services on business information systems both from a technical and from a strategic viewpoint. It is based on business process models, which are used to frame the adoption and deployment of Web services and to assess their impact on existing business processes. The application of this methodology is described using a procurement scenario.
Wireless and Mobile Communications
Authors: Schiller Jochen H.
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces different wireless and mobile communication systems that represent an important technological basis for ubiquitous computing applications. Different communication systems co-exist and vary with respect to many parameters, such as transmission range, data rates, cost, mobility, power consumption, scalability in the number of users, and so forth. The introduction gives a quick chapter overview of prominent communication systems. Next, the necessary minimal knowledge required about wireless transmission and media-sharing technologies is provided. The core of the chapter then provides brief introductions to the classes of wireless networks that are most relevant for ubiquitous computing, in particular wireless wide area networks and wireless distribution, local area, personal area, and sensor networks. A brief description of current convergence efforts follows. Readers should be aware that the wealth of technologies to be considered requires this chapter to remain rather survey-like.
Context Models and Context Awareness
Authors: Hartmann Melanie , Austaller Gerhard
Published: May 2011

To support users in performing their tasks, applications need a better understanding of the current situation they are being used in. This chapter gives an overview of how knowledge of the current context, that is, information characterizing the situation, can be represented and how this knowledge can be used for enhancing applications. We discuss what is actually meant by “context” and “context-aware” applications. Further, we describe what has to be considered when building a context-aware application. We thereby focus on the representation of context information and how to deal with its unreliable nature. This chapter should sensitize the reader to the difficulties of using context information and give guidelines on how to build an application that benefits from knowing its current context.
PROMISE
Authors: Anke Jürgen , Wolf Bernhard , Hackenbroich Gregor , Do Hong-Hai , Neugebauer Mario , Klein Anja
Published: May 2011

Product lifecycle management (PLM) processes can be greatly improved and extended if more information on the product and its use is available during the various lifecycle phases. The PROMISE project aims to close the information loop by employing product embedded information devices (PEIDs) in products. In this chapter, we present the goals and application scenarios of the project with special focus on the middleware that enables the communication between PEIDs and enterprise applications. Furthermore, we give details of the design and implementation of the middleware as well as the role of Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) as device-level protocol.
Business Grids
Authors: Gerteis Wolfgang
Published: May 2011

The following short chapter discusses upcoming opportunities for using research results and developments provided by the grid computing community in a business computing context. In particular, grid-based approaches may offer various opportunities to access compute and storage power as well as expensive organizational settings of business software dynamically, as need arises and grows. The chapter starts with an introduction and motivation, followed by a systematic outline of possible application scenarios. Finally, the relevant state-of-the-art in grid computing is reviewed in the light of the goals outlined before.
Elliptic Curve Cryptograpy
Authors: Mogollon Manuel
Published: May 2011

For the same level of security that public-key cryptosystems such as RSA have, elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) offers the benefit of smaller key sizes, hence smaller memory and processor requirements. The Diffie-Hellman key exchange, ElGamal encryption, digital signatures, and the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) can all be implemented in ECC. This makes ECC a very attractive algorithm for wireless devices such as handhelds and PDAs, which have limited bandwidth and processing power. Running on the same platform, ECC runs more TLS/SSL transactions per second than RSA. This chapter describes the basic concepts and definitions of elliptic curve cryptography.
TLS, SSL, and SET
Authors: Mogollon Manuel
Published: May 2011

In an Internet commercial transaction, the secure Web server and the buyer’s computer authenticate each other and encipher the data transmitted using transport layer security (TLS) or secure socket layer (SSL) protocols. When a purchase is made online using a credit card, does the customer’s bank need to know what was purchased? Not really. Does the seller need to know the customer’s credit card number? Actually, the answer is no. The responses to these questions were the main premises of the secure electronic transaction (SET). In the late 1990’s, SET was approved as the credit card standard, but it failed to be accepted because of its cost and the problems regarding distribution of end-user certificates. However, SET is explained in this chapter as an ideal protocol, from the point of view of certificates, digital signatures, and cryptography for securing credit card transactions over the Internet.
Social Networking and Knowledge Transfer in Collaborative Product Development
Authors: Ala-Rämi Katariina
Published: May 2011

Software product development requires connecting of specialized information and know-how. Therefore, planning and production are widely done in networked projects. This chapter studies inter-firm collaboration to explore the role of face-to-face meetings and information and communication technology in knowledge transfer in product development by using case studies of software companies in Oulu, Finland. Clusters are important in forming trust and mutual understanding. Thus, a compact city region and effective social networks are beneficial for inter-firm collaboration. However, information and communication technology is very valuable for routine communication and documentation, but also in distance collaboration. Geographical distance affects inter-firm collaboration in terms of practical arrangements, such as working hours, yet cultural differences bring additional challenges. This chapter considers and scrutinizes social networking in collaborative product development, and the role of clusters and information and communication technology in such development, as among the key success factors.
Municipal ICT Policy Goals and Technology Choices
Authors: Maynard Nicholas C.
Published: May 2011

This study reviews the literature of the available research to develop a policy framework for understanding the key decisions facing municipal information and communication technology policymakers. This chapter provides a clear understanding of the interdependent choices regarding municipal ICT goals, initiatives, and technology choices. With each decision, a municipality risks choosing a sub-optimal goal or technology for its particular environment, resulting in a reduction or plateau in ICT adoption. For example, by creating a public sector operator in a highly competitive retail market, a municipal government may in fact dampen private sector investment and result in a net negative for the area’s ICT penetration rate. In addition, these poor choices cannot be easily rectified. With the large sunk costs of ICT deployments, future options are constrained by past choices. Therefore, it is vital that policymakers understand their range of options for ICT goals, initiatives, and technologies before beginning the process of implementing their policies.
Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) as a New Branch of Decision Making Support Technologies in the Field of Facility Management
Authors: Madritsch Thomas , May Michael , Ostermann Herwig , Staudinger Roland
Published: May 2011

Nowadays facility management (FM) and real estate activities contribute to about 5-10% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of advanced industrialized countries. For example the total value of FM activity including support services is about 8.2% UK GDP (Harris, 2002). Computer aided facility management (CAFM) software is a new class of information and communications technology (ICT) tools to support management in the preparation of relevant data in the decision making process especially in the area of illustration, evaluation, and control of relevant FM structures and processes. Recently, CAFM tools are developing from simple information systems to multifunctional decision support systems (DSSs) for private as well as public organizations. Until now however, little attention has been given to this relevant change in business and academic communities. At the same time numerous software systems with various systematic approaches, functions, and varying success have been established on the market. Despite the multitude of suppliers and users in the different branches uncertainty concerning the procedures and achievable effects still prevails. This is closely related to the lack of well-documented, transparent, and successful case studies. In addition, little is known about how CAFM can be implemented successfully and the factors leading to its sustainable success. From an economic point of view it is very important to support this process in order to avoid wrong decisions and unnecessary investment. In particular, implementation strategies and formulae for success are of great interest (May, 2002). The purpose of this chapter is to describe the relevance of CAFM as a decision support tool in the field of FM. The authors will illustrate the recent developments and market demands of FM and CAFM. The main part will provide an overview on the basic concept as well as building management, for example, CAFM and give detailed insight into the topic and how CAFM may serve as a DSS from an organizational perspective. The next part will introduce some examples of good practices. The chapter closes with an overview of future developments, trends, and research opportunities of CAFM as a decision support tool.
Contextualization in Decision Making and Decision Support
Authors: Brézillon Patrick , Pomerol Jean-Charles
Published: May 2011

Decision makers face a very large number of heterogeneous contextual cues; some of these pieces are always relevant (time period, unpredicted event, etc.), but others are only used in some cases (an accompanying person in the car, etc.). Actors then must deal with a set of heterogeneous and incomplete information on the problem-solving state to make their decisions. As a consequence, a variety of strategies are observed, including those involving an actor to another one, but also for the same actor according to the moment. It is not obvious how to get a comprehensive view of the mental representations at work in a person’s brain during many human tasks, and the argumentation rather than the explicit decision proposal is crucial (Forslund, 1995): It is better to store advantages and disadvantages rather than the final decisions for representing decision making.
Dashboards for Management
Authors: Beuschel Werner
Published: May 2011

Dashboard system applications have been known in companies for several years. As the growing body of references shows, dashboards are now about to become more widespread, not only in numbers but also in terms of application areas (e.g., Eckerson, 2006; Few, 2006; Malik, 2005). The fact that almost every company is equipped with a great number of information systems, their infrastructure being largely dependent on software, supports the interest in high-level and condensed information representation. Originally, user interfaces and data representations of operational and administrative systems are not always designed for management-level use, so a need to bridge this gap develops. Based on information technology infrastructure and forced to act in a complex and contingent environment, most organizations feel the need to create high-level overviews for managing tasks. The idea of dashboards is aimed at helping to visualize large amounts of data in a condensed representation, providing a quick overview of organizational processes and supporting managers in their decision-making tasks.
Data Warehousing for Decision Support
Authors: Wang John , Yao James , Chen Qiyang
Published: May 2011

Today’s business environment is dynamic and uncertain. Competition among business organizations is becoming more intensified and globalized. These business organizations’ demand for both internal and external information is growing rapidly. This rapidly growing demand to analyze business information has quickly led to the emergence of data warehousing (Finnegan, Murphy, & O’Riordan, 1999). The strategic use of information from data warehousing assures the solution of the negative effects of many of the challenges facing organizations (Love, 1996). When the data warehousing technologies are well positioned and properly implemented, they can assist organizations in reducing business complexity, discovering ways to leverage information for new sources of competitive advantage, realizing business opportunities, and providing a high level of information readiness to respond quickly and decisively under conditions of uncertainty (Love; Park, 1997).
Decision-Making and Support Tools for Design of Transmission Systems
Authors: Dolgui A. , Guschinskaya O. , Guschinsky N. , Levin G.
Published: May 2011

Transmission systems are crucial components of many machines and mechanisms. Ken Hurst (1998) highlights that whether you are designing power plants, cars, or washing machines, the power transmission system is an integral component responsible for product success or failure. The components that comprise a power transmission system include those that transfer power directly (coupling and shaft), speed and torque multiplication components (gears, belt drives, etc.), and the related mechanisms (clutches, brakes, etc.; see Freeman & Velinsky, 1995). Transmission system design is a multistage iterative process of sequential generation and modification of design decisions. These decisions define in many respects the technical and economic characteristics of future products. Searching for suitable design decisions is a highly complex and time-consuming problem due to the necessity to consider and analyze many heterogeneous functional, technical, and economic factors. However, extensive computations, including solving very complex optimization tasks, are needed. As a rule, the design procedures are provided only by a very competent and experienced designer. With ever more complex and combinatorial decisions to be made, even the best designer will need competent design support, of which there is little. Therefore, the design of transmission systems is a wide open area for development and application of decision-making and decision support technologies.
Group Verbal Decision Analysis
Authors: Petrovsky Alexey
Published: May 2011

Ordering and classification of objects by their properties are among the typical problems in multiple criteria decision aiding (MCDA). The difficulties of choice problems increase when the same object may exist in several copies with different attributes’ values, and values of different attributes may be repeated within the object description. For example, such situation arises when several experts estimate alternatives upon multiple criteria. In this case, individual expert assessments may be similar, diverse, or contradictory. Various techniques for classification of alternatives or their ranking have been developed. But most of the methods do not pay a serious consideration to contradictions and inconsistencies in decision makers’ (DM) preferences and a problem description. Group verbal decision analysis (GroupVDA) is a new methodological approach in the MCDA area, which enlarges verbal decision analysis (VDA) approach to a group decision. GroupVDA deals with choice problems where preferences of several decision makers may be discordant, and alternatives are described with manifold repeating quantitative and qualitative attributes. New GroupVDA methods are based on the theory of multisets or sets with repeating elements, and represent multi-attribute objects as points in multiset metric spaces.
The Influence of Emotions in Making Hard Decisions in Organizational Contexts
Authors: Lumbreras Cristina Casado , Palacios Ricardo Colomo , Gómez Berbís Juan Miguel
Published: May 2011

In the present study, we focus on the influence of emotions and the emotional consequences of decisionmaking processes. Specifically, we have analyzed the emotional consequences for managers of making hard decisions in organizations. In this work we define hard decisions as those affecting the status, professional career, and/or salary of employees in the organization. Ten managers from different multinational organizations were interviewed. Hence, this work represents a qualitative exploratory study in which the managers’ opinions and experience from different professional environments are the subject of analysis and discussion. After the application of a semistructured brief interview, the answers were analyzed by content analysis.
Introduction to Multi-Agent Simulation
Authors: Siebers Peer-Olaf , Aickelin Uwe
Published: May 2011

When designing systems that are complex, dynamic, and stochastic in nature, simulation is generally recognised as one of the best design support technologies, and a valuable aid in the strategic and tactical decision- making process. A simulation model consists of a set of rules that define how a system changes over time, given its current state. Unlike analytical models, a simulation model is not solved but is run and the changes of system states can be observed at any point in time. This provides an insight into system dynamics rather than just predicting the output of a system based on specific inputs. Simulation is not a decision making tool but a decision support tool, allowing better informed decisions to be made. Due to the complexity of the real world, a simulation model can only be an approximation of the target system. The essence of the art of simulation modelling is abstraction and simplification. Only those characteristics that are important for the study and analysis of the target system should be included in the simulation model.
Real Options Reasoning as a Tool for Managerial Decision Making
Authors: Power Bernadette
Published: May 2011

An understanding of human decision making is a fundamental step toward the development of effective intelligent decision support systems (Newell & Simon, 1972; Pomerol, 1997). Many methods have been put forth by decision theory to provide us with an understanding of human decision making and to enable individuals to make better decisions such as in utility maximization (Savage, 1954), satisficing (Simon, 1983), statistical and regression analysis, case-based reasoning (Gilboa and Schmeidler, 1995, 2000), game theory (von Neumann & Morgenstern, 1947), decision trees (Yuan & Shaw, 1995), and so forth. This article focuses on a new approach, namely, real options analysis, as a tool for effective decision making by management when faced with uncertainty in its environment.
Understanding the Influence of Context on Organisational Decision Making
Authors: Adam Frédéric , Pomerol Jean-Charles
Published: May 2011

Many researchers have noted the high levels of abstraction required by the representation and conceptualisation of organisational decisions when these involve more than just simple operational concerns. They have concluded that the difficulty in specifying decisions problems in tangible terms at the early stages of a decision making process makes the analysis of DSS requirements difficult with current methods. If this observation is correct, it means that, despite substantial progress in technology, for example, quicker database engines, better graphical user interfaces, more flexible development platforms, and so forth, DSS developers may not be better equipped now than they were at the beginning of the history of DSS when it comes to understanding the problems they are trying to address. In this article, we argue that this gap in our understanding of the dynamics of DSS development must be addressed by the development of suitable analysis techniques that allow the capture of the less visible dimensions of organisational decision making. In particular, the wider context of decision making processes, for example, their political dimension, must be more finely understood by DSS developers before they propose systems that may embody elements of processes that change the information and communication webs of organisations in tangible ways. This article presents the results of our experimentation with the application of network analysis to a large organisation and shows how this orientation, which has yet to be broadly utilised in IS research, can allow researchers to capture the context of decision making in a modern business. We demonstrate that such approaches can support more complex analysis of the decision problems that must be tackled by DSS personnel.
E-Learning Methodological Models and Typologies
Authors: Ranieri Maria
Published: May 2011

This article aims to examine these different e-learning models and discuss some recent evolutions in this field due to the development of online learning communities (Palloff & Pratt, 1999) and the diffusion of social networking practices that have emerged in the Web in recent years (Bonaiuti, 2006).
Fostering Collaboration in CSCL
Authors: Persico Donatella , Pozzi Francesca , Sarti Luigi
Published: May 2011

Some collaborative learning strategies widely used in face-to-face settings can also be adapted to online contexts. They allow us to master the complex relations between members of large, heterogeneous online learning communities. The authors build on their experience in the application of some of the most well-known strategies and techniques used in online courses, such as jigsaw, peer review, role-play, case study, and brainstorming. The use of these strategies in computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments and the related models describing the social structure of the learning community is discussed in the attempt to highlight their strengths and weaknesses and investigate the conditions for their applicability. The aim is to inform the design and the management of online learning communities.
ICTs and Distance Education in Nigeria
Authors: Ololube Nwachukwu Prince , Ubogu Andrew Egba
Published: May 2011

Advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have posed complex problem for colleges and universities in Nigeria especially in their distance education programs (Ololube, 2006). Improving the quality of education through the diversification of contents and methods and promoting experimentation, innovation, the diffusion and sharing of information and best practices as well as policy dialogue are UNESCO’s strategic objectives in education (UNESCO, 2002, 2005). As such, information and communication technologies (ICTs) literacy rate have become key tools that have a revolutionary impact on how we see the world and how we live in it. This phenomenon has given birth to the contemporary and advances in our ways of life. ICTs are having a revolutionary impact on educational methodology. However, this revolution is not widespread and needs to be strengthened to reach a large percentage of the population through distance education. In a complex society, many factors affect distance education. Hence an interdisciplinary and integrated approach is very necessary to ensure the successful development of Nigeria’s economy and society (Mac-Ikemenjima, 2005).
NETRIC
Authors: Orosz Mihály , Tegze Dávid , Hosszú Gábor , Kovács Ferenc
Published: May 2011

The article presents a proposed method to select an optimal set of the multicast protocol parameters, which are linearly independent from each other. A multidimensional hyperspace, as a mathematical model, is stated where every transport protocol parameter is represented with an individual point. A determined novel protocol parameter set is shown and the modeling procedure is presented on some examples. A multicast transport simulator has been applied to describe the performance of the transport protocols and for optimization of the parameters, providing the most reliable multicasting operation.
Automatic Quality Assessment for Internet Pages
Authors: Mandl Thomas
Published: May 2011

Automatic quality assessment of Web pages needs to complement human information work in the current situation of an information overload. Several systems for this task have been developed and evaluated. Automatic quality assessments are most often based on the features of a Web page itself or on external information. Promising results have been achieved by systems learning to associate human judgments with Web page features. Automatic evaluation of Internet resources according to various quality criteria is a new research field emerging from several disciplines. This chapter presents the most prominent systems and prototypes implemented so far and analyzes the knowledge sources exploited for these approaches.
Class Prediction in Test Sets with Shifted Distributions
Authors: Pérez Óscar , Sánchez-Montañés Manuel
Published: May 2011

Machine learning has provided powerful algorithms that automatically generate predictive models from experience. One specific technique is supervised learning, where the machine is trained to predict a desired output for each input pattern x. This chapter will focus on classification, that is, supervised learning when the output to predict is a class label. For instance predicting whether a patient in a hospital will develop cancer or not. In this example, the class label c is a variable having two possible values, “cancer” or “no cancer”, and the input pattern x is a vector containing patient data (e.g. age, gender, diet, smoking habits, etc.). In order to construct a proper predictive model, supervised learning methods require a set of examples xi together with their respective labels ci. This dataset is called the “training set”. The constructed model is then used to predict the labels of a set of new cases xj called the “test set”. In the cancer prediction example, this is the phase when the model is used to predict cancer in new patients.

One common assumption in supervised learning algorithms is that the statistical structure of the training and test datasets are the same (Hastie, Tibshirani & Friedman, 2001). That is, the test set is assumed to have the same attribute distribution p(x) and same class distribution p(c|x) as the training set. However, this is not usually the case in real applications due to different reasons. For instance, in many problems the training dataset is obtained in a specific manner that differs from the way the test dataset will be generated later. Moreover, the nature of the problem may evolve in time. These phenomena cause pTr(x, c)  pTest(x, c), which can degrade the performance of the model constructed in training.

Here we present a new algorithm that allows to re-estimate a model constructed in training using the unlabelled test patterns. We show the convergence properties of the algorithm and illustrate its performance with an artificial problem. Finally we demonstrate its strengths in a heart disease diagnosis problem where the training set is taken from a different hospital than the test set.
Component Analysis in Artificial Vision
Authors: Déniz Suárez Oscar , Bueno García Gloria
Published: May 2011

The typical recognition/classification framework in Artificial Vision uses a set of object features for discrimination. Features can be either numerical measures or nominal values. Once obtained, these feature values are used to classify the object. The output of the classification is a label for the object (Mitchell, 1997). The classifier is usually built from a set of “training” samples. This is a set of examples that comprise feature values and their corresponding labels. Once trained, the classifier can produce labels for new samples that are not in the training set. Obviously, the extracted features must be discriminative. Finding a good set of features, however, may not be an easy task. Consider for example, the face recognition problem: recognize a person using the image of his/her face. This is currently a hot topic of research within the Artificial Vision community, see the surveys (Chellappa et al, 1995), (Samal & Iyengar, 1992) and (Chellappa & Zhao, 2005). In this problem, the available features are all of the pixels in the image. However, only a number of these pixels are normally useful for discrimination. Some pixels are background, hair, shoulders, etc. Even inside the head zone of the image some pixels are less useful than others. The eye zone, for example, is known to be more informative than the forehead or cheeks (Wallraven et al, 2005). This means that some features (pixels) may actually increase recognition error, for they may confuse the classifier. Apart from performance, from a computational cost point of view it is desirable to use a minimum number of features. If fed with a large number of features, the classifier will take too long to train or classify.
Emulating Subjective Criteria in Corpus Validation
Authors: Iriondo Ignasi , Planet Santiago , Alías Francesc , Socoró Joan-Claudi , Martínez Elisa
Published: May 2011

The use of speech in human-machine interaction is increasing as the computer interfaces are becoming more complex but also more useable. These interfaces make use of the information obtained from the user through the analysis of different modalities and show a specific answer by means of different media. The origin of the multimodal systems can be found in its precursor, the “Put-That-There” system (Bolt, 1980), an application operated by speech and gesture recognition. The use of speech as one of these modalities to get orders from users and to provide some oral information makes the human-machine communication more natural. There is a growing number of applications that use speech-to-text conversion and animated characters with speech synthesis. One way to improve the naturalness of these interfaces is the incorporation of the recognition of user’s emotional states (Campbell, 2000). This point generally requires the creation of speech databases showing authentic emotional content allowing robust analysis. Cowie, Douglas-Cowie & Cox (2005) present some databases showing an increase in multimodal databases, and Ververidis & Kotropoulos (2006) describe 64 databases and their application. When creating this kind of databases the main arising problem is the naturalness of the locutions, which directly depends on the method used in the recordings, assuming that they must be controlled without interfering the authenticity of the locutions. Campbell (2000) and Schröder (2004) propose four different sources for obtaining emotional speech, ordered from less control but more authenticity to more control but less authenticity: i) natural occurrences, ii) provocation of authentic emotions in laboratory conditions, iii) stimulated emotions by means of prepared texts, and iv) acted speech reading the same texts with different emotional states, usually performed by actors. On the one hand, corpora designed to synthesize emotional speech are based on studies centred on the listener, following the distinction made by Schröder (2004), because they model the speech parameters in order to transmit a specific emotion. On the other hand, emotion recognition implies studies centred on the speaker, because they are related to the speaker emotional state and the parameters of the speech. The validation of a corpus used for synthesis involves both kinds of studies: the former since it will be used for synthesis and the latter since recognition is needed to evaluate its content. The best validation system is the selection of the valid utterances1 of the corpus by human listeners. However, the big size of a corpus makes this process unaffordable.
Evolutionary Computing Approach for Ad-Hoc Networks
Authors: Narula Prayag , Misra Sudip , Kumar Dhurandher Sanjay
Published: May 2011

Wireless ad-hoc networks are infrastructureless networks in which heterogeneous capable nodes assemble together and start communicating without any backbone support. These networks can be made truly dynamic and the nodes in these networks can move about freely while connecting and disconnecting with other nodes in the network. This property of ad-hoc networks to self-organize and communicate without any extrinsic support gives them tremendous flexibility and makes them perfect for applications such as emergencies, crisis-management, military and healthcare. For example, in case of emergencies such as earthquakes, often most of the existing wired network infrastructure gets destroyed. In addition, since most of the wireless networks such as GSM and IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN use wired infrastructure as their backbone, often they are also rendered useless. In such scenarios, ad-hoc networks can be deployed swiftly and used for coordinating relief and rescue operations. Ad-hoc networks can be used for communication between various stations in the battle-field, where setting up a wired or an infrastructure-based network is often considered impractical. Though a lot of research has been done on ad-hoc networks, a lot of problems such as security, qualityof- service (QoS) and multicasting need to be addressed satisfactorily before ad-hoc networks can move out of the labs and provide a flexible and cheap networking solution. Evolutionary computing algorithms are a class of bio-inspired computing algorithms. Bio-inspired computing refers to the collection of algorithms that use techniques learnt from natural biological phenomena and implement them to solve a mathematical problem (Olario & Zomaya, 2006). Natural phenomena such as evolution, genetics, and collective behavior of social organisms and functioning of a mammalian brain teach us a variety of techniques that can be effectively employed to solve problems in computer science which are inherently tough. In this Chapter and the chapter entitled, “Swarm Intelligence Approach for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks” of this book, we present some of the currently available important implementations of bio-inspired computing in the field of ad-hoc networks. This chapter looks at the problem of optimal clustering in ad-hoc networks and its solution using Genetic Programming (GP) approach. The chapter entitled, “Swarm Intelligence Approaches for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks” of this book, continues the same spirit and explains the use of the principles underlying Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) for routing in ad-hoc networks.