bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
e-ASEAN and Regional Integration in South East Asia
Authors: Dai Xiudian
Published: May 2011

As a relatively new feature of the digital revolution in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), e-ASEAN was initiated by the ASEAN economic ministers in September 1999 and endorsed by ASEAN leaders at their summit in Manila in November the same year, when the e-ASEAN Task Force was also set up (ASEAN Secretariat, 2003). At the Fourth ASEAN Informal Summit in Singapore in November 2000, a Framework Agreement was signed to serve as the legal foundation for the e-ASEAN initiative. To ensure success, the Senior Economic Officials Meeting (SEOM) was tasked to supervise, coordinate, and review the implementation of the e-ASEAN Framework Agreement. As stipulated in the e-ASEAN Framework Agreement, the SEOM reports to the ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) and assists the AEM in all matters concerning this Agreement (ASEAN, 2000, Article 13). While there is no lack of literature discussing trade liberalisation and transborder cooperation in the ASEAN region, the impact of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) on the development of regionalism, and vice versa, remains a rather neglected area of study (Dai, 2003). The purpose of this article is to investigate the implications of the e-ASEAN initiative for regional cooperation and integration in South East Asia in the information age. In particular, the key challenges to achieving the objectives of the e-ASEAN initiative will be analysed.
Integration and Enterprise Architecture Challenges in E-Government
Authors: Weerakkody Vishanth , Janssen Marijn , Hjort-Madsen Kristian
Published: May 2011

Traditionally, government agencies are organized vertically around functional structures and there are almost no processes spanning departments and agencies. In such an environment, the coordination of business processes and integration of underlying information systems presents a significant challenge. Using case studies in three European countries, this research explores process and systems integration challenges in the European public sector and highlight opportunities for service improvement in the context of e-government implementation. While cross-organizational process and information systems integration barriers are seen in the literature as presenting the main technical challenge for realizing fully integrated e-government services, this research found that a legacy of rigid bureaucracy, established illogical routine tasks and lack of coordination of different information systems in the public sector were preventing the respective governments from expediting their e-government initiatives in Europe.
Aspects of Social Responsibility in the Information Society
Authors: Rogerson Simon
Published: May 2011

The Information Society must be based on fundamental assumptions about information and human information rights, access, privacy, self-determination and personal control rather than on privilege, power and special interest. Those involved in the planning, development and implementation of the information systems that turn the Information Society into a reality are the custodians of the greatest change agent yet devised. They must recognise their social responsibilities and act accordingly for the benefit of society and its citizens. This chapter serves as an illustration of what types of social responsibility issues need to be addressed, who must address them and how they might be addressed. It discusses some of the basic aspects of social responsibility and the implications for the Information Society, drawing in particular from Corporate Social Responsibility. Five disparate cases illustrate how concepts are turned into real organisational policy. Two example applications, electronic voting and electronic patient records are used to illustrate the types of social responsibility issues that need to be addressed in order to tackle the digital divide and satisfy the needs and aspirations of stakeholders.
User Attitudes to E-Government Citizen Services in Europe
Authors: Millard Jeremy
Published: May 2011

In 2005, the eUSER project undertook a questionnaire survey covering about 10,000 households in 10 European Union member states, the purpose of which was to provide some of the first systematic evidence in Europe of citizen user behaviour and their attitudes to the use of public services, and particularly the role of e-services in this context. The survey focused on a number of themes — the public’s use of government services, the different channels (or media) employed, the nature of potential future demand for e-government, the barriers and experiences in using e-government, and the socio-economic attributes of e-government users compared with non-users. The results provide important new information on the role that the Internet is now playing in the delivery and take-up of government services by European citizens. Face-to-face contact is still the most important channel for contacting government in Europe. In some countries (e.g., the UK), however, telephone and post have overtaken face-to-face. Results also show that potential demand for e-government services is about 50% of all government users and could be higher. One quarter of individual e-government users have acted as intermediaries for family members or friends, and one quarter have also done so on behalf of their employer. Most barriers that users anticipate they will meet when using e-government relate to difficulty in actually starting, with a feeling that face-to-face is better and the fear about data privacy important. However, once citizens have used e-government services, the barriers appear less, though still important, and relate mainly to the difficulty of feeling left alone with problems or questions.
Privacy-Sensitive Tracking of Behavior with Public Information Systems
Authors: Demchak Chris C. , Fenstermacher Kurt D.
Published: May 2011

This chapter explores the roles of names and name equivalents in social tracking and control, reviews the amount of privacy-sensitive databases accumulating today in U.S. legacy federal systems, and proposes an alternative that reduces the likelihood of new security policies violating privacy. We focus on the continuing public-authority reliance on unique identifiers, for example, names or national identity numbers, for services and security instead of dissecting a better indicator of security threats found in behavior data. We conclude with a proposed conceptual change to focusing the social-order mission on the behavior of individuals rather than their identities (behavior-identity knowledge model, BIK). It is particularly urgent to consider a different path now as increased interest in biometrics offers an insidious expansion of unique identifiers of highly personal data. E-government can be wonderful for central government’s effectiveness and efficiency in delivering services while also being a disaster for both privacy and security if not regulated legally, institutionally, and technically (with validation and appeal processes) from the outset.
Digital Government Online Education for Public Managers
Authors: Holzer Marc , Carrizales Tony , Kim Younhee
Published: May 2011

The opportunities that arise from the practice of digital government continue to increase. Public managers responsible for adopting and implementing such new practices will be searching for existing best practices to incorporate into their respective communities. They may choose to rely on their information and communication technology (ICT) departments to develop necessary digital government applications, but an appealing option for public managers is to familiarize themselves with the most recent digital government applications through Web-based courses. Online education eliminates distances, allows for flexible scheduling and can incorporate current best practices of electronic-government on a timely basis. Public managers play a critical role in the development of digital government initiatives (Halachmi, 2004; Heeks, 1999; Ho, 2002; Melitski, 2003; Weare, Musso & Hale, 1999). Although public managers can refer to numerous individuals within government municipalities, in the case of digital government, the chief administrative officer (CAO) is often the key individual in deciding the direction of government initiatives. By completing Web-based courses, CAOs can assess and strategically plan for effective and efficient digital government in their communities. Melitski (2003) argues that there is a need for public mangers that are “familiar with both IT and the programmatic goals and missions of public organizations” (p. 389). With respect to implementing digital citizen participation in government, Holzer, Melitski, Rho, and Schwester (2004) state, as their primary recommendation, “governments should work harder to identify, study, and implement best practices” (p. 28). The means to study such best practices, however, have generally been scarce, and the literature has been limited to specialized e-government reports and articles. But Web-based courses now offer the means for a CAO or any other public manager to study digital government practices and theories in a more effective and convenient manner.
Realigning Governance
Authors: Lenihan Donald G.
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, the author acknowledges that over the last few decades, information and communications technologies (ICTs) have progressed at a remarkable pace. By the mid-1990s, the new technology had been used to engineer a major transformation of the private sector, reshaping markets and the basic building block of the modern economy: the corporation. Likewise, enthusiasts predicted that the public sector was about to go through a similar transformation. A new era in government was said to be dawning. For some, electronic- or e-government promised to transform government operations leading to major “efficiency gains” in service delivery. But e-government is proving more difficult and costly than first thought and the expected benefits have been slow to materialize. With some notable exceptions, the efficiency gains have been mixed. The boom in e-commerce was short-circuited by the dot-com bust. Is the bloom coming off the e-government rose? This chapter tries to shed more light on the pertinent issues and reflect a broader vision that e-government is about the transformation of government. A firm commitment from decision makers to think through the issues and steer the right course is critical or e-government could easily lose momentum or veer off course.
Empirical Study of the Municipalitites' Motivations for Adopting Online Presence
Authors: de Juana Espinosa Susana
Published: May 2011

Nowadays, many public organizations rely on e-Government policies to seek modernization and efficiency, although they might not follow a true strategic purpose. This is particularly common on the subject of web site development policies. The objective of this chapter is to reveal the motivations for creating a web page in local administrations, and thus determine the real nature of their websites. A personal survey was addressed to the CIOs (Chief Information Officers) of 65 city councils out of the 69 with website of the province of Alicante (Spain), regarding their perceptions about the purpose of their web pages. The results show that, although most councils confer a strategic orientation to their web pages, communication goals are more popular than internal efficiency concerns. Consequently, it is found a general lack of commitment with local e-Government strategies. Understanding the implications of this duality may help other public organizations develop their modernization strategies.
E-Governement Emerging Trends
Authors: Ezz Inas E.
Published: May 2011

This chapter demonstrates the importance and challenges considering technology adoption in general and e-government adoption in particular in the context of a key strategic process for the Egyptian Government. Thus our empirical findings are based on the foreign financing decision making process of Egypt extending previous work on e-business technologies and e-government adoption in general and G2G in particular. Although that new trends in Government support appear such as u–government, g-government and Me-government, none of the leading countries has reached the full integration. Among some of the possible reasons is that technology adoption relies to a great extent, not only to the factors being presented in TAM model, but also solving one of the most important challenges from our point of view, namely organizational problems, which will be highlighted through our case studies. This includes identifying and documenting the decision making processes crossing different ministries, which is a challenging task by itself. Although adopting technologies needs infrastructure such as the process being IT ready, inter and intra-organizational integration technologies in the form of G2G or some of the new trends such as g-government, can help in resolving some of those organizational challenges existing at those strategic processes.
E-Government as a New Frontier for Legal Theory
Authors: Culver Keith
Published: May 2011

E-government has the potential to change fundamentally the organization of governments, and the governance practices used in relations with citizens and other governments. Legal theory is clearly affected by these changes. Yet there is no rush to publish on e-government in leading legal theory journals, and there is no visible surge in student demand for courses in e-government. Just as only some areas of governments in developed states have taken advantage of new information communication technologies, so only some areas of legal theory have engaged e-government. Issues in Internet governance and personal privacy dominate legal theory’s engagement with e-government, while e-engagement of citizens plays an increasingly important yet still limited role in governments’ interaction with citizens. Yet there are signs that this gentle pace may soon change, as leading jurisdictions approach completion of the first wave of service transformation at the same time as concerns regarding a digital divide recede under the growth of access to new information communication technologies. New opportunities for e-government may soon make e-government’s progress revolutionary rather than evolutionary, and legal theory will be forced to keep pace.
Information and Communication Technology and Good Governance in Africa
Authors: Onu Godwin
Published: May 2011

The 20th and 21st centuries have witnessed major paradigm shifts in the conceptualization of development and governance. These phenomena are aided and propelled by a new “network intelligence” consummated in the introduction of information and communication technology (ICT). The world has also witnessed a reinvention of the whole process of governance that has impacted society in various ways. Through the Internet and digital connectivity, today’s world has come to be closer than ever before. Efficiency and processes of governance have been improved through faster information flow in the governance chain. Bottlenecks and cost of labor have been reduced across the world. Furthermore, ICT has opened new possibilities, improved transparency and access to information as well as partnership and collaboration, leading to improved relationships between the citizen and state. While Europe and North America, as well as some countries of Asia and the pacific, have taken advantage of this development to improve their economies and governance process, Ningo (1999) observes that sub-Saharan Africa has remained either passive or in the periphery, often reduced to a consumer for reasons related to its history or its system of governance—or lack of one. This has led to a yawning digital divide (especially between Africa and developed states of the world. What led to this divide and how can Africa, then, benefit from this revolution? What are the obstacles?
Participatory Design and Creativity in Development of Information and Communication Technologies
Authors: Schultz Nette , Sørensen Lene , Saugstrup Dan
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents and discusses a new design framework for involving users at an early stage in a mobile ICT development project. A user-centered design process, in which participatory design principles are combined with creativity techniques, is used in order to create scenarios as a communication tool between users and system designers. The theoretical basis for the framework is described, leading to a new participatory design and creativity framework. Empirical insight into how the framework has been developed and used in practice is presented based on the experiences and results from a large ICT development project within the ?eld of mobile communication. Finally, the value of applying creativity as part of a participatory design process is discussed.
A Method to Quantify Corpus Similarity and its Application to Quantifying the Degree of Literality in a Document
Authors: Denoual Etienne
Published: May 2011

Comparing and quantifying corpora are key issues in corpus-based translation and corpus linguistics, for which there is still a notable lack of standards. This makes it difficult for a user to isolate, transpose, or extend the interesting features of a corpus to other NLP systems. In this work, we address the issue of measuring similarity between corpora. We suggest a scale between two user-chosen corpora on which any third given corpus can be assigned a coefficient of similarity, based on the cross-entropy of statistical N-gram character models. A possible application of this framework is to quantify similarity in terms of literality (or, conversely, orality). To this end, we carry out experiments on several well-known corpora in both English and Japanese and show that the defined similarity coefficient is robust in terms of language and model order variations. Comparing it to other existing similarity measures shows similar performance while extending widely the range of application to electronic data written in languages with no clear word segmentation. Within this framework, we further investigate the notion of homogeneity in the case of a large multilingual resource.
The Influence of Constructivist E-Learning System on Studen Learning Outcomes
Authors: Wangpipatwong Thanakorn , Papasratorn Borworn
Published: May 2011

In this article, the study of how a constructivist e-learning system affects students’ learning outcomes was explored and a two-phase study was designed. The first study sought to create a constructivist e-learning environment (CEE) and discover how students expected their learning outcomes under CEE. CEE is composed of three constructs, which are exploration, collaboration, and construction. The statistical results showed the high level of student expectation on every construct. Consequently, constructivist e-learning system (CES) was developed. In the second study, CES was used in the actual classroom environment. The purpose was to compare the learning outcomes and knowledge development of students who studied the course using CES with those of students who learned it under a traditional learning environment. A T-test method was used to analyze the learning outcomes. The results showed that students who used CES had better learning outcomes and knowledge development than students who did not use CES.
Information and Communication Technology Tools for Competitive Intelligence
Authors: Vriens Dirk
Published: May 2011

Competitive intelligence (CI) can be described as collecting and processing information about the environment for strategic purposes (cf. Kahaner, 1997). To formulate a strategy, an organization needs to collect and process information about its environment—about, for instance, competitors, customers, suppliers, governments, technological trends, or ecological developments. Collecting and processing environmental information has, of course, always been important. However, because of the increasing complexity and dynamics of the environment, the pressure to produce relevant, timely, “actionable” intelligence increases as well. At the same time, the amount of available data about the environment also increases.
The Use of Online Technologies in the Teaching and Learning Process
Authors: Ferguson Maggie , Ibbetson Adrian
Published: May 2011

This paper provides an evaluation of the effectiveness of a year-one module delivered by a combination of traditional and online teaching methods to leisure and tourism undergraduates. The research further considers the value of the extemporized implementation of computer-mediated instructional settings that do not consider or refer to existing evaluative frameworks, in view of the fact that initiatives often are driven more by pragmatism and policy than pedagogy and theory. The findings show that there are negative and positive attributes to both methods of instruction, but overall, traditional methods are seen as preferable to new online developments. The reasons for this preference are explored and include communication interaction and contact with a tutor. The main positive attributes of the online system are flexibility and accessibility. The issue of appropriateness of online instruction at differing higher educational levels is also considered.
LAN-Designer
Authors: Sarkar Nurul I.
Published: May 2011

Until recently, it has been difficult to motivate students to learn about server-based local area network (LAN) design because students find the subject very technical, dry, and boring. A software tool (named LAN-Designer) has been developed at the Auckland University of Technology that gives students an interactive, hands-on experience in server-based LAN design. LAN-Designer is suitable for classroom use in introductory-level courses in server-based networking. This article describes LAN-Designer and its effectiveness as an aid to teaching and learning about LAN design. The effectiveness of LAN-Designer has been evaluated both formally by students (student evaluation forms) and informally through discussion within the teaching team. The conclusions drawn are based on survey data collected from students. The feedback from students indicates that the development and implementation of LAN-Designer were successful. The article concludes by discussing the strengths and weaknesses of LAN-Designer and its future development. The impact of LAN-Designer on students’ performance is also discussed.
Information and Communication Technologies Provision to Rural Communities
Authors: Chikowore-Kabwato Shirley , Ajiferuke Isola
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces information and communication technologies as having the potential of aiding the sustainable development of rural communities through distance education, telemedicine, and the provision of timely information on agriculture and the environment. It argues that telecenters offer practical and community-oriented ways to bring information and communication technologies services to the rural people. Furthermore, based on the outcome of an evaluation of a telecenter in Zimbabwe, it is suggested that in order for a telecenter to offer effective, efficient and sustainable services, local needs assessment would need to be conducted, the telecenter located at a central place, and an awareness-building campaign targeted at potential users.
Current and Future State of ICT Deployment and Utilization in Healthcare
Authors: Carsten Stahl Bernd , Rogerson Simon , Kashmeery Amin
Published: May 2011

The ever-changing face of ICT can render its deployment rather problematic in sensitive areas of applications, such as healthcare. The ethical implications are multifaceted and have diverse degrees of sensitivity from culture to culture. Our essay attempts to shed light on these interplaying factors in a cross-cultural analysis that takes into account prospective ICT development.
Addressing the Cultural Dimensions of E-Learning
Authors: Edmundson Andrea L.
Published: May 2011

In an exploratory study, the researcher examined the effects of cultural dimensions on e-learning outcomes for employees in functionally equivalent jobs in Western and Eastern cultures. Participants from the United States and India completed a Level 1 e-learning course designed in the United States. In addition, randomly selected completers then reported their interactions with the e-learning course in a survey. Learners from the two cultures achieved equitable learning outcomes, suggesting that characteristics of Level 1 e-learning courses mitigate the effects of culture. In addition, while cultural dimensions did appear to affect learners’ preferences for and perceptions of e-learning, both Eastern and Western participants were willing to try new approaches to learning that did not align with their cultural profiles. Based on these results and practical usage, the revised (v.2) of the cultural adaptation process (CAP) model is presented as a guideline for adapting e-learning courses for other cultures.
Interactions among Thai Culture, ICT, and IT Ethics
Authors: Bhattarakosol Pattarasinee
Published: May 2011

Information is important to humans because without information, no task can be performed. Therefore, information and communication technology (ICT) was invented and implemented to serve the needs of people. This facility has both positive and negative impacts on Thai society. However, it is generally the information technology ethics of the user that determines the direction of use of the technology. This chapter presents the relations among Thai culture, ICT, and IT ethics, in which all impacts are considered and described. The discussion in this chapter indicates that there are various factors related to development of IT ethics, but the one main factor is family background. Thus, in order to increase the IT ethics of users in an ICT world, the proposed solution in this chapter is to create a strong family and instruct children in their religion. Although this method is long-term, the outcome is worth the wait.
A Time Series Analysis of International ICT Spillover
Authors: Zhang Juan Juan , Lee Sang-Yong Tom
Published: May 2011

This article studies the role of international spillover of information and communication technology (ICT) in economic growth. We examine the performance of ten countries from 1982 to 1999. By empirically analyzing the relationship between total factor productivity (TFP) and domestic and foreign ICT investment with time series analysis tools, we find limited evidence that there exist international ICT spillovers for a group of countries. Further, we discuss the possible ICT policies to improve productivity and balance out a win-win situation for both ICT spillover sending and receiving countries.
ICT and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis
Authors: Roofe Andrea J.A.
Published: May 2011

This article represents a preliminary attempt to indentify the variables influencing the relationship between technological development and efficiency in the financial markets of a Caribbean economy. The analysis uses qualitative methods only. From the late 1980s, Kitchen (1988) observed, “… the major inefficiency in the capital market is the lack of information…” (p. 48).
Visualizing ICT Change in the Academy
Authors: Parchoma Gale
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces complexity theory as a theoretical framework for analyzing the influences of information and computer technologies (ICTs) on the structures, cultures, economies (reward systems), and pedagogical praxes within the Academy. An argument is made that the strategic adaptation of the academy’s structures, cultures, economies, and pedagogical praxes to the knowledge economy can help build a future where Academy-based distributed learning networks will transmit ICT-mediated learning opportunities around the world, thus providing flexible access for a wide range of learners to fully participate in the global learning society. The author posits attunements to policies and practices to support institution-wide involvement in ICT initiatives.
RFID
Authors: Puffenbarger Eric , Teer Faye P. , Kruck S. E.
Published: May 2011

Educators have an ongoing challenge as they strive to stay up-to-date with new technology. One emerging technology, RFID (radio frequency identification) tags, has the potential to impact information systems in businesses as well as in our lives. Educators responsible for planning curriculum need to consider how to incorporate topics pertaining to RFID technology into a wide variety of technology courses. Therefore, one purpose of this manuscript is to give curriculum planners and teachers a summary of RFID by: presenting an overview of RFID technology; exploring RFID limitations and possible solutions; and examining the future outlook of RFID. An additional purpose further assists educators in considering how to incorporate this new course topic into the curriculum by providing some teaching resources, objectives and suggestions pertaining to RFID.
Online Data Mining
Authors: Nigro He´ctor Oscar , González Císaro Sandra Elizabeth
Published: May 2011

Several approaches for intelligent data analysis are not only available but also tried and tested. Online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining represent two of the most important approaches. They mainly emphasize different aspects of the data and allow deriving of different kinds of information. So far, these approaches have mainly been used in isolation (Schwarz, 2002).
Conceptual and Systematic Design Approach for XML Document Warehouses
Authors: Nassis Vicky , Rajagopalapillai R. , Dillon Tharam S. , Rahayu Wenny
Published: May 2011

EXtensible Markup Language (XML) has emerged as the dominant standard in describing and exchanging data among heterogeneous data sources. The increasing presence of large volumes of data appearing creates the need to investigate XML Document Warehouses as a means of handling the data. In this paper our focus is twofold. First we utilise Object Oriented (OO) concepts to develop and propose a conceptual design formalism to build meaningful XML Document Warehouses (XDW). This includes: (1) XML (warehouse) repository (xFACT) using OO concepts followed by the transformation of XML Schema constructs and (2) Conceptual Virtual Dimensions (VDims) using Conceptual views (Rajugan, Chang, Dillon, & Feng, 2003, 2004). Secondly we address several important outstanding issues related to our proposed design of an XML Document Warehouse. Specifically we note that the xFACT portion is now a complex structure, involving several entities and relationships as opposed to being a simple FACT table as was the case in relational data warehouses, and the notion of Virtual Dimensions (VDims) has considerably greater complexity.
Data Mining of Bayesian Network Structure Using a Semantic Genetic Algorithm-Based Approach
Authors: Shetty Sachin , Song Min , Alam Mansoor
Published: May 2011

A Bayesian network model is a popular formalism for data mining due to its intuitive interpretation. This chapter presents a semantic genetic algorithm (SGA) to learn the best Bayesian network structure from a database. SGA builds on recent advances in the field and focuses on the generation of initial population, crossover, and mutation operators. In SGA, we introduce semantic crossover and mutation operators to aid in obtaining accurate solutions. The crossover and mutation operators incorporate the semantic of Bayesian network structures to learn the structure with very minimal errors. SGA has been proven to discover Bayesian networks with greater accuracy than existing classical genetic algorithms. We present empirical results to prove the accuracy of SGA in predicting the Bayesian network structures.
Preference-Based Frequent Pattern Mining
Authors: Cho Moonjung , Pei Jian , Wang Haixun , Wang Wei
Published: May 2011

Frequent pattern mining is an important data-mining problem with broad applications. Although there are many in-depth studies on efficient frequent pattern mining algorithms and constraint pushing techniques, the effectiveness of frequent pattern mining remains a serious concern: It is non-trivial and often tricky to specify appropriate support thresholds and proper constraints. In this paper, we propose a novel theme of preference-based frequent pattern mining. A user simply can specify a preference instead of setting detailed parameters in constraints. We identify the problem of preference-based frequent pattern mining and formulate the preferences for mining. We develop an efficient framework to mine frequent patterns with preferences. Interestingly, many preferences can be pushed deep into the mining by properly employing the existing efficient frequent pattern mining techniques. We conduct an extensive performance study to examine our method. The results indicate that preference-based frequent pattern mining is effective and efficient. Furthermore, we extend our discussion from pattern-based frequent pattern mining to preference-based data mining in principle and draw a general framework.
Spatio-Temporal Prediction Using Data Mining Tools
Authors: Dunham Margaret H. , Ayewah Nathaniel , Li Zhigang , Bean Kathryn , Huang Jie
Published: May 2011

The spatio-temporal prediction problem requires that one or more future values be predicted for time series input data obtained from sensors at multiple physical locations. Examples of this type of problem include weather prediction, flood prediction, network traffic flow, and so forth. In this chapter we provide an overview of this problem, highlighting the principles and issues that come to play in spatio-temporal prediction problems. We describe some recent work in the area of flood prediction to illustrate the use of sophisticated data mining techniques that have been examined as possible solutions. We argue the need for further data mining research to attack this difficult problem. This chapter is directed toward professionals and researchers who may wish to engage in spatio-temporal prediction.
Mining E-Mail Data
Authors: Bickel Steffen , Scheffer Tobias
Published: May 2011

E-mail has become one of the most important communication media for business and private purposes. Large amounts of past e-mail records reside on corporate servers and desktop clients. There is a huge potential for mining this data. E-mail filing and spam filtering are well-established e-mail mining tasks. E-mail filing addresses the assignment of incoming e-mails to predefined categories to support selective reading and organize large e-mail collections. First research on e-mail filing was conducted by Green and Edwards (1996) and Cohen (1996). Pantel and Lin (1998) and Sahami, Dumais, Heckerman, and Horvitz (1998) first published work on spam filtering. Here, the goal is to filter unsolicited messages. Recent research on e-mail mining addresses automatic e-mail answering (Bickel & Scheffer, 2004) and mining social networks from e-mail logs (Tyler, Wilkinson, & Huberman, 2004).
Data Warehousing and the Organization of Governmental Databases
Authors: Haper Franklin Maxwell
Published: May 2011

Data warehousing is a technology architecture designed to organize disparate data sources into a single repository of information. As such, it represents a strategy for creating the architecture necessary to support the vision of e-government. Data warehousing enables a new type of “decision intelligence” by providing access to historical trend data, typically difficult to retrieve through operational database systems. Government data warehousing is complex, expensive, and often fraught with data privacy and security issues. E-government goals may be met through a successful data-warehousing project, be it in the form of a more efficient, informed government or as a result of increased public access to information. But given the substantial barriers to success, a thorough planning and investigation process is necessary.
Impediments to Exploratory Data Mining Success
Authors: Zeanah Jeff
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses impediments to exploratory data mining success. These impediments were identified based on anecdotal observations from multiple projects either reviewed or undertaken by the author and are classified into four main areas: data quality; lack of secondary or supporting data; insufficient analysis manpower; lack of openness to new results. Each is explained, and recommendations are made to prevent the impediment from interfering with the organization’s data mining efforts. The intent of the chapter is to provide an organization with a structure to anticipate these problems and to prevent the occurrence of these problems.
Data Warehousing Interoperability for the Extended Enterprise
Authors: Triantafillakis Aristides , Kanellis Panagiotis , Martakos Drakoulis
Published: May 2011

The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness and identify a number of challenges regarding the issue of data warehouse interoperation in Web-based collaborative environments. Adopting system and information quality as success variables, we argue that existing works fell short of addressing complex issues that relate to their refreshment and extent far beyond view maintenance solutions within single warehouses. Considering a solution that approaches warehouse refreshment as a business process in a federation of data warehouses, we define a special kind of materialized view that emanates from such an environment, provide a roadmap for implementing the appropriate warehousing architecture, and give some preliminary empirical results.
Analytical Customer Requirement Analysis Based on Data Mining
Authors: Jiao Jianxin ("Roger") , Zhang Yiyang , Helander Martin
Published: May 2011

This chapter applies data-mining techniques to help manufacturing companies analyze their customers’ requirements. Customer requirement analysis has been well recognized as one of the principal factors in product development for achieving success in the marketplace. Due to the difficulties inherent in the customer requirement analysis process, reusing knowledge from historical data suggests itself as a natural technique to facilitate the handling of requirement information and the tradeoffs among many customers, marketing and engineering concerns. This chapter proposes to apply data-mining techniques to infer the latent information from historical data and thereby improve the customer requirement analysis process.
A Data Mining Approach to Diagnosing Student Learning Problems in Sciences Courses
Authors: Hwang Gwo-Jen
Published: May 2011

In recent years, researchers have attempted to develop more effective distance education systems. Nevertheless, students in network-based learning environments may need additional guidance and assistance when they encounter problems in learning certain concepts. Therefore, it is important to provide learning guidance in a distance learning environment. In this paper, we propose a data mining approach that is capable of assisting teachers to provide information needed for guiding students during the learning process. Several experiments on science courses have shown the effectiveness of applying the novel approach.
DWFIST
Authors: Monteiro Rodrigo Salvador , Zimbrao Geraldo , Schwarz Holger , Mitschang Bernhard , de Souza Jano Moreira
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents the core of the DWFIST approach, which is concerned with supporting the analysis and exploration of frequent itemsets and derived patterns, e.g., association rules in transactional datasets. The goal of this new approach is to provide: (1) flexible pattern-retrieval capabilities without requiring the original data during the analysis phase; and (2) a standard modeling for data warehouses of frequent itemsets, allowing an easier development and reuse of tools for analysis and exploration of itemset-based patterns. Instead of storing the original datasets, our approach organizes frequent itemsets holding on different partitions of the original transactions in a data warehouse that retains sufficient information for future analysis. A running example for mining calendar-based patterns on data streams is presented. Staging area tasks are discussed and standard conceptual and logical schemas are presented. Properties of this standard modeling allow retrieval of frequent itemsets holding on any set of partitions, along with upper and lower bounds on their frequency counts. Furthermore, precision guarantees for some interestingness measures of association rules are provided as well.
Robust Classification Based on Correlations Between Attributes
Authors: Nanopoulos Alexandros , Papadopoulos Apostolos N. , Manolopoulos Yannis , Welzer-Druzovec Tatjana
Published: May 2011

The existence of noise in the data significantly impacts the accuracy of classification. In this article, we are concerned with the development of novel classification algorithms that can efficiently handle noise. To attain this, we recognize an analogy between k nearest neighbors (kNN) classification and user-based collaborative filtering algorithms, as they both find a neighborhood of similar past data and process its contents to make a prediction about new data. The recent development of item-based collaborative filtering algorithms, which are based on similarities between items instead of transactions, addresses the sensitivity of user-based methods against noise in recommender systems. For this reason, we focus on the item-based paradigm, compared to kNN algorithms, to provide improved robustness against noise for the problem of classification. We propose two new item-based algorithms, which are experimentally evaluated with kNN. Our results show that, in terms of precision, the proposed methods outperform kNN classification by up to 15%, whereas compared to other methods, like the C4.5 system, improvement exceeds 30%.
Discovering Surprising Instances of Simpson's Paradox in Hierarchical Multidimensional Data
Authors: Fabris Carem C. , Freitas Alex A.
Published: May 2011

This paper focuses on the discovery of surprising unexpected patterns based on a data mining method that consists of detecting instances of Simpson’s paradox. By its very nature, instances of this paradox tend to be surprising to the user. Previous work in the literature has proposed an algorithm for discovering instances of that paradox, but it addressed only flat data stored in a single relation. This work proposes a novel algorithm that considerably extends that previous work by discovering instances of Simpson’s paradox in hierarchical multidimensional data — the kind of data typically found in data warehouse and OLAP environments. Hence, the proposed algorithm can be regarded as integrating the areas of data mining and data warehousing by using an adapted data mining technique to discover surprising patterns from data warehouse and OLAP environments.
Discovering Frequent Embedded Subtree Patterns from Large Databases of Unordered Labeled Trees
Authors: Xiao Yongqiao , Yao Jenq-Foung , Yang Guizhen
Published: May 2011

Recent years have witnessed a surge of research interest in knowledge discovery from data domains with complex structures, such as trees and graphs. In this paper, we address the problem of mining maximal frequent embedded subtrees which is motivated by such important applications as mining “hot” spots of Web sites from Web usage logs and discovering significant “deep” structures from tree-like bioinformatic data. One major challenge arises due to the fact that embedded subtrees are no longer ordinary subtrees, but preserve only part of the ancestor-descendant relationships in the original trees. To solve the embedded subtree mining problem, in this article we propose a novel algorithm, called TreeGrow, which is optimized in two important respects. First, it obtains frequency counts of root-to-leaf paths through efficient compression of trees, thereby being able to quickly grow an embedded subtree pattern path by path instead of node by node. Second, candidate subtree generation is highly localized so as to avoid unnecessary computational overhead. Experimental results on benchmark synthetic data sets have shown that our algorithm can outperform unoptimized methods by up to 20 times.
A Single Pass Algorithm for Discovering Significant Intervals in Time-Series Data
Authors: Savla Sagar , Chakravarthy Sharma
Published: May 2011

Sensor-based applications, such as smart homes, require prediction of event occurrences for automating the environment using time-series data collected over a period of time. In these applications, it is important to predict events in tight and accurate intervals to effectively automate the application. This article deals with the discovery of significant intervals from time-series data. Although there is a considerable body of work on sequential mining of transactional data, most of them deal with time-point data and make several passes over the entire data set in order to discover frequently occurring patterns/events. We propose an approach in which significant intervals representing intrinsic nature of data are discovered in a single pass. In our approach, time-series data is folded over a periodicity (day, week, etc.) in which the intervals are formed. Significant intervals are discovered from this interval data that satisfy the criteria of minimum confidence and maximum interval length specified by the user. Both compression and working with intervals contribute towards improving the efficiency of the algorithm. In this article, we present a new single-pass algorithm for detecting significant intervals; discuss its characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages; and analyze it. Finally, we compare the performance of our algorithm with previously developed level-wise and SQL-based algorithms for significant interval discovery (SID).
A Parallel Implementation Scheme of Relational Tables Based on Multidimensional Extendible Array
Authors: Azharul Hasan K. M. , Tsuji Tatsuo , Higuchi Ken
Published: May 2011

In this article, an efficient parallel implementation scheme of relational tables is proposed and evaluated. The scheme implements a relational table by employing an extendible multidimensional array. Data allocation is a key performance factor for parallel database systems. This holds especially for data warehousing environments in which huge amounts of data have to be dealt with. In our scheme, an efficient data allocation technique is used, based on the notion of extendible array. The dynamic load balancing is conducted when load on each processor is not uniformly distributed in order to maximize processor utilization.
Toward Integrating Data Warehousing with Data Mining Techniques
Authors: Missaoui Rokia , Jatteau Ganaël , Boujenoui Ameur , Naouali Sami
Published: May 2011

In this paper, we present alternatives for coupling data warehousing and data mining techniques so that they can benefit from each other’s advances for the ultimate objective of efficiently providing a flexible answer to data mining queries addressed either to a bidimensional (relational) or a multidimensional database. In particular, we investigate two techniques: (i) the first one exploits concept lattices for generating frequent closed itemsets, clusters and association rules from multidimensional data, and (ii) the second one defines new operators similar in spirit to online analytical processing (OLAP) techniques to allow “data mining on demand” (i.e., data mining according to user’s needs and perspectives). The implementation of OLAP-like techniques relies on three operations on lattices, namely selection, projection and assembly. A detailed running example serves to illustrate the scope and benefits of the proposed techniques.