bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Role of New Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs) in the Relations between the Central Government and Four Major Kingdoms in Uganda
Authors: Musambira George , Muwanguzi Samuel
Published: May 2011

The role NICTs are playing in the relations between Uganda’s central government and four of the kingdoms in the country is analyzed and placed in the historical context within which each kingdom has pursued a strategy for preservation and development of its people’s unique culture and ethnic aspirations. A convergence of cellular phone and FM radio designed by the Buganda kingdom to confront the central government with specific demands and the government’s response are examined. The less combative use of NICTs by Bunyoro-Kitara, Busoga, and Toro kingdoms is described. An analysis of how each antagonist uses NICTs for a hegemonistic agenda is presented and cast against the application of NICTs for good governance and the prosperity of citizens.
Translanguaging and Negotiation of Ethnicity
Authors: Githinji Peter
Published: May 2011

We shall be examining how the linguistic practices interact with these new communication technologies. By emphasizing on the centrality of language in mediating social interactions, we argue that post-traditional discourse fails to extricate itself from cultural hegemony due to global trends that favor the hegemonic languages as well as the ingrained habitus1 that predisposes Kenyans to reproduce linguistics structures inspired by the discourse of power of hierarchy of languages in the linguistic marketplace. Our discussion opens with a brief overview of the place of language in a technological world.
The World Narrow Web
Authors: Nam Siho
Published: May 2011

The inauguration of the Lee Myung-Bak administration in 2008 signaled a crisis for Internet-driven participatory, democratic public culture in South Korea. One of the most visible effects was immediately found in the administration’s repressive media policy. A series of anti-democratic regulations, grounded in both conservative and neo-liberal philosophies, was implemented to control and tame civic participation, public deliberation, and identity politics on the Internet. Firstly, in light of this, this chapter summarizes certain main debates regarding the role of the Internet in promoting or hindering democracy. Next, it takes up the recent spate of regulations regarding Internet content in Korea to shed critical light on how the Internet is reconfigured as a new site of cultural politics. Finally, it advocates anonymity as a constitutional free speech right and ascertains that anonymity in cyberspace contributes to, rather than impairs, the quality of public culture and democracy.
Heterogeneity Analysis in the University Context
Authors: Blasco Maria Fuentes , Saura Irene Gil , Velásquez Beatriz Moliner
Published: May 2011

The transformations being experienced by Spanish universities faced with the challenge of adapting to a changing environment and increasingly discerning and segmented demand highlights the importance of knowing the needs and wishes of students as main customers. The present study attempts an in-depth examination of the viability of student perceptions of service quality as a segmentation criterion. We go deeply into the dimensionality of university service quality and we analyze how such dimensions can be used to segment effectively the collective of students’ degrees using latent methodology. The results based on information gathered from 287 questionnaires permit analysis of existing heterogeneity and a set of recommendations to be made for strategic management in the area of university services.
The Google Online Marketing Challenge
Authors: Tuzovic Sven , Wetsch Lyle , Murphy Jamie
Published: May 2011

In 2008, a collaborative partnership between Google and academia launched the Google Online Marketing Challenge (hereinafter Google Challenge), perhaps the world’s largest in-class competition for higher education students. In just two years, almost 20,000 students from 58 countries participated in the Google Challenge. The Challenge gives undergraduate and graduate students hands-on experience with the world’s fastest growing advertising mechanism, search engine advertising. Funded by Google, students develop an advertising campaign for a small to medium sized enterprise and manage the campaign over three consecutive weeks using the Google AdWords platform. This article explores the Challenge as an innovative pedagogical tool for marketing educators. Based on the experiences of three instructors in Australia, Canada and the United States, this case study discusses the opportunities and challenges of integrating this dynamic problem-based learning approach into the classroom.
School Images, School Identity, and How Parents Select Schools for Their Children
Authors: Tam Frank Wai-ming , Kwan Paula Yu-Kwong
Published: May 2011

The case suggests that a school organization adapts itself to the environment and survives external competition through a series of self-organizing processes of differentiation and integration. Differentiation is the process through which the school develops its own identity and core competencies through trial and error, whereas integration is the process through which the school develops stable and sustaining relationships with parents and other strategic partners within the community. The authors assert that in a fast changing and highly competitive environment like that in Hong Kong, schools need to find their institutional identities and to present a positive image to the community. This endeavor is often a challenging and painful task. The authors study the case of a secondary school to illustrate how this can be done, employing a survey approach to ascertain needs and expectations of parents. The dilemma schools face in choosing between academic and pastoral ethos is described and relations between important factors that impact perceptions of parents are discussed.
An International Collaborative Masters Degree in Integrated Marketing Communications
Authors: Krentler Kathleen A. , Caruana Albert
Published: May 2011

A transnational partnership between the University of Malta in Malta and San Diego State University in the United States resulted in an agreement to commence a Masters degree in Integrated Marketing Communications. The degree is fully delivered in Malta, a Mediterranean island state and a full member of the European Union. In Malta, the program is held not at the main campus of the University but at the historical campus of the University of Malta in Valetta that dates back to 1592. Classes are in English and are taught by faculty from both universities. Students earn a degree from each of the two participating schools thus providing recognition in both the US and the EU. This chapter charts the challenges faced and the hurdles encountered to develop the curriculum, launch the degree, recruit the students, undertake teaching, and ultimately, graduate the first cohort.
Academic Freedom and the Ethics of Marketing Education
Authors: Rochford Francine
Published: May 2011

Academic freedom is acknowledged to both define the university and to protect its status. A commitment to academic freedom must be reflected in organisational structures and attitudes. However, many of the uses to which universities are put by the state, and the choices made by universities themselves, can erode the effective protection of academic freedom. The deployment of marketing techniques, including technological advances, to mimic the activities of private corporations, are frequently part of the wider systemic threat to the university ‘system’ in most modern economies – its deployment in instrumental economic goals. If these goals are pursued to the exclusion of other university goals, universities’ raison d’être will be diminished. In particular, academic freedom as a corollary to scholarly practice and a model of inquiry will be threatened. The casualization of the university workforce is both a managerial mechanism to effect economic goals and a cause of growing instrumentalism in the sector. Universities’ increasing deployment of casual staff presents a problem for the real exercise of academic freedom, and is an abandonment of the ethical role of the university.
Using Text Mining for Improving Student Experience Management in Higher Education
Authors: Yu Chong Ho , DiGangi Samuel A. , Jannasch-Pennell Angel
Published: May 2011

The objective of this case study is to illustrate how text mining of open-ended responses from a student survey could yield valuable information for improving student experience management (SEM). The concept of student SEM was borrowed from the notion of customer experience management (CEM), which aims for ongoing improvement of customer relations through understanding of the customer’s point of view (Pine & Gilmore 1998). With the advance of text mining technology, textual data that were previously underutilized are found to be valuable in CEM. To illustrate how text mining can be applied to SEM, we discuss an example from a campus-wide survey conducted at Arizona State University. The purpose of this survey was to better understand student experiences with instructional technology in order for administrators to make data-driven decisions on its implementation. Rather than imposing the researchers’ preconceived suppositions on the students by using force-option survey items, researchers on this project chose to use open-ended questions in order to elicit a free emergence of themes from the students. The most valuable lesson learned from this study is that students perceive an ideal environment as a web of mutually supporting systems. Specifically, online access should be augmented by use of laptops and availability of course materials, whereas virtual classes should be balanced by human interactions.
Innovations in Technology for Educational Marketing
Authors: Rutaisire John
Published: May 2011

This chapter highlights the importance of educational marketing through modern innovative technologies. It explores how teachers who mark Rwandan primary and secondary examinations perceive the Rwanda National Examinations Council and what the implications are for the effective management of the examinations system. The chapter highlights the Rwandan context in which before the 1994 genocide, the education system was characterized by nepotism, corruption, discrimination and victimization based on ethnicity, regionalism, and gender. Thus, after 1994, the task of the education system was to reverse the imbalance in favor of equity, transparency, accountability and responsiveness in public service. In terms of national examinations, this demanded, among other things, a vigorous marketing strategy through innovation and technology. In spite of the relative success, however, the chapter acknowledges challenges associated with post-conflict educational reconstruction focusing mainly on human resource capacity development and management, and highlights some lessons learned as Rwanda looks forward to the future.
Exploration of Multi-cultural Teaching and Learning in a Collaborative Virtual Environment
Authors: Yamamoto Gonca Telli , Featherstone Michael D. , Karaman Faruk , Borstorff Patricia C.
Published: May 2011

The chapter details the experiences both students and instructors encountered in creating and participating in a cross-cultural virtual team conducted predominantly in a virtual environment. We describe problems encountered and often (though not always) overcome. Students learned both the rewards and the frustrations such teams experience as they learned to participate in and contribute to the collective intelligence of the team.
Marketing Services Globally
Authors: Blacher-Wilson Felicia , Mense Evan G. , Richardson Michael D.
Published: May 2011

E-learning and distance learning technologies have accelerated tremendously during the last decade. Changes in development and delivery include altered instructional methods and the expansion of support services for e-learning activities. Many business and political leaders speculate that globalization is indeed connecting international political, economic, cultural, and social life. These new Information Technologies significantly affect most aspects of higher education. Changes in teaching/learning and administration have impacted everyone associated with applying technology to global delivery of services. E-learning has increasingly become the vehicle of choice for many corporate clients who are actively engaged in creating diverse international markets for their goods and services.
E-Government Adoption and Proliferation Across Different Stages of Evolution
Authors: Ojha Amitabh , Tripathi Rakhi , Gupta M. P.
Published: May 2011

Adoption by stakeholders is a key dimension of e-government success. Although some researchers have investigated the antecedents of e-government adoption by citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders, they have not studied the situation with regard to adoption and proliferation of e-government, as it progresses through various evolutionary stages. Assisted by relevant literature and authors’ experience, this chapter constructs the likely scenarios of e-government adoption and proliferation through the different stages of evolution. It emerges that each stage of e-government is associated with unique challenges and opportunities with respect to e-government proliferation and adoption by stakeholders. The circumstances presented by the individual stages for adoption and proliferation of e-government and ways to promote stakeholders’ adoption through those stages are discussed
Achieving Agility in Disaster Management
Authors: Harrald John R.
Published: May 2011

A significant body of social science research has concluded that improvisation in distributed, collaborative, open systems is the key to success in responding to and recovering from extreme events. The evolution of emergency management in the United States since the 9-11 attacks has emphasized the development of doctrine, process, and structure. In earlier work I concluded that both the agility desired by the social sciences and the discipline created by the professional practitioners are essential. This article explores how agility can be developed within a disciplined system and concludes that the keys are the development of outcome based goals, adaptive leadership, and technology that supports collaborative sense-making and decision making in open, organizational systems.
The Past as the Future of Emergency Preparedness and Management
Authors: Turoff Murray , Hiltz Starr Roxanne , White Connie , Plotnick Linda , Hendela Art , Yao Xiang
Published: May 2011

Emergency preparedness, planning, and response suffer from shortcomings that impede the potential for effectiveness. In this article, we provide an overview of Emergency Preparedness and Management that is based upon our research, including insights into the shortcomings of current practices, a discussion of relevant theories (e.g., High Reliability Organizations, muddling through) and recommendations to promote more effective planning, management, and response. Our recommendations include system support for the principles of High Reliability Organizations and muddling through, rethinking risk analysis to have a longer-term view and reflect more than just monetary loss, creating ways to better inform and involve the public, and encouraging collaboration and collective intelligence through such means as a dynamic Delphi voting system.
Only Connect
Authors: Currion Paul
Published: May 2011

The introduction of information systems and the humanitarian reform process are both having a tremendous impact on the way that humanitarian assistance is delivered – yet the two processes are extremely weakly connected. As a result, the humanitarian community is failing to realise the potential that information technology has to support key aspects of the reform process, but also failing to recognise that technology is likely to render many of the discussions around reform moot. The balance of knowledge is shifting towards those affected by disaster, implying that they will become increasingly empowered by technology to more effectively cope with the impact of those disasters. Traditional actors in the humanitarian community must incorporate these realities into its own processes or risk being overtaken by newer and more agile institutions which may not be so concerned with humanitarian principles.
When and How (Not) to Trust It?
Authors: Büscher Monika , Mogensen Preben Holst , Kristensen Margit
Published: May 2011

In this article we use the formative evaluation of a prototype ‘assembly’ of pervasive computing technologies to specify design implications for emergency virtual teamwork tools. The prototype assembly, called “Overview”, was implemented in collaboration with police, fire and medical emergency services as part of the real life event management during the Tall Ships’ Races 2007 in Denmark. We describe how the emergency teams used the technologies for collaboration between distributed colleagues, to produce shared situation awareness, to manage efforts and resources and respond to minor emergencies. Trust in technology is a key need virtual teams identify in their endeavours to dovetail innovative technologies into emergency work. We show how practices of working up trust are supported by the PalCom open architecture (which was used to build Overview), and delineate design guidelines to enable the productive integration of pervasive computing.
Open Infrastructure for a Nationwide Emergency Services Network
Authors: Gaynor Mark , Friedeck Sarah , Pearce Alan , Bradner Scott , Post Ken
Published: May 2011

The chapter suggests and supports a public policy in which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should seize a unique opportunity to resolve some of the nation’s critical communications problems in times of crises with the allocation of a portion of the spectrum at 700 MHz (specifically, the D band) for the deployment of a nationwide interoperable emergency broadband wireless network built by a public-private partnership. It then presents a convincing theoretical model that advocates that an open and/or neutral, as opposed to a closed, network will add greater efficiency, greater choice, while advancing public safety along with the deployment of new and valuable technologies, applications, and services.
Information Seeking and Retrieval Service for Crisis Response
Authors: Chen Nong , Dahanayake Ajantha
Published: May 2011

Crisis response involves handling information intensive processes, and coordination of large quantities of information from and for different relief-response organizations. The information needs and responses of such organizations are closely related to the situations and roles these organizations are involved during a crisis relief-response process. The information seeking and retrieval processes associated with crisis situations influence the affectivity of response vigor and the coordination of relief-response activities. To provide an effective solution for a European Main Port’s crisis response needs, a role-based situation-aware information seeking and retrieval conceptual framework is formulated. The conceptual framework, the design approach, and the implementation in a prototype are presented as an approach to design future crisis response for information seeking and retrieval services.
Emergency Messaging to General Public via Public Wireless Networks
Authors: Pau L-F , Simonsen P.
Published: May 2011

Warnings to the broad population in an emergency situation, irrespective of location and condition, are a public policy responsibility. Public wireless networks offer now the opportunity to deliver emergency warnings in this way with explanations, because in many countries, the mobile penetration rates and coverage are higher than any other access form. This chapter summarizes the analysis of the selection process between short messaging services (SMS) and Cell Broadcast (CB) messaging in the context of Denmark based on end user requirements, stakeholder roles and case-based analysis. It demonstrates the many technical, cost-benefit, and other trade-offs needed in supporting the population now with a dependable and wide-spread technology. This research is the basis for a national policy.
Disaster Management and Virtual Globes
Authors: Zeug Gunter , Brunner Dominik
Published: May 2011

Today, the added value of geoinformation for crisis management is well known and accepted. However, experiences show that disaster management units on local administrative levels in the developing world often lack the use of Geographic Information Systems for analysing spatial interrelations and making their own maps. Various studies mention the shortage of financial resources, human capacity, and adequate knowledge as reasons for that. In recent years publically available virtual globes like Google Earth™, Microsoft® Bing™ Maps 3D or Nasa World Wind enjoy great popularity. The accessibility of worldwide high resolution satellite data, their intuitive user interface, and the ability to integrate own data support this success. In this chapter, the potential of these new geospatial technologies for supporting disaster preparedness and response is demonstrated, using the example of Google Earth™. Possibilities for the integration of data layers from third parties, the digitization of own layers, as well as the analytical capacities are examined. Furthermore, a printing module is presented, which supports the production of paper maps based on data previously collected and edited in Google Earth™. The efficiency of the proposed approach is demonstrated for a disaster management scenario in Legazpi, a Philippine city exposed to several natural hazards due to the vicinity to Mayon volcano and the annually occuring typhoons in the region. With this research, current technological trends in geospatial technologies are taken up and investigated on their potential for professional use. Moreover, it is demonstrated that by using freely available software general constraints for using GIS in developing countries can be overcome. Most importantly, the approach presented guarantees low cost for implementation and reproducibility, which is essential for its application in developing countries.
Initial Requirements of National Crisis Decision Support System
Authors: Kabil Ahmad , Kabeil Magdy M.
Published: May 2011

The National Crisis Decision Support System NCDSS represents special type of mission critical systems highly responsive enough to face a national crisis. The value of a NCDSS is assessed according to its impact on the value of surviving a national crisis. Such systems should have common initial requirements associated with their common conceptual design. A conceptual design representing basic modules of NCDSS is developed. The conceptual design provides a general foundation that can be transferred to a detailed design and implementation of an application. The proposed concept of NCDSS meets the initial specifications that are validated using a case scenario. The relative percentage of the total score that each module contributes to the design is evaluated using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) technique.
Querying Issues in Pervasive Environments
Authors: Vargas-Solar Genoveva , Ibrahim Noha , Collet Christine , Adiba Michel , Petit Jean Marc , Delot Thierry
Published: May 2011

The main objective of this chapter is to present a general overview of existing approaches on query processing and the authors’ vision on query evaluation in pervasive environments. It illustrates, with scenarios and practical examples, existing data and streams querying systems in pervasive environments. It describes the evaluation process of (i) mobile queries and queries on moving objects, (ii) continuous queries and (iii) stream queries. Finally, the chapter introduces the authors’ vision of query processing as a service composition in pervasive environments.
Model and Ontology-Based Development of Smart Space Applications
Authors: Palviainen Marko , Katasonov Artem
Published: May 2011

The semantic data models and ontologies have shown themselves as very useful technologies for the environments where heterogeneous devices need to share information, to utilize services of each other, and to participate as components in different applications. The work in this chapter extends this approach so that the software development process for such environments is also ontology-driven. The objective is i) to support the incremental development, ii) to partially automate the development in order to make it easier and faster, and iii) to raise the level of abstraction of the application development high enough so that even people without a software engineering background would be able to develop simple applications. This chapter describes an incremental development process for the smart space application development. For this process, a supporting tool called Smart Modeler is introduced, which provides i) a visual modeling environment for smart space applications and ii) a framework and core interfaces for extensions supporting both the model and the ontology-driven development. These extensions are capable of creating model elements from ontology-based information, discovering and reusing both the software components and the partial models through a repository mechanism supported by semantic metadata, and generating executable program code from the models.
Level Crossing Sampling for Energy Conservation in Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: Alasti Hadi
Published: May 2011

In periodic sampling of the bandlimited signals, many of the consecutive samples are very similar and sometimes the signal remains unchanged over periods of time. These samples can be interpreted as redundant. For this, transmission of all of the periodic samples from all of the sensors in wireless sensor networks is wasteful. The problem becomes more challenging in large scale wireless sensor networks. Level crossing sampling in time is proposed for energy conservation in real-life application of wireless sensor networks to increase the network lifetime by avoiding the transmission of redundant samples. In this chapter, a design framework is discussed for application of level crossing sampling in wireless sensor networks. The performance of level crossing sampling for various level definition schemes are evaluated using computer simulations and experiments with real-life wireless sensors.
Dependability in Pervasive Computing
Authors: Ortmeier Frank
Published: May 2011

This chapter is targeted at developers of Pervasive Computing systems, who have to specify and meet dependability requirements. It gives an overview on different aspects of dependability, important terms and concepts, lists common analysis and design methods for meeting dependability requirements in Pervasive Computing scenarios, and shortly discusses different classes of Pervasive Computing systems and their impact on dependability issues.
Introduction
Authors: Chao Lee
Published: May 2011

As an introduction, the goal of this chapter is to introduce mobile technology, mobile learning, and the open source approach. This chapter provides some basic knowledge for readers to make the reading of the later chapters easier. It first gives an overview of mobile technology. Then, it introduces the concepts and theories of mobile learning. The recent development in mobile technology and mobile learning will be briefly reviewed. Following the review of mobile learning, the next topic is about the open source approach. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the open source approach. It also briefly reviews the history of the open source approach. Next, the chapter investigates the open source approach in mobile learning. It discusses the possible usage of open source products in mobile learning. The last topic of this chapter is about the book framework. After going through the book framework, readers will have a general picture of what to be covered in this book. Lastly, the chapter wraps up with the conclusion and references sections.
Using a Process-Aware Information System to Support Collaboration in Mobile Learning Management Systems
Authors: Perez-Rodriguez Roberto , Caeiro-Rodriguez Manuel , Anido-Rifon Luis
Published: May 2011

This chapter deals with the support of collaboration in mobile Learning Management Systems. The authors propose a collaborative game, to be taken place in an enhanced reality environment, as an example of collaboration. Several alternatives to support this scenario are analyzed, and the proposed architecture to integrate process-based collaboration in mobile Learning Management Systems is discussed in detail. Finally, an implementation of this scenario using open-source technologies is detailed.
Open Source LMS and Web 2.0 in Mobile Teaching
Authors: Spadavecchia Elisa
Published: May 2011

Can students learn a foreign language at school meeting their real communicative needs? Is it possible to exploit the potentialities of the 2.0 Web tools and the advantages of the Open Source software to guide students towards effective linguistic competence and autonomy? The chapter describes an experience of using simple Web 2.0 and teaching support online tools for learning English in an Italian secondary school, pointing out the achievements and the drawbacks of the integration of e-learning 2.0 with classroom teaching.
Mobile Web 2.0
Authors: Coutinho Clara Pereira
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, the author reflects on the emergence of Mobile Web 2.0, a new paradigm for learning in the 21st century, made possible by the combination of a powerful generation of mobile devices with Internet access and the Web 2.0 technologies that allow collaboration, participation, knowledge sharing and construction. The author presents the theoretical framework which sustains learning with mobile devices, and reflects on the potential of Mobile Web 2.0 for the development of informal learning and the construction of personal learning environments. Finally, the chapter presents educational scenarios for the development of mobile learning using Web 2.0 tools, in particular, those made possible using Twitter and m-Flickr.
A Review of Research Methods in Online and Blended Business Education
Authors: Arbaugh J. B. , Hwang Alvin , Pollack Birgit Leisen
Published: May 2011

This review of the online teaching and learning literature in business education found growing sophistication in analytical approaches over the last 10 years. The authors of this chapter believe researchers are uncovering important findings from the large number of predictors, control variables, and criterion variables examined. Scholars are employing appropriate and increasingly sophisticated techniques such as structural equation models in recent studies (16) within a field setting. To increase methodological rigor, researchers need to consciously incorporate control variables that are known to influence criterion variables of interest so as to clearly partial out the influence of their predictor variables of interest. This will help address shortcomings arising from the inability to convince sample respondents such as instructors, institutional administrators, and graduate business students on the benefits versus the cost of a fully randomized design approach.
An Introduction to Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the Partial Least Squares (PLS) Methodology
Authors: Ashill Nicholas J.
Published: May 2011

Over the past 15 years, the use of Partial Least Squares (PLS) in academic research has enjoyed increasing popularity in many social sciences including Information Systems, marketing, and organizational behavior. PLS can be considered an alternative to covariance-based SEM and has greater flexibility in handling various modeling problems in situations where it is difficult to meet the hard assumptions of more traditional multivariate statistics. This chapter focuses on PLS for beginners. Several topics are covered and include foundational concepts in SEM, the statistical assumptions of PLS, a LISREL-PLS comparison and reflective and formative measurement.
Student Performance in E-Learning Environments
Authors: Bodea Constanta-Nicoleta , Bodea Vasile , Rosca Ion Gh. , Mogos Radu , Dascalu Maria-Iuliana
Published: May 2011

The aim of this chapter is to explore the application of data mining for analyzing performance and satisfaction of the students enrolled in an online two-year master degree programme in project management. This programme is delivered by the Academy of Economic Studies, the biggest Romanian university in economics and business administration in parallel, as an online programme and as a traditional one. The main data sources for the mining process are the survey made for gathering students’ opinions, the operational database with the students’ records and data regarding students activities recorded by the e-learning platform are. More than 180 students have responded, and more than 150 distinct characteristics/ variable per student were identified. Due the large number of variables data mining is a recommended approach to analysis this data. Clustering, classification, and association rules were employed in order to identify the factor explaining students’ performance and satisfaction, and the relationship between them. The results are very encouraging and suggest several future developments.
Simulating Land Use Policies Targeted to Protect Biodiversity with the CLUE-Scanner Model
Authors: Verburg Peter H. , Lesschen Jan Peter , Koomen Eric , Pérez-Soba Marta
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents an integrated modelling approach for assessing land use changes and its effects on biodiversity. A modelling framework consisting of a macro-economic model, a land use change model, and biodiversity indicator models is described and illustrated with a scenario study for the European Union. A reference scenario is compared to a scenario in which a number of possible policies for conservation and protection of biodiversity are assumed to have been implemented. The results are evaluated by an indicator of the habitat quality for biodiversity and an indicator of landscape connectivity. The results illustrate that land use change has spatially diverse impacts on biodiversity. The effectiveness of the assumed policies is region and context dependent. The modelling framework can thus provide ex-ante assessments of policies and identify critical regions for biodiversity conservation and assist in targeting policies and incentives to protect biodiversity in vulnerable areas.
Landscape Biodiversity Characterization in Ecoregion 29 Using MODIS
Authors: Tripathi Nitin Kumar , Khant Aung Phey
Published: May 2011

Biodiversity conservation is a challenging task due to ever growing impact of global warming and climate change. The chapter discusses various aspects of biodiversity parameters that can be estimated using remote sensing data. Moderate resolution satellite (MODIS) data was used to demonstrate the biodiversity characterization of Ecoregion 29. Forest type map linked to density of the study area was also developed by MODIS data. The outcome states that remote sensing and geographic information systems can be used in combination to derive various parameters related to biodiversity surveillance at a regional scale.
The Influence of Changing Conservation Paradigms on Identifying Priority Protected Area Locations
Authors: Grainger Alan
Published: May 2011

Conservation planning for climate change adaptation is only one in a long sequence of conservation paradigms. To identify priority locations for protected areas it must compete with three other contemporary paradigms: conservation of ecosystem services, optimizing conservation of ecosystem services and poverty alleviation, and reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. This chapter shows how conservation paradigms evolved, discusses the merits of different approaches to modelling potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity, and describes the hybrid BIOCLIMA model and its application to Amazonia. It then discusses conservation planning applications of the three other contemporary paradigms, illustrated by examples from Amazonia and Kenya. It finds that rapid paradigm evolution is not a handicap if earlier paradigms can be nested within later ones. But more sophisticated planning tools are needed to identify optimal locations of protected areas when climate is changing, and to use protection to mitigate climate change. These should encompass the complex interactions between biodiversity, hydrological services, carbon cycling services, climate change, and human systems.
Modeling of current and future state of biodiversity in Central America using GLOBIO3 methodology
Authors: R. Denisse McLean
Published: May 2011

The modeling of the state of biodiversity in Central America using GLOBIO3 methodology was carried out by the Regional Biodiversity Institute for the Central American Commission on Environment and Development. For each country, current and future states of biodiversity under three socio-economic scenarios were explored. The country results were integrated into one regional assessment. The aim of this chapter is to explain how GLOBIO3 was adapted to the national scale. The main issues and the approaches adopted to solve them are described. The results from the Central American experience are presented followed by a discussion on main model limitations and derived recommendations. Finally, the challenges countries face to integrate the results into their government agendas are analyzed. This chapter is expected to be helpful for potential users of GLOBIO3 who are interested in the application of the methodology on a national and sub regional scale.
Spatial Model Approach for Deforestation
Authors: Prasetyo Lilik B. , Wijaya Chandra Irawadi , Setiawan Yudi
Published: May 2011

Java is very densely populated since it is inhabited by more than 60% of the total population of Indonesia. Based on data from the Ministry of Forestry, forest loss between 2000-2005 in Java was about 800,000 hectares. Regardless of the debate on whether the different methodologies of forest inventory applied in 2005 have resulted in an underestimation of the figure of forest loss or not, the decrease of forest cover in Java is obvious and needs immediate response. Spatial modeling of the deforestation will assist the policy makers in understanding this process and in taking it into consideration, when decisions are made on the issue. Moreover, the results can be used as data input to solve environmental problems resulting from deforestation. The authors of this chapter modeled the deforestation in Java by using logistic regression. Percentage of deforested area was considered as the response variable, whilst biophysical and socioeconomic factors, that explain the current spatial pattern in deforestation, were assigned as explanatory variables. Furthermore, the authors predicted the future deforestation process, and then, for the case of Java, it was validated with the actual deforestation derived from MODIS satellite imageries from 2000 to 2008. Results of the study showed that the impacts of population density, road density, and slope are significant. Population density and road density have negative impacts on deforestation, while slope has positive impact. Deforestation on Java Island tends to occur in remote areas with limited access, low density population and relatively steep slopes. Implication of the model is that the government should pay more attention to remote rural areas and develop good access to accelerate and create alternative non agricultural jobs in order to reduce pressure on the forest.
An Overview of Shallow and Deep Natural Language Processing for Ontology Learning
Authors: Zouaq Amal
Published: May 2011

This chapter gives an overview over the state-of-the-art in natural language processing for ontology learning. It presents two main NLP techniques for knowledge extraction from text, namely shallow techniques and deep techniques, and explains their usefulness for each step of the ontology learning process. The chapter also advocates the interest of deeper semantic analysis methods for ontology learning. In fact, there have been very few attempts to create ontologies using deep NLP. After a brief introduction to the main semantic analysis approaches, the chapter focuses on lexico-syntactic patterns based on dependency grammars and explains how these patterns can be considered as a step towards deeper semantic analysis. Finally, the chapter addresses the “ontologization” task that is the ability to filter important concepts and relationships among the mass of extracted knowledge.
Topic Extraction for Ontology Learning
Authors: RIZOIU Marian-Andrei , VELCIN Julien
Published: May 2011

This chapter addresses the issue of topic extraction from text corpora for ontology learning. The first part provides an overview of some of the most significant solutions present today in the literature. These solutions deal mainly with the inferior layers of the Ontology Learning Layer Cake. They are related to the challenges of the Terms and Synonyms layers. The second part shows how these pieces can be bound together into an integrated system for extracting meaningful topics. While the extracted topics are not proper concepts as yet, they constitute a convincing approach towards concept building and therefore ontology learning. This chapter concludes by discussing the research undertaken for filling the gap between topics and concepts as well as perspectives that emerge today in the area of topic extraction.
Learning SKOS Relations for Terminological Ontologies from Text
Authors: Wang Wei , Barnaghi Payam M. , Bargiela Andrzej
Published: May 2011

The problem of learning concept hierarchies and terminological ontologies can be divided into two sub-tasks: concept extraction and relation learning. The authors of this chapter describe a novel approach to learn relations automatically from unstructured text corpus based on probabilistic topic models. The authors provide definition (Information Theory Principle for Concept Relationship) and quantitative measure for establishing “broader” (or “narrower”) and “related” relations between concepts. They present a relation learning algorithm to automatically interconnect concepts into concept hierarchies and terminological ontologies with the probabilistic topic models learned. In this experiment, around 7,000 ontology statements expressed in terms of “broader” and “related” relations are generated using different combination of model parameters. The ontology statements are evaluated by domain experts and the results show that the highest precision of the learned ontologies is around 86.6% and structures of learned ontologies remain stable when values of the parameters are changed in the ontology learning algorithm.
ONTOLOGY LEARNING and the HUMANITIES
Authors: Burrows Toby
Published: May 2011

This chapter reviews the current state of play in the use of ontologies in the humanities, with best-practice examples from selected disciplines. It looks at the specific domain problems faced by the humanities, and examines the various approaches currently being employed to construct, maintain, and develop humanities ontologies. The application of ontology learning in the humanities is discussed by reviewing a range of research projects in different disciplines. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the future potential of ontology learning in the humanities, and an attempt to set out a research agenda for this field.
Web 2.0
Authors: Barlow Alexis , McCann Margaret , Smith Anne
Published: May 2011

This chapter critically analyses and assesses the concept and development of Web 2.0 within small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Web 2.0 is changing the way that business can be conducted, offering SMEs opportunities for developing strategies, business models and supply chains whilst adding value and gaining competitive advantage. There are many advantages for SMEs using Web 2.0 including them being easy to use, limited skills required and relatively low-cost and there are a range of emerging applications in fields such as marketing, collaboration, knowledge transfer, enhancing products and services, and research. Equally, there is an array of operational and managerial challenges that need to be overcome. This chapter suggests a set of questions that SMEs may consider using as a guide if they are considering Web 2.0 as a competitive weapon for the future.
E-Procurement System and Adoption for SMEs
Authors: Bayram Serdal , Vayvay Özalp
Published: May 2011

An electronic procurement (e-procurement) system is an electronic based procurement style that facilitates effective communications along the entire supply chain. E-procurement accelerates SMEs (small and medium size enterprises) at a reduced cost. The purpose of this chapter is to show that adoption of an e-procurement system is essential in the supply chain for SMEs and to find solutions in order to make using this system as easy as possible. The adoption should be considered as a re-engineering process from an innovative perspective. An adoption plan is proposed within the study. It contains three phases: 1) identification of the e-procurement process, 2) seeking integration points with other elements of the system, and 3) IT implementation of the integration areas. The study also proposes to use business process management tools that have workflow engines and Web service implementations for integration points. Although BPM (business process management) tools are seen as quite expensive to SMEs, there are also dependable free licensed ones. The study is concluded with a case-study that is implemented with a free-licensed BPM tool for proof-of-concepts.
Market Research 2.0
Authors: Given Lisa M. , Rathi Dinesh
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the possibilities of conducting market research in Web 2.0 environments, with a focus on implications for small to medium-sized companies. The chapter discusses how companies can undertake market research using Web 2.0 platforms, explores how these tools can facilitate successful and appropriate market research design, and examines the characteristics of qualitative and quantitative “Research 2.0” techniques appropriate to a Web 2.0 environment. The chapter also presents examples of companies that are using these tools successfully for market research and discusses advantages and barriers in adopting these tools, including privacy, ethics, and legal implications of this type of research.
e-Marketing
Authors: Manarte Nuno , Teixeira Mário Sérgio
Published: May 2011

The company website is the gateway to Internet marketing, so it is important to promote it in a variety of ways that will be explained later. Selling online can be an interesting option, but this decision should only be taken after considering the pros and cons that it involves. To conclude, we will talk about the e-marketing plan, which should guarantee that the objectives, strategies, and actions of online marketing are coherently integrated with the offline marketing plan.
Key Contracts Needed for SMEs Conducting e-Business
Authors: De Silva Sam
Published: May 2011

In order for a small to medium enterprise (SME) to conduct business electronically, that SME requires the establishment of a website. This requires agreements relating to (1) website development, (2) website hosting (3), Internet access, and (4) online content and advertising. The chapter will provide a practical guide from a UK law perspective for a SME in relation to the issues which should be considered when contracts for the above mentioned services are negotiated. The chapter does not cover the issues relating to how the SME should set up its arrangements with its own customers (for example, through website terms and conditions) nor does it consider e-commerce legislation required when conducting business on the Internet.