bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Empirical Issues and Theoretical Mechanisms of Pavlovian Conditioning
Authors: Vogel Edgar H. , Ponce Fernando P.
Published: May 2011

Pavlovian conditioning is a very simple and universal form of learning that has the benefit of a long and rich tradition of experimental work and quantitative theorization. With the development of interdisciplinary efforts, behavioral data and quantitative theories of conditioning have become progressively more important not just for experimental psychologists but also for broader audiences such as neurobiologists, computational neuroscientists and artificial intelligence workers. In order to provide interdisciplinary users with an overview of the state of affairs of theoretically oriented research in this field, this chapter reviews a few key mechanisms that are currently deemed necessary for explaining several critical phenomena of Pavlovian conditioning. The chapter is divided into several sections; each referring to a particular theoretical mechanism and to the type of phenomena that it has been designed to account. The progression of the sections reveals phenomena and mechanisms of increasing complexity, which is an indication of the theoretical sophistication that has been reached in this domain. Since there is not a single theory containing all mechanisms, they are described separately from their originating theories, emphasizing thus the fact that they might be used in almost any theoretical implementation.
Artificial Neural Systems for Robots
Authors: Husbands Phil , Philippides Andy , Seth Anil K.
Published: May 2011

This chapter reviews the use of neural systems in robotics, with particular emphasis on strongly biologically inspired neural networks and methods. As well as describing work at the research frontiers, the paper provides some historical background in order to clarify the motivations and scope of work in this field. There are two major sections that make up the bulk of the chapter: one surveying the application of artificial neural systems to robot control, and one describing the use of robots as tools in neuroscience. The former concentrates on biologically derived neural architectures and methods used to drive robot behaviours, and the latter introduces a closely related area of research where robotic models are used as tools to study neural mechanisms underlying the generation of adaptive behaviour in animals and humans.
A Modular Framework for Vision-Based Human Computer Interaction
Authors: Iannizzotto Giancarlo , La Rosa Francesco
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces the VirtualBoard framework for building vision-based Perceptual User Interfaces (PUI). While most vision-based Human Computer Interaction applications developed over the last decade focus on the technological aspects related to image processing and computer vision, our main effort is towards ease and naturalness of use, integrability and compatibility with the existing systems and software, portability and efficiency. VirtualBoard is based on a modular architecture which allows the implementation of several classes of gestural and vision-based human-computer interaction approaches: it is extensible and portable and requires relatively few computational resources, thus also helping in reducing energy consumption and hardware costs. Particular attention is also devoted to robustness to environment conditions (such as illumination and noise level). We believe that current technologies can easily support vision-based PUIs and that PUIs are strongly needed by modern applications. With the exception of gaming industry, where vision-based PUIs are already being intensively studied and in some cases exploited, more effort is needed to merge the knowledge from HCI and computer vision communities to develop realistic and industrially appealing products. This work is intended as a stimulus in this direction.
Robust Human Face Tracking in Eigenspace for Perceptual Human-Robot Interaction
Authors: Jiang Richard , Sadka Abdul
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces a robust human face tracking scheme for vision-based human-robot interaction, where the detected face-like regions in the video sequence are tracked using unscented Kalman filter (UKF), and face occlusion are tackled by using an online appearance-based scheme using principle component analysis (PCA). The experiment is carried out with the standard test video, which validates that the proposed PCA-based face tracking can attain robust performance in tackling face occlusions.
3D Face Modeling for Multi-Feature Extraction for Intelligent Systems
Authors: Riaz Zahid , Gedikli Suat , Beetz Michael , Radig Bernd
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, we focus on the human robot joint interaction application where robots can extract the useful multiple features from human faces. The idea follows daily life scenarios where humans rely mostly on face to face interaction and interpret gender, identity, facial behavior and age of the other persons at a very first glance. We term this problem as face-at-a-glance problem. The proposed solution to this problem is the development of a 3D photorealistic face model in real time for human facial analysis. We also discuss briefly some outstanding challenges like head poses, facial expressions and illuminations for image synthesis. Due to the diversity of the application domain and optimization of relevant information extraction for computer vision applications, we propose to solve this problem using an interdisciplinary 3D face model. The model is built using computer vision and computer graphics tools with image processing techniques. In order to trade off between accuracy and efficiency, we choose wireframe model which provides automatic face generation in real time. The goal of this chapter is to provide a standalone and comprehensive framework to extract useful multi-feature from a 3D model. Such features due to their wide range of information and less computational power, finds their applications in several advanced camera mounted technical systems. Although this chapter focuses on multi-feature extraction approach for human faces in interactive applications with intelligent systems, however the scope of this chapter is equally useful for researchers and industrial practitioner working in the modeling of 3D deformable objects. The chapter mainly specified to human faces but can also be applied to other applications like medical imaging, industrial robot manipulation and action recognition.
Bio-Inspired Scheme for Classification of Visual Information
Authors: Dong Le , Izquierdo Ebroul , Ge Shuzhi
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, research on visual information classification based on biologically inspired visually selective attention with knowledge structuring is presented. The research objective is to develop visual models and corresponding algorithms to automatically extract features from selective essential areas of natural images, and finally, to achieve knowledge structuring and classification within a structural description scheme. The proposed scheme consists of three main aspects: biologically inspired visually selective attention, knowledge structuring and classification of visual information. Biologically inspired visually selective attention closely follow the mechanisms of the visual “what” and “where” pathways in the human brain. The proposed visually selective attention model uses a bottom-up approach to generate essential areas based on low-level features extracted from natural images. This model also exploits a low-level top-down selective attention mechanism which performs decisions on interesting objects by human interaction with preference or refusal inclination. Knowledge structuring automatically creates a relevance map from essential areas generated by visually selective attention. The developed algorithms derive a set of well-structured representations from low-level description to drive the final classification. The knowledge structuring relays on human knowledge to produce suitable links between low-level descriptions and high-level representation on a limited training set. The backbone is a distribution mapping strategy involving two novel modules: structured low-level feature extraction using convolution neural network and topology preservation based on sparse representation and unsupervised learning algorithm. Classification is achieved by simulating high-level top-down visual information perception and classification using an incremental Bayesian parameter estimation method. The utility of the proposed scheme for solving relevant research problems is validated. The proposed modular architecture offers straightforward expansion to include user relevance feedback, contextual input, and multimodal information if available.
A Forward & Backward Secure Key Management in Wireless Sensor Networks for PCS/SCADA
Authors: Alzaid Hani , Park DongGook , Nieto Juan Gonzàlez , Boyd Colin , Foo Ernest
Published: May 2011

Process Control Systems (PCSs) or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems have recently been added to the already wide collection of wireless sensor network applications. The PCS/ SCADA environment is somewhat more amenable to the use of heavy cryptographic mechanisms such as public key cryptography than other sensor application environments. The sensor nodes in this environment, however, are still open to devastating attacks such as node capture, which makes the design of secure key management challenging. This chapter introduces an adversary model with which we can assess key management protocols. It also proposes a key management scheme to defeat node capture attack by offering both forward and backward secrecies. The scheme overcomes the pitfalls of a comparative scheme while being not computationally more expensive.
Body Area Networks
Authors: Agudelo Leonardo Betancur , Cadavid Andres Navarro
Published: May 2011

Nowadays, wireless Body Area Networks (wBAN) have gained more relevance, in particular in the areas of health care, emergencies, ranging, location, domotics and entertainment applications. Regulations and several wireless protocols and standards have appeared in recent years. Some of them, like Bluetooth, ZigBee, Ultra Wide Band (UWB), ECMA368, WiFi, GPRS and mobile applications offer different kinds of solutions for personal area communications. In this chapter, body area network channel modelling will be described; also, a brief description of the applications and state-of-the-art of regulation and standardization processes pertaining to these kinds of networks will be presented. For each topic, the chapter shows not only the main technical characteristics, but also the technical problems and challenges in recent and future research. Finally, the chapter provides an analysis of Body Area Networks, opinions about the future and possible scenarios in the short- and medium-term for the development of standards and applications and their impacts on our daily lives.
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) Applied in Agriculture
Authors: Martínez-Rosas Miguel Enrique , De Ávila Humberto Cervantes , Hipólito Juan Iván Nieto , López José Rosario Gallardo
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents an overview of recent developments, challenges and opportunities related to the application of wireless sensor networks (WSN) in agriculture. The material presented here is introductory in nature and has been designed to be useful for students starting to work in the field of WSN and for researchers looking for state-of-the-art information in general or specific details related to their practical application in agriculture.
Modeling the Diversity of User Behavior in Online Communities
Authors: Hogg Tad , Szabo Gabor
Published: May 2011

This chapter describes models of the diversity of behavior seen in online communities, in particular how users contribute and attend to content, and how they form social links with their peers. We illustrate the models and parameter estimation procedure with a political discussion community. The models identify key characteristics of users and the web site design leading to the diverse behaviors, and suggest future experiments to identify causal mechanisms producing these characteristics.
Building Web Communities
Authors: Isakovic Jan , Sulcic Alja
Published: May 2011

The aim of the chapter is to provide an example of community definition and community building methodology using a step-by-step approach. The presented community specification and building methodology allows refining a broad community purpose into specific measurable goals, selects the social media tools that are best matched with the company needs and results in a platform specification that can be relatively simply transformed into software specifications or platform requirements.
Virtual Geodemographics
Authors: Singleton Alex D
Published: May 2011

Computer mediated communication and the Internet has fundamentally changed how consumers and producers connect and interact across both real space, and has also opened up new opportunities in virtual spaces. This book chapter describes how technologies capable of locating and sorting networked communities of geographically disparate individuals within virtual communities present a sea change in the conception, representation and analysis of socioeconomic distributions through geodemographic analysis. It is argued that through virtual communities, social networks between individuals may subsume the role of neighborhood areas as the most appropriate unit of analysis, and as such, geodemographics needs to be repositioned in order to accommodate social similarities in virtual, as well as geographical, space. The chapter ends by proposing a new model for geodemographics which spans both real and virtual geographies.
Online Multi-Contextual Analysis
Authors: Young Alyson , Gurzick David , Quan-Haase Anabel
Published: May 2011

This chapter proposes online multi-contextual analysis (OMCA) as a new multi-method approach for investigating and analyzing the behaviors, perceptions, and opinions of social network site (SNS) users. This approach is designed to extend methods currently available for the investigation of the use and social consequences of these sites with techniques that converge upon and triangulate users’ perceptions of their online behavior. Using quantitative measures of SNS usage, OMCA provides a much neglected level of analysis. We discuss current methodological practice in SNS research and introduce OMCA as an alternative approach. We then describe two studies that have employed OMCA to illustrate the method’s diversity and potential for providing new insights. Finally, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of OMCA in comparison to single approaches and draw conclusions for theories of SNSs.
Measuring Brand Community Strength
Authors: Yamamoto Hikaru , Matsuo Yutaka
Published: May 2011

The emphasis of this chapter is brand community. A brand community is a virtual community where consumers who share a set of social relations based upon usage or interest in a product gather into a group and mutually interact. The consumers’ purchase decision-making is often influenced by word-of-mouth communications with the other consumers; who to trust among them is often determined by their similarity of product purchase behavior. This bidirectional effect between trust and product preference explains the emergence and the strength of brand community. This chapter presents a theoretical model of this phenomenon along with analyses of an actual virtual community. We designate the bidirectional effect as community gravity because it represents the power to induce users to join the community. This analysis provides insights for understanding consumer behavior in an online environment.
The Sense of e-Learning Community Index (SeLCI) for Computer Supported Collaborative e-Learning (CSCeL)
Authors: Lambropoulos Niki
Published: May 2011

The aim of this research is to shed light in collaborative e-learning communities in order to observe, analyse and support the e-learning participants. The research context is the Greek teachers’ e-learning community, started in 2003 as part of a project for online teachers’ training and aimed at enabling teachers to acquire new competencies. However, these aims were not met because of passive participation; therefore this study aimed to enhance the Greek teachers’ social engagement to achieve the new skills acquisition. Therefore, the initial sense of community identification was based on empathy; however, because it was inadequate to fully describe the context,, a Sense of E-Learning Community Index (SeLCI) was developed. The new SeLCI attributes were: community evolution; sense of belonging; empathy; trust; intensity characterised by e-learners’ levels of participation and persistence on posting; collaborative e-learning quality measured by the quality in Computer Supported Collaborative eLearning (CSCeL) dialogical sequences, participants’ reflections on own learning; and social network analysis based on: global cohesion anchored in density, reciprocity, cliques and structural equivalence, global centrality derived from in- and out-degree centrality and closeness; and local nodes and centrality in real time. Forty Greek teachers participated in the study for 30 days using Moodle and enhanced Moodle with to measure participation, local Social network Analysis and critical thinking levels in CSCeL. Quantitative, qualitative, Social Network Analysis and measurements produced by the tools were used for data analysis. The findings indicated that each of the SeLCI is essential to enhance participation, collaboration, internalisation and externalisation of knowledge to ensure the e-learning quality and new skills acquisition. Affective factors in CSCeL (sense of belonging, empathy and trust) were also essential to increase reciprocity and promote active participation. Community management, e-learning activities and lastly, the technology appear to affect CSCeL.
A Perspective on ICT Diffusion in the Arab Region
Authors: Abdallah Salam , Albadri Fayez
Published: May 2011

Interest in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the Arab world has started to take different strides for many reasons. This growing endorsement of ICT is primarily attributed to economic and social development factors, and is driven by the aim to transform Arab society to a knowledge based society. Such an endeavor could be successfully achieved only through effective creation, adoption and innovation of the technology. This chapter examines the extant literature on ICT in the Arab world in order to glean the level of ICT investment and acceptance, and to attempt to understand the interplay of cultural practices and values on the successful implementations of ICT initiatives. The Arab countries are undergoing major development that is expected to culminate in tangible growth in many areas, attract the attention and interest of both businesses and researchers. This chapter also sets the scene and lays the foundation for the ICT discussions and investigations in the rest of the chapters of the textbook.
ICT in Education
Authors: Kawas Sonia
Published: May 2011

This chapter is based on work carried out as part of the scope of the ICT in Education project jointly sponsored by Jordan’s Ministry of Education and the British Council, with the participation of four other Middle Eastern countries (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories). The author’s main empirical findings and comments relate to the duration of the project (viz. between 2003 and 2008), showing how ICT in education brought positive impact on the delivery of teaching in class, and also how online forums can be utilized as opportunities to exchange invaluable information and knowledge in this sector. Current status, challenges, solutions and recommendations are based on the author’s findings and experience whilst managing and working on the project.
The Rising of the Ubiquitous City
Authors: Firmino Rodrigo , Duarte Fábio , Ultramari Clovis
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, the authors investigate how the shift to a completely urban global world intertwined by ubiquitous and mobile ICTs changes the ontological meaning of space, and how the use of these technologies challenges the social and political construction of territories and the cultural appropriation of places. The authors‘ approach to this conceptual debate will focus on what they consider to be more direct and tangible implications of this augmentation of urban life. Three types of manifestations will represent the core of the discussions presented here, both through theoretical approaches and analytical descriptions of some examples: surveillance artifacts which permeate daily life and allow a hypothetical total control of space; locative media that gives us the freedom of spatial mobility and the possibility of creating and recreating places; and the global networks of signs, values and ideologies, which break down the social and political boundaries of territories.
The Urban Communication Infrastructure
Authors: Drucker Susan , Gumpert Gary
Published: May 2011

Does Wi-Fi, the Internet, the mobile phone, satellite communication, the I-Pod, flat screen television, wireless devices, Skype, Face Book, Twitter, virtual communities, laptops, Kindle, alter a sense of place and attachment? This area of exploration is absent not only in the areas of urban planning and design, but also other types of places such as schools and even the home where communication technologies are especially varied and proliferate. This chapter will propose a taxonomy of the relationship of people to places in a media rich environment suggesting a continuum ranging from place attachment through a sense of a-location. The taxonomy offers a classification system clarifying the need to examine the impact of media technologies on the people/environment relationship. This reflects not only how people’s use of space and place have changed as a result of the proliferation of laptops and I-phones, but also what this means in terms of how they connect or disconnect with their physical surroundings.
Locative Media and Surveillance at the Boundaries of Informational Territories
Authors: Lemos André
Published: May 2011

This chapter aims to understand new forms of surveillance raised with location-based technologies (LBT) and location-based services (LBS). LBS and LBT are used under the label “locative media”. Locative media are media where digital information is bounded to a specific context, and are used for locating, controlling, monitoring and tracking people, places and objects. Here the authors investigate how ubiquitous and pervasive technologies are creating informational territories and digital bubbles or virtual walls that can protect privacy and anonymity of a “sujet insecure”, or “insecure individual”. To illustrate their goal, the authors will see some systems that use locative media to controling, monitoring and tracking people and objects and some art project showing souveillances or critical actions vis à vis the “control society”. They will show informational territories involving surveillance cameras, Bluetooth networks and RFID tags.
Evaluation of Coupled Nuclear and Cytoplasmic p53 Dynamics
Authors: Sun Tingzhe , Cai Meihong , Cui Jun , Shen Pingping
Published: May 2011

The tumor suppressor protein p53 predominantly serves as a sequence specific transcription factor that may be activated upon exposure to diverse stimuli. One potent death inducer, p53-upregulated mediator of apoptosis (PUMA), is transcriptionally induced by p53. Once released into the cytoplasm, PUMA can lead to the activation of Bcl-2 apoptotic network. The cytoplasmic proapoptotic roles of p53 have recently been discovered, and these findings have placed p53 into the chemical interaction network with Bcl-2 family members. PUMA can also relieve p53 from the sequestration of antiapoptotic members. Released p53 further enters the nucleus and induces PUMA expression. We proposed that this positive feedback loop could lead to bistability. Further sensitivity analysis suggested that the system which covers the interactions between p53 and BCL-2 family members is considerably sensitive to p53 production rate. Meanwhile, downstream network components are much more affected by certain parameters than upstream effectors. Therefore, this newly discovered positive feedback loop might play critical roles in apoptotic network.
Marketing Distance Education Programs
Authors: Gok Osman , Ozeren Emir
Published: May 2011

The chapter argues that OE service providers require well designed marketing strategies and should differentiate the institution and the programs from competition. Hence, designing successful OEPs relies heavily on building an organization-wide customer orientation and a significant marketing perspective.
M-Learning
Authors: Yamamoto Gonca Telli
Published: May 2011

This study could be defined as the process through which an education typically moves, as well as the moves of marketing of these programs. User friendly applications of mobilogren (http://www.mobilogren.net/) from Turkey will be given as a case study as a sample of a beginning stage of these developing software.
Older Adults as New Learners
Authors: Stein David S. , Wanstreet Constance E. , Lutz Michelle L. , Dixon Tiffany
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents a marketing model for four-year higher education institutions that may be appropriate for engaging aging Baby Boomers in lifelong learning. Baby Boomers will challenge higher education institutions to rethink their customer base and respond to a different set of needs from that exhibited by traditional students and by adult learners who are currently 65 or older. Higher education institutions have not prepared for the demands that aging Baby Boomers may place on providers of learning. The PRI2SM model suggests ways to recruit nontraditional students to traditional providers of higher education.
Virtual Metaplasticity (Ars Metaplastica)
Authors: Mura Gianluca
Published: May 2011

This chapter defines a new metaplastic discipline through analysis of Digital art history and their relations among artistic and scientific achievements. Virtual Realities found in Art and Science a new modality of definition based on technological codifying with language philosophies that interpret new digital aesthetics. It would be introduced new metaplastic virtual media used in different research areas with examples of applications.
Pervasive Virtual Worlds
Authors: Reyes-García Everardo
Published: May 2011

Digital media have become pervasive. Most of ordinary tasks in everyday life, from leisure to work, are mediated through electronic devices and their respective digital content. The variety of tasks and their integration into computers and portable devices allow us to think about media as a ‘society of media’; a collective of media elements that exchange information and act upon those exchanges. In a society of media, the world is constituted by the hyperspace created by digital media and human uses. Within this context, an interesting role of digital media is that they ‘virtualize’ human senses and capabilities. Historically, the notion of ‘virtuality’ has been associated to seminal media concepts such as virtual worlds, which imply the use of interactive computer graphics imagery (CGI) to perform simulation and immersion. Another concept is virtual reality (VR), which has fostered prominent developments including generated environments, multimodal interaction, 3D modeling, and digital animation.
Semantic Entities in Virtual Worlds
Authors: Slavin Vadim , Love Diane
Published: May 2011

This chapter explores how a parallel semantic knowledge base describing the virtual world can improve the utility of virtual world environment by enabling virtual agents to interact and behave like their peer human participants. To a computer, the virtual world is nothing but a set of triangles derived from tessellated shapes comprising the virtual environment. The burden of instrumenting physical interaction is placed on algorithms to check physical constraints and object properties for each time step. These 3D object properties can be defined in a domain knowledge base where semantic descriptions of these objects contain not only physical properties, but relationships, inheritance, polymorphic properties, past history, course of action, acceptable effects, desired objectives, and purpose, resulting in a much richer architecture for defining the behavior of and interactions between various virtual entities.
The City of Abadyl
Authors: Johansson Michael
Published: May 2011

In the City of Abadyl we try to explore a complex digital space in a setting that invites to participation. We provide a detailed and complex, yet open world that can be utilized in order to generate scenarios for the temporary co-creators of Abadyl, who would then interact in an optional environment and in the end producing new artefacts. Abadyl is a database that contains all the gathered information in different file formats, it is a storage facility for all of the physical artefacts, it is a website used for communication and documentation, it is a map for navigating the City. This combination of interactive situations and artefactual production we called “fieldasy”. We are concentrated on developing collaboration in the production of new media and it´s artefacts. We try to produce artwork that actually incorporates surprising visual and technical proposals that are unusual, enriching and engaging. By building prototypes and iterate it over time and amongst the co-creators, it let us explore this area in a fruitful way, moving between artistic intentions/screen writing, artefacts and digital generated expressions and script/code writing. Here the virtual object can challenge the physical with qualities that is very hard to achieve in the physical world, and in that conflict, new expressions can be developed. Today Hybrid creations have become a method for working with cultural production not only with different elements of form, but as blending identities of the creators as well. In our prototype work we focus especially on interactive installations and stage design; we realize that the digital design process both demand new forms of conceptualization and prototyping activities to support the design of the expression of the final artwork itself – and maybe in the long run propose a updated and appropriate design theory in this field.
How to Build up Recommender Agents, Step by Step
Authors: Lluis de la Rosa Josep , Trias Albert , Hormazábal Nicolás , del Acebo Esteve , Montaner Miquel
Published: May 2011

This chapter proposes a novel educational approach to agents, emphasizing the hand-on practical application of agents, the direct implementation of agency features without any strict methodology, boost the students’ excitement through competition while enhancing the necessary students’ cooperative skills through the development of auction market places. This chapter introduces, step by step, the agency features necessary to construct a recommender agent: user profiling and recommender systems, trust, aggregation-consensus, and negotiation-auctions. Following the aim of hands-on priority, other more advanced topics, such as e-Institutions, multi-agent architectures, and agent programming languages, are intentionally not covered in this chapter, though covered for more specialized courses. The contents of this chapter were developed for the “Tecnologia Agent (TA)” master course in the years 2005-2010 with post-graduate students at the University of Girona, who demonstrated high levels of achievement by grasping a way of building up agents, less concerned of methodologies and more focused on mastering the agent features necessary to build up agents that autonomously work on behalf of users.
Telecommunications Interception in Turkey
Authors: Köse Melike Akkaraca
Published: May 2011

The paper discusses telecommunication interceptions in Turkey as a state surveilling itself as well as its citizens. While surveillance of state officials including the judiciary indicates a perception of threat from inside the state, these perceptions overlap with the ‘deep state’ phenomenon in Turkey. Despite the 2005 legal reforms which introduce strict legal standards for communications surveillance, current political developments reveal that wiretapping remains as a commonly used micro-power application. The paper, by utilizing Foucault’s theory, aims to uncover the ‘conditions of possibility’ for the use of this disciplinary technique in Turkey with a certain focus on the actual power relations and discourses of truth.
Surveillance in Public Spaces as a Means of Protecting Security
Authors: Tsiftsoglou Anna
Published: May 2011

The Greek Data Protection Authority (DPA) was asked in July 2009 to review a proposed legislation that was exempting personal data processing via camera installations in public spaces from the scope of the Greek Data Protection Law 2472/1997. Such an exemption was justified, among other reasons, for the protection of public safety and crime prevention. This paper examines the legitimacy of this security measure from two angles: European and Greek Law. Furthermore, our analysis focuses on questions of privacy, the concept of public safety and its application, as well as the DPA’s role in safeguarding citizens’ privacy even in city streets.
Balancing the Protection of Genetic Data and National Security in the Era of New Technology
Authors: Contartese Cristina
Published: May 2011

The aim of this work is to examine the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) balancing exercise between genetic data protection and national security, under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). It analyzes, more specifically, the core principles of the Strasbourg Court that the Council of Europe’s Contracting States are required to apply when they collect and store genetic data in order to reach specific purposes in terms of public security, such as the fight against crimes. It will emerge that the Court, in consideration of the risks new technologies pose to an individual’s data safeguards, pays special attention to the strict periods of storage of such data and requires that their collection be justified by the existing of a pressing social need and a “careful scrutiny” of the principle of proportionally between the intrusive measure and the aim pursued. This work is divided into three main parts. The first part provides a general overview on personal data protection under Article 8, while the second and third part concentrate, respectively, on the collection of genetic data and on their storage for police purposes.
Digital Copyright Enforcement
Authors: Pina Pedro
Published: May 2011

Copyright and privacy are two fundamental values for a democratic society, since both enhance the development of each individual’s personality. Nevertheless, in cyberspace, copyright enforcement and the right to informational self determination have become two clashing realities. In fact, with the arrival of digital technology, especially the Internet, rightholders, facing massive on-line copyright infringements, mainly by file-sharers on peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, started developing more and more intrusive new enforcement strategies in electronic communications as a means to identify the infringers and the committed infractions. The goal of the present paper is to study, in a context where massive unauthorized uses of copyrighted works is an undeniable reality, how the boundaries between what is public or private become fainter, whether the use of tracking software is consistent with personal data protection legislation, and whether it is possible to reconcile these two human rights.
Data Protection in EU Law
Authors: Tzanou Maria
Published: May 2011

This chapter aims to discuss the possibilities and limitations of the EU to provide for an effective and comprehensive data protection regime. In this respect, it presents an analysis of the data protection rules in EU law by examining the relevant constitutional and secondary law framework. It analyzes the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance on data protection issues, and argues that the European Court of Justice has interpreted an internal market measure (the Data Protection Directive) in such a way so as to foster the protection of fundamental rights. However, when it comes to the balancing between fundamental rights the Court leaves the question to be resolved by national courts. Finally, the contribution assesses the transborder data flows regime established by the Data Protection Directive and attempts to draw some conclusions on whether the ‘adequate protection’ test ensures a high protection in such flows.
Cross-Border Transfer of Personal Data
Authors: Stan Grigore-Octav , Ghitu Georgiana
Published: May 2011

This chapter outlines the Romanian data protection legal regime governing the cross-border transfers of personal data, both to countries located in the European Union (EU) or in the European Economic Area (EEA), as well as to non-EU or non-EEA countries. In addressing the Romanian legal requirements related to international transfers of personal data, a high level insight into the background of Romanian data protection principles and main rules applicable in the broader context of privacy proves useful. Although this chapter analyzes mainly the Romanian legal regime of data protection, with a special emphasis on cross-border transfer of personal data, a similar interpretation and application of the data protection related requirements may also be encountered in other European jurisdictions. While expounding primarily on data transfer related matters, this chapter also looks at how the EU Data Protection Directive (Directive No. 95/46 EC), as well as the relevant secondary legislation in the field of data protection, has been implemented into Romanian law.
Multithreaded Programming of Reconfigurable Embedded Systems
Authors: Agron Jason , Andrews David , Happe Markus , Lübbers Enno , Platzner Marco
Published: May 2011

Embedded and Real-Time (ERTS) systems have continued to expand at a vigorous rate. Designers of ERTS systems are continually challenged to provide new capabilities that can meet the expanding requirements and increased computational needs of each new proposed application, but at a decreasing price/performance ratio. Conventional solutions using general purpose processors or custom ASICs are less and less able to satisfy the contradictory requirements in performance, flexibility, power, development time, and cost. This chapter introduces the concept of generating semi-custom platforms driven from a traditional multithreaded programming model. This approach offers the advantage of achieving productivity levels close to those associated with software by using an established programming model but with a performance level close to custom hardware through the use of a flexible hardware platform capable of adapting to specialized application requirements. We discuss the underlying concepts, requirements and advantages of multithreading in the context of reconfigurable hardware, and present two approaches which provide multithreading support to hardware and software components at the operating system level.
Formal Analysis of Real-Time Systems
Authors: Hasan Osman , Tahar Sofiène
Published: May 2011

Real-time systems usually involve a subtle interaction of a number of distributed components and have a high degree of parallelism, which makes their performance analysis quite complex. Thus, traditional techniques, such as simulation, or state-based formal methods usually fail to produce reasonable results. The main limitation of these approaches may be overcome by conducting the performance analysis of real-time systems using higher-order-logic theorem proving. This chapter is mainly oriented towards this emerging trend and it provides the details about analyzing both functional and performance related properties of real-time systems using a higher-order-logic theorem prover (HOL). For illustration purposes, the Stop-and-Wait protocol, which is a classical example of real-time systems, has been considered as a case-study.
Choosing the Optimized OS for an MPSoC Embedded System
Authors: Jemai Abderrazak
Published: May 2011

This chapter provides a comparative study between recent operating systems, designed for embedded systems. Our study focuses, in particular, on systems designed for Multiprocessors implementations called MPSoC. An OS can be seen as abstract layer or an interface between the embedded application and the underlying hardware. In this chapter, we give a comparative study of main operating systems used in embedded systems. The originality of this chapter is that we specially focus on the OS ability to be optimized to support and manage a multiprocessor architecture. A multiprocessor system-on-chip is software driven and mastering the development complexity of the software part of MPSoC, is the key to reduce developing time factor. This opportunity could be reached through the use of a document giving a detailed description and analysis for criteria related to MPSoC. The wide diversity of existing operating systems, the huge complexity to develop an application specific or a general purpose, and the aggressive evolution of embedded systems makes the development of such a system a so difficult task. These considerations lead to the realization that a work that provides guidance for the MPSoC designers will be very beneficial for these communities.
Information Sharing and Processing in Computer-Mediated Interactions
Authors: Campbell Jamonn
Published: May 2011

This chapter will examine the effects of internet technologies on the collective information sampling (CIS) bias. The CIS bias is the tendency for task groups to favor the introduction, discussion, and use of shared or commonly known information during group discussion, rather than utilizing unshared information that is uniquely known by individual group members. The oversampling of shared information may lead groups to make suboptimal decisions when the content of their unshared information is critical for solving the task. The inherent structure and socially liberating effects of computer-mediated communication (CMC) may offer some solutions for reducing the CIS bias, and thereby increase the decision quality of electronic task groups.
Group Decision Making for Advanced Manufacturing Technology Selection Using the Choquet Integral
Authors: Kahraman Cengiz , Çebi Selçuk , Kaya Ihsan
Published: May 2011

Advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) is defined as a modern method of production incorporating highly automated and sophisticated computerized design and operational systems. Hence, an investment decision to adopt AMT is a strategic decision. A group decision making process is stressful when group members have different views under multiple and conflicting criteria. Satisfying group members’ opinions has a critical impact on a decision. In this chapter, a multiple criteria group decision making problem under a fuzzy environment is used for the selection among AMTs. Choquet integral methodology is used for this selection. A strategic investment problem of a company for a suitable Automated Storage/Retrieval System (AS/RS) is considered and discussed.
A Case for the Re-Use of Community Reasoning
Authors: Stranieri Andrew , Yearwood John
Published: May 2011

In software engineering, the re-use concept is a design principle that improves efficiency, quality and maintainability by ensuring that software artifacts are developed once and re-used many times. In an analogous way, a group‘s reasoning can be imagined to be re-used by that or another group to enhance efficiency, transparency and consistency in decision-making. However, the re-use of reasoning is difficult to achieve because group reasoning cannot easily be captured and the way in which a group reasoning artifact is subsequently used is not obvious. This chapter explores the case for the re-use of community reasoning and concludes that individuals can benefit from a representation of a previous group‘s coalesced reasoning if the reasoning to be modeled and the scheme to represent the reasoning have been selected to suit the task. The authors contend that specifying the future community likely to re-use the reasoning, called the intended audience, informs a decision regarding whether an exercise aimed at coalescing a group‘s reasoning is best performed verbally, in writing or with the use of more structured schemes such as Argument visualization.
New Media, Communities, and Social Practice
Authors: Akoumianakis Demosthenes
Published: May 2011

This chapter aims to provide an introductory tutorial to the key topics and themes suggested in the chapter’s title and further developed by authors in the four main parts of this volume. It was considered important to provide this introductory account for two main reasons. First, it serves the purpose of sketching the boundaries of the volume by establishing an early focus on the concepts being addressed and highlighting the volume’s orientation. This is expected to help the reader clarify the difference between this edited collection of chapters and other relevant literature. Secondly, the tutorial will hopefully unfold the rationale behind the structure of the volume into parts as well as the contributions selected in each part.
Social Computing
Authors: Joseph Rhoda C.
Published: May 2011

This article examines the area of social computing and its implications for electronic government (e­-government). Social computing is a broad term that refers to different products and services that supports human interaction in a computer mediated environment. Terms such as online communities, peer networking, and social software have overlapping meanings with social computing (Parameswaran and Whinston, 2007). E-government refers to the delivery of government services via information and communications technology to citizens, businesses, employees, government agencies and special interest groups. In this article we present a theoretical model for the application of social computing in the area of e-government and we use an analysis of state websites to assess the extent of social computing development in the e-government domain. Our findings indicate that social computing is in its infancy in e-government applications. We make recommendations and analyze the potential value and challenges of social computing in e-government.
An Abstract Framework for Modeling Argumentation in Virtual Communities
Authors: Groza Tudor , Handschuh Siegfried , Breslin John G. , Decker Stefan
Published: May 2011

Classic argumentative discussions can be found in a variety of domains from traditional scientific publishing to today’s modern social software. An interactive argumentative discussion usually consists of an initial proposition stated by a single creator, followed by supporting propositions or counter-propositions from other contributors, usually part of the same virtual community. Thus, the actual argumentation semantics is hidden in the content created by the contributors. Although there are approaches that try to deal with this challenge, most of them focus on a particular domain, limiting the scope of the argumentation to that domain only. In this article, the authors describe an abstract model for argumentation which captures the semantics independently of the domain. Following a modularized approach, the authors also take into account additional important aspects of the argumentation, like the provenance information or its evolution (the temporal side). Consequently, they present a possible usage of the framework in the context of virtual communities.