bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
New Business Requirements in the Knowledge-Based Society
Authors: Draghici A.
Published: January 2011

This chapter explains knowledge management’s (KM) role for competitive advantage as a means of new business requirement in the knowledge-based society. It argues that KM, combined with new information technologies, determines new approaches of business strategy, knowledge leadership, culture, management content, organizational structure, technology and innovation, which are key enablers for competitive advantage. In addition, these are discussed in the case of a virtual organization (Network of Excellence) for building the knowledge sharing culture, based on interaction of the management functions and stages of the knowledge creation process. Furthermore, the authors hope that understanding the main issues and trends of KM as an essential element of business integration for obtaining a considerable competitive advantage will not only inform researchers but also assist them in developing new approaches for attending efficiency in the new global virtual organizations.
Integration of Knowledge Resources in R&D Organizations
Authors: Janev V.
Published: January 2011

This chapter introduces a business integration framework suitable for knowledge management in research and development (R&D) organizations in the high-technology sector. The knowledge management platform design is based on the latest technological trends and standards. Two main constituents of the proposed system are: the document warehouse layer, based on data warehousing methodology; and the semantic layer, based on the latest semantic technologies ontologies and Web services. The initial results of introducing such a platform at the Mihajlo Pupin Institute (MPI) in accordance with the adopted ISO 9001 Quality Assurance standard are presented and discussed. The implementation of this integrated system is a large, multifaceted project carried on by turns in a bottom-up and top-down manner. Its use at MPI will facilitate reusability of knowledge items, and enhance creativity and innovation.
Ontology Mapping Techniques in Information Integration
Authors: Zhao Y.
Published: January 2011

The semantic Web suggests to annotate Web resources with machine-processable metadata; and ontologies, as means to conceptualize and structure knowledge, are seen as the key to realize the vision of the semantic Web. However, ontologies themselves do not provide semantic interoperability, since a single ontology cannot be used to represent all kinds of domains and applications. Ontology mapping, therefore, is introduced to achieve knowledge sharing and semantic integration in an environment with different underlying ontologies. This chapter provides an overview of the approaches to information integration developed by researchers in the community of ontology mapping. After introducing the backgrounds and concepts of ontology mapping, a comprehensive and detailed treatment of different ontology mapping schemes is presented. Closely related aspects of ontology mapping, such as mapping result description, similarity measures, algorithm performance evaluation and so forth, have also been addressed. The emphasis is to present a snapshot of the fast-growing field in a manner suitable for both experts and non-specialists.
Integration Platform for De-Centralized Investment Projects Appraisal
Authors: Stanojevic M.
Published: January 2011

In this chapter, a few software architectures and platforms are discussed in relation with their ability to cope with business integration problems in large, geographically dispersed companies. Of these architectures, the three-tier architecture has reached maturity and proved its usefulness in solving these problems. As an illustration of its usefulness, two successful applications of the three-tier architecture, based on Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE), solving business integration problems inherent to investment decision-making in large companies, Framework for Investment Decision Support (FIDES) and ProjectsAnywhere, are described in detail. For solving more complex business integration problems, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), based on agent or Web services approach, is recommended. Hopefully, this chapter will provide concise information about architectures and platforms, and an insight into two complex applications based on them, that will be useful in developing other complex applications that face similar business integration problems.
Organizing Knowledge for Instruction
Authors: Petrina Stephan
Published: January 2011

What is intelligence? What do we know about knowledge? Are design and technological knowledge unique? Do different types of knowledge demand different organizations? How can we employ cognitive skills in the resolution of technological problems? This chapter provides an introduction to current theories of intelligence and knowledge with an emphasis on instructional organization. We will discuss learning theories and theories of cognition in Chapter VI. In the previous chapter, we acknowledged that despite the proliferation of communication and information technologies, communication skills for most people have atrophied. At the same time this proliferation of new technologies has created conditions for what we experience as information overload. For this reason, it is extremely important that teachers develop effective skills and techniques for the communication, organization, and presentation of information and knowledge. It is essential that teachers develop working understandings of current theories of knowledge and skills. Our understandings of technological knowledge and literacy along with the theories that we act on determine the way we teach about, through, and for design and technology. Current theories of intelligence, or cognitive pluralism, and the organization of knowledge are fundamental to effective instruction. This chapter builds on the basic communication and organization techniques provided in Chapter I. The effective organization of instruction requires the effective organization of knowledge.
Feelings, Values, Ethics and Skills
Authors: Petrina Stephan
Published: January 2011

We began this book by acknowledging that the mere word “technology” provokes strong emotions or feelings from the heart. Advertisers play on these emotions by using technology and language to incite interest and action. For some people, design, skills, tools, and machines produce fear and feelings of insecurity. Others feel power and security. Some feel excitement and some dread and stress. Very few of us are unmoved by technology. While skills and technology generate strong reactions within us, we are not passively moved; technology does not merely act on us. We actively participate; we actively control, manipulate, resist, or negotiate technology. We bring our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values to bear on our skills and technologies. Our values are always present in our actions. We assert some and suppress other values when we act. We may value what technology can do for us or what we can do with our technologies. We may value what technology cannot do for us. The purpose of this chapter is to contradict the distinctions that we commonly draw among emotions, skills, and technologies. On one hand, technology provokes strong emotions and visceral responses. On the other hand, many technologists are committed to removing emotion, the most misunderstood of “human factors,” from their work and technology.
Instructional Methods and Learning Styles
Authors: Petrina Stephan
Published: January 2011

How do we factor the variability of students into our instructional methods? All students are different, and yet there are many commonalties from student to student. Should students simply design their own education, an education that theoretically would be tailored to their needs? Should students be left to their own desires and needs, as Rousseau advocated in Emile in the late 1700s and as A. S. Neill advocated in Summerhill in the 1960s? Or are there ideas and methods that all students should simply endure for the good of the social system? We have learned quite a bit about accommodating the variability of students through research into instructional methods and learning styles. If we vary our methods, we have learned, we accommodate a wider range of learning styles than if we used one method consistently. Teaching methods are the complement of content, just as instruction is the complement of curriculum. Technology teachers tend to over-use projects and problems, ignoring the options and opportunities that the balance of teaching methods offers. In this time of global hazards and changes in our lives wrought by technology, it is essential that technology teachers maintain a refined sense of how to teach about controversial and sensitive technological issues. It is essential that technology teachers have a command over values clarification methods as well as demonstration and project methods. Given that technology teaching methods are often research-driven, twenty-two research methods are outlined in this chapter. Forty-one teaching methods are defined and five that are central to technology studies are explained in detail. The chapter concludes with detailed sections on the relationships among instructional methods, personalities, and learning styles.
Learning Theory, technology and Practice
Authors: Petrina Stephan
Published: January 2011

Why do we use technologies in technology studies? Couldn’t we teach technology in a classroom without the complex lab and workshop infrastructures that characterizes technology studies? We could argue that this is by tradition; this is the way it always was. We could argue that we are involved in training students for occupations that use the technologies we use. We could argue that technology is naturally practical and demands that we offer practical activities. Tradition, vocation, or imitation. Not one of these three will get us very far. We could argue that students learn best when they are active; enactive experiences are best. With this argument, we verge on theoretical issues that underpin technology studies. However, neither experiencebased learning nor enactivism account for technologies in any adequate way. We need to retheorize learning theory to make it work for technology studies. Learning theories deal with specific notions of feelings, knowledge, and skills by addressing the problem of how we learn. Whether we are aware or not, our teaching practices are necessarily shaped by any number of learning theories. We are conditioned or socialized to express particular learning theories through years of participation in schooling and informal education. Sayings such as “we teach who we are” or “we teach how we were taught” suggest the power of our socialization into education. We are all products of our formal schooling and informal education.
Justifying Technology Studies
Authors: Petrina Stephan
Published: January 2011

Why should we teach technology in the schools? What is the reason for accommodating technology in the school curriculum? Why should we have to justify existence? Are the public schools an appropriate institution for developing economic human resources? Should students be taught to think critically about technology? Is the technology laboratory or workshop the place in the school where the students can “put it all together”? Will technology studies lose its identity in an alignment with math and science? Should technology studies serve to remedy long-standing inequities in technology? Should technology studies be aligned with ecology and sustainability? Is the future engineering education? These are some of the primary questions that impinge on the direction of technology studies in the schools. Throughout the 20th century, technology studies expended an inordinate amount of energy justifying itself. At times, it seemed as though this subject was trying to be all things to all people. In this chapter, we make the case that there is one, and only one, persuasive justification for the inclusion of technology studies in the schools. That justification is the content of technology. No one will buy all the things to all interest groups’ justification anymore.
Technology Content, Process, and Standards
Authors: Petrina Stephan
Published: January 2011

If status of a school subject is at issue, then content, benchmarks, and standards cannot be underestimated. Of course, the question is what content and what (or whose) standards? Technology has suffered as a school subject in many ways because of the lack of consistent content and a defensible set of standards. What technology should a student in grade 2 know about and be able to use? What about grade 6, grade 8, grade 10, or grade 12, at graduation? What are the benchmarks for each grade level? We do not yet know. Should we have consistent technology content and standards for all students from K-12? Should all teachers abide by the content and standards? Should we have exams to monitor the students and teachers? Or should teachers have the freedom to teach what they want? If a student moves from one school to another, he or she will face a different curriculum with different goals. But the teachers will have the freedom and power to make professional judgments about what to teach. Who should make these judgments?
Assessment and Evaluation
Authors: Petrina Stephan
Published: January 2011

Some teachers view assessment as a necessary evil. Some view assessment as their only real tool of discipline and power. Still other teachers view assessment as an integral part of C&I, and the pivotal practice around which teaching methods and communication turns. Most teachers appreciate local, teacher-controlled assessment and loathe the high stakes assessment that produces anxiety, fear, and competitive tactics. For many administrators, parents and politicians, assessment has its justifications in accountability to standards. Indeed, it is difficult to navigate through the various forms of assessment and perspectives on assessment that teachers face on a daily basis. Everyday assessment entails hundreds of observations that teachers make of their students. This involves informal discussions, feedback and deliberate, staged activities and performances. Assessment involves volumes of documentary evidence, from daily assignments, quizzes, and tests to observations, projects, and digital artifacts. In its most stereotypical form, assessment in technology studies simply meant putting a mark on a completed project, much like a merchant places a price on a product. By current standards, this was inauthentic assessment. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, authentic assessment has transformed the way we think about and carry out assessments in the schools. Technologies of assessment had similar effects.
Classroom Management, Facilities Design and Safety
Authors: Petrina Stephan
Published: January 2011

Classroom and facilities management require more than a series of techniques. Management and safety require a philosophy. Veteran teachers who “make it look easy“ have not perfected the techniques of management inasmuch as they have integrated certain techniques into a system and philosophy of C&I, assessment, discipline, facilities design, and safety. We can think of our combination of techniques and philosophies as flexible superstructure that complements our somewhat inflexible infrastructure of architectural units, devices, software, tools, and machines. The greatest amount of anxiety for new teachers tends to be over classroom management, and specifically the way that individual students are disciplined for incivilities. Rather than confronting incivilities, effective management and safety depends on preventive infrastructure and systems that are in place. This point cannot be stressed enough. Students will test new and veteran teachers alike. Veteran teachers may have the benefit of experience in dealing with incivilities such as bullying, but they rely on their infrastructure and systems of prevention rather than their reactive techniques. They know how to deal with individual incivilities but prefer preventive measures by setting a tone for acceptable classroom behavior. We will explore a range of techniques, including humor, for dealing with classroom behavior.
Applying the ADDIE Model to Online Instruction
Authors: Shelton Kaye , Saltsman George
Published: January 2011

This paper assembles best ideas and practices from successful online instructors and recent literature. Suggestions include strategies for online class design, syllabus development, and online class facilitation, which provide successful tips for both new and experienced online instructors. This article incorporates additional ideas, tips, and tricks gathered since the paper was originally published in the October 2004 issues of the International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning as Tips and Tricks for Teaching Online: How to Teach Like a Pro!
Incorporating Geographic Information Systems for Business in Higher Education
Authors: Gadish David
Published: January 2011

Schools of business can benefit from adoption of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). A brief overview of GID is presented along with an example of showcasing how it can be presented in a business school. Benefits for business schools, their students, and faculty are discussed. A comprehensive approach for promoting such spatial thinking is presented. The goal is to empower faculty to adopt GIS for their research and teaching, producing a large number of business school graduates that can promote spatial thinking in their organizations.
Programming Drills with a Decision Trees Workbench
Authors: Kalles Dimitris , Pagagelis Athanasios
Published: January 2011

Decision trees are one of the most successful Machine Learning paradigms. This paper presents a library of decision tree algorithms in Java that was eventually used as a programming laboratory workbench. The initial design focus was, as regards the non-expert user, to conduct experiments with decision trees using components and visual tools that facilitate tree construction and manipulation and as regards the expert user, to be able to focus on algorithm design and comparison with few implementation details. The system has been built over a number of years and over various development contexts and has been successfully used as a workbench in a programming laboratory for junior computer science students. The underlying philosophy was to achieve a solid introduction to object-oriented concepts and practices based on a fundamental machine learning paradigm.
Overview of Using Vignettes to Develop Higher Order Thinking and Academic Achievement in Adult Learners in an Online Learning Environment
Authors: Kish Maria H.Z.
Published: January 2011

A challenge in teaching and providing any type of instruction in the online learning environment is to ensure that participants are engaged in the process and find meaning in their learning. This case study investigated the use of vignettes as a teaching strategy and learning activity of the Generative Learning Model in a hybrid online course. Vignettes are short and realistic stories that may help bridge participants’ previous experiences to applying course material in relevant situations. The Generative Learning Model, consisting of five main components: attention, motivation, knowledge, generation, and metacognition (Wittrock, 2000), was incorporated when requiring students to answer teacher-generated vignettes and to generate their own vignettes. Two outcomes were anticipated using vignettes within the Generative Learning Model in a hybrid online course: 1) enhancement of academic achievement and 2) higher order thinking . This study considered data from student work collected from the Instructional Techniques Course, GITED 631, taught in the Graduate School of Education at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the fall of 2003. Eight participants responded to teacher-generated vignettes, created diagrams and rubrics, created their own vignettes, and recorded their observations concerning vignettes in reflective learning logs. The adult online learners in this study professionally focused on teaching children and adults. This study’s participants all professionally focused on teaching children and adults. The research findings indicate that the use of teacher-generated vignettes can increase academic achievement, and that learner-generated vignettes can help students achieve higher order thinking. This article also discusses the methods that have been used to teach adult learners how to respond to and create vignettes for their own teaching and presentation purposes.
Business-Plan Anchored E-Commerce Courses at the MBA-Level
Authors: Huang C. Derrick
Published: January 2011

The diversity and currency of subjects covered in e-commerce courses at the MBA-level present a challenge to educators. In this paper, we analyze and recapitulate our experience in using the business plan to anchor the e-commerce course to address those challenges. Business plan requirements can link the various subjects together, afford students with a real-life experience learning process, and, with proper curriculum design and course delivery, give students an opportunity to be “reflective practitioners.” Results showed that students’ learning and interests for the e-commerce subjects were high with the business plan requirement.
Cyber Schools and Special Needs
Authors: Hipsky Shellie , Adams Lindsay
Published: January 2011

Cyber schools for K-12 students are growing in number. It is vital that appropriate strategies are devised to meet the needs of students with exceptionalities. The PA Cyber Charter School serves 468 students who have Individualized Education Plans. Parent surveys were thematically analyzed and revealed six predominant themes including: communication, interests, focus, less-stigma from the special education label, education differences in comparison to other methods, and cyber school shortcomings. The study also utilized the action research model to determine and present the techniques and strategies that are working in the PA Cyber Charter School for their students with special needs. Teacher-tested documents included in the appendix were based on the study, and a model for special needs strategies in the cyber learning environment has been established through this article.
Game Mods
Authors: Fanning Elizabeth
Published: January 2011

A game mod describes a modification within an existing commercial computer-based game that has been created by a user. By game modding, a user can participate in the creative process by taking the setting of their favorite game and customizing it for entertainment purposes or to convey information. For years, commercial computer-based game developers committed considerable resources towards preventing users from “hacking” into or “hijacking” their games. Now several computer-based game developers provide editors with their products to encourage users to create content, and to allow educators, for instance, to take advantage of the benefits and production quality of commercial computer games to create customized instruction. This paper focuses on mainstream, accessible games with straightforward modding tools that can be easily integrated into a learning environment.
Project Management in Student Information Technology Projects
Authors: Rojas Maria Delia , McGill Tanya , Depickere Arnold
Published: January 2011

Universities teach project management to information technology (IT) students. The project management principles that students have previously learned are often put into practice in a project course, intended to give final year students the experience of applying their knowledge to real or simulated projects. This paper reports on research that investigated the use of, and usefulness of, project management in student IT projects. The results show that there was a wide range in the application of project management practices, with students being more likely to produce the initial documentation associated with some of the project management knowledge areas than to make use of it throughout the project to monitor the project’s progress. The results also showed that the number of project management guidelines applied in student projects was not linked with IT project success. However, there was a strong relationship between project management plan quality and obtaining a good software product.
Teaching TCP/IP Network Fundamentals to Undergraduates Using Practical Exercises
Authors: Sarkar Nurul I.
Published: January 2011

Motivating students to learn TCP/IP network fundamentals is often difficult because students find the subject rather technical when it is presented using a lecture format. To overcome this problem we have prepared some hands-on exercises (practicals) that give students a practical learning experience in TCP/IP networking. The practicals are designed around a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system and are suitable for classroom use in undergraduate TCP/IP networking courses. The effectiveness of these practicals has been evaluated both formally by students and informally in discussion within the teaching team. The implementation of the practicals was judged to be successful because of the positive student feedback and that students improved their test results. This chapter describes the practicals and their impact on student learning and comprehension, based on the author’s experiences in undergraduate computer networking courses.
Assessment of ICT Status in Universities in Southern Nigeria
Authors: Aduwa-Ogiegbaen Sam E.O. , Uwameive Raymond
Published: January 2011

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of faculty affiliation and teaching experience on the use of the Internet by faculty members in six first generation universities in Southern Nigeria. A total of 476 faculty members from nine faculties across the six universities participated in the study. The data for the study was collected by means of a questionnaire survey and this was deemed appropriate as it allowed the views of all the participants to be sought on a Likert-type scale options. The results of this study provide a number of insights: (a) the faculties of engineering, science and arts in that order were the foremost users of the Internet for instructional purposes; (b) the faculties of Education and Agriculture were the least experiences in the use of the Internet; and, (c) faculty members with less than five years teaching experience use the Internet more than older faculty members. Recommencati9on was made that universities in Nigeria should invest more in ICT facilities.
Strategic Planning for E-Learning in the Workplace
Authors: Berge Zane L. , Giles Lenora
Published: January 2011

New information and communication technology, specifically computer networked systems, create both a demand and an opportunity for businesses to approach training and knowledge management from new perspectives. These new training perspectives are driven by the need for businesses to provide the right training quickly and efficiently and to support knowledge systems that are current, accessible, and interactive. This article will discuss strategic planning in terms of the organizational elements and the e-learning program requirements that are necessary to build a framework in order to institutionalize and sustain e-learning as a core business process.
Requirements Elicitation Technique Selection
Authors: Aguiree-Urreta Miguel I. , Marakas George M.
Published: January 2011

Requirements elicitation has been recognized as a critical stage in system development projects, yet current models prescribing particular elicitation techniques are still limited in their development and application. This research reviews efforts aimed at addressing this issue, and synthesizes a common structure consisting of project contingencies, elicitation techniques, logic of fit, and a success construct, arguing for the need to more comprehensively study and organize each. As a first step in this research, models drawn from organizational literature are used to categorize project contingencies into dimensions dealing with their impact on the uncertainty and equivocality of the overall development project.
IT Value of Software Development
Authors: Balijepally VenuGopal , Nerur Sridhar , Mahapatra RadhaKanta
Published: January 2011

Software development in organizations is evolving and increasingly taking a socio-technical hue. While empirical research guided by common sense reasoning has informed researchers and the software community in the past, the increasing social character of software development provides us with the context and the motivation to provide theoretical underpinnings to our empirical work. In this chapter we sample three theoretical domains that could serve our empirical research efforts: social capital, organizational learning and knowledge based view of the firm. We illustrate the utility of these theoretical perspectives by articulating a research model that captures the IT value created by software development teams practicing different methodologies.
Integrity Constraint Checking for Multiple XML Databases
Authors: Madiraju Praveen , Sunderraman Rajshekhar , Navathe Shamkant B. , Wang Haibin
Published: January 2011

Global semantic integrity constraints ensure the integrity and consistency of data spanning distributed databases. In this chapter, we discuss a novel representation technique for expressing semantic integrity constraints for XML databases. We also provide the details of XConstraint Checker, a general framework for checking global semantic constraints for XML databases. The framework is augmented with an efficient algorithm for checking these global XML constraints. The algorithm is efficient for three reasons: 1) the algorithm does not require the update statement to be executed before the constraint check is carried out; hence, we avoid any potential problems associated with rollbacks, 2) sub constraint checks are executed in parallel, and 3) most of the processing of algorithm could happen at compile time; hence, we save time spent at run-time. As a proof of concept, we present a prototype of the system implementing the ideas discussed in this paper.
Accelerating Multi Dimensional Queries in Data Warehouses
Authors: Pears Russel
Published: January 2011

Data Warehouses are widely used for supporting decision making. On Line Analytical Processing or OLAP is the main vehicle for querying data warehouses. OLAP operations commonly involve the computation of multidimensional aggregates. The major bottleneck in computing these aggregates is the large volume of data that needs to be processed which in turn leads to prohibitively expensive query execution times. On the other hand, Data Analysts are primarily concerned with discerning trends in the data and thus a system that provides approximate answers in a timely fashion would suit their requirements better. In this chapter we present the Prime Factor scheme, a novel method for compressing data in a warehouse. Our data compression method is based on aggregating data on each dimension of the data warehouse. Extensive experimentation on both real-world and synthetic data have shown that it outperforms the Haar Wavelet scheme with respect to both decoding time and error rate, while maintaining comparable compression ratios (Pears and Houliston, 2007). One encouraging feature is the stability of the error rate when compared to the Haar Wavelet. Although Wavelets have been shown to be effective at compressing data, the approximate answers they provide varies widely, even for identical types of queries on nearly identical values in distinct parts of the data. This problem has been attributed to the thresholding technique used to reduce the size of the encoded data and is an integral part of the Wavelet compression scheme. In contrast the Prime Factor scheme does not rely on thresholding but keeps a smaller version of every data element from the original data and is thus able to achieve a much higher degree of error stability which is important from a Data Analysts point of view.
View Materialization in a Data Cube
Authors: Agrawal Vikas , Sundararaghavan P. S. , Ahmed Mesbah U. , Nandkeolyar Udayan
Published: January 2011

Data warehouse has become an integral part in developing a DSS in any organization. One of the key architectural issues concerning the efficient design of a data warehouse is to determine the “right” number of views to be materialized in order to minimize the query response time experienced by the decision makers in the organization. We consider a bottleneck objective in designing such a materialization scheme which has the effect of guaranteeing a certain level of performance. We examine linear integer programming formulations, and develop heuristics and report on the performance of these heuristics. We also evaluate heuristics reported in the literature for the view materialization problem with a simpler objective.
Social Networks Structures in Open Source Software Development Teams
Authors: Long Yuan , Siau Keng
Published: January 2011

Drawing on social network theories and previous studies, this research examines the dynamics of social network structures in Open Source Software (OSS) teams. Three projects were selected from Source- Forge.net in terms of their similarities as well as their differences. Monthly data were extracted from the bug tracking systems in order to achieve a longitudinal view of the interaction pattern of each project. Social network analysis was used to generate the indices of social structure. The finding suggests that the interaction pattern of OSS projects evolves from a single hub at the beginning to a core/periphery model as the projects move forward.
Overview
Authors: Zhang David , Song Fengxi , Xu Yong , Liang Zhizhen
Published: January 2011

A biometric system can be regarded as a pattern recognition system. In this chapter, we discuss two advanced pattern recognition technologies for biometric recognition, biometric data discrimination and multi-biometrics, to enhance the recognition performance of biometric systems. In Section 1.1, we discuss the necessity, importance, and applications of biometric recognition technology. A brief introduction of main biometric recognition technologies are presented in Section 1.2. In Section 1.3, we describe two advanced biometric recognition technologies, biometric data discrimination and multi-biometric technologies. Section 1.4 outlines the history of related work and highlights the content of each chapter of this book.
Discriminant Analysis for Biometric Recognition
Authors: Zhang David , Song Fengxi , Xu Yong , Liang Zhizhen
Published: January 2011

This chapter is a brief introduction to biometric discriminant analysis technologies — Section I of the book. Section 2.1 describes two kinds of linear discriminant analysis (LDA) approaches: classification-oriented LDA and feature extraction-oriented LDA. Section 2.2 discusses LDA for solving the small sample size (SSS) pattern recognition problems. Section 2.3 shows the organization of Section I.
Tensor Principal Component Analysis
Authors: Zhang David , Song Fengxi , Xu Yong , Liang Zhizhen
Published: January 2011

Tensor principal component analysis (PCA) is an effective method for data reconstruction and recognition. In this chapter, some variants of classical PCA are introduced and the properties of tensor PCA are analyzed. Section 8.1 gives the background and development of tensor PCA. Section 8.2 introduces tensor PCA. Section 8.3 discusses some potential applications of tensor PCA in biometrics. Finally, we summarize this chapter in Section 8.4.
From Single Biometrics to Multi-Biometrics
Authors: Zhang David , Song Fengxi , Xu Yong , Liang Zhizhen
Published: January 2011

In the past decades while biometrics attracts increasing attention of researchers, people also have found that the biometric system using a single biometric trait may not satisfy the demand of some real-world applications. Diversity of biometric traits also means that they may have different performance such as accuracy and reliability. Multi-biometric applications emerging in recent years are a big progress of biometrics. They can overcome some shortcomings of the single biometric system and can perform well in improving the system performance. In this chapter we describe a number of definitions on biometrics, categories and fusion strategies of multi-biometrics as well as the performance evaluation on the biometric system. The first section of this chapter describes some concepts, motivation and justification of multi-biometrics. Section 12.2 provides some definitions and notations of biometric and multi-biometric technologies. Section 12.3 is mainly related to performance evaluation of various types of biometric systems. Section 12.4 briefly presents research and development of multi-biometrics.
Book Summary
Authors: Zhang David , Song Fengxi , Xu Yong , Liang Zhizhen
Published: January 2011

With the title “Advanced Pattern Recognition Technologies with Applications to Biometrics” this book mainly focuses on two kinds of advanced biometric recognition technologies, biometric discrimination techniques and multi-biometrics. Biometric discrimination techniques are presented in Parts I and II, while multi-biometrics is described in Part III. While the methods and algorithms described in Parts I and II are very suitable for biometrics as they take into account characteristics of biometric applications such as high dimensionality and small sample size, Part III mainly introduces three kinds of biometric fusion techniques that respectively fuse biometric information at the feature level, matching score level and decision level as well as their applications cases. This chapter summarizes the book from a holistic viewpoint. Section 16.1 summarizes the contents of the book and indicates the relationship between different chapters in each part. Section 16.2 reveals that how the methods and algorithms described in different parts can be applied to different data forms of biometric traits. Section 16.3 provides comments on the development of multi-biometrics.
Enforcing Cardinality Constraints in the ER Model with Integrity Methods
Authors: Balaban Mira , Shoval Peretz
Published: January 2011

Entity-Relationship (ER) schemas include cardinality constraints that restrict the dependencies among entities within a relationship type. The cardinality constraints have direct impact on application transactions, since insertions or deletions of entities or relationships might affect related entities. Application transactions can be strengthened to preserve the consistency of a database with respect to the cardinality constraints in a schema. Yet, once an ER schema is translated into a logical database schema, the direct correlation between the cardinality constraints and application transaction is lost, since the components of the ER schema might be decomposed among those of the logical database schema. We suggest extending the Enhanced-ER (EER) data model with integrity methods that can enforce the cardinality constraints. The integrity methods can be fully defined by the cardinality constraints, using a small number of primitive update methods, and are automatically created for a given EER diagram. A translation of an EER schema into a logical database schema can create integrity routines by translating the primitive update methods alone. These integrity routines may be implemented as database procedures, if a relational DBMS is utilized, or as class methods, if an object-oriented DBMS is utilized.
Ternary Relationships
Authors: Jones Trevor H. , Song Il-Yeol
Published: January 2011

Conceptual data modeling is a backbone of most major systems development projects. Within this arena, one of the most widely used techniques is the entity-relationship (ER) or extended entity-relationship model (EER, henceforth also referred to as ER), introduced by Chen (1976). However, there are multiple competing models and notations, each having distinct strengths and weaknesses. Many of the model definitions and underpinnings continue to undergo practical and theoretical development. The abilities of each of the model structures and notations to fully represent the semantics of any given situation are constantly compared, with many issues open to argument. More specifically, certain arguments revolve around the inclusion of binary or N-ary representation of relationships in ER models. A central argument stems from the superior ability of N-ary modeling to reflect the true semantics of any given situation, whereas a binary model provides the simplest constructs for expressing information systems’ logical design and is equivalently represented in a relational database management system (DBMS) (McKee & Rodgers, 1992).
The Psychology of Information Modeling
Authors: Siau Keng
Published: January 2011

Information modeling is the cornerstone of information systems analysis and design. Information models, the products of information modeling, not only provide the abstractions required to facilitate communication between the analysts and end-users, but they also provide a formal basis for developing tools and techniques used in information systems development. The process of designing, constructing, and adapting information modeling methods for information systems development is known as method engineering. Despite the pivotal role of modeling methods in successful information systems development, most modeling methods are designed based on common sense and intuition of the method designers with little or no theoretical foundation or empirical evidence. Systematic scientific approach is missing! This chapter proposes the use of cognitive psychology as a reference discipline for information modeling and method engineering. Theories in cognitive psychology are reviewed in this chapter and their application to information modeling and method engineering is discussed.
Modeling of Business Rules for Active Database Application Specification
Authors: Amghar Youssef , Meziane Madjid , Flory Andre
Published: January 2011

Active database applications require the classic cycle of analysis, design, prototyping and implementation. During analysis and design steps of the information system engineering process, modeling behavior is an important task. This task is both essential and crucial when information system is centered on active databases, which allow the replacement of parts of application programs with active rules. For that reason, the specification of business rules during analysis and design steps becomes an actual requirement. Business rules ensure the well-functioning of information system. They are descriptive (integrity constraints) or functional (derivation rules and active rules). To relieve programmers from using either traditional or ad hoc techniques to design active databases, it is necessary to develop new techniques to model business rules. These techniques have to enhance the specification of dynamic aspect through a high-level description language able to express precisely and completely rule semantic. In this chapter, we propose a uniform approach to model business rules (active rules, integrity constraints, etc.). To improve the behavior specification we extend the state diagrams that are widely used for dynamic modeling. This extension is a transformation of state transitions according to rule semantics. In addition, we outline new functionalities of Computer-Aided System Engineering (CASE) to take into consideration the active database specificities. In this way, the designer can be assisted to control, maintain and reuse a set of rules.
Cooperative Query Processing via Knowledge Abstraction and Query Relaxation
Authors: Huh Soon-Young , Moon Kae-Hyun , Ahn Jin-Kyun
Published: January 2011

As database users adopt a query language to obtain information from a database, a more intelligent query answering system is increasingly needed that cooperates with the users to provide informative responses by understanding the intent behind a query. The effectiveness of decision support would improve significantly if the query answering system returned approximate answers rather than a null information response when there is no matching data available. Even when exact answers are found, neighboring information is still useful to users if the query is intended to explore some hypothetical information or abstract general fact. This chapter proposes an abstraction hierarchy as a framework to practically derive such approximate answers from ordinary everyday databases. It provides a knowledge abstraction database to facilitate the approximate query answering. The knowledge abstraction database specifically adopts an abstraction approach to extract semantic data relationships from the underlying database, and uses a multi-level hierarchy for coupling multiple levels of abstraction knowledge and data values. In cooperation with the underlying database, the knowledge abstraction database allows the relaxation of query conditions so that the original query scope can be broadened and thus information approximate to exact answers can be obtained. Conceptually abstract queries can also be posed to provide a less rigid query interface. A prototype system has been implemented at KAIST and is being tested with a personnel database system to demonstrate the usefulness and practicality of the knowledge abstraction database in ordinary database systems.
CMU-WEB
Authors: Bajaj Akhilesh , Krishnan Ramayya
Published: January 2011

With the ubiquitous availability of browsers and Internet access, the last few years have seen a tremendous growth in the number of applications being developed on the World Wide Web (WWW). Models for analyzing and designing these applications are only just beginning to emerge. In this work, we propose a three-dimensional classification space for WWW applications, consisting of a degree of structure of pages dimension, a degree of support for interrelated events dimension, and a location of processing dimension. Next, we propose usability design metrics for WWW applications along the structure of pages dimension. To measure these, we propose CMU-WEB–a conceptual model that can be used to design WWW applications, such that its schema provide values for the design metrics. This work represents the first effort, to the best of our knowledge, to provide a conceptual model that measures quantifiable metrics that can be used for the design of more usable Web applications, and that can also be used to compare the usability of existing Web applications, without empirical testing.
Formal Approaches to Systems Analysis Using UML
Authors: Whittle Jonathan
Published: January 2011

Formal methods, whereby a system is described and/or analyzed using precise mathematical techniques, is a well-established and yet, under-used approach for developing software systems. One of the reasons for this is that project deadlines often impose an unsatisfactory development strategy in which code is produced on an ad hoc basis without proper thought about the requirements and design of the piece of software in mind. The result is a large, often poorly documented and un-modular monolith of code that does not lend itself to formal analysis. Because of their complexity, formal methods work best when code is well structured, e.g., when they are applied at the modeling level. UML is a modeling language that is easily learned by system developers and, more importantly, an industry standard, which supports communication between the various project stakeholders. The increased popularity of UML provides a real opportunity for formal methods to be used on a daily basis within the software lifecycle. Unfortunately, the lack of precision of UML means that many formal techniques cannot be applied directly. If formal methods are to be given the place they deserve within UML, a more precise description of UML must be developed. This chapter surveys recent attempts to provide such a description, as well as techniques for analyzing UML models formally.