bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Formalization Process in Software Development
Authors: Dasso Aristides , Funes Ana
Published: May 2011

Nowadays, software engineering (SE) is considered more frequently an engineering discipline. Several definitions have been proposed by different authors, and many of them agree in affirming that SE is the application of principles and systematic practices for the development of software. That is—as it was established by the IEEE (1990)—SE is the application of engineering to the software. As a general rule all engineering applications use mathematics or mathematical tools as a basis for their development. However, software engineering is an exception to this rule. Not all the techniques and software development methods have a formal basis. Formal methods1 (FM) rely on mathematical foundations. FM are a collection of methodologies and related tools, geared to the production of software employing a mathematical basis. There are a number of different formal methods each having its own methodology and tools, specially a specification language. As it is expressed in Wikipedia (2006) and Foldoc (2006), we can say that FM are “mathematically based techniques for the specification, development and verification of software and hardware systems.” FM are based on the production of formal specifications— for which they have a formal language to express it. Sometimes there is also a method to use the language in the software development process. The aims of FM can vary according to the different methodologies, but they all shared a common goal: the production of software with the utmost quality mainly based on the production of software that is error free. To achieve this, the different FM have developed not only a theory, but also different tools to support the formal process. FM can cover all the steps of the life cycle of a software system development from requirement specification to deployment and maintenance. However, not all FM have that capacity, and not always it is convenient to apply them. It is necessary to make an evaluation between pros and cons before applying FM in the software development process.
Geospatial Information Systems and Enterprise Collaboration
Authors: Morris-Jones Donald R. , Carter Dedric A.
Published: May 2011

Organizations and teams are becoming increasingly more distributed as groups work to expand their global presence while rationalizing team members across skill sets and areas of expertise instead of geographies. With this expansion comes the need for a robust and comprehensive language for pinpointing locations of globally distributed information systems and knowledge workers. Geospatial information systems (GISs) provide a common framework for jointly visualizing the world. This shared understanding of the world provides a powerful mechanism for collaborative dialogue in describing an environment, its assets, and procedures. The collaborative framework that GIS provides can help facilitate productive dialogue while constraining impulses of extreme positions. Collaboration and GIS intersections take many forms. Under a collaborative work-flow model, individuals use GIS to perform their job and post data back to the central database (e.g., engineering designs and as-built construction). This article addresses the increasing role of GIS in emerging architectures and information systems in a number of applications (e.g., land planning, military command and control, homeland security, utility-facilities management, etc.). Real-time applications, mobile access to data, GPS (global positioning satellite) tracking of assets, and other recent developments all play a role in extending the scope and utility of the GIS-enabled enterprise. The impact of new GIS Web services standards and open geospatial-data archives are also addressed as areas of increased potential for remote GIS collaboration in global organizations. The expansion of enterprise GIS within organizations increases the opportunity and necessity of using GIS collaboratively to improve business processes and efficiency, make better decisions, respond more quickly to customers and events, and so forth.
High-Performance Virtual Teams
Authors: Wong Ian K. , Staples D. Sandy
Published: May 2011

In the past several decades, we have seen tremendous advancements in the development of communication technology. Since the invention of the Internet in 1969, there has been rapid development of Internet-based communication tools and technologies. This technology has revolutionized business practices by offering another important and effective channel for communication (Foo & Lim, 1997) and has allowed people to work on projects irrespective of their physical location. One resulting business practice that has been adopted in recent years is virtual teamwork. Virtual teams are groups of individuals who work together in different locations (i.e., are geographically dispersed), work at interdependent tasks, share responsibilities for outcomes, and rely on technology for much of their communication (Cohen & Gibson, 2003). The use of virtual teams has become widespread in organizations, and its use is expected to grow (Martins, Gilson, & Maynard, 2004; Powell, Piccoli, & Ives, 2004).
Human-Centric E-Business
Authors: Richards H.D. , Makatsoris Harris Charalampos , Seok Chang Yoon
Published: May 2011

This article studies the transformation processes occurring in industry and business at large. It deals with the social and economic challenges, and explores the new concepts arising from an unprecedented technology revolution underpinned by advances and innovation in ICT. In addition it sets the scene for a new era of industrial capitalism. Over the last decade of the twentieth century, a large number of companies faced the future with trepidation while others lacked a good strategy (Possl, 1991; Kidd, 1994; Ashkenas, 1997). Many changes had taken place including Just In Time (JIT) manufacturing and logistics, lean manufacturing (Womack, Jones, & Roos, 1990), shorter product lifecycles (Davenport, 1993), more intelligent approaches to IT (Drucker, 1992; MacIntosh, 1994; Nonaka, 1998), and costing (Wilson, 1995; Ansari, Bell, & the CAM-I Target Cost Core Group, 1997), but making money was becoming more and more difficult. It was a time and climate for dramatic new approaches (Warnecke, 1993; Drucker, 1994; Goldman, Nagel, & Preiss, 1995) with greater agility. New technologies were replacing old at a faster rate, and information technology provided better management and control vision, albeit on a limited local scale (Arguello, 1994; Leachman, Benson, Lui, & Raar, 1996; Makatsoris, Leach, & Richards, 1996). Also, push to pull manufacturing (Mertins, 1996) distinctly changed the approach to customers and service, which increased competitive and economic pressures resulted from the global reach of customers, manufacturers, and service providers keen to exploit the wealth of opportunities in both global markets and differences in worldwide regional markets (Bitran, Bassetti, & Romano. 2003). Even players only operating in local markets (Bologni, Gozzi, & Toschi, 1996; Zabel, Weber, & Steinlechner, 2000; Bonfatti & Monari, 2004) could not resist the tide of change. As a result many companies and economies (Hutton, 1995) were in a state of upheaval, and as a consequence some fell by the wayside. This was a climate in which there was an uncertain outcome, and it was into this melting pot that the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) were to produce an environment for a much-needed revolutionary change in the industrial approach. Later, broadband for landline and also wireless networking provided a much-needed speedier access.
ICT and E-Democracy
Authors: Cropf Robert A.
Published: May 2011

The virtual public sphere does not exist and operate the same everywhere. Every virtual public sphere is different because each country’s economic, social, political, and cultural characteristics and relations are varied. As a result, the impact of information communication technology (ICT) on political and social conditions will also differ from one country to another. According to the German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas (1989,1996), the public sphere is a domain existing outside of the private sphere of family relations, the economic sphere of business and commerce, and the governmental sphere dominated by the state. The public sphere contributes to democracy by serving as a forum for deliberation about politics and civic affairs. According to Habermas, the public sphere is marked by liberal core beliefs such as the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and communication, and “privacy rights, which are needed to ensure society’s autonomy from the state” (Cohen & Arato, 1992, p. 211). Thus, the public sphere is defined as a domain of social relations that exist outside of the roles, duties and constraints established by government, the marketplace, and kinship ties. Habermas’ public sphere is both a historical description and an ideal type. Historically, what Habermas refers to as the bourgeois public sphere emerged from the 18th century Enlightenment in Europe and went into decline in the 19th century. As an ideal type, the public sphere represents an arena, absent class and other social distinctions, in which private citizens can engage in critical, reasoned discourse regarding politics and culture. The remainder of this article is divided into three parts. In the first part, the background of virtual public spheres is discussed by presenting a broad overview of the major literature relating to ICT and democracy as well as distinguishing between virtual and public spheres and e-government. The second section deals with some significant current trends and developments in virtual public spheres. Finally, the third section discusses some future implications for off-line civil society of virtual public spheres.
Improving Virtual Teams through Creativity
Authors: Torres-Coronas Teresa , Gascó-Hernández Mila
Published: May 2011

Many studies have already shown how a team can become more creative, and therefore more efficient, but only a few researchers have focused on how a virtual team can use creativity techniques to perform better. In this article, we study what differences there are (both in terms of processes and in terms of results) when creativity techniques are used in the management of traditional and virtual teams. To do this, we discuss three main elements: the definition of creativity and its relationships with team performance, the variables that enhance creativity in a virtual team, and the most suitable creativity techniques for a virtual environment.
Indexing Techniques for Spatiotemporal Databases
Authors: Lagogiannis George , Makris Christos , Panagis Yannis , Sioutas Spyros , Theodoridis Evangelos , Tsakalidis Athanasios
Published: May 2011

We can define as spatiotemporal any database that maintains objects with geometric properties that change over time, where usual geometric properties are the spatial position and spatial extent of an object in a specific d-dimensional space. The need to use spatiotemporal databases appears in a variety of applications such as intelligent transportation systems, cellular communications, and meteorology monitoring. This field of database research collaborates tightly with other research areas such as mobile telecommunications, and is harmonically integrated with other disciplines such as CAD/CAM, GIS, environmental science, and bioinformatics. Spatiotemporal databases stand at the crossroad of two other database research areas: spatial databases (Güting, 1994; Gaede & Gunther, 1998) and temporal databases (Salzberg & Tsotras, 1999). The efficient implementation of spatiotemporal databases needs new data models and query languages and novel access structures for storing and accessing information. In Güting, Bohlen, Erwig, Jensen, Lorentzos, Schneider, and Vazirgiannis (2000) a data model and a query language capable of handling such time-dependent geometries, including those changing continuously that describe moving objects, were proposed; the basic idea was to represent time-dependent geometries as attribute data types and to provide an abstract data type extension to the traditional database data models and query languages. In that paper, it was also discussed how various temporal and spatial models could possibly be extended to be spatiotemporal models.
Influential Agile Software Parameters
Authors: Misra Subhas C. , Kumar Vinod , Kumar Uma
Published: May 2011

Successful software systems development is a delicate balance among several distinct factors (Jalote, 2002) such as enabling people to grow professionally; documenting processes representing the gained experiences and knowledge of the organization members; using know how to apply the suitable processes to similar circumstances; and refining processes based on achieved experience. Software projects have two main dimensions: engineering and project management. The engineering dimension concerns the construction of a system, and focuses mainly on issues such as how to build a system. The project management dimension is in charge with properly planning and controlling the engineering activities to meet project goals for optimal cost, schedule, and quality. For a project, the engineering processes specify how to perform activities such as requirement specification, design, testing, and so on. The project management processes, on the other hand, specify how to set milestones, organize personnel, manage risks, monitor progress, and so on (Jalote, 2002). A software process may be defined as “a set of activities, methods, practices, and transformations that people use to develop and maintain software, and the associated products and artifacts.”1 This is pictorially depicted in Figure 1 (Donaldson & Siegel, 2000).
Instructional Support for Distance Education
Authors: Ertl Bernhard
Published: May 2011

During the late ‘90s, distance education and e-learning were believed to be able to solve almost every problem associated with the further qualification of employees in organizations. Distance education was credited with saving costs for companies, by reducing time and expenses for traveling and with flexible time management. Consequently, many companies started programs for distance education. However, after this initial euphoria, several organizations experienced problems with their programs (e.g., Haben, 2002). The costs for distance education courses exploded, employees refused the new style of learning, and the general question arose as to the effectiveness of distance education (see, e.g., Bernard et al., 2004). Looking at the range of distance education courses at this time, one could see that they used a broad variety of technologies to deliver learning contents to the learners, for example, videos, Web pages, dedicate software for learning, Weblogs, wikis, collaboration tools, videoconferencing, chat, and discussion boards. However, in contrast to the variety of technologies available, the instructional design of these courses was elementary and traditional (see Ertl, Winkler, & Mandl, 2007). Many courses offered recorded classroom lectures and streamed them to participants, or they just presented texts or slides in the style of a book. Such courses experienced a lack in acceptance and thus several efforts of distance education failed because the instructional design of these courses was not able to take advantage of the innovative technologies.
Intelligent Software Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Authors: Stankovic Milan , Krcadinac Uros , Kovanovic Vitomir , Jovanovic Jelena
Published: May 2011

Agent-based systems are one of the most important and exciting areas of research and development that emerged in information technology (IT) in the past two decades. In a nutshell, an agent is a computer program that is capable of performing a flexible, autonomous action in typically dynamic and unpredictable domains (Luck, McBurney, Shehory, & Willmott, 2005). Agents emerged as a response of the IT research community to the new data-processing requirements that traditional computing models and paradigms were increasingly incapable to deal with (e.g., the huge and ever-increasing quantities of available data). Many IT researchers believe that agents represent one of the most important software paradigms that have emerged since the object orientation. From the historic point of view, the agent-oriented research and development (R&D) originates from different disciplines. Undoubtedly, the main contribution to the field of autonomous agents came from artificial intelligence (AI). Ultimately, AI is all about building intelligent artifacts and if these artifacts sense and act in some environment, then they can be considered agents (Russell & Norvig, 1995). Also, object-oriented programming (Booch, 2004), concurrent object-based systems (Agha, Wegner, & Yonezawa, 1993), and human-computer interaction (Maes, 1994) are fields that constantly drive forward the agent R&D in the last few decades. In addition, the concept of an agent has become important in a diverse range of sub-disciplines of IT, including software engineering, computer networks, mobile systems, control systems, decision support, information retrieval and management, electronic commerce, and many others. Agents are being used in an increasingly wide variety of applications— ranging from comparatively small systems such as personalized email filters to large, complex, mission critical systems such as air-traffic control.
Intelligent Software Agents in E-Commerce
Authors: Raisinghani Mahesh S. , Klassen Christopher , Schkade Lawrence L.
Published: May 2011

Agent technology is one of the most widely discussed topics in information systems and computer science literature. New software products are being introduced each day. A growing number of computer information professionals recognize that there are definite issues surrounding intelligent agent terminology. These must be resolved if agent technology is to continue to develop and establish. Current research on intelligent agent software technology can be categorized as two main areas: technological and social. In the excitement of emergent technology, people often forget to scrutinize how new technology may impact their lives. The social dimension of technological progress is the driving force and most central concern of technology. Technology is not created for its own sake as a technological imperative. This article critiques the current state of software intelligent agents by examining technological issues and the social implications of intelligent agent software technology.
Internet Auctions
Authors: Ho Kevin K.W.
Published: May 2011

Year 2005 marks the 10th anniversary of eBay (http://www. ebay.com), the most successful online marketplace for Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) Internet auctions in this decade. As of December 2005, eBay has a major auction Web site and 26 sister Web sites operating all over the world and is enjoying a 37% quarterto- quarter growth in revenue (eBay, 2005). Before eBay existed, Internet auctions were mainly held in Internet forums and newsgroups (Lucking-Reiley, 1999, 2000). Nowadays, people can auction goods in cyberspace through Web sites such as eBay, Yahoo! auction (http:// auctions.yahoo.com), and Amazon auction(http://s1.amazon. com). Designated Web sites for niche markets, such as antiques or electronic products are also established. With the rapid growth of Internet auctions, economists and information systems (IS) researchers are using these Web sites to conduct field experiments and to collect transaction records to support their research more and more frequently. They are also interested in analyzing new features developed by these Web sites, such as Peer Review System and Buy-It- Now (BIN) auction, and bidders’ behaviors, such as snipping. This article aims to provide a brief review of the Internet auction research conducted in the past few years and to explore the future research trends in this area.
Issues of E-Learning in Third World Countries
Authors: Fernando Shantha
Published: May 2011

Around the world, e-learning is becoming popular, especially among higher education institutes (universities). Many highly ranked universities have either already deployed an e-learning system and are fully operational, or they are in a process of deployment where e-learning-based and non e-learning-based educational environments co-exist. It is also possible to find a few virtual universities. The amount of money and effort that has to be spent on e-learning is high. In addition to the initial e-learning system installation costs, there are ongoing maintenance, management and content development costs. Due to the rapid growth in the field of e-learning and the role it plays in today’s education systems, those working in the field have begun to introduce standards for different aspects of e-learning. The Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) which is described as “a collaboration among leading universities and specification and standards organizations to support innovative learning technology in higher education” is an example (OKI, 2003). Many highly ranked universities use commercial elearning systems such as BlackBoard, WebCT, e-college, Netschool, etc. Several open source products are available though their usage is not wide spread, although it is expected that collaborative projects such as Sakai will enable largescale open source products to be introduced to the market. This effort is described on the Sakai website as, “The University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT, Stanford, the uPortal Consortium, and the Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) are joining forces to integrate and synchronize their considerable educational software into a modular, pre-integrated collection of open source tools” (OKI, 2003).
Knowledge Management as Organizational Strategy
Authors: Edwards-Buckingham Cheryl D.
Published: May 2011

“More than ever before, the effectiveness of organizations depends on their ability to address issues such as knowledge management, change management, and capability building, all of which could fall into the domain of the HR function” (Lawler & Mohrman 2003, p. 7). In its leadership role, Human Resources (HR) has many tasks and responsibilities. According to Lawler and Mohrman (2003), there are several key organizational challenges faced by HR departments. These challenges include improving productivity, increasing quality, facilitating mergers and acquisitions, improving new product possibilities, and knowledge management. Knowledge management (KM) is defined as the tools, techniques, and processes for the most effective and efficient management of an organization’s intellectual assets (Davies, Studer, Sure, & Warren, 2005). Knowledge management consists of the combination of data and information processing capacity (i.e., information technologies), as well as the creative and innovative capacity of human resources. Knowledge management entails an organization viewing its processes as knowledge processes, in which these processes involve application of knowledge within the organization. Knowledge management focuses on the generation and application of knowledge, leveraging and sharing knowledge to increase the derived value, importing knowledge in the form of skilled employees, connecting knowledge workers, and motivating knowledge workers (Mohrman & Finegold, 2000). According to Robbins (2003) the process of knowledge management entails organizing and distributing an organization’s collective wisdom so that the right information gets to the right people at the right time. As knowledge management becomes increasingly important, organizations must strive to understand the dynamics of knowledge management. This article will discuss the elements of knowledge management, in addition to presenting a case on how organizations can use knowledge management as strategy, where knowledge management is valued more than funding as a strategic resource.
Knowledge Management Challenges in the Non-Profit Sector
Authors: Bach Paula M. , Lee Roderick L. , Carroll John M.
Published: May 2011

The concept of knowledge management is rooted in cognitive psychology and organizational theory. Knowledge management is concerned with the creation, storage, and distribution of knowledge by groups, organizations, and communities. Two theoretical frameworks are instrumental in shaping the knowledge management discourse: organizational knowledge creation (Nonaka, 1994) and organizational knowledge (Spender, 1996). Widely cited in the literature is Ikujiro Nonaka’s (1994) explication of the epistemological and ontological dimensions of organizational knowledge creation. Michael Polanyi (1966), makes a distinction between tacit and explicit (codi- fied) knowledge in the epistemological dimension, whereas social interaction is the foundation of the ontological dimension. Over the years, the term knowledge management has been conflated with organizational learning and memory. Realizing that knowledge, memory, and learning are all interrelated, John-Christopher Spender (1996) proposed a knowledge-based theory of the firm. The knowledge-based theory of the firm is primarily concerned with the collective capabilities of generating, combining, and applying knowledge. Given the advances in computing and telecommunications technologies, scholars have considered how information technologies can be used strategically to facilitate knowledge management (Alavi & Leidner, 2001). For example, wikis, blogs, content management systems, and the like provide dynamic infrastructures that support the creation, transfer, and application of knowledge. More importantly, these tools enhance organizational memory that can subsequently be shared across time and space. However, a knowledge friendly culture (Davenport & Prusak, 1998) precedes an effective knowledge management program. The purpose of this article is to explore the challenges that arise in nonprofit settings, particularly the ways in which knowledge is stored and transmitted through an organization’s culture. We propose two key challenges that influence organizational culture: acceptance of change and leaders’ ability to develop a knowledge friendly culture. We conclude with a discussion on the role that these factors played in constraining a knowledge friendly culture in two case studies.
Learning Systems Engineering
Authors: Plekhanova Valentina
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents a project proposal, which defines future work in engineering the learning systems. This proposal outlines a number of directions in the fields of systems engineering, machine learning, knowledge engineering, and profile theory, that lead to the development of formal methods for the modeling and engineering of learning systems. This chapter describes a framework for formalisation and engineering the cognitive processes, which is based on applications of computational methods. The proposed work studies cognitive processes, and considers a cognitive system as a multi-agents system of human-cognitive agents. It is important to note that this framework can be applied to different types of learning systems, and there are various techniques from different theories (e.g., system theory, quantum theory, neural networks) can be used for the description of cognitive systems, which in turn can be represented by different types of cognitive agents.
Motivational Matrix for Educational Games
Authors: Karoulis Athanasis
Published: May 2011

The study of the motivational factor in educational games (aka EduGames) has been limited up to now. A former study (Karoulis, 2004) discussed some aspects and proposed the adherence to the ARCS model of motivation proposed by Keller (Keller, 1983; Keller, 1998), which describes the motivation of any educational piece according to four factors: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. Present study attempts to summarize the attributes of any EduGame, as they are encountered in the relative literature (including representations) and to match every one of those attributes to one (or more) of the ARCS-factors of motivation. The benefit of this approach is a better understanding of the motivational nature of every attribute of every EduGame and an obvious extension is the evolvement of a set of design guidelines for designers of EduGames and educational software in general.
OMIS-Based Collaboration with Service-Oriented Design
Authors: Hou Vat Kam
Published: May 2011

The success of today’s enterprises, measured in terms of their ability to learn and to apply lessons learned, is highly dependent on the inner workings and capabilities of their information technology (IT) function. This is largely due to the emergence of the digital economy (Ghosh, 2006; Turban, Leidner, McLean, & Wetherbe, 2005), characterized by a highly competitive and turbulent business environment, inextricably driven by the intra- and inter-organizational processes and the knowledge processing activities they support. One consequence is the increase in organizations’ efforts to deliberately manage knowledge (Tapscott, 1997), especially the intellectual capital (Stewart, 1997) of their employees (De Hoog, van Heijst, van der Spek, et al., 1999), which necessarily deals with the conceptualization, review, consolidation, and action phases of creating, securing, combining, coordinating, and retrieving knowledge. In fact, such efforts must be instrumental to creating an efficient organization model based on some innovative initiative, and then enable the organization to launch and learn. In a knowledge-creating organization (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995), employees are expected to continually improvise, and invent new methods to deal with unexpected problems and share these innovations with other employees through some effective channels of communications or knowledge transfer mechanisms. The key is collaboration, implying that organizational knowledge is created only when individuals keep modifying their knowledge through interactions with other organizational members. The challenge that organizations now face is how to devise suitable information systems (IS) support to enable such collaboration, namely, to turn the scattered, diverse knowledge of their people into welldocumented knowledge assets ready for reuse to benefit the whole organization. This article presents some service-oriented perspectives of employee-based collaboration through the design of specific IS support called the Organizational Memory Information System (OMIS) in light of the peculiar open-source development initiative of Wiki technology (Leuf & Cunningham, 2001).
On a Design of Narrowband FIR Low-Pass Filters
Authors: Jovanovic Dolecek Gordana , Diaz Carmona Javier
Published: May 2011

Stearns and David (1996) states that “for many diverse applications, information is now most conveniently recorded, transmitted, and stored in digital form, and as a result, digital signal processing (DSP) has become an exceptionally important modern tool.” Typical operation in DSP is digital filtering. Frequency selective digital filter is used to pass desired frequency components in a signal without distortion and to attenuate other frequency components (Smith, 2002; White, 2000). The pass-band is defined as the frequency range allowed to pass through the filter. The frequency band that lies within the filter stop-band is blocked by the filter and therefore eliminated from the output signal. The range of frequencies between the pass-band and the stop-band is called the transition band and for this region no filter specification is given. Digital filters can be characterized either in terms of the frequency response or the impulse response (Diniz, da Silva & Netto, 2002). Depending on its frequency characteristic, a digital filter is either low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, or band-stop filters. A low-pass (LP) filter passes low frequency components to the output, while eliminating high-frequency components. Conversely, the high-pass (HP) filter passes all high-frequency components and rejects all low-frequency components. The band-pass (BP) filter blocks both low- and high-frequency components while passing the intermediate range. The band-stop (BS) filter eliminates the intermediate band of frequencies while passing both low- and high-frequency components. In terms of their impulse responses digital filters are either infinite impulse response (IIR) or finite impulse response (FIR) digital filters. Each of four types of filters (LP, HP, BP, and BS) can be designed as an FIR or an IIR filter (Ifeachor & Jervis, 2001; Mitra, 2005; Oppenheim & Schafer, 1999).
An Overview of Wireless Network Concepts
Authors: Issac Biju
Published: May 2011

Wireless networks and the subsequent mobile communication are growing by leaps and bounds in the past years and the demand for connection without cables is certainly high. Nowadays, wireless networks are quite common and can be found on university campuses, corporate offices and in public places like hotels, airports, coffee shops and so forth. Not only are mobile devices getting smaller and cheaper, they are also becoming more efficient and powerful, capable of running applications and network services. This is causing the uncontrollable growth of mobile computing as we are witnessing today. Among the many number of applications and services that are executed by mobile devices, network and data services are in high demand. Brief descriptions of some selective wireless technologies that help mobile computing, like IEEE 802.11 networks (with infrastructure mode and ad-hoc mode), Bluetooth, HomeRF, WiMAX and cellular technologies are given below.
Perspectives of Transnational Education
Authors: Miliszewska Iwona
Published: May 2011

In recent years, a particular stream of distance education called transnational education has become widespread (Davis, Olson, & Bohm, 2000; van der Vende, 2003). Transnational education, often referred to as offshore education, describes all programs in which the learners are located in a country different from the one where the awarding institution is based. This article discusses various aspects of transnational education. It reviews the definition of transnational education, its typology, growth, factors determining demand and supply, and characteristics of typical programs. The article concludes with a discussion on the role that face-to-face interaction plays in transnational programs.
Pervasive Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: Marsh David , Shen Song , O’Hare Gregory , O’Grady Michael
Published: May 2011

Throughout the history of computing, there has been a trend for the ratio of processing elements to people to increase, resulting in the creation and popularization of new usage paradigms. At the start of the modern computer age, many individual users shared a single mainframe in one central location. In the early 1980s, however, significant developments in microprocessor technologies ushered in the desktop era, resulting in a one-to-one correspondence between individual users and their computers. Computer resources were now intrinsically distributed. The growth of the internet allowed these resources to connect to each other. The pervasive computing paradigm is the next logical stage in this trend, resulting in the original computer-human ratio reversing, so that multiple computational devices are available to each individual user. In reality, this point was passed a number of years ago. Mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), portable music players, as well as numerous embedded devices that people now take for granted, has resulted in computing technologies being embedded into the fabric of everyday life. Thus, for the first time, the desire of computing resources being available on an anywhere, anytime basis is a realistic objective. In addition to computing being available everywhere, pervasive computing has a second key element. This tenet states that user interaction with these universal computing elements should occur in as natural and intuitive a manner as possible. Thus, pervasive computing technology should be assimilated transparently into the user’s natural environment. Rather than deal with the entirety of this broad topic, the focus of this article is to provide an overview of the key developments on one particular technology which is essential to the realization of the pervasive computing vision: the wireless sensor network.
Policy Frameworks for Secure Electronic Business
Authors: Mitrakas Andreas
Published: May 2011

Terms conveyed by means of policy in electronic business have become a common way to express permissions and limitations in online transactions. Doctrine and standards have contributed to determining policy frameworks and making them mandatory in certain areas such as electronic signatures. A typical example of limitations conveyed through policy in electronic signatures includes certificate policies that Certification Authorities (CAs) typically make available to subscribers and relying parties. Trade partners might also use policies to convey limitations to the way electronic signatures are accepted within specific business frameworks. Examples of transaction constraints might include limitations in roles undertaken to carry out an action in a given context, which can be introduced by means of attribute certificates. Relying parties might also use signature policies to denote the conditions for the validation and verification of electronic signatures they accept. Furthermore, signature policies might contain additional transaction-specific limitations in validating an electronic signature addressed to end users. Largescale transactions that involve the processing of electronic signatures in a mass scale within diverse applications rely on policies to convey signature-related information and limitations in a transaction. As legally binding statements, policies are used to convey trust in electronic business. Extending further the use of policy in transaction environments can enhance security, legal safety, and transparency in a transaction. Additional improvements are required, however, in order to render applicable terms that are conveyed through policy and enforce them unambiguously in a transaction. The remainder of this article discusses common concepts of policies and certain applications thereof.
Predictive Data Mining
Authors: Kotsiantis Sotiris , Pintelas Panayotis
Published: May 2011

Data mining is the extraction of implicit, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from data. The idea is to build computer programs that sift through databases automatically, seeking regularities or patterns. Strong patterns, if found, will likely generalize to make accurate predictions on future data. Machine learning (ML) provides the technical basis of data mining. It is used to extract information from the raw data in databases—information that is expressed in a comprehensible form and can be used for a variety of purposes. Every instance in any data set used by ML algorithms is represented using the same set of features. The features may be continuous, categorical, or binary. If instances are given with known labels (the corresponding correct outputs), then the learning is called supervised in contrast to unsupervised learning, where instances are unlabeled (Kotsiantis & Pintelas, 2004). This work is concerned with regression problems in which the output of instances admits real values instead of discrete values in classification problems.
Quality-of-Service Routing
Authors: Misra Sudip
Published: May 2011

The area of quality-of-service (QoS) routing is concerned with selecting routing paths while meeting strict end-toend service requirements involving resource constraints, while achieving optimum throughput in the network. The usefulness of QoS routing is not new. QoS routing is quite popular in the telecommunications industry because of the increased demand for satisfying multiple customer demands and obtaining increased utilization of network resources, while satisfying the varied user requirements.
Quantum Cryptography Protocols for Information Security
Authors: Pulkkis Göran , Grahn Kaj J.
Published: May 2011

Quantum cryptography will have a severe impact on information security technology. The objective of this article is to present state-of-the-art and future possibilities of two quantum cryptography protocol types. These protocols are for absolutely secure distribution of symmetric encryption/ decryption keys and for creating secure digital signatures.
Real Options Analysis in Strategic Information Technology Adoption
Authors: Li Xiaotong
Published: May 2011

Many information resource managers have learned to be proactive in today’s highly competitive business environment. However, limited financial resources and many uncertainties require them to maximize their shareholders’ equity while controlling the risks incurred at an acceptable level. As the unprecedented development in information technology continuously produces great opportunities that are usually associated with significant uncertainties, technology adoption and planning become more and more crucial to companies in the information era. In this study, we attempt to evaluate IT investment opportunities from a new perspective, namely, the real options theory. Its advantage over other capital budgeting methods like static discounted cash flow analysis has been widely recognized in analyzing the strategic investment decision under uncertainties (Amram & Kulatilaka, 1999; Luehrman, 1998a, 1998b). Smith and McCardle (1998, 1999) further show that option pricing approach can be integrated into standard decision analysis framework to get the best of the both worlds. In fact, some previous IS researches have recognized the fact that many IT investment projects in the uncertain world possess some option-like characteristics (Clemsons, 1991; Dos Santos, 1991; Kumar, 1996). Recently, Benaroth and Kauffman (1999) and Taudes, Feurstein and Mild (2000) have applied the real options theory to real-world business cases and evaluated this approach’s merits as a tool for IT investment planning. As all real options models inevitably depend on some specific assumptions, their appropriateness should be scrutinized under different scenarios. This study aims to provide a framework that will help IS researchers to better understand the real options models and to apply them more rigorously in IT investment evaluation. As the technology changes, the basic economic principles underlying the real options theory do not change. We do need to integrate the IT dimension into the real options based investment decision-making process. Using electronic brokerage’s investment decision in wireless technology as a real-world example, we show the importance of adopting appropriate real options models in IT investment planning. By specifically focusing on the uncertainties caused by IT innovation and competition, our study also gives some intriguing results about the dynamics between IT adoption and the technology standard setting process.
Reliability Growth Models for Defect Prediction
Authors: Schneidewind Norman
Published: May 2011

In order to continue to make progress in software measurement as it pertains to reliability, there must be a shift in emphasis from design and code metrics to metrics that characterize the risk of making requirements changes. By doing so, the quality of delivered software can be improved because defects related to problems in requirements specifi- cations will be identified early in the life cycle. An approach is described for identifying requirements change risk factors as predictors of reliability problems. This approach can be generalized to other applications with numerical results that would vary according to application.
Representational Decision Support Systems Success Surrogates
Authors: McHaney Roger
Published: May 2011

Rapid and frequent organizational change has been a hallmark of business environments in the past two decades. Frequently, technology and new software development are embraced as aspects of complex strategies and tactical plans. Without sufficient analysis, the unforeseen consequences of change can result in unexpected disruptions and the loss of productivity. In order to better control these contingencies, modern managers often employ a variety of decision support aids. One such aid, classified as a representational decision support system, is discrete event simulation (DES).
Semantic Web and E-Tourism
Authors: Damljanovic Danica , Devedžic Vladan
Published: May 2011

Offering tourist services on the Internet has become a great business over the past few years. Heung (2003) revealed that approximately 30% of travelers use the Internet for reservation or purchase of travel products or services. Classic sites of tourist agencies enable users to view and search for certain destinations and book and pay for vacation packages. At a higher level of sophistication are tourism Web portals, which integrate the offers of many tourist agencies and enable searching from one point on the Web. Still, when using this kind of systems one is forced to spend a lot of time analyzing Web content with destinations that match his/her wishes. This problem is identified by Hepp, Siorpaes and Bachlechner (2006) as the “needle in the haystack” problem. Applying artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in E-tourism could help resolve this problem by providing: 1. Data that are semantically enriched, structured, and thus represented in a machine readable form; 2. Easy integration of tourist sources from different applications; 3. Personalization of sites: the content can be created according to the user profile; 4. Improved system interactivity. As an example of using AI in e-tourism, we present Travel Guides—a prototype system that offers tourists complete information about numerous destinations. They can search destinations by using several criteria (e.g., accommodation type, food service, budget, activities during vacation, and user interests: sports, shopping, clubbing, art, museum, monuments, etc.). He/She can also read about the weather forecast and events in the destination. In a way, Travel Guides complements traditional information systems of tourist agencies. These systems require a lot of maintenance effort in order to keep the huge amount of data about tourist destinations up-to-date. Travel Guides is created to minimize the user’s input and his/her need to filter information. It shows how usage of semantically enriched data in a machine readable form can Increase interoperability in the area of tourism, Decrease maintenance efforts of tourist agents, and Offer tourists a better service. Nowadays, there are just a few e-tourism systems that use AI techniques. We briefly discuss them in the next section. In this article, we explain why it would be good to use such techniques and how Travel Guides does it. Specifically, using Semantic Web technologies in the area of tourism can improve already existing systems (which are mostly available online) that do not use Semantic Web techniques yet. Likewise, the Semantic Web approach can help decrease the maintenance efforts required for existing e-tourism systems and ease the process of searching for vacation packages. Travel Guides was initially developed as a large-scale expert system. Over time, it has evolved into a modern Semantic Web application.