bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Resource Theory of Organizations
Authors: Gottschalk Petter , Solli-Saether Hans
Published: May 2010

The resource theory of organizations is an influential theoretical framework for understanding how efficiency and effectiveness within organizations are achieved and how advantage might be sustained over time. This perspective focuses on the internal availability of resources in organizations. The theory assumes that organizations can be conceptualized as bundles of resources that those resources are heterogeneously distributed across organizations, and that resource differences persist over time (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000).
Governance Structure for Alignment
Authors: Gottschalk Petter , Solli-Saether Hans
Published: May 2010

Given the political nature of back-office integration, should cross-organizational back-office integration be seen as a command and control challenge or a process management challenge? This question was phrased by Bekkers (2007), who found that comparative case studies primarily have shown that integration is the outcome of a process, in which offices have been able to create a shared understanding about the necessity of integration and in which conflicting rationalities, with their own core values, internal logic and legitimacy, have to be weighted against each other. Bekkers (2007) argues that it is a goal-searching, incremental process, which should anticipate a changing political agenda in order to gain support. Understanding is reached through the ongoing recognition of the interdependencies among back-of- fices, and as a result of a focus on the content of the problem and not on jurisdictions and costs. Trust and political and legal pressure are the drivers that facilitate this process. Co-ordination in terms of governance has to consider a mix of conflict and co-operation.
E-Government Dynamics
Authors: Gottschalk Petter , Solli-Saether Hans
Published: May 2010

It was Sterman’s (2000) book entitled “Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World” that introduced the term business dynamics. Business dynamics is concerned with learning in and about complex systems. Effective decision-making by growing dynamic complexity requires executives to become systems thinkers – to expand the boundaries of their mental models and develop ways to understand how the structure of complex systems creates behavior. We start this chapter discussing how to overcome barriers to E-Government. Then we present a framework for assessment of E-Government projects. In the context of system dynamics, we discuss causal loop diagramming, modeling and organizational performance.
Trust and Social Capital
Authors: Daniel Ben Kei
Published: May 2010

Regardless of any approach taken for examining social capital, researchers continuously converge on some key issues such as trust and yet diverge on several others about concrete and consistent indicators for measuring social capital. Many researchers believe that presence or absences of social capital can be solely linked to trusting relationships people build with each other as well as social institutions of civil engagement. It is not clearly known however, whether trust itself is a precondition for generating social capital or whether there are other intermediary variables that can influence the role of trust in creating social capital. In addition, similar to social capital, the definition of trust is problematic and it remains a nebulous concept and equally, with many dimensions. Interests in the analysis of trust are wide spread among many disciplines, notably policy analysis, economic development, reliability and security of distributed computational systems and many others. The variety of approaches currently employed to investigate trust and different interpretations of its role in fostering social capital has resulted into a diverse array of knowledge about the concept and its relationship to social capital. This Chapter provides a broader overview of work on trust. It discusses how researchers have used trust as a proxy for measuring social capital.
A Computational Model of Social Capital
Authors: Daniel Ben Kei
Published: May 2010

This Chapter presents the Bayesian Belief computational model of social capital developed within the context of virtual communities discussed in Chapter 7. The development of the model was based on insights drawn from research. The Chapter presents the key variables constituting social capital in virtual communities and shows how the model was created and updated. The scenarios described in the Chapter were authentic cases drawn from several virtual communities. The key issues predicted by the model as well as challenges encountered in building, verifying and updating the model are discussed. The ultimate goal of the Chapter is to share experiences in developing a model of social capital and to encourage the reader to think about how such experiences can be extended to model similar constructs or build more scenarios to update the model. The model presented in the Chapter is a proof-of-a concept and a demonstration of a procedure. Notwithstanding that some of the model’s predictions are accurate while other require more substantial empirical corroboration.
Sensitivity Analysis
Authors: Daniel Ben Kei
Published: May 2010

Sensitivity analysis is a mathematical technique for investigating the effects of inaccuracies in the parameters of a mathematical model. It analyses how variation in the output of a model (numerical or otherwise) can be apportioned qualitatively or quantitatively to different sources of data. Sensitivity analysis is an important statistical validation technique in Bayesian Modelling. It is used to ascertain how a given model output depends upon or determines its input parameters. It often carried out to ensure the quality and accuracy of a model and a way of checking the robustness and reliability of assumptions built into a model. This Chapter offers an accessible introduction to sensitivity analysis of Bayesian models. The Chapter should have been a section in Chapter 12 and presented before the scenarios sections in Chapter 12. But because sensitivity analysis itself is a complex subject, it was deemed wise to present it as a complete Chapter on its own.
Model Validation
Authors: Daniel Ben Kei
Published: May 2010

Though computational models take a lot of effort to build, a model is generally not useful unless it can help people to understand the world being modelled, or the problem the model is intended to solve. A useful model allows people to make useful predictions about how the world will behave now and possibly tomorrow. Validation is the last step required in developing a useful Bayesian model. The goal of validation is to gain confidence in a model and to demonstrate and prove that a model produces reliable results that are closely related to the problems or issues in which the model is intended to address. The goal of the Chapter is to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the validation process and to share with them key lessons learned from the model of social capital presented in the book. While sensitivity analysis is intended to ensure that a Bayesian model is theoretically consistent with goals and assumptions of the modeller (how the modeller views the world) or the accuracy of sources of data used for building the model, the goal of validation is to demonstrate the practical application of the model in real world settings. This Chapter presents the main steps involved in the process of validating a Bayesian model. It illustrates this process by using examples drawn from the Bayesian model of social capital.
Cooperative Broadcast in Large-Scale Wireless Networks
Authors: Sirkeci-Mergen Birsen , Scaglione Anna , Gastpar Michael
Published: May 2010

This chapter studies the cooperative broadcasting in wireless networks. We especially focus on multistage cooperative broadcasting in which the message from a source node is relayed by multiple groups of cooperating nodes. Interestingly, group transmissions become beneficial in the case of broadcasting as opposed to the case in traditional networks where receptions from different transmitters are considered as collision and disregarded. Different aspects of multistage cooperative broadcasting are analyzed in the chapter: (i) coverage behavior; (ii) power efficiency; (ii) error propagation; (iv) maximum communication rate. Whenever possible, performance is compared with multihop broadcasting where transmissions are relayed by a single node at each hop. We consider a large-scale network with many nodes distributed randomly in a given area. In order to analyze such networks, an important methodology, the continuum limit, is introduced. In the continuum limit, random networks are approximated by their dense limits under sum relay power constraint. This method allows us to obtain analytical results for the analysis of cooperative multistage broadcasting.
Cooperative Communication System Architectures for Cellular Networks
Authors: Dohler Mischa , Meddour Djamal-Eddine , Senouci Sidi-Mohammed , Moustafa Hassnaa
Published: May 2010

An ever-growing demand for higher data-rates has facilitated the growth of wireless networks in the past decades. These networks, however, are known to exhibit capacity and coverage problems, hence jeopardizing the promised quality of service towards the end-user. To overcome these problems, prohibitive investment costs in terms of base station or access point rollouts would be required if traditional, non-scalable, cell-splitting, and micro-cell capacity dimension procedures were applied. The prime aim of current R&D initiatives is, hence, to develop innovative network solutions that decrease the cost per bit/s/Hz over the wireless link. To this end, cooperative networks have emerged as an efficient and promising solution. We discuss in this chapter some key research and deployment issues, with emphasis on cooperative architectures, networking, and security solutions. We expose some motivations to use such networks, as well as latest state-of-the-art developments, open research challenges, and business models.
Practicing or Preaching? Teacher Educators and Student Teachers Appropriating New Literacies
Authors: Lo Margaret , Clarke Matthew
Published: May 2010

This chapter examines the implementation of a new 12-hour course on ‘New Literacies’ during the final year of a Bachelor of Education in English language education in Hong Kong. Specifically, it examines the authors’ attempts to create a community of practice around New Literacies teaching and learning. As part of this endeavour, the authors sought to embody – and to encourage their student teachers to appropriate as part of their evolving teaching selves – the ‘insider mindset’ (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006) of new literacies practices, as the authors planned and implemented the course. They hoped that experientially connecting theory and practice of New Literacies would provide affordances for teacher educators, and for student teachers, to capitalise on the powerful potential of digital technologies in order to rethink how curriculum might be implemented in ways that are more multimodal, participative, and collaborative. As the authors discuss below, their attempt encountered unanticipated challenges, reflecting the power of existing institutional structures and unarticulated assumptions. The final part of the chapter examines lessons from the authors experience that may have resonance in other contexts and explores how they might approach the challenges they encountered differently in the future.
Services and the Humans
Authors: Koumpis Adamantios
Published: May 2010

The author examines the various aspects of influence and impact that services have on the humans and vice versa. How an interactive space is created to link both entities – and most importantly – how humans interact with each other through services of all kinds. He examines the starting points of a real world service design and implementation case that is representative of the difficulties that one faces when trying to make practice out of theory. Designing a service that would help people offer and get a better service in the European technology transfer domain is the starting point. He continues examining the users and their particular needs, then looking inside the service mediation process and the various user service scenarios. And concludes with a description of system deployment issues.
Services and the Workplace
Authors: Koumpis Adamantios
Published: May 2010

How our workplaces are formed and shaped with respect to our conceptualization and understanding of services? How organisations can be characterized, affected and marked through their idea of services? Workplace are considered as open learning factory – open to the communities they belong to, to the markets they operate for and to the employees, customers and contractors of all types they interact with. How can all the new learning items be capitalised and transformed into knowledge assets for the companies and the employees? How can the use of a Learning Assets Management system like the CARAMBOLA concept we present be used for improvement of all aspects of service planning, implementation and operation?
Service Economics
Authors: Koumpis Adamantios
Published: May 2010

Here the author examines the economies of services as well as matters related to service economics. Do the same or similar laws that drive the other fields of the nonservices economy also govern the service-based economy as well? How can wealth matters be addressed in the services field with application of well-know economics patterns? An improved accounting method for project management accounting is presented based on the idea of value centres next to the well-known concepts of cost centres and profit centres. The method can be of direct use for value based management purposes that is of central importance for all service-related activities (improvement / optimisation, planning, deployment, etc.).
Service Metaphysics
Authors: Koumpis Adamantios
Published: May 2010

Transcendental matters of services: communities of users, service idealism, theological and existentialist perspectives on services – this chapter (in contrast to the previous one) is the most philosophical part of the entire book though it is of straight utility for its linkage to many service business and management topics. Furthermore, in this chapter we present a methodology (PACE) that helps for the valuation of intangible assets like (what else?) services. PACE is presented with practical examples and contextually linked with project and other service related activities. Services unequivocally constitute an area where increasing interest of experts from the areas of intellectual capital management and valuation will be concentrated, as they on their own possess qualities and characteristics of intangible assets because of their immaterial nature.
Culture of Services
Authors: Koumpis Adamantios
Published: May 2010

How do all different types of services affect the reality and routine of the service consumer / user? What cultural effects can we recognize to the community or the individuals? What are the cultural aspects of any newly introduced service? And how these can positively or negatively affect the society at large? In this chapter the author presents results of a research exercise related with the building of services for a collaborative community environment for experiential learning in medical emergencies. Extensive use of the Living Labs methodology has been made and is reported and related with the presented framework. The final part of this chapter is devoted to configuration aspects of the collaborative service environment.
Global Collaborative Business
Authors: Unhelkar Bhuvan , Ghanbary Abbass , Younessi Houman
Published: May 2010

This chapter starts with a discussion on global collaborative business. The initial discussion in this chapter is on why and how a global collaborative business is brought about. Our premise in the discussion in this chapter is that electronic collaboration is invariably associated with globalization.
Collaborative Business Process Engineering (CBPE) Model
Authors: Unhelkar Bhuvan , Ghanbary Abbass , Younessi Houman
Published: May 2010

This chapter describes the Collaborative Business Process Engineering (CBPE) model. This model is the core model for business collaboration and is the main contribution of this book to the literature on collaborative business. The descriptions of the technologies that facilitate CBPE were presented in earlier Chapter II.
Advanced Technologies and Architecture for Collaborative Business
Authors: Unhelkar Bhuvan , Ghanbary Abbass , Younessi Houman
Published: May 2010

This chapter discusses the role of information system architectures in Collaborate Business Process Engineering (CBPE). Thus, in this chapter, there is an extension of the discussion on Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) from chapters 2 and 4, and its importance and relevance to CBPE. The SOA based architecture is extended and applied in a collaborative business environment. The technical platform of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) provides an ideal mechanism to start building collaborative business processes, as it facilitates technical collaboration of different environments - as discussed in this chapter.
Quality Assurance of the Collaborative Web Based System
Authors: Unhelkar Bhuvan , Ghanbary Abbass , Younessi Houman
Published: May 2010

This chapter discusses the important issues related to quality management, quality assurance and testing of information systems that are used by collaborative business. The discussion thus far in this book has been in the area of collaborative business models, technologies for collaboration and their effect on business organization. Each of these areas of collaborative business can be, and should be, subjected to quality assurance and testing. This chapter discusses how these important aspects of quality can be applied to a collaborative business. The overall strategic approach to quality, which starts with quality management, is also explained. This chapter further discusses the testing strategy, testing processes and the test data required in the solution space of CWBS. The practical checklists approach to enhance the quality of software model created in Chapter 6 using the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) goes a long way in ensuring a smooth transition of the business to a collaborative business.
Socio-Cultural Factors and Collaboration
Authors: Unhelkar Bhuvan , Ghanbary Abbass , Younessi Houman
Published: May 2010

This chapter discusses the importance of the socio-cultural factors of collaboration. This social influence is experienced not only in the society where the customers exist, but also within the internal organization, employees, business partners and senior management. The transition to a collaborative business will affect all these involved parties and it is important to understand that effect and prepare the parties for the transition. This chapter starts by providing some definitions of the social aspects in information technology. The correlations between the IT changes and corresponding changes to the society are demonstrated. The discussion, in this chapter, is aimed to handle some of the risks associated with transitioning to collaborative business that are non-technical in nature.
A Contextualised Multi-Platform Framework to Support Blended Learning Scenarios in Learning Networks
Authors: Jong Tim de , Fuertes Alba , Schmeits Tally , Specht Marcus
Published: May 2010

This chapter describes a multi-platform extension of learning networks. In addition to Web- and desktopbased access, the authors propose to provide mobile, contextualised learning content delivery, and creation. The extension to a multi-platform extension is portrayed as follows. First, the authors give a description of learning networks, the kind of learning focused at, and the mechanisms that are used for learner support. After that, they illustrate a possible extension to contextualised, more authentic forms of learning mediated by mobile devices. Moreover, they give some requirements for a multi-platform learning network system and describe a technical framework integrating contextualised media with learning networks. Two blended learning scenarios are given as examples of how the extended system could be used in practice. Last, the conclusions and outlook describe what is necessary to integrate multi-platform e-learning software in existing learning scenarios, and how a larger-scale adaptation can be achieved.
Cross Platform M-Learning for the Classroom of Tomorrow
Authors: Doolan Daniel C. , Mehigan Tracey J. , Tabirca Sabin , Pitt Ian
Published: May 2010

Mobile devices are becoming more and more commonplace across all walks of life from the workplace to leisure activities and even the classroom. Many schools shun the use of devices such as mobile phones in the classroom environment, but this will have to change as they become a more integral part of our daily lives. The ever increasing capabilities of these devices allow for opening up on new application domains. The ubiquitous use of mobile technology in the classroom may provide new and interesting ways for students to interact with subject matter. This chapter discusses the use of cross platform Bluetooth enabled mobile devices within the classroom setting to allow students to interact with subject matter in a new and interactive way using the ICT resources that are ever present in our daily lives.
Using Mobile and Pervasive Technologies to Engage Formal and Informal Learners in Scientific Debate
Authors: Woodgate Dawn , Fraser Danaë Stanton , Gower Amanda , Glancy Maxine , Gower Andrew , Chamberlain Alan , Dillon Teresa , Crellin David
Published: May 2010

In a climate of concern in the United Kingdom about a perceived loss of interest in science among schoolchildren and the general public, we consider the relationships that exist between science education and public engagement in science, and “formal” and “informal” learning contexts. The authors move on to describe four case studies drawn from our research, where mobile technologies have been used in ubiquitous ICT-based science-related learning activities. Three of these studies were of school based activities which took place in timetabled science lesson time. The fourth was set in Kew Gardens in London, during a holiday period, and involved leisure-time visitors of all ages. Finally, they describe a planned integrated trial, which will draw together “formal” and “informal” learners in environmental and scientific debate, scaffolding previous mobile learning experiences towards a genuinely multiplatform e-learning system.
Tools for Students Doing Mobile Fieldwork
Authors: Rost Mattias , Holmquist Lars Erik
Published: May 2010

Students are not always sitting at their desk when learning new things – they are also out in the world. The authors present a set of tools they developed to support groups of students who are doing field studies. Initially, the authors gave the students a Wiki for gathering field notes and their group work material. Based on observations on how they used it and collaborated, they developed additional tools to run along with the Wiki. These include a mobile application for capturing data (photo, video, audio, and text) and automatically uploading to the Wiki, and a set of Web tools which run on top of the Wiki for increasing the awareness between students, and for browsing the captured data. They describe the implementation of these tools and report on the experience from having students using them on their own equipment during the course.
Contextual Learning and Memory Retention
Authors: Metcalf David , Rogers David
Published: May 2010

An important part of multiplatform or blended learning is designing learning environments that take full advantage of the relative strengths and weakness of the various platforms employed to meet learning objectives. The desktop has strengths that are conducive to immersive learning environments, whereas mobile devices excel in contextual learning and performance support roles. Blended learning then, is not merely porting the same content from one platform to another, but recognizing the need for unique implementations. This chapter will examine two general applications in which mobile learning takes advantage of the flexibility afforded by the platform. In the first case we will explore the possibilities presented by physical hyperlinks through the use of Near Field Communications, QR codes, and image recognition software. In addition to providing contextually relevant information, the mobile platform is ideal for providing enhanced conceptual retention. The Spacing Effect demonstrates that memory decays according to a well-defined logarithmic curve. Once this curve has been optimized for an individual, it is possible to determine the most productive times to review learning objectives. Mobile devices are theperfect platform to review material initially mastered on a desktop or in a classroom, and these scheduled sessions can boost retention times dramatically. Contextual Learning and Enhanced Retention are two applications that cater to the strengths of mobile devices, and augment a holistic multiplatform approach to learning.
A Framework for E-Government Portal Development
Authors: Maheshwari Bharat , Kumar Vinod , Kumar Uma , Sharan Vedmani
Published: May 2010

Electronic government (E-government) portals are considered one of the most popular conduits for offering government services online. Successful e-government portal development projects have been lauded in several academic and practitioner papers. These projects have concentrated on integrating government agencies by working to break the traditional silo-based view of the government and providing seamless integrated online services to citizens. However, the rate of adoption for e-government portals by citizens has been much lower than expected. A major reason identified in the literature for this is a lack of understanding of managerial considerations that affect portal development and subsequent adoption. In this chapter, we present a framework of managerial considerations for the development of e-government portals. The framework builds upon available literature in the field of e-government and public administration. It consists of eight key front-office and back-office considerations that contribute to successful development of an e-government portal. It provides an excellent platform for future research on e-government portals. The framework can also be extended to managers as a useful tool for ascertaining the effectiveness of their government portal development.
E-Governance
Authors: Choudhury Subhajit , Kumar Sudhir
Published: May 2010

The chapter introduces information communication technology and its importance with respect to digital divide. Digital divides is the connotation of three terms global divide, social divide, democratic divide. Further, it discusses the role of United Nations and United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals for bridging digital divide amongst the under develop and developing nations. It also relates e-democracy with citizen empowerment. Some projects related to e-governance in developing society in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh have been discussed. The Library and Information Centres have been given utmost priority to maintain the e-governance projects so that these projects can better be maintained with proper information and become more citizen-centric.
Application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) Techniques in E–Governance
Authors: Ghosh Siddhartha
Published: May 2010

E-governance is the public sector’s use of information and communication technologies (ICT) with the aim of improving information and service delivery, encouraging citizen participation in the decision-making process and making government more accountable, transparent, and effective. Effective and efficient e-governments deploy information and communication technology systems to deliver services through multiple channels that are accessible, fast, secure, reliable, seamless, and coherent. To implement better government-to-government (G2G), government-to-business (G2B), government-to-enterprise (G2E) and government-to-citizen (G2C) services a good governance should not only utilize ICT, it has to be also serious about implementing natural language processing (NLP) Techniques to reach up to the masses and make e-governance successful one. This chapter shows the need of applying NLP technologies in the field of e-governance and also tries to focus on the issues, which can be resolved very easily with the help of these modern technologies. It also shows the advantages of applying NLP in e-governance.
Assessing E-Governance Online-Service Quality (EGOSQ)
Authors: Agrawal Anand
Published: May 2010

A primary goal of e-governance is providing online-services to citizens over the internet (Web portals) to facilitate government-to-citizen (G2C) and citizen-to-government (C2G) interactions and transactions. This chapter provides a perspective on the users’ perceptions of the attributes which determine e-governance online-service quality. The research based approach is used to first develop the discussion on the needs of quality “e-governance online services” (EGOS) and then a research study is used to demonstrate development of measurement instrumentation to measure online service quality from the users’ perspective. The presented method and the instrument can be adopted in any country/state with minor contextual modifications. The limitations and future directions for scholars and researchers to facilitate the knowledge in measuring and thus, improving in e-governance online service quality is also presented at the end of the chapter.
The Success Model of Evolution from Government to E-Governance
Authors: Perumal Sundresan
Published: May 2010

As the world is streaming into an electronic world there are still huge communities that don’t understand the evolution government into the era of e-government. Many still do not understand what is meant by e-government and e–governance. At the same time they don’t understand how the actual transmission between the old government and the new e-government framework model works. This chapter develops a model to understand e-governance better and at the same time to help avoid possible problems during the period of transition from traditional government to e-government. Towards introducing the new model, we will also identify a few unique cases of e-government. As the heat of the business to consumer e-commerce (B2C) sector grows, public services are entering the frame whereby government-to-business (G2B) and government-to-citizen (G2C) services are becoming popular at local, regional, national, or even supranational level, albeit at a comparatively slower rate. Further, the concept of the traditional government model is a more conservative entity, slower to change into new initiatives, than operators in the commercial field.
Towards an E-Governance Grid for India (E-GGI)
Authors: Prabhu C.S.R.
Published: May 2010

The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) proposes citizen service delivery up to the village level through various channels including village kiosks. The citizen services to be delivered are going to be web services (as against the present simply web enabled services) based on the Service Oriented Architecture paradigm. These Web Services expect adequate networking and computing resources for effective and efficient service delivery. Grid computing is the new computing paradigm. According to Gartner, computing (scientific, business and e-governance based) will be completely transformed in this decade by using grid enabled web services to integrate across the Internet to share not only information and application but also computing power. The latest grid computing standard OGSA (Open Grid Services Architecture) integrates the power of the grid with that of the web services – both stateless and stateful, based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Leveraging the power of grid computing for e-governance takes us towards an e-governance grid for India. Towards this objective, the existing computing networks such as NICNET with all its SAN Data Centres connected with each other and also the other state owned Data Centres and SWANs (State Wide Area Networks) are required to be connected with each other to ultimately form the e-Governance Grid of India (e-GGI). Once this is achieved, the web services which offer citizen services will be effectively supported by the powerful resources of this e-ggI, ensuring nonstop, fast and efficient delivery, with all the due backup, mirroring and recovery features in place. Then we can successfully operationalise Web Services Repositories at the District, State and National levels on the e-governance grid of India, thereby delivering citizen services across the country. An architectural framework for citizen services delivery is also proposed based on e-GGI.
Telecentres
Authors: Dixit Vineeta
Published: May 2010

Information communications technologies (ICTs) are one of the major areas of research and investment in developing countries because they seem to serve the cause of democratisation and empowering citizens by extending the public sphere. ICTs and especially Internet are regarded as the new public sphere for they seem to lie outside the market and the State, nurtured by civil society serving the cause of good governance and democratisation and empowering grassroots initiatives, giving them access to critical information, organising political actions, influencing public opinion and policy-making. This chapter examines the ‘publicness’ of the telecentres in the framework of public sphere as defined by Habermas. The chapter uses telecentres as representative of ‘technology mediated public space’ created by ICTs and Internet and examines two approaches to the Telecentre movement, analysing whether Telecentres can meet the requirements of the rational-critical discussions and if and what factors influence the extension of the public sphere. The chapter concludes that while the telecentres create opportunities to improve communication and reconnect citizens to the State, offering greater access to information and support for group based discussion, they are likely to support only incremental modifications to the democratic system because the current use of information communication technologies (ICTs) concentrates primarily on information provision, and not linkages that improve the quality of democratic discourse.
Concern Separation for Adaptive QoS Modeling in Distrbuted Real-Time Embedded Systems
Authors: Gray Jeff , Neema Sandeep , Zhang Jing , Lin Yuehua , Bapty Ted , Gokhale Aniruddha , Schmidt Douglas C.
Published: May 2010

The development of distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems is often challenging due to conflicting quality-of-service (QoS) constraints that must be explored as trade-offs among a series of alternative design decisions. The ability to model a set of possible design alternatives—and to analyze and simulate the execution of the representative model—helps derive the correct set of QoS parameters needed to satisfy DRE system requirements. QoS adaptation is accomplished via rules that specify how to modify application or middleware behavior in response to changes in resource availability. This chapter presents a model-driven approach for generating QoS adaptation rules in DRE systems. This approach creates high-level graphical models representing QoS adaptation policies. The models are constructed using a domain-specific modeling language—the adaptive quality modeling language (AQML)—which assists in separating common concerns of a DRE system via different modeling views. The chapter motivates the need for model transformations to address crosscutting and scalability concerns within models. In addition, a case study is presented based on bandwidth adaptation in video streaming of unmanned aerial vehicles.
The Role of Programming Models on Reconfigurable Computing Fabrics
Authors: Cardoso Joao M.P. , Bispo Joao , Sanches Adriano K.
Published: May 2010

Reconfigurable computing architectures are becoming increasingly important in many computing domains (e.g., embedded and high-performance systems). These architectures promise comparable characteristics to specific hardware solutions with the flexibility and programmability of microprocessor solutions. This chapter gives a comprehensible overview of reconfigurable computing concepts and programming paradigms for the current and future generation of reconfigurable computing architectures. Two paramount aspects are highlighted: understanding how the programming model can help the mapping of computations to these architectures, and understanding also the way new programming models can be used to develop applications to these architectures. We include a set of simple examples to show different aspects of the use of the reconfigurable computing synergies, driven by the initial programming model used.
Architecture Description Languages for the Automotive Domain
Authors: Faucou Sebastien , Simonot-Lion Francoise , Trinquet Yvon
Published: May 2010

The embedded electronic architecture of a modern vehicle is a distributed system composed of several tenths of nodes. The development of these systems relies on a cooperative process involving several partners (carmakers and several suppliers). In such highly competitive domain, three main factors have to be taken into account: the design and production costs, the performance, comfort, and quality of driving, and several stringent safety requirements. In order to fulfill these requirements in such a context, it is vital for the different stakeholders to master the effects of the different sources of complexity. One way to reach this goal is to provide them with a common modeling language capable of representing the system at all its design steps and a common reference architecture in terms of components and organization. This chapter illustrates this approach. It focuses on EAST-ADL, an architecture description language dedicated to the automotive domain. Its links to the reference architecture defined by the AUTOSAR consortium are given. The chapter focuses especially on the ability offered by EAST-ADL to support the validation and verification (V&V) activities in order to fulfill the safety requirements.
Insights from an MSN Corpus
Authors: Bodomo Adams B.
Published: May 2010

In this chapter I look closely at one type of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), Microsoft Network (MSN) instant messaging. MSN instant communication is quite popular among the youth in most parts of the world. In Hong Kong, it has fast replaced I-seek-you (ICQ) and QQ (in mainland China) as one of the primary instant communication tools among the youth. In this chapter I will be looking particularly at the linguistic features of this kind of communication. More specifically, Hong Kong being a trilingual and biliterate society, one would want to see how participants juggle these languages within the medium of the MSN instant messaging and what linguistic features are thus produced. As is usual with most chapters our observations are based on a case study. So first I present this study in the next section. A distinctive feature of this chapter from some others is that I present and describe a comprehensive corpus as an example of an actual CMC exchanges. This will give us insights into the actual communication sessions of young people who use MSN in Hong Kong.
Educational Technologies (WebCT)
Authors: Bodomo Adams B.
Published: May 2010

In this chapter, I will discuss how to take advantage of youth interests in these new technology that have been discussed at length in previous chapters by showing how we can turn them into learning and pedagogical technologies, leading to a model for language learning using these media – the Conversational Learning Community. Two main concepts, constructivism (Bodomo 2005b, 2007) and interactivity (Bodomo 2006, 2008, will be highlighted as important concepts in the area of using learning technologies to create good pedagical environments for teaching issues of linguistics and literacy, and for that matter any other subject. The first study is on constructivism while the second part deals with interactivity.
Thymic Stromal Lymphopoietin Receptor-Mediated IL-6 and CC/CXC Chemokines Expression in Human Airway Smooth Muscle Cells: Role of MAPKs (ERK1/2, p38, and JNK) and STAT3 Pathways
Authors: Shan Lianyu , Redhu Naresh Singh , Saleh Ali , Halayko Andrew J. , Chakir Jamila , Gounni Abdelilah S.
Published: May 2010

Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) plays a pivotal role in allergic diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and atopic dermatitis. Enhanced TSLP expression has been detected in asthmatic airways that correlated with both the expression of Th2-attracting chemokines and with disease severity. Although cumulative evidence suggests that human airway smooth muscle (HASM) cells can initiate or perpetuate the airway inflammation by secreting a variety of inflammatory cell products such as cytokines and chemokines, the role of TSLP in this pathway is not known. In the current study, we sought to investigate whether HASM cells express the TSLP receptor (TSLPR) and whether it is functional. We first demonstrated that primary HASM cells express the transcript and protein of both TSLPR subunits (TSLPR and IL-7Rα). Functionally, TSLPR-mediated HASM activation induced a significant increase in CXC (IL-8/CXCL8), CC (eotaxin-1/CCL11) chemokines, and proinflammatory cytokine IL-6 expression. Furthermore, using biochemical and genetic approaches, we found that TSLP-induced proinflammatory gene expression in HASM involved the transcriptional mechanisms, MAPKs (ERK1/2, p38, and JNK), and STAT3 activation. Finally, TSLPR immunoreactivity in bronchial sections from mild allergic asthmatics suggested the potential in vivo TSLP targeting of HASM. Altogether, our data suggest that the TSLPR-mediated HASM activation induces proinflammatory cytokine and chemokines release that may facilitate inflammatory immune cells recruitment in airways. In addition, it may be inferred that TSLPR is involved in the pathogenesis of allergic asthma through the activation of HASM cells by TSLP.
Spatiotemporal Regulation of Heat Shock Protein 90-Chaperoned Self-DNA and CpG-Oligodeoxynucleotide for Type I IFN Induction via Targeting to Static Early Endosome
Authors: Okuya Koichi , Tamura Yasuaki , Saito Keita , Kutomi Goro , Torigoe Toshihiko , Hirata Koichi , Sato Noriyuki
Published: May 2010

Recent studies have suggested that TLR9 signaling in early endosomes leads to IFN-α production by plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), whereas TLR9 signaling in late endosomes induces pDC maturation, IL-6, and TNF-α secretion. In this study, we show that human DNA as well as CpG-oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) in complex with heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) stimulate pDCs to produce large quantities of IFN-α. The Hsp90–CpG-A complexes are targeted into the Rab5+, early endosomal Ag 1+-static early endosome postinternalization by DCs, suggesting that preferential sorting of Hsp90-chaperoned self-DNA/CpG-ODNs to the static endosome is required for signaling through TLR9 for IFN-α production. Interestingly, Hsp90-mediated preferential static early endosomal translocation of CpG-ODNs triggers robust IFN-α production from murine conventional DCs. Thus, extracellular Hsp90 converts inert self-DNA/CpG-ODNs into a potent trigger of IFN-α production via spatiotemporal regulation.
On the roles of circulation and aerosols in the decline of mist and dense fog in Europe over the last 30 years
Authors: van Oldenborgh G. J. , Yiou P. , Vautard R.
Published: May 2010

Abstract. Fog and mist are meteorological phenomena that have significant contributions to temperature variations. Understanding and predicting them is also crucial for transportation risk management. It has been shown that low visibility phenomena over Europe have been declining over the past three decades. The trends in mist and haze have been correlated to atmospheric aerosol trends. However, dense fog has not received yet such focus. The goal of this paper is to examine the roles of synoptic atmospheric circulation and aerosol content on the trends of dense fog. We show that sulphur emission trends are spatially correlated with visibility trends, with a maximum correlation when visibility is between 1 km and 10 km. We find that atmospheric dynamics overall contributes up to 40% of the variability of the frequency of fog occurrences. This contribution is spatially variable and highly depends on the topography and the season, with higher values in the winter. The observed long-term circulation changes do not contribute much to the trends in low visibility found in the data. This process is illustrated on three stations (De Bilt, Zürich Airport and Potsdam) for which a long-term visibility data and a thorough meteorological description are available. We conclude that to properly represent fog in future climate simulations, it is necessary to include realistic representations of aerosol emissions and chemistry, land surface properties and atmospheric dynamics.
Retrieval of tropospheric NO2 using the MAX-DOAS method combined with relative intensity measurements for aerosol correction
Authors: Vlemmix T. , Piters A. J. M. , Stammes P. , Wang P. , Levelt P. F.
Published: May 2010

Abstract. Multi-Axis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) is a technique to measure trace gas amounts in the lower troposphere from ground-based scattered sunlight observations. MAX-DOAS observations are especially suitable for validation of tropospheric trace gas observations from satellite, since they have a representative range of several kilometers, both in the horizontal and in the vertical dimension. A two-step retrieval scheme is presented here, to derive aerosol corrected tropospheric NO2 columns from MAX-DOAS observations. In a first step, boundary layer aerosols, characterized in terms of aerosol optical thickness (AOT), are estimated from relative intensity observations, which are defined as the ratio of the sky radiance at elevation α and the sky radiance in the zenith. Relative intensity measurements have the advantage of a strong dependence on boundary layer AOT and almost no dependence on boundary layer height. In a second step, tropospheric NO2 columns are derived from differential slant columns, based on AOT-dependent air mass factors. This two-step retrieval scheme was applied to cloud free periods in a twelve month data set of observations in De Bilt, the Netherlands. In a comparison with AERONET (Cabauw site) a mean difference in AOT (AERONET minus MAX-DOAS) of −0.01±0.08 was found, and a correlation of 0.85. Tropospheric-NO2 columns were compared with OMI-satellite tropospheric NO2. For ground-based observations restricted to uncertainties below 10%, no significant difference was found, and a correlation of 0.88.