bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Legal Framework for Data Mining and Privacy
Authors: Sprague Robert
Published: May 2010

This chapter explores the foundations of the legal right to privacy in the United States, juxtaposed against the accumulation and mining of data in today’s society. Businesses and government agencies have the capacity to accumulate massive amounts of information, tracking the behavior of ordinary citizens carrying out ordinary routines. Data mining techniques also provide the opportunity to analyze vast amounts of data to compile comprehensive profiles of behavior. Within this context, this chapter addresses the legal frameworks for data mining and privacy. Historically, privacy laws in the United States have adapted to changing technologies, but have done so slowly; arguably not keeping pace with current technology. This chapter makes clear that the legal right to privacy in the United States is not keeping pace with the accumulation, analysis, and use of data about each and every one of us.
Feature Selection for Web Page Classification
Authors: Selvakuberan K. , Devi M. Indra , Rajaram R.
Published: May 2010

The World Wide Web serves as a huge, widely distributed, global information service center for news, advertisements, customer information, financial management, education, government, e-commerce and many others. The Web contains a rich and dynamic collection of hyperlink information. The Web page access and usage information provide rich sources for data mining. Web pages are classified based on the content and/or contextual information embedded in them. As the Web pages contain many irrelevant, infrequent, and stop words that reduce the performance of the classifier, selecting relevant representative features from the Web page is the essential preprocessing step. This provides secured accessing of the required information. The Web access and usage information can be mined to predict the authentication of the user accessing the Web page. This information may be used to personalize the information needed for the users and to preserve the privacy of the users by hiding the personal details. The issue lies in selecting the features which represent the Web pages and processing the details of the user needed the details. In this chapter we focus on the feature selection, issues in feature selection, and the most important feature selection techniques described and used by researchers.
Intrusion in the Sphere of Personal Communications
Authors: Rauhofer Judith
Published: May 2010

In this chapter the limits for the sphere of personal communications are set. Different understandings of the “right to be alone” or “the right to respect for private and family life” are provided. The significance of the information privacy is pointed out and the right to informational self-determination is deciphered. Having presented the substrate for personal data protection, a legal synopsis of the aforementioned subject is the concluding part of the chapter, with emphasis on data retention.
How Much is Too Much? How Marketing Professionals can Avoid Violating Privacy Laws by Understanding the Privacy Principles
Authors: Robinson Nicholas P. , Ensign Prescott C.
Published: May 2010

A marketeer’s point of view is presented in this chapter. Although legal restrictions safeguard processes and restrict annoying intrusive techniques, protecting customers, it can be argued that responsible privacy practices in the marketing profession will add value for consumers. As businesses compete with greater intensity to provide the customer with control over areas such as product offerings, services provided, and account management, privacy standards, being an important part of the customer-company relationship, formulate the grounds upon which businesses compete to provide greater customer control.
Surveillance in the 21st Century
Authors: Kleve Pieter , De Mulder Richard V. , Noortwijk Kees van
Published: May 2010

In this chapter, some current technologies for monitoring and surveillance as well as some legal considerations regarding the application of these technologies will be discussed. The application of monitoring technology has developed from the monitoring of mere technical processes and environmental processes to the monitoring of physiological “processes” and now even of everyday human behaviour. Before discussing legal considerations, an explanation of this development is given and it is placed within a broader social perspective. This leads to an examination of the development of technology that made it possible for monitoring technologies to evolve as they did, and an analysis of norms and values resulting in a conceptual model for evaluating law in the “information society”. An overview of technologies for monitoring and surveillance will be presented. From this overview it will become clear that the use of this type of technology is growing fast. At the same time, questions arise regarding its permissibility in the light of legal and constitutions rights, such as the right to privacy. These questions are then addressed in the context of the wider social developments. Finally, it is concluded that with the increasing importance and use of surveillance technology, “monitoring the surveillors” will become essential as well.
Designing Light Weight Intrusion Detection Systems
Authors: Snášel Václav , Platoš Jan , Krömer Pavel , Abraham Ajith
Published: May 2010

Recently cyber security has emerged as an established discipline for computer systems and infrastructures with a focus on protection of valuable information stored on those systems from adversaries who want to obtain, corrupt, damage, destroy or prohibit access to it. An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is a program that analyzes what happens or has happened during an execution and tries to find indications that the computer has been misused. This chapter presents some of the challenges in designing efficient ad light weight intrusion detection systems, which could provide high accuracy, low false alarm rate and reduced number of features. Finally, the authors present the Non-negative matrix factorization method for detecting real attacks and the performance comparison with other computational intelligence techniques.
Surveillance of Employees' Electronic Communications in the Workplace
Authors: Iglezakis Ioannis
Published: May 2010

The use of Information and Communication Technologies in the workplace is constantly increasing, but also the use of surveillance technology. Electronic monitoring of employees becomes an integral part of information systems in the workplace. The specific software which is used for monitoring electronic communications is, however, intrusive and infringes upon the employees’ right to privacy. The issue of surveillance of employees’ electronic communications is subject to different approaches in various jurisdictions. The most comprehensive protection to employees is afforded in the EU, however, there are still ambiguities concerning the balancing of interests between employers and employees.
Forensic Watermarking for Secure Multimedia Distribution
Authors: Sattar Farook , Yu Dan
Published: May 2010

This chapter discusses on forensic tracking through digital watermarking for secure multimedia distribution. The existing watermarking schemes are elaborated and their assumptions as well as limitations for tracking are discussed. Especially, an Independent Component Analysis (ICA) based watermarking scheme is presented, which overcomes the problems of the existing watermarking schemes. Multiple watermarking techniques are used where one watermark is used for ownership verification and the other one is used to identify the legal user of the distributed content. In the absence of a priori information, i.e. the original data, original watermark, embedding locations as well as the strength, our ICA technique provides efficient watermark extraction scheme with the help of side information. The robustness against common signal processing attacks is presented. Lastly, the challenges in the forensic tracking through digital watermarking techniques are discussed.
European E-Signatures Solutions on the Basis of PKI Authentication Technology
Authors: Chochliouros Ioannis P. , Spiliopoulou Anastasia S. , Chochliouros Stergios P. , Voudouris Konstantinos N.
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents systems of certification authorities and registration authorities and other supporting servers and agents that perform certificate management, archive management, key management, and token management functions. These activities that support security policy by monitoring and controlling security services, elements and mechanisms, distributing security information, and reporting security events are examined with the main focus on PKI authentication technology.
Measuring and Reporting Technological Capital in Companies
Authors: Ordóñez de Pablos Patricia , Lytras Miltiadis D.
Published: May 2010

The chapter addresses the importance of knowledge-based resources proposing indicators to measure and report technological capital in companies. The first part of the chapter develops a conceptual framework to analyze organizational learning and its outcomes. It focuses on the strategy perspective of organizational learning, addressing its ontology, contributions, and problematics. The second part is focused on a particular type of knowledge—the technological capital—that is institutionalized knowledge in the form of technologies. This section proposes a map for the different types of technological capital of companies: idiosyncratic, core, ancillary, and compulsory. The chapter shows the results of a case study with European firms measuring and reporting technological capital. Finally the chapter summarizes main conclusions for management.
Revisiting Agility to Conceptualize Information Systems Agility
Authors: Pankaj  , Hyde Micki , Ramaprasad Arkalgud , Tadisina Suresh K.
Published: May 2010

There is no systematic study of Information Systems (IS) agility in academic and practitioner IS literature and the concept is not well defined. For rigorous academic studies of IS agility, a proper definition/conceptualization of IS agility is needed. To fulfill this objective, existing published work on agility is analyzed. The analysis demonstrates that the existing definitions may need improvement to aid in arriving at a definition of IS agility. A new definition of agility that captures its core properties is proposed. The advantages of this definition over existing definitions is demonstrated and it is used to define IS Agility. Salient features of an agile IS are discussed and the utility of the proposed definition in arriving at attributes of an agile IS is demonstrated. Efficacy and validity of the proposed definition is demonstrated through interviews with IS executives from a diverse organization set. Lastly, avenues for future research are proposed.
Global Understanding Environment
Authors: Terziyan Vagan , Katasonov Artem
Published: May 2010

Industry pushes a new type of Internet characterized as the Internet of Things, which represents a fusion of the physical and digital worlds. The technology of the Internet of Things opens new horizons for industrial automation, that is, automated monitoring, control, maintenance planning, and so forth, of industrial resources and processes. Internet of Things definitely needs explicit semantics, even more than the traditional Web—for automatic discovery and interoperability among heterogeneous devices and also to facilitate the behavioral coordination of the components of complex physical-digital systems. In this chapter, the authors describe their work towards the Global Understanding Environment (GUN), a general middleware framework aimed at providing means for building complex industrial systems consisting of components of different nature, based on the semantic and the agent technologies. The authors present the general idea and some emergent issues of GUN and describe the current state of the GUN realization in the UBIWARE platform. As a specific concrete case, they use the domain of distributed power network maintenance. In collaboration with the ABB Company, we have developed a simple prototype and vision of potential add-value this domain could receive from introducing semantic and agent technologies, and GUN framework in particular.
Targeting E-Commerce to Chinese Audiences and Markets
Authors: Hsu Jeffrey
Published: May 2010

The market for e-commerce to Chinese audiences is one which has tremendous potential, given the fact that the number of potential users and customers is projected to exceed that of English-speaking Western users. However, managing the host of cultural issues that come up is an important need which must be met. This chapter examines the cultural issues which are relevant to sites targeted at China and Chinese-speaking audiences, including user and consumer behavior patterns, categorizing China using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, examining traditional and historical attitudes, and addressing business issues including trust, payment, and infrastructure challenges. In the chapter design principles based on these are proposed, as well as an examination of the differences between the cultures of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Enterprise Resource Planning System
Authors: Chen Edward T.
Published: May 2010

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is the method of trying to unify all processes within an organization into one software system or database. Enterprise Resource Planning Projects should not be entered into lightly. Not only are ERP projects a new software program to learn, but they are a new way of thinking. This chapter provides a brief history of ERP; follows by the advantages and disadvantages of ERP for organizations considering the adoption of ERP. The next section introduces various strategies of ERP implementation with a list of ERP software vendors. ERP is a long-term IT investment. The total cost of ownership is analyzed and discussed with several cases of ERP implementation.
A Secure Characteristics of Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks
Authors: Vijay Sandip , Sharma S. C.
Published: May 2010

This chapter reviews the secure characteristics of mobile devices that can use wireless networks (adhoc) almost any where and any time, by using one or more wireless network technologies. Currently, most computers communicate with each other by using wired networks. This approach is well suited for stationary computers, but it is not appropriate for mobile devices. These technologies enable the use of infrastructured networks (3GPP) and ad-hoc networks. Furthermore, the authors describe the gateway specification, requirement for implementation for ad-hoc networks. The minimum, essential, and additional functional requirements for effective functionality of gateway are presented in tabular form. At the end, the future functional requirement and the features of multiple ad-hoc networks are also described.
A Context-Based Approach for Supporting Knowledge Work with Semantic Portals
Authors: Hädrich Thomas , Priebe Torsten
Published: May 2010

Knowledge work can be characterized by a high degree of variety and exceptions, strong communication needs, weakly structured processes, networks and communities, and as requiring a high level of skill and expertise as well as a number of specific practices. Process-oriented knowledge management suggests to focus on enhancing efficiency of knowledge work in the context of business processes. Portals are an enabling technology for knowledge management by providing users with a consolidated, personalized interface that allows accessing various types of structured and unstructured information. However, the design of portals still needs concepts and frameworks to guide their alignment with the context of persons consigned with knowledge-intensive tasks. In this context the concept of knowledge stance is a promising starting point. This paper discusses how knowledge stances can be applied and detailed to model knowledge work and support to support it with semantic context-based portals. We present the results from implementing a portal prototype that deploys Semantic Web technologies to integrate various information sources and applications on a semantic level and discuss extensions to this portal for the support of knowledge stances.
User Relevance Feedback in Semantic Information Retrieval
Authors: Picariello Antonio , Rinaldi Antonio M.
Published: May 2010

The user dimension is a crucial component in the information retrieval process and for this reason it must be taken into account in planning and technique implementation in information retrieval systems. In this paper we present a technique based on relevance feedback to improve the accuracy in an ontology based information retrieval system. Our proposed method combines the semantic information in a general knowledge base with statistical information using relevance feedback. Several experiments and results are presented using a test set constituted of Web pages.
A Preliminary Study toward Wireless Integration of Patient Information System
Authors: Al-Ali Abdul-Rahman , Ozkul Tarik , Landolsi Taha
Published: May 2010

This paper presents the results of a study toward generating a wireless environment to provide real-time mobile accessibility to patient information system. A trial system is set up where database, internet, and wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs) are integrated in such a way that the medical professionals like physicians, nurses and lab assistants can create, access and update medical records using wireless PDAs from any location in the hospital which is covered by wireless LAN. The same services which can be carried out via fixed terminals with internet connectivity can be carried out using wireless PDAs. The implementation has used and integrated many technologies like Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic®, Structured Query Language (SQL) Server, ActiveSync®, IEEE802.11 Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technology and wireless security concepts. The paper details the architectural aspects of technology integration and the methodology used for setting up the end-to-end system. The proposed architecture, its performance data and the common implementation barriers are reported.
Introduction
Authors: Burgess Stephen , Carmine Sellitto Carmine , Karanasios Stan
Published: May 2010

Over the last decade there has been a great deal of research into the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in small businesses. More recently, this research has centred on the use of Internet technologies in small businesses, particularly their use of Websites for the purposes of ‘e-business’ or ‘e-commerce’. Much of this research has examined the adoption of these technologies, including the drivers and barriers that small businesses face. Other studies have investigated models or frameworks that might help to guide small businesses to take full advantage of these technologies, particularly Websites for the purpose of conducting e-business. A great deal of this research has been admirable in that it has contributed to the body of work available in the area. Simultaneously, there has been a body of research that has focused on specific aspects of establishing a Website. These aspects can be technical in nature, addressing issues such as how to design a Website or how to identify hosting options, or business orientated, involving the identification of aspects of Website promotion and publishing. However, given the diversity of research being reported, we feel that there is a major gap in that small businesses are left without guidance in relation to how to approach all aspects of setting up and maintaining their Websites. The components are out there, but there is little available in relation to how a small business might access these, or even piece them all together. In fact, a little further on in this book we will suggest that these days, with the presence of many of Web services such as portals available, a small business Web presence may be even more than just a Website.
Business Strategy and Planning
Authors: Burgess Stephen , Carmine Sellitto Carmine , Karanasios Stan
Published: May 2010

In the previous chapter we highlighted the importance of planning for an effective Web presence. In fact, the existence of a disciplined planning approach is seen as an enabler for the effective use of ICTs and e-commerce in small businesses,whilst short-range management perspectives and lack of planning are viewed as barriers. This chapter builds on the tenets identified in the previous chapter to examine how a small business might prepare itself for a Web presence. We believe that small business operators/ managers should know their strategic business direction before they consider establishing a Web presence. We will commence by investigating some basic business theory.
Website Design
Authors: Burgess Stephen , Carmine Sellitto Carmine , Karanasios Stan
Published: May 2010

This is the most technical of the chapters in this book. It is centred on Website design and is the only chapter in the book where we exclusively refer to Website rather than Web presence. In the previous chapter we discussed how a small business, once it decides to have a Website, needs to decide where it will be hosted, how it will be built and how its content will be initially loaded and then maintained. Website design is considered at the time of implementing the Website and then again at any major redesign of the Website.
Web Presence Promotion
Authors: Burgess Stephen , Carmine Sellitto Carmine , Karanasios Stan
Published: May 2010

There are literally millions of businesses with a Web presence on the Web and more and more being added every day, all competing to attract customers. Building a Website without any promotion is likely to result in little traffic. Therefore a Webpresence must be well positioned to maximize its potential. The most sophisticated and captivating Website is ineffective if it cannot be found by customers. A Web presence that is effectively promoted can also provide competitive advantage. From this perspective the promotion of a Web presence is one of the most critical steps involved in its development. Despite this, this step is often one of the most neglected tasks by small businesses. The Web itself provides a number of different promotional channels for small businesses. Outside of the Web the use of traditional media can also play a vital role in promotion of a Web presence. In this chapter we suggest that online and offline methods should complement one another and by using both approaches a business is better placed to reap the maximum benefits from an investment into a Web presence. Although the purpose of this chapter is to discuss the promotion of the Web presence, the overarching objective of any Web presence and marketing plan of course is successful promotion of the business. In other words, by promoting the Web presence the business is also being promoted at the same time. Figure 1 illustrates the independencies between the offline and online promotion methods of marketing the Web presence and the business.
Web Presence Governance
Authors: Burgess Stephen , Carmine Sellitto Carmine , Karanasios Stan
Published: May 2010

The initial idea behind this chapter was to expand on the issue of security, predominantly in relation to ensuring that a small business operator would be confident that not only its own information was protected, but that customer information derived via its Web presence was also safe and secure. However, it seemed more appropriate to expand the discussion in the chapter to how the security associated with a small business Website might fit into an overall business continuity plan and the general governance of a small business, including a discussion of ethical and cultural issues. The purpose of this chapter is not to be a primer on corporate governance and business continuity. However, the chapter does introduce various concepts associated with these areas for the purpose of identifying their importance to the running of the business.
Attention Capture and Effective Warning
Authors: Ding Amy Wenxuan
Published: May 2010

The term “attention” in psychology is defined as (1) the act or state of attending, especially by applying the mind to an object of sense or thought, and (2) a condition of readiness for such attention (Attention, 2007). Drawing on research carried out for decades in psychology that explores the human attention mechanism to understand a variety of attentional phenomena, such as attention to dimensions and objects, selective listening, task switching, and so forth (e.g., Bundersen, 1990; Heinke & Humphreys, 2003; Logan, 2002; Luce, 1963; Ratcliff, 1978; Ratcliff et al. 1999; Reeves & Sperling, 1986; Shepard, 1957; Shih & Sperling 2002), we examine how attention might be captured and thus identify factors that characterize the effectiveness of a warning advisory. In this context, we use attention to describe awareness, a concentration of the mind on a single object, and a state of consciousness characterized by such concentration and the capacity to maintain selective concentration. Asking a person to pay attention to something implies that the person is aware of this “something” first, and then concentrates his or her mind on it. Therefore, we begin our discussion by defining awareness in this section.
Psychosocial Effects
Authors: Ding Amy Wenxuan
Published: May 2010

According to the American Red Cross, a disaster is an occurrence, such as a hurricane, tornado, storm, flood, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, earthquake, drought, blizzard, pestilence, famine, fire, explosion, volcanic eruption, building collapse, transportation wreck, or other situation, that causes human suffering or creates human needs that the victims cannot alleviate without assistance. Basically, this definition covers all natural, conventional disasters. Since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, terrorist-related threats or attacks represent a newly realized danger to the public. For example, before September 11, 2001, Americans did not worry much about terrorism; after the attacks, they worried intensely. In this context, we define a disaster as an occurrence that threatens a society, causes human suffering, or damages goods such as buildings, communication systems, infrastructures, living environments, and so forth. In this definition, society, humans, and goods are called affected entities, and the force behind the occurrence is the causer or source of the disaster. The causer can be human-made or a natural force.
Individual Reactions and Psychological Impact
Authors: Ding Amy Wenxuan
Published: May 2010

The possible psychosocial consequences associated with a threat or disaster, as discussed in Chapter III, indicate that people’s behaviors and/or reactions can indicate whether they are affected and the degree of impact if affected. If affected, possible reactions can range from common responses, such as fear and anxiety, to fatigue, sadness, depression, and stress disorders. Whereas some people experience significant subjective discomfort, others display conspicuous impairment in their day-to-day functioning, such as sleeplessness; still others indicate clear impairment in one or more functional aspects, such as work productivity or the ability to engage in and enjoy leisure activities.
Situation Awareness through Feature Recognition
Authors: Ding Amy Wenxuan
Published: May 2010

To help establish response plans for protecting U.S. homeland security, a standardized set of scenarios that can function as a “common operating picture” has been developed under the leadership of the U.S. Homeland Security Council (HSC) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to The New York Times (Lipton, 2005). The 15 developed scenarios help identify critical capabilities and procedures for response, define operational parameters for layer response capabilities, establish a foundation for resource decisions, and pave the way to identify needed technology enhancements. To ensure that emergency planning is adequate, each scenario generally reflects suspected terrorist capabilities and known tradecraft. Of the 15 scenarios, 12 refer to human-made intentional terror attacks, and 3 pertain to catastrophic natural disasters (i.e., influenza pandemic, magnitude 7.2 earthquake in a major city, and slow-moving category 5 hurricane hitting a major East Coast city). Of the 12 human-made terror attacks, 8 are biological or chemical strikes, including the release of a Sarin nerve agent in an office building, spraying aerosolized anthrax over five cities in two weeks, and spreading pneumonic plague in the bathrooms of an airport, sports arena, and train station. Two scenarios involve the use of nuclear and radiological dispersion devices in a large metropolitan area or regionally significant cities, and one suggests an explosion using improvised explosive devices. The scenarios also include a cyber attack that affects several parts of the nation’s finance infrastructure. Biologically or chemically related threats clearly have prompted heightened concern; an attack involving biological or chemical contagious pathogens, if it were to occur, would cause tremendous damage to the public.
A Hospital Emergency Support System for Real Time Surveillance Modeling and Effective Response
Authors: Ding Amy Wenxuan
Published: May 2010

Before 2001, public health departments, including hospitals, rarely played a role in disaster planning, though they functioned in critical roles for victim treatment and recovery. Their roles in disaster response usually initiated after a disaster event had occurred. But the potential for chemical or biological terrorism has pushed them to become frontline responders, as well as critical and central players in most state and local emergency planning teams. According to U.S. General Accounting Office [GAO] (2003), increasing expectations demand that public health agencies at all levels in the United States develop their capacities to respond to incidents of terrorism and other disasters (Bashir et al., 2003). For healthcare facilities, hospital emergency response plans rely on their emergency departments’ response. That is, the emergency department must determine the magnitude of the event and initiate the appropriate institutional response, including decisions to declare an institutional disaster or institutional lock-down and determinations of whether victim decontamination is needed. From this point of view, the extent of the response depends on the capability of each emergency department. At present, however, even without a terrorism incident, emergency departments are crowded, and patients might wait up to a full day to receive treatment (Brownstein, 2007; U.S. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control [NCIPC], 2007). According to a Harvard Medical School survey, the number of ER visits rose from 93.4 million in 1994 to 110.2 million in 2004. A patient has a one in four chance of waiting for more than 50 minutes because of overcrowding in the emergency department, and wait times appear likely to keep increasing (Reuters, 2008). This widespread problem logically will negatively influence their ability to respond to high-consequence chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) attacks or natural disasters. Should a huge influx of patients arrive due to an unexpected disaster event, the current crowding situation of most emergency departments implies that real emergencies may be lost in the shuffle without an organized response (Conte, 2005 Morse, 2002).
Quickly Channeling Crowd Population in Emergency
Authors: Ding Amy Wenxuan
Published: May 2010

Evacuation remains one of the main public protection strategies in response to a man-made or natural incident when people are at risk. In most cases when an evacuation is required, it indicates the presence of danger and urgency. By instinct, people affected act to escape from the danger; thus, two typical phenomena often occur during an evacuation: competitive behavior and herding behavior (Festinger, 1954). If people perceive a threat and are trapped at an incident site, they try to get out as soon as possible. Usually, they look for exit signs or evacuation routes that can lead them to a safer place and proceed to the nearest one. For people near the exit or route entrance, moving toward the exit or entering the evacuation route may be the only likely escape choice. Thus, two forms of competitive behavior may exist simultaneously: the effort to pass through the exit (or enter the route) as quickly as possible, and the effort among those at risk to run toward the exits. Such behavior may cause congestion at the exits or entrance points, even to the point that people may crush one another. The India stampede event on January 26, 2005, is just such a tragedy. According to media reports (BBC, 2005; CNN, 2005), a screaming crowd fled down narrow walkways chaotically when fires broke out, causing many people to be crushed and resulting in 250 deaths.
Weaponizing the Internet and the YouTube War
Authors: Ding Amy Wenxuan
Published: May 2010

In the war against terrorist enemies, the United States currently is using a traditional defensive approach: engaging in formal military ground battles with adversaries such as al-Qaeda. By conducting a formal military operation, powerful military forces ideally should defeat terrorists, break up terrorist cells, remove their home bases, disperse leaders, and severely degrade the terrorist groups’ ability to wage attacks against the United States. A traditional military war normally involves two parties with known geographical locations and concentrated battle areas. A victory occurs when an enemy is defeated. However, the war on terrorism represents an opposite situation: without geographic concentration. Modern terrorists operate across national borders and have access to funding and advanced technology with global reach. Terrorists such as al-Qaeda lack geographic homes, which mean the battlefield is geographically dispersed. Furthermore, in addition to using conventional weapons, they increasingly use modern information technology, particularly the Internet, to wage their battles. They ride the back of the Web and use advanced communications to distribute their thoughts or views, gather support, recruit new members, and move immense financial funds from one place to another. According to Weimann (2006), many terrorist groups have their own Web sites on the Internet, which they use to teach their members to prepare computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, sniffers, and other malicious programs that multiply and cause potentially severe damages. They thus consider the capabilities of the Web as offensive mass weapons that can undermine worldwide actions. The modern Internet penetrates all levels of society, such that information flows continuously and seamlessly across political, ethnic, and religious divides. Because of the global nature of cyberspace, it provides a new platform on which terrorists can wage battles. In this chapter, we examine the role of the Internet as a battlefield and analyze the course of war in cyberspace. We model the Internet structure and determine that the Internet needs a self-immunization mechanism that can self-detect illegal or criminal activities online.
A Treatise on Rural Public Health Nursing
Authors: Sneed Wanda
Published: May 2010

Nursing informaticists can be leaders in promoting prevention of illness and diseases in the 21st century. Developing an infrastructure for application of preventive and predicative models in healthcare delivery is paramount. This chapter stresses the need for rural regions to develop paradigmatic models for incorporating all aspect of the human ecology domain. While movement in public health nursing is contingent on improvement in public health interconnectivity, nurse informaticists need to develop a classification system for public health nursing, develop databases for evidence–based practice, and incorporate the rural culture in their work. Incorporation of genomics in daily nursing practice will soon be a reality. As consumer-driven healthcare becomes the reality, the platform for healthcare delivery will change. A change to care delivery in a variety of community sites with electronic information exchanges and personal health records will require robust work by informaticists. Remote monitoring devices in clients’ homes are another arena which will require a new set of skills for nursing interventionists.
Assessment in a Computer-Based Nursing Documentation
Authors: Fritz Elfriede , Deufert Daniela , Hilbe Johannes
Published: May 2010

Experience in nursing practice shows that, in Austria, there are still problems with assessment in computer-based nursing documentation. Nursing documentation includes the various steps of the nursingprocess and the nursing diagnosis. In addition, an assessment instrument, which captures the needs for care, must also be integrated into it. This chapter describes different Nursing Assessment Instruments and the advantages of Computer-Based Nursing Process Documentation. Quality criteria for assessment instruments are validity, sensitivity, specificity, reliability, practicability, and the appropriateness of the instrument. Quality criteria for computer-based systems are basically software ergonomic aspects, which are not part of this study. Each country should choose for itself those specific assessment instruments that capture the needs for care of their clients. These data enable comparison of facilities and reliable cost estimates in connection with nursing.
Nursing Documentation in a Mature EHR System
Authors: Hammond Kenric W. , Weir Charlene R. , Efthimiadis Efthimis N.
Published: May 2010

Computerized patient care documentation (CPD) is a vital part of a Patient Care Information System (PCIS). Studying CPD in a well-established PCIS is useful because problems of system adoption and startup do not interfere with observations. Factors interfering with optimal nursing use of CPD areparticularly challenging and of great concern, given today’s shortage of nursing manpower. We describe problems and advantages of CPD usage identified by nurses in a series of research interviews. The chief advantages of CPD for nurses found were better accessibility and reliability of patient care documentation. The main disadvantage was an awkward fit between current input technology and nursing workflow. A second disadvantage was difficulty in translating portrayal of the nursing process into readable documentation that is useful to all members of the clinical team. We interpret these findings to show that explicit consideration of nursing workflow constraints and communication processes is necessary for development of effective nursing documentation systems. Some findings point to a PCIS reconfiguration strategy that is feasible in the short term. Other findings suggest the value of considering mobile and team-oriented technologies in future versions of the PCIS.
Nurses and Telehealth
Authors: Edirippulige Sisira , Smith Anthony C. , Bensink Mark , Armfield Nigel R. , Wootton Richard
Published: May 2010

Nurses play a pivotal role in the provision of healthcare. Home telehealth, the use of information and communication technologies to deliver and support healthcare directly to the home, is emerging as an important application for nurses. This chapter provides an overview of home telehealth and how it may be applied to the practical challenges nurses face everyday. We provide a summary of the evidence available to support its use in specific areas and a guide for those thinking of implementing telehealth in their own practice. The future of home telehealth lies in carefully considered and designed research, ongoing education and training and a multidisciplinary approach. This chapter aims to stimulate the consideration of home telehealth as an application that may improve nursing care and ultimately patient outcomes.
Shaping Funding Policy for Nursing Services
Authors: Plummer Virginia
Published: May 2010

This chapter is about the major policy issue of nursing resource allocation for hospitals. Health service executives have different views about whether systems based on ratios or those based on patient dependency are more accurate. This chapter reports on a statistical analysis of almost 2 million hours of nursing data provided by 22 acute care public and private hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand. The TrendCare informatics system was selected because it has the capacity to simultaneously measure nurse patient ratios and nursing workloads by a dependency method of nursing hours per patient day. The results showed that TrendCare predicts actual direct nursing care requirements with greater accuracy than ratios for all hospital and patient types, facilitating better allocation of nursing resources and demonstrating that the cost of nursing care would be less for hospitals using that system than for ratios. This is an important outcome for nursing informatics.
Simulations to AssessMedication Administration Systems
Authors: Borycki Elizabeth M. , Kushniruk Andre W. , Kuwata Shigeki , Watanabe Hiromi
Published: May 2010

A range of new technologies/information systems are increasingly being used by nurses in healthcare organizations. These technologies/information systems are being implemented in clinical settings in order to reduce errors associated with the medication administration process. At present, few published articles report empirical findings on the effects of using electronic medication administration systems where nurses’ work is concerned. This chapter reports that there are both intended and unintended consequences, associated with implementing such systems in the clinical setting. Simulation methods can be used to assess the impact of integrating new technology/information systems into the nurses’ work environment prior to full-scale implementation of a health technology/information system. Simulations as an evaluative tool emerged from a direct need to assess unintended and intended consequences of health information systems upon nurses’ work before systems are fully implemented. Simulations, as an evaluative methodology, emerged from the cognitive-socio-technical literature. Methods for analyzing workflow and conducting simulations of user behavior can be used to assess and improve the cognitive-socio-technical fit of technologies/information systems. They can be used to identify work and workflow problems (i.e. unintended consequences) involving health technologies/information systems as they are designed, developed, procured, purchased and implemented. Nurse informatician use of simulations to assess and test health technologies/information systems will allow nurses to determine the impact of a new software and/or hardware upon aspects of nurses’ work before its implementation to allow for appropriate system modifications.
The Impact of Technology in Organizational Communication
Authors: Cuel Roberta , Ferrario Roberta
Published: May 2010

In this chapter a case study is presented, in which the ethnomethodological approach is used to analyze the impact of the implementation of an information system, called Sispes, on organizational communication processes in the residence for elderly Giovanelli (Italy). Sispes is a Web-based platform which sustains communication processes and knowledge management according to a customized workflow management system. Adopting structuration theories in the analysis of the case study, and taking inspiration from the philosophical tradition, especially in epistemology and in the analytic philosophy of law, an innovative perspective is adopted, which specifically acknowledges the role played by the communication processes in shaping both the attitudes of the involved actors and the social reality in which they are immersed. According to this perspective, three types of communication processes are presented, namely the normative, descriptive and constructive approach. These latter are then applied to a concrete case study.
The Roles of a Nurse in Telemedical Consultations
Authors: Kobrinsky Boris A. , Matveev Nikolay V.
Published: May 2010

Telemedicine, or distant medical consultations using communication via electronic networks, is gradually becoming a standard of medical care delivery in distant areas worldwide, including both the most developed and the developing countries. For instance, in 2007, telemedical centres existed in 55% of the Russian regions (on average, about 4 centres in each region). In most of the cases, nurses are actively involved in the organization of various types of distant consultation. Main types of telemedical services include: (1) emergency consultations of patients by telephone, (2) telemedical consultations using videoconferences or store-and-forward systems, and (3) home telecare systems. Possible roles of nurses in different types of telemedical consultations are discussed.
The Role of EBM and Nursing Informatics in Rural Australia
Authors: Carbone Daniel
Published: May 2010

The purpose of this chapter is to broadly discuss the need for enhanced evidence-based medicine (EBM) by nurses in the context of rural Australia and the role that nursing informatics and an informed strategy could facilitate in making such need a feasible reality. First, the introduction highlights current time gaps between health discoveries and eventual practice and the potential for information technology to positively affect this gap. Then, the need for nurses to take an active role in evidence-based medicine in rural settings is argued. The link between information literacy and evidence-based medicine is consequently presented and gaps in knowledge regarding nursing informatics training are highlighted. Concluding with the argument that to achieve evidence-based research and eventual use, there needs to be a purposeful health informatics learning strategy that recognises the role of computer and information literacy.
Using Information Technology in Nursing Education
Authors: Rogerson Elizabeth , Martindale Linda , Waltz Carolyn
Published: May 2010

This chapter addresses issues relating to nursing informatics as used and applied in nursing education. This includes the use of information technology (IT) in delivering nursing education, as well as the teaching of IT and informatics skills to prepare nurses for practice. Drivers associated with the development and use of IT in nursing education are discussed, as well as current use of IT in nursing education and practice, including both mainstream and emerging technologies. Lastly some key issues for the future are identified. Internationalism is regarded as a consistent theme in IT development and occurs as a recurring thread throughout this chapter.
Interoperability in E-Government
Authors: Gottschalk Petter , Solli-Sæther Hans
Published: May 2010

Improved interoperability between public organizations as well as between public and private organizations is of critical importance to make electronic government more successful. In this chapter, stages of e-government interoperability are identified and discussed. Four stages are presented: work process stage, knowledge sharing stage, value creation stage, and strategy alignment stage.
Towards an Organizationally Enabled E-Government Enterprise Architecture
Authors: Gasmelseid Tagelsir Mohamed
Published: May 2010

The adoption of e-government projects is growing both in scale and context across the world. While the implementation of such projects is increasing in terms of the number of e-government initiatives as well as the type of applications deployed. However, the success of different e-government initiatives continued to be challenged by a wide range of organizational, technological, cultural, and economic variables, among others. The increasing emphasis on the development of technological infrastructures and build-ups and underestimation of organizational dimensions has rendered many e-governments to be outright failures. The main focus of this chapter is made on the importance of enriching the entire e-government architecture with organizational dimensions in pursuit of improving the potentials of success of e-government initiatives.