bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Quality of Service in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
Authors: Seah Winston K.G. , Tan Hwee-Xian
Published: May 2011

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) form a class of multi-hop wireless networks that can easily be deployed on-the-fly. These are autonomous systems that do not require existing infrastructure; each participating node in the network acts as a host as well as a packet-forwarding router. In addition to the difficulties experienced by conventional wireless networks, such as wireless interference, noise and obstructions from the environment, hidden/exposed terminal problems, and limited physical security, MANETs are also characterized by dynamically changing network topology and energy constraints. While MANETs were originally designed for use in disaster emergencies and defense-related applications, there are a number of potential applications of ad hoc networking that are commercially viable. Some of these applications include multimedia teleconferencing, home networking, embedded computing, electronic classrooms, sensor networks, and even underwater surveillance. The increased interest in MANETs in recent years has led to intensive research efforts which aim to provide quality of service (QoS) support over such infrastructure-less networks with unpredictable behaviour. Generally, the QoS of any particular network can be defined as its ability to deliver a guaranteed level of service to its users and/or applications. These service requirements often include performance metrics such as throughput, delay, jitter (delay variance), bandwidth, reliability, etc., and different applications may have varying service requirements. The performance metrics can be computed in three different ways: (i) concave (e.g., minimum bandwidth along each link); (ii) additive (e.g., total delay along a path); and (iii) multiplicative (e.g., packet delivery ratio along the entire route). While much effort has been invested in providing QoS in the Internet during the last decade, leading to the development of Internet QoS models such as integrated services (IntServ) (Braden, 1994) and differentiated services (DiffServ) (Blake, 1998), the Internet is currently able to provide only best effort (BE) QoS to its applications. In such networks with predictable resource availability, providing QoS beyond best effort is already a challenge. It is therefore even more difficult to achieve a BE-QoS similar to the Internet in networks like MANETs, which experience a vast spectrum of network dynamics (such as node mobility and link instability). In addition, QoS is only plausible in a MANET if it is combinatorially stable, i.e., topological changes occur slow enough to allow the successful propagation of updates throughout the network. As such, it is often debatable as to whether QoS in MANETs is just a myth or can become a reality.
An Immune Systems Approach for Classifying Mobile Phone Usage
Authors: Limanto Hanny Yulius , Cing Tay Joc , Watkins Andrew
Published: May 2011

With the recent introduction of third generation (3G) technology in the field of mobile communications, mobile phone service providers will have to find an effective strategy to market this new technology. One approach is to analyze the current profile of existing 3G subscribers to discover common patterns in their usage of mobile phones. With these usage patterns, the service provider can effectively target certain classes of customers who are more likely to purchase their subscription plans. To discover these patterns, we use a novel algorithm called Artificial Immune Recognition System (AIRS) that is based on the specificity of the human immune system. In our experiment, the algorithm performs well, achieving an accuracy rate in the range of 80% to 90%, depending on the set of parameter values used.
Advanced Resource Discovery Protocol for Semantic-Enabled M-Commerce
Authors: Ruta Michele , Di Noia Tommaso , Di Sciascio Eugenio , Donini Francesco Maria , Piscitelli Giacomo
Published: May 2011

New mobile architectures allow for stable networked links from almost everywhere; and more and more people make use of information resources for work and business purposes on mobile systems. Although technological improvements in the standardization processes proceed rapidly; many challenges; mostly aimed at the deployment of value-added services on mobile platforms; are still unsolved. In particular the evolution of wireless-enabled handheld devices and their capillary diffusion have increased the need for more sophisticated service discovery protocols (SDPs). Here we present an approach; which improves Bluetooth SDP; to provide m-commerce resources to the users within a piconet; extending the basic service discovery with semantic capabilities. In particular we exploit and enhance the SDP in order to identify generic resources rather than only services. We have integrated a “semantic layer” within the application level of the standard Bluetooth stack in order to enable a simple interchange of semantically annotated information between a mobile client performing a query and a server exposing available resources. We adopt a simple piconet configuration where a stable networked zone server; equipped with a Bluetooth interface; collects requests from mobile clients and hosts a semantic facilitator to match requests with available resources. Both requests and resources are expressed as semantically annotated descriptions; so that a semantic distance can be computed as part of the ranking function; to choose the most promising resources for a given request.
Design for Mobile Learning in Museums
Authors: Tselios Nikolaos , Papadimitriou Ioanna , Raptis Dimitrios , Yiannoutsou Nikoletta , Komis Vassilis , Avouris Nikolaos
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses the design challenges of mobile museum learning applications. Museums are undoubtedly rich in learning opportunities to be further enhanced with effective use of mobile technology. A visit supported and mediated by mobile devices can trigger the visitors’ motivation by stimulating their imagination and engagement, giving opportunities to reorganize and conceptualise historical, cultural and technological facts in a constructive and meaningful way. In particular, context of use, social and constructivist aspects of learning and novel pedagogical approaches are important factors to be taken in consideration during the design process. A thorough study of existing systems is presented in the chapter in order to offer a background for extracting useful design approaches and guidelines. The chapter closes with a discussion on our experience in designing a collaborative learning activity for a cultural history museum.
Voice Driven Emotion Recognizer Mobile Phone
Authors: Razak Aishah Abdul , Zainal Abidin Mohamad Izani , Komiya Ryoichi
Published: May 2011

This article proposes an application of emotion recognizer system in telecommunications entitled voice driven emotion recognizer mobile phone (VDERM). The design implements a voice-to-image conversion scheme through a voice-to-image converter that extracts emotion features in the voice; recognizes them; and selects the corresponding facial expression images from image bank. Since it only requires audio transmission; it can support video communication at a much lower bit rate than the conventional videophone. The first prototype of VDERM system has been implemented into a personal computer. The coder; voice-to-image converter; image database; and system interface are preinstalled in the personal computer. In this article; we present and discuss some evaluations that have been conducted in supporting this proposed prototype. The results have shown that both voice and image are important for people to correctly recognize emotion in telecommunications and the proposed solution can provide an alternative to videophone systems. The future works list some modifications that can be done to the proposed prototype in order to make it more practical for mobile applications.
Mobile Multimedia for Speech and Language Therapy
Authors: Reeves Nina , Cunningham Sally Jo , Jefferies Laura , Harris Catherine
Published: May 2011

Aphasia is a speech disorder usually caused by stroke or head injury (Armstrong; 1993). Related communication difficulties can include word finding; speaking; listening; writing; and using numbers (FAST; 2004). It is most commonly acquired by people at middle age or older; as a result of stroke or other brain injury. Speech and language therapy is “the process of enabling people to communicate to the best of their ability” (RCSLT; 2004). Treatment; advice; and support are provided based on assessment and monitoring activities that conventionally are carried out in face-to-face sessions. This chapter considers issues in providing technology to continue to support aphasic patients between therapy sessions; through multimedia applications for drill-andpractice in vocalizing speech sounds. Existing paper therapy aids are generally designed to be used under the guidance of a therapist. Multimedia applications enable people with aphasia to practise spoken language skills independently between sessions; and mobile multimedia speech and language therapy devices offer still greater promise for blending treatment and support into an aphasic person’s daily life.
Malicious Software in Mobile Devices
Authors: Chen Thomas M. , Peikari Cyrus
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the scope of malicious software (malware) threats to mobile devices. The stakes for the wireless industry are high. While malware is rampant among 1 billion PCs; approximately twice as many mobile users currently enjoy a malware-free experience. However; since the appearance of the Cabir worm in 2004; malware for mobile devices has evolved relatively quickly; targeted mostly at the popular Symbian smartphone platform. Significant highlights in malware evolution are pointed out that suggest that mobile devices are attracting more sophisticated malware attacks. Fortunately; a range of host-based and network-based defenses have been developed from decades of experience with PC malware. Activities are underway to improve protection of mobile devices before the malware problem becomes catastrophic; but developers are limited by the capabilities of handheld devices.
B2B E-Business
Authors: Mockler Robert J. , Dologite Dorothy G. , Gartenfeld Marc E.
Published: May 2011

Every organization can be viewed from two perspectives. There are external processes such as procurement and sales, and internal processes such as management and operations, finance, marketing, and human resources. This article primarily focuses on external, commercial e-business processes. B2B (businessto- business) e-business is the sale of products or services, or information exchange, among two or more businesses through electronic technology, usually involving the Internet, through a public or private exchange. The following background section gives a very brief general overview of B2B e-business history. In the main thrust of this article, we discuss making the B2B decision by examining key B2B business requirements and benefits, as well as describing basic approaches to B2B e-business implementation. In the subsequent section, the article provides a future outlook for e-business.
E-Business Reference Models
Authors: Mišic Vojislav B. , Zhao J. Leon
Published: May 2011

A number of reference models have been proposed to facilitate the development of e-business systems and applications. A comparative analysis of existing models and their pertinent characteristics should be the first step in selecting the right one to be used as the foundation for the system being developed. This chapter addresses that goal through an exposition of different reference models to be used for the development of e-business systems and applications, as well as of suitable quality evaluation frameworks to be used for their assessment.
Planning and Designing an Enterprise Wide Database Systems for E-Business
Authors: Yap Alexander Y.
Published: May 2011

The planning and development of an enterprisewide electronic database system for e-business usually calls for the re-engineering of information processes coupled with a push toward data content standardization across the entire organization. In this chapter, the case study involves a multinational conglomerate that is in the process of integrating and Web-enabling their enterprise database systems. The objective of the system was to help engineers sift through millions of components offered by various suppliers and component manufacturers, where the end-result was to improved the integration and efficiency of the product development, engineering design, e-sourcing, and e-procurement processes. This research is a qualitative action research study on how different organizational, social, political, and technical forces influenced the social construction of an enterprise-wide information system. Understanding the dynamics and power of these socio-technical forces in shaping the development environment and change process of enterprise systems is the focal point of this chapter’s discussion.
E-Commerce Agents and Payment Systems
Authors: Guan Sheng-Uei
Published: May 2011

An emerging outcome of the popularization of the Internet is the electronic commerce and payment systems, which present great opportunities for businesses, reduce transaction costs, and provide faster transaction time. Research has been conducted with new technologies, like mobile Internet used by business models (Baek & Hong, 2003). However, before using the Internet, it is essential to provide security in transferring monetary value over the Internet. Quite a number of protocols have been proposed for these secure payment systems, including NetBill, NetCheque, Open Market, iKP, Millicent, SET (Sherift & Serhrouchni, 1998), ECash (Brands, 1995), NetCash, CAFÉ (Mjolsnes & Michelson, 1997), EMV cards (Khu-Smith & Mitchell, 2002), and so forth. These systems are designed to meet diverse requirements, each with particular attributes. Automation and intelligence is another issue that poses challenges in the development of e-commerce. Agent technology has been incorporated into the area of e-commerce to provide automation and intelligence for the e-trade process. Agent is a software program, which is capable of accomplishing tasks autonomously on behalf of its user. Agents must provide highly trustworthy consistency and fault tolerance to avoid eavesdropping and fraud. Also, they should have roaming capability so as to extend their capabilities well beyond the limitations of owners’ computers. This article will discuss some related components under the Secure Agent Fabrication, Evolution, and Roaming (SAFER) architecture (Guan & Hua, 2003; Guan & Yang, 2004; Guan & Zhu, 2002; Ng, Guan, & Zhu, 2002; Zhu, Guan, Yang, & Ko, 2000) and propose an agent-based payment scheme for SAFER. Different types of electronic payment systems have been developed to meet their diverse requirements, which generally include integrity, authorization, confidentiality, availability, and reliability for security requirements (Asokan & Johnson, 1997). Payment systems can be classi- fied in a variety of ways according to their characteristics (Dahab & Ferreira, 1998), such as the exchange model (cash like, check like or hybrid), central authority contact (online or offline), hardware requirements (specific or general), payment amount (micropayment), and so forth. Among all the available payment schemes in the market, e-cash is one of the best in terms of security, flexibility, and full anonymity. E-cash is a cash-like online system that uses electronic coins as tokens. E-cash has its unique advantages, such as flexibility, integrity, and full anonymity that cannot be found in electronic check and credit card-based systems. It uses cryptographic techniques to provide full anonymity. The agent based payment scheme for SAFER adopts some similar principles and concepts of e-cash.
Open Source LMS for Management and E-Business Applications
Authors: Boateng Beatrice A. , Boateng Kwasi
Published: May 2011

Advances in computer technology have led to the increase in the use of information technology in business (Barron, 2002). Computer-mediated communication in the form of the Internet offers unprecedented avenues for the exchange of information and the delivery of instructional materials globally and locally (NHDP, 2003; Robey, Boudreau, & Rose, 2000). Through the Internet and related technologies, people are able to acquire skills and knowledge, adapt learning experiences to their own needs, and assimilate information faster (Azad, Erdem, & Saleem, 1999; NHDP). An organization that is making use of such etechnologies for the advancement of e-business is the Advance Information Technology Institute’s Kofi Annan Center of Excellence for Communications and Information Technology (AITI-KACE), established in 2003 in Ghana. The center is a collaborative initiative between Ghana and India, and is aimed at bridging the gap between education and industry. This initiative was in response to Ghana’s recognition of the social and economic benefits of information and communications technologies. The center is considered part of a national initiative to educate Ghanaians and unleash their creative potential in the use of digital communication technologies for business and education. It is a major skills-development and training institution whose graduates can transition into industry immediately as employees or employers. Ghana’s main challenge is that computer education at all levels is inadequate, and businesses are struggling to incorporate computer applications in their operations. Despite the relative advances made in the adoption of e-technologies in businesses and education, the greatest challenge lies in the fact that a greater part of the adult population does not have adequate knowledge and skills in computer software applications or hardware in order to explore their use in everyday activities or at their workplaces. It is therefore expected that by enrolling in the programs at AITI -KACE, a participant1 can either be employable or have skills to venture out into self-employment. AITI -KACE targets adults—at least those who have completed high school.
Fotogenika.com
Authors: Huerta Esperanza
Published: May 2011

Fotogenika is a small e-business that was born out of the idea of two young Mexican entrepreneurs. It started its operations in March 2004, and after a few months, it managed to successfully create a small customer base. Fotogenika.com is the commercial name of a company established in New York City that delivers digital pictures in Mexico. The company serves Mexicans living out of their country who want to keep in touch with their families in Mexico. Owned by Mexicans living in the U.S., Fotogenika understands the strong ties among Mexican families and their need to keep in touch with their family. Fotogenika shows how culture is important to serve customers in America and how to focus on a profitable market niche. Also, this case presents the technology and marketing challenges that small startup e-businesses face, as well. Finally, Fotogenika’s business proposition demonstrates the advantages of displacing a product digitally to where it will be produced and delivered at a low cost.
An Online Success Story
Authors: Kuivalainen Olli , Ellonen Hanna-Kaisa , Sainio Liisa-Maija
Published: May 2011

The aim of this article is to provide a holistic exploration of the development of the business model of a magazine Web site, and of the factors behind its success. The discussion is based on an explorative case study of a successful Finnish magazine publisher and its Web site. We use triangulated data (interviews, observation, statistical data, customer feedback, newspaper articles) to describe and analyze the development of the Web site and the subsequent changes in the e-business model of the magazine from the Web site foundation in 1998 to the situation in fall 2004. Our case illustrates that a magazine’s Web site is linked to all of its functions (editorial, circulation, and advertising), and to the business-model elements that are vital to its success. We suggest that the discussion forums in question, one type of virtual community, benefited from the positive feedback that resulted in positive network effects, and led to the adoption of the service. Moreover, community activities have enhanced customer loyalty and added a more lifelike dimension to the magazine concept. As such, the Web site now complements rather than substitutes the print magazine. Interestingly, although it does not independently fulfill the requirements of a successful business model (e.g., Magretta, 2002), it enhances the customer experience and adds new dimensions to the magazine’s business model.
Laws and Regulations on Proprietary Trading System (PTS) in Japan
Authors: Tazawa Motoaki
Published: May 2011

In order to improve convenience for investors through competition among stock exchanges, operation of Proprietary Trading Systems (PTS) was authorized as a form of securities business under the Securities and Exchange Act. The Japanese PTS is equivalent to ATS (Alternative Trading System), ECN (Electronic Communications Network) in the United States and MTF (Multilateral Trading Facilities) under MiFID in the EU. In 1998, ATS and ECN had already started in the United States and Japan’s PTS followed the U.S. model. Telecommunication and information technologies and computer technologies made PTS possible, and PTS makes the border between the market and brokers ambiguous. Traditional regulations on broker-dealers and stock exchanges will inevitably be reviewed and regulations on securities markets will have to be reformed.
The Influence of the Internet on Relationships Between Consumers and Vendors
Authors: Treiblmaier Horst
Published: May 2011

In recent years a plethora of scholarly literature from the marketing and the information systems (IS) domain has dealt with the phenomenon of relationships. While during the precomputer era relationships always implied a social dimension, modern technology tries to mimic this interaction process by learning about customers’ needs and addressing them individually. Interestingly, the central definition of a relationship remains vague in both marketing and IS. Finding the major constituents, therefore, could shed light on the question of whether technology actually could replace “social interactions.” In this chapter, we show how relationships are defined in scholarly literature. Subsequently, consumers define what they perceive to be the crucial attributes of a relationship in general and with an online organization. The results indicate that the notion of relationship has to be redefined for online communication and interaction and offer practical implications for designing the interaction process with online users.
Do Mobile CRM Services Appeal to Loyalty Program Customers?
Authors: Liljander Veronica , Polsa Pia , Forsberg Kim
Published: May 2011

Not until very recently has mobile phone technology become sophisticated enough to allow more complex customized programs, which enable companies to offer new services to customers as part of customer relationship management (CRM) programs. In order to enhance customer relationships and to be adopted by customers, new mobile services need to be perceived as valuable additions to existing services. The purpose of this study was to investigate the appeal of new mobile CRM services to airline customers. An empirical study was conducted among loyalty program customers (frequent flyers) of an airline that was considering using MIDlet applications in order to add new mobile services to enhance customer relationships. The results show that customers do not yet seem to be ready to fully embrace new mobile applications. Although the services appeared to slightly improve customers’ image of the airline, the services did not seem to enhance their loyalty towards it. However, customers who already used sophisticated mobile services, such as the Mobile Internet, had a significantly more positive attitude towards the proposed services. Thus the success of mobile CRM seems closely linked with customers’ readiness to use existing mobile services. Before engaging in costly new investments, companies need to take this factor into serious consideration.
E-Organisation and Its Future Implication for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
Authors: Azumah Gideon , Koh S. C. Lenny , Maguire Stuart
Published: May 2011

E-organisations are expected to be one of the promising organisational forms in this Internet cultural era (ICE). E-organisations are different from traditional organisations; and most traditional organisations are evolving toward becoming e-organisations. These are organisations established and operated, based on the Internet and other related technologies in an environment referred to as Internet Culture, whereby organisations will be placing the Internet at the centre of their business and encouraging ubiquitous use of networked technologies. This chapter incorporates several perspectives to examine how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use the network technologies and information and communication technology (ICT) in their current business environment. Through the use of a literature review and interviews, we analyse the various options for managing the transformation and its effects to ascertain the appropriate strategies within a range of SMEs. The results of this study reveal that the SMEs’ journey toward becoming e-organisations can be classified into three stages: 1/2-fusion; fusion; and the ultimate e-organisation stage. Based on this work, strategic solutions are proposed for future SMEs intending to adopt Internet and other network technologies.
Social Aspects of Open Source Software
Authors: Lakka Spyridoula , Lionis Nikolas E. , Varoutas Dimitris
Published: May 2011

Open source software/free software (OSS/FS), also abbreviated as FLOSS/FOSS (free/libre and open source software), has risen to great prominence. Existing literature from diverse disciplines or through interdisciplinary studies have tried to explain the growth and success of the phenomenon. This chapter describes and discusses OSS/FS under the scope of three major aspects: motivations that lead to OSS/FS, the organization of OSS/FS communities and the economic theory as a means of explaining the manifold phenomenon. Furthermore, the chapter analyzes the social implications that lie underneath the OSS/FS diffusion, together with the social processes that take place in OSS/FS communities in an effort to enhance our understanding of the diverse mechanisms that disseminate OSS/FS rapidly.
Competence of Information Technology Professionals in Internet-Based Ventures
Authors: Kollmann Tobias , Häsel Matthias
Published: May 2011

This chapter articulates the knowledge and skills required by IT professionals in young Internet-based firms. Building on the general IT governance principle of aligning business and IT, it introduces an adequate competence model, outlines its dimensions, and suggests a framework for modeling the effects of factors internal and external to the firm on the value propositions of the different dimensions. The authors hope that a comprehensive understanding of the role of ITrelated competence will assist founders not only in finding suitable partners, but also in aligning e-business strategy and information technology in Internet-based ventures.
Exploring Decision Rules for Sellers in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Internet Auctions
Authors: Baker Jeff , Song Jaeki
Published: May 2011

The recent growth of business-to-consumer (B2C) Internet auctions challenges researchers to develop empirically-sound explanations of critical factors that allow merchants to earn price premiums in these auctions. The absence of a comprehensive model of Internet auctions leads us to conduct an exploratory study to elucidate and rank critical factors that lead to price premiums in Internet auctions. We employ Classification and Regression Trees (CART), a decision-tree induction technique, to analyze data collected in a field study of eBay auctions. Our analysis yields decision trees that visually depict noteworthy factors that may lead to price premiums and that indicate the relative importance of these factors. We find shipping cost, reputation, initial bid price, and auction ending time as the factors most predictive of price premiums in B2C Internet auctions.
Analyzing the Privacy of a Vickrey Auction Mechanism
Authors: Rodríguez Ismael , López Natalia
Published: May 2011

This article studies the properties of a distributed mechanism to perform the Vickrey auction. This mechanism, which was originally presented in López, Núñez, Rodríguez, and Rubio (2004), has the main characteristic that most of the information concerning the bids is kept private for both bidders and the auctioneer without the necessity of any trusted third party. In particular, after the auction is finished, only the value of the secondhighest bid and the identity of the highest bidder are publicly revealed. However, in that paper, several questions about the applicability of the protocol were left unanswered. In particular, no implementation was provided. Besides, the analysis of the collusion risk was too brief. In this paper, we address these issues in a deeper way. Let us note that, as it is stated in Brandt and Sandholm (2004), it is impossible to create a completely private mechanism to perform the Vickrey auction. In particular, we identify a gap between the proposed protocol and the complete privacy: If any n-2 bidders and the winning bidder collude, the privacy is lost. Besides, some privacy properties can be broken by chance if some specific situations appear, though the probability of this threat decreases as the number of bidders increases. In addition, we present and analyze a simple implementation of the protocol, and we consider its practical applicability.
Web Services Security in E-Business
Authors: Yau Wei-Chuen , Rao G. S. V. Radha Krishna
Published: May 2011

Web services enable the communication of application- to-application in a heterogeneous network and computing environment. The powerful functionality of Web services has given benefits to enterprise companies, such as rapid integrating between heterogeneous e-business systems, easy implementation of e-business systems, and reusability of e-business services. While providing the flexibility for e-business, Web services tend to be vulnerable to a number of attacks. Core components of Web services such as simple object access protocol (SOAP), Web services description language (WSDL), and universal description, discovery, and integration (UDDI) can be exploited by malicious attacks due to lack of proper security protections. These attacks will increase the risk of e-business that employs Web services. This chapter aims to provide a state-of-the-art view of Web services attacks and countermeasures. We examine various vulnerabilities in Web services and then followed by the analysis of respective attacking methods. We also discuss preventive countermeasures against such attacks to protect Web services deployments in e-business. Finally, we address future trends in this research area.
Dialogue Act Modeling
Authors: Liang Ying
Published: May 2011

Web-based information systems (WBIS) aim to support e-business using IT, the World Wide Web, and the Internet. This chapter focuses on the Web site part of WBIS and argues why an easy-to-use and interactive Web site is critical to the success of WBIS. A dialogue act modeling approach is presented for capturing and specifying user needs for easy-to-use Web site of WBIS by WBIS analysis; for example, what users want to see on the computer screen and in which way they want to work with the system interactively. It calls such needs communicational requirements, in addition to functional and nonfunctional requirements, and builds a dialogue act model to specify them. The author hopes that development of the Web site of WBIS will be considered not only an issue in WBIS design but also an issue in WBIS analysis in WBIS development.
Semantic Knowledge Transparency in E-Business Processes
Authors: D’Aubeterre Fergle , Singh Rahul , Iyer Lakshmi
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces a new approach named semantic knowledge transparency, which is defined as the dynamic on-demand and seamless flow of relevant and unambiguous, machine-interpretable knowledge resources within organizations and across inter-organizational systems of business partners engaged in collaborative processes. Semantic knowledge transparency is based on extant research in e-business, knowledge management (KM), and the Semantic Web. In addition, theoretical conceptualizations are formalized using description logics (DL) and ontological analysis. As a result, the ontology will support a common vocabulary for transparent knowledge exchange among inter-organizational systems of business partners of a value chain, so that semantic interoperability can be achieved. An example is furnished to illustrate how semantic knowledge transparency in the e-marketplace provides critical input to the supplier discovery and selection decision problem while reducing the transaction and search costs for the buyer organization.
Enhancing E-Business on the Semantic Web through Automatic Multimedia Representation
Authors: Rege Manjeet , Dong Ming , Fotouhi Farshad
Published: May 2011

With the evolution of the next generation Web— the Semantic Web—e-business can be expected to grow into a more collaborative effort in which businesses compete with each other by collaborating to provide the best product to a customer. Electronic collaboration involves data interchange with multimedia data being one of them. Digital multimedia data in various formats have increased tremendously in recent years on the Internet. An automated process that can represent multimedia data in a meaningful way for the Semantic Web is highly desired. In this chapter, we propose an automatic multimedia representation system for the Semantic Web. The proposed system learns a statistical model based on the domain specific training data and performs automatic semantic annotation of multimedia data using eXtensible Markup Language (XML) techniques. We demonstrate the advantage of annotating multimedia data using XML over the traditional keyword based approaches and discuss how it can help e-business.
Database Integrity Checking
Authors: Decker Hendrik , Martinenghi Davide
Published: May 2011

Integrity constraints (or simply “constraints”) are formal representations of invariant conditions for the semantic correctness of database records. Constraints can be expressed in declarative languages such as datalog, predicate logic, or SQL. This article highlights the historical background of integrity constraints and the essential features of their simplified incremental evaluation. It concludes with an outlook on future trends.
Conceptual Modeling for XML
Authors: Mohan Sriram , Sengupta Arijit
Published: May 2011

The process of conceptual design is independent of the final platform and the medium of implementation, and is usually in a form that is understandable and usable by managers and other personnel who may not be familiar with the low-level implementation details, but have a major influence in the development process. Although a strong design phase is involved in most current application development processes (e.g., Entity Relationship design for relational databases), conceptual design for XML has not been explored significantly in literature or in practice. Most XML design processes start by directly marking up data in XML, and the metadata is typically designed at the time of encoding the documents. In this chapter, the reader is introduced to existing methodologies for modeling XML. A discussion is then presented comparing and contrasting their capabilities and deficiencies, and delineating the future trend in conceptual design for XML applications.
A Methodology Supporting the Design and Evaluating the Final Quality of Data Warehouses
Authors: Pighin Maurizio , Ieronutti Lucio
Published: May 2011

The design and configuration of a data warehouse can be difficult tasks especially in the case of very large databases and in the presence of redundant information. In particular, the choice of which attributes have to be considered as dimensions and measures can be not trivial and it can heavily influence the effectiveness of the final system. In this article, we propose a methodology targeted at supporting the design and deriving information on the total quality of the final data warehouse. We tested our proposal on three real-word commercial ERP databases.
Intelligent Search for Experts Using Fuzzy Abstraction Hierarchy in Knowledge Management Systems
Authors: Yang Kun-Woo , Huh Soon-Young
Published: May 2011

In knowledge management systems (KMS), managing explicit knowledge is comparatively easy using information technology such as databases. However, tacit knowledge, usually possessed by human experts in unstructured forms such as know-how and experiences, is hard to systemize. Recent research has shown that it is more effective to provide search mechanisms for experts than to directly search for specific knowledge itself in KMS to pinpoint experts with needed knowledge in the organizations so that users can acquire the knowledge from the found experts. In this article, we propose an intelligent search framework to provide search capabilities for experts who not only match search conditions exactly but also belong to the similar or related subject fields according to the user’s needs. In enabling intelligent searches for experts, the Fuzzy Abstraction Hierarchy (FAH) framework has been adopted. Based on FAH, searching for experts with similar or related expertise is facilitated using the subject field hierarchy defined in the system. While adopting FAH, a text categorization approach based on Vector Space Model is also utilized to overcome the limitation of the original FAH framework. To test applicability and practicality of the proposed framework, the prototype system, “Knowledge Portal for Researchers in Science and Technology” sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Korea, has been developed.
Application of Decision Tree as a Data Mining Tool in a Manufacturing System
Authors: Oke S. A.
Published: May 2011

This work demonstrates the application of decision tree, a data mining tool, in the manufacturing system. Data mining has the capability for classification, prediction, estimation, and pattern recognition by using manufacturing databases. Databases of manufacturing systems contain significant information for decision making, which could be properly revealed with the application of appropriate data mining techniques. Decision trees are employed for identifying valuable information in manufacturing databases. Practically, industrial managers would be able to make better use of manufacturing data at little or no extra investment in data manipulation cost. The work shows that it is valuable for managers to mine data for better and more effective decision making. This work is therefore new in that it is the first time that proper documentation would be made in the direction of the current research activity.
Constraint-Based Multi-Dimensional Databases
Authors: Ravat Franck , Teste Olivier , Zurfluh Gilles
Published: May 2011

This chapter deals with constraint-based multidimensional modelling. The model we define integrates a constellation of facts and dimensions. Along each dimension, various hierarchies are possibly defined and the model supports multiple instantiations of dimensions. The main contribution is the definition of intra-dimension constraints between hierarchies of a same dimension as well as inter-dimension constraints of various dimensions. To facilitate data querying, we define a multi-dimensional query algebra, which integrates the main multi-dimensional operators such as rotations, drill down, roll up… These operators support the constraint-based multi-dimensional modelling. Finally, we present two implementations of this algebra. First, OLAP-SQL is a textual language integrating multi-dimensional concepts (fact, dimension, hierarchy), but it is based on classical SQL syntax. This language is dedicated to specialists such as multi-dimensional database administrators. Second, a graphical query language is presented. This language consists in a graphical representation of multi-dimensional databases, and users specify directly their queries over this graph. This approach is dedicated to non-computer scientist users.
Toward a Visual Query System for Spatio-Temporal Databases
Authors: Cavalcanti Valéria M.B. , Schiel Ulrich , de Souza Baptista Claudio
Published: May 2011

Visual query systems (VQS) for spatio-temporal databases, which enable formulation of queries involving both spatial and temporal dimensions, are an important research subject. Existing results treat these dimensions separately and there are only a few integrated proposals. This chapter presents a VQS called spatio-temporal visual query environment (S-TVQE), which allows the formulation of conventional, spatial, temporal, and spatio-temporal database queries in an integrated environment. With S-TVQE, the user, instead of querying the database by textual query languages will interact with the system by visual operators for the statement of the query conditions. The tool provides a visualization of the results in different formats such as maps, graphics, and tables.
Protoforms of Linguistic Database Summaries as a Human Consistent Tool for Using Natural Language in Data Mining
Authors: Kacprzyk Janusz , Zadrozny Slawomir
Published: May 2011

We consider linguistic database summaries in the sense of Yager (1982), in an implementable form proposed by Kacprzyk & Yager (2001) and Kacprzyk, Yager & Zadrozny (2000), exemplified by, for a personnel database, “most employees are young and well paid” (with some degree of truth) and their extensions as a very general tool for a human consistent summarization of large data sets. We advocate the use of the concept of a protoform (prototypical form), vividly advocated by Zadeh and shown by Kacprzyk & Zadrozny (2005) as a general form of a linguistic data summary. Then, we present an extension of our interactive approach to fuzzy linguistic summaries, based on fuzzy logic and fuzzy database queries with linguistic quantifiers. We show how fuzzy queries are related to linguistic summaries, and that one can introduce a hierarchy of protoforms, or abstract summaries in the sense of latest Zadeh’s (2002) ideas meant mainly for increasing deduction capabilities of search engines. We show an implementation for the summarization of Web server logs.
Mobile Information Processing Involving Multiple Non-Collaborative Sources
Authors: Lim Say Ying , Taniar David , Srinivasan Bala
Published: May 2011

As more and more servers appearing in the wireless environment provide accesses to mobile users, more and more demand and expectation is required by mobile users toward the available services. Mobile users are no longer satisfied with obtaining data only from one server, but require data from multiple servers either at the same or different locations. This eventually leads to the need for information gathering that spans across several non-collaborative servers. This article describes some of our researches in information gathering from multiple non-collaborative servers that may involve servers that not only accept direct queries from mobile users but also servers that broadcast data. We also look at how location dependent data plays an important role to mobile information gathering.
Challenges in Data Mining on Medical Databases
Authors: Hosseinkhah Fatemeh , Ashktorab Hassan , Veen Ranjit , Owrang O. M. Mehdi
Published: May 2011

Modern electronic health records are designed to capture and render vast quantities of clinical data during the health care process. Technological advancements in the form of computer-based patient records software and personal computer hardware are making the collection of and access to health care data more manageable. However, few tools exist to evaluate and analyze this clinical data after it has been captured and stored. Evaluation of stored clinical data may lead to discovery of trends and patterns hidden within the data that could significantly enhance our understanding of disease progression and management. A common goal of the medical data mining is the detection of some kind of correlation, for example, between genetic features and phenotypes or between medical treatment and reaction of patients (Abidi & Goh, 1998; Li et al., 2005). The characteristics of clinical data, including issues of data availability and complex representation models, can make data mining applications challenging.
Interesting Knowledge Patterns in Databases
Authors: Natarajan Rajesh , Shekar B.
Published: May 2011

Knowledge management (KM) transforms a firm’s knowledge-based resources into a source of competitive advantage. Knowledge creation, a KM process, deals with the conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge and moving knowledge from the individual level to the group, organizational, and interorganizational levels (Alavi & Leidner, 2001). Four modes¾namely, socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization¾create knowledge through the interaction and interplay between tacit and explicit knowledge. The “combination” mode consists of combining or reconfiguring disparate bodies of existing explicit knowledge (like documents) that lead to the production of new explicit knowledge (Choo, 1998). Transactional databases are a source of rich information about a firm’s processes and its business environment. Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD), or data mining, aims at uncovering trends and patterns that would otherwise remain buried in a firm’s operational databases. KDD is “the non-trivial process of identifying valid, novel, potentially useful, and ultimately understandable patterns in data.” (Fayyad, Piatetsky-Shapiro, & Smyth, 1996). KDD is a typical example of IT-enabled combination mode of knowledge creation (Alavi & Leidner, 2001).
Database Integration in the Grid Infrastructure
Authors: Udoh Emmanuel
Published: May 2011

The capability of the Web to link information over the Internet has popularized computer science to the public. But it is the grid that will enable the public to exploit data storage and computer power over the Internet analogous to the electric power utility (a ubiquitous commodity). The grid is considered the fifth generation computing architecture after client-server and multitier (Kusnetzky & Olofson, 2004) that integrates resources (computers, networks, data archives, instruments, etc.) in an interoperable virtual environment (Berman, Fox, & Hey, 2003). In this vein, grid computing is a new IT infrastructure that allows modular hardware and software to be deployed collectively to solve a problem or rejoined on demand to meet changing needs of a user.
A Two-Stage Zone Regression Method for Global Characterization of a Project Database
Authors: Dolado J. J. , Rodríguez D. , Riquelme J. , Ferrer-Troyano F. , Cuadrado J. J.
Published: May 2011

One of the problems found in generic project databases, where the data is collected from different organizations, is the large disparity of its instances. In this chapter, we characterize the database selecting both attributes and instances so that project managers can have a better global vision of the data they manage. To achieve that, we first make use of data mining algorithms to create clusters. From each cluster, instances are selected to obtain a final subset of the database. The result of the process is a smaller database which maintains the prediction capability and has a lower number of instances and attributes than the original, yet allow us to produce better predictions.