bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Influences on Neighborhood Walking in Older Adults
Authors: Gallagher Nancy A. , Clarke Philippa J. , Ronis David L. , Cherry Carol Loveland , Nyquist Linda , Gretebeck Kimberlee A.
Published: September 2012

The purpose of this cross-sectional survey study was to examine the influence of self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and environment on neighborhood walking in older adults with (
n
= 163, mean age = 78.7,
SD
= 7.96 years) and without (
n
= 163, mean age = 73.6,
SD
= 7.93 years) mobility limitations, controlling for demographic characteristics. Multiple regression revealed that in mobility-limited older adults, demographic characteristics, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations explained 17.4% of variance in neighborhood walking, while environment (neighborhood destinations and design) explained 9.4%. Destinations, self-efficacy, sex, and outcome expectations influenced walking. In those without mobility limitations, demographic characteristics, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations explained 15.6% of the variance, while environment explained 5.6%. Self-efficacy, sex, and design influenced walking. Neighborhood walking interventions for older adults should include self-efficacy strategies tailored to mobility status and neighborhood characteristics.
Can a Licorice Lollipop Decrease Cariogenic Bacteria in Nursing Home Residents?
Authors: Mentes Janet C. , Kang Sarah , Spackman Sue , Bauer Janet
Published: September 2012

The purpose of this pilot study was to examine whether an herbal lollipop containing licorice root decreases
Streptococcus mutans
(
S. mutans
) bacteria that cause dental caries in nursing home residents. A total of 8 residents (5 women, 3 men; mean age = 85) consented to participate in this study. Participants were offered two lollipops per day for 21 days. Saliva samples were collected at baseline and Days 1, 3, 7, 14, and 21, then analyzed for numbers of
S. mutans.
Using linear mixed-models analysis with difference in numbers of
S. mutans
from baseline to any time point as the dependent variable, and number of lollipops consumed with effect of time controlled as the predictor variable, participants who consumed more lollipops during the 21-day time period were more likely to have fewer numbers of
S. mutans
(β = −8.703,
p
= 0.067). There was a trend toward reduction of
S. mutans
with consumption of more lollipops during the 21-day period. Recruiting a larger sample for future research may demonstrate a significant reduction.
Linking the Popularity of Online Trading with Consumers’ Concerns for Reputation and Identity Theft
Authors: Smith Alan D.
Published: September 2012

Although online trading has its benefits, such as convenience and the ability to compare prices online, there are still many concerns about the integrity of the buyer, the seller and/or the online action service provider (OASP). This paper investigates these relationships via multivariate statistical analysis of a stratified sample of working professionals, resulting in 198 useable questionnaires from an initial sampling frame of over 550 professional personnel from five relatively large Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, firms. The author found that buyers that felt feedback systems were viable were more willing to engage in online trading activities and pay a premium price for merchandise being sold by a seller with a better reputation, regardless of gender. Customers were especially concerned with the total price, including shipping cost, regardless of gender. In terms of the convenience of payment method, electronic forms were preferred in transacting online trading activities, regardless of age and gender.
Antecedents of Security Pillars in E-Commerce Applications
Authors: Shaqrah Amin A.
Published: September 2012

This paper investigates the relationship between internet security and e-business competence at banking and exchange firms in Jordan. The proposed conceptual model examines the antecedents and consequences of e-business competence and tests its empirical validity. The sample of 152 banking and exchange firms tests the posited structural equation model. The results consistently support the validity of the proposed conceptual model, the results also found that organizations realize the importance of e- business and are willing to proceed further with e-business. Beyond concerns about internet security, their awareness of security hazards and internet performance is minimal. The author concludes that the public awareness of ICT in general is low. In light of the data collected, the author makes recommendations for the interested authorities to improve e-business in Jordan.
Semantic Mobile Applications for Service Process Improvement
Authors: Aleksy Markus , Stieger Bernd , Janke Thomas
Published: September 2012

The ongoing evolution of industrial field service is mainly driven by demographical changes, increasing complexity of products, and tremendous amounts of product information from enterprise information systems as well as from the emerging Internet of Things. To cope with these challenges, a combined approach utilizing semantic and mobile technologies fosters the provision of the right information, at the right time, in the right place, and to the right people. This paper investigates the exploitation potential of semantic mobile applications to support industrial service processes. Based on identified application scenarios, the authors developed concepts for process improvement and, thus, derived requirements. The necessary semantic data federations are considered in the presented architecture, which enables an integrated approach for tailored information retrieval from heterogeneous information sources.
Acquiring the Gist of Social Network Service Threads via Comparison with Wikipedia
Authors: Nadamoto Akiyo , Aramaki Eiji , Abekawa Takeshi , Murakami Yohei
Published: September 2012

Internet-based social network services (SNSs) have grown increasingly popular and are producing a great amount of content. Multiple users freely post their comments in SNS threads, and extracting the gist of these comments can be difficult due to their complicated dialog. In this paper, the authors propose a system that explores this concept of the gist of an SNS thread by comparing it with Wikipedia. The granularity of information in an SNS thread differs from that in Wikipedia articles, which implies that the information in a thread may be related to different articles on Wikipedia. The authors extract target articles on Wikipedia based on its link graph. When an SNS thread is compared with Wikipedia, the focus is on the table of contents (TOC) of the relevant Wikipedia articles. The system uses a proposed coverage degree to compare the comments in a thread with the information in the TOC. If the coverage degree is higher, the Wikipedia paragraph becomes the gist of the thread.
Performance-Enhanced Caching Scheme for Web Clusters for Dynamic Content
Authors: Raghunathan A. , Murugesan K.
Published: September 2012

In order to improve the QoS of applications, clusters of web servers are increasingly used in web services. Caching helps improve performance in web servers, but is largely exploited only for static web content. With more web applications using backend databases today, caching of dynamic content has a crucial role in web performance. This paper presents a set of cache management schemes for handling dynamic data in web clusters by sharing cached contents. These schemes use either automatic or expiry-based cache validation, and work with any type of request distribution. The techniques improve response by utilizing the caches efficiently and reducing redundant database accesses by web servers while ensuring cache consistency. The authors present caching schemes for both horizontal and vertical cluster architectures. Simulations show an appreciable performance rise in response times of queries in clustered web servers.
Secure Video Transmission Against Black Hole Attack in MANETs
Authors: Umaparvathi M. , Varughese Dharmishtan K.
Published: September 2012

Mobile Adhoc Networks (MANETs) are open to a wide range of attacks due to their unique characteristics like dynamic topology, shared medium, absence of infrastructure, and resource constraints. Data packets sent by a source node may reach destination through a number of intermediate nodes. In the absence of security mechanism, it is easy for an intermediate node to intercept or modify the messages, thus attacking the normal operation of MANET. One such attack is Black hole attack, in which, a malicious node called Black hole node attracts all the traffic of the network towards itself, and discards all the packets without forwarding them to the intended recipients. This paper evaluates the performance of Adhoc on-demand Distance Vector (AODV) and its multi-path variant Adhoc On-demand Multi-path Distance Vector (AOMDV) routing protocols under black hole attack. Non-cryptographic solutions Secure Blackhole AODV (SBAODV) and Secure Blackhole AOMDV (SBAOMDV) have been proposed to mitigate the effect of black hole attack. Through NS-2 simulations, the performance of the proposed protocols with video streaming is analyzed. The results show that the proposed solutions provide better performance than the conventional AODV and AOMDV.
Domain-Specific Language Integration with C++ Template Metaprogramming
Authors: Sinkovics Ábel , Porkoláb Zoltán
Published: September 2012

Domain specific language integration has to provide the right balance between the expressive power of the DSL and the implementation and maintenance cost of the applied integration techniques. External solutions may perform poorly as they depend on third party tools which should be implemented, tested and then maintained during the whole lifetime of the project. Ideally a self-contained solution can minimize third-party dependencies. The authors propose the use of C++ template metaprograms to develop a domain specific language integration library based on only the standard C++ language features. The code in the domain specific language is given as part of the C++ source code wrapped into C++ templates. When the C++ source is compiled, the C++ template metaprogram library implementing a full-featured parser infrastructure is executed. As the authors’ approach does not require other tool than a standard C++ compiler, it is highly portable. To demonstrate their solution, the chapter implements a type-safe printf as a domain specific language. The library is fully implemented and downloadable as an open source project.
Design Patterns and Design Principles for Internal Domain-Specific Languages
Authors: Günther Sebastian
Published: September 2012

Internal DSLs are a special kind of DSLs that use an existing programming language as their host. To build them successfully, knowledge regarding how to modify the host language is essential. In this chapter, the author contributes six DSL design principles and 21 DSL design patterns. DSL Design principles provide guidelines that identify specific design goals to shape the syntax and semantic of a DSL. DSL design patterns express proven knowledge about recurring DSL design challenges, their solution, and their connection to each other – forming a rich vocabulary that developers can use to explain a DSL design and share their knowledge. The chapter presents design patterns grouped into foundation patterns (which provide the skeleton of the DSL consisting of objects and methods), notation patterns (which address syntactic variations of host language expressions), and abstraction patterns (which provide the domain-specific abstractions as extensions or even modifications of the host language semantics).
A Formal Semantics of Kermeta
Authors: Amrani Moussa
Published: September 2012

This chapter contributes to the formal specification of Kermeta, a popular metamodelling framework useful for the design of DSL structure and semantics. The formal specification is tool-/tool syntax independent; it only uses classical mathematical instruments taught in usual computer science courses. This specification serves as a reference specification from which specialised implementation can be derived for execution, simulation, or formal analysis of DSLs. By providing such a specification, the chapter ensures that each and every DSL written in Kermeta, receives de facto a formal counterpart, making its definition fully formal. This radically contrasts with other approaches that require a new ad hoc semantics defined for every new DSL. The chapter briefly reports on two implementations conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach.
MoDSEL
Authors: Er Ersin , Tekinerdogan Bedir
Published: September 2012

Model-Driven Software Development (MDSD) aims to support the development and evolution of software intensive systems using the basic concepts of model, metamodel, and model transformation. In parallel with the ongoing academic research, MDSD is more and more applied in industrial practices. Like conventional non-MDSD practices, MDSD systems are also subject to changing requirements and have to cope with evolution. In this chapter, the authors provide a scenario-based approach for documenting and analyzing the impact of changes that apply to model-driven development systems. To model the composition and evolution of an MDSD system, they developed the so-called Model-Driven Software Evolution Language (MoDSEL) which is based on a megamodel for MDSD. MoDSEL includes explicit language abstractions to specify both the model elements of an MDSD system and the evolution scenarios that might apply to model elements. Based on MoDSEL specifications, an impact analysis is performed to assess the impact of evolution scenarios and the sensitivity of model elements. A case study is provided to show different kind of evolution scenarios and the required adaptations to model elements.
RSU Deployment for Content Dissemination and Downloading in Intelligent Transportation Systems
Authors: Reineri Massimo , Casetti Claudio , Chiasserini Carla-Fabiana , Fiore Marco , Trullols-Cruces Oscar , Barcelo-Ordinas Jose M.
Published: September 2012

The focus of this chapter is twofold: information dissemination from infrastructure nodes deployed along the roads, the so-called Road-Side Units (RSUs), to passing-by vehicles, and content downloading by vehicular users through nearby RSUs. In particular, in order to ensure good performance for both content dissemination and downloading, the presented study addresses the problem of RSU deployment and reviews previous work that has dealt with such an issue. The RSU deployment problem is then formulated as an optimization problem, where the number of vehicles that come in contact with any RSU is maximized, possibly considering a minimum contact time to be guaranteed. Since such optimization problems turn out to be NP-hard, heuristics are proposed to efficiently approximate the optimal solution. The RSU deployment obtained through such heuristics is then used to investigate the performance of content dissemination and downloading through ns2 simulations. Simulation tests are carried out under various real-world vehicular environments, including a realistic mobility model, and considering that the IEEE 802.11p standard is used at the physical and medium access control layers. The performance obtained in realistic conditions is discussed with respect to the results obtained under the same RSU deployment, but in ideal conditions and protocol message exchange. Based on the obtained results, some useful hints on the network system design are provided.
A Novel Distributed QoS Control Scheme for Multi-Homed Vehicular Networks
Authors: Alshaer Hamada , Ernst Thierry , de La Fortelle Arnaud
Published: September 2012

Resource availability in vehicular mobile networks fluctuates due to wireless channel fading and network mobility. Multi-homed mobile networks require a Quality-of-Service (QoS) control scheme that can select a routing path to guarantee high quality of communications with Correspondent Nodes (CNs) while using the maximum available bandwidth of wireless and radio communication technologies. In this chapter, the authors develop an intelligent distributed QoS control scheme which inter-operates between mobile routers, managing vehicular networks mobility, and Road Communication Gateways (RCGs). This proposed scheme manages Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications through enabling multi-homed vehicular networks to optimally distribute traffic among egress links of their mobile routers based on vehicular communication policies and available bandwidth and performance metrics of selected routing paths. This scheme considers the data control plane as a collaborative entity and specifies detailed operations to be performed in the mobile routers and RCGs. Simulation experiments show that the proposed scheme can improve the Congestion Window (CWND) of TCP and the e2e packet loss of video traffic, despite network mobility. It also guarantees the service parameter settings of uplink and downlink connections while achieving reasonable utilization efficiency of network resources and fairly sharing them.
A Survey on Information Dissemination in VANETs
Authors: Kakkasageri Mahabaleshwar S. , Manvi Sunilkumar S.
Published: September 2012

Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) has become an active area of research, standardization, and development because next generation vehicles will be capable of sensing, computing, and communicating. Different components in a vehicle constantly exchange available information with other vehicles on the road and cooperate to ensure safety and comfort of users using VANET. In VANET, information like navigation, cooperative collision avoidance, lane changing, speed limit, accident, obstacle, or road condition warnings, location awareness services, etc. play a significant role in safety-related applications. Safety related information dissemination is challenging due to the delay-sensitive nature of safety services. In this chapter, the authors survey some of the ongoing recent research efforts in information dissemination in VANETs. They also outline some of the research challenges that still need to be addressed to enable efficient information dissemination in VANET.
Information Dissemination in Urban VANETs
Authors: Busanelli Stefano , Ferrari Gianluigi , Giorgio Vito Andrea , Iotti Nicola
Published: September 2012

In recent years, Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANETs) have experienced an intense development phase, driven by academia, industry, and public authorities. On the basis of the obtained results, it is reasonable to expect that VANETs will finally hit the market in the near future. In order to reach commercial success, VANETs must effectively operate during the first years of deployment, when the market penetration rate will be unavoidably low, and, consequently, only a small number of suitably equipped vehicles (VANET-enabled) will be present on the roads. Among the possible strategies to face the initial sparse VANET scenarios, the deployment of an auxiliary network constituted by fixed Road Side Units (RSUs), either Dissemination Points (DPs) or relays, is certainly one of the most promising. In order to maximize the benefits offered by this support infrastructure, the placement of RSUs needs to be carefully studied. In this chapter, the authors analyze, by means of numerical simulations, the performance of an application that leverages on a finite number of DPs for disseminating information to the transiting vehicles. The positions of the DPs are determined through a recently proposed family of optimal placement algorithms, on the basis of proper vehicular mobility traces. The analysis is carried out considering two realistic urban scenarios. In both cases, the performance improvement brought by the use of multi-hop broadcast protocols, with respect to classical single-hop communications with DPs, is investigated.
Emergent Ontologies by Collaborative Tagging for Knowledge Management
Authors: Jimenez Weena , Alvargonzález César Luis , Vallina Pablo Abella , Gutiérrez Jose María Álvarez , Ordóñez de Pablos Patricia , Gayo Jose Emilio Labra
Published: September 2012

The massive use of Internet and social networks leads us to a new dynamic environment with huge amounts of unstructured and unclassified information resources in continuous evolution. New classification, compilation, and recommendation systems based on the use of folksonomies and ontologies have appeared to deal with the requirements of data management in this environment. Nevertheless, using ontologies alone has some weaknesses due to the need of being statically modeled by a set of experts in a specific domain. On the other hand, folksonomies show a lack of formality because of their implicit ambiguity and flexibility by definition. The main objective of this chapter is to outline and evaluate a new way to exploit Web information resources and tags for bridging the gap between ontology modeling and folksonomies.
Multimedia Systems Development
Authors: Milovanovic Miloš , Minovic Miroslav , Štavljanin Velimir , Starcevic Dušan
Published: September 2012

The multimedia information system represents a specific form of information system. This research area suffered many changes in direction due to technology shifts. The general problem is that few years back, multimedia technologies had been limited to relatively simple, stand-alone applications, but multimedia systems, particularly Web-based systems grew in complexity and intervened with many critical issues for development. In this chapter, a specific focus will be cast on existing methodology approaches, their upsides and downsides, and on the surveys and research done by distinguished authors in this area on what sort of methodologies are used in practice. Afterwards, the focus of this chapter will be on whether existing development methodologies can be applied to multimedia systems and if there is any need to adapt them for that specific purpose.
Ethical Tensions Emerging from the Application of the Collective Intelligence Concept in Academic Social Networking
Authors: Deed Craig , Edwards Anthony
Published: September 2012

This chapter examines the ethical questions and actions emerging from academic social networking. Academics have always been involved in rigorous discourse across multiple contexts, involving generation, exploration, analysis, evaluation, and application of ideas through a process of thought, research, peer validation, and publication. The argument is that the concept of collective intelligence is changing the traditional hierarchical “rules” associated with academic dialogue. Collective intelligence is defined as a mix of formal and informal conversational contexts, and the storing and sharing of ideas and information through multiple public online contexts. The meta-concept of collective intelligence presents a number of ethical dilemmas and questions related to privacy, and ownership and control of net-generated data, ideas, and information. The purpose of this chapter is to identify and describe these ethical issues and actions in relation to academic social networking.
Sem-IDi
Authors: Colomo-Palacios Ricardo , Jiménez-López Diego , Ruano-Mayoral Marcos , Fernández-González Joaquín , Martín David Mayorga , Fernández Alberto López , Alonso Rocío Vega
Published: September 2012

The increasing strength and usefulness of semantic technologies have led to innovative decision support processes and management of partners and R&D call for proposals. This book chapter introduces the SEM-IDi project, an architecture that integrates R&D processes with project management software and semantic customized environments. This SEM-IDi platform is composed by two main modules: General Management Module (GMM) which will be responsible for general management of diverse initiatives and projects, and the Semantic and Competence Module (SCM) which will provide functionalities related mainly to decision making.
Enterprise Tomography
Authors: Aalmink Jan , von der Dovenmühle Timo , Gómez Jorge Marx
Published: September 2012

Cloud Computing is finding its way into the architecture of current IT landscapes. The present chapter depicts an algorithm-based methodology supporting the Root-Cause-Analysis in the context of malfunctioning Federated ERP (FERP) software in Enterprise Clouds. The challenge is to standardize the error-finding procedure and increase the efficiency. For a given error symptom it is shown that the error location is approximated iteratively with help of generic operators in a semiautomatic manner. This approach of Semantic Debugging outperforms classical methods of Technical Debugging in efficiency regarding prerequisite knowledge and time consumption. Semantic integration and maintainability correlate strongly. The Delta-Operator enables the reconstruction of semantic FERP integration in the course of the error reproduction session. In combination with the Join-Operator, the defect approximation can be performed along the dependencies of semantic artifacts.
Identifying Polarized Wikipedia Articles
Authors: Kirtsis Nikos , Tzekou Paraskevi , Besharat Jeries , Stamou Sofia
Published: September 2012

Wikipedia is one of the most successful worldwide collaborative efforts to put together user-generated content in a meaningfully organized and intuitive manner. Currently, Wikipedia hosts millions of articles on a variety of topics, supplied by thousands of contributors. A critical factor in Wikipedia’s success is its open nature, which enables everyone to edit, revise, and/or question (via talk pages) the article contents. Considering the phenomenal growth of Wikipedia and the lack of a peer review process for its contents, it becomes evident that both editors and administrators have difficulty in validating its quality on a systematic and coordinated basis. This difficulty has motivated several research works on how to assess the quality of Wikipedia articles. In this chapter, the authors propose the exploitation of a novel indicator for the Wikipedia articles’ quality, namely information credibility. In this respect, the authors describe a method that captures the polarized (i.e., biased) information across the article contents in an attempt to infer the amount of credible (i.e., objective) information every article communicates. This approach relies on the intuition that an article offering non-polarized information about its topic is more credible and of better quality compared to an article that discusses the editors’ (subjective) opinions on that topic.
Ontology-Based Optimization in Search Engine
Authors: Balduzzi Leonardo , Cuesta Ignacio
Published: September 2012

The major aim of the chapter is to propose and study the use of ontology-based optimization for positioning websites in search engines. In this sense, using heterogeneous inductive learning techniques and ontology for knowledge representation, a knowledge-based system which is capable of supporting the activity of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has been designed and implemented. From its knowledge base, the system suggests the most appropriate optimization tasks for positioning a pair (keyword, website) on the first page of search engines and infers the positioning results to be obtained. The system evolution and learning capacity allows optimizing the productivity and effectiveness of the SEO process.
Intermediary Design for Collaborative Ontology-Based Innovation Monitoring
Authors: Zibuschka Jan , Laufs Uwe , Engelbach Wolf
Published: September 2012

This chapter presents the architecture of an intermediary platform for networked open innovation management, as well as a surrounding sustainable business ecosystem. The instantiation presented here is tailored towards SMEs, both as stakeholders in the platform and as contributors in the modular ecosystem. It enables SMEs to work together in creating innovative products, increasing both reach and agility of their innovation processes. The chapter also describes to some detail the technical realization of the system, including the representation and automatic acquisition of relevant information. Selected business aspects are also addressed. It specifically focuses on the role of ontologies and how they contribute to the overall business value of the system.
Towards the Use of Dialog Systems to Facilitate Inclusive Education
Authors: Griol Barres David , Callejas Carrión Zoraida , Molina López José M. , Sanchis de Miguel Araceli
Published: September 2012

Continuous advances in the development of information technologies have currently led to the possibility of accessing learning contents from anywhere, at anytime, and almost instantaneously. However, accessibility is not always the main objective in the design of educative applications, specifically to facilitate their adoption by disabled people. Different technologies have recently emerged to foster the accessibility of computers and new mobile devices, favoring a more natural communication between the student and the developed educative systems. This chapter describes innovative uses of multimodal dialog systems in education, with special emphasis in the advantages that they provide for creating inclusive applications and learning activities.
Virtual Environments Can Mediate Continuous Learning
Authors: Pala Kiran , Gangashetty Suryakanth V
Published: September 2012

In human beings, learning is a life-long and continuous process; it can encompass both active and passive activities in accordance with social changes and the development of society. In this era, the development and use of technologies have changed the face of information accessibility. Similarly, such technologies facilitate learners with new and different options to engage in learning through interactive tasks and content delivered through CD-ROMs, websites, communication software on the internet, and virtual games, which have had a significant impact on human learning and education. The significant question arises on which type of content and what way of representation of the content are required in this connection. Researchers need to reconsider any approach to teaching or providing platform to learners which is concerned with an explanation of how learning ability and development are prompted by an exposure to the target in view of the dramatic differences in experiences of learners. This chapter defines the concept of Virtual Environment (VE) based learning discussing how a VE differs from the traditional classrooms approaches. Thus, this chapter presents a unique framework and a formalism for interactive linearity or non-linearity in controlling the structure of learning activity or interaction. These activities aim at addressing the relationship between the main constructs targeted toward developing a VE. This chapter takes stock of various distributed models and projects a framework on how the learners can be engaged continuously in learning activities according to their previous linguistic and educational experiences. It also focuses on how a learner can be reported to the admin or tutor and self assessments.
A Proposal to Model Interaction from the Analysis of Student - Pedagogic Conversational Agent Logs
Authors: Pérez-Marín Diana , Pascual-Nieto Ismael
Published: September 2012

According to User-Centered Design, computer interactive systems should be implemented taking into account the users’ preferences. However, in some cases, it is not easy to apply conventional Human-Computer interaction evaluation techniques to identify the users’ needs and improve the user-system interaction. Therefore, this chapter proposes a procedure to model the interaction behaviour from the analysis of conversational agent dialog logs. A case study in which the procedure has been applied to model the behaviour of 20 children when interacting with multiple personality Pedagogic Conversational Agents is described as an illustrative sample of the goodness and practical application of the procedure.
New Communication Technologies for Inclusive Education in and outside the Classroom
Authors: Iglesias Ana , Ruiz-Mezcua Belén , López Juan Francisco , Figueroa Diego Carrero
Published: September 2012

This chapter explores new communication technologies and methods for avoiding accessibility and communication barriers in the educational environment. It is focused on providing real-time captions so students with hearing disabilities and foreign students, among others, could participate in an inclusive way in and outside the classroom. The inclusive proposals are based on the APEINTA educational project, which aims for accessible education for all. The research work proposes the use of mobile devices for teacher and students in order to provide more flexibility using the APEINTA real-time captioning service. This allows using this service from anywhere and at anytime, not only in the classroom.
Educational Applications of Clickers in University Teaching
Authors: Liébana-Cabanillas Francisco J. , Martínez-Fiestas Myriam , Rejón-Guardia Francisco
Published: September 2012

The purpose of this chapter is to contextualize the situation of the use of remote response devices or clickers in education and identify the benefits that tools such as Q-Click software can bring to university teaching and to different groups of students. To fulfil this objective, the authors conducted research in classes with students who rated 149 different aspects related to the use of such software, including its use in class, benefits, and implications for follow-up assessment of the subject, attention, and class quality. This information was then compared to other groups of students studying the same subject who did not use clickers in class. The findings confirm the original proposal verifying the usefulness of these tools in university teaching for the important consequences for students and teachers.
A Recommender System Supporting Teachers to Author Learning Sessions in Decision-Making
Authors: Rodríguez Arnoldo
Published: September 2012

This chapter pays attention to the automatic generation and recommendation of teaching materials for teachers who do not have enough time to learn how to use authoring tools for the creation of materials to support their courses. To overcome the difficulties, the research is intended to solve the problem of time needed to create adapted case studies for teaching decision-making in network design. Another goal is to reduce the time required to learn the use of an authoring tool to create teaching materials. Thus, the author presents an assistant that provides adapted help for teachers, generates examples automatically, verifies that any generated example fits in the class of examples used by the teacher, and recommends personalized examples according to each teacher’s preferences. He studies the use of data related to teachers to support the recommendation of teaching materials and the adaptation of Web-based support. The automatic generation and test of examples of network topologies are based on a probabilistic model, and the recommendation is based on Bayesian classification. This investigation also looks at problems related to the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support teachers in authoring learning sessions for Adaptive Educational Hypermedia (AEH).
Building Recommender Systems for Network Intrusion Detection Using Intelligent Decision Technologies
Authors: Panda Mrutyunjaya , Patra Manas Ranjan , Dehuri Sachidananda
Published: September 2012

This chapter presents an overview of the field of recommender systems and describes the current generation of recommendation methods with their limitations and possible extensions that can improve the capabilities of the recommendations made suitable for a wide range of applications. In recent years, machine learning algorithms have been considered to be an important part of the recommendation process to take intelligent decisions. The chapter will explore the application of such techniques in the field of network intrusion detection in order to examine the vulnerabilities of different recommendation techniques. Finally, the authors outline some of the major issues in building secure recommendation systems in identifying possible network intrusions.
Revisiting Recommendation Systems
Authors: Bakshi Sagarika , Sarkar Sweta , Jagadev Alok Kumar , Dehuri Satchidananda
Published: September 2012

Recommender systems are applied in a multitude of spheres and have a significant role in reduction of information overload on those websites that have the features of voting. Therefore, it is an urgent need for them to adapt and respond to immediate changes in user preference. To overcome the shortcomings of each individual approach to design the recommender systems, a myriad of ways to coalesce different recommender systems are proposed by researchers. In this chapter, the authors have presented an insight into the design of recommender systems developed, namely content-based and collaborative recommendations, their evaluation, their lacunae, and some hybrid models to enhance the quality of prediction.
New Optimal Preemptively Scheduling for Real-Time Reconfigurable Sporadic Tasks Based on Earliest Deadline First Algorithm
Authors: Gharsellaoui Hamza , Khalgui Mohamed , Ben Ahmed Samir
Published: September 2012

This paper examines the problem of scheduling the mixed workload of both sporadic (on-line) and periodic (off-line) tasks on uniprocessor in a hard real-time environment. The authors introduce an optimal earliest deadline scheduling algorithm to optimize response time while ensuring that all periodic tasks meet their deadlines and to accept as many sporadic tasks. A necessary and sufficient schedulability test is presented, and an efficient O(n+m) guarantee algorithm is proposed. This optimal algorithm results in dynamic scheduling solutions. They are presented by a proposed intelligent agent-based architecture where a software agent is used to evaluate the response time, to calculate the processor utilization factor and also to verify the satisfaction of real-time deadlines. The agent dynamically provides technical solutions for users where the system becomes unfeasible by sending sporadic tasks to idle times, by modifying the deadlines of tasks, the worst case execution times (WCETs), the activation time, by tolerating some non critical tasks according to the (m, n) firm and a reasonable cost, or in the worst case by removing some non hard (soft) tasks according to predefined heuristic. The authors implement the agent to support these services which are applied to extensive experiments with real-life design examples in order to demonstrate the effectiveness and the excellent performance of the new optimal algorithm in normal and overload conditions.
An Open-Source Data Driven Spell Checker for Sinhala
Authors: Wasala Ruwan Asanka , Weerasinghe Ruwan , Pushpananda Randil , Liyanage Chamila , Jayalatharachchi Eranga
Published: September 2012

In this paper we describe the construction of a spell checker for Sinhala, the language spoken by the majority in Sri Lanka. Due to its morphological richness, the language is difficult to enumerate completely in a lexicon. The approach described is based on n-gram statistics and is relatively inexpensive to construct without deep linguistic knowledge. This approach is particularly useful as there are very few linguistic resources available for Sinhala at present. The proposed algorithm has been shown to be able to detect and correct many of the common spelling errors of the language. Results show a promising performance achieving an average accuracy of 82%. This technique can also be applied to construct spell checkers for other phonetic languages whose linguistic resources are scarce or non-existent. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/icter.v3i1.2844ICTer Vol.3 No.1 2010
eNOSHA - The Design and Development of a Learning Object Repository
Authors: Hettiarachchi Enosha , Mozelius Peter , Hewagamage KP , Hatakka Mathias , Balasooriya Isuru , Karunarathne Damith
Published: September 2012

This paper describes the development of an open source Learning Object Repository (LOR), named eNOSHA (eLearning Neutral Object Storage with a Holistic Approach.), at University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC), Sri Lanka. The e-Learning Centre (eLC) at UCSC has been developing learning content for a nationwide e-Learning Bachelor of Information Technology degree (eBIT) and a preparatory programme for the eBIT program (The Foundation in Information Technology, FIT). Since eBIT started in 2002, a lot of learning content has been developed in-house and there was a need for a repository to support storing and reusing of learning content. The aim of the paper is to present the development of eNOSHA in regards to three key concepts, flexibility, reusability and user-friendliness. Based on a requirement analysis carried out in December 2008, a plan was drafted for the development and implementation of the system. A participatory approach was used where users have been involved in the design, evaluation and implementation. Based on the testing of the system we gained a positive response regarding the searchability and reuse of content. Tests have, however, shown that additional features are needed to be implemented to improve the usability of the system, Even though the system has been developed based on the needs of UCSC, one of the objectives has always been to make it context independent. Internal tests conclude that the system is flexible enough to work in different contexts but the design may need some minor changes once tested in other organizations or cultures.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/icter.v3i1.2845ICTer Vol.3 No.1 2010
A Six Degrees of Freedom Ship Simulation System for Maritime Education
Authors: Sandurawan Damitha , Kodikara Nihal , Keppitiyagama Chamath , Rosa Rexy
Published: September 2012

The title of this paper was changed from 'A Ship Simulation System for Maritime Education' to 'A Six Degrees of Freedom Ship Simulation System for Maritime Education' on 21/09/2012.The authors N Kodikara, C Keppitiyagama and R Rosa were added to the paper on 21/09/2012.This paper presents Six-degrees-of-freedom ship simulation system which allows simulated ship handling under complicated environmental conditions and threat scenarios. This system simulates real-time six degrees of freedom ship motions (pitch, heave, roll, surge, sway, and yaw) under user interactions, and environmental conditions. The simulation system consists of a ship motion prediction system and a perception enhanced immersive virtual environment with greater ecological validity. This ship motion prediction system uses a few model parameters which can be evaluated by using standard ship maneuvering test or determined easily from databases such as Lloyd’s register. This virtual environment supports multiple-display viewing that can greatly enhance user perception. Ecological environment for strong sensation of immersion is also developed. The virtual environment facilitates the incorporation of real world ships, geographical sceneries, different environmental conditions and wide range of visibility and illumination effects. This simulation system can be used to demonstrate ship motions, maneuvering tactics and assign focused missions to trainees and evaluate their performance. Trainees can use the simulation system to study at their own pace. Implementation and operational cost of this ship simulation system is only a fraction of the conventional training involving real ships. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/icter.v3i2.2847 The International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions 2010 03 (02) :34 - 47
Factors Influencing the Adoption of Mobile Phones among the Farmers in Bangladesh: Theories and Practices
Authors: Islam Sirajul M , Grönlund Åke Grönlund
Published: September 2012

This paper investigates the factors influencing the adoption of mobile phone technology among farmers in Bangladesh. Electronic services are one important measure for rural development and mobile phones is the dominating cellular technology; hence understanding the adoption of this technology is important. The paper uses interpretive philosophy investigating adoption factors by means of survey data, participant observation and related studies on rural Bangladesh and technology acceptance. Based on a number of acceptance models from the literature, a conceptual Rural Technology Acceptance Model (RUTAM) was developed to analyze the arguments pertinent to a rural developing country context. The most salient modification, compared to earlier models, is that social influence plays a bigger role than technology at early stages of adoption. ‘Tech-service promotion’ and ‘tech-service attributes’ are introduced as external factors which affect the behavioral intentions of an individual by means of perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEU).DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/icter.v4i1.4670 International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions 2011 04 (01) : 4 - 14
An Assessment of Computer Awareness and Literacy among Entry-Level University of Colombo Undergraduates: A Case Study
Authors: Tharanganie Thilaksha H , Wickramasinghe WN , Lakraj GP
Published: September 2012

As the demand for the computer literate is increasing at a rapid pace, possessing of computer skills is an important asset for a university student. Thus having a good computer knowledge improves the quality of their study programs. This paper discusses a case where information was collected through a survey to assess the computer knowledge of entering freshmen in five Faculties (Science, Arts, Management & Finance, Law and Medicine) of the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. A survey was conducted among 300 new entrants of the above Faculties. A descriptive analysis was used to identify the patterns of computer usage. It is found that from the entry-level University of Colombo undergraduates, majority of students have used a computer (93%) and/or Internet (60%). Moreover, 60% are computer aware while only 47% are computer literate. It must be noted that males in general outperformed females in computer awareness, computer literacy and Internet usage. Since Chi-Square test confirmed that the two variables, computer awareness and computer literacy are associated with each other, rather than considering these two variables separately, considering them jointly is or was??? expected to yield better results. Hence, the two variables are combined into one, with 4 levels and a generalized logit model isor was??? fitted to this nominal multi-category variable to find the factors affecting computer awareness and/or computer literacy. The model suggests that the new variable is dependent on the factors: usage of Internet, monthly family income level, methods of obtaining computer knowledge, and locations of using a computer. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/icter.v4i1.4671 International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions 2011 04 (01) : 15 - 25
Cloud Computing: A New Paradigm in IT that has the Power to Transform Emerging Markets
Authors: Murugesan San
Published: September 2012

Cloud computing offers utility-like availability of computing resources and applications via the Internet at low cost. It has the power to transform enterprises in emerging markets offering access to advanced IT infrastructure and applications that many of them couldn’t afford. An informed understanding of cloud computing and its benefits, limitations and risks are the keys to successfully embrace the opportunities this new computing paradigm offers. This article presents an overview of cloud computing concepts, cloud services, cloud hosting models, and applications. It also identifies potential risks and discusses the prospects of clouds and what businesses and individuals can do to successfully embrace cloud computing. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/icter.v4i2.4672 International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions 2011 04 (02) : 04 – 11