bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Experimental Study on Boundary Constraints Handling in Particle Swarm Optimization
Authors: Cheng Shi , Shi Yuhui , Qin Quande
Published: October 2011

Premature convergence happens in Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for solving both multimodal problems and unimodal problems. With an improper boundary constraints handling method, particles may get “stuck in” the boundary. Premature convergence means that an algorithm has lost its ability of exploration. Population diversity is an effective way to monitor an algorithm’s ability of exploration and exploitation. Through the population diversity measurement, useful search information can be obtained. PSO with a different topology structure and a different boundary constraints handling strategy will have a different impact on particles’ exploration and exploitation ability. In this paper, the phenomenon of particles gets “stuck in” the boundary in PSO is experimentally studied and reported. The authors observe the position diversity time-changing curves of PSOs with different topologies and different boundary constraints handling techniques, and analyze the impact of these setting on the algorithm’s ability of exploration and exploitation. From these experimental studies, an algorithm’s ability of exploration and exploitation can be observed and the search information obtained; therefore, more effective algorithms can be designed to solve problems.
Strategic Market and Customer Driven IS/IT Planning Model
Authors: Shawyun Teay
Published: October 2011

The importance and issue of strategic business and IT alignment to achieve organization performance, a multifarious IS/IT frameworks, continues to perplex. It is contended that an internal focused IS/IT approach might not meet the needs of its both internal and external customers. This paper proposes a market based push-pull framework to ensure that the push strategy of the organization in what it wants to offer and at a price that it intends to offer is matched with the pull strategy of the market in what it wants to buy and at a price it is willing to pay. Once the market pull and firm push strategy is identified, the alignment of the IT would be based the push-pull effect of the business requirement to serve and satisfy not only the internal customers’ needs but also the external customers’ needs and requirements through the organization’s value proposition. The IT as a key enabler would be the main enabling mechanism to create and deliver on the value as proposed to the customers. This would define the measurable outcomes of the organization performance in creating and delivering the customer value as proposed based on the push-pull effect of the organization.
The Duality of Information Technology Roles
Authors: Hunter M. Gordon
Published: October 2011

This investigation documented the interpretation of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) roles on the senior management team of a financial organization. Confidential one-on-one interviews were conducted to document research participant’s interpretations. A qualitative approach was adopted, employing Narrative Inquiry to document these interpretations. Results suggest that the organization benefits in many ways with these two roles as members of the senior management team. The team is more collaborative and is able to approach planning in a proactive manner, while decision making is both efficient and effective because of the immediate consideration for both the affect on business processes and the availability of technological support.
A Systematic Approach to Evaluating Open Source Software
Authors: Ahmad Norita , Laplante Phillip A.
Published: October 2011

Selecting appropriate Open Source Software (OSS) for a given problem or a set of requirements can be very challenging. Some of the difficulties are due to the fact that there is not a generally accepted set of criteria to use in evaluation and that there are usually many OSS projects available to solve a particular problem. In this study, the authors propose a set of criteria and a methodology for assessing candidate OSS for fitness of purpose using both functional and non-functional factors. The authors then use these criteria in an improved solution to the decision problem using the well-developed Analytical Hierarchy Process. In order to validate the proposed model, it is applied at a technology management company in the United Arab Emirates, which integrates many OSS solutions into its Information Technology infrastructure. The contribution of this work is to help decision makers to better identify an appropriate OSS solution using a systematic approach without the need for intensive performance testing.
Citizen Journalism
Authors: Aborisade Olubunmi P. , Howard Caroline , Beasley Debra , Livingood Richard
Published: October 2011

Recent national and international developments are demonstrating the power of technology to transform communication channels, media sources, events, and the fundamental nature of journalism. Technological advances now allow citizens to record and instantly publicize information and images for immediate distribution on ubiquitous communication networks using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. These technologies are enabling non-journalists to become “citizen reporters” (also known as “citizen journalists”), who record and report information over informal networks or via traditional mass media channels. Against the background of media repression in Nigeria, the article reports on a study that examined the impacts of technology on the journalism business as a way of understanding how citizen-reporters impact the journalism business in Nigeria. Specifically, the focus of the study was on Nigerian citizen-reporters (bloggers, social media, online news, and online discussion groups), their roles, and the impacts on Nigeria’s political struggle, free press, and free speech.
Critical Analysis of Expansion Strategies of SAP, IBM, Oracle and Microsoft in the area of Business Intelligence
Authors: Singh N. P. , Nayeem M Mohammad Jaffer
Published: October 2011

Business Intelligence (BI) industry has emerged as a high growth area. Recognizing this fact, both pure play vendors as well as big application and infrastructure vendors are trying different strategies to increase their market shares. The paper starts with a discussion of BI industry since 2002 to understand the underlying dynamics of the BI industry. It is followed by analysis of BI growth strategies of big four application and infrastructure vendors—SAP, IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft—to get a bigger pie of the market. The paper also analyzes the customer reactions to the new BI paradigm, impact of the acquisition on BI market and concluding remarks on the acquisition of pure play vendors by big four.
Use of Technology in the Household
Authors: Jackson Barcus , Howard Caroline , Laplante Phillip
Published: October 2011

Since the 1980s, personal computer ownership has become ubiquitous, and people are increasingly using household technologies for a wide variety of purposes. Extensive IS research has resulted in useful models to explain workplace technology acceptance and household technology adoption. Studies have also found the determinants underlying technology acceptance in the workplace and household adoption are very different from the determinants of household use. Thus, while a great deal is known about workplace acceptance and household adoption, less is known about household technology use. As home computer use becomes prevalent, fewer households are left to adopt and it becomes increasingly important to understand household use. This paper presents the results of an exploratory study of 202 users of household personal computers to test a new model derived from the Model of Acceptance of Technology in the Household (MATH) and another behavior model based on a Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior.
A Proposed Architecture for Autonomous Mobile Agent Intrusion Prevention and Malware Defense in Heterogeneous Networks
Authors: Seale Robert O. , Hargiss Kathleen M.
Published: October 2011

This paper proposes an architecture that can support autonomous mobile agents performing intrusion prevention activities on a heterogeneous network. The division of duties performed by the agents in the system ensures the agents are able to remain distributed throughout the network architecture to eliminate single points of failure. The distributed nature of the architecture reduces the workload on network clients and eliminates duplication of effort wherever possible. The use of virtual machine interfaces between the hardware and the network connection isolates the hardware interface in order to maintain trust and integrity of the connection and reduce the potential for an attacker using a trusted resource to damage network assets. Virtual machine connections allow a potential malware infection that invades the network environment to be safely observed for unusual behavior patterns using heuristic analysis to provide new evidentiary indicators that can be used to identify the malware during future outbreaks.
Boundaries of Socio-Technical Systems and IT for Knowledge Development in Military Environments
Authors: Ariely Gil-Ad
Published: October 2011

This article explores the boundaries of socio-technical IT systems for knowledge development, using military environments in a case study approach. The need to examine the effects of socio-technical convergence of human systems and computer systems is emerging in many fields. The article examines both the risks and the potential in military critical-environments for early adoption of socio-technical systems. The author addresses risks for creative knowledge creation by too-early adoption of information technology and the effects on socio-technical systems and sense-making. Such risks are more easily highlighted in a critical, stressful environment (stressful for man, machine, and their co-operation) with high-stakes. However, examined military environments are proposed as point of reference leading to further research in other sectors. The author argues for a socio-technical analysis before, during, and after adoption of new systems, especially those relating to knowledge development, reviewing boundaries created. Finally, the author discusses the future promise of socio-technical convergence of man-machine for knowledge development.
On Cognitive Models of Causal Inferences and Causation Networks
Authors: Wang Yingxu
Published: October 2011

Human thought, perception, reasoning, and problem solving are highly dependent on causal inferences. This paper presents a set of cognitive models for causation analyses and causal inferences. The taxonomy and mathematical models of causations are created. The framework and properties of causal inferences are elaborated. Methodologies for uncertain causal inferences are discussed. The theoretical foundation of humor and jokes as false causality is revealed. The formalization of causal inference methodologies enables machines to mimic complex human reasoning mechanisms in cognitive informatics, cognitive computing, and computational intelligence.
Medical Image Classification Using an Optimal Feature Extraction Algorithm and a Supervised Classifier Technique
Authors: Kharrat Ahmed , Gasmi Karim , Ben Messaoud Mohamed , Benamrane Nacéra , Abid Mohamed
Published: October 2011

A new approach for automated diagnosis and classification of Magnetic Resonance (MR) human brain images is proposed. The proposed method uses Wavelets Transform (WT) as input module to Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). It segregates MR brain images into normal and abnormal. This contribution employs genetic algorithm for feature selection which requires much lighter computational burden in comparison with Sequential Floating Backward Selection (SFBS) and Sequential Floating Forward Selection (SFFS) methods. A percentage reduction rate of 88.63% is achieved. An excellent classification rate of 100% could be achieved using the support vector machine. The observed results are significantly better than the results reported in a previous research work employing Wavelet Transform and Support Vector Machine.
A Value-Based Framework for Software Evolutionary Testing
Authors: Zhang Du
Published: October 2011

The fundamental objective in value-based software engineering is to integrate consistent stakeholder value propositions into the full extent of software engineering principles and practices so as to increase the value for software assets. In such a value-based setting, artifacts in software development such as requirement specifications, use cases, test cases, or defects, are not treated as equally important during the development process. Instead, they will be differentiated according to how much they are contributing, directly or indirectly, to the stakeholder value propositions. The higher the contributions, the more important the artifacts become. In turn, development activities involving more important artifacts should be given higher priorities and greater considerations in the development process. In this paper, a value-based framework is proposed for carrying out software evolutionary testing with a focus on test data generation through genetic algorithms. The proposed framework incorporates general principles in value-based software testing and makes it possible to prioritize testing decisions that are rooted in the stakeholder value propositions. It allows for a cost-effective way to fulfill most valuable testing objectives first and a graceful degradation when planned testing process has to be shortened.
Performance Evaluation of Secure Key Deployment and Exchange Protocol for MANETs
Authors: Nisbet Alastair , Rashid M. A.
Published: October 2011

Secure Key Deployment and Exchange Protocol (SKYE) is a new encryption Key Management Scheme (KMS) based on combination of features from recent protocols combined with new features for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs). The design focuses on a truly ad hoc networking environment where geographical size of the network, numbers of network members, and mobility of the members is all unknown before deployment. Additionally, all key management is performed online making it distinct from most other implementations. This paper attempts to describe the process of development of the protocol and to more thoroughly discuss the simulation software design used to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol. Simulation results show that security within the network can be increased by requiring more servers to collaborate to produce a certificate for the new member, or by requiring a higher trust threshold along the certificate request chain. SKYE works well within the limitations set by entirely online network formation and key management.
A Formal Language for XML Authorisations Based on Answer Set Programming and Temporal Interval Logic Constraints
Authors: Policarpio Sean , Zhang Yan
Published: October 2011

The Extensible Markup Language is susceptible to security breaches because it does not incorporate methods to protect the information it encodes. This work focuses on the development of a formal language that can provide role-based access control to information stored in XML formatted documents. This language has the capacity to reason whether access to an XML document should be allowed. The language, Axml(T), allows for the specification of authorisations on XML documents and distinguishes itself from other research with the inclusion of temporal interval reasoning and the XPath query language.
Analysis of ANSI RBAC Support in EJB
Authors: Darwish Wesam , Beznosov Konstantin
Published: October 2011

This paper analyzes access control mechanisms of the Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) architecture and defines a configuration of the EJB protection system in a more precise and less ambiguous language than the EJB 3.0 standard. Using this configuration, the authors suggest an algorithm that formally specifies the semantics of authorization decisions in EJB. The level of support is analyzed for the American National Standard Institute’s (ANSI) specification of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) components and functional specification in EJB. The results indicate that the EJB specification falls short of supporting even Core ANSI RBAC. EJB extensions dependent on the operational environment are required in order to support ANSI RBAC required components. Other vendor-specific extensions are necessary to support ANSI RBAC optional components. Fundamental limitations exist, however, due to the impracticality of some aspects of the ANSI RBAC standard itself. This paper sets up a framework for assessing implementations of ANSI RBAC for EJB systems.
Using Executable Slicing to Improve Rogue Software Detection Algorithms
Authors: Durand Jan , Flores Juan , Atkison Travis , Kraft Nicholas , Smith Randy
Published: October 2011

This paper describes a research effort to use executable slicing as a pre-processing aid to improve the prediction performance of rogue software detection. The prediction technique used here is an information retrieval classifier known as cosine similarity that can be used to detect previously unknown, known or variances of known rogue software by applying the feature extraction technique of randomized projection. This paper provides direction in answering the question of is it possible to only use portions or subsets, known as slices, of an application to make a prediction on whether or not the software contents are rogue. This research extracts sections or slices from potentially rogue applications and uses these slices instead of the entire application to make a prediction. Results show promise when applying randomized projections to cosine similarity for the predictions, with as much as a 4% increase in prediction performance and a five-fold decrease in processing time when compared to using the entire application.
Ell Secure Information System Using Modal Logic Technique
Authors: Bai Yun , Khan Khaled M.
Published: October 2011

In this paper, the authors propose a formal logic technique to protect information systems. As the widespread use of computer systems grows, the security of the information stored in such systems has become more important. As a security mechanism, authorization or access control ensures that all accesses to the system resources occur exclusively according to the access polices and rules specified by the system security agent. Authorization specification has been widely studied and a variety of approaches have been investigated. The authors propose a formal language with modal logic to specify the system security policies. The authors also provide the reasoning in response to system access requests, especially in situations where the security agent’s knowledge base is incomplete. The semantics of this language is provided by translating it into epistemic logic program in which knowledge related modal operators are employed to represent agents’ knowledge in reasoning. The authors demonstrate how this approach handles the situation where the security agent’s knowledge on access decision is incomplete. The proposed mechanism effectively prevents unauthorized and malicious access to information systems.
Organizational Patterns for Security and Dependability
Authors: Asnar Yudis , Massacci Fabio , Saidane Ayda , Riccucci Carlo , Felici Massimo , Tedeschi Alessandra , El-Khoury Paul , Li Keqin , Séguran Magali , Zannone Nicola
Published: October 2011

Designing secure and dependable IT systems requires a deep analysis of organizational as well as social aspects of the environment where the system will operate. Domain experts and analysts often face security and dependability (S&D) issues they have already encountered before. These concerns require the design of S&D patterns to facilitate designers when developing IT systems. This article presents the experience in designing S&D organizational patterns, which was gained in the course of an industry lead EU project. The authors use an agent-goal-oriented modeling framework (i.e., the SI* framework) to analyze organizational settings jointly with technical functionalities. This framework can assist domain experts and analysts in designing S&D patterns from their experience, validating them by proof-of-concept implementations, and applying them to increase the security level of the system.
Value-Adding to Public Services Through the Adoption of Lean Thinking
Authors: Jaaron Ayham A. M. , Backhouse Chris J.
Published: October 2011

This paper describes an investigation into alternative management models applied to public call centres operations with the aim of delivering significant added value to the overall public firm. Call centres offer significant potential for value creation. However, in practice they are often created as mechanistic organisations and managed in such a way is to inhibit value creation. An investigation in a UK city council was carried out through the means of a case study using both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect data from directors, middle-managers and employees to evaluate the development of a lean thinking type of call centre. The results indicate that by implementing the lean thinking approach to the design of call centre service operations significant, but often counter-intuitive, benefits can be created. Lean thinking was found to yield improvements in service performance, value work productivity, and employees’ affective commitment. Evidence on lean value-added to the public call centres is very limited, this paper addresses this shortcoming.
Enabling Intelligence in Web-Based Collaborative Knowledge Management System
Authors: Maleewong Krissada , Anutariya Chutiporn , Wuwongse Vilas
Published: October 2011

This paper presents an approach to enhance various intelligent services of a Web-based collaborative knowledge management system. The proposed approach applies the two widely-used argumentation technologies, namely IBIS and Toulmin’s argumentation schemes, to structurally capture the deliberation and collaboration occurred during the consensual knowledge creation process. It employs RDF and OWL as its underlying knowledge representation language with well-defined semantics and reasoning mechanisms. Users can easily create knowledge using a simple corresponding graphical notation with machine-processable semantics. Derivation of implicit knowledge, similar concept discovery, as well as semantic search, are also enabled. In addition, the proposed approach incorporates the term suggestion function for assisting users in the knowledge creation process by computing the relevance score for each relevant term, and presenting the most relevant terms to users for possible term reusing or equivalence concepts mapping. To ensure the knowledge consistency, a logical mechanism for validating conflicting arguments and contradicting concepts is also developed. Founded on the proposed approach, a Web-based system, namely ciSAM, is implemented and available for public usage.
Implementing Background Net with Knowware System for Personalized Keyword Support
Authors: Chen Yuan , Ding Liya , Lo Sio-Long , Chiu Dickson K.W.
Published: October 2011

This article proposes a novel approach that combines user’s instant requirement described in keywords with her or his long-term knowledge background to better serve article selection based on personal preference. The knowledge background is represented as a weighted undirected graph called background net that captures the contextual association of words that appear in the articles recommended by the user through incremental learning. With a background net of user constructed, a keyword from the user is personalized to a fuzzy set that represents contextual association of the given keyword to other words involved in the user’s background net. An article evaluation with personal preference can be achieved by evaluating similarity between personalized keyword set based on user’s background net and a candidate article. The proposed approach makes it possible to construct a search engine optimizer running on the top of search engines to adjust search results, and offer the potential to be integrated with existing search engine techniques to achieve better performance. The target system of personalized article selection can be automatically constructed using Knowware System which is a development tool of KBS for convenient modeling and component reuse.
Flexible Provenance Tracing
Authors: Wang Liwei , Koehler Henning , Deng Ke , Zhou Xiaofang , Sadiq Shazia
Published: October 2011

The description of the origins of a piece of data and the transformations by which it arrived in a database is termed the data provenance. The importance of data provenance has already been widely recognized in database community. The two major approaches to representing provenance information use annotations and inversion. While annotation is metadata pre-computed to include the derivation history of a data product, the inversion method finds the source data based on the situation that some derivation process can be inverted. Annotations are flexible to represent diverse provenance metadata but the complete provenance data may outsize data itself. Inversion method is concise by using a single inverse query or function but the provenance needs to be computed on-the-fly. This paper proposes a new provenance representation which is a hybrid of annotation and inversion methods in order to achieve combined advantage. This representation is adaptive to the storage constraint and the response time requirement of provenance inversion on-the-fly.
Segmentation Matters
Authors: Sell Anna , Walden Pirkko , Carlsson Christer
Published: October 2011

Despite the penetration of mobile phones in the world the number of mobile services in actual use is – besides voice calls and SMS – rather few. In the study at hand, the authors describe users of mobile phones and mobile services and build the basis for segmentation of the consumer market based on a large random sample of the population. Selecting the correct segmentation base is one of the key steps in any segmentation procedure. The authors carried out life-style segmentation and found five segments – the skillful, the efficient, the trendy, the basic and the social – which offer a systematic description of the mobile consumers, and gives insight on how different users make use of mobile services. The findings are potentially important as mobile service providers do not appear to pay enough attention to consumer segments and the needs of the mobile service users.
Numeric Query Answering on the Web
Authors: O’Hara Steven , Bylander Tom
Published: October 2011

Query answering usually assumes that the asker is looking for a single correct answer to the question. When retrieving a textual answer this is often the case, but when searching for numeric answers, there are additional considerations. In particular, numbers often have units associated with them, and the asker may not care whether the raw answer is in feet or meters. Also, numbers usually denote a precision. In a few cases, the precision may be explicit, but normally, there is an implied precision associated with every number. Finally, an association between different reliability levels to different sources can be made. In this paper, the authors experimentally show that, in the context of conflicting answers from multiple sources, numeric query accuracy can be improved by taking advantage of units, precision, and the reliability of sources.
A Modal Defeasible Reasoner of Deontic Logic for the Semantic Web
Authors: Kontopoulos Efstratios , Bassiliades Nick , Governatori Guido , Antoniou Grigoris
Published: October 2011

Defeasible logic is a non-monotonic formalism that deals with incomplete and conflicting information, whereas modal logic deals with the concepts of necessity and possibility. These types of logics play a significant role in the emerging Semantic Web, which enriches the available Web information with meaning, leading to better cooperation between end-users and applications. Defeasible and modal logics, in general, and, particularly, deontic logic provide means for modeling agent communities, where each agent is characterized by its cognitive profile and normative system, as well as policies, which define privacy requirements, access permissions, and individual rights. Toward this direction, this article discusses the extension of DR-DEVICE, a Semantic Web-aware defeasible reasoner, with a mechanism for expressing modal logic operators, while testing the implementation via deontic logic operators, concerned with obligations, permissions, and related concepts. The motivation behind this work is to develop a practical defeasible reasoner for the Semantic Web that takes advantage of the expressive power offered by modal logics, accompanied by the flexibility to define diverse agent behaviours. A further incentive is to study the various motivational notions of deontic logic and discuss the cognitive state of agents, as well as the interactions among them.
Concept Induction in Description Logics Using Information-Theoretic Heuristics
Authors: Fanizzi Nicola
Published: October 2011

This paper presents an approach to ontology construction pursued through the induction of concept descriptions expressed in Description Logics. The author surveys the theoretical foundations of the standard representations for formal ontologies in the Semantic Web. After stating the learning problem in this peculiar context, a FOIL-like algorithm is presented that can be applied to learn DL concept descriptions. The algorithm performs a search through a space of candidate concept definitions by means of refinement operators. This process is guided by heuristics that are based on the available examples. The author discusses related theoretical aspects of learning with the inherent incompleteness underlying the semantics of this representation. The experimental evaluation of the system DL-Foil, which implements the learning algorithm, was carried out in two series of sessions on real ontologies from standard repositories for different domains expressed in diverse description logics.
Using Similarity-Based Approaches for Continuous Ontology Development
Authors: Ramezani Maryam
Published: October 2011

This paper presents novel algorithms for learning semantic relations from an existing ontology or concept hierarchy. The authors suggest recommendation of semantic relations for supporting continuous ontology development, i.e., the development of ontologies during their use in social semantic bookmarking, semantic wiki, or other Web 2.0 style semantic applications. This paper assists users in placing a newly added concept in a concept hierarchy. The proposed algorithms are evaluated using datasets from Wikipedia category hierarchy and provide recommendations.
Deployment and Success Factors for the Mobile Internet
Authors: Petrova Krassie , Huang Raymond Yiwen
Published: October 2011

The mobile Internet is a fast-growing technology that provides access to the traditional stationary (fixed-line) Internet from devices connected to mobile communication networks. It is predicted that the convergence between mobile networks and the fixed-line Internet will be a core feature in the next generation network architecture, achieving fast ‘anywhere’ Internet access and global mobility management. Applying a case study approach, this paper reviews the New Zealand mobile Internet market mix, competition, and mobile service provision. The key mobile Internet deployment requirements are determined and analyzed in order to identify a set of mobile Internet critical success factors and to investigate the impact of the shift from fixed-line to mobile and wireless Internet data communication infrastructure.
Information Hiding Using Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm
Authors: Awad Wasan Shaker
Published: October 2011

This paper aims to find an effective and efficient information hiding method used for protecting secret information by embedding it in a cover media such as images. Finding the optimal set of the image pixel bits to be substituted by the secret message bits, such that the cover image is of high quality, is a complex process and there is an exponential number of feasible solutions. Two new ant-based algorithms are proposed and compared with other algorithms. The experimental results show that ant colony optimization algorithm can find the solution efficiently and effectively by finding the optimal set of pixel bits in a few number of iterations and with least Mean Square Error (MSE) comparable with genetic and genetic simulated annealing algorithms.
Biometrics
Authors: Sayoud Halim
Published: October 2011

The term biometrics is derived from the Greek words: bio (life) and metrics (to measure). “Biometric technologies” are defined as automated methods of verifying or recognizing the identity of a living person based on a physiological or behavioral characteristic. Several techniques and features were used over time to recognize human beings several years before the birth of Christ. Today, this research field has become very employed in many applications such as security applications, multimedia applications and banking applications. Also, many methods have been developed to strengthen the biometric accuracy and reduce the imposture errors by using several features such as face, speech, iris, finger vein, etc. From a security purpose and economic point of view, biometrics has brought a great benefit and has become an important tool for governments and institutions. However, citizens are expressing their thorough worry, which is due to the freedom limitations and loss of privacy. This paper briefly presents some new technologies that have recently been proposed in biometrics with their levels of reliability, and discusses the different social and ethic problems that may result from the abusive use of these technologies.
Socio-Technical Influences of Cyber Espionage
Authors: Lin Xue , Luppicini Rocci
Published: October 2011

Technoethical inquiry deals with a variety of social, legal, cultural, economic, political, and ethical implications of new technological applications which can threaten important aspects of contemporary life and society. GhostNet is a large-scale cyber espionage network which has infiltrated important political, economic, and media institutions including embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices in 103 countries and infected at least 1,295 computers. The following case study explores the influences of GhostNet on affected organizations by critically reviewing GhostNet documentation and relevant literature on cyber espionage. The research delves into the socio-technical aspects of cyber espionage through a case study of GhostNet. Drawing on Actor Network Theory (ANT), the research examined key socio-technical relations of Ghostnet and their influence on affected organizations. Implications of these findings for the phenomenon of GhostNet are discussed in the hope of raising awareness about the importance of understanding the dynamics of socio-technical relations of cyber-espionage within organizations.
Chicken Killers or Bandwidth Patriots?
Authors: Reymers Kurt
Published: October 2011

In 2008, a resident of a computerized virtual world called “Second Life” programmed and began selling a “realistic” virtual chicken. It required food and water to survive, was vulnerable to physical damage, and could reproduce. This development led to the mass adoption of chicken farms and large-scale trade in virtual chickens and eggs. Not long after the release of the virtual chickens, a number of incidents occurred which demonstrate the negotiated nature of territorial and normative boundaries. Neighbors of chicken farmers complained of slow performance of the simulation and some users began terminating the chickens, kicking or shooting them to “death.” All of these virtual world phenomena, from the interactive role-playing of virtual farmers to the social, political and economic repercussions within and beyond the virtual world, can be examined with a critical focus on the ethical ramifications of virtual world conflicts. This paper views the case of the virtual chicken wars from three different ethical perspectives: as a resource dilemma, as providing an argument from moral and psychological harm, and as a case in which just war theory can be applied.
A Comparative Case Study of Indonesian and UK Organisational Culture Differences in IS Project Management
Authors: McDonald Andrew , Helmer Sven
Published: October 2011

Information Systems (IS) Project Management (PM) is fundamental to the modern, constantly changing and upgrading business world and is impacted by culture on many levels. This research shows the extent to which organisational culture in international IS projects is impacted by culture found on a national level. Current data contributing to IS PM knowledge is provided by investigating two Information Technology (IT) firms in the telecommunications sector based in Indonesia and the United Kingdom undergoing system upgrade projects using a survey and interviews. Differing trends between these organisational cultures are identified (and a third international control group) in regard to hierarchical structures and managing conflict employing a version of Hofstede’s cultural survey as a basis.
Factors Enhancing Employed Job Seekers Intentions to Use Social Networking Sites as a Job Search Tool
Authors: Suki Norazah Mohd , Ramayah T. , Ming Michelle Kow Pei , Suki Norbayah Mohd
Published: October 2011

This paper explores the factors of enhancing employed job seekers intention to use social networking sites as a job search tool. 190 survey questionnaires were distributed to employed job seekers who have used social networking sites via the snowball sampling approach. The collected data were analysed using both linear and multiple regression analysis. The results showed that perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment are positively and significantly related to the behavioural intention to use social networking sites as a job search tool, whereas perceived ease of use is not positively and significantly related. The study implies that the developers of social networking sites need to provide additional useful functionalities or tools in the social networking sites to help users of social networking sites with their job search. The paper provides an insight for employed jobseekers to find employment by using social networking sites as a job search tool.
Antecedents of Consumer Acceptance of Mobile Television Advertising
Authors: Truong Yann
Published: October 2011

Through a questionnaire survey, this study identifies and investigates seven antecedents of consumer acceptance of mobile TV advertising. Negative factors include intrusiveness, lack of trust in the advertiser, and excessive frequency; positive influences include enjoyment, originality, value, and relevance. The study proposes and validates two measurement models of these antecedents and provides insights into the most influential factors of consumer acceptance. Excessive frequency of advertisements and lack of trust in the advertiser present the two largest obstacles to consumer acceptance of this medium, while the entertainment aspects of advertising offer the major positive factors in gaining acceptance. The study recommends that mobile TV advertising stakeholders focus on achieving appropriate frequency, overcoming lack of trust in the advertiser, and providing enjoyment and originality, as these are the largest contributors to higher consumer acceptance.
Modelling Factors Influencing Early Adopters’ Purchase Intention Towards Online Music
Authors: Suki Norazah Mohd
Published: October 2011

The Internet is an incredible technology, offering users a vast choice of new songs and catalogue that can be browsed, streamed or bought online. This paper aims to provide an explanation of factors influencing purchase intention of early adopters towards online music. An empirical survey was used to test the hypotheses. Data were collected from a total of 200 questionnaires distributed to early adopters of online music and were analysed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) via the Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS 16) computer program. Results enumerate that perceived ease of use emerges as the important factor which affects perceived value among the respondents followed by perceived playfulness. Perceived value has the only significant impact on the purchase intentions towards online music. The paper rounds off with conclusions and an agenda for future research in this area.
Public Representation of Ubiquitous ICT Applications in the Outpatient Health Sector
Authors: Moser Stephanie , Bruppacher Susanne Elisabeth , de Simoni Frederic
Published: October 2011

ICT advances will bring a new generation of ubiquitous applications, opening up new possibilities for the health sector. However, the social impacts of this trend have largely remained unexplored. This study investigates the public representation of future ICT applications in the outpatient health sector in terms of their social acceptance. Mental models of ICT applications were elicited from inhabitants of Berlin, Germany, by means of qualitative interviews. The findings revealed that the interviewees felt ambivalent about anticipated changes; only if ICT use were to be voluntary and restricted to single applications and trustworthy institutions did they expect individual benefits. Concerns about data transmission to unauthorized third parties and widespread technological dissemination forcing compulsory participation led people to feel averse to such technology. Implications for potential implementation of future ICT applications in the outpatient health sector are discussed.
Social Identity in Facebook Community Life
Authors: Zhang Shaoke , Jiang Hao , Carroll John M.
Published: October 2011

Social identity is a key construct to understand online community life. While existing online identity studies present a relatively static conception of identity, grounded in user profiles and other personal information, in this paper the authors investigate more dynamic aspects of identity, grounded in patterns of social interaction in Facebook community life, drawing on social science research on identity theory and social identity theory. The authors examine the tensions experienced by people between assimilation and differentiation with respect to group identities and role identities. The study provides a framework for understanding how users construct self-presentations in different online social interactions, actively managing identity, rather than merely declaring it in a relatively static profile. The authors speculate on how social computing environments could more effectively support identity presentation.
Connected Learning in an Australian Technology Program
Authors: Hunter Jane Louise
Published: October 2011

Connected learning using video conferencing, the interactive whiteboard and Web 2.0 tools is possible in the new “interactive classroom” more than 2,240 New South Wales public schools will receive over the next four years. In Australia the New South Wales Department of Education and Training (NSWDET) is delivering $AUS 158 million of infrastructure and services to schools and technical and further education campuses for new technologies and applications to support teaching in the 21st century. The intention of the Connected Classrooms Program is to create a “large connected and collaborative learning community” of teachers, students and parents that can go online for information, resources and communication “anywhere, anytime” across a state that covers over 800,000 square kilometres. This paper describes the three projects in the program, the underpinning prior work and seven teacher professional learning platforms that reference anticipated learning outcomes and future directions. In its third year, this case study is a descriptive insiders snapshot. It provides an overview for project administrators and participants in other national and international education milieu who may be responsible for planning and implementing enhanced technology environments.
Motivation, Engagement and Learning through Digital Games
Authors: Iacovides Ioanna , Aczel James , Scanlon Eileen , Taylor Josie , Woods Will
Published: October 2011

Digital games can be powerful learning environments because they encourage active learning and participation within “affinity groups” (Gee, 2004). However, the use of games in formal educational environments is not always successful (O’Neil et al., 2005). There is a need to update existing theories of motivation and engagement in order to take recent game-related developments into account. Understanding the links between why people play games, what keeps them engaged in this process, and what they learn as a result could have a significant impact on how people value and use games for learning. This paper examines key research that relates to motivation, engagement, and informal learning through digital games, in order to highlight the need for empirical studies which examine the activities that occur in and around everyday gaming practice.
The Siren Song of Digital Simulation
Authors: Clyde Jerremie , Wilkinson Glenn
Published: October 2011

This paper contrasts the importance of procedural rhetoric for the use of games in university and college level historical education with the use of history themed digital simulations. This paper starts by examining how history functions as a form of disciplinary knowledge and how this disciplinary way of knowing things is taught in the post secondary history course. The manner in which history is taught is contrasted with its evaluation to better define what students are actually expected to learn. The simulation is then examined in light of learning goals and evaluation. This demonstrates that simulations are a poor fit for most post secondary history courses. The more appropriate and effective choice is to construct the past via procedural rhetoric as a way to use digital video games to make the historical argument.
From the Games Industry
Authors: Hollins Paul , Whitton Nicola
Published: October 2011

This paper draws on lessons learned from the development process of the entertainment games industry and discusses how they can be applied to the field of game-based learning. This paper examines policy makers and those wishing to commission or develop games for learning and highlights potential opportunities as well as pitfalls. The paper focuses on ten key points in which the authors feel from experience in both commercial game development and education that parallels are drawn between the entertainment and educational games development processes.
Constructivism in Synchronous and Asynchronous Virtual Learning Environments for a Research Methods Course
Authors: Strang Kenneth David
Published: October 2011

Virtual learning is a popular teaching modality, and it has been reported in research that there is no significant difference in academic outcome as compared with face-to-face courses. Not all researchers agree with this assertion and some claim it is more difficult to teach math-oriented subjects online. Given that educational psychology theories are effective for teaching quantitative topics in the face-to-face modality, this study proposes and tests methods for virtual learning. Constructivism learning theory is applied using knowledge management principles to teach an online masters-level research methods course at an Australian university. Asynchronous and synchronous tools are used in the VLE, and contrasted in a controlled experiment. The hypothesis is student grades will be significantly higher when the constructivist instructional method is applied to the synchronous VLE.