bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Schedule-Aware Transactions for Ambient Intelligence Environments
Authors: Fotopoulos Vasileios , Zarras Apostolos , Vassiliadis Panos
Published: February 2011

In this paper, the authors investigate the concept of designing user-centric transaction protocols toward achieving dependable coordination in AmI environments. As a proof-of-concept, this paper presents a protocol that takes into account the schedules of roaming users, which move from one AmI environment to another, avoiding abnormal termination of transactions when users leave an environment for a short time and return later. The authors compare the proposed schedule-aware protocol against a schedule-agnostic one. Findings show that the use of user-centric information in such situations is quite beneficial.
Buffer Management in Cellular IP Networks using Evolutionary Algorithms
Authors: Anbar Mohammad , Vidyarthi Deo P.
Published: February 2011

Real-time traffic in Cellular IP network is considered to be important and therefore given priority over non-real-time. Buffer is an important but scarce resource and to optimize Quality of Service by managing buffers of the network is an important and complex problem. Evolutionary Algorithms are quite useful in solving such complex optimization problems, and in this regard, a two-tier model for buffer, Gateway and Base Station, management in Cellular IP network has been propsed. The first tier applies a prioritization algorithm for prioritizing real-time packets in the buffer of the gateway with a specified threshold. Packets which couldn’t be served, after the threshold, is given to the nearest cells of the network to be dealt with in the second tier, while Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) based procedures are applied in order to optimally store these packets in the buffer of the base stations. Experiments have been conducted to observe the performance of the proposed models and a comparative study of the models, GA based and PSO based, has been carried out to depict the advantage and disadvantage of the proposed models.
Using Evolution Strategies to Perform Stellar Population Synthesis for Galaxy Spectra from SDSS
Authors: Gomez Juan Carlos , Fuentes Olac
Published: February 2011

In this work, the authors employ Evolution Strategies (ES) to automatically extract a set of physical parameters, corresponding to stellar population synthesis, from a sample of galaxy spectra taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This parameter extraction is presented as an optimization problem and being solved using ES. The idea is to reconstruct each galaxy spectrum by means of a linear combination of three different theoretical models for stellar population synthesis. This combination produces a model spectrum that is compared with the original spectrum using a simple difference function. The goal is to find a model that minimizes this difference, using ES as the algorithm to explore the parameter space. This paper presents experimental results using a set of 100 spectra from SDSS Data Release 2 that show that ES are very well suited to extract stellar population parameters from galaxy spectra. Additionally, in order to better understand the performance of ES in this problem, a comparison with two well known stochastic search algorithms, Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Simulated Annealing (SA), is presented.
Similarities between Competitors and the Implications for Location Strategies
Authors: Joseph Lawrence
Published: February 2011

Although Burger King and McDonald’s are widely recognized as direct competitors, there may be enough differences in customer profiles between the two chains to recommend or justify divergent location strategies. In this regard, the authors use ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression to test whether site and trade-area criteria can explain individual store sales and if such criteria are consistent for both chains. This research shows that there are situations where locational factors may have directionally different effects on store sales of the two chains. While Burger King generally experienced higher sales in denser urban areas with higher proportions of minorities, McDonald’s experienced higher sales in suburban areas adjacent to freeways.
Sharing Environmental Data through GEOSS
Authors: Giuliani Gregory , Ray Nicolas , Schwarzer Stefan , De Bono Andrea , Peduzzi Pascal , Dao Hy , Van Woerden Jaap , Witt Ron , Beniston Martin , Lehmann Anthony
Published: February 2011

Understanding the complexity of earth-system processes is crucial to convey improved information on the environment to decision-makers and the general public. Addressing this need by sharing environmental data is challenging because it requires a common agreed framework that allows easy and seamless integration of data from different sources. In this regard, the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) portends major benefits through various sharing mechanisms and by giving access to services that could be linked together to process and generate new understandable knowledge and information. Various United Nations projects could greatly benefit from the GEOSS approach.
Formalizing Cross-Parameter Conditions for Geoprocessing Service Chain Validation
Authors: Fitzner Daniel
Published: February 2011

Geoprocessing operations offered via web services provide the means for building complex web-based geospatial applications. Often, certain postconditions such as the spatial reference system, bounding box, schema or quality that hold on the output dataset after the execution of a geoprocessing service are determined and derived from the properties of the inputs passed to the service. Further, geoprocesses often hold preconditions that relate to more than one input, such as the requirement that all inputs must have the same schema. Within current process descriptions for geoprocessing operations, such conditions which we call cross-parameter conditions, can not be explicitly specified. In this paper, the author gives an approach to formalize such cross input-output and cross input parameter conditions in a rule-based language. Further, the author proposes an algorithm for deriving pre- and postconditions for a service composition or workflow out of the pre- and postconditions of the services involved, allowing a more automated handling of workflows in general.
Target Evaluation and Correlation Method (TECM) as an Assessment Approach to Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)
Authors: Epelbaum Samuel , Mansouri Mo , Gorod Alex , Sauser Brian , Fridman Alexander
Published: February 2011

The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) is a ten-year-long Implementation Plan, which commenced in 2005 as a group effort by numerous participating countries and organizations to build a large-scale network to effectively monitor and respond to the increasingly complex web of global environmental and socio-economic issues. This paper proposes the Target Evaluation and Correlation Method (TECM) as an assessment approach to GEOSS with its 241 Targets across the nine “Societal Benefit Areas,” along with a method to identify Target Correlation Levels (TCL). Applying TECM allows concluding whether the chosen targets within the GEOSS fall into the domain of System of Systems (SoS), while using TCLs delineates the extent of inclusion for these targets in the form of a system. Furthermore, this research investigates the possible ways of raising the correlation levels of the targets for the cases in which TCLs are low.
Non Linear Dynamical Systems and Chaos Synchronization
Authors: Khan Ayub , Singh Prempal
Published: February 2011

In this paper, the authors study chaos synchronization of chaotic systems, which can exhibit a two scroll attractor for different parameter values via linear feedback control. First, chaos synchronization of three dimensional systems is studied and ‘generalized non-linear dynamical systems’ are analyzed. The considered synchronization criterion consists of identical drive and response systems coupled with linear state error variables. As a consequence, the authors have proposed some theorems for synchronization. This paper features sufficient synchronization criteria for the linear coupled generalized non-linear dynamical systems obtained in an explicit algebraic form and the new synchronization criteria for some typical chaotic systems. Finally, the optimized criteria are applied to explain the Rossler system.
Preinvexity and Semi-Continuity of Fuzzy Mappings
Authors: Syau Yu-Ru , Lee E. Stanley
Published: February 2011

In this paper, the relationships between semicontinuity and preinvexity of fuzzy mappings are investigated. The concepts of intermediate-point preinvex fuzzy mappings and weakly preinvex fuzzy mappings are first introduced, and the authors establish a characterization for a weakly preinvex fuzzy mapping in terms of its epigraph. In this context, a characterization of a preinvex fuzzy mapping in terms of its relationship with intermediate-point preinvexity and weakly preinvexity, respectively, is obtained.
Load Balancing for the Dynamic Distributed Double Guided Genetic Algorithm for MAX-CSPs
Authors: Bouamama Sadok , Ghedira Khaled , Zaier Nisrine
Published: February 2011

The Dynamic Distributed Double Guided Genetic Algorithm (D3G2A) deals with Maximal Constraint Satisfaction Problems. The approach consists in creating agents cooperating together to solve problems. This paper aims to improve the D3G2A. The main purpose is to balance agent loads this distributed approach. The proposed approach will redistribute the load of Species agents more equally in order to improve the CPU time. This improvement allows not only reduction of the number of Species agents but also decreases communications agents cost. In this regard, a sub-population is composed of chromosomes violating a number of constraints in the same interval. Secondly, another proposed approach will redistribute the work load. This improvement allows diminution of inactive Species agents and it results in a balanced workloads. In fact, by analogy with social animal flocks, Species agents cooperate together to do all tasks in a reduced CPU time. Several comparisons are made about new approaches with the old version of the D3G2A. Results are promising.
The Analysis of Zero Inventory Drift Variants Based on Simple and General Order-Up-To Policies
Authors: He Jianing , Wang Haibo
Published: February 2011

In this paper, simple and general Order-Up-To (OUT) models with Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) forecast for the AR(1) demand pattern are introduced in the control engineering perspective. Important insights about lead-time misidentification are derived from the analysis of variance discrepancy. By applying the Final Value Theorem (FVI), a final value offset (i.e., inventory drift) is proved to exist and can be measured even though the actual lead-time is known. In this regard, to eliminate the inherent offset and keep the system variances acceptable, two kinds of zero inventory drift variants based on the general OUT model are presented. The analysis of variance amplification suggests lead-times should always be estimated conservatively in variant models. The stability conditions for zero inventory drift variants are evaluated in succession and some valuable attributes of the new variants are illustrated via spreadsheet simulation under the assumption that lead-time misidentification is inevitable.
Have You Taken your Guys on the Journey?
Authors: Cecez-Kecmanovic Dubravka , Nagm Fouad
Published: February 2011

Pre-investment evaluation of information system (IS) project proposals persists to be problematic and highly risky in practice. Numerous evaluation approaches and methodologies offered in the literature have not contributed to major improvements in practice. We propose here a radical departure from the dominant conceptions in IS evaluation literature by adopting Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to provide a better understanding of the evaluation of IS proposals in practice and examine the ways in which the evaluation process shapes and ensures the selection of the best IS projects. By drawing on a field study of the IS evaluation processes in a company with a history of IS successes, we reveal the relational nature of IS project proposals and the ways they are constitutively entangled with business processes and practices. We demonstrate how the practice of IS evaluation produces the ‘object’ it evaluates, and how the IS project proposal is produced as a focal actor by relations in the actor-network emerging around it.
Actor-Network Theory for Service Innovation
Authors: Uden Lorna , Francis Janet
Published: February 2011

Services have become the key value driver for companies. Currently there is a lack of understanding of the science underlying the design and operation of service systems. New conceptual understanding and theoretical underpinnings are required to systematically describe the nature and behaviour of service systems. We believe that Actor Network Theory (ANT) can be used as a theoretical lens to study the development and adoption of service innovation. The development of and adoption of service innovation requires the integration of multiple elements including people, technologies and networks across organisations. Technologies and interests of actors need to be aligned and coordinated for successful service innovation. In this article we show how ANT is adopted as a theoretical framework for understanding the relationships among the actors and show how these actors have their needs shaped by the network formation during the development and adoption of service innovation for a university.
The S'ANT Imperative for Realizing the Vision of Healthcare Network Centric Operations
Authors: Wickramasinghe Nimini , Bali Rajeev K.
Published: February 2011

In the information-intensive environment of healthcare, the networkcentric approach has been proffered as one that allows free and rapid sharing of information and effective knowledge building required for the development of coherent objectives and their rapid attainment. This article asserts that if we are to realize such a vision it is imperative to draw upon strong rich analysis tools and techniques and thus calls for the application of Social Network Analysis combined with Actor-network Theory (S’ANT).
Actor-Network Theory in ICT Research
Authors: Elbanna Amany R.
Published: February 2011

This article examines the properties of ANT in light of other approaches. It argues that ANT provides a theoretical inclusion of what used to be considered different poles. It also argues that ANT analytically includes a wide array of actors that used to be considered of different nature and from different levels of analysis. The study discusses how ANT properties could provide researchers concerned with studying information and communication technology (ICT) with a non-biased lens to explore the phenomena of concern. It invites researchers to reflect on the theoretical and analytical exclusion that could take place at the start of research and how a careful application of ANT could avoid it.
From Intermediary to Mediator and Vice Versa
Authors: Andrade Antonio Díaz
Published: February 2011

Assuming symmetry between human and nonhuman actors is a tenet of actor-network theory (ANT), i.e., an actor, anyone or anything that modifies a state of affairs. This symmetric perspective entails granting agency attributes to both human and nonhuman actors, an approach that has been often criticised. By means of a combination of research observation and participation, the use of electronic mail systems, especially the automatically generated “Out of Office” message, is examined in this article to emphasise the distinction between agency and intentionality. The fundamental assumption is that work practices are nothing less than technology mediated activities and the use of electronic mail and its multiple tools is an inherently sociotechnical practice. The notions of intermediaries and mediators are introduced not only to corroborate that the division between the social and the technical is artificial but also to reveal the difference between nonhuman agency and human intentionality.
Using Actor-Network Theory to Facilitate a Superior Understanding of Knowledge Creation and Knowledge Transfer
Authors: Wickramasinghe Nilmini , Tatnall Arthur , Bali Rajeev K.
Published: February 2011

Given today’s dynamic business environment it becomes essential for organisations to maximise their intellectual assets in order to ensure that they are able to support flexible operations and sustain their competitive advantage. Central to this is the ability to extract germane knowledge to enable rapid and effective decision making. At present, knowledge creation techniques tend to focus on either human or technology aspects of organisational development and less often on process-centric aspects of knowledge generation. However, to truly understand knowledge creation and transfer, thereby enabling an organisation to be better positioned to leverage the full potential of its intellectual capital, it is important to view knowledge creation and all socio-technical organisational operations that result in knowledge generation through a richer lens. Actor-network Theory is proffered in this article as such a lens.
Making Information Systems Material through Blackboxing
Authors: Underwood Jim , Tabak Edin
Published: February 2011

In this paper, a case study of the evolution of an organisational intranet is used to compare the concepts of “materiality” with actor-network theory’s black-boxing. The authors argue that information systems need to become material through “due process”. Through this paper, questions arise as to what types of material allies are useful in this process, and whether these allies can co-evolve (or “co-materialise”) with the system. In this case there seemed to be existing technical actors, but the authors question whether this is always the case.
Institutionalisation of the Enterprise Architecture
Authors: Iyamu Tiko
Published: February 2011

Despite impressive technical advances in tools and methodologies and the organizational insights provided by many years of academic and business research, the underperformance of Information Technology (IT) remains. In the past and even today, organizations experience difficulty in managing technology, changing from system to system, implementing new technology, maintaining compatibility with existing technologies, and changing from one business process to another. These challenges impact significantly on business performance and will continue to do so if not addressed. As a result, many organizations have deployed Enterprise Architecture (EA) in an attempt to address these challenges. However, the design and development of EA has proven to be easier than its institutionalization. The study explored the development and implementation of EA to determine the factors, which influences the institutionalization. Two case studies were conducted and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) was employed in the analysis of the data.
RFID in Healthcare
Authors: Buyurgan Nebil , Hardgrave Bill C. , Lo Janice , Walker Ronald T.
Published: February 2011

With its potential and unique uses, healthcare is one of the major sectors where radio frequency identification (RFID) is being considered and adopted. Improving the healthcare supply chain, patient safety, and monitoring of critical processes are some of the key drivers that motivate healthcare industry participants to invest in this technology. Many forward-looking healthcare organizations have put the potential of RFID into practice and are realizing the benefits of it. This study examines these empirical applications and provides a framework of current RFID deployment in the healthcare industry and opportunities for continued deployment. This framework also presents a categorical analysis of the benefits that have been observed by the healthcare industry. In addition, major implementation challenges are discussed. The framework suggests asset management, inventory management, authenticity management, identity management, and process management are the broad areas in which RFID adoptions can be categorized.
Understanding Consumers' Behaviour when Using a Mobile Phone as a Converged Device
Authors: Chang Po-Chien
Published: February 2011

The phenomenon of convergence has caused huge impact on the digital economy. Although this concept has attracted salient interests and discussions for two decades, it lacks of conceptual framework from the consumer perspectives. On the other hand, research on the adoption of mobile devices provided little information to the understanding of individual adoption of mobile phones as converged devices, such as the use of mobile phones for personal information management (PIM), entertainment, e-mail and commerce. For developing an empirical model, this research conducted 50 personal interviews. The results indicate individuals’ age and choices of device type/service plan significantly differentiate the extent use of mobile phones. The relative factors that may influence the use of mobile phones for a specific purpose are also identified. In summary, this research provides a preliminary study to the understanding of consumer behaviours and the development of convergent technologies.
iCAAS
Authors: Di Martino Catello , D’Avino Gabriele , Testa Alessandro
Published: February 2011

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are spreading as a common mean for mitigating installation and management cost in environment monitoring applications. The increasing complexity ad heterogeneity of such WSN and the differentiated users needs calls for innovative solutions for managing and accessing produced data. This paper presents an architecture, named iCAAS, designed to collect, store, manage and make available to users data received from heterogeneous WSNs. The objective of the architecture is to adaptively deliver data to users depending on their specific interests and transparently to adopted terminals and of networks details. The contribution of the paper is twofold. First the authors detail the requirements that these types of architectures should meet to fill the gap between sensors, details, and users needs. Second, the authors describe the structural organization of the proposed architecture, designed by taking into account the defined requirements. Implementation details and case studies are also provided, showing the effectiveness of the architecture when used in real world application scenarios. Finally, iCAAS architecture’s scalability is tested against the number of concurrent client querying the same time.
Beernet
Authors: Mejías B. , Van Roy P.
Published: February 2011

Distributed systems with a centralized architecture present the well known problems of single point of failure and single point of congestion; therefore, they do not scale. Decentralized systems, especially as peer-to-peer networks, are gaining popularity because they scale well, and do not need a server to work. However, their complexity is higher due to the lack of a single point of control and synchronization, and because consistent decentralized storage is difficult to maintain when data constantly evolves. Self-management is a way of handling this higher complexity. In this paper, the authors present a decentralized system built with a structured overlay network that is self-organized and self-healing, providing a transactional replicated storage for small or large scale systems.
Impact of Cross-Layer Adaptations of Mobile IP on IEEE 802.11 Networks on Video Streaming
Authors: De Cleyn P. , Blondia C.
Published: February 2011

The OSI network layer model provides a strictly separated stacked architecture to abstract the behavior of one layer from the other. Although this model has a lot of advantages, it also makes it easy to lose the bigger picture. In this paper, the authors describe the advantages that can be made by cross-layering the link layer and networking layer to optimize handovers. The performance gain of these cross-layer adaptations will be analyzed using a simulation scenario and compared to the results from a real-life video streaming test. The authors will show that the performance gain in network parameters cannot be directly mapped on the gain of the video quality.
Non-Intrusive Autonomic Approach with Self-Management Policies Applied to Legacy Infrastructures for Performance Improvements
Authors: Sharrock Rémi , Monteil Thierry , Stolf Patricia , Hagimont Daniel , Broto Laurent
Published: February 2011

The growing complexity of large IT facilities involves important time and effort costs to operate and maintain. Autonomic computing gives a new approach in designing distributed architectures that manage themselves in accordance with high-level objectives. The main issue is that existing architectures do not necessarily follow this new approach. The motivation is to implement a system that can interface heterogeneous components and platforms supplied by different vendors in a non-intrusive and generic manner. The goal is to increase the intelligence of the system by actively monitoring its state and autonomously taking corrective actions without the need to modify the managed system. In this paper, the authors focus on modeling software and hardware architectures as well as describing administration policies using a graphical language inspired from UML. The paper demonstrates that this language is powerful enough to describe complex scenarios and evaluates some self-management policies for performance improvement on a distributed computational jobs load balancer over a grid.
Social Self-Regulation in Computer Mediated Communities
Authors: Goldspink Christopher
Published: February 2011

This article documents the findings of research into the governance mechanisms within the distributed on-line community known as Wikipedia. It focuses in particular on the role of normative mechanisms in achieving social self-regulation. A brief history of the Wikipedia is provided. This concentrates on the debate about governance and also considers characteristics of the wiki technology which can be expected to influence governance processes. The empirical findings are then presented. These focus on how Wikipedians use linguistic cues to influence one another on a sample of discussion pages drawn from both controversial and featured articles. Through this analysis a tentative account is provided of the agent-level cognitive mechanisms which appear necessary to explain the apparent behavioural coordination. The findings are to be used as a foundation for the simulation of ‘normative’ behaviour. The account identifies some of the challenges that need to be addressed in such an attempt including a mismatch between the case findings and assumptions used in past attempts to simulate normative behaviour.
Reinforcement Learning with Reward Shaping and Mixed Resolution Function Approximation
Authors: Grzes Marek , Kudenko Daniel
Published: February 2011

A crucial trade-off is involved in the design process when function approximation is used in reinforcement learning. Ideally the chosen representation should allow representing as close as possible an approximation of the value function. However, the more expressive the representation the more training data is needed because the space of candidate hypotheses is bigger. A less expressive representation has a smaller hypotheses space and a good candidate can be found faster. The core idea of this paper is the use of a mixed resolution function approximation, that is, the use of a less expressive function approximation to provide useful guidance during learning, and the use of a more expressive function approximation to obtain a final result of high quality. A major question is how to combine the two representations. Two approaches are proposed and evaluated empirically.
Agent Interaction via Message-Based Belief Communication
Authors: Conover Adam J. , Hammell Robert J.
Published: February 2011

This work reflects continued research into “temporally autonomous” multi-agent interaction. Many traditional approaches to modeling multi-agent systems involve synchronizing all agent activity in simulated environments to a single “universal’’ clock. In other words, agent behavior is regulated by a global timer where all agents act and interact deterministically in time. However, if the objective of any such simulation is to model the behavior of real-world entities, this discrete timing mechanism yields an artificial reflection of actual physical agent interaction. In addition to the behavioral autonomy normally associated with agents, simulated agents must also have temporal autonomy in order to interact realistically. Inter communication should occur without global coordination or synchronization. To this end, a specialized simulation framework is developed, several simulations are then conducted from which data are gathered and it is subsequently demonstrated that manipulation of the timing variable amongst interacting agents affects the emergent behaviors of agent populations.
Impact on Learner Experience
Authors: Welzant J. Heather
Published: February 2011

This qualitative case study investigated how the integration of a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) curriculum in an online MBA program impacted the learner experience. The learner experience included three stances created by Savin-Baden (2000); personal, pedagogical and interactional. The overarching theme was to examine the experiences of eight learners all in different PBL courses. The primary research question was: How does problem-based learning (PBL) impact the learner experience? Purposeful sampling, specifically multiple variation sampling was chosen. The data was collected in accordance with Yin’s (2003) five key components derived from documentation, archival records and interviews. The variety of data collection methods served to triangulate sources corroborating findings and offsetting the pitfalls of any one given method. Data analysis consisted of the constant comparison method using NVivo7 as the primary data management tool. Key findings correlated with the Savin-Baden (2000) study revealing how the stances were interdependent upon one another.
Towards Learning ‘Self' and Emotional Knowledge in Social and Cultural Human-Agent Interactions
Authors: Ho Wan Ching , Dautenhahn Kerstin , Lim Meiyii , Enz Sibylle , Zoll Carsten , Watson Scott
Published: February 2011

This article presents research towards the development of a virtual learning environment (VLE) inhabited by intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and modeling a scenario of inter-cultural interactions. The ultimate aim of this VLE is to allow users to reflect upon and learn about intercultural communication and collaboration. Rather than predefining the interactions among the virtual agents and scripting the possible interactions afforded by this environment, we pursue a bottomup approach whereby inter-cultural communication emerges from interactions with and among autonomous agents and the user(s). The intelligent virtual agents that are inhabiting this environment are expected to be able to broaden their knowledge about the world and other agents, which may be of different cultural backgrounds, through interactions. This work is part of a collaborative effort within a European research project called eCIRCUS. Specifically, this article focuses on our continuing research concerned with emotional knowledge learning in autobiographic social agents.
An Agent Based Approach to Patient Scheduling Using Experience Based Learning
Authors: Kanaga E. Grace Mary , Valarmathi M. L. , Murali Juliet A
Published: February 2011

This paper describes an agent based approach to patient scheduling using experience based learning and an integer programming model. The evaluation on different learning techniques shows that the experience based learning (EBL) provides a better solution. The time required to process a particular job is reduced as the experience processed by it increases. The processing time can be calculated with the help of EBL. The main objective of this patient scheduling system is to reduce the waiting time of patient in hospitals and to complete their treatment in minimum required time. The proposed framework is implemented in JADE. In this approach the patients are represented as patient agent (PA) and resources as resource agent (RA). This mathematical model provides an optimal solution. The comparisons of the proposed framework with other scheduling rules shows that an agent based approach to patient scheduling using EBL gives better results.
A Framework for Deployment of 3g Wireless Network and Mobile Agent in Health Care Delivery System
Authors: Ojesanmi O. A. , Ojesanmi S. O. , Akinnuwesi B. , Odim M.
Published: February 2011

The extent of the AIDS crisis is becoming clear in many African countries, as increasing numbers of people with HIV are becoming ill. The technology of mobile phones has brought ubiquitous access to information coupled with software agents and health care delivery systems in hospitals. It enables patient-physician contact to be more frequent. Such an environment can provide personalized monitoring services to patients and decision support to physicians, as well as maintenance for cost control. This paper proposes the deployment of 3G wireless technology with mobile agents for health care delivery to HIV/AIDS patients. Patient, nurse and physician are the agents in the proposed system. Each agent uses a mobile phone to communicate with the server anywhere at any time without restrictions. The system employs the mobility, flexibility and autonomous characteristics of mobile agents to monitor patients. The system has the ability to provide fast and reliable assistance to the patients.
Agent-Based Modelling of Socio-Ecosystems
Authors: Balbi Stefano , Giupponi Carlo
Published: February 2011

The integrated—environmental, economic and social—analysis of climate change calls for a paradigm shift as it is fundamentally a problem of complex, bottom-up and multi-agent human behaviour. There is a growing awareness that global environmental change dynamics and the related socio-economic implications involve a degree of complexity that requires an innovative modelling of combined social and ecological systems. Climate change policy can no longer be addressed separately from a broader context of adaptation and sustainability strategies. Past research on artificial intelligence and social simulation has developed a promising methodology. Literature on agent-based modelling (ABM) shows it’s potential to couple social and environmental models and incorporate the influence of micro-level decision making in the system dynamics and to study the emergence of collective responses to policies. However, there are few studies that concretely apply this methodology to the study of climate change related issues. The analysis in this paper supports the idea that today ABM is a consolidated interdisciplinary approach for the bottom-up exploration of climate policies, especially because it can take into account adaptive behaviour and heterogeneity of the system’s components.
Automated Fuzzy Bidding Strategy for Continuous Double Auctions Using Trading Agent’s Attitude and Market Competition
Authors: Goyal Madhu , Kaushik Saroj , Kaur Preetinder
Published: February 2011

This paper designs a novel fuzzy competition and attitude based bidding strategy (FCA-Bid) for continuous double auction in which the best transaction price is calculated on account of the attitude of the agents and the competition for the goods in the market. The estimation of attitude is based on the bidding item’s attribute assessment, which adapts the fuzzy sets technique to handle uncertainty of the bidding process. Additionally, it uses heuristic rules to determine the attitude of bidding agents. The bidding strategy also uses and determines competition in the market (based on the two factors, number of the bidders participating and the total time elapsed for an auction) using Mamdani’s Direct Method. Then the range for the trading price will be determined based on the assessed attitude and the competition in the market using the fuzzy reasoning technique. The final transaction price is calculated after considering the conflicting attitudes of the seller and the bidder toward selecting the transaction price.
Emerging Framework for Planning and Implementation of Online Programs
Authors: Hernández-Gantes Victor M.
Published: February 2011

The dramatic growth of online education over the past two decades is requiring colleges to make a shift from fragmented approaches to program planning and implementation towards a framework integrating both into a coherent support system. This article provides an overview of an emerging holistic framework for planning and implementation of online programs calling for shared strategic planning needs assessment strategies, and establishing program consensus. Guided by a program vision, curriculum and instructional strategies are identified along with internal and external supports needed for successful implementation. The framework suggests demand-driven strategic planning, benchmarking approaches to implementation practices, and interactive feedback to ensure effective program planning and implementation.
Improving Second Language Speaking Proficiency via Interactional Feedback
Authors: Swanson Peter B. , Schlig Carmen
Published: February 2011

Researchers have suggested that interactional feedback is associated with foreign/second language learning because it prompts learners to notice foreign/second language forms. Using Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development and Long’s interaction hypothesis as conceptual frameworks, this study explores the use of systematic explicit feedback to undergraduates (N = 1180) at three assessment points throughout one semester using digital voice recording technology for oral assessments. Results indicate that statistically significant differences were found in pronunciation, linguistic structure, and content from the first to last observation. Findings suggest serious implications for improving speaking proficiency, which promote the use of combining digital technology for oral language formative and summative assessment with quality, systematic, and in-depth feedback to students.
Learning in 2010
Authors: Allen Jeff , Bracey Pamela , Gavrilova Mariya
Published: February 2011

Decades of research into learning have demonstrated that learners are diverse, changing, and adaptable. In this regard, the practice as educators must become flexible and adaptive to meet the wide variation of learning needs. A general consensus exists among educators, businesses, and other stakeholders that there is a significant gap between the knowledge and skills needed for success in life and the current state of education in schools throughout the world (The Conference Board et al., 2006). The internet, social networking, and distance education have created learners with a different set of characteristics, incoming skills, needs, desires, and goals. To meet the learning challenges of the 21st century, instructors must serve as catalysts of change by encouraging classrooms of open dialogue and developing the ability to effectively and efficiently use online communications. Through the process of learning from one another through problem-based activities, students and instructors improve the student-instructor relationship, encounter challenges, and solve them collaboratively.
What is Business Intelligence?
Authors: Foley Éric , Guillemette Manon G.
Published: February 2011

There has been growing corporate interest in business intelligence (BI) as a path to reduced costs, improved service quality, and better decision-making processes. However, while BI has existed for years, it has difficulties reaching what specialists in the field consider its full potential. In this paper, the authors examine disparities in how the constructs of business intelligence are defined and understood, which may impede an understanding of what BI represents to business leaders and researchers. The main objective of this study is to clearly understand this emerging concept of BI. In this regard, the authors analyze articles from the scientific and professional literature to have a comprehensive understanding of business intelligence as both a product and a process. This research proposes a global overview of the conceptual foundations of BI, which can help companies understand their BI initiative and leverage them to the strategic level.
Business Intelligence 2.0
Authors: Mendoza Rubén A.
Published: February 2011

Business Intelligence 2.0 is an umbrella term used to refer to a collection of tools that help organizations extend their BI capabilities using Internet platforms. BI 2.0 tools can enable the automatic discovery of distributed software services and data stores, greatly increasing the range of market options for an organization. The development cycle for these tools is still in its early stage, and much work remains. However, some technologies and standards are already well understood in order to make a significant impact. This paper provides an overview of the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and related technologies supporting the deployment of web services and service-oriented architectures (SOA). The author summarizes the critical importance of these technologies to the emergence of BI 2.0 tools. This paper also explores the current state of Internet-enabled BI activities and strategic considerations for firms considering BI 2.0 options.
World-in-Miniature Interaction for Complex Virtual Environments
Authors: Trueba Ramón , Andujar Carlos , Argelaguet Ferran
Published: February 2011

Object occlusion is a major handicap for efficient interaction with 3D virtual environments. The well-known World in Miniature (WIM) metaphor partially solves this problem by providing an additional dynamic viewpoint through a hand-held miniature copy of the scene. However, letting the miniature show a replica of the whole scene makes the WIM metaphor suitable for only relatively simple scenes due to occlusion and level of scale issues. In this paper, the authors propose several algorithms to extend the idea behind the WIM to arbitrarily complex scenes. The main idea is to automatically decompose indoor scenes into a collection of cells that define potential extents of the miniature replica. This cell decomposition works well for general indoor scenes and allows for simple and efficient algorithms for preserving the visibility of potential targets inside the cell. The authors also discuss how to support interaction at multiple levels of scale by allowing the user to select the WIM size according to the accuracy required for accomplishing the task.
Representing an Intrinsically Nonmetric Space of Compass Directions in an Artificial Neural Network
Authors: Dawson Michael R.W. , Boechler Patricia M.
Published: February 2011

The purpose of the article is to train an artificial neural network to make a judgment that is intrinsically antisymmetric, and to determine how such a judgment is mediated by the network’s internal representations. One key component of navigation is judging the distance from one location to another. A second key component of navigation is judging heading – that is, judging the direction from one location to another. Importantly, heading judgments do not preserve the metric properties of space. In particular, they are antisymmetric: the judged heading from location x to location y should be opposite to the judged heading from location y to location x. What kind of representation can mediate such nonmetric navigational judgments? To explore this question, we trained an artificial neural network to judge the various bearings amongst 13 different cities in Alberta. We then interpreted the internal structure of this network in order to determine the nature of its internal representations. We found that he artificial neural network had developed a coarse directional code, and that one of the advantages of such coding was its ability to represent antisymmetric spatial regularities.
Language, Logic, and the Brain
Authors: Jennings Ray E.
Published: February 2011

Although linguistics may treat languages as a syntactic and/or semantic entity that regulates both language production and comprehension, this article perceives that language is a physical and a biological phenomenon. The biological view of languages presents a new metaphor on an evolutionary time-scale the human brain and human language have co-evolved. Therefore, the brain is the instrument with a repository of syntactic and semantic constraints. The logical vocabulary of natural languages has been understood by many as a purified abstraction in formal sciences, where the internal transactions of reasonings are constrained by the logical laws of thought. Although no vocabulary can be entirely independent of semantic understanding, logical vocabulary has fixed minimal semantic content independent of context. Therefore, logic is centered in linguistic evolution by observing that all connective vocabulary descends from lexical vocabulary based on spatial relationship of sentences. Far from having fixed minimal semantic content, logical vocabulary is semantically rich and context-dependent. Many cases of mutations in logical vocabulary and their semantic changes have been observed as similar to that of biological mutations. These changes proliferate to yield a wide diversity in the evolved uses of natural language connectives.
On Laws of Work Organization in Human Cooperation
Authors: Wang Yingxu
Published: February 2011

From the perspective of cognitive informatics (CI), this paper proposes internal relations between distance and orientation knowledge of extended objects, and presents a formal representation of spatial knowledge. The connection relation is taken as primitive. Notions of near extension regions and the nearer predicate are developed. Distance relations between extended objects are understood as degrees of the near extension from one object to the other. Orientation relations are understood as distance comparison from one object to the sides of the other object. Therefore, distance and orientation relations can be internally related through the connection relation. The notion of the fiat projection is presented to model the mental formation of the deictic orientation reference framework. This article introduces a new axiom to govern the connection relation in the literature and presents examples to show diagrammatically the internal relations between distance and orientation relations of extended objects.
The Cognitive Process of Decision Making
Authors: Wang Yingxu , Ruhe Guenther
Published: February 2011

Decision making is one of the basic cognitive processes of human behaviors by which a preferred option or a course of actions is chosen from among a set of alternatives based on certain criteria. Decision theories are widely applied in many disciplines encompassing cognitive informatics, computer science, management science, economics, sociology, psychology, political science, and statistics. A number of decision strategies have been proposed from different angles and applica-tion domains such as the maximum expected utility and Bayesian method. However, there is still a lack of a fundamental and mathematical decision model and a rigorous cognitive process for decision making. This article presents a fundamental cognitive decision making process and its mathematical model, which is described as a sequence of Cartesian-product based selections. A rigorous description of the decision process in real-time process algebra (RTPA) is provided. Real-world decisions are perceived as a repetitive application of the fundamental cognitive process. The result shows that all categories of decision strategies fit in the formally described decision process. The cognitive process of decision making may be applied in a wide range of decision-based systems such as cognitive informatics, software agent systems, expert systems, and decision support systems.