bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Simulation Technologies in Global Leaning
Authors: Tennyson Robert D.
Published: May 2011

Improving learning in a global environment is major goal for advanced technology growth. Web-based instructional systems offer learners simultaneous information regardless of their home environment. As the world cultures become more integrated, instruction designs can bridge the information gap and enhance world learning. Management strategies include a learning climate that encourages diversified workers to participate in active learning situations that reflect the global nature of their work. This chapter focuses on the role that simulations can provide in both the effectiveness and efficiency of training and education. Simulations offer the means to improve learning by enhancing initial and on-the-job learning. Simulation approaches are presented within the framework of learning sciences. These include technical simulations, business simulations, modeling, role-playing exercises, case studies, micro-worlds, and animations.
Managerial Computer Business Games
Authors: Proserpio Luigi , Magni Massimo , Provera Bernardino
Published: May 2011

Interview with Anthony Davidson, SuperAguri F1 GP Driver (autosport.com, March 2, 2007): Q: Can you actually learn anything from the [F1 videogame] though? AD: Absolutely. When I did the 2004 season, I really relied on having video data from the team and using the PlayStation games as well to learn the circuits. We always deal in corner numbers, we don’t use the proper corner names, so we have a little map in the car with the numbers. For you to visualize it beforehand is a help, because when they talk about a bump in turn three then you know what they are talking about before you have even walked the circuit or seen any onboard footage. You know roughly what the track looks like and when you get out there you smile because it is exactly what you were doing in your living room. And now the graphics have stepped up another level it is so much more realistic. F1 drivers can benefit from computer simulations, with a supplement of training before racing on a newly built circuit, with no consolidated knowledge. Managers (and students, too) can benefit from PC-based simulations that recreate complex business worlds as well. Books contain theories, along with a good number of examples. Computer-based business games can add dynamism and a temporal dimension to the standard managerial theories contained in books. Many researchers think that the potential of the computer as a learning tool is very high if we involve the user in a simulation process, instead of giving him a description of reality. This theory is confirmed by many field examples, as shown before by the Formula 1 pilot, who adopts a particular software in order to learn how to drive on a circuit that he has not tested directly. U.S. Marines play Quake and Unreal to simulate the mission in which they will be involved. Business games, finally, start to be adopted in managerial education as learning support tools. For example, EIS simulation has been developed at Insead Business School in order to simulate organizational change, while FirmReality has been developed at Bocconi University to study the integrated use of organizational capabilities to gain competitive advantage. Scientific and managerial literatures recognize the potential of these instruments for learning purposes (compatible with andragogical and collaborative learning theories), but cannot address their design and the integration within distance-learning practices. The current debate on computer simulations involves the research and the standardization of rules for the project phases, in order to take advantage of the potential attributed to this tool, and enhance the compatibility between managers/students and this form of learning.
Policy Decision Support Through Social Simulation
Authors: Antunes Luis , Respício Ana , Balsa João , Coelho Helder
Published: May 2011

Public policies are concerned with the definition of guidelines that promote the achievement of specific goals by a society/community of citizens. Citizens share a common geographic space under a set of political governance rules and, at the same time, are subject to common cultural influences. On the other hand, citizens have differentiated behaviours due to social, economical, and educational aspects as well as due to their individual personalities. Public interest relates with individual interests held in common—the result of joining the individual goals for the community. However, community goals may conflict with individuals’ self-interests. The outcome of public policies is emergent from this very complex set of rules and social and individual behaviours. Decision support in such a context is a hard endeavour that should be founded in comprehensive exploration of the set of available designs for the individual actors and the collective mechanisms of the society. Social simulation is a field that can be useful in such a complex problem, since it draws from heterogeneous rationality theory into sociology, economics, and politics, having computational tools as aid to perform analysis of the conjectures and hypotheses put forward, allowing the direct observation of the consequences of the design options made. Through social simulation it is possible to gain insights about the constraints and rules that effectively allow for the design and deployment of policies. The exploration of this set of possible models for individual actors, their relationships, and collective outcome of their individual actions is crucial for effective and efficient decision support. Ever since the work of Simon (1955), it has been known that perfect rationality is not attainable in a useful and timely fashion. Social simulation provides an alternative approach to limited rationality, since it encompasses both observer and phenomenon in the experimentation cycle. Decision support systems can be enhanced with these exploratory components, which allow for the rehearsal of alternative scenarios, and to observe in silica the outcomes of different policy designs before deploying them in real settings.
An Investigation of Current Online Educational Games
Authors: Qian Yufeng
Published: May 2011

Electronic games are becoming an important part of many American children’s life today. Electronic educational gaming, as a new instructional technique and media, holds great potential for the new millennium of learners. To reflect the preferences and meet the needs of this generation of learners, many various online games for educational purposes are made available?the sheer number of existing educational games is overwhelming. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the current state of educational games on the Internet, targeting K-12 learners in the United States. Major game providers and salient design features are identified, and future directions of game development for educational purposes are discussed.
Capitalizing on Immersive Persistence as an Emergent Design Concept (A Position Paper)
Authors: Hai-Jew Shalin
Published: May 2011

In their evolution, virtual worlds have become more persistent. Their three-dimensional (3D) objects are more easily ported and interoperable between 3D repositories and may eventually be portable between synthetic world systems. If trend-lines continue, these synthetic spaces will become more integrated into the fabric of virtual learning and research, community-building, socializing, and digital information archival. Their continuity-in-time adds fresh capabilities for learning (human actualization, long-term virtual collaborations), digital resource protection (digital artifact preservation, long-term and evolving simulations, virtual ecologies), human relationship management (customer relationship management and branding, digital governance), and information exchange and management (international exchanges, and immersive long-term 3D libraries and knowledge structures). However, this immersive persistence must be balanced against the needs of temporality, transience, and forgetting.
Knowledge Engines for Critical Decision Support
Authors: Adler Richard M.
Published: May 2011

Current knowledge capture and retention techniques tend to codify “what-is” and “who knows” more effectively than “how-to”. Unfortunately, “how-to” knowledge is more directly actionable, and indispensable for critical organizational activities such as strategic analysis and decision-making. KM theorists often despair over “how-to” expertise as a form of tacit knowledge that is difficult to articulate, much less transfer. We argue that tacit strategic performance-based knowledge can often be captured and deployed effectively, via frameworks that combine scenario planning methods with “what-if” simulation. The key challenges are two-fold: (1) modeling complex situational contexts, including known behavioral dynamics; and (2) enabling knowledge workers to manipulate such models interactively, to safely practice situational analysis and decision-making and learn from virtual rather real mistakes. We illustrate our approach with example knowledge-based decision support solutions and provide pointers to related literature.
Virtual Cities for Simulating Smart Urban Public Spaces
Authors: Nakanishi Hideyuki , Ishida Toru , Koizumi Satoshi
Published: May 2011

Many research projects have studied various aspects of smart environments including smart rooms, home, and offices. Few projects, however, have studied smart urban public spaces such as smart railway stations and airports due to the lack of an experimental environment. We propose virtual cities as a testbed for examining the design of smart urban public spaces. We developed an intelligent emergency guidance system for subway stations and used the virtual subway station platform to analyze the effects of the system. This experience allows us to argue that simulations in virtual cities are useful to pre-test the design of smart urban public spaces and estimate the possible outcome of real-life scenarios.
Service Innovation Using Actor Network Theory
Authors: Uden Lorna , Francis Janet
Published: May 2011

Our economy is becoming more and more service-oriented, with distinctions between services and non-services making less and less sense. In today’s society, innovations are no longer luxury items. Instead, they are necessities and a means of economic development and competitiveness. The introduction of innovative new services is a priority for most companies. Innovation now holds the key to service performance. 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. ANT is a heterogeneous amalgamation of conceptual, textual and social actors. It is well suited to explain and help with the design of service systems. The development 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 paper 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.
Translating Biofuel, Discounting Farmers
Authors: Ariani Yuti , Yuliar Sonny
Published: May 2011

This paper employs the notion of translation introduced in ANT literature to study the current bio-fuel development in Indonesia. Despite the presence of some activities by scientists, businessmen, policy makers, and farmers, diffusion of bio-fuel innovation seems to remain very limited. The paper aims at understanding the bio-fuel development trajectory by seeking to disclose a variety of elements that shape the trajectory. We also make use of the notion of ‘qualculation’, to further diagnose the trajectory. Bio-fuel translations generated by three different scientists are described in the paper. We show that the translations follow specific patterns of qualculation, namely ‘proliferation’ and ‘rarefaction’. We use this to make sense of the current diffusion of bio-fuel innovation in Indonesia. Beside this contextual result, the paper also seeks to contribute to ANT literature by exploring the concept of qualculation in the analysis of technological innovation.
E-Business Adoption by Jordanian Banks
Authors: Alawneh Ali , Al-Refai Hasan , Batiha Khaldoun
Published: May 2011

Grounded in the technology–organization–environment (TOE) framework, we have developed an extended model to examine factors, particularly technological, organizational and environmental factors, which influence e-business adoption in Jordanian banks. For the purposes of our research some constructs were added to (TOE) framework such as IT/Business strategy alignment, adequacy of IT professionals, and availability of online revenues. Other factors were excluded such as the global scope since our research is at the national level in Jordanian banking sector. The independent variables are the (technology readiness or competence, bank size, financial resources commitment, IT/Business strategy alignment, adequacy of IT professionals, availability of online revenues, competition intensity or pressure, and regulatory support environment) while e-business adoption and usage constitutes the dependent variable. Survey data from (140) employees in seven pioneered banks in the Jordanian banking sector were collected and used to test the theoretical model. Based on simple and multiple linear regressions, our empirical analysis demonstrates several key findings: (1) technology readiness is found to be the key determinant of e-business adoption among the banks. (2) Bank size, IT/Business strategy alignment, and availability of online revenues were found to have significant influence on the e-business adoption within banks, while financial resources commitment and adequacy of IT professionals do not contribute significantly to e-business adoption. (3) Both of the competition intensity and regulatory support environment contribute significantly to e-business adoption in banks. By providing insight into these important factors, this paper can help further understanding of their role in the adoption and usage of e-business and examines the impacts of e-business usage on banks’ performance in terms of sales-services-marketing, internal operations and coordination & communication. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. By extension, this could enable greater e-business usage in banks, which could improve the Jordanian overall economy.
Reassembling the Problem of the Under-Representation of Girls in IT Courses
Authors: Rowan Leonie , Bigum Chris
Published: May 2011

The percentages of girls in developing countries undertaking information technology subjects in the post-compulsory years of education has remained persistently low: often under 25%. This is despite the fact that this particular phenomenon has been the subject of sustained international enquiry for at least three decades. This article investigates data collected during an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant project (2005-2007) that aimed to identify some of the contemporary reasons for this under-representation in Australian schools. The original phases of data collection proceeded from the belief that there was a clear and agreed understanding that the low numbers of girls was a problem worthy of analysis. As the project evolved, however, significant differences between the researchers’ perception of the underrepresentation and the participants’ views about the same issue. In this paper we make use of actor-network theory to ask key questions about the extent to which the enrolment of girls in IT is indeed ‘a problem’.
A Potential Application of Actor Network Theory in Organizational Studies
Authors: Bielenia-Grajewska Magdalena
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, an attempt will be made to discuss the place of Actor Network Theory in organizational studies. To narrow the scope of the research, attention will be focused solely on companies. The concept of ANT researched within the corporate setting has been one of the author’s interests for some years. Consequently, in this work the author will try to show some aspects related to Actor Network Theory in contemporary organizations. Since not every concept related to ANT within the corporate environment can be investigated in greater detail, two issues, namely ecosystem and power, have been selected to discuss the possible application of ANT in the studies on corporations.
Information Systems Security Assurance Management at Municipal Software Solutions, Inc.
Authors: Kleist Virginia Franke , Morris Bonnie , Denton James W.
Published: May 2011

Based on an actual company, this case focuses on Business Continuity Planning issues for a small but growing software company, Municipal Software Solutions, Inc. (MSS). The firm experienced a catastrophic fire which completely eliminated all aspects of the information systems infrastructure, including the software product code repository, the client access infrastructure, the hardware operations center, and the software design facility. Fortunately, no one was harmed, and the firm survived despite the fact that it did not have a formal disaster recovery plan in place. MSS was very lucky. The case can be used in conjunction with coverage of risk assessment concepts in the context of the availability component of systems reliability and trust of services management. Accordingly, it is appropriate for use in courses covering information systems security, accounting information systems, or IT audit.
Relationships between Information Security Concerns and National Cultural Dimensions
Authors: Ifinedo Princely
Published: May 2011

This study investigates the relationships between the contextual factor of national culture and information security concerns in the global financial services industry (GFSI). Essentially, this study attempts to expand the breath of information provided in the recent 2009 Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT) survey, which reported such issues in the financial services industry. The inference from the 2009 DTT survey was that information security concerns across GFSI are being informed solely by industry-related standards or imperatives. As such, perceptions and attitudes towards such issues were thought to remain unchanged in differing contexts. Results from this study’s analysis showed that the perceptions of information security concerns in GFSI compared reasonably well, but also varied by some national cultural attributes to debunk such a claim. Corporate managers in the industry may benefit from this research’s findings as they formulate country-wide information security policies and strategies. As well, insights from this current effort indicate that it would be erroneous for practitioners to accept that entities in the financial services hold exactly the same view on information security issues in their industry. Future research avenues are discussed.
Information Security by Words Alone
Authors: Arnett Kirk P. , Templeton Gary F. , Vance David A.
Published: May 2011

Effective information security extends beyond using software controls that are so prominently discussed in the popular and academic literature. There must also be management influence and control. The best way to control information security is through formal policy and measuring the effectiveness of existing policies. The purpose of this research is to determine 1) what security elements are embedded in Web-based information security policy statements and 2) what security-related keywords appear more frequently. The authors use these findings to propose a density measure (the extent to which each policy uses security keywords) as an indicator of policy strength. For these purposes, they examine the security component of privacy policies of Fortune 100 Web sites. The density measure may serve as a benchmark that can be used as a basis for comparison across companies and the development of industry norms.
Cloak and Dagger
Authors: Thurimella Ramakrishna , Mitchell William
Published: May 2011

One of the most devastating forms of attack on a computer is when the victim doesn’t even know an attack occurred. After some background material, various forms of man in the middle (MITM) attacks, including ARP spoofing, fake SSL certificates, and bypassing SSL are explored. Next, rootkits and botnets, two key pieces of crimeware, are introduced and analyzed. Finally, general strategies to protect against such attacks are suggested.
Do You Know Where Your Data Is?
Authors: Reay Ian , Beatty Patricia , Dick Scott , Miller James
Published: May 2011

Numerous countries around the world have enacted privacy-protection legislation, in an effort to protect their citizens and instill confidence in the valuable business-to-consumer E-commerce industry. These laws will be most effective if and when they establish a standard of practice that consumers can use as a guideline for the future behavior of e-commerce vendors. However, while privacy-protection laws share many similarities, the enforcement mechanisms supporting them vary hugely. Furthermore, it is unclear which (if any) of these mechanisms are effective in promoting a standard of practice that fits with the social norms of those countries. We present a large-scale empirical study of the role of legal enforcement in standardizing privacy protection on the Internet. Our study is based on an automated analysis of documents posted on the 100,000 most popular websites (as ranked by Alexa.com). We find that legal frameworks have had little success in creating standard practices for privacy-sensitive actions.
Challenging our Assumptions
Authors: Roff-Wexler Suzanne , Donovan Loretta L. , Rasa Salvatore
Published: May 2011

“Cada cabeza es un mundo” (“Every head is a world”) – Cuban proverb
Organizational Culture
Authors: McBride Paul J.
Published: May 2011

This chapter describes how and why organizational culture is paramount towards endeavors of social knowledge and knowledge management systems. Previous literature is discussed and ideas presented to give an underlying understanding of organizational culture and knowledge management and how the two interact. It is argued that a culture based on honesty, trust, and openness is best suited for knowledge management. Cultures will ebb and flow as they evolve. It becomes important for managers to take notice when this occurs. Learning is essential to developing cultures as it molds the participants inside the organization. Organizations that employ social media to aid in culture development will build systems of knowledge management that are based on proper culture that will inevitably lead to competitive advantage.
Empowering Social Knowledge with Information Technology
Authors: Ruzic Fjodor
Published: May 2011

Social knowledge is not a new category; however, in these times of information-communications systems maturity, it becomes an extremely important and valuable asset. In the context of social knowledge, information technology should be constantly harmonized with cultural milieu characterized mostly by invisible culture and its actions. The aim is to make the real and acceptable convergence of cultural and technological issues. Since the knowledge becomes social only with the communication process, it is deeply connected with the terms of media. Social knowledge is alike any media activity where two-tier principles is included consisting cultural (politics and social paradigm) and technological (information tools) issues. The real drawbacks of social knowledge based on information-communications systems that means the dependency on information technology, is about the continuity - the entire social knowledge base could be fragmented or even lost for future generations. The information/digital content keeping technologies are developed well, but the knowledge and invisible culture assets are under the special treatment if we want to make our social knowledge as the legacy for future generations.
School in the Knowledge Society
Authors: Sørensen Birgitte Holm , Levinsen Karin Tweddell
Published: May 2011

Implementation of ICT in Danish and Nordic schools is gradually changing from an industrial to a knowledge society school paradigm. At the same time ICT, digital literacy and the school’s physical and social organization are constantly negotiated. In schools that proactively meet the challenges, new designs for teaching and learning emerge while teacher-student relations transform and the children and young people’s competencies are resources in the processes of learning. This chapter presents research based on the proactive schools and exemplifies possible outlines of the school, in the knowledge society. Finally, the findings are extrapolated into a vision of a future local global school in the knowledge society.
The Modes of Governmentality in Language Education
Authors: Doerr Neriko , Sato Shinji
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses the validity of incorporating blog activities in language education classes as an equalizing practice. The authors examine blog activities aimed at providing a way for foreign language learners to communicate in a space free from any teacher-student hierarchy as part of a Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language class at a university in the United States. The authors show that a teacher-student hierarchy still seeps into the blog space, albeit in a different form. Using Michel Foucault’s notion of modes of governmentality, they analyze how the blog’s postings and readers’ comments define the space of a particular blog by evoking modes of governmentality of schooling and of “native” vs. “non-native” speakers. They suggest the importance of acknowledging the existence of relations of dominance in what was initially perceived to be a power-free online space and encourage educators who use blogs in classes to involve learners in the understanding and transformation of such relations of dominance.
Designing Web-Facilitated Learning Strategy Guidance System
Authors: Wu Liwei , Fan Yihong , Yang Sujuan
Published: May 2011

This chapter elaborates on the research the authors engaged in for improving young learners learning competence and effectiveness. This research investigates learning styles and learning strategies, based on which comes up with principles, contents and activities for the design and development of a Web-Facilitated Learning Strategy Guidance System (WFLSGS). A Quisi-Experiment is designed to test the function and implementation of WFLSGS and 3 distinctive findings comes out from the experiment: the research subjects’ learning strategy level is generally low, thus learning strategies guidance is needed for improving learners learning effectiveness; the learning strategy guidance based on learning styles is effective for improving learning strategies, especially cognitive strategies and meta-cognitive strategies; the application of learning strategies is influenced by many factors such as teaching environment, learning content and learner self and so on. By designing and developing learning strategy guidance system, this study enriches the research of learning strategy and provides the teachers and young learners with operational advices and approaches to imporoving individualized learning competence and effectiveness.
Political Dropouts and the Internet Generation
Authors: Milner Henry
Published: May 2011

Daunting obstacles remain to the Internet’s becoming a source of political information for a segment of the population as wide as there was for newspapers and television during their heydays – obstacles not in the form of access but rather of skills. With increasing dependence on digital information and tools, citizens are expected to exercise independent, informed judgments in order to make use of the information and tools, but the skills involved in those judgments are very unequally distributed. This unequal distribution, as in other domains, reflects class differences, but also generational ones. These are different cross-nationally and for the generation that grew up with the Internet due especially to differences in efforts to narrow the gap through policies designed to disseminate the needed knowledge and skills.
Swedish Students Online
Authors: Selg Håkan
Published: May 2011

Results from a major survey among Internet users at Swedish universities indicate fundamental differences in patterns of usage. The “Web 2.0 culture” is socially driven and characterised by interactivity and participation. In the “Web 1.0 culture”, the Internet is considered more of a tool for the rationalising of duties and tasks in everyday life. A strong age element can be observed in the sense that a majority of the Web 2.0 culture adherents have grown up in a digital environment with broadband access while those belonging to the Web 1.0 culture generally adopted Internet as adults. However, the findings do not support the claims made by early commentators of a “Net Generation”, or “Digital Natives”, with a set of common characteristics. The considerable variations within the age groups indicate that the process of appropriation of the Internet by the individual is far more complex than what is embedded in the generations approach.
The Representation of Female Friendships on Young Women’s Myspace Profiles
Authors: Dobson Amy Shields
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the representation of female friendship on MySpace, based on a sample of 45 public MySpace profiles owned by young Australian women, aged between 18 and 21 years old. Two prominent constructions of female friendship on this social network site are outlined: firstly, female friendships as idealistically party-oriented, ‘wild’, and rowdy; and secondly, female friendships as close, loyal, and intimate — comparable in the depth of feeling and connection expressed to romantic partnerships or family ties. These idealised, performative constructions of female friendship, in the context of online self-presentation, also seem to rely on exclusivity, and opposition of selves and friendship groups to a feminised outsider/‘other’. Some of the political implications of such representation are discussed from a feminist perspective. I suggest some ways in which ideals and goals of female representation to emerge from second-wave feminist media and performance critique might be said to have actualised and failed to actualise in these online performances of friendship and identity created by young women.
YouTube as a Performative Arena
Authors: Hendrick S. Faye , Lindgren Simon
Published: May 2011

The video sharing site YouTube is used by huge numbers of young people in the roles of consumers and producers of content and meaning. The site hosts more than 120,000,000 video clips, and its users represent a wide variety of nationalities, religions, ethnic backgrounds, identities and lifestyles. Due to the scale of YouTube it is hard to see how a tangible sense of actual community could be created within the site. Using on- and offline ethnographic data in the form of footage, interviews and patterns of community interaction (favoriting, subscribing, commenting, rating, and video replies), this chapter presents the results of a case study that aims to analyze how a specific interest group with a certain national anchoring (Swedish parkour youth) deal with the vastness and complexity of YouTube in creating a sense of identity and community in relation to their specialized interest.
Adolescents and Online Dating Attitudes
Authors: Ojo Olugbenga David
Published: May 2011

The introduction of Internet technology worldwide has brought out different behaviors in human beings; old and young. One of the vehicles for this is the online dating social network; a means by which people meet other people with whom they enact social relationships through the internet. This chapter considers the attitudes of adolescents with African background in relation to online dating. The findings show that there is no significant difference in the attitudes of both male and female adolescents in relation to online dating and also that the perception of parents in relation to adolescents getting involved in online dating activities is in tandem with the African belief that adolescents are too young to get tangled in any aspect of sexual activities, online dating inclusive. It also reveals that both male and female adolescents have coping strategies for dealing with online dating activities. Solutions and recommendations to resolve the emanated issues are also highlighted.
Moving from Cyber-Bullying to Cyber-Kindness
Authors: Cassidy Wanda , Brown Karen , Jackson Margaret
Published: May 2011

The purpose of this chapter is to explore cyber-bullying from three different, but interrelated, perspectives: students, educators and parents. The authors also explore the opposite spectrum of online behaviour - that of “cyber-kindness” - and whether positive, supportive or caring online exchanges are occurring among youth, and how educators, parents and policy-makers can work collaboratively to foster a kinder online world rather than simply acting to curtail cyber-bullying. These proactive efforts tackle the deeper causes of why cyber-bullying occurs, provide students with tools for positive communication, open the door for discussion about longer term solutions, and get at the heart of the larger purposes of education – to foster a respectful and responsible citizenry and to further a more caring and compassionate society. In the course of this discussion, they highlight the findings from two studies they conducted in British Columbia, Canada, one on cyber-bullying and a later study, which addressed both cyber-bullying and cyber-kindness.
Gaming and Aggression
Authors: Schiller Eva-Maria , Schultes Marie-Thérèse , Strohmeier Dagmar , Spiel Christiane
Published: May 2011

Video games play an important role in the modern entertainment industry and determine the leisure time activities of many children and adolescents. A huge amount of video games are available, but many of them are not suitable for youth because of their violent content. Violent content in video games became an issue of public concern, not only in cases of extreme violent acts, such as school shootings (e.g. Littleton, Colorado, 1999; Kauhajoki, Finland, 2008; Winnenden, Germany, 2009) but also concerning the question of whether playing violent video games generally influences the development of aggressive behavior in children and adolescents. Considerable research showed that playing violent video games increases aggressive cognitions, and aggressive behavior (e.g., Anderson et al., 2010). A crucial issue in studies concerned with violent video games is the question of how to assess the presence of violent content in games. Most of the studies used expert ratings (e.g. Krahé & Möller, 2004), some studies asked study participants themselves (e.g., Gentile & Gentile, 2008; Wallenius, Punamäki, & Rimpelä, 2007), and only a few studies used categorizations directly displayed on games (e.g. Schiller, Strohmeier, & Spiel, 2009). In 2003, the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) system was established, aiming at the protection of children and adolescents from unsuitable video games. PEGI evaluates games according to five age categories (+3, +7, +12, +16, +18) and seven content descriptors (bad language, discrimination, drugs, fear, gambling, sexual content, and violence). These age categories and content descriptors are printed on games to inform customers about their appropriateness for children and adolescents. Although these descriptors are highly visible for parents and adults in 30 European countries, they are rarely used in research. The current chapter presents a study on pre-adolescents in which violent content of games was categorized based on PEGI descriptors. A distinction between playing age-appropriate violent video games and age-inappropriate violent games was made. The main goal of the study was to examine whether pre-adolescents who play non-violent or age-appropriate violent games systematically differ in aggression from youth who play age-inappropriate violent games. Gender differences were also examined. Conclusions for practical implications for adolescents and for parents are discussed.
Spirituality in Cybercrime (Yahoo Yahoo) Activities among Youths in South West Nigeria
Authors: Melvin Agunbiade Ojo , Ayotunde Titilayo
Published: May 2011

This chapter explores the relevance and adoption of spirituality in cybercrime; the roles of spiritualists; experiences of self-confessed youths that are involved in ‘yahoo yahoo’ activities and the future intentions of youths to engage in cybercrime. This was with a view to providing a socio-cultural analysis of the influence of spirituality in cybercrime (‘yahoo yahoo’) activities among Nigerian youths. Vignette based focus group discussions were held with male and female youths (18-35 years), in-depth interviews with ‘yahoo yahoo’ youths and some spiritualists. Findings showed that spirituality attracts high cultural relevance in life achievements and the conduct of cybercrimes. Perceptions on youths’ involvement in cybercrime activities attracted mixed reactions. To the ‘Yahoo yahoo’ youths, they are playing a game, to other participants; ‘yahoo yahoo’ was a criminal act. Cybercrime among the youths have received the support of some spiritualists within a political economy that creates an enabling environment for cybercrimes and related activities. A few participants indicated future interests in cybercrime if their economic conditions remain unchanged or worsen. In conclusion, we argued that a holistic approach grounded in the cultural system would be more effective in re-orientating and empowering the youths to positively utilizes their internet skills. Thus, curbing cybercrimes would require a process that would not rely exclusively on legal and policing frameworks.
System-Level Design of NoC-Based Dependable Embedded Systems
Authors: Tagel Mihkel , Ellervee Peeter , Jervan Gert
Published: May 2011

Technology scaling into subnanometer range will have impact on the manufacturing yield and quality. At the same time, complexity and communication requirements of systems-on-chip (SoC) are increasing, thus making a SoC designer goal to design a fault-free system a very difficult task. Network-on-chip (NoC) has been proposed as one of the alternatives to solve some of the on-chip communication problems and to address dependability at various levels of abstraction. This chapter concentrates on system-level design issues of NoC-based systems. It describes various methods proposed for NoC architecture analysis and optimization, and gives an overview of different system-level fault tolerance methods. Finally, the chapter presents a system-level design framework for performing design space exploration for dependable NoC-based systems.
Synthesis of Flexible Fault-Tolerant Schedules for Embedded Systems with Soft and Hard Timing Constraints
Authors: Izosimov Viacheslav , Pop Paul , Eles Petru , Peng Zebo
Published: May 2011

The authors also present evaluation of the schedule synthesis heuristics with and without preemption using extensive experiments and a real-life example.
Enhanced Formal Verification Flow for Circuits Integrating Debugging and Coverage Analysis
Authors: Große Daniel , Fey Görschwin , Drechsler Rolf
Published: May 2011

In this chapter the authors briefly review techniques used in formal hardware verification. An advanced flow emerges from integrating two major methodological improvements: debugging support and coverage analysis. The verification engineer can locate the source of a failure with an automatic debugging support. Components are identified which explain the discrepancy between the property and the circuit behavior. This method is complemented by an approach to analyze functional coverage of the proven Bounded Model Checking (BMC) properties. The approach automatically determines whether the property set is complete or not. In the latter case coverage gaps are returned. Both techniques are integrated in an enhanced verification flow. A running example demonstrates the resulting advantages.
Memory Testing and Self-Repair
Authors: Fischerová Mária , Gramatová Elena
Published: May 2011

Memories are very dense structures and therefore the probability of defects is higher than in the logic and analogue blocks, which are not so densely laid out. Thus, embedded memories as the largest components of a typical SoC - up to 90% of the chip area dominate the yield of the chip. As fabrication process technology makes great progress, the total capacity of memory bits increases and will cause an extension in area investment for built-in self-testing, built-in repairing and diagnostic circuitry. Many test and repair techniques are used in industry but the research results offer new methods and algorithms for improving digital systems testing quality. The purpose of this chapter is to give a summary view of static and dynamic fault models, effective test algorithms for memory fault (defect) detection and localization, built-in self-test and classification of advanced built-in self-repair techniques supported by different types of repair allocation algorithms.
Fault-Tolerant and Fail-Safe Design Based on Reconfiguration
Authors: Kubatova Hana , Kubalik Pavel
Published: May 2011

The main aim of this chapter is to present the way, how to design fault-tolerant or fail-safe systems in programmable hardware (FPGAs) and therefore to use FPGAs in mission-critical applications, too. RAM based FPGAs are usually taken for unreliable due to high probability of transient faults (SEU) and therefore inapplicable in this area. But FPGAs can be easily reconfigured. The authors’ aim is to utilize appropriate type of FPGA reconfiguration and to combine it with well-known methods for fail-safe and fault-tolerant design (duplex, TMR) including on-line testing methods for fault detection and then startup of the reconfiguration process. Dependability parameters’ calculations based on reliability models is integral part of proposed methodology. The trade-off between the requested level of dependability characteristics of a designed system and area overhead with respect to FPGA possible faults the main property and advantage of proposed methodology.
Self-Repair Technology for Global Interconnects on SoCs
Authors: Scheit Daniel , Vierhaus Heinrich Theodor
Published: May 2011

The reliability of interconnects on ICs has become a major problem in recent years, due to the rise of complexity, low-k-insulating material with reduced stability, and wear-out-effects due to high current density. The total reliability of a system on a chip is more and more dependent on the reliability of interconnects. The growing volume of communication due to the increasing number of integrated functional units is the main reason. Articles have been published, which predict that static faults due to wear-out effects will occur more often. This will harm the reliability and decrease the mean-time-to-failure. Most of the published techniques are aimed at the correction of transient faults. Built-in self-repair has not been discussed as much as the other techniques. In this chapter, the authors will provide an overview over the state of the art for fault-tolerant interconnects. They will discuss the use of built-in self repair in combination with other approved solutions. The combination is a promising way to deal with all kinds of faults.
High-Level Decision Diagram Simulation for Diagnosis and Soft-Error Analysis
Authors: Raik Jaan , Repinski Urmas , Jenihhin Maksim , Chepurov Anton
Published: May 2011

This Chapter addresses the above-mentioned challenges by presenting a holistic diagnosis approach for design error location and malicious fault list generation for soft errors. First, a method for locating design errors at the source-level of hardware description language code using the design representation of high-level decision diagrams is explained. Subsequently, this method is reduced to malicious fault list generation at the high-level. A minimized fault list is generated for optimizing the time to be spent on the fault injection run necessary for assessing designs vulnerability to soft-errors.
Software-Based Self-Test of Embedded Microprocessors
Authors: Bernardi Paolo , Grosso Michelangelo , Sánchez Ernesto , Reorda Matteo Sonza
Published: May 2011

In the recent years, the usage of embedded microprocessors in complex SoCs has become common practice. Their test is often a challenging task, due to their complexity, to the strict constraints coming from the environment and the application, and to the typical SoC design paradigm, where cores (including microprocessors) are often provided by third parties, and thus must be seen as black boxes. An increasingly popular solution to this challenge is based on developing a suitable test program, forcing the processor to execute it, and then checking the produced results (Software-Based Self Test, or SBST). The SBST methodology is particularly suitable for being applied at the end of manufacturing and in the field as well, to detect the occurrence of faults caused by environmental stresses and intrinsic aging (e.g., negative bias temperature instability, hot carriers injection) in embedded systems. This chapter provides an overview of the main techniques proposed so far in the literature to effectively generate test programs, ranging from manual ad hoc techniques to automated and general ones. Some details about specific hardware modules that can be fruitfully included in a SoC to ease the test of the processor when the SBST technique is adopted are also provided.
Low Power Testing
Authors: Kotásek Zdenek , Škarvada Jaroslav
Published: May 2011

Portable computer systems and embedded systems are examples of electronic devices which are powered from batteries; therefore, they are designed with the goal of low power consumption. Low power consumption becomes important not only during normal operational mode, but during test application as well when switching activity is higher than in normal mode. In this chapter, a survey of basic concepts and methodologies from the area of low power testing is provided. It is explained here how power consumption is related to switching activities during test application. The concepts of static and dynamic power consumption are discussed together with metrics which can be possibly used to evaluate power consumption. The survey of methods, the goal of which is to reduce dynamic power consumption during test application, is then provided followed by a short survey of power-constrained test scheduling methods.