bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Social-Technical Systems
Authors: Whitworth Brian
Published: May 2011

Computer systems have long been seen as more than just mechanical systems (Boulding, 1956). They seem to be systems in a general sense (Churchman, 1979), with system elements, like a boundary, common to other systems (Whitworth & Zaic, 2003). A computer system of chips and circuits is also a software system of information exchanges. Today, the system is also the human-computer combination (Alter, 1999); for example, a plane is mechanical, its computer controls are informational, but the plane plus pilot is also a system: a human-computer system. Human-computer interaction (HCI) sees computers as more than just technology (hardware and software). Computing has reinvented itself each decade or so, from hardware in the 1950s and 1960s, to commercial information processors in the 1970s, to personal computers in the 1980s, to computers as communication tools in the 1990s. At each stage, system performance increased. This decade seems to be that of social computing, in which software serves not just people but society, and systems like e-mail, chat rooms, and bulletin boards have a social level. Human-factors research has expanded from computer usability (individual), to computer-mediated communication (largely dyads), to virtual communities (social groups). The infrastructure is technology, but the overall system is personal and social, with all that implies. Do social systems mediated by technology differ from those mediated by the natural world? The means of interaction, a computer network, is virtual, but the people involved are real. One can be as upset by an e-mail as by a letter. Online and physical communities have a different architectural base, but the social level is still people communicating with people. This suggests computer-mediated communities operate by the same principles as physical communities; that is, virtual society is still a society, and friendships cross seamlessly from face-to-face to e-mail interaction. Table 1 suggests four computer system levels, matching the idea of an information system as hardware, software, people, and business processes (Alter, 2001). Social-technical systems arise when cognitive and social interaction is mediated by information technology rather than the natural world.
Software Engineering and HCI
Authors: Singh Shawren , Dix Alan
Published: May 2011

As computer technology continues to leapfrog forward, CBISs are changing rapidly. These changes are having an enormous impact on the capabilities of organizational systems (Turban, Rainer, & Potter, 2001). The major ICT developments affecting CBISs can be categorized in three groupings: hardware-related, software-related, and hybrid cooperative environments.
Turning the Usability Fraternity into a Thriving Industry
Authors: Henry Pradeep
Published: May 2011

Many business and IT executives today think that usability is an important aspect of software applications that are used in enterprises (Orenstein, 1999). However, the term usability represents different things to different people. And, to most people, usability does not sound like an aspect that could really impact enterprise performance and bottom-line. Literature suggests that the usability fraternity has failed to make an impact so far. For example, Bias and Mayhew (1994) ask “… given that the Human Factors Society (now the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society) is a quarter of a century old, why is it taking so long for usability engineering to achieve its place alongside the other accepted disciplines?” Later, this article looks at some reasons why, and what to do about it.
Various Views on Digital Interactivity
Authors: Thomas Julie , Roda Claudia
Published: May 2011

As Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001) state, there is no communication without interaction. Broadly, levels of “interactivity” can be recognized as depending on quality of feedback and control and exchange of discourse according to the mode or modes (“multimodal discourse”) involved. Important constraints that operate to modify interactivity of any kind can be identified as the amount of “common ground” (Clark, 1996), constraints of space and time, relative embodiment, and choice of or control over the means, manner, and/or medium of feedback. Ha and James (1998) emphasize the element of response as characterized by playfulness, choice, connectedness, information collection, and reciprocal communication.
Wearable and Mobile Devices
Authors: Freitas Sara , Levene Mark
Published: May 2011

Information and Communication Technologies, known as ICT, have undergone dramatic changes in the last 25 years. The 1980s was the decade of the Personal Computer (PC), which brought computing into the home and, in an educational setting, into the classroom. The 1990s gave us the World Wide Web (the Web), building on the infrastructure of the Internet, which has revolutionized the availability and delivery of information. In the midst of this information revolution, we are now confronted with a third wave of novel technologies (i.e., mobile and wearable computing), where computing devices already are becoming small enough so that we can carry them around at all times, and, in addition, they have the ability to interact with devices embedded in the environment. The development of wearable technology is perhaps a logical product of the convergence between the miniaturization of microchips (nanotechnology) and an increasing interest in pervasive computing, where mobility is the main objective. The miniaturization of computers is largely due to the decreasing size of semiconductors and switches; molecular manufacturing will allow for “not only molecular-scale switches but also nanoscale motors, pumps, pipes, machinery that could mimic skin” (Page, 2003, p. 2). This shift in the size of computers has obvious implications for the human-computer interaction introducing the next generation of interfaces. Neil Gershenfeld, the director of the Media Lab’s Physics and Media Group, argues, “The world is becoming the interface. Computers as distinguishable devices will disappear as the objects themselves become the means we use to interact with both the physical and the virtual worlds” (Page, 2003, p. 3). Ultimately, this will lead to a move away from desktop user interfaces and toward mobile interfaces and pervasive computing.
Computer-Mediated Communication in Virtual Learning Communities
Authors: Link Lisa , Wagner Daniela
Published: May 2011

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) can be simply defined as “communication that takes place between human beings via the instrumentality of computers” (Herring, 1996, p. 1) and the technology used in CMC as “media that facilitate the exchange of semantic content, transmitted through telecommunication networks, processed through one or more computers, between individuals and among groups” (Rice, 1984, p. 438). As a concomitant result of the widespread use of computers and the Internet in the curriculum of higher education as well as the inclusion of various forms of online learning, CMC has become a common communication modality in teaching and learning contexts. Although all forms of CMC can be meaningfully integrated into learning contexts, the majority of CMC at present is nevertheless text based and hence the focus of this contribution. CMC plays a pivotal role in the context of e-learning models in higher education that offer students new forms of learning that would not be possible in a traditional classroom environment. Cooperative and collaborative learning, problem-oriented and project-based learning, as well as authentic learning in which real-world scenarios are simulated, are some examples. In the context of these types of e-learning models, virtual learning communities as well as smaller virtual teams are often an essential component. The learning objectives of these models are manifold, but they generally include offering students the opportunity to acquire, practice and enhance important key competencies required in their future professional work. Hence, communication and media skills as well as the ability to work cooperatively in a virtual team are just as important as the actual subject matter of the course itself.
Discussing Health Issues on the Internet
Authors: Moon Jane
Published: May 2011

This article provides an overview of the trend in Internet usage; in particular, the trend that relates particularly to health-information-seeking behavior. It discusses a paradigm shift in patient-doctor relationships that has resulted from social changes; that is, lack of consultation time, thirst for medical knowledge, mass-media medical information and an explosion in the number of health Web sites. The Internet has become an important medium for bridging the gap in the patient-doctor relationship. Issues of Internet quality are explored. While the Internet can help consumers by providing immediate feedback as far as treatment and medication are concerned, without proper standards and quality assurance it can give rise to diabolical consequences (Crocco, Villasis-Keever, & Jadad, 2002). Ciolek describes information on the Internet as mediocre and argues that health information on the Internet is subject to “Multi Media Mediocrity” (MMM) (Ciolek, 1997).
Information Integrity for CRM in a Virtual World
Authors: Malik Piyush
Published: May 2011

As the Internet explosion has opened the doors to unprecedented avenues of e-Business for companies big and small, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has taken a new meaning altogether, especially for virtual or e-customers. Virtual means of customer interactions via the Web, chat, e-mail, phone, fax and interactive voice recognition (IVR) systems are getting increasingly popular due to cost effectiveness as well as convenience. Companies no longer can rely on face-to-face interaction of their associates with their customers to know them better. As the customer is hidden behind the veil of IP addresses and Internet routers, it becomes increasingly apparent that companies lose the personal touch of yore in its customer interactions. The onus is on the company to provide all interaction capability that the e-customer demands and to “know” the customer by not only tracking and remembering all interactions across multiple touch points, but also be able to analyze customer interaction information to offer additional services such as personalization, security and communities of interest to attract and retain them. The quality and accuracy of data (i.e., customer, market, competitor, product and supplier data) in the CRM system will impact a consistent, error-free way to enhance the customer experience (Goldenberg, 2003). Challenges in understanding and formulating strategies for today’s virtual customers and prospects get accentuated when the quality of data collected and used is circumspect. Be it customer identity, customer preferences, privacy or misconstrued sales practices, these data issues can make or break the company’s future. Let’s take a closer look at the business scenarios for some of these.
The MENOS Organization
Authors: Hassan A. , Henttonen K. , Blomqvist K.
Published: May 2011

Virtual forms of organizing are becoming ever more common forms of managing knowledge resources, because working in a virtual environment offers possibilities that would not be available in conventional organizations. It is believed that the technology enabling virtual work “tricks” teams and organizations into thinking that work is being done in the same space and with the same set of organizational norms (George, 1996). Rachman and Battachryya (2002) pinpoint transaction costs as the drivers behind the disintegration of organizations into dispersed organizations. They propose that modern technology allows small businesses to gain access to the same amount information that previously required heavy investments in a large organization; operating in a network economy allows small businesses to avoid such investments, while reaping the same benefits. The MENOS (Successful Expert Teams) project aims at a creating self-employment through a networked collaboration model between SMEs and professionals in the field of content and software production in the region of South Karelia in Finland. The MENOS project is an interesting virtual venture in a knowledge-intensive information and communications technologies (ICT) industry. The classification of such a phenomenon, which exhibits features of virtual teams, a virtual community and a virtual organization, is not straightforward. This article offers a critical analysis of the contemporary conceptual confusion as well as some empirical insight obtained from the MENOS case.
Peer-to-Peer Technology for File Sharing
Authors: Kwok S. H. , Cheung Y. M. , Chan K. Y.
Published: May 2011

A recent survey revealed that 18 millions American Internet users, or approximately 14% of total American Internet population have peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications running on their computers (Rainie & Madden, 2004). Not surprisingly, P2P applications have become common tools for information sharing and distribution since the appearance of Napster (Napster, 2003) in 1999. P2P systems are the distributed systems in which all nodes are equal in terms of functionality and able to directly communicate with each other without the coordination of a powerful server. Anonymity, scalability, fault resilience, decentralization and self-organization are the distinct characteristics of P2P computing (Milojicic et al., 2002) compared with the traditional client-server computing. P2P computing is believed to be capable of overcoming limitations of the computing environment placed by the client-server computing model. Milojicic et al. (2002), for example, suggested that P2P computing is capable of providing improved scalability by eliminating the limiting factor, the centralized server existing in the client-server computing. In the past few years, P2P computing and its promised characteristics have caught the attention of researchers who have studied the existing P2P networks, and the advantages and disadvantage of P2P systems. Important findings include the excessive network traffic caused by flooding-based searching mechanism that must be tackled in order to fully utilize the improved scalability of P2P systems (Matei, Iamnitchi, & Foster, 2002; Portmann & Seneviratne, 2002). There were proposed efficient searching techniques targeted for both structured and unstructured P2P systems. Other research projects were conducted to study, and were intended to complement, the drawbacks brought by distinct characteristics of P2P systems. For example, the P2P users’ free-riding behavior is generally attributed to the anonymity of such form of communication (Adar & Huberman, 2000). Recent research projects have shifted to a new line of investigation of P2P networks from the economic perspective and applications of P2P systems in workplaces (Kwok & Gao, 2004; Tiwana, 2003).
Telework and the Academic Librarian
Authors: Calzonetti Jo Ann , de Chambeau Aimée
Published: May 2011

College and university faculty and students prefer the convenience of anytime, anyplace access to scholarly materials when conducting research and completing assignments. Distance education programs are common whether the students are across town or across the continent. Faculty researchers collaborate with their peers nationally and internationally by utilizing virtual technologies. Academic libraries have been quick to integrate electronic and digital technology into their operating environment by investing heavily in the purchase and creation of digital collections as well as the purchase of the hardware and software to deliver content to these virtual scholarly communities. Librarians have adapted to working virtually. This article explores freeing librarians from the physical boundaries of the library, allowing them to provide virtual reference services by telecommuting.
Virtual Campus of Nanyan Technological University
Authors: Sourin Alexei
Published: May 2011

Nanyang in Chinese means “south seas”¾a reference to the Southeast Asian region. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, many Chinese from mainland China ventured south to seek their fortunes in new lands. Malaya¾now Singapore and Malaysia¾was then known as Nanyang to the Chinese. After World War II, a university was founded in Singapore that would provide tertiary, comprehensive education in Chinese. On March 23, 1953, 523 acres of donated land helped expand the new Nanyang University (known as Nan Tah in Chinese). The modern Nanyang Technological University (NTU, www.ntu.edu.sg) originated from Nan Tah. NTU occupies a large, beautiful campus with hilly terrain in Jurong, located in the western part of Singapore. Many of the campus buildings have sophisticated, futuristic architecture, some designed by Kenzo Tange, the famous Japanese architect.
Virtual Communities for Development
Authors: Fryer Deidra , Turner Eric
Published: May 2011

Americans, and to some extension, the greater world, appear to have an obsession with celebrity. We often find ourselves defined not by our deeds but by our relationship, either real or imagined, with famous people. Celebrity lives appear more appealing or real to us because we can see their lives up close and in ways we cannot see our own. Peter Howe (2005), in his book Paparazzi: And Our Obsession With Celebrity, examines the origins, ethics and our insatiable appetite for celebrity that keeps the paparazzi in such demand. With so many things competing for our attention, we often pursue the path of least resistance. We go to bed and wake up to the celebration of celebrity through mass communications media. The major network television morning news and late-night shows tend to focus only the first 10 minutes of broadcast, if any, on national and local affairs of society, and then quickly retreat to celebrity promotions or gossip. For dinnertime or early evening entertainment, the major networks are filled with such shows as Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and Celebrity Justice. Cable networks and radio also serve as additional mass-media vehicles to further celebrate and promote celebrity. The Internet has become the newest vehicle to help feed this frenzy of celebrity pursuit. Thousands of virtual communities of interests have developed to help foster a sense of relationships to celebrities, feed these obsessions and escape from reality. Does Internet usage favor the development of new communities, virtual communities; or instead, is it inducing personal isolation, severing people’s ties with society and ultimately the real world? This article examines virtual communities from the perspective of the American obsession with celebrity, using as an example a Yahoo celebrity virtual community that has evolved over a period of four years.
Virtually Finding Community in the Third Space
Authors: Bax Samantha
Published: May 2011

The Internet has enabled individuals to communicate across continents and also through temporal spaces, making both place and time irrelevant to these communications. The specific interaction systems utilized for these purposes are referred to as computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies and encompass electronic mail (e-mail), bulletin board systems and Internet Relay Chat (IRC), to name the most well-known of these technologies. Each of these technologies allows for the gathering of individuals within cyberspace to converse and to exchange information with each other. It is interesting to note that the terms communication and community stem from a Latin word meaning “common,” and thus it can be inferred that communication is a process through which community can be developed (Fernback & Thompson, 1995). Licklider and Taylor (1968), predicted three decades ago that computer networks would become communities, and “in most fields they will consist of geographically separated members …” (online) gathering within a common communication space. Earlier technologies such as the telephone have inspired scholars to state that we now live in a boundless “global village” (McLuhan, 1964). Current CMC technologies have brought about the possibility of numerous people meeting online and conversing with and between each other, allowing for a meeting “space” that consists of abrogated time and place (Fernback & Thompson, 1995), with no boundaries of race, gender or creed. It is from these utopian ideals that the idea of virtual communities has stemmed. The concept of the “virtual community” refers to groupings of individuals utilizing CMC technologies in such a way that they can be likened to communities in the physical world. Rheingold (1993c) states that “virtual communities might be real communities, they might be pseudocommunities or they might be something entirely new in the realm of social contracts” (p. 62). Thus, the question still remains as to whether “virtual communities” can replicate communities that exist in the physical world.
Developing Distance Learning Programs
Authors: Baim Susan A.
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the processes associated with developing new distance learning programs at post-secondary academic institutions that have not previously ventured into the world of online learning. Although the majority of the topics discussed are readily applicable across a wide range of academic subjects, a new distance learning program in business technology serves to illustrate the relevant concepts. Through an exploration of students’ thoughts about the opportunities and concerns involved with online learning, plus a brief overview of distance learning efforts starting with one-way, non-interactive communications and moving toward today’s fast-paced interactive courserooms and multimedia capabilities, organizational challenges and potential trouble spots for new online academic programs are identified and discussed. The knowledge gained from this first-hand experience, combined with an ongoing dialog with online student learners and other university stakeholders, provides a strong foundation on which to build and successfully implement new distance learning programs for undergraduates at the university level.
Loyalty Differences in the Effect of Negative Critical Incidents and Quality Attributes Satisfaction
Authors: Fang Kwoting , Shih Ya-Yueh , Liu Duen-Ren
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces the effect of negative critical incidents and quality attributes satisfaction to heed the call for theoretically based empirical work in terms of loyalty difference on Internet shopping. There are some findings and recommendations. First, FNCIs would affect overall satisfaction indirectly by QASAT. Second, either highly loyal customers or less loyal customers, although the important order of relationship between four latent factors of QASAT and FNCIs are not equal, have causal relationships that were all significant. Third, the slow response that affected overall satisfaction indirectly by QASAT seems to be more important to customers who have less purchase frequency or purchase amount than higher ones. Finally, online bookstores with incomplete content that have untrustworthy transactions would affect overall satisfaction indirectly to customers with high loyalty by QASAT; this seems to be more important than it is to less loyal customers. It is hoped that the results of this chapter could provide a valuable strategy for marketers to rethink how they can find out and reduce the FNCIs that customers may encounter.
A Reverse Auction Case Study
Authors: Stein Andrew , Hawking Paul , Wyld Daniel C.
Published: May 2011

The reverse auction tool has evolved to take advantage of Internet technology and has been identified by many large organisations as a tool to achieve substantial procurement savings. As companies adopt this technology it is important for them to understand the implications of this type of procurement. This chapter re-visits a reverse auction event and discusses the impacts the reverse auction format had upon all participants involved in the auction. In late 2001 a small Australian supplier of transport and logistics services was asked to participate in a reverse auction for services they had provided for five years to a multi-national organisation. They were not successful in retaining their contract position and this chapter looks at the reverse auction and its business impacts two years after the initial auction. The case study is viewed through the eyes of the winning supplier, losing supplier, auction vendor, and buyer. The main outcomes show that the reverse auction struggles to adapt to fluid business conditions and is limited if it is used as only a price fixing mechanism. It did not engender co-operative supply chains or win-win situations between the auction players.
Toward Semantically Meaningful Feature Spaces for Efficient Indexing in Large Image Databases
Authors: Ngu Anne H.H. , Shen Jialie , Shepherd John
Published: May 2011

The optimized distance-based access methods currently available for multimedia databases are based on two major assumptions: a suitable distance function is known a priori, and the dimensionality of image features is low. The standard approach to building image databases is to represent images via vectors based on low-level visual features and make retrieval based on these vectors. However, due to the large gap between the semantic notions and low-level visual content, it is extremely difficult to define a distance function that accurately captures the similarity of images as perceived by humans. Furthermore, popular dimension reduction methods suffer from either the inability to capture the nonlinear correlations among raw data or very expensive training cost. To address the problems, in this chapter we introduce a new indexing technique called Combining Multiple Visual Features (CMVF) that integrates multiple visual features to get better query effectiveness. Our approach is able to produce low-dimensional image feature vectors that include not only low-level visual properties but also high-level semantic properties. The hybrid architecture can produce feature vectors that capture the salient properties of images yet are small enough to allow the use of existing high-dimensional indexing methods to provide efficient and effective retrieval.
Self-Supervised Learning Based on Discriminative Nonlinear Features and Its Applications for Pattern Classification
Authors: Tian Qi , Wu Ying , Yu Jie , Huang Thomas S.
Published: May 2011

For learning-based tasks such as image classification and object recognition, the feature dimension is usually very high. The learning is afflicted by the curse of dimensionality as the search space grows exponentially with the dimension. Discriminant expectation maximization (DEM) proposed a framework by applying self-supervised learning in a discriminating subspace. This paper extends the linear DEM to a nonlinear kernel algorithm, Kernel DEM (KDEM), and evaluates KDEM extensively on benchmark image databases and synthetic data. Various comparisons with other state-of-the-art learning techniques are investigated for several tasks of image classification, hand posture recognition and fingertip tracking. Extensive results show the effectiveness of our approach.
Content-Based Music Summarization and Classification
Authors: Xu Changsheng , Shao Xi , Maddage Namunu C. , Jin Jesse S. , Tian Qi
Published: May 2011

This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive survey of the technical achievements in the area of content-based music summarization and classification and to present our recent achievements. In order to give a full picture of the current status, the chapter covers the aspects of music summarization in compressed domain and uncompressed domain, music video summarization, music genre classification, and semantic region detection in acoustical music signals. By reviewing the current technologies and the demands from practical applications in music summarization and classification, the chapter identifies the directions for future research.
MM4U
Authors: Scherp Ansgar , Boll Susanne
Published: May 2011

In the Internet age and with the advent of digital multimedia information, we succumb to the possibilities that the enchanting multimedia information seems to offer, but end up almost drowning in the multimedia information: Too much information at the same time, so much information that is not suitable for the current situation of the user, too much time needed to find information that is really helpful. The multimedia material is there, but the issues of how the multimedia content is found, selected, assembled, and delivered such that it is most suitable for the user’s interest and background, the user’s preferred device, network connection, location, and many other settings, is far from being solved. In this chapter, we are focusing on the aspect of how to assemble and deliver personalized multimedia content to the users. We present the requirements and solutions of multimedia content modeling and multimedia content authoring as we find it today. Looking at the specific demands of creating personalized multimedia content, we come to the conclusion that a dynamic authoring process is needed in which just in time the individual multimedia content is created for a specific user or user group. We designed and implemented an extensible software framework, MM4U (short for “MultiMedia for you”), which provides generic functionality for typical tasks of a dynamic multimedia content personalization process. With such a framework at hand, an application developer can concentrate on creating personalized content in the specific domain and at the same time is relieved from the basic task of selecting, assembling, and delivering personalized multimedia content. We present the design of the MM4U framework in detail with an emphasis for the personalized multimedia composition and illustrate the framework’s usage in the context of our prototypical applications.
Corporate Adoption of Mobile Cell Phone
Authors: Roberts G.K. , Pick James B.
Published: May 2011

This chapter identifies the technology and non-technology factors that companies consider important in deciding to adopt and deploy wireless devices designed for mobile telephony and information services, the extent of current use of cell phones, the extent of existing utilization and/or planning for Web-enabled cell phone use, the constraining factors in their deployment decisions, how such decisions are made, and the practical technology implications for decision-making, including beyond 3G. This chapter seeks to help decision makers by shedding light on the adoption process. The conceptual model combines the TAM and innovation adoption/diffusion models, adding the factors of security, cost, reliability, digital standards/regulatory environment, technology product suitability, and future Web connectivity. Case study methodology is utilized for five manufacturing and technology firms. A key finding is that the most important technology decision factors are security, reliability, and Web connectivity. Although the current uses are dominated by voice, Web-enabled capability dominates future decision-making.
Packet Level Performance Measurement Schemas and Their Limitations
Authors: Schormans John , Leung Chi M.
Published: May 2011

New business opportunities for mobile, wireless, and fixed networks are going to require managed packet based services; this requires SLAs that relate to the level of QoS purchased, and the measurement (monitoring) of information loss and delay at the packet level. In this chapter we investigate the two available measurement techniques: passive and active monitoring. We show that passive monitoring techniques can provide excellent accuracy with minimal computational overhead. However, it also has the disadvantage that it is necessary to have access to all the routers in all measured end to end paths, so severely limiting scalability. Alternatively active monitoring techniques can provide global reach; however it is critical that we go on to show that this technique has the disadvantage that (under many circumstances) the measured results may be very inaccurate. Finally we propose some ideas which may enhance accuracy.
Very Low Bit-rate Video Coding
Authors: Paul Manoranjan , Murshed Manzur , Dooley Laurence S.
Published: May 2011

his chapter presents a contemporary review of the various different strategies available to facilitate Very Low Bit-Rate (VLBR) coding for video communications over mobile and fixed transmission channels as well as the Internet. VLBR media is typically classified as having a bit rate between 8 and 64 Kbps. Techniques that are analyzed include Vector Quantization, various parametric model-based representations, the Discrete Wavelet and Cosine Transforms, and fixed and arbitrary shaped pattern-based coding. In addition to discussing the underlying theoretical principles and relevant features of each approach, the chapter also examines their benefits and disadvantages, together with some of the major challenges that remain to be solved. The chapter concludes by providing some judgments on the likely focus of future research in the VLBR coding field.
An Overview of Video Information Retrieval Techniques
Authors: Deb Sagarmay , Zhang Yanchun
Published: May 2011

Video information retrieval is currently a very important topic of research in the area of multimedia databases. Plenty of research work has been undertaken in the past decade to design efficient video information retrieval techniques from the video or multimedia databases. Although a large number of indexing and retrieval techniques have been developed, there are still no universally accepted feature extraction, indexing, and retrieval techniques available. In this chapter, we present an up-to-date overview of various video information retrieval systems. Since the volume of literature available in the field is enormous, only selected works are mentioned.
Video Summarization Based on Human Face Detection and Recognition
Authors: Je Hong-Mo , Kim Daijin , Bang Sung-Yang
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, we deal with video summarization using human facial information by face detection and recognition. Many methods of face detection and face recognition are introduced as both theoretical and practical aspects. Also, we describe the real implementation of the video summarization system based on face detection and recognition
Knowledge Communication
Authors: Eppler M.J.
Published: May 2011

Communicating professional knowledge is a key activity for today’s specialized workforce. The efficient and effective transfer of experiences, insights, and know-how among different experts and decision makers is a prerequisite for high-quality decision making and coordinated, organizational action (Straub & Karahanna, 1998). Situations of such deliberate (interfunctional) knowledge transfer through interpersonal communication or group conversations (Gratton & Goshal, 2002) can be found in many business constellations, as the following typical examples illustrate:
Knowledge Intermediation
Authors: Scarso Enrico , Bolisani Ettore
Published: May 2011

Since knowledge is increasingly regarded as the central source of competitive advantage, a “cognitive” interpretation of business activities becomes vital. With regard to this, the flourishing field of knowledge management (KM) provides useful insights into approaches to a systematic and explicit management of knowledge. Furthermore, the development of Internet technologies raises expectations of new opportunities to acquire, process, and distribute knowledge. Little research has, however, been done on the new businesses that may originate from a combination of KM practices and the use of new technologies. In particular, since the activities of knowledge creation and sharing are not bound to the single organisation, there is room for the development of innovative services that enable a “knowledge-based use” of network technologies such as the Internet. In fact, an increasing number of examples of innovative “knowledge-intensive” firms based on the Web can be found, but there is the need for better understanding of the contents and issues associated with such emerging ventures.
Building Human-Centered Systems
Authors: Moutinho José L. , Heitor Manuel
Published: May 2011

Within the current socio-economic paradigm, in which engineering systems are key for the sustainable development (Moses, 2003), the region is considered the place of untraded interdependencies, meaning “…conventions, informal rules, and habitats that coordinate economic actors under conditions of uncertainty. These assets are a central form of scarcity in contemporary capitalism, and hence a central form of geographical differentiation” (Storper, 1998) and economic growth. The actors include “firms, organizations and institutions [that] interact in the generation, diffusion and use of new—and economically useful—knowledge in the production process” (Fischer, Diez, & Snickars, 2001). Some of these interactions are based on information and communication technologies (ICT) in terms of digitally-enabled knowledge networks, which have been developed through ill-defined communities of practice (CoPs).
Connecting Dispersed Communities on the Move
Authors: Jain Juliet , Lyons Glenn
Published: May 2011

Travel assists the development and maintenance of social networks from the local to the global by connecting people to places. The time spent travelling has tended to be regarded by many analysts as a necessary sacrifice to achieve this connectivity. Accordingly, the expansion or dispersal of communities has been a function of journey times, limited in turn by journey speeds in the face of increasingly congested transport networks. Yet in a world being transformed by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), this article contends that there is now a need to examine more closely the presumption that travel time is “wasted” and indeed to consider how, with the aid of ICT, this time might be being used to sustain or even encourage the dispersal of communities.
Imagining APNA Punjab in Cyberspace
Authors: Roy Anjali Gera
Published: May 2011

Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson have observed a motif of discontinuousness in modernist organizations of space. The modern map, which splits the world into a number of discrete, separate formations best illustrates the modernist premise of discontinuity (1997). Gupta and Ferguson discern a pattern of interconnected spaces marking the relations between groups and cultures (1997). This reconceptualization of space as interconnected has been triggered by the connectivity of the electronic media and new information and communication technologies (ICT).
Impact of PFnet Services on Sustainable Rural Development
Authors: Chand Anand , Leeming David
Published: May 2011

PFnet in the Solomon Islands is the first attempt to introduce rural e-mail stations in remote rural villages in isolated islands. It was established in 2001 under an UNDP-UNOPS project and was initially partly funded by UNDP. Since then the major funding has come from Japan, NZODA, Britain, Republic of China, AusAid and European Union (Leeming, 2003a). It is managed by the Rural Development Volunteer Association (RDVA), a registered NGO. PFnet has an Internet Café (head office) in Honiara, the capital city and operates a network hub with fourteen rural e-mail stations linked by HF (short-wave) radios with e-mails typed in a laptop and powered by solar energy (Stork, Leeming, and Biliki, 2003). PFnet provides for the information and communication needs of the rural people. It is a source of information (e.g., providing news, Internet access), source of communication (sending and receiving e-mails), and provider of typing, secretarial, and printing services. PFnet has been a success story in improving the information and communication needs of the rural people (Leeming, 2003b).
Telework and the Canadian Environment
Authors: Kabene Stefane M. , Leduc Raymond , Burjaw Rick
Published: May 2011

Information and communication technology (ICT) is constantly changing the world around us. This not only affects the way that we conduct our personal lives but also our business lives. It is changing the very make up of society (Neff, 2000). For organizations, it seems that there is a requirement for success that they ride along with the new technological wave or risk getting left behind. As a result, some organizations are implementing telework programs to take advantage of new technologies (Kaye et al., 2000).
Recent Copyright Protection Schemes
Authors: Tavani Herman T.
Published: May 2011

This chapter critically examines current copyright protection schemes that apply to digital information. We begin with a brief examination of the way in which copyright law has evolved in the United States, from its Anglo-American origins to the present, and then we examine three traditional philosophical theories of property that have been used to justify the granting of copyright protection. Arguing that each property theory is inadequate, we next consider and reject the view that intellectual property should not be protected at all (and thus should be completely free). We then critically analyze the notion of information, arguing that it should not be viewed as a commodity that deserves exclusive protection but rather as something that should be communicated and shared. Building on this view, we argue for a new presumptive principle for approaching the copyright debate — namely, the principle that information wants to be shared. Finally, we argue that presuming in favor of this principle would enable us to formulate a copyright policy that can avoid the extremes found in the two main competing contemporary positions, both of which are morally unacceptable: (1) the view that access to all digitized information should be totally free; and (2) the view that overreaching, and arguably oppressive, copyright legislation, such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Copyright Term Extension Act, is needed to protect digital information.
Denial of Service Threat
Authors: Janczewski Lech J. , Colarik Andrew M.
Published: May 2011

n the early 1960s, programmers used to play memory games on a computer. The objective of the game was to disable as much of the operating system memory as possible in order to make their opponents unable to run their applications. In those days it was not anticipated that the whole idea would reemerge some 35 years later to become one of the most treacherous concepts in disabling vast computer networks. Denial of Service (DOS) attacks are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Operations Management
Authors: Janczewski Lech J. , Colarik Andrew M.
Published: May 2011

A major focus of this book is guiding IT managers on how to secure the operations of their facilities due to increased threats from terrorist oriented attacks. As it was presented in the earlier part of the text, there are many procedures that would decrease such threats. However, the best protection is just to run the facilities, keeping in mind the systems approach to information security. In this way, we are able to optimize the protection of the workplace from any form of attack, including those from cyber-warriors and cyber-terrorists. In this chapter, we will present the essence of managing IT facilities from the security point of view.
Organizational Advantages
Authors: Jones Robert , Oyung Rob , Pace Lisa Shade
Published: May 2011

In the mid-1990s, Hewlett-Packard was a very decentralized company, and IT was especially decentralized. At the time, HP had 150 data centers located around the world. Many of these data centers were owned and managed by HP businesses or factory sites, and only grudgingly did they interact with the broader HP. While there was a central corporate IT function located in Palo Alto, California, it only occasionally impacted the rest of the myriad HP IT organizations. Sometimes, that interaction was decreed (only TCP/IP would be used on internal networks, single e-mail systems, etc.), and sometimes corporate could only suggest (desktop application standards, PC hardware).
Integrating Access Policies into the Development Process of Hypermedia Web Systems
Authors: Diaz Paloma , Sanz Daniel , Montero Susana
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses the integration of access control in the development process of hypermedia applications. Two key ideas are proposed: the use of high level, abstract access control models and the inclusion of access control in the whole life cycle of hypermedia applications. Authors present an access control model for hypermedia that makes it possible to formalize access policies using elements of the hypermedia domain, those used to specify structure and navigation services. Abstract models are not enoughto assist developers in dealing with security in a systematic way. Thus, authors describe how high-level access rules can be specified following the Ariadne Development Method (ADM). The ARCE project is used as example of development.
Resource-Based Learning and Informal Learning Environments
Authors: Hill Janette R. , Hannafin Michael J. , Domizi Denise P.
Published: May 2011

Recent changes in the role of resources have not only transformed how we think about resources, they have distributed production of and access to digital resources while altering fundamentally how, when, and for what purposes resources are created and used. The metamorphosis has been propelled by the exponential growth of information systems such as the Internet and the Web, and the ubiquitous presence of enabling technologies in classrooms, libraries, museums, homes, businesses, and communities. These changes portend exciting educational opportunities, particularly in resource-rich environments such as science centers and museums. In this chapter we explore RBL and ILEs, providing examples of how an RBL approach might be implemented in an ILE and describing the opportunities and challenges associated with such an endeavor.
Revolutionizing Information Architectures within Learning-Focused Web Sites
Authors: Srinivasan Ramesh
Published: May 2011

This chapter points to the potential new information architectures hold in the design of virtual science centers. Science centers are treated as education-focused institutions and the argument is made that that extending the power of the science center as an educational platform warrants an answer to the question of how to share knowledge across the community of visitors without physical co-assembly. Two approaches toward information design are discussed: community-driven ontologies and social information filtering agents. These approaches are introduced within the context of two pieces of previous research and hold great potential when applied to the Web environment of the science center.