bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Online Survey
Authors: Issa Tomayess
Published: February 2013

This chapter aims to demonstrate how the online survey tool was used during the PhD and postdoctoral research stages to evaluate and assess the New Participative Methodology for Developing Websites from the Marketing Perspective. After reviewing techniques from numerous disciplines for methodology integration, a new methodology was produced and an online survey to assess the methodology was completed by website industry participants and information systems professionals in Western Australia. A new online survey was developed on the basis of the PhD results and 210 Web developers and information technology professionals from Australia assessed the new methodology. This chapter will discuss three factors: the advantages and disadvantages of using an online survey in helping to facilitate high quality research and an overview of the functionality of the online survey tool(s) from a researcher’s point of view. Finally, a practical set of recommendations and endorsements is presented regarding the adoption of an online survey from the researcher’s standpoint.
Designing Personalised Learning Resources for Disabled Students Using an Ontology-Driven Community of Agents
Authors: Nganji Julius T. , Brayshaw Mike
Published: February 2013

The exploration of social artifacts for the disabled is an important and timely issue. The affordances of new technologies like the Semantic Web allow more intelligent handling of educational learning resources that open up the potential of personalisation of services to individuals. Contemporary legislation calls for “reasonable adjustments” and “reasonable accommodation” to be made to services in order to accommodate the needs of disabled people. Here, the authors examine, from a design perspective, how this might be done in the context of higher education. Specifically, they advocate a design based upon an ontology-based personalisation of learning resources to deliver to students’ real needs. To this end, so far little effort has been directed towards disabled students in higher education. The authors note some of the problems and issues with online assistive/adaptive technologies and propose a methodological fix. Here, they propose an ontology-based methodology for a Semantic Web community of agents that personalises learning resources to disabled students in higher education, specifically highlighting a disability-aware Semantic Web agency development methodology. The authors also present the results of usability evaluation of the implemented visual interface with some disabled and non-disabled students.
Taxonomy of IT Intangible Assets for Public Administration Based on the Electronic Government Maturity Model in Uruguay
Authors: Garbarino Helena , Delgado Bruno , Carrillo José
Published: February 2013

This chapter presents a taxonomy of IT intangible asset indicators for Public Administration, relating the indicators to the Electronic Government Maturity Model proposed by the Uruguayan Agency for Electronic Government and Information Society. Indicators are categorized according to a consolidated intellectual capital model. The Taxonomy is mapped at the indicator level against the EGMM subareas covering all of the relevant aspects associated with the intangible IT assets of the Public Administration in Uruguay. The main challenges and future lines of work for building a consolidated maturity model of IT intangible assets in Public Administration are also presented.
Combining Research Paradigms to Improve Poor Student Performance
Authors: Goede Roelien , Taylor Estelle , van Aardt Christoffel
Published: February 2013

The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate the advantages of combining methods from different research paradigms. Positivism, interpretivism, and critical social theory are presented as major paradigms in Information Systems research. The chapter demonstrates the use of methods representative of these three research paradigms in a single research setting. The main problem in the research setting is the poor performance of students in a specific module of their academic programme. This problem is addressed by initiating an action research project using methods representing different research paradigms in the different phases of the project. The argument for using mixed methods is presented by providing information on research paradigms, discussing the problem environment, describing the research process, and finally, reflecting on research paradigms and their application in this environment.
Evaluation of Web Accessibility
Authors: Luján-Mora Sergio , Masri Firas
Published: February 2013

The Web is present in all fields of our life, from information and service Web pages to electronic public administration (e-government). Users of the Web are a heterogeneous and multicultural public, with different abilities and disabilities (visual, hearing, cognitive, and motor impairments). Web accessibility is about making websites accessible to all Internet users (both disabled and non-disabled). To assure and certify the fulfillment of Web accessibility guidelines, various accessibility evaluation methods have been proposed, and are classified in two types: qualitative methods (analytical and empirical) and quantitative methods (metric-based methods). As no method by itself is enough to guarantee full accessibility, many studies combine these qualitative and quantitative methods in order to guarantee better results. Some recent studies have presented combined evaluation methods between qualitative methods only, thus leaving behind the great power of metrics that guarantee objective results. In this chapter, a combined accessibility evaluation method based both on qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods is proposed. This proposal presents an evaluation method combining essential analytical evaluation methods and empirical test methods.
Integrated Methods for a User Adapted Usability Evaluation
Authors: Shirogane Junko , Yashita Yuichiro , Iwata Hajime , Fukazawa Yoshiaki
Published: February 2013

Specifically, the authors’ research focuses on employing automatic usability evaluations to identify problems. For example, they analyze the operation histories, but do not focus on manually performed evaluations such as heuristic ones. They assume their research can aid software developers and usability engineers because their work allows them to recognize the more serious problems. Consequently, the software can be modified to resolve the usability problems and better meet the end users’ requirements. In the future, the authors strive to integrate more diverse usability evaluations, including heuristic evaluations, to refine integration capabilities, to identify problems in more detail, and to improve the effectiveness of the usability evaluations.
A Protocol for Evaluating Mobile Applications
Authors: Martin Clare , Flood Derek , Harrison Rachel
Published: February 2013

The number of applications available for mobile phones is growing at a rate that makes it difficult for new application developers to establish the current state-of-the-art before embarking on new product development. This chapter is targeted towards such developers (who may not be familiar with traditional techniques for evaluating interaction design) and outlines a protocol for capturing a snapshot of the present state of the applications in existence for a given field in terms of both usability and functionality. The proposed methodology is versatile in the sense that it can be implemented for any domain across all mobile platforms, which is illustrated here by its application to two dissimilar domains on three platforms. The chapter concludes with a critical evaluation of the process that was undertaken and suggests a number of avenues for future research including further development of the keystroke level model for the current generation of smart phones.
Comparison of Connected vs. Disconnected Cellular Systems
Authors: Süer Gürsel A. , Lobo Royston
Published: February 2013

In this chapter, two cellular manufacturing systems, namely connected cells and disconnected cells, have been studied, and their performance was compared with respect to average flowtime and work-in-process inventory under make-to-order demand strategy. The study was performed in a medical device manufacturing company considering their a) existing system b) variations from the existing system by considering different process routings. Simulation models for each of the systems and each of the options were developed in ARENA 7.0 simulation software. The data used to model each of these systems were obtained from the company based on a period of nineteen months. Considering the existing system, no dominance was established between connected cells vs. disconnected cells as mixed results were obtained for different families. On the other hand, when different process routings were used, connected system outperformed the disconnected system. It is suspected that one additional operation required in the disconnected system as well batching requirement at the end of packaging led to poor performance for the disconnected cells. Finally, increased routing flexibility improved the performance of the connected cells, whereas it had adverse effects in the disconnected cells configuration.
Similarity-Based Cluster Analysis for the Cell Formation Problem
Authors: Manzini Riccardo , Accorsi Riccardo , Bortolini Marco
Published: February 2013

This chapter illustrates the cell formation problem (CFP) supported by similarity based methods. In particular, problem oriented indices are based on several factors which play an important role in the determination of the value of similarity between two generic machines, e.g. the number of machines visited by each part, the sequence of manufacturing operations, the production quantity for each part, et cetera. A numerical example illustrates the basic steps for the implementation of an effective hierarchical procedure of clustering machines into manufacturing cells and parts/products into families of parts. Literature presents many indices, but a few significant case studies and instances not useful to properly compare them and support the best choice given an operating context, i.e. a specific production problem. As a consequence the authors illustrate an experimental analysis conducted on a literature problem oriented instance to compare the performance of different problem settings and define best practices and guidelines for professional and practitioners.
An Estimation of Distribution Algorithm for Part Cell Formation Problem
Authors: Ibrahim Saber , Jarboui Bassem , Rebaï Abdelwaheb
Published: February 2013

The aim of this chapter is to propose a new heuristic for Machine Part Cell Formation problem. The Machine Part Cell Formation problem is the important step in the design of a Cellular Manufacturing system. The objective is to identify part families and machine groups and consequently to form manufacturing cells with respect to minimizing the number of exceptional elements and maximizing the grouping efficacy. The proposed algorithm is based on a hybrid algorithm that combines a Variable Neighborhood Search heuristic with the Estimation of Distribution Algorithm. Computational results are presented and show that this approach is competitive and even outperforms existing solution procedures proposed in the literature.
Alternative Heuristic Algorithm for Flow Shop Scheduling Problem
Authors: Modrák Vladimír , Pandian R. Sudhakra , Semanco Pavol
Published: February 2013

In this chapter an alternative heuristic algorithm is proposed that is assumed for a deterministic flow shop scheduling problem. The algorithm is addressed to an m-machine and n-job permutation flow shop scheduling problem for the objective of minimizing the make-span when idle time is allowed on machines. This chapter is composed in a way that the different scheduling approaches to solve flow shop scheduling problems are benchmarked. In order to compare the proposed algorithm against the benchmarked, selected heuristic techniques and genetic algorithm have been used. In realistic situation, the proposed algorithm can be used as it is without any modification and come out with acceptable results.
Performance Comparison of Cellular Manufacturing Configurations in Different Demand Profiles
Authors: Renna Paolo , Ambrico Michele
Published: February 2013

Cellular manufacturing systems (CMSs) are an effective response in the economic environment characterized by high variability of market. The aim of this chapter is to compare different configurations of cellular models through the main performance. These configurations are fractal CMS (defined FCMS) and cellular systems with remainder cells (defined RCMS), compared to classical CMS used as a benchmark. FCMSs consist of a cellular system characterized by identical cells each capable of producing all types of parts. RCMSs consist of a classical CMS with an additional cell (remainder cell) that in specific conditions is able to perform all the technological operations. A simulation environment based on Rockwell ARENA® has been developed to compare different configurations assuming a constant mix of demand and different congestion levels. The simulation results show that RCMSs can be a competitive alternative to traditional cells developing opportune methodologies to control the loading of the cells.
The Global Digital Divide and its Impact on E-Governance
Authors: Howell-Moroney Michael
Published: February 2013

As technology has continued to advance, a disparity in the diffusion, adoption, and utilization of technology has become apparent. This chapter explores the digital divide and the scholarly research investigating the factors which have been found to influence it. The major finding from extant research is that the digital divide is largely explained by variations in national wealth. These same variations also explain differing levels of e-government readiness and e-participation. The chapter concludes with a discussion of policy choices and dilemmas posed by the digital divide.
ICTs for Empowerment?
Authors: Trevisan Filippo
Published: February 2013

In recent years, voluntary organizations and advocacy groups have become increasingly influential in the British political landscape as intermediaries between institutions and citizens. Amongst those, disability organizations constitute an important example because they seek to represent a group which has traditionally been excluded from politics. However, concerns remain with regard to the representativeness and accountability of these bodies, and therefore with the legitimacy of their role in governance. This chapter sets out to understand whether disability organizations can use the internet, and especially Web 2.0 features, to develop a more participatory relationship with disabled people1, thus becoming better democratic actors. In particular, this issue is addressed through the results of an empirical study of Scottish disability organizations’ websites. Whilst the internet seems to possess great potential against disabling barriers, findings for this study are controversial, and disabled users seem at best to be mobilized around a pre-determined agenda rather than genuinely engaged as participants.
E-Democracy Postponed
Authors: Liptrott Mark
Published: February 2013

This chapter draws on prior research and interviews with Election Officers to analyse stages in the policy process to identify variables impacting on the policy’s effectiveness to promote e-democracy. The conclusion recommends measures to address policy weaknesses and the suggestion for future research discusses the need to evaluate Citizenship Education as a strategy to boost civic engagement.
The Internet as the Public Sphere
Authors: Hanson Jarice , Hogea Alina
Published: February 2013

The Internet has often been heralded as a tool for e-governance and public action because of its ubiquity, accessibility, and the ability for users to participate in online expressions of opinion. In this chapter we discuss the potential for the Internet to function as a public space for facilitating civic engagement. While we draw from the seminal work of Jurgen Habermas to identify the preconditions for the functioning of a “public sphere,” we address four distinctly different approaches to the discussion of the Internet’s role as an effective tool for deliberative democracy by highlighting the contributions of scholars and practitioners who engaged in a dialog on the topic at a symposium held at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 25, 2010.
Android-Based Telemedicine System for Patient-Monitoring
Authors: Matin M. A. , Rahman Riaz
Published: February 2013

Telemedicine systems are based on a combination of advanced remote monitoring devices, telecommunication technology, and innovative software and hardware. As mobile phones become more powerful and perform more complex interactions between mobile devices to resident software and other server-based software, they have been recognized as effective tools for Telemedicine, and the merging of the Internet and mobile computing introduces new opportunities and challenges in the Telemedicine sector. This chapter describes the development and implementation of an Android-based Telemedicine system for patient-monitoring. The system utilizes Android devices as mobile access terminals for general inquiry and patient-monitoring services. Authorized users can also browse the patients’ general data and monitor blood pressure (BP) on the Web application. The Web applications, written in PHPScript, and embedded into HTML, reside in a content server to store BP readings, patient records, clinic and hospital information, and doctors’ appointments with patients. Moreover, a customized AJAX plugin is used to handle mapping and plotting. For testing our system, an Android phone was used to connect with the biosensor device that was clutched by the patient. Data were successfully retrieved from the sensor device and displayed on the Android phone as well as the website. The system shows how the Android based application can be feasible in remote patient-monitoring and patient data retrieval.
Risk-Off Method
Authors: Junior Walter Coelho Pereira de Magalhães , Bonnet Marcelo , Feijó Leandro Diamantino , Santos Marilde Terezinha Prado
Published: February 2013

Here the Risk-Off Method is presented as a contribution to improve the quality of data and information using milk chemical safety as a model, as overseen by the National Plan for Control of Residues and Contaminants (PNCRC) of the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA). In particular, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which notably lack internal expertise, could benefit from the Risk-Off method, given that SMEs worldwide contribute significant amounts of food to meet global needs. This study develops an innovative tool to help countries provide robust and transparent chemical safety guarantees for their food products. Creating a flexible base platform to appropriately pre-classify results generated by laboratory testing of food samples, the method pre-processes data undergoing the process of Knowledge Discovery in Databases – KDD, producing systemic intelligence deriving from effective, proactive assessment and management of chemical safety risks in foods, a complex issue of increasingly global concern.
Intellectual Property and Licensing Strategies in Open Collaborative Innovation
Authors: Bogers Marcel , Bekkers Rudi , Granstrand Ove
Published: February 2013

Protecting intellectual property and controlling the use of their inventions is key to the strategy of many firms. At the same time, in order to be successful in open collaborative innovation, firms need to share their knowledge with others. This chapter presents, for moderate specialists, some strategic considerations with respect to managing intellectual property in open collaborative innovation. The chapter discusses how licensing strategies can be employed to balance various goals in collaborative efforts to innovate. In particular, licensing of intellectual property is presented as a way to manage protected knowledge that is developed and shared in collaborative innovation. Different elementary licensing schemes are presented. Open collaborative innovation can then consist of various “modules” of elementary licenses. The chapter finally proposes a few distinct strategies for governing knowledge exchange in collaborative innovation, including open exchange and layered schemes, thereby outlining some conditions for successful open collaborative innovation.
Developing an Open Innovation Growth Strategy for New Technology-Based Firms
Authors: Livieratos Antonios D. , Papoulias Demetrios B. , Petit Sandra Charreire
Published: February 2013

The open innovation growth strategy for NTBFs is initially developed on the request of A-Lighting, a NTBF operating in the turbulent environment of the LED lighting industry. The aim of the current research is to present the concept and apply it at A-Lighting in the framework of an ongoing action research project where the authors are implicated both as researchers and practitioners. Presenting a ‘management innovation’ from an early stage is believed to be an essential part of its development as this could produce valuable feedback and debate (Kaplan, 1998). The study concludes by suggesting further application of the concept.
Knowledge Fusion
Authors: Keen Peter , Tan Margaret
Published: February 2013

The article proposes a simple framework termed ‘knowledge fusion’ to extend the rigor and relevance of knowledge management (KM). It points to some gaps in the current body of knowledge about KM, and provides a parsimonious set of ‘partitions’ that link to and from traditional knowledge management research and practice. It proposes that attention be paid to knowledge mobilization that reflects the demand side that is dominated by knowledge being part of individual identity and hence personal choice of whether, where, why and with whom to share knowledge and expertise as oppose to just understanding the traditional knowledge management that addresses only the supply side of information and the creation of environments for communication and collaboration, especially those “knowledge” largely being independent of the individual.
Identifying the Basis for Segmenting Higher Education
Authors: Mourad Maha , Shamma Hamed M.
Published: February 2013

This paper reviews the developments taking place in the Higher Education (HE) industry. The focus of the research is to identify the main variables used to segment universities in Egypt. The research is qualitative in nature as the dimensions for segmentation were derived based on a series of in-depth interviews followed by two focus groups. Perceived quality and level of internationalization were found to be the two most important dimensions for classifying HE institutions in Egypt. These two dimensions formed the basis of a two-by-two matrix, which was used to segment HE universities into four main segments. The four HE segments that were identified are: legacy, prestigious, imitators, and the uncertain. Each quadrant was identified based on the level of perceived quality and the degree of internationalization. The matrix is useful for universities’ administrators to identify their current position and assess their future positioning strategies.
A Review for the Validation of Social Simulation on Artificial Social Organization
Authors: Wu Jiang , Zhu Hou , Yin Menglin , Luo Xin
Published: February 2013

Social simulation on artificial social organization, which uses computer simulation to construct artificial society to research social organization, has been becoming popular. Validation of simulation can improve the accuracy, credibility and applicability in the modeling and simulation, and is the key step to apply social organizational model. In this paper, the current research of simulation validation is reviewed, the category of social simulation is defined, and philosophical perspective of simulation validation is analyzed. Implementations of simulation validation in various models, including framework, level, type and technology, are introduced as well. Then, the validation in social simulation, including features, existing problems, framework and techniques, is analyzed in particular. Finally, the further work for the simulation validation is announced.
Employing Dynamic Models to Enhance Corporate IT Security Policy
Authors: Minami Nathan A.
Published: February 2013

Since 9/11 and the creation of the U.S. Patriot Act, the intrusion of government surveillance into the lives of ordinary Americans has become a topic of great concern to many citizens. While many Americans view surveillance as a necessity in the name of national security, the government is not the only organization conducting surveillance. As technological capacity increases, an increasing number of employers are implementing technologies that allow them to maintain vigilance over the actions of their employees in the workplace. Despite many attempts to implement surveillance technologies, there is little evidence that companies are any safer now than they were ten years ago. This paper demonstrates how System Dynamics modeling can be utilized to help model the insider threat as a system. It provides analysis of the non-linear affect of decision making, assessing the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order impacts of decisions, and demonstrates the important impact of delays in the system. A mathematical model is presented and simulations are conducted to determine the likely affect of company decisions and individual agent behavior.
Metabolic Computing
Authors: Uehara Minoru
Published: February 2013

In this paper, the author proposes a metabolic computing model for a truly renewable system with high fault tolerance and sustainability and a realistic architecture for the model using four kinds of elements: metaboloids, slots, a power queue, and recycle unit. Metaboloids, which are processing units, are arranged in a mesh in the power queue. However, as the metabolism may change the network, to manage running tasks, metaboloids must achieve homeostasis, for which two new algorithms, bubbling and drifting, are presented. For simple metabolism, the specification of the architecture does not change. Consequently, despite using innovative hardware manufacturing technologies, performance does not improve. The author proposes an evolutional architecture for a metabolic computing model, whereby a set of metaboloids with different specifications can work together if the specification is portable and the difference between specifications is at most 1. Finally, the author presents a reflective architecture for the power queue, minimizing the number of unrenewable units.
Exploring Inter-Cloud Load Balancing by Utilizing Historical Service Submission Records
Authors: Sotiriadis Stelios , Bessis Nik , Antonopoulos Nick
Published: February 2013

Cloud computing offers significant advantages to Internet users by deploying hosted services via bespoke service-provisioning environments. In advance, the emergence of Inter-Cloud increases the competences and opportunities of clients for a wider resource provision selection. This extends current capabilities by decoupling users from cloud providers while at the same time cloud providers offer an augmented service delivery mean. In practice, cloud users make use of their brokering component for selecting the best available resource, in terms of computational power and software licensing of a datacenter based on service level agreements for service execution. However, from the cloud perspective, the overall choice for balancing the different workloads within the Inter-Cloud is a complex decision. This article explores the performance of an Inter-Cloud to measure the utilization levels among their sub-clouds for various job submissions. With this in mind, the solution is modeled for achieving load balancing based on historical records from past service execution experiences. The record files are composed in the form of log files that keep related information about the size of the Inter-Cloud, basic specifications, and job submission parameters. Finally, the solution is integrated in a simulated setting for exploring the performance of the approach for various heavy workload submissions.
A Comprehensive Review and Performance Analysis of Data Gathering Algorithms for Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: Meghanathan Natarajan
Published: February 2013

Wireless sensor networks comprise of vast numbers of sensor nodes deployed to monitor a particular event (fire, intrusion, etc.) or measure a parameter (like temperature, pressure) value representative of the physical condition of the ambient environment. There is a growing need of using energy-efficient data gathering algorithms that can effectively aggregate the monitored/measured data from the individual sensor nodes through a properly constructed communication topology and transmit a single representative data to a control center (sink) that is typically located far away from the network field. In order to maximize node lifetime and be fair to all nodes in the network, such a communication topology has to be dynamically constructed for every round of data gathering by taking into consideration available energy levels of sensor nodes. This paper presents a comprehensive description of two broad categories of data gathering algorithms for wireless sensor networks – the classical algorithms that are not energy-aware and modern energy-aware data gathering algorithms. These algorithms can also be classified based on the communication topology they choose to construct and use for data gathering. The authors also present an extensive simulation study that demonstrates the individual as well as the comparative performance of these data gathering algorithms.
Standardization as Governance Without Government
Authors: Meyer Niclas
Published: February 2013

Industry-led technical standardization is often cited as an example for governance without government and the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) Project is often presented as a particularly successful case of such private governance. Succeeding the spectacular failure of the government-led high-definition television standardization project in European, the successes of the industry-led DVB Project have often been cited as evidence for the superior governance capacity of private industry. While the commercial and engineering success of the DVB Project is unequivocal, this paper raises the question whether it has been equally successful from a governance point of view.
Autonomic Healing for Service Specific Overlay Networks
Authors: Al-Oqily Ibrahim , Subaih Bassam , Bani-Mohammad Saad , Alshaer Jawdat Jamil , Refai Mohammed
Published: February 2013

Service Specific Overlay Networks (SSONs) have recently attracted a great interest, and have been extensively investigated in the context of multimedia delivery over the internet. SSONs are virtual networks constructed on top of the underlying network and they have been proposed to provide and improve services not provided by other traditional networks to the end users. The increased complexity and heterogeneity of these networks in addition to ever changing conditions in the network and the different types of fault that may occur make their control and management by human administrators more difficult. Therefore, self-healing concept was introduced to handle these changes and assuring highly reliable and dependable network system performance. Self-healing aims at ensuring that the service will continue to work regardless of defects that might occur in the network. This paper introduces literature in the area of self-healing overlay networks, presents their basic concepts, requirements, and architectures. In addition to that the authors present a proposed self-healing architecture for multimedia delivery services. Their proposed solution is oriented to discover new approaches for monitoring, diagnosing, and recovering of services thus achieving self-healing.
An Empirical Study of Knowledge Sharing Intention within Virtual Teams
Authors: Xue Yajiong , Liang Huigang , Hauser Richard , O’Hara Margaret T.
Published: February 2013

Given that many organizational tasks are accomplished by people working as virtual teams, it’s important to understand team members’ knowledge sharing behavior. This study attempts to explore social cognitive factors influencing knowledge sharing in the team-based context. Based on a survey of 183 participants of team projects, this study finds that team climate, sense of self-worth, and past sharing behavior lead to positive attitude toward knowledge sharing. Moreover, attitude toward knowledge sharing and past sharing behavior have a positive impact on knowledge sharing intention. These findings can help managers design work teams to stimulate collaboration and improve performance.
An Exploratory Study of the Process Senior Undergraduate Students Follow to Design an Interactive Multimedia Application
Authors: Hotzoglou Ilias
Published: February 2013

This paper deals with the process followed by undergraduate students in designing an interactive multimedia application during their final capstone course “Multimedia Software Development Project” at Deree College. It focuses on the steps taken in the design of this application, the information technology used, the problems they faced as well as the solutions offered.
Collaborative Access to Ancient Documents
Authors: Ben Arbia Ines Ben Messaoud , El Abed Haikal , Märgner Volker , Amiri Hamid
Published: February 2013

With the evolution of the next generation networks several applications have emerged to be used through the web. Applications allowing the analysis and the recognition of documents are emerged to be used through Internet. Document pre-processing output may affect the efficiency of document analysis and recognition systems. In order to ameliorate the efficiency of such systems, an objective evaluation of pre-processing steps is necessary. The authors propose a new framework for automatic evaluation of binarization approaches. The evaluation of binarization approaches is based on the comparison between binary images and their ground-truths. For that reason a method for the generation of ground-truth is proposed. This method is evaluated using the benchmarking dataset DIBCO 2009. The comparison between binarization methods’ results is based on several evaluation metrics as FM and PSNR. The proposed framework is tested on printed images (250 images) from the Google-Books collection and on handwritten images (60 images) from the IAM historical database.
Quality of Service Analysis and Queuing Performance Modeling of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access Based IEEE 802.16/WiMAX System
Authors: El Bouchti Abdelali , Haqiq Abdelkrim , El Kafhali Said
Published: February 2013

The authors present a problem of queuing theoretic performance modeling and analysis of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) under broadband wireless networks. They consider a single-cell WiMAX environment in which the base station allocates sub channels to the subscriber stations in its coverage area. The sub channels allocated to a subscriber station are shared by multiple connections at that subscriber station. To ensure the Quality of Service (QoS) performances, a Connection Admission Control (CAC) mechanism is considered at a subscriber station. A queuing analytical framework for these admission control mechanisms is presented considering OFDMA-based transmission at the physical layer and based on the queuing model; both the connection-level and packet-level performances are studied and compared with their analogues in the case without CAC. The connection arrival is modeled by a Poisson process and the packet arrival for a connection by a Markov Modulated Poisson Process (MMPP). Several performance measures, namely connection blocking probability, average number of ongoing connections, average queue length, packet dropping probability, queue throughput and average packet delay, are then derived and quantified.
Performance Evaluation of Space-Time and Harq Diversity in MIMO HSDPA
Authors: Hakimi Walid , Mahmoud Ammar
Published: February 2013

Multi-antenna techniques can be used to achieve improved system performance, including improved system capacity (more users per cell) and improved coverage (possibility for larger cells), as well as improved service provisioning, for example, higher per-user data rates. This study provides an overview of space-time diversity technique using Alamouti codes applied to the 3G evolution. The delays introduced by HARQ retransmission decrease the performance of the HSDPA system. Multi-antenna techniques are specifically applied to HSDPA to avoid HARQ retransmissions. The authors demonstrate that space-time Rake detector in MIMO 2x2 based on Alamouti code without HARQ process could give better performances than MIMO 2x1 taking into account the HARQ context. In the case of MIMO 2x2,they also observed that the limit of retransmissions affects the system performance and efficiency. Using the generalized Alamouti coding technique in MIMO 4x4 with Multipath Parallel Interference Canceller (MPIC) detector, we achieve notable improvement of performance under the same channel and signal to-Noise Ratio (SNR) conditions.
Performance Evaluation of Multimedia Traffic Transmission Under Binomial and Poissonian Primary Traffics in Cognitive Radio Networks
Authors: Chaoub Abdelaali , Ibn-Elhaj Elhassane
Published: February 2013

Cognitive Radio is an enabling agile technology for communication and channels sharing in multimedia and wireless networks. The authors consider multimedia traffic transmission over Cognitive Radio (CR) networks using a progressive source coding associated to fountain codes. For a Cognitive Radio infrastructure where the spectrum is owned by Primary Users (PUs) that have Binomial and/or Poissonian traffics, Secondary Users (SUs) are allowed to share these spectral resources using the Opportunistic Spectrum Sharing feature of the Cognitive Radio concept. The objective of this paper lies in characterizing the reliability and as a result evaluating the performance of the secondary multimedia service provision under both primary traffic types in lossy Cognitive Radio environments. The authors have conducted a general analysis for many still open issues in Cognitive Radio and tackle three critical factors responsible for secondary service disruption: primary traffic interruptions, concurrent access to shared frequency bands leading to collisions and subchannels characteristics. Numerical simulations, in view of the average Spectral Efficiency, examine the performance of the multimedia transmission under the primary interruptions caused by the Binomial and the Poissonian primary applications and consider also the dynamics between the competing secondary peers in addition to subchannels fading and noise.
Robust Computation through Percolation
Authors: Altun Mustafa , Riedel Marc D.
Published: February 2013

This paper proposes a probabilistic framework for digital computation with lattices of nanoscale switches based on the mathematical phenomenon of percolation. With random connectivity, percolation gives rise to a sharp non-linearity in the probability of global connectivity as a function of the probability of local connectivity. This phenomenon is exploited to compute Boolean functions robustly in the presence of defects. It is shown that the margins, defined in terms of the steepness of the non-linearity, translate into the degree of defect tolerance. Achieving good margins entails a mapping problem. Given a target Boolean function, the problem is how to assign literals to regions of the lattice such that no diagonal paths of 1’s exist in any assignment that evaluates to 0. Assignments with such paths result in poor error margins due to stray, random connections that can form across the diagonal. A necessary and sufficient condition is formulated for a mapping strategy that preserves good margins: the top-to-bottom and left-to-right connectivity functions across the lattice must be dual functions. Based on lattice duality, an efficient algorithm to perform the mapping is proposed. The algorithm optimizes the lattice area while meeting prescribed worst-case margins. Its effectiveness is demonstrated on benchmark circuits.
Physarum Itinerae
Authors: Strano Emanuele , Adamatzky Andrew , Jones Jeff
Published: February 2013

The Roman Empire is renowned for sharp logical design and outstanding building quality of its road system. Many roads built by Romans are still used in continental Europe and UK. The Roman roads were built for military transportations with efficiency in mind, as straight as possible. Thus the roads make an ideal test-bed for developing experimental laboratory techniques for evaluating man-made transport systems using living creatures. The authors imitate development of road networks in Iron Age Italy using slime mould Physarum polycephalum. The authors represent ten Roman cities with oat flakes, inoculate the slime mould in Roma, wait as mould spans all flakes-cities with its network of protoplasmic tubes, and analyse structures of the protoplasmic networks. The authors found that most Roman roads, a part of those linking Placentia to Bononia and Genua to Florenzia are represented in development of Physarum polycephalum. Transport networks developed by Romans and by slime mould show similarities of planar proximity graphs, and particular minimum spanning tree. Based on laboratory experiments the authors reconstructed a speculative sequence of road development in Iron Age Italy.
Towards Natural Emotional Expression and Interaction
Authors: Takanishi Atsuo , Endo Nobutsuna , Petersen Klaus
Published: February 2013

In present research the advanced fundamental mechanical capabilities of anthropomorphic robots developed in Takanishi laboratory at Waseda University are to be enhanced in order to enable these robots to interact with humans in a natural way. The anthropomorphic robot KOBIAN is able to express human-like facial expressions and whole-body gestures. It is equipped with vision and audio sensors that allow it to react to interaction input from human partners and to generate an appropriate emotional expression response. Furthermore, the anthropomorphic flute playing robot WF-4RVI is technically able to perform a musical wind-instrument performance at the level of an intermediate human player. Using this fundamental technical capability the authors implemented a musical-based interaction system (MbIS) that enables the robot to collaboratively play together with human musicians in a natural way. For both of the introduced interaction systems, the authors present and discuss the result of various experiments that were done to examine how well the interaction with a robot resembles realistic human-to-human interaction.
A Manpower Allocation Model for Service Jobs
Authors: Balaila Isaac , Gilad Issachar
Published: February 2013

While the work measurement concept has evolved from the manufacturing world, it has not been fully adopted yet to the global shift into the service sector. Certain factors create inherent difficulties in determining time standards for manpower allocation in service jobs: (a) wide variation in Time Between Arrivals and Service Performance Time and (b) the difficulty of assessing the damage done to the organization by long customer Waiting Times (WT) for service. This difficulty makes it hard to calculate the Break-Even Point (BEP) between raising worker output, which minimizes labor costs but increases customer WT, and improving service quality by lowering customer WT. The model proposed overcomes most of the difficulties by taking a multi-domain approach to the problem: 1) The model deploys a series of indicators for a correlation between output and WT. The indicator values are affected by service level of urgency and the initial number of service workers and 2) Cost-Benefit – finding the best BEP by comparing the operational cost of an additional worker with the economical benefit caused by the decrease in WT at the margin. Thus, the model finds the best balance between worker output and service quality.
Sustainable Campus Project
Authors: Wang Shun-Mei , Ku Chien-Kuo , Chu Chun-Yu
Published: February 2013

The reality of global warming, climate change and energy shortages has put all circles to the task of actively promoting education in energy conservation and carbon reduction. From 2004, the Ministry of Education has been promoting the Sustainable Campus Project, partially subsidizing hundreds of schools to implement hardware improvements and carry out related environmental education. This study explores whether the teachers and administrators of these schools are aware of Sustainable Campus Project facilities in their schools, whether they used the items, and whether they understand how these facilities work to conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions. The authors’ study concludes with suggestions on how to use existing Sustainable Campus Project facilities to carry out energy conservation and carbon reduction education effectively.
WHO publications available in the Peradeniya Medical Library: a bibliometric study
Authors: Perera PASH
Published: February 2013

The collection of publications by World Health Organization (WHO) in the Medical Library contains documents published since 1950 to date which has been made available to the library free of charge by the WHO. The collection is very much under-used. A bibliometric study on the collection was carried out with the objective of making the readership and the library staff aware of what is available in the collection, which would indirectly improve the usage. The collection of WHO publications which is available in the Medical Library except periodicals was considered for the study. A head count on the total number of publications under study was obtained. The numbers of items in major subject divisions and in the most popular subject area within these divisions were counted separately. Contents of each publication in the collection were carefully read through in order to identify any specific topic or aspect of health on which the coverage was dominant. Items in monograph series were counted separately. Geographical coverage of contents of the publications was examined. A chronological evaluation of the collection was done by counting items published in each decade from 1950 to 2011. Data thus gathered was analyzed to obtain percentages of publications available in each category with respect to the total number. The results revealed that the collection contained information on various health related topics at national, regional and global levels. Collection needs to be improved by acquiring current publications. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 16, Issue 2, July 2012, Page 117-124 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v16i2.5203