bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Management of Bus Driver Duties Using Data Mining
Authors: Moudani Walid , Mora-Camino Félix
Published: August 2012

This paper presents Bus Driver Allocation Problem (BDAP) which deals with the assignment of the drivers to the scheduled duties so that operations costs are minimized while its solution meets hard constraints resulting from the safety regulations of public transportation authorities as well as from the internal company’s agreements. Another concern in this study is the overall satisfaction of the drivers since it has important consequences on the quality and economic return of the company operations. This study proposes a non-dominated bi-criteria allocation approach of bus drivers to trips while minimizing the operations cost and maximizing the level of satisfaction of drivers. This paper proposes a new mathematical formulation to model the allocation problem. Its complexity has lead to solving the BDAP by using techniques such as: Genetic algorithms in order to assign the drivers with minimal operations cost and Fuzzy Logic and Rough Set techniques in order to fuzzyfied some parameters required for the satisfaction module followed by applying the Rough Set technique to evaluate the degree of satisfaction for the drivers. The application of the proposed approach to a medium size Transport Company Bus Driver Allocation Problem is evaluated.
Wikipedia’s Success and the Rise of the Amateur-Expert
Authors: Sweet Christopher
Published: August 2012

The Free Online Encyclopedia, as Wikipedia calls itself, is a radical departure from traditional encyclopedias and traditional methods of knowledge creation. This chapter is an examination of how a community of amateurs on Wikipedia has challenged notions of expertise in the 21st century. It does so by first looking at the roots of Wikipedia in a phenomenon known as the “wisdom of the crowds” and in the open source software movement. The reliability of Wikipedia is examined as are the claims made by major critics of the project. Throughout, epistemological questions raised by Wikipedia are addressed.
Between Tradition and Web 2.0
Authors: Beaulieu Anne , van Dalen-Oskam Karina , van Zundert Joris
Published: August 2012

Web 2.0 is characterized by values of openness of participation (unrestricted by traditional markers of expertise), collaboration across and beyond institutions, increased value of resources through distributed participation, dynamic content and context, and self-organization and scalability. These values seem to offer new possibilities for knowledge creation. They also contrast in important ways with traditional forms of knowledge creation, where expertise, institutional affiliation, and restrictions on access and circulation have been important. Yet, rather than seeing a dichotomy between Web 2.0 and non-Web 2.0 modes of working in digital humanities, the authors observe the rise of hybrid forms that combine elements of these two modes. In this chapter, the authors reflect on the reasons for such hybrids, specifically through an exploration of eLaborate. As a virtual research environment, eLaborate targets both professional scholars and volunteers working with textual resources. The environment offers tools to transcribe textual sources, to annotate these transcriptions, and to publish them as digital scholarly editions. The majority of content currently comprises texts from the cultural heritage of Dutch history and literary history, although eLaborate does not put limits on the kind of text or language. Nor does the system impose limits on the openness of contribution to any edition project. Levels of openness and access are solely determined by the groups of users working on specific texts or editions. This Web 2.0 technology-based software is now used by several groups of teachers and students, and by scholarly, educated, and interested volunteers. We conducted interviews with coordinators of and participants in different editorial groups, and we evaluate their experiences from the point of view of the described values of Web 2.0. We investigate changes in digital humanities resulting from intermediate forms between traditional academic practices and Web 2.0 modes. Rather than claim a revolution, we show how hybrid forms can actually be very powerful sites for change, through their inclusive rather than oppositional setup in relation to traditional practices.
The Effect of Social Software on Academic Libraries
Authors: Cassella Maria , Calvi Licia
Published: August 2012

This chapter presents the results of a survey of Dutch and Italian academic libraries conducted to identify how academic libraries deal with the growing adoption of social media for professional purposes, and how they consider this adoption as the only possible way for them to reposition themselves among an audience that is more and more involved with social media. The results, surprisingly, show that although the interest and the need for such an adoption are felt rather strongly, the complete conversion to a library 2.0 is still not in reach. Many respondents, especially in the Dutch context, were interested in the outcome of this study to help them decide which direction they should take.
Teaching Political Science Students to Find and Evaluate Information in the Social Media Flow
Authors: Fitzgibbons Megan
Published: August 2012

The advent of social media necessitates new pedagogical approaches in the field of political science, specifically in relation to undergraduate students’ critical thinking and information evaluation skills. Instead of seeking out traditional static pools of knowledge, researchers and researchers-in-training now interact with information in an amorphous stream of production and consumption. Socially created information is now firmly integrated in the basic subject matter of political science, as manifested in primary sources in the field, scholars’ communication practices, and the emergence of collective and distributed expertise. Existing models of information evaluation competencies do not address these realities of participatory authorship and decentralized distribution of information. Thus, in order to educate “information-literate” students in political science, educators must foster an understanding of how information is produced and how to critically evaluate individual information sources in the context of academic tasks.
The Net Generation and Changes in Knowledge Acquisition
Authors: Beuschel Werner
Published: August 2012

This chapter uses a methodological approach to investigate research and design knowledge acquisition in the context of social software applications, an area cluttered by an ever-growing number of applications and high expectations about the capabilities of a new generation of young users, the Net Generation. Its objectives are twofold: to provide a rational point of departure for developing a research and design framework and to exemplify it for the use of social software in higher education. The chapter scrutinizes popular assumptions about the Net Generation, basing the framework on the interdependency of user audience and technology. The results of a longitudinal exploratory study for the area of social software use in higher education are presented. The final part of the chapter discusses implications for the design of learning environments and a number of ideas for further research on knowledge acquisition within the social software context.
World War III
Authors: Bhatia Mandeep Singh
Published: August 2012

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” The above quote by Albert Einstein clearly forecasts the weapons of World War IV, but not anything about the weapons of World War III. What will be the weapons of World War III? How dangerous will World War III be? What will be the impact of World War III? This paper aims to answer these questions. Increasing commercial use of the Internet has heightened the security and privacy concerns. This paper shows the extent of risk to the life of an individual, country and to the whole world from cyber crime, which may lead to the cyber war. So the World War III would be the cyber war with the attacks of cyber bombs by cyber attackers. Further, this paper shows a comparison of cyber and traditional war with the after affects of both types of wars.
Toward a U.S. Army Cyber Security Culture
Authors: Paul Christopher , Porche Isaac R.
Published: August 2012

One of the reasons offered for gaps in organizations’ cyber security is the lack of a “cyber security culture.” This article defines and explores the concept of cyber security culture within the context of the U.S. Army. It concludes that the Army would benefit from the creation and adoption of a cyber security culture, though it would not be a security panacea. The article concludes by identifying and describing important elements of such a culture and practical advice for approaching culture change. These include: the development of policies that can be understood, adhered to, and enforced; change management efforts that unfreeze current culture, seek change, then refreeze/institutionalize changes; a structure that offers incentives for desired behaviors but also identifies and enforces compliance; and change efforts that emphasize change in knowledge/awareness and in attitude.
Empirical Taxonomies of Gameplay Enjoyment
Authors: Quick John M. , Atkinson Robert K. , Lin Lijia
Published: August 2012

A survey study was conducted to better understand how gameplay enjoyment relates to players’ personality traits and video game preferences. This study demonstrated that the core design elements of games that lead to enjoyment can be empirically identified. Similarly, it showed that considering personality, an individual characteristic, can produce informative insights about how players perceive gaming experiences. Whereas video game research has historically emphasized either games or players in isolation (Juul, 2010), this study is an initial effort towards a holistic approach that considers how design features and player characteristics combine to generate enjoyable video game experiences. Two empirical taxonomies for creating more enjoyable game experiences are presented.
Game Jams
Authors: Preston Jon A , Chastine Jeff , O’Donnell Casey , Tseng Tony , MacIntyre Blair
Published: August 2012

Game jams are events that allow game designers to develop innovative games in a time-constrained environment, typically within a 48-hour period during a weekend. Jams provide participants an opportunity to improve their skills, collaborate with their peers, and advance research and creativity in the field of game design. Having coordinated numerous jams locally and as one of the largest venues in the world for GGJ 2011, the authors present learned lessons on how to make these events into amazing collaborative opportunities and their results from research in surveying game jam participants before and after the authors’ most recent jam weekend.
ALFIL
Authors: García-García César , Fernández-Robles José Luis , Larios-Rosillo Victor , Luga Hervé
Published: August 2012

This article presents the current development of a serious game for the simulation of massive evacuations. The purpose of this project is to promote self-protection through awareness of the procedures and different possible scenarios during the evacuation of a massive event. Sophisticated behaviors require massive computational power and it has been necessary to implement several distributed programming techniques to simulate crowds of thousands of people. Even with the current state of computer hardware, the costs of building and operating this hardware is still prohibitive; so, it‘s preferred to apply distributed programming techniques running on specialized parallel computing hardware.
A Value Centric Study of Intention to use Internet as a Shopping Channel in an Introductory Online Market
Authors: Sharif Khurram
Published: August 2012

This study investigates the relationship between five consumer values (i.e., functional, social, hedonic, epistemic, and security) and their impact on the Intention to use Internet as a shopping channel within introductory Qatari online market. A modified version of Sheth et al.’s (1991) perceived value model was tested within an early stage Qatari online market and a questionnaire based survey was conducted. An e-mail containing a Survey Monkey link was sent to 500 respondents, with a total of 176 usable questionnaires were collected and SPSS 18 was used to perform multiple regression analysis on the data. Early stage Internet shoppers tend to pay more attention to functional, hedonic, and social values and place less emphasis on epistemic and security values. This implies that early stage online shoppers seek enjoyment (focus on hedonic value) and, at the same time, want to save time and energy (emphasis on functional value). This limited the scope of generalization to similar cultures and age groups. The focus of the study was the shopping experience and not the purchasing experience. This study presents testing of an extended value model within an early stage Internet shopping market. This should add to the understanding of values that early stage shoppers seek to shop online.
An Examination of the Factors Influencing Consumers’ Visit of C2C Websites
Authors: Zoghlami Amira Trabelsi , Touzani Mourad
Published: August 2012

Few research studies have tackled the topic of commercial C2C (Consumer-to-consumer) Websites while online C2C exchange are having huge success and attract ever-increasing Internet users. Organisations need to understand the critical success factors for attracting the Internet user’s attention. This article sheds the light on the usage background of Tunisian C2C websites. The main outcome of this work results from a netnographic study followed by twenty three semi-structured interviews with C2C websites’ users. Contrary to the results of other researches which connect the use of C2C Websites to electronic factors, this research provides a framework to add “offline” determinants related to perceptions that are acquired prior to or following the C2C websites’ visit. The factors influencing consumers’ visit of C2C Websites were classified into three major categories: before, while and after visiting the C2C Website. Each category includes factors that were discussed to make managerial recommendations. The authors also expose the major personal and situation factors that may characterize C2C Websites’ users.
Internet Marketing and Consumers Online
Authors: Jain Neha , Ahuja Vandana , Medury Y.
Published: August 2012

The internet plays two important roles in marketing-influencing consumer behavior and harnessing consumer intelligence. While its vital for organizations to evaluate consumer intentions and provide consumers the necessary information they are looking for, equally important is the need for collecting consumer data by studying the consumer behavioral patterns on the internet and subsequently nurturing long term relationships with consumers. This study aims at identifying the dimensions of website attributes that represent intentions of consumers for visiting product and brand websites and examines the relationship between various website attributes, with respect to the function performed by the attribute. The methods on how the results were obtained and used will be explored further in this article. This research will be further used for analyzing website attributes with respect to Web Traffic, Website Reputation, Alexa Reach & Readability.
Evaluating the Satisfaction of ABET Student Outcomes from Course Learning Outcomes through a Software Implementation
Authors: Imam Muhammad Hasan , Tasadduq Imran A.
Published: August 2012

Continuous improvement procedure to attain a certain level of program satisfaction is mainly based on the evaluation of ABET Student Outcomes (SOs) satisfaction in various courses. The satisfaction of a given SO is indicated by percentage of students obtaining a prescribed level of success in direct assessments. It is difficult for average instructors to design reliable assessments addressing the SOs because their focus in teaching is on Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) that are related directly to the subject matter. To resolve this issue, a simple approach is presented to convert CLO-based assessment data to SO-based data through the CLO-SO map and a conversion formula. A software package “CLOSO” developed to implement this idea is described. The software automates the evaluation of CLO and SO satisfaction thereby enhancing the reliability of assessment data and saving instructor’s time significantly and generates summary reports for ABET course files.
Compromise Theory of Transnational Operation of Chinese Small and Medium Enterprises and Empirical Analysis Under Economic Globalization
Authors: Sun Jing
Published: August 2012

Transnational operation of Chinese small and medium enterprises is an inevitable trend of enterprise’s survival and development under the condition of economic globalization. Currently, transnational operation of Chinese small and medium enterprises exist many issues needed to be addressed due to a lack of effective theories and on the basis of analysis of “comparative advantage,” “Internalization advantage,” and “The advantages of geographical location” of China’s medium and small enterprises, trying to propose “compromise” theories of transnational operation of Chinese small and medium enterprises, and empirical analysis, followed by discussion on the countermeasures of transnational operation of Chinese small and medium enterprises.
Engineering Innovative Practice in Managing Design Projects
Authors: Gonçalves Fernando Abreu , Figueiredo José
Published: August 2012

Most references to innovation relate to the development of new products. This paper does not address innovation in these terms, but as changes in practices an engineer creatively adopts during engineering design projects. The authors adopt Actor-Network Theory as a way to understand these change processes (translations). The authors design a perturbation index inspired in Earned Value management to measure translation effort having in mind the management of scope. The paper then assesses changes of regime in resource allocation of tasks and concludes some changes that can lead to innovative results. That means a wider view about scope, and scope management is gained, being able to observe and change good practices, something crucial in engineering design projects where requirements and goals drift.
Business Intelligence
Authors: Post Gerald V. , Kagan Albert
Published: August 2012

Data mining and business intelligence tools have been adding features and gaining uses, and statistical tools developed for data mining tasks often require advanced knowledge and training to apply. Development of these selected tools requires tradeoffs in ease of use and power. This study asks users to evaluate the various tools and attributes to identify the relative value of the various components and provide direction for improvements and new tools. Evaluating multi-attribute software is a challenging task, and this study provides a method of evaluating the data and analyzing tradeoffs. A structured equation model (SEM) is applied to the process. Each of the existing tools evaluated have different relative strengths, so it is important to match the organization’s primary tasks to the relative strengths of the tool.
The Factors Influencing the Adoption of Total Quality Management with Emphasis on Innovative/Strategic Management Accounting Techniques
Authors: Al-Omiri Mohammed
Published: August 2012

This paper address the factors influencing the adoption of TQM (Total Quality Management), particularly the innovative management accounting techniques, where in nowadays competitive environment quality is the key to an firm’s success and survival, to compete effectively, firms must embrace the principles of TQM. Therefore, this paper reports the findings of a postal questionnaire survey based on replies from 256 companies undertaken in the KSA (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities) environment. The paper empirically examines the extent of the adoption rate of TQM and to which potential explanatory factors influence the adoption of TQM in KSA companies. A distinguishing feature of the research is that it examines and compares the practices of both manufacturing and non manufacturing. Results show a significant relationship between TQM and some potential explanatory factors and give directions for further study.
The Online Poker Consumer
Authors: Bezzina Frank , Sammut Darren
Published: August 2012

This study attempts to provide a detailed profile of the online poker consumer. Using a hierarchical model of motivation and personality (The 3M Model) (Mowen, 2000) and the questionnaire responses of 370 online poker players, the study revealed, via Structural Equation Modelling, that online poker propensity is directly associated with money, excitement, escape, numeric interest, low superstition, low impulsiveness, low conscientiousness, low material resources needs, and high education and indirectly associated with other traits via the functional motives. Cluster analysis supported the hypothesis that online poker consumers can be divided into four segments based on their propensities for skilled and chance games. Furthermore, each segment produced a distinct pattern of means across the traits/motives. The findings are discussed and the study provides suggestions and recommendations that could guide marketers in better segmenting the online poker market and in designing more effective promotional strategies for targeting and retaining online poker consumers.
Fusion of Multiple Sensors Sources in a Smart Home to Detect Scenarios of Activities in Ambient Assisted Living
Authors: Noury Norbert , Barralon Pierre , Vuillerme Nicolas , Fleury Anthony
Published: August 2012

This work takes place within the framework of Smart Homes, with the goal to monitor the activities of elderly people, living independently at home, in order to continuously assess their level of activity and therefore their autonomy. A method is proposed for the selection of a range of sensors and for multiple data fusion. The system was evaluated on 7 young and 4 elderly healthy subjects who performed scenarios of daily activities (sleeping, eating, walking, and transfer) within a controlled environment. These activities were correctly classified with an overall sensitivity and specificity of 67.0% (out of 267 activities) and 52.6% (502) for the group of young people, and of 86.9% (222) and 59.3% (492) for the elderly group. The results were better with activities commonly performed in a dedicated location (i.e., taking meals in the kitchen, toileting in the bathroom). The results are acceptable with a reduced set of sensors although numerous and/or more informative sensors (i.e., video, sound detection, sensitive floors, etc.) give higher results at the cost of more cumbersome and costly systems, difficult to deploy in a private home and eventually more intrusive.
A Practical Activity Recognition Approach Based on the Generic Activity Framework
Authors: Kim Eunju , Helal Sumi
Published: August 2012

In spite of the obvious importance of activity recognition technology for human centric applications, state-of-the-art activity recognition technology is not practical enough for real world deployments because of the insufficient accuracy and lack of support for programmability. The authors introduce a generic activity framework to address these issues. The generic activity framework is a refined hierarchical composition structure of the traditional activity theory. New activity recognition algorithms that can cooperate with the proposed activity framework and model are proposed. To be practical, activity recognition technology should also be programmable. The hierarchical aspects of our generic activity framework help to improve activity recognition programmability. The generic activity framework decouples the observation subsystem (i.e., the sensor set) from the rest of the activity model. The authors demonstrate the value of this decoupling by experimentally comparing the level of user effort needed in making sensor changes and the ramifications of such changes on model updates. They compare the level of effort required by the authors’ model to the requirements of previously reported approaches.
Estimating the Impact of ERP Systems on Logistics System
Authors: Folinas Dimitris K. , Daniel Emmanuel H. R.
Published: August 2012

This paper estimates the benefits and challenges of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) on the Logistics system of an enterprise. By identifying the needs and challenges for the efficient development of an ERP system, the authors understand how an ERP directly contributes to the achievement of operational, strategic, tactical, and organizational benefits. In order to achieve these aims, a research was applied carrying out a closed question survey across Information Technology (IT) practitioners, the majority of who are located in Asia Pacific and Japan, comprising of Enterprise Architects, IT Architects, EAS (Enterprise Application Services) practice leaders, EAS Sales Leaders (Client Principals) all of whom have experience as ERP and logistics practitioners. The findings of the survey show that the biggest challenge concerning the usage of an ERP is not technological, but relates more to issues of trust, collaboration, integration, lack of agility, poor user adoption, implementation timelines, and lack of customer focus. Consequently, understanding how an ERP influences each one of them, will highlight the importance and strategic value of an ERP in terms of the logistics system efficiency.
Cellular Automata and GPGPU
Authors: D’Ambrosio Donato , Filippone Giuseppe , Rongo Rocco , Spataro William , Trunfio Giuseppe A.
Published: August 2012

This paper presents an efficient implementation of the SCIARA Cellular Automata computational model for simulating lava flows using the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) interface developed by NVIDIA and carried out on Graphical Processing Units (GPU). GPUs are specifically designated for efficiently processing graphic data sets. However, they are also recently being exploited for achieving excellent computational results for applications non-directly connected with Computer Graphics. The authors show an implementation of SCIARA and present results referred to a Tesla GPU computing processor, a NVIDIA device specifically designed for High Performance Computing, and a Geforce GT 330M commodity graphic card. Their carried out experiments show that significant performance improvements are achieved, over a factor of 100, depending on the problem size and type of performed memory optimization. Experiments have confirmed the effectiveness and validity of adopting graphics hardware as an alternative to expensive hardware solutions, such as cluster or multi-core machines, for the implementation of Cellular Automata models.
Geographical Recommender System Using User Interest Model Based on Map Operation and Category Selection
Authors: Oku Kenta , Kotera Rika , Kitayama Daisuke , Sumiya Kazutoshi
Published: August 2012

Digital map services and geographical information search services are widely available on the Internet. Users can retrieve appropriate geographical information from digital maps using certain map operations and category selection methods. However, it can be difficult for users to find specific geographical information when a map region contains a large amount of information. Furthermore, a user’s interest in a region or a category may change. Therefore, the authors propose a method for recommending geographical information to users based on their map operation or category selection history. The authors developed a model to determine a user’s interests and used it to recommend suitable regions and categories.
Ontology-Based Image Annotation by Leveraging Social Context
Authors: Elahi Najeeb , Karlsen Randi , Younas Waqas
Published: August 2012

Manual image annotation is an extensive and a cumbersome task, yet extremely important for image management and retrieval. The purpose of the authors’ system is to semi-automatically generate ontology-based annotations for a social network by leveraging the annotations provided by the most active user (i.e., the central actor). Context of an image is of central importance in their approach towards semantic semi-automatic annotation. For context of an image, the authors consider several factors like geo-reference, time and relationship among actors in social networks and instead of using image-processing techniques to manipulate and interpret the image, their system leverages the context, which is automatically available along with the image and have also extended Social Network Analysis techniques by considering the granularity of relationships among actors under consideration. The authors use a semantic web framework to represent the social network and to deal with the diversity of relationships. OntoCAIM ontology is developed which not only encompasses Social Network Analysis functionality but also defines mechanism to annotate the images with an underlying ontology.
The New Cooperative Medical System in China
Authors: Adrian Julie Ann Luiz , Vu Tam Bang , Hayashi Karla S.
Published: August 2012

This paper examines the effects of the New Cooperative Medical System in China. Data on village clinics, local hospitals, private medical expenditures, and government and social medical expenditures are collected from the National Bureau of Statistics of China. Preliminary tests are performed on multicolinearity, endogeneity, omitted variables and also reveal both heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation problems. The Newey-West estimations are used to obtain corrected standard errors for coefficient estimates. The results show that the new cooperative medical system appears to help households reduce medical expenditures and decrease numbers of deaths; it also seems to reduce the numbers of pharmacists and physicians in local hospitals, redirecting these pharmacists and physicians to village clinics.
The Role of New Technologies in Reshaping Governance Platforms
Authors: Anttiroiko Ari-Veikko
Published: August 2012

Models of public governance are changing profoundly due to global and digital transformations and various context-specific societal pressures. One direction of development is the increased utilisation of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) in facilitating governance practices. Such changes are intended to improve the performance of public organisations, the quality of democratic governance, and the cost-effectiveness of service delivery. This article outlines the potentials of technological trends in building governance platforms. The discussion is based on such influential trends as open source movement, Web 2.0, geoinformatics, and ubiquitous technologies. An approach that takes into account such e-enabled platform solutions is called platform orientation in public governance, which offers a framework for supporting policy and governance informatics. It’s supposed to provide new tools to create structured environments for governance and the capacity to increase the flexibility and responsiveness of public organisations as governance actors. Such e-enabled governance platforms are an answer to the needs of a highly complex and technologically meditated society with a special view to providing easy access to governance processes, encouraging creativity, sharing information in a cost-effective way, and integrating services and governance processes so that the processes are comprehensible, easy, and value-adding for citizens and other stakeholders.
The Convergence Theory on ICT and Psychosocial Life Environment
Authors: Bradley Gunilla
Published: August 2012

The convergence model illustrates ongoing changes in the Net Society. However the theoretical model goes back and synthesises the theoretical framework in the author’s research on psychosocial work environment and computerization. Interdisciplinary research programs were initiated by the author in the 70s and then analyzed changes in society related to various periods in “the history” of ICT. The description of the convergence model is structured with reference to the concepts Globalization, ICT, Life Environment, Life Role, Effects on Humans. Both Convergence and Interactions are important features in the model as well as the four levels of analysis – individual, organisational, community, and societal.
Society, Market and Technology Nexus as Contexts of ICT Policies and Applications
Authors: Zacher Lech W.
Published: August 2012

Due to the information revolution, societies have been transforming, particularly advanced societies. Contextual analysis of its processes, mechanisms, and effects are needed to understand factors that influence them. Technology – market – society nexus constitutes a context of ICT (Information Communication and Technologies) policies and applications. How could society make ICTs serve social and human goals? Various actors and stakeholders promote ICTs research, applications, and use. They use different means to act and also have different values and interests. Diversity is a typical characteristic of societies. ICTs generation, their multi-sided and multidimensional applications, and their effects depend on cultural abilities of societies to pursue information change. Human development goals, as realized by ICTs, should be analyzed at three levels: global, rational, and individual.
An Examination of the Application Scenarios of Enterprise Wikis
Authors: Lin Dada
Published: August 2012

Multiple companies are already social software enabled. Enterprise wikis are the most frequently used type. The best-known example of a wiki is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Using Wikipedia as an example, multiple companies establish an internal wiki encyclopedia. There are also other purposes for which enterprise wikis can be used. Some companies use the wiki as a news portal, discussion platform, or as a project management tool. In research there is still no adequate systematization of the possible uses of wikis. Therefore, this paper examines the different application scenarios of enterprise wikis and to explore application scenario-related motivational factors. To examine the application scenarios of wikis, a qualitative-oriented case study on the internal wiki of the company, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH was conducted. Also, the Atlassian Confluence based wiki called ‘TeamWeb’ in which was introduced in 2008 and has gradually established itself as a global Intranet. A peculiarity of this is that it is not strictly specified, how the staff work with it. In this way, over time many different application scenarios have been established, and now about 56,000 wiki pages in TeamWeb. These wiki pages were analyzed and categorized to application scenarios. The results are discussed further in the article.
Recommended Trust Evaluation in B2C E-Commerce Based on Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process
Authors: Bo Tian , Jia Wang
Published: August 2012

Trust investigation in Business-To-Customer (B2C) E-commerce is usually based on analyzing relative compositions of B2C E-commerce, and mainly focuses on direct perceived trust of consumers. But in real B2C E-commerce, recommended trust of mature consumer is an important channel to enhance trust for a new consumer. A recommended trust evaluation method in B2C E-commerce is proposed based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process. Firstly, compositions that affect online trust in B2C electronic-commerce are analyzed comprehensively. An individual trust evaluation system is established. Furthermore, for a new consumer, using trust evaluations of multiple mature consumers that he/she is familiar with, the study adopts fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to build composite recommended trust evaluation method. Finally, the proposed recommended trust evaluation method is applied to evaluate recommended trust of real B2C online shopping. It simulates the process of trust evaluating of a new consumer and illustrates the validity of proposed recommended trust evaluation method.
Design and Evaluation of a Project-Based Learning Ubiquitous Platform for Universal Client
Authors: Rottenberg Sam , Lecocq Claire , Leriche Sébastien
Published: August 2012

Mobile technologies are more and more present in students’ lives. Therefore, it is interesting to see how these technologies enable students to learn beyond their courses. In this paper, the authors describe some ongoing work funded by their institution. The authors are developing a prototype of a project-based learning ubiquitous platform which aims at helping students learn some skills and knowledge about project management. In accordance with project-based learning theories, their platform also teaches students how to collect knowledge and introduces them to lifelong learning skills. The software is designed to be reused and adapted to various situations of ubiquitous and collaborative learning, for universal clients (smartphones, tablets, laptops, PCs, etc.). They have designed the technical architecture of the authors’ platform so as to make it easily extendable and maintainable. The technical and pedagogical evaluation of the authors’ platform has been done with students in real life conditions, during a period dedicated to a project to create innovative business. At the end of the paper, the authors describe this experimentation and discuss the pros and cons of such a platform.
Philosophical Requirements of a Comprehensive D.I. System
Authors: Acar William , Druckenmiller Douglas A.
Published: August 2012

This paper revisits the concept of dialectical inquiry (DI) from the perspective of collaborative modeling for collaboration engineering. It does so by integrating the recent literature with its theoretical and philosophical sources. The connection of DI and the problem framing paradigm is clarified. The paper also establishes the general requirements or desired features of an up-to-date DI system, and evaluates some current systems in light of these criteria.
Bi-Objective Two-Stage Decision-Making Process for Service Marketing
Authors: Fazlollahtabar Hamed , Aghasi Ermia , Forte Peter
Published: August 2012

The authors propose a bi-objective two-stage decision-making process to help the marketing team of a company to determine which services make more profit. The decision is based on customer satisfaction measures which are related to the different company services. Thus, they constitute a multi-criteria assessment of the company’s performances. The first stage of the authors’ proposed process is to evaluate the services with respect to certain criteria using a stochastic multi-criteria acceptability analysis. Then, a bi-objective mathematical model is utilized to determine which services are more profitable. An analytical hierarchy process is applied to aggregate the bi-objective model. The applicability and validity of the proposed process is illustrated in a case study.
Particle Swarm Optimization to Design Ideotypes for Sustainable Fruit Production Systems
Authors: Kadrani Abdeslam , Sidi Mohamed-Mahmoud Ould , Quilot-Turion Bénédicte , Génard Michel , Lescourret Françoise
Published: August 2012

Designing peach ideotypes that satisfy the requirement of high fruit quality and low sensitivity to brown rot in a given environment was formulated as a multi-objective problem. The ‘Virtual Fruit’ model was used to perform virtual experiments. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) was interfaced to the ‘Virtual Fruit’ for solving the weighted optimization problem resulting by the linear aggregation of the criteria of the multi-objective problem. The comparison of the PSO with the Genetic Algorithm (GA) showed that the PSO method achieves better performance and outperforms the GA. The optimization results found by the PSO algorithm are considered to be satisfactory for the sustainable production systems of the peach fruit.
Artificial Ethics
Authors: Pana Laura
Published: August 2012

A new morality is generated in the present scientific and technical environment, and a new ethics is needed, an ethics which may found both individual and social morality, guiding a moral evolution of different cultural fields and which has chances to keep alive the moral culture itself. Pointed out are the scientific, technical, and philosophical premises of artificial ethics. Specifically the status and the role of artificial ethics is described and detailed by selecting ethical decision procedures, norms, principles and values that are suitable to be applied both by human and artificial moral agents. Moral intelligence as a kind of practical intelligence is studied and its role in human and artificial moral conduct is evaluated. A set of ethical values that may be shared and applied by both human and artificial moral agents is presented. Common features of human and artificial moral agents as well as specific properties of artificial moral agents are analyzed. Artificial ethics is presented and integrated in the multi-set of artificial cognition, discovery, activity, organization and evolution forms. Experiments and the results of this article are explored further in the article.
Anthropogenesis and Dynamics of Values Under Conditions of Information Technology Development
Authors: Baeva Liudmila V.
Published: August 2012

Entry into the Information Age provided radically new conditions of the modern anthropogenesis–the formation and the development of human beings, their corporality, consciousness, life world, relations with their social world and other persons. In modern society the space of the virtual sphere is extending and becoming dominant, forming a new kind of culture–a digital one. The development of a digital culture is a new form of creative work. After the creation of the second nature–the world of things–human beings created the third nature–the world of virtual phenomena, which is a peculiar composition of the conscious world and the world of modern high information technologies. In such a case it is still paradoxical, that presently human beings exist within two dimensions: The virtual dimension (game or Internet-communication), being a true value for them. The second physically real dimension is instrumental, accompanying and losing its significance in terms of value. interpersonal communication, education, creative work and leisure move from a real sphere into a virtual one. Virtuality is becoming not merely a mediator between a human and the world but truly the world itself. Virtual things are identified with real things in the younger generation’s consciousness. This changing reality model is modifying human beings.
The Use and Abuse of Digital Democracy
Authors: Baarda Rachel , Luppicini Rocci
Published: August 2012

The field of technoethics explores the ethical challenges that technology poses to the different spheres of society. Recently, scholars have begun to explore the ethical implications of new digital technologies and social media, particularly in the realms of society and politics. A qualitative case study was conducted on Barack Obama’s campaign social networking site, my.barackobama.com, in order to investigate the ways in which the website uses or misuses digital technology to create a healthy participatory democracy. For an analysis of ethical and non-ethical ways to promote participatory democracy online, the study included theoretical perspectives such as the role of the public sphere in a participatory democracy and the effects of political marketing on the public sphere. The case study included a content analysis of the website and interviews with members of groups on the site. The study’s results can be found further in the article.
Global ocean carbon uptake: magnitude, variability and trends
Authors: Wanninkhof R. , Park G.-H. , Takahashi T. , Sweeney C. , Feely R. , Nojiri Y. , Gruber N. , Doney S. C. , McKinley G. A. , Lenton A. , Le Quéré C. , Heinze C. , Schwinger J. , Graven H. , Khatiwala S.
Published: August 2012

Abstract. Estimates of the anthropogenic global-integrated sea-air carbon dioxide (CO2) flux from 1990 to 2009, based on different models and measurements, range from –1.4 to –2.6 Pg C yr–1. The median values of anthropogenic CO2 for each method show better agreement and are: −1.9 for Pg C yr−1 for numerical ocean general circulation hind cast models (OGCMs) with parameterized biogeochemistry; –2.1 Pg C yr–1 for atmospheric inverse models; –1.9 Pg C yr–1 for global atmospheric constraints based on O2 / N2 ratios for 1990–2000; and –2.4 Pg C yr–1 for oceanic inverse models. An updated estimate of this anthropogenic CO2 flux based on a climatology of sea-air partial pressure of CO2 differences (ΔpCO2) (Takahashi et al., 2009) and a bulk formulation of gas transfer with wind speed for year 2000 is –2.0 Pg C yr–1. Using this ΔpCO2 climatology and empirical relationships of pCO2 with sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies (Park et al., 2010a), the interannual variability of the contemporary CO2 flux is estimated to be 0.20 Pg C yr–1 (1σ) from 1990 through 2009. This is similar to the variability estimated by the OGCMs of 0.16 Pg C yr–1 but smaller than the interannual variability from atmospheric inverse estimates of 0.40 Pg C yr–1. The variability is largely driven by large-scale climate re-organizations. The decadal trends for different methods range from –0.13 (Pg C yr–1) decade–1 to –0.50 (Pg C yr−1) decade−1. The OGCMs and the data based sea-air CO2 flux estimates show smaller uptakes and appreciably smaller decadal trends than estimates based on changes in carbon inventory suggesting that methods capable of resolving shorter timescales are showing a slowing of the rate of ocean CO2 uptake. It is not clear if this large difference in trend is a methodological issue or a real natural feedback.