bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Scalable Reasoning with Tractable Fuzzy Ontology Languages
Authors: Stoilos Giorgos , Pan Jeff Z. , Stamou Giorgos
Published: May 2010

The last couple of years it is widely acknowledged that uncertainty and fuzzy extensions to ontology languages, like description logics (DLs) and OWL, could play a significant role in the improvement of many Semantic Web (SW) applications like matching, merging and ranking. Unfortunately, existing fuzzy reasoners focus on very expressive fuzzy ontology languages, like OWL, and are thus not able to handle the scale of data that the Web provides. For those reasons much research effort has been focused on providing fuzzy extensions and algorithms for tractable ontology languages. In this chapter, the authors present some recent results about reasoning and fuzzy query answering over tractable/polynomial fuzzy ontology languages namely Fuzzy DL-Lite and Fuzzy EL+. Fuzzy DL-Lite provides scalable algorithms for very expressive (extended) conjunctive queries, while Fuzzy EL+ provides polynomial algorithms for knowledge classification. For the Fuzzy DL-Lite case the authors will also report on an implementation in the ONTOSEARCH2 system and preliminary, but encouraging, benchmarking results.
Linguistic Data Summarization
Authors: Kacprzyk Janusz , Zadrozny Slawomir
Published: May 2010

The authors discuss aspects related to the scalability of data mining tools meant in a different way than whether a data mining tool retains its intended functionality as the problem size increases. They introduce a new concept of a cognitive (perceptual) scalability meant as whether as the problem size increases the method remains fully functional in the sense of being able to provide intuitively appealing and comprehensible results to the human user. The authors argue that the use of natural language in the linguistic data summaries provides a high cognitive (perceptional) scalability because natural language is the only fully natural means of human communication and provides a common language for individuals and groups of different backgrounds, skills, knowledge. They show that the use of Zadeh’s protoform as general representations of linguistic data summaries, proposed by Kacprzyk and Zadrozny (2002; 2005a; 2005b), amplify this advantage leading to an ultimate cognitive (perceptual) scalability.
Human Focused Summarizing Statistics Using OWA Operators
Authors: Yager Ronald R.
Published: May 2010

The ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator is introduced and the author discusses how it can provide a basis for generating summarizing statistics over large data sets. The author further notes how different forms of OWA operators, and hence different summarizing statistics, can be induced using weight-generating functions. The author shows how these weight-generating functions can provide a vehicle with which a data analyst can express desired summarizing statistics. Modern data analysis requires the use of more human focused summarizing statistics then those classically used. The author’s goal here is to develop to ideas to enable a human focused approach to summarizing statistics. Using these ideas we can envision a computer aided construction of the weight generating functions based upon a combination of graphical and linguistic specifications provided by a data analyst describing his desired summarization.
Fuzzy Association Rules to Summarise Multiple Taxonomies in Large Databases
Authors: Martin Trevor , Shen Yun
Published: May 2010

When working with large datasets, a natural approach is to group similar items into categories (or sets) and summarise the data in terms of such categories. Fuzzy set theory allows us to represent and reason about sets of objects without providing crisp definitions for each group, an approach that often reflects the human interpretation of categories. Given two or more hierarchical sets of categories, our aim is to determine the correspondence between categories (e.g., approximate equivalence). Association rules are a useful tool in knowledge discovery from databases but are normally defined in terms of crisp rather than fuzzy categories. In this chapter, the authors describe a new method for calculating a fuzzy confidence value for association rules between fuzzy categories, using a novel approach based on mass assignment theory.
Fuzzy Cluster Analysis of Larger Data Sets
Authors: Winkler Roland , Klawonn Frank , Höppner Frank , Kruse Rudolf
Published: May 2010

The application of fuzzy cluster analysis to larger data sets can cause runtime and memory overflow problems. While deterministic or hard clustering assigns a data object to a unique cluster, fuzzy clustering distributes the membership of a data object over different clusters. In standard fuzzy clustering, membership degrees will (almost) never become zero, so that all data objects are assigned to - even with very small membership degrees - all clusters. As a consequence, this does not only demand higher computational and memory power, it also leads to the undesired effect that all data objects will always influence all clusters, no matter how far away they are from a cluster. New approaches, modifying the idea of the fuzzifier, have been developed to avoid the problem of nonzero membership degrees for all data and clusters. In this chapter, these ideas will be combined with concepts of speeding up fuzzy clustering by a suitable data organization, so that fuzzy clustering can be applied more efficiently to larger data sets.
The Case of e-Tutorials for Test Preparation for New Teachers Transitioning and Transforming into the Education Profession
Authors: Moore Maria Hruby , Gimbert Belinda G.
Published: May 2010

This chapter describes the Ohio Transition to Teaching Project, which assisted adult learners pursuing an alternative license to teaching in Ohio with preparation support for the Praxis II: Principles of Learning and Teaching test. It addresses the challenges these nontraditional teachers face in becoming both “content” and “pedagogically qualified.” The case describes the rationale and process for the development of an interactive online learning community that provided electronic test preparation, virtual collaboration with peers, e-coaching, and resources. The authors present the advantages of a hybrid or blended approach to instructional design, which combines the best features of both face-to-face and online formats to enable self-paced learning and appropriate levels of interaction. The case concludes with discussion of a new initiative, Project KNOTtT, which is expanding the Ohio Transition to Teaching model to Kansas, Nevada, and Texas.
Managing Growth of an Online Program though Policy and Mainstreaming
Authors: Gearhart Deb
Published: May 2010

At a time when higher education is struggling to provide educational services to students on traditional campuses, many institutions are experiencing growth in the online degree programs that they provide. This case study looks at one institution’s effort to deal with rapid growth in online education while maintaining academic integrity and quality in program delivery; managing program growth through the development and use of policy and procedures.
Girls' E-Mentoring in Science, Engineering, and Technology Based at the University of Illinois at Chicago Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Program
Authors: Shirk Sarah , Arreola Veronica , Wobig Carly , Russell Karima
Published: May 2010

The Girls' E-Mentoring in Science, Engineering, and Technology (GEM-SET) program has been linking volunteer women mentors in the fields of science, engineering and technology to student members from across the U.S. since 2001. More than 1,300 girls ages 13-18 and 200 mentors in graduate school and beyond have participated via on-line mentoring and face-to-face programming where available. The basic benefits to the student participants are a free subscription to the on-line GEM-SET Digest that provides access to scholarships and internships information, invitation to field trips, career panel discussions, and conferences, direct access to successful mentors in non-traditional careers, and tutoring in select schools. GEM-SET is one branch of pre-college mentoring provided by the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).
Mentoring the Next Generation
Authors: Schrauth Kate , Losleben Elie
Published: May 2010

With the high school dropout rate in the United States at epidemic levels and the proportion of guidance counselors decreasing, mentoring programs are an increasingly effective way to reach young people with the college and career guidance they need. icouldbe.org’s online mentoring programs reach young people who do not have access to quality educational resources, using a dynamic virtual learning environment to connect them to mentors who offer practical and individualized advice, information and expertise. The organization’s award-winning program is grounded on an evidence-based curriculum that is student-paced and student-led, placing young people at the center of a community of classroom teachers and adult mentors invested in the their futures. icouldbe.org puts child safety first and monitors mentor-mentee relationships in a controlled and accountable environment. Evidence indicates that icouldbe.org’s e-mentoring program has many of the benefits of face-to-face mentoring—an exciting find as educators turn to mentoring as a classroom intervention.
Design of an Online Community of Practice to Support an Emerging Doctoral Culture
Authors: Monaghan James M.
Published: May 2010

During the initial accreditation process for California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB)’s new doctorate in educational leadership, the accrediting body, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), presented the institution with a serious concern. Reviewers of CSUSB’s proposal to offer their first doctorate indicated that the institution did not have a history of a doctoral culture. The challenge was how to acculturate students into a doctoral culture in the absence of an established doctoral culture? The university proposed to leverage their track record creating and nurturing departmental online communities of practice by creating and nurturing a similar community of practice for scholars in the doctoral program. This online community of practice was intended to provide scaffolding which was similar to that which occurs in full-time doctoral programs where faculty and students regularly interact in both formal and informal settings. In designing the online community of practice, the Office of Distributed Learning built upon the expertise developed in the successful implementation of similar communities of practice for numerous departments across the campus.
Writing a Dissertation - University of Phoenix Style
Authors: Turner Norma J.
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents an overview of the doctoral program at the School of Advanced Studies at the University of Phoenix. By providing the program and process involved in obtaining a doctorate at the University of Phoenix, both active and potential students would have knowledge about the general requirements and courses. They would also gain insight into the philosophy of the doctoral program and understanding of the program’s continual growth and development. This chapter includes information on the people and the processes, both internal and external to the University of Phoenix, involved in the successful completion of the degree program.
Online Tutoring
Authors: Ehmann Powers Christa
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents a detailed case study of a leading United States-based online learning center, Smarthinking, Inc. Conducting business in an entirely online setting, Smarthinking provides asynchronous and synchronous online tutoring for several general education courses and degree-specific courses, supporting students enrolled in secondary and post-secondary education 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the calendar year. Smarthinking employs hundreds of professional educators from around the globe. With an operational infrastructure similar to that of a call center, Smarthinking focuses on educational transactions rather than customer support for cell phones or credit cards. The purpose of this chapter is to provide insight into Smarthinking’s services and its online training and management practices, which have been substantiated by research from various professional fields. This chapter discusses the early development plans, technology infrastructure, organizational systems, and product delivery elements of the organization.
On-Demand Tutoring to Students Around the World
Authors: Stuppy John J.
Published: May 2010

The early groundwork for online tutoring was laid when the author led a team at Sylvan Learning Centers in the mid 1990s to find ways to increase the availability of tutors for the students who need them and make tutoring more convenient. The author invented and patented a ground-breaking tutoring platform and system that enabled a student with a home computer to work interactively with a tutor hundreds or thousands of miles away. The student and tutor talk using computer-based voice-over internet protocol (VoIP) Internet phone technology, and share diagrams and work problems on-screen through software known as a virtual whiteboard. Students and teachers can also use instant-messaging text chat to type notes and copy and paste information to share. Sylvan implemented this service launching the eSylvan business (now called Educate Online) for students to work with tutors for skill-gap tutoring all over the United States. Over the years, a number of companies also entered the online tutoring market to provide homework help or skill-gap tutoring. Most focused on homework help using an on-screen whiteboard and typed text chat.
Reaching Beyond Bricks and Mortar
Authors: Rockman Saul , Fontana Lynn
Published: May 2010

Sylvan Learning has set the standard for personalized, after-school, academic support programs for students in elementary grades through high school. It has been in business for 30 years and was one of the earliest programs to demonstrate that providing direct supplemental instruction services could be successfully scaled nationally. The nearly 1,100 Sylvan centers provide academic assistance to thousands of students each day and have helped more than 2 million students reach their full academic potential. A relatively little-known but growing component of Sylvan Learning’s offerings is Sylvan Online, a oneto- one academic assistance program that is offered to students at home in association with their local Sylvan Learning centers. This Internet-based service provides the same type of individualized academic support as the centers, yet it affords greater flexibility and access. Using proprietary technologies, Sylvan Online makes it possible to reach learners—no matter their geographic area or proximity to a Sylvan Learning center—and helps them receive the kind of academic support necessary to succeed in school. This chapter describes the program and attributes of Sylvan Online and situates the program within the larger context of extended-day academic programs.
Applications of E-Tutoring at Indira Gandhi National Open University
Authors: Sharma Ramesh C. , Mishra Sanjaya
Published: May 2010

The education system in India has witnessed various transformations: from ancient system of Gurukul (where the teacher and the taught used to attain educational objectives living in proximity) to online or virtual education where the teacher or students interact through Internet technologies only. There have been a lot of improvements in telecommunications and educational facilities. The country as a whole has noticed developments in many areas of social, economical, scientific and infrastructure sectors. Therefore educational systems need to be integrated with such sectors so that the investment in building human capital results in overall national growth. The open and distance learning (ODL) system is one such tool which can help in addressing local, regional and national needs. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) with more than two million learners in 2009 and a country-wide reach with over 60 regional centres and over 2000 learner support centres catering to remote and tribal areas has been a leader towards the democratization of education with social responsibility. IGNOU offers a large number of vocational and employment-oriented courses in the area of health, agriculture, retail, tourism, hospitality, and so on. The university has the challenges of managing the convergence (of formal and ODL stream) and to serve large number of students spread across the breadth and length of the country. Three vital areas of education (i.e., inclusion, expansion and excellence) need to be addressed as priorities. Thus to address these, new mechanisms of e-tutoring have been introduced by IGNOU. This chapter discusses the applications of e-tutoring and its implications in the context of Indian National Open University.
Developing Tools that Support Effective Mobile and Game Based Learning
Authors: Chryssafidou Evi , Sotiriou Sofoklis , Koulouris Pavlos , Stratakis Manolis , Miliarakis Antonis , Barajas Mario , Milrad Marcelo , Spikol Daniel
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents the COLLAGE (collaborative learning platform using game-like enhancements) project as a good practice example of mobile and game-based learning that aims to integrate formal and informal learning settings through an innovative pedagogical approach. In this learning environment, students learn in context while participating in ready-made game activities or creating their own games: they gather data from their environments (at school, during visits to museums and science centres, on field trips, at home) and interpret it as information useful for learning, either on their own or through platform-mediated peer collaboration. This chapter describes the pedagogical background and technical details of the COLLAGE system, which was developed in the framework of an EU-supported e-learning project in 2005-2007. The aim of the project was to investigate the impact of the COLLAGE system focusing on results and changes the introduction of mobile game-based learning may produce in the learning process.
SW-Architecture for Device Independent Mobile Learning
Authors: Christ Andreas , Feißt Markus
Published: May 2010

Mobile learning increases both flexibility and self-determined learning, often combined with a high degree of context awareness. Flexibility and context awareness includes time and location, as well as the actual individual situation. To achieve such goals, mobile learning is not just a stand-alone and independent learning environment, but is instead embedded in a broader e-learning environment. This is true for the didactic and the pedagogic concepts and the learning (content) management system, as well as the overall software architecture. XML has been proven to be adequate and a powerful technology to store content in a presentation independent manner. By defining an additional attribute inside the XML tags, it is possible to classify the content. At the same time, this will help the author generate learning material for different devices in an efficient and structured way. Also, the content can be used in different formats (XHTML, PDF, etc.) as well as with different technologies (browser, applet, MIDlet, Ajax, etc.). In order to optimise the content presentation on different mobile devices, the content has to be adapted. A necessary precondition for the adaptation process is the identification of the connected device. The classification of the identified mobile device simplifies the mapping between device capabilities and content. The ICAT (Identification, Classification, Adaptation and Tagged XML) framework addresses these issues. The proposed design patterns will help authors to generated content for such a system.
Mobile Web 2.0
Authors: Cochrane Thomas
Published: May 2010

Blogs, wikis, podcasting, and a host of free, easy to use Web 2.0 social software provide opportunities for creating social constructivist learning environments focusing upon student-centred learning and end-user content creation and sharing. Building on this foundation, mobile Web 2.0 has emerged as a viable teaching and learning environment, particularly with the advent of the iPhone (nicknamed “the Jesus phone”) and iPod Touch. Today’s wifi enabled smartphones provide a ubiquitous connection to mobile Web 2.0 social software and the ability to view, create, edit, and upload user generated Web 2.0 content. This chapter explores the potential of wireless mobile devices and Web 2.0 (social software) to create social constructivist learning environments that bridge multiple learning contexts. The chapter provides an overview of current literature in the field, and discusses the pedagogical design of six example mobile Web 2.0 trials undertaken during 2007 and 2008 as part of research into the potential of mobile Web 2.0 to enhance tertiary education. The trials were based in three different courses and illustrate the application and integration of mobile Web 2.0 to bridge a range of learning contexts. The chapter argues that wireless mobile devices can be used to intentionally create disruptive learning environments that facilitate a social constructivist approach to teaching and learning.
Mobile Grids
Authors: Andronikou Vassiliki , Villagra Victor , Konstanteli Kleopatra G. , Litke Antonios , Psychogiou Athanasia
Published: May 2010

The grid brings a new era to the Internet, by introducing new mechanisms, resources, and concepts which allow it to advance from a passive information medium into an active tool for creating, exploring, and sharing knowledge. In the meanwhile, the realisation of this trend is further spurred by the emergence of next generation grids (NGG) and the far more efficient, cost-effective, and broadly applicable infrastructure they introduce to cover a broader spectrum of business needs. Towards this direction and taking into account that mobility has become a central aspect in business, education, and entertainment, mobile grid has been recently developed as a full inheritor of grid covering the mobility aspects of applications, such as m-learning. In this context, this book chapter focuses on providing a business-technical presentation of mobile grid, as an enabling technology for next generation m-learning applications. We present a general mobile grid architecture able to serve the strict requirements such an m-learning application poses, and analyse the main trends and challenges in the mentioned sector.
Intelligent M-Learning Frameworks
Authors: Owen Hazel
Published: May 2010

An imperative underpinning the redetermination of education theory and practice is mobility. Mobility encompasses freedom of movement through myriad contexts (physical and cerebral), cultures, and knowledge. Digital natives embrace this mobility, interacting with each other and engaging with new literacies to communicate, access rich contexts, question, and collaborate. There are, however, few studies that investigate the efficacy of blended m-learning as an enhancement to literacy, especially with Gulf learners. Therefore, this chapter describes the background and implementation of ICT enhanced learning and teaching (ICTELT) blended m-learning academic writing intervention piloted at Dubai Men’s College (DMC). Findings from the research study are reported and discussed.
Integrating Ontology-Based Content Management into a Mobilized Learning Environment
Authors: Kismihók Gábor , Kovács Barna , Vas Réka
Published: May 2010

This chapter describes the architecture of an ontology based content authoring system, developed according to the challenges emerging from Bologna process deployment in Hungary. Considering the needs of Hungarian academic sector, mobility of learners has also been treated as a key requirement. This system has several fundamental components: an educational ontology–which also serves as the domain of curricula development, a content developer, a content repository, and an adaptive knowledge testing engine with a test bank. The services and learning objects are distributed towards the students through a mobilized learning management system.
‘Intelligent Context' for Personalized Mobile Learning
Authors: Moore Philip , Hu Bin , Jackson Mike , Wan Jizheng
Published: May 2010

There have been significant developments in higher education resulting in interest in personalised educational provision. Concomitant with these changes is the evolving capability and ubiquity of mobile technologies. To facilitate personalisation and leverage the power of mobile technologies in mobile pedagogic systems identification of individuals is a prerequisite; this can be achieved using an individual’s profile (termed context). This chapter considers the background to context with related research. Context modelling, the processing of contextual information, context matching and the context matching algorithm, ontology, and the Semantic Web technologies are introduced. Context reasoning and inference in rule-based systems is considered and the context reasoning ontology is presented with scenario-based evaluation. The chapter concludes with a discussion, consideration of future research, and open research questions.
Supporting Mobile Access to VLE Resources through MobiGlam
Authors: Meawad Fatma , Stubbs Geneen
Published: May 2010

MobiGlam is a generic framework of interoperability with existing virtual learning environments (VLEs) that provides a compact and easy to use implementation of learning activity on Java enabled mobile devices. A case study was conducted at the University of Glamorgan, UK where MobiGlam was seamlessly integrated with the university’s VLE to support the delivery of computer courses at the foundation level. Such integration showed an added value to the participants and in many cases, it improved their use of the VLE. This chapter reports on the deployment, the evaluation, and the results of this case study. The results are analysed from two views: the impact on the participants’ use of the VLE and the framework’s overall usability.
Research-Led Curriculum Redesign for Personalised Learning Environments
Authors: Webster Len , Mertova Patricie , Styles Kim , Smith Lindsay
Published: May 2010

This chapter provides a case study outlining strategies which represent a starting point in the development of a personalised learning environment (PLE). The initial strategies focus on student engagement in two units run by the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University, Australia. The case study looks at changing the approach to a more personalised learning environment in the respective IT units, and it also outlines how the changes were made based on a meta-analysis research of the Australian Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ).
Enabling Personalised Learning through Formative and Summative Assessment
Authors: Gordon Neil Andrew
Published: May 2010

This chapter considers some ways in which personalised learning can potentially be delivered by means of appropriate assessment and the use of associated technologies. Recognising that for many students, learning is driven by summative assessment, the chapter considers how by blending summative and formative assessment, students can be encouraged to develop and take responsibility for their own learning along with ways in which technology can make this assessment be tailored to the individual student. The approaches described can support and encourage self-regulated learning – itself an effective way of providing the more general concept of student-centred learning. The framework of learning that is engendered – with the use of technology – has the potential to allow an educational pathway which reflects individual students’ needs and aptitudes, and which can thus provide a form of personalised learning. This chapter describes some of the relevant theory – which forms the context within which this work is based and has developed - before then describing two case studies where this blend of formative and summative assessment is described and analysed. This is followed by a discussion of some of the more general issues.
"You Can Take Out of it What You Want"
Authors: Holley Debbie , Greaves Lyn , Bradley Claire , Cook John
Published: May 2010

This chapter shows how a suite of learning objects were developed by the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for Reusable Learning Objects (www.RLO-CETL.ac.uk), one of 74 CETLs being funded by the UK’s Higher Education Funding Council for England. The learning objects were used to support students within a blended learning context. It shows student personalised learning: learning that can be any time (in the 24 hour digital world), any place (the university experienced in the home or workplace), any where (limited only by the students choice and internet access – trains, boats, planes, global learning). It focuses on two case studies at UK Higher Education institutions that demonstrate any time, any place learning. London Metropolitan University (London Met) and Thames Valley University (TVU), have both used and reused learning objects in different contexts. In each case study the background and the resulting blended learning design is outlined, followed by evaluation data illustrating the student experience and how the learning design and the learning objects have encouraged personalised learning. The chapter concludes with the start of the third iteration of use – to facilitate informal learning ‘any where’, through the incorporation of learning objects that can be used on mobile phones.
Contemporary Music Students and Mobile Technology
Authors: Cochrane Thomas
Published: May 2010

Five billion songs, and counting, have been downloaded (completely legally) through Apple Computer’s online iTunes Store. The iTunes University links free educational content from over seventy tertiary institutions worldwide, and is now available to New Zealand tertiary institutions. The Internet has revolutionised the delivery and access of media and education – making access to a worldwide audience or market merely a Google (or iTunes Store) search away! But, what are the real-world practicalities of this for contemporary music students and teachers today? How can these tools be utilised to facilitate personalised learning environments. Within this context, this chapter presents and evaluates a mobile learning case study at Unitec in the Diploma of Contemporary Music on the Waitakere campus.
Ontology-Based Network Management for Autonomic Communications
Authors: Kanelopoulos Dimitris
Published: May 2010

This chapter is focused on state-of-the art issues in the area of ontology-based autonomic communications and it considers how ontologies can be useful for network management as a way to achieve semantic interoperability among different network management models. In addition, it presents the autonomic communications paradigm as a possible solution to the ever-growing complexity of commercial networks due to the increasing complexity of individual network elements, the need for intelligent network and communication services and the heterogeneity of connected equipment. Finally, the chapter analyses how ontologies can be used to combine data correlation and inference technologies in autonomic networks. Such technologies are used as core components to build autonomic networks.
How Models and Methods for Analysis and Design of Information Systems can be Improved to Better Support Communication and Learning
Authors: Gustiené Prima , Carlsson Sten
Published: May 2010

Various models and methods are used to support information system development process, but after many years of practice, projects still continue to fail. One of the reasons is that the conventional modeling approaches do not provide efficient support for learning and communication among stakeholders. Lack of an integrated method for systematic analysis, design and evolution of static and dynamic structures of information system architectures is the core of frustration in various companies. Semantic problems of communication between business analysis and design experts lead to ambiguous and incomplete system requirement specifications. The traditional modeling approaches do not view business data and process as a whole. Our goal is to propose a method, which would help system designers to reason about the pragmatic, semantic and syntactic aspects of a system in a communication and learning perspective. Service-oriented paradigm was shortly presented as one of the possible solutions to the problems of integration.
Accounting and Billing in Computing Environments
Authors: Rückemann Claus-Peter
Published: May 2010

This chapter gives a comprehensive overview of the current status of accounting and billing for up-todate computing environments. Accounting is the key for the management of information system resources. At this stage of evolution of accounting systems it is adequate not to separate computing environments into High Performance Computing and Grid Computing environments for allowing a “holistic” view showing the different approaches and the state of the art for integrated accounting and billing in distributed computing environments. Requirements resulting from a public survey within all communities of the German Grid infrastructure, as well as from computing centres and resource providers of High Performance Computing resources like HLRN, and ZIVGrid, within the German e-Science framework, have been considered as well as requirements resulting from various information systems and the virtualisation of organisations and resources. Additionally, conceptual, technical, economical, and legal questions also had to be taken into consideration. After the requirements have been consolidated and implementations have been done over one year ago, now the overall results and conclusions are presented in the following sections showing a case study based on the GISIG framework and the Grid- GIS framework. The focus is on how an integrated architecture can be built and used in heterogeneous environments. A prototypical implementation is outlined that is able to manage and visualise relevant accounting and billing information based on suitable monitoring data in a virtual organisation (VO) specific way regarding basic business, economic, and security issues.
Health Infonomics
Authors: Mackert Michael , Whitten Pamela , Holtz Bree
Published: May 2010

Researchers are currently challenged to document the economic aspects of information across an array of contexts. While some lessons can be applied generally, certain contexts present unique challenges for researchers interested in the acquisition, management, and use of information. Health is one such field currently undergoing a revolution driven by new applications of information-based technologies and services. This chapter provides background on health informatics and current issues as health informatics impacts the provision of health in doctors’ offices, shifts the provision of healthcare services into patients’ homes, and presents new opportunities to address public health concerns. An outline of a future research agenda in health informatics and a look at the prospect of health informatics applications provides the necessary foundation for focused work on the economic impact of this information-driven transformation in healthcare delivery.
Governance of Virtual Networks
Authors: Semolic Brane , Kovac Jure
Published: May 2010

Technological and organizational excellence is the key element for business success in a modern business environment. In contemporary business environments, companies will restore and keep their competition capability not only by optimizing their own potentials, but mainly by utilizing capability of foreign resources and their connection to complete business process in the so called network organizations. Virtual organizations are a special form of network organizations. Among virtual organizations the so called Living Laboratory takes place. This chapter presents the findings of the research regarding the state of development and application of laser living laboratory management and governance system in Toolmakers Cluster of Slovenia.
Digital Confidence in Business
Authors: Chiang Lichun
Published: May 2010

This chapter aims to understand the perceptions of employee information ethics using a company within the Environmental Protection Science Park in the southern part of Taiwan. The two purposes of this research are (1) to understand the environments of employees who understand information ethics, and (2) to clarify variables regarding information ethics which could provide a framework for policy controlling information ethics for businesses related to information technology (IT). The findings of this study show respondents understand the concept of unethical or illegal use of IT. All respondents perceived unauthorized behaviors, such as illegal downloads and reading other IT accounts without permission as unethical behaviors.
Use of Semantic Mediation in Manufacturing Supply Chains
Authors: Denno Peter , Barkmeyer Edward J. , Neuhaus Fabian
Published: May 2010

This chapter discusses lessons learned about enabling interoperability using semantic methods in three automotive industry projects spanning 8 years. In these projects the authors attempt to automate systems integration tasks typically performed manually. The essential form of the solution is to define ontologies of (1) the joint action of the required business process, (2) business domain objects from the viewpoints of the components playing roles in the process, and (3) the engineered interfaces through which the interaction occurs. The authors then use these ontologies, in semi-automated processes, to generate mediators that translate message content to the form required by message recipients. They discuss briefly how these methods suggest the need for a more methodical and rigorous systems engineering practice and semantically richer, computationally accessible exchange and interface standards.
Streamlining Semantic Integration Systems
Authors: Kalfoglou Yannis , Hu Bo
Published: May 2010

Yannis Kalfoglou and Bo Hu argue for the use of a streamlined approach to integrate semantic integration systems. The authors elaborate on the abundance and diversity of semantic integration solutions and how this impairs strict engineering practice and ease of application. The versatile and dynamic nature of these solutions comes at a price: they are not working in sync with each other neither is it easy to align them. Rather, they work as standalone systems often leading to diverse and sometimes incompatible results. Hence the irony that we might need to address the interoperability issue of tools tackling information interoperability. Kalfoglou and Hu also report on an exemplar case from the field of ontology mapping where systems that used seemingly similar integration algorithms and data, yield different results which are arbitrary formatted and annotated making interpretation and reuse of the results difficult. This makes it difficult to apply semantic integration solutions in a principled manner. The authors argue for a holistic approach to streamline and glue together different integration systems and algorithms. This will bring uniformity of results and effective application of the semantic integration solutions. If the proposed streamlining respects design principles of the underlying systems, then the engineers will have maximum configuration power and tune the streamlined systems in order to get uniform and well understood results. The authors propose a framework for building such streamlined system based on engineering principles and an exemplar, purpose built system, CROSI Mapping System (CMS), which targets the problem of ontology mapping.
A Use Case for Ontology Evolution and Interoperability
Authors: Uslar Mathias , Grüning Fabian , Rohjans Sebastian
Published: May 2010

Within this chapter, the authors provide two use cases on semantic interoperability in the electric utility industry based on the IEC TR 62357 seamless integration architecture. The first use case on semantic integration based on ontologies deals with the integration of the two heterogeneous standards families IEC 61970 and IEC 61850. Based on a quantitative analysis, we outline the need for integration and provide a solution based on our framework, COLIN. The second use cases points out the need to use better metadata semantics in the utility branch, also being solely based on the IEC 61970 standard. The authors provide a solution to use the CIM as a domain ontology and taxonomy for improving data quality. Finally, this chapter outlines open questions and argues that proper semantics and domain models based on international standards can improve the systems within a utility.
Human Motion Tracking in Video
Authors: Tung Tony , Matsuyama Takashi
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents a new formulation for the problem of human motion tracking in video. Tracking is still a challenging problem when strong appearance changes occur as in videos of humans in motion. Most trackers rely on a predefined template or on a training dataset to achieve detection and tracking. Therefore they are not efficient to track objects whose appearance is not known in advance. A solution is to use an online method that updates iteratively a subspace of reference target models. In addition, we propose to integrate color and motion cues in a particle filter framework to track human body parts. The algorithm process consists of two modes, switching between detection and tracking. The detection steps involve trained classifiers to update estimated positions of the tracking windows, whereas tracking steps rely on an adaptive color-based particle filter coupled with optical flow estimations. The Earth Mover distance is used to compare color models in a global fashion, and constraints on flow features avoid drifting effects. The proposed method has revealed its efficiency to track body parts in motion and can cope with full appearance changes. Experiments were performed on challenging real world videos with poorly textured models and non-linear motions.
Learning to Recognise Spatio-Temporal Interest Points
Authors: Oshin Olusegun T. , Gilbert Andrew , Illingworth John , Bowden Richard
Published: May 2010

In this chapter, we present a generic classifier for detecting spatio-temporal interest points within video, the premise being that, given an interest point detector, we can learn a classifier that duplicates its functionality and which is both accurate and computationally efficient. This means that interest point detection can be achieved independent of the complexity of the original interest point formulation. We extend the naive Bayesian classifier of Randomised Ferns to the spatio-temporal domain and learn classifiers that duplicate the functionality of common spatio-temporal interest point detectors. Results demonstrate accurate reproduction of results with a classifier that can be applied exhaustively to video at frame-rate, without optimisation, in a scanning window approach.
Multi-Scale People Detection and Motion Analysis for Video Surveillance
Authors: Tian YingLi , Feris Rogerio , Brown Lisa , Vaquero Daniel , Zhai Yun , Hampapur Arun
Published: May 2010

Visual processing of people, including detection, tracking, recognition, and behavior interpretation, is a key component of intelligent video surveillance systems. Computer vision algorithms with the capability of “looking at people” at multiple scales can be applied in different surveillance scenarios, such as farfield people detection for wide-area perimeter protection, mid-field people detection for retail/banking applications or parking lot monitoring, and near-field people/face detection for facility security and access. In this chapter, we address the people detection problem in different scales as well as human tracking and motion analysis for real video surveillance applications including people search, retail loss prevention, people counting, and display effectiveness.
A Generic Framework for 2D and 3D Upper Body Tracking
Authors: Zhang Lei , Chen Jixu , Zeng Zhi , Ji Qiang
Published: May 2010

Upper body tracking is a problem to track the pose of human body from video sequences. It is difficult due to such problems as the high dimensionality of the state space, the self-occlusion, the appearance changes, etc. In this paper, we propose a generic framework that can be used for both 2D and 3D upper body tracking and can be easily parameterized without heavily depending on supervised training. We first construct a Bayesian Network (BN) to represent the human upper body structure and then incorporate into the BN various generic physical and anatomical constraints on the parts of the upper body. Unlike the existing upper body models, we aim at handling physically feasible body motions rather than only some typical motions. We also explicitly model the body part occlusion in the model, which allows to automatically detect the occurrence of self-occlusion and to minimize the effect of measurement errors on the tracking accuracy due to occlusion. Using the proposed model, upper body tracking can be performed through probabilistic inference over time. A series of experiments were performed on both monocular and stereo video sequences to demonstrate the effectiveness and capability of the model in improving upper body tracking accuracy and robustness.
Fast Categorisation of Articulated Human Motion
Authors: Schindler Konrad , van Gool Luc
Published: May 2010

Visual categorisation of human motion in video clips has been an active field of research in recent years. However, most published methods either analyse an entire video and assign it a single category label, or use relatively large look-ahead to classify each frame. Contrary to these strategies, the human visual system proves that simple categories can be recognised almost instantaneously. Here we present a system for categorisation from very short sequences (“snippets”) of 1–10 frames, and systematically evaluate it on several data sets. It turns out that even local shape and optic flow for a single frame are enough to achieve ˜80-90% correct classification, and snippets of 5-7 frames (0.2-0.3 seconds of video) yield results on par with the ones state-of-the-art methods obtain on entire video sequences.
Human Action Recognition with Expandable Graphical Models
Authors: Li Wanqing , Zhang Zhengyou , Liu Zicheng , Ogunbona Philip
Published: May 2010

This chapter first presents a brief review of the recent development in human action recognition. In particular, the principle and shortcomings of the conventional Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and its variants are discussed. We then introduce an expandable graphical model that represents the dynamics of human actions using a weighted directed graph, referred to as action graph. Unlike the conventional HMM, the action graph is shared by all actions to be recognized with each action being encoded in one or multiple paths and, thus, can be effectively and efficiently trained from a small number of samples. Furthermore, the action graph is expandable to incorporate new actions without being retrained and compromised. To verify the performance of the proposed expandable graphic model, a system that learns and recognizes human actions from sequences of silhouettes is developed and promising results are obtained.