bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
User Approach to Knowledge Discovery in Networked Environment
Authors: Kuusisto Rauno
Published: May 2010

Collaboration and networking demands are increasing and lots of organizational communicative activities have moved into technical networks. Need to understand not only how to refine right information contents out of the available data mass but also what type of information is important in various information using situations has increased. This chapter delves into the problem area of finding ways to support users to find relevant, specific types of information that is related to various phases of operating in network. Establishing a network, planning operations and managing operations differ from each others what comes into information requirements. It will be shown via four generalized cases that information requirements vary depending on what phase of networking activity the organization is. Via those cases that are based on sufficiently broad empirical material it will be cleared that knowledge requirements differ from situation to another. This leads to a conclusion that flexible data mining and knowledge discovery systems shall be constructed.
Orchestrating Ontologies for Courseware Design
Authors: Gavrilova Tatiana
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents an approach aimed at creating teaching strategies for e-learning based on the principles of ontological engineering and cognitive psychology. The proposed framework is important for many reasons. It is targeted at the development of methodologies and related technologies that can scaffold the process of knowledge structuring and orchestrating teaching ontologies for courseware design. The orchestrating procedure is the kernel of ontology development. Ontologies that describe the main concepts of exemplary domains are used both for teaching and assessment techniques. The main stress is put on using visual techniques of mind-mapping and concept mapping as a powerful mind learning tool. Cognitive bias and some results of Gestalt psychology are highlighted as a general guideline. The ideas of balance, clarity, and beauty are applied to the ontology orchestrating procedures. The examples are taken mainly from the course in C-programming, and in the foundations of intelligent systems development.
From Usability to User Experience
Authors: Pribeanu Costin , Iordache Dragos Daniel
Published: May 2010

Augmented Reality (AR) is merging real and virtual environments within a single interaction space. This tight integration of computer technologies into a real environment is creating new opportunities and challenges for the designers of e-learning systems as well as a new kind of user experience (UX) for the learner. More recently, AR-based educational systems were developed that are implementing learning scenarios for primary and secondary schools. An important goal of these novel teaching platforms is to enhance the students’ motivation to learn. This chapter reports on the perceived educational and motivational value of an AR-based learning scenario for chemistry based on the results of a user-centered formative usability evaluation. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected during two experiments with students from secondary schools. While the comparison between the two types of measure increases confidence in the evaluation results, the qualitative measures also provide a detailed description of the user learning experience.
Technoethics
Authors: Rocci Luppicini
Published: May 2010

A major struggle within our evolving knowledge society is that increasingly potent scientific and technological growth is forcing individuals to re-examine how technology is viewed. This is especially salient in the pure and applied sciences where technological developments offer ways to surpass current human capacities and affect life in ways that were not imaginable fifty years ago. New breakthroughs in medicine, information and communication technology, transportation and industry are juxtaposed with growing needs to deal with moral and ethical dilemmas associated with new technological developments. Increased reliance on new technology creates fundamental challenges revolving around security and privacy issues, access issues to education and health care, legal issues in online fraud and theft, employer and government surveillance, policies issues in creating and implementing ethical guidelines and professional codes of conduct, along with ethical dilemmas in a number of vital areas of research and development.
Knowledge Sharing Model of 24-Hour Knowledge Factory
Authors: Xia Huosong , Gupta Amar
Published: May 2010

In order to improve the level of decision making and competitive advantage, organizations are actively trying to develop and incorporate new knowledge management techniques that are suited for the evolving global economy; the notion of globally distributed team environments represents one area of heavy focus. In implementing a globally distributed work environment, decision makers are faced with an increasingly daunting task of reconciling disparate distributed and heterogeneous data sources. Further, these data sources are growing every day as corporations dedicate more of their resources to a multinational scenario, rather than to a domestic or geographically-specific focus. In order to address this growing problem of knowledge sharing, the authors propose a knowledge sharing model that incorporates the notion of the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory, in conjunction with grid computing and case-based reasoning (CBR). This chapter begins with a description of the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory, the Enterprise Common Knowledge Shared (ECKS) methodology, and the evolving time-shift sharing model. Next, a CBR-adapted approach, based on grid computing, is presented for use in a 24-Hour Knowledge Factory environment. Finally, several types of enterprise knowledge transfer mechanisms are presented in this paper.
Applying Sense-Making Methodology to Design Knowledge Management Practices
Authors: Cheuk Bonnie Wai-yi , Dervin Brenda
Published: May 2010

This chapter introduces readers to Dervin’s Sense-Making Methodology (SMM) and demonstrates how it has been applied to design knowledge management projects for the public sector. The projects described in this chapter were implemented between November 2005 to June 2006 when the main author was the Head of Knowledge Management for the Improvement Service for the Scottish Government, a company limited by guarantee with a budget provided by the Scottish Executive, with the aim to improve the efficiency, quality and accountability of public services in Scotland through learning, sharing knowledge and delivering improvement solutions. Sense-Making Methodology is based on a set of assumptions which challenge some fundamental knowledge management thinking. The SMM assumptions imply the need for alternative procedures to be implemented to promote knowledge sharing. Three primary applications are discussed: (a) conducting user study to understand user needs; (b) designing web-based KM systems; and (c) facilitating dialogue to nurture communities of practice. This chapter aims at stimulating further thinking and debate in adopting theoretically informed approaches to implement knowledge management practices.
Using Soft Systems Methodology to Reveal Socio-Technical Barriers to Knowledge Sharing and Management
Authors: Gillies Alan C. , Galloway Jeanette
Published: May 2010

Nonaka (1998) argued that for companies to prosper they must move away from a view of organizations as information processing entities with a focus on formal and systematic knowledge to exploit tacit knowledge. Much of the subsequent literature relates to commercial companies, often in North America. Public services in the UK are undergoing rapid change to improve cost effectiveness, customer focus and improve outcomes. Reports such as Wanless (2002, 2004, 2007), Protti (2002) and Gray (2007) argue that this requires a more intelligent use of knowledge and information. However, authors such as Avison and Wood Harper, (1990) have long argued that systems to support such information-based innovations are context dependent and should be viewed as socio-technical systems rather than simply technological systems. This study uses Checkland’s Soft systems Methodology (SSM) to consider the local factors operating within a case study from a local NHS health informatics service organization to assess the need to take account of local factors when applying knowledge management techniques in such cases, with a particular focus on managing the tacit knowledge components, highlighted by Nonaka.
Video Issues for Knowledge Management
Authors: Herschel Richard T. , Yermish Ira
Published: May 2010

This chapter reviews the plethora of user-generated video activity and the issues it creates for knowledge management activities. The ability for individuals to create and post videos online has become prolific and it has now become a source of potential liability for employees and the firm. Video can be used convey rich narratives that can facilitate sensemaking and knowledge sharing and transfer, but their needs to be standards and controls for content development and distribution. When video content is developed, structure and culture are important factors that must be considered in storytelling activities to increase the opportunity for effective sensemaking and message retention and to ensure the accuracy, relevance, and legitimacy of video content. Evidence and arguments are presented that should motivate organizations and academics to review video generation activities both internal and external to the organization. Issues concerning video content delivery, liability, spam, and search engine capabilities are discussed. Opportunities for new research inquiries are identified.
Innovative Strategies for Logistics Processes
Authors: Türkeli Bikem , Ariburnu Alp , Vayvay Özalp
Published: May 2010

In a time of rapid revolutionary change, today organizations must innovate in ways that allow them to take advantage of change. Competitive business environments force companies to respond to all changes in the market. This response to that change brings innovation in processes. As a basis of all competitive advantages, innovation should be continuous and the only way to maintain this is having the right innovation strategy. In this study innovative strategies for logistics processes, which can be used practically in business environments, are mentioned. For each innovative strategy title tools that can be used to innovate operations are presented. By innovating logistics processes logistics providers can fulfill customer needs rapidly and increase their profit because of having a competitive advantage.
Employing Intelligent Decision Systems to Aid in Information Technology Project Status Decisions
Authors: Barnes Anthony P. , Hammell Robert J.
Published: May 2010

When a firm initiates and invests into an information technology (IT) project, it is usually with the intention of realizing benefits in the informational, strategic, transactional, and infrastructure objective areas of its IT portfolio (Weill & Broadbent, 1998). From the project management perspective, it is critical to know how the project is performing from the viewpoint of scope, schedule, cost, and other constraints. Lewis (2008) reports that 70% of IT-related projects do not meet their objective. This chapter examines the use of a case-based reasoning decision support architecture that provides a collaborative intelligent agent system to aid in recommending the status of a project using color indicators (Red, Yellow, Green) derived from the progress and condition of the project-related constraints.
Complex Event Processing in Sensor-based Decision Support Systems
Authors: Dunkel Jürgen , Bruns Ralf , Pawlowski Oliver
Published: May 2010

Sensor-based decision support systems have to cope with a high volume of continuously generated sensor events. Conventional software architectures do not explicitly target the efficient processing of continuous event streams. Due to the high volume of events and their complex dependencies it is not possible to have a fixed or predefined process flow on the business level. Recently, Complex Event Processing (CEP) has been proposed as a general process model for event streams. Though CEP provides mechanisms for computing high volume of events, it does not define any methodologies, models and reference architectures, which would establish EDA as a mature software architecture. In this chapter the authors present a reference architecture for sensor-based decision support systems, which enables the analysis and processing of complex event streams in real-time. The proposed architecture provides a conceptual basis for development of flexible software frameworks that can be adapted to meet various applications needs. The authors’ architectural approach is based on semantically rich event models providing the different stages of the decision process. They illustrate their approach in the domain of road traffic management for high-capacity road networks.
Mathematical Models for Optimizing the Global Mining Supply Chain
Authors: Pimentel Bruno Santos , Mateus Geraldo Robson , Almeida Franklin Assunção
Published: May 2010

The present chapter discusses the application of intelligent decision-support systems – mathematical programming-based in particular – to operations management within the mining industry. The underlying production and distribution planning and scheduling problems have often been addressed individually, in disregard of upstream and downstream operations. A supply chain approach to mining operations, however, requires an integrated perspective which takes into account mine, railway and port operations, as well as domestic and international supply stations served by appropriate logistics channels. Three main topics are discussed here: recent operations research developments in the mining industry; integrated approaches towards the development of decision-support systems to address a global mining supply chain; and possible solution approaches to the integrated problems. The main thread is oriented to mathematical programming approaches, but relevant applications of simulation and artificial intelligence techniques are also discussed.
Managing the Risk of Knowledge Transfer in Outsourcing Organizations
Authors: Ponis Stavros , Koronis Epaminondas
Published: May 2010

The rhetoric of outsourcing as well as the importance of organizational knowledge have both been popular issues thoroughly examined in contemporary business literature. Still, combinatory studies on the effects of outsourcing, positive or negative, on the creation and maintenance of organizational knowledge and the related risks and consequences of outsourcing, remain scarce. Given the popularity of both fields of organizational analysis we consider the lacking of combinatory studies as striking. In this paper, we present the findings drawn on a multiple case study analysis of four medium size pharmaceutical companies, all of them having implemented outsourcing strategies. The chapter attempts a categorization of risk sources during the outsourcing initiative, proposes mitigating actions and organizes the findings of the research on the case companies by proposing a model of ‘vicious cycle’ suggesting that outsourcing, if not managed successfully, eventually leads to the addiction of the organization to ‘buy’ expertise and knowledge in spite of knowledge acquisition. While we identify the conflicting strategies and rhetoric, we also attempt to come up with a set of guidelines, which could help organizations avoid the knowledge negative side effects of outsourcing.
Internet Consumer Behavior
Authors: Richard Marie-Odile , Laroche Michel
Published: May 2010

This chapter develops the major components of web atmospherics (Richard, 2005). In retailing research, retail atmospherics (e.g., scents, color, design) are very important to the success of retailers. Similarly, Richard (2005) demonstrates that web atmospherics are important to the development of positive attitudes toward the website and the products it describes. In Figure 1, these are the shaded areas.
Understanding the Dimensions of the Broadband Gap
Authors: Vicente Maria Rosalia , Lopez Ana Jesus
Published: May 2010

Over the last decade the Internet has brought about significant changes in the economies and societies worldwide. It has changed communication habits, adapting incrementally to the needs of the users of the networks. It has created a world-wide web of knowledge sharing, creativity, and collaboration and has fostered globalization. In this context, new and traditional players are adapting to the challenges through new business models. Nowadays, the diffusion of broadband is providing the basis for the transition to the Internet of the future. In the next years the development of very high-speed networks will permit the launch of new interactive media and content services. The widespread expansion of low cost wireless broadband will allow the Internet to become more pervasive (European Commission, 2006).
Virtual Commerce
Authors: Nasco Suzanne Altobello , Boostrom Robert E. , Coker Kesha K.
Published: May 2010

Virtual reality, in a variety of implementations, is becoming more popular every day. Internet technology originally designed for education, information, and gaming is now three-dimensional, multifunctional, and morphing into loci for international economic activity. The virtual world population is quite immense. In Second Life alone, as of 2007, there was an estimated 3.1 million registered residents (Linden, 2007). There is also much user activity in Second Life with 1.4 million residents logged in within the last 60 days from March 25, 2009 (Second Life, 2009). In fact, the virtual world population is expected to reach 50 - 60 million by 2011 (Au, 2007). Of even greater interest is the revenue generated from virtual world activity. The worldwide virtual world economy is valued at approximately $1.8 billion (Dibbell, 2007).
Fairness and the Internet Sales Tax
Authors: Coleman James Brian
Published: May 2010

One of the most noticeable features of online business transactions in the United States is the absence of a sales tax on interstate purchases. Consumers are not expected to pay taxes on Internet purchases across state lines, and businesses are not expected to collect taxes for such purchases. The absence of an interstate Internet sales tax (shortened hereafter to “Internet tax,” except where noted) has been both praised as an incentive to promote business, and condemned as the cause of serious revenue loss by municipalities throughout the nation. In this chapter, I shall present an analysis of current proposals about instituting a sales tax on Internet purchases. Both sides of the debate argue for their position on grounds of fairness to the businesses who, were an internet tax to be levied, would be expected to collect and remit it to the state and local governments. So, I will focus on the concept of fairness in this discussion. I will consider the claims about the fairness or unfairness of the Internet tax from the standpoint of contractarianism: a group of philosophical theories that focus on questions concerning the just distribution of social resources. I will make use specifically of the views of John Rawls and David Gauthier to analyze the positions on the Internet tax. I shall conclude by arguing in favor of the Internet tax on contractarian grounds.
Intelligent Agents in Education
Authors: Feituri Mikail , Funghi Federica
Published: May 2010

Distance learning through information and communication technologies has consistently had a notable impact and influence on the academic and professional world. This is greatly due to the fact that distance learning allows users, especially professionals, to learn at their own pace, according to their availability, in addition to having limited costs. These features are consistent with and support the concept of life long learning. Traditional courses delivered in an E-learning modality can sometimes, however, result in being unstimulating and leaving the student with the impression of being isolated during their learning process. Pedagogical intelligent agents, however, are able to be constantly present in the learner’s training environment, interacting verbally and non verbally (gestures and expressions) with users, thus making E-learning much more interactive, interesting and fun. This ongoing interaction and support of the agent, therefore, notably helps reduce the possibility of users feeling excluded during their E-learning course, thus better enhancing their overall learning experience and reinforcing their motivation. This chapter will introduce features and potential of pedagogical agents and will illustrate, with examples, the most common techniques used to design an agent or a “society” of intelligent agents and how to integrate them into a learning environment.
The Role of Organizational Slack in Technology Innovation Adoption for SMEs
Authors: Franquesa Jaume , Brandyberry Alan
Published: May 2010

This study explores the relevant dimensions of organizational slack in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and investigates their impact on adoption of different types of information technology (IT) innovations. Using recent data from a representative sample of 2,296 U.S. SMEs, the authors find that the slack-innovation relationships previously described in larger firms do not hold well for SMEs. Their results show potential slack (measured as access to external credit) to be a strong predictor of technology adoption in SMEs. By contrast, available slack appeared not to be a significant factor in SME innovation adoption. Moreover, the direction of the effects of potential slack was moderated by the capital-intensity of the innovation. In particular, e-commerce, which required lesser financial resources for SME adoption, was found to be pursued by those with lesser potential slack. The authors argue that, in some cases, innovation adoption may represent a form of “bricolage” by resource constrained SMEs.
Reverse Engineering and MDA
Authors: Favre Liliana María
Published: May 2010

Reverse Engineering is the process of analyzing available software artifacts such as requirements, design, architectures, code or byte code, with the objective of extracting information and providing high-level views on the underlying system. A common idea in reverse engineering is to exploit the source code as the most reliable description both of the behavior of a software system and of the organization and its business rules. However, reverse engineering is immersed in a variety of tasks related to comprehending and modifying software such as re-documentation of programs and relational databases, recovering of architectures, recovering of alternative design views, recovering of design patterns, building traceability between code and designs, modernization of interfaces or extracting the source code or high level abstractions from byte code when the source code is not available. Reverse engineering is hardly associated with modernization of legacy systems that were developed many years ago with technology that is now obsolete. These systems include software, hardware, business processes and organizational strategies and politics. Many of them remain in use after more than 20 years; they may be written for technology which is expensive to maintain and which may not be aligned with current organizational politics. Legacy systems resume key knowledge acquired over the life of an organization. Changes are motivated for multiple reasons, for instance the way in which we do business and create value. Important business rules are embedded in the software and may not be documented elsewhere. The way in which the legacy system operates is not explicit (Brodie and Stonebraker, 1995) (Sommerville, 2004).
Bias Literacy
Authors: Sevo Ruta , Chubin Daryl E.
Published: May 2010

The chapter offers a quick digest of the evidence for discrimination, especially with reference to women in science and engineering in the U.S. It explains common terminology and lists relevant legislation and national policy initiatives. The chapter summarizes the difference between tradition and bias, conscious and unconscious discrimination, overt and covert discrimination, and personal versus institution bias. Drawing on research in psychology and social science, it summarizes core concepts including: gender schema, accumulative advantage, stereotype threat, implicit bias, glass ceiling, mommy track, occupational segregation, statistical profiling, climate study, and the value of diversity in learning. A short section lists some U.S. national and international approaches to measuring whether discrimination is occurring and how improvements are benchmarked. There is a list of major organizations working for diversity in the U.S., with links. Many of the concepts are more fully described in the recent U.S. national report Beyond bias and barriers (2007), which inspired this literacy effort.
Neonatal Monitoring
Authors: Chen Wei , Oetomo Sidarto Bambang , Feijs Loe
Published: May 2010

This chapter focuses on monitoring vital health parameters for a particular group of patients - critically ill newborn infants in neonatal intensive care units (NICU) at hospitals. These neonates are extremely tiny and vulnerable. Thus, health monitoring for the neonates provides crucial parameters for urgent diagnoses and corresponding medical procedures, subsequently increasing the survival rates. Neonatal monitoring is a multidisciplinary area which involves a unique integration of knowledge from medical science, design, technology and social study. In this chapter, the authors introduce current status and new developments in neonatal monitoring. They present some ongoing research examples of non-invasive neonatal monitoring designed and developed at the department of Industrial Design and the department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in collaboration with the department of neonatology, Máxima Medical Center (MMC), Veldhoven, in the Netherlands, including the first prototype smart jacket, a wireless power supply and video signal processing for neonatal monitoring. Challenges and social impacts of non-invasive neonatal monitoring will be discussed.
Delay-Based Admission Control to Sustain QoS in a Managed IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs
Authors: Ksentini A. , Nafaa A.
Published: May 2010

In this chapter, we present a delay-sensitive MAC adaptation scheme combined with an admission control mechanism. The proposed solution is based on thorough analysis of the trade-off existing between high network utilization and achieving bounded QoS metrics in operated 802.11-based networks. First, we derive an accurate delay estimation model to adjust the contention window size in real-time basis by considering key net-work factors, MAC queue dynamics, and application-level QoS requirements. Second, we use the abovementioned delay-based CW size adaptation scheme to derive a fully distributed admission control model that provides protection for existing flows in terms of QoS guarantees.
Admission Control and Scheduling for QoS Provisioning in WiMAX Networks
Authors: Borin Juliana Freitag , da Fonseca Nelson L.S.
Published: May 2010

Although the IEEE 802.16 standard, popularly known as WiMAX, defines the framework to support real-time and bandwidth demanding applications, traffic control mechanisms, such as admission control and scheduling mechanisms, are left to be defined by proprietary solutions. In line with that, both industry and academia have been working on novel and efficient mechanisms for Quality of Service provisioning in 802.16 networks. This chapter provides the background necessary to understand the scheduling and the admission control problems in IEEE 802.16 networks. Moreover, it gives a comprehensive survey on recent developments on algorithms for these mechanisms as well as future research directions.
Quality of Experience vs. QoS in Video Transmission
Authors: Marquet André F. , Monteiro Jânio M. , Martins Nuno J. , Nunes Mario S.
Published: May 2010

In legacy television services, user centric metrics have been used for more than twenty years to evaluate video quality. These subjective assessment metrics are usually obtained using a panel of human evaluators in standard defined methods to measure the impairments caused by a diversity of factors of the Human Visual System (HVS), constituting what is also called Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics. As video services move to IP networks, the supporting distribution platforms and the type of receiving terminals is getting more heterogeneous, when compared with classical video distributions. The flexibility introduced by these new architectures is, at the same time, enabling an increment of the transmitted video quality to higher definitions and is supporting the transmission of video to lower capability terminals, like mobile terminals. In IP Networks, while Quality of Service (QoS) metrics have been consistently used for evaluating the quality of a transmission and provide an objective way to measure the reliability of communication networks for various purposes, QoE metrics are emerging as a solution to address the limitations of conventional QoS measuring when evaluating quality from the service and user point of view. In terms of media, compressed video usually constitutes a very interdependent structure degrading in a non-graceful manner when exposed to Binary Erasure Channels (BEC), like the Internet or wireless networks. Accordingly, not only the type of encoder and its major encoding parameters (e.g. transmission rate, image definition or frame rate) contribute to the quality of a received video, but also QoS parameters are usually a cause for different types of decoding artifacts. As a result of this, several worldwide standard entities have been evaluating new metrics for the subjective assessment of video transmission over IP networks. In this chapter we are especially interested in explaining some of the best practices available to monitor, evaluate and assure good levels of QoE in packet oriented networks for rich media applications like high quality video streaming. For such applications, service requirements are relatively loose or difficult to quantify and therefore specific techniques have to be clearly understood and evaluated. By the mid of the chapter the reader should have understood why even networks with excellent QoS parameters might have QoE issues, as QoE is a systemic approach that does not relate solely to QoS but to the ensemble of components composing the communication system.
Perceptual Quality Assessment of Packet-Based Vocal Conversations over Wireless Networks
Authors: Jelassi Sofiene , Youssef Habib , Pujolle Guy
Published: May 2010

In this chapter, the authors describe the intrinsic needs to effectively integrate interactive vocal conversations over heterogeneous networks including packet- and circuit- based networks. The requirement to harmonize transport networks is discussed and a foreseen architecture multi -operators and -services is presented. Moreover, envisaged remedies to the ever increasing network complexity are also summarized. Subjective and objective methodologies to evaluate voice quality under listening and conversational conditions are thoroughly described. In addition, software- and emulation- based frameworks developed in order to evaluate and improve voice quality are rigorously described. This chapter stresses parametric model-based assessment algorithms due to their ability to be useful for on-line network management. In particular, the authors describe parametric assessment algorithms over last-hop wireless Telecom networks and packet-based networks. The last part of this chapter describes several management applications which consider users’ preferences and providers’ needs.
An Evaluation Framework for Reputation Management Systems*
Authors: West Andrew G. , Kannan Sampath , Lee Insup , Sokolsky Oleg
Published: May 2010

Reputation management (RM) is employed in distributed and peer-to-peer networks to help users compute a measure of trust in other users based on initial belief, observed behavior, and run-time feedback. These trust values influence how, or with whom, a user will interact. Existing literature on RM focuses primarily on algorithm development, not comparative analysis. To remedy this, the authors propose an evaluation framework based on the trace-simulator paradigm. Trace file generation emulates a variety of network configurations, and particular attention is given to modeling malicious user behavior. Simulation is trace-based and incremental trust calculation techniques are developed to allow experimentation with networks of substantial size. The described framework is available as open source so that researchers can evaluate the effectiveness of other reputation management techniques and/or extend functionality. This chapter reports on the authors’ framework’s design decisions. Their goal being to build a general-purpose simulator, the authors have the opportunity to characterize the breadth of existing RM systems. Further, they demonstrate their tool using two reputation algorithms (EigenTrust and a modified TNA-SL) under varied network conditions. The authors’ analysis permits them to make claims about the algorithms’ comparative merits. They conclude that such systems, assuming their distribution is secure, are highly effective at managing trust, even against adversarial collectives.
Object-Oriented Architecture for Web Services Eventing
Authors: Ostrowski Krzysztof , Birman Ken , Dolev Danny
Published: May 2010

Existing web service notification and eventing standards are useful in many applications, but they have serious limitations that make them ill-suited for large-scale deployments, or as a middleware or a component-integration technology in today’s data centers. For example, it is not possible to use IP multicast, or for recipients to forward messages to others, scalable notification trees must be setup manually, and no end-to-end security, reliability, or QoS guarantees can be provided. This chapter proposes an architecture based on object-oriented design principles that is free of such limitations, extremely modular and extensible, and that can serve as a basis for extending and complementing the existing standards. The new approach emerges from the authors’ work on Live Distributed Objects, a new programming model that brings object-orientation into the realm of distributed computing.
From Pedagogy to Andragogy
Authors: Schmidt Steven W. , Dickerson Jeremy , Kisling Eric
Published: May 2010

It is generally accepted that there are differences in the way children and adults learn. Pedagogical philosophies and practices about classroom instruction, activities, and the roles of both the educator and learner are typically associated with primary and secondary education. The concept of andragogy, however, deals with the art and science of the adult learner. The andragogical classroom looks quite different than the pedagogical, and features more student-centered instruction, self-directed learning, and emphasis on the needs of the individual learner. Many adult learners are familiar with the pedagogical approaches used in primary and secondary education. Those learners may find principles of pedagogy employed in higher education as well, which may not be effective. Is a pedagogical approach appropriate in higher education? What role does content play in pedagogical versus andragogical decisions? Most importantly, what approach results in student learning? Using the information technology classroom as an example, pedagogical and andragogical approaches to instruction are compared, and strategies for transitioning from pedagogical to andragogical approaches are illustrated. An empirical research study on preferred ways of learning is also included in this chapter. While the examples discussed in this chapter relate to the information technology classroom, the material presented is applicable in a variety of learning situations.
Adult Learning Principles as the Foundation for Innovative Technology Applications in Business and Higher Education Venues
Authors: Parker Judith
Published: May 2010

As Web 2.0 surfaces as the latest trendy phrase in education and technology discussions, it is imperative that instructors not get caught up in the glamour of the latest technology and loose sight of the required andragogical underpinnings necessary for effective and efficient teaching and learning. This chapter will begin by exploring the major theories and theorists in the field of adult education and the meshing of these theories with technology applications in higher education and global business venues. While Malcolm Knowles is credited with popularizing adult learning theory in the 1970’s, Stephen Brookfield, Jack Mezirow, Maxine Greene and Knud Illeris are among those who have moved the field forward over the past decades. Along with this progression in theory, the use of technology has escalated in popularity creating a need to frame its application in the foundational principles of adult education; an “Andragogy 2.0” focus is required. This chapter will expand on this theoretical base by offering short case studies that are linked to the theories as examples of innovative strategic approaches in the use of technology in adult teaching and learning.
QoS
Authors: González Ricardo H, , Loureiro Antonio A.F. , Mini Raquel A.F.
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents a survey of the main aspects of QoS that are being used on the Wireless Sensor Networks technology world. We describe approaches based on traditional networks, as well as new approaches that face with resources limitation, which is one of the main characteristics of WSN nodes. This chapter also describes how QoS management creates a series of challenges to deal with, and how some QoS features could be used to enable users to make a better profit of their resource limitations. In our opinion, an exposition of these topics will improve the set of techniques and strategies that designers and programmers could use to develop and implement satisfactory services level to their applications in WSNs.
A Survey on Applied Cryptography in Secure Mobile Ad Hoc Networks and Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: Chen Jianmin , Wu Jie
Published: May 2010

Many secure mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) use techniques of applied cryptography. Numerous security routing protocols and key management schemes have been designed based on public key infrastructure (PKI) and identity-based cryptography. Some of these security protocols are fully adapted to fit the limited power, storage, and CPUs of these networks. For example, one-way hash functions have been used to construct disposable secret keys instead of creating public/private keys for the public key infrastructure. In this survey of MANET and WSN applications we present many network security schemes using cryptographic techniques and give three case studies of popular designs.
Jamming Attacks and Countermeasures in Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: Yan-qiang Sun , Xiao-dong Wang
Published: May 2010

Guaranteeing security of the sensor network is a challenging job due to the open wireless medium and energy constrained hardware. Jamming style Denial-of-Service attacks is the transmission of radio signals that disrupt communications by decreasing the signal to noise ratio. These attacks can easily be launched by jammer through, either bypassing MAC-layer protocols or emitting a radio signal targeted at blocking a particular channel. In this chapter, we survey different jamming attack models and metrics, and figure out the difficulty of detecting and defending such attacks. We also illustrate the existed detecting strategies involving signal strength and packet delivery ratio and defending mechanisms such as channel surfing, mapping jammed region, and timing channel. After that, we explore methods to localize a jammer, and propose an algorithm Geometric-Covering based Localization. Later, we discuss the future research issues in jamming sensor networks and corresponding countermeasures.
Sensor Web
Authors: Kobialka Tomasz , Buyya Rajkumar , Deng Peng , Kulik Lars , Palaniswami Marimuthu
Published: May 2010

As sensor network deployments grow and mature there emerge a common set of operations and transformations. These can be grouped into a conceptual framework called Sensor Web. Sensor Web combines cyber infrastructure with a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and sensor networks to provide access to heterogeneous sensor resources in a deployment independent manner. In this chapter we present the Open Sensor Web Architecture (OSWA), a platform independent middleware for developing sensor applications. OSWA is built upon a uniform set of operations and standard data representations as defined in the Sensor Web Enablement Method (SWE) by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). OSWA uses open source and grid technologies to meet the challenging needs of collecting and analyzing observational data and making it accessible for aggregation, archiving and decision making.
Use of Interactive Online Games in Teaching English as a Foreign Language
Authors: Kim Hoe Kyeung
Published: May 2010

The purpose of this study is to examine how the use of multiplayer English teaching online games influences students’ self-efficacy and their English performance scores. The participants of this study were sixty elementary students in Korea. They were selected based on the scores on the social-affective value test and then divided into two groups-high and low groups. During five weeks, the participants played with an English teaching online game two hours per week. The students’ self-efficacy scores were collected before and after they played the online game. Their English performance scores on the online game were collected to compare the two groups. The findings indicated that their online game experience increased self-efficacy. Interestingly, students with low social-affective values showed more improvement than those with high social-affective values in both self-efficacy and performance scores.
Principles of Educational Digital Game Structure for Classroom Settings
Authors: Baek Youngkyun
Published: May 2010

The scope of learning with games is determined by their genre, characteristics and scenarios, or content. Therefore, the frame of a game containing its type and content somewhat confines the activities of players to learn and to play. Game-based learning adopts much of the same interactional techniques that have been used in traditional instruction. Learning with games includes activities such as ‘learning by practice and feedback’, ‘learning by doing’, ‘learning by making mistakes’, ‘learning by discovery’, and ‘learning by role playing’. Games are adopted for classroom based learning to motivate students, to support main curricular activities, to strengthen what is learned, and to summarize and evaluate what is learned. There is no straightforward guideline on how to use a game effectively in classroom settings. However, the instruction for teaching and learning with games needs to be designed before any other actions are taken.
The Impact of Interactive Whiteboards on Classroom Interaction and Learning in Primary Schools in the UK
Authors: Higgins Steven E.
Published: May 2010

The UK Government’s Primary National Strategy undertook a pilot programme “Embedding ICT in the Literacy and Numeracy Strategies” where interactive whiteboards were installed in the classrooms of teachers of 9-11 year old students in more than 80 schools in six regions of England. Research to evaluate this project collected multiple sources of data, including students’ attainment, structured lesson observations and the perceptions of teachers and students. Results suggest that the use of the interactive whiteboards did lead to significant changes in teachers’ practices in the use of technology and in aspects of classroom interaction, and that the perceptions of those involved were overwhelmingly positive, but that the impact in terms of students’ attainment on national tests was very small and short-lived. This raises questions about the integration of new technologies into classroom teaching and how such technologies might improve teaching and learning.
Activity-Based Scenario Design, Development and Assessment in Serious Games
Authors: Marsh Tim
Published: May 2010

Serious gaming environments provide the potential to create player activities and opportunities to design for experience. A flexible, powerful and rich way to create, represent and characterize player activities in serious games is through scenarios. Scenarios are stories: they are realized through text descriptions and supporting artwork such as storyboards and sketches. In this way, they illustrate a game’s scenes, settings, circumstances and situations, as well as the possible future sequence or choice of events that make-up a game’s narrative flow. While the flexibility of scenarios makes them useful for describing player activities, the lack of tools and methodologies to guide their design may lead to the use of ad hoc non-standardized language. Borrowing from film, HCI, and activity theory, this chapter describes a hierarchical activity-based framework that on the one hand is sufficiently flexible to support the design and development of scenarios at any level of complexity, while on the other hand provides a standard template and language with which to frame scenarios in serious game design. The proposed framework provides a way to bridge the gaps between design, development, and implementation of serious games. In addition, it incorporates a multi-level structure providing multiple units of analysis (a variable lens) for analyzing learning from objectives to goals and subgoals.
The Interaction between Local and Regional Knowledge-Based Development
Authors: Alizadeh Tooran
Published: May 2010

By the turn of the 21st century, the significance of knowledge to be the key factor in urban and regional development is well established. However, it has been only recently that attempts have been made to identify the specific mechanism and institutional relationships, through which knowledge-based development takes place. In this regard, very little consideration has been given to the ways that different levels of knowledge-based development communicate to each other. This chapter examines the mutual interaction between knowledge-based development in local and regional level in two different sections. The first section builds upon the third wave of economic development supporting the growth of cluster of related firms and relates it to an empirical case study of knowledge-based community development in Queensland- Australia. It concludes that knowledge-based local developments do not evolve without a regional support network. The second section reviews the “Triple Helix” of university–industry–government collaboration as the basis of knowledge-based regional development in the investigated case study. This review determines the central role of local community as an innovation base for the interaction among the key factors, and suggests a promotion for a Quadruple Helix Model where community works alongside business, university and government in the new economy.