bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Information Valuation Policies for Explainable Trustworthiness Assessment in E-Services
Authors: Fullam Karen K. , Barber K. Suzanne
Published: May 2011

Information e-services are useful for exchanging information among many users, whether human or automated agent; however, e-service users are susceptible to risk of inaccurate information, since users have no traditional face-to-face interaction or past relational history with information providers. To encourage use of information e-services, individuals must have technology to assess information accuracy and information source trustworthiness. This research permits automated e-service users—here called agents—acting on behalf of humans, to employ policies, or heuristics, for predicting information accuracy when numerous pieces of information are received from multiple sources. These intuitive policies draw from human strategies for evaluating the trustworthiness of information to not only identify accurate information, but also distinguish untrustworthy information providers. These policies allow the agent to build a user’s confidence in the trust assessment technology by creating justifications for trust assessment decisions and identifying particular policies integral to a given assessment decision.
Evidence-Based Assurance to Support Process Quality in the F/OSS Community
Authors: Tawileh Anas , Rana Omer F. , Ivins Wendy , McIntosh Stephen
Published: May 2011

This chapter investigates the quality issues of the free and open source software (F/OSS) development processes. It argues that software developed within the F/OSS paradigm has witnessed substantial growth rates within the software developers’ community. However, end users from outside the community are still sceptical about adopting F/OSS because of the perceived lack of quality assurance mechanisms within the F/OSS development process. The authors aim to promote higher adoption of F/OSS artefacts outside the developers’ community by exploring possibilities to provide appropriate evidence based assurances that F/OSS artefacts will meet the quality levels expected by users.
Understanding the Development of Free E-Commerce/E-Business Software
Authors: Scacchi Walt
Published: May 2011

This study examines the development of open source software supporting e-commerce (EC) or e-business (EB) capabilities. This entails a case study within a virtual organization engaged in an organizational initiative to develop, deploy, and support free/open source software systems for EC or EB services, like those supporting enterprise resource planning. The objective of this study is to identify and characterize the resource-based software product development capabilities that lie at the center of the initiative, rather than the software itself, or the effectiveness of its operation in a business enterprise. By learning what these resources are, and how they are arrayed into product development capabilities, we can provide the knowledge needed to understand what resources are required to realize the potential of free EC and EB software applications. In addition, the resource-based view draws attention to those resources and capabilities that provide potential competitive advantages and disadvantages to the organization in focus.
Internet Multilinguality
Authors: He S.
Published: May 2011

In the hay-days of the Internet boom, most software packages used on the Internet were in English, as were most Web sites and search engines. Since 2000, however, there have been more non-English-speaking users than English-speaking users on the Internet. Besides this language issue, there are other important issues involved in multilinguality on the Internet: cultural, technological, political, and legal issues. This chapter examines three challenges of Internet multilinguality: language barriers, cultural differences, and technological difficulties. This chapter also provides three recommendations for over-coming barriers created by language, culture, and technology.
Culture and Communication Challenges in Virtual Workspaces
Authors: Olaniran B.
Published: May 2011

The issue of globalization is one that contemporary organizations are constantly trying to unravel. However, globalization has brought about or reinvents the concept of workspaces such that work is no longer confined to a traditional space in a specific geographical setting whereby individuals are restricted to face-to-face meetings and interactions. Rather, globalization has created the idea of virtual workspaces wherein collaborations and communication interactions occur with the aid of information and communication technologies in order to allow collaboration among workers across different geographical boundaries. Virtual workspaces, however, also bring into the foreground the issue of culture and its effect on behaviors and communication interactions. This discussion explores the role of culture and its implications for virtual workspaces. At the same time, an attempt is made to address adaptation from traditional to virtual workspaces. The objective of researching and reporting on the transition of traditional to virtual workspaces is to offer organizations and their members or other practitioners a way to address differences in cultures while fostering effective collaboration in virtual workspaces which facilitates the globalization process.
The Impact of Sociocultural Factors in Multicultural Communication Environments
Authors: Ragusa A.
Published: May 2011

Changes in the availability and quality of communication technology have revolutionized, and fundamentally altered, learning environments. As citizens of the “Information Age,” the breadth and impact of global communication are triggering unprecedented transformation of social structures and institutions. This chapter explores the impact of commodification on education when institutions of higher education sell knowledge as a commercial good. The contemporary phenomenon of distance education is increasingly offered and purchased by an international market which experiences heightened pressure for standardization from the global citizens it serves. It is argued here that technological changes necessitate reevaluation of communication processes, discursive practices, and organizational policies. To stay competitive and produce quality products for increasingly international audiences, institutions must create well-articulated policies. By providing insight on the impact multiple socio-cultural and communicative norms have on virtual communication, this research uses qualitative discursive analysis of case examples to examine how variance in the structure and delivery of virtual communication environments at a leading distance education university in Australia affects student satisfaction, perception, and learning outcomes. Whereas previous research fails to include a theoretical or conceptual framework, this work draws upon interdisciplinary work from the fields of sociology, education, and science and technology studies. How “cyberspace” changes interaction rituals, masks cultural norms, and alters entrenched social expectations by creating new sensitivities is discussed, along with the ramifications of variation in technological availability, competence, and expectations in global classrooms. In sum, ideas for informing change in policy, administration, and the delivery of distance education and virtual communication in global environments are discussed to equip leaders and participants with skills to foster effective communicative and interaction strategies.
A Generic Model of Object-Oriented Patterns Specified in RSL
Authors: Flores Andrés , Cechich Alejandra , Aranda Gabriela
Published: May 2011

Object-oriented patterns are a promising technique for achieving widespread reuse of software architectures. They capture the static and dynamic structures of components and frameworks in successful solutions to problems for a wide range of domains. However, patterns are invariably described informally in the literature, which makes it difficult to give any meaningful certification of pattern-based software. The design process could be enhanced by means of an automatic support for modeling and verification with a proper formal foundation. In this chapter, we show how formal specifications of GoF patterns, based on the RAISE language, have been helpful in developing that tool support, where we have adopted the well-known Java language upon its portability facet. Thus, the object-oriented design process is extended by the inclusion of pattern-based modeling and verification steps, the latter involving checking design correctness and appropriate pattern application through the use of the supporting tool, called DePMoVe (design and pattern modeling and verification).
The Role-Based Metamodeling Language for Specifying Design Patterns
Authors: Kim Dae-Kyoo
Published: May 2011

This chapter describes a UML-based pattern specification language called the role-based metamodeling language (RBML), which defines the solution domain of a Design pattern in terms of roles at the metamodel level. The goal of the RBML is to support the development of precise pattern specifications that can be used for the development of pattern tools. The author describes the approach and benefits of the RBML, and demonstrates the notation for capturing various perspectives of pattern properties using the Observer, Interpreter, and Iterator patterns. The author also discusses tool support for the RBML and the future trends in pattern specification.
Storage System Architectures
Authors: Tse Phillip K.C.
Published: May 2011

Multimedia systems are similar to traditional computer systems in terms of their architectures. Both types of systems have central processing unit (CPU), random access memory, hard disks, and so forth. The CPU connects to the memory and other components via the memory bus, and it connects to the peripherals via the input/output (I/O) bus. In order to process continuous multimedia streams, multimedia computer systems are built with stringent processing time requirements. Each component of the computer system needs to be able to process large amounts of data, process data in parallel, and finish the processing within a guaranteed time frame. Otherwise, undesirable effects would appear to lower the quality of the multimedia streams. When storage servers are designed to handle multimedia streams, the architecture of the storage servers also needs to handle the processing time requirements. The storage server needs to access data continuously to the clients according to the clients’ requests. Multimedia objects are large, and the magnetic hard disks need to access segments of the objects within a short time. These requirements lead to the emergence of constant recording density disks and zoned disks. We shall describe the architecture of storage servers in the next section. After that, we shall describe the zoned disks performance model.
Data Compression Techniques and Standards
Authors: Tse Phillip K.C.
Published: May 2011

In the previous chapter, we see that the performance of a storage system depends on the amount of data being retrieved. The size of multimedia objects are however very large in size. Thus, the performance of the storage system can be enhanced if the object sizes are reduced. Therefore, multimedia objects are always compressed when they are stored. In addition, the performance of most subsystems depends on the amount of data being processed. Since multimedia objects are large in size, their accessing times are long. Thus, multimedia objects are always kept in their compressed form when they are being stored, retrieved, and processed. We shall describe the commonly used compression techniques and compression standards in this chapter. We first describe the general compression model in the next section. Then, we explain the techniques in compressing textual data. This is followed by the image compression techniques. In particular, we shall explain the JPEG2000 compression with details. Lastly, we explain the MPEG2 video compression standard. These compression techniques are helpful to understand the multimedia data being stored and retrieved.
Feasibility Conditions of Concurrent Streams
Authors: Tse Phillip K.C.
Published: May 2011

Multimedia storage systems store data objects and receive streams of requests from the multimedia server. When a client wishes to display an object, it sends a new object request for the multimedia object to the multimedia server as shown in Figure 15.1. The multimedia server checks to see if this new stream can be accepted. If accepted, the server sends a data request to the storage system to retrieve the first data stripe. The storage system returns the data stripe to the server. The server then encapsulates the data stripe as data packets and sends the data packets to the client. The client extracts the data stripe from the data packets. Afterwards, the server sends data requests periodically to the storage system. Each of these data requests has a deadline associated with it. If the request cannot be served before the deadline, the client program does not have any more data to display. The stream thus will be suspended or aborted. Therefore, every request of a stream, except the first one, must be served within the deadline to ensure continuity of the stream. Before we consider the scheduling methods for request streams in the next chapter, we describe the feasibility to accept concurrent streams in this chapter.
Scheduling Methods for Request Streams
Authors: Tse Phillip K.C.
Published: May 2011

In the previous chapter, we have presented the feasibility condition to serve request streams concurrently. In this chapter, we describe the efficient methods to schedule the requests to avoid missing their deadlines. Multimedia requests, except the first request, of a stream need to be served before their deadlines (Anderson, Osawa, & Govindan, 1992; Gemmell, Beaton, & Christodoulakis, 1994; Gemmell & Christodoulakis, 1992). Thus, the scheduling algorithm should consider the deadline so that the requests do not miss their deadlines. In the next section, we describe the EDF-SCAN algorithm. After that, we shall describe the group sweeping scheduling (GSS) method.
Time Slicing Method
Authors: Tse Phillip K.C.
Published: May 2011

Tertiary storage devices provide huge storage capacity at low cost. Multimedia objects stored on the tertiary storage devices are accessed with high latency. Despite the high access latency, some tertiary storage devices are able to deliver data at high throughput. The time slicing method is designed to reduce the start-up latency in accessing multimedia objects from tertiary storage devices. The start-up latency is lowered by reducing the amount of data being migrated in stage one of the staging method being described in the last chapter. In order to support the time-slicing method, the tertiary storage devices should have the ability to deliver data at high throughput. The tertiary storage devices that cannot deliver data at sufficiently high throughput; the start-up latency cannot be reduced.
Data Clustering
Authors: Husek Dušan , Pokorny Jaroslav , Rezankova Hana , Snasel Václav
Published: May 2011

Document and information retrieval (IR) is an important task for Web communities. In this chapter, we introduce some clustering methods and focus on their use for the clustering, classification, and retrieval of Web documents.
An Overviewof Similarity Measures for Clustering XML Documents
Authors: Guerrini Giovanna , Mesiti Marco , Sanz Ismael
Published: May 2011

The large amount and heterogeneity of XML documents on the Web require the development of clustering techniques to group together similar documents. Documents can be grouped together according to their content, their structure, and links inside and among documents. For instance, grouping together documents with similar structures has interesting applications in the context of information extraction, of heterogeneous data integration, of personalized content delivery, of access control definition, of web site structural analysis, of comparison of RNA secondary structures. Many approaches have been proposed for evaluating the structural and content similarity between tree-based and vector-based representations of XML documents. Link-based similarity approaches developed for Web data clustering have been adapted for XML documents. This chapter discusses and compares the most relevant similarity measures and their employment for XML document clustering.
Designing and Mining Web Applications
Authors: Meo Rosa , Matera Maristella
Published: May 2011

In this Chapter we present the usage of a modeling language, WebML, for the design and the management of dynamic Web applications. WebML also makes easier the analysis of the usage of the application contents by the users, even if applications are dynamic. In fact, it makes use of some special-purpose logs, called conceptual logs, generated by the application runtime engine. In this Chapter we report on a case study about the analysis of the conceptual logs for testifying to the effectiveness of WebML and of its conceptual modeling methods. The methodology of analysis of Web logs is based on the data mining paradigm of itemsets and frequent patterns and makes full use of constraints on the conceptual logs content. As a consequence, we could obtain many interesting patterns for the application management such as recurrent navigation paths, the most frequently visited page contents, and anomalies.
Web Services Management
Authors: Zulkernine Farhana H. , Martin Pat
Published: May 2011

The widespread use and expansion of the World Wide Web has revolutionized the discovery, access and retrieval of information. The Internet has become the doorway to a vast information base and has leveraged the access to information through standard protocols and technologies like Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), Active Server Pages (ASP), Java Server Pages (JSP), Web databases and Web services. Web services are software applications that are accessible over the World Wide Web through standard communication protocols. A Web service typically has a Web accessible interface for its clients at the front end, and is connected to a database system and other related application suite at the backend. Thus Web services can render efficient Web access to an information base in a secured and selective manner. The true success of this technology, however, largely depends on the efficient management of the various components forming the backbone of a Web service system. This chapter presents an overview and the state-of-the-art of various management approaches, models, and architectures for Web services systems towards achieving Quality of Service (QoS) in Web data access. Finally it discusses the importance of autonomic or self-managing systems and provides an outline of our current research on autonomic Web services.
Integration of Global Supply Chain Management with Small to Mid-Size Suppliers
Authors: Sabbaghi Asghar , Vaidyanathan Ganesh
Published: May 2011

The purpose of this chapter is to develop a conceptual insight and an integrated framework to global supply chain management through strategic aspects of business philosophy as it pertains to the small- to mid-sized supplier. Primary consideration is given to characteristics of the integrated supply chain and the necessity of adaptation in managing the supply chain in order to attain competitive advantage. A review of the current literature and an analysis of the supply chain in changing global markets emphasize the relative importance of strategically managing the supply chain process given the limited resources of the small- to mid-sized firm. It is argued that
Integrated E-Enterprise Supply Chain Security Design and Implementation
Authors: Shih Stephen C. , Camarata Michael , Wen H. Joseph
Published: May 2011

Web technology has enabled many organizations to form an e-enterprise for effective communicating, collaborating, and information sharing. To gain competitive advantages, it is necessary for e-enterprises to integrate the entire lines of business operations and critical business data with external supply chain participants over the Web, which may introduce significant security risks to the organizations’ critical assets and infrastructures. This chapter reports a case study of e-service security design and implementation at a leading U.S. company. First, the chapter reviews security concerns and challenges in front-end e-business and back-end supply chain operations. This is followed by the analysis of the company’s e-service and its security problems. The case then presents an integrated e-enterprise security methodology to guide the company for meeting its security needs. The results of this case study provides security professionals with practical steps and sustainable solutions for tackling the unique security challenges arising in an open, unbounded e-enterprise supply chain environment.
Digital Petri Dishes
Authors: Tarkowski Alek
Published: May 2011

Internet applications such as Web-based blogging and instant messaging tools or social networking sites often provide their users with the possibility of displaying small graphic elements. Such “pictures” or “icons” allow users to represent and mutually identify themselves. This text is an analysis of user icons displayed on the LiveJournal blogging site. I treat such a user icon as a medium with particular characteristics and patterns of usage. LiveJournal users use such icons to participate in what John Fiske (1992) calls popular culture. A case study of user icons discloses the life cycle of the media form, during which a medium with initial characteristics coded by its creators begins over time to support a wide variety of uses, innovation in usage, and active participation in culture. In this chapter, I consider user pictures and practices that are tied to them as an example of the manner in which popular culture functions in the digital age.
Managing Knowledge Complexity
Authors: Wickramasinghe Nilmini , Von Lubitz Dag
Published: May 2011

This book provides comprehensive coverage of all areas (people, process, and technology) necessary to become a knowledge-based enterprise. It presents several frameworks facilitating the implementation of a KM initiative and its ongoing management so that pertinent knowledge and information are always available to the decision maker, and so the organization may always enjoy a sustainable competitive advantage
Learning Organizations
Authors: Wickramasinghe Nilmini , Von Lubitz Dag
Published: May 2011

This book provides comprehensive coverage of all areas (people, process, and technology) necessary to become a knowledge-based enterprise. It presents several frameworks facilitating the implementation of a KM initiative and its ongoing management so that pertinent knowledge and information are always available to the decision maker, and so the organization may always enjoy a sustainable competitive advantage
User-Oriented IR Research Approaches
Authors: Xie Iris
Published: May 2011

There exist two approaches in IR system design and research: system-oriented and user-oriented. The system-oriented approach has played the dominant role in the design of IR systems in the past. Only in recent years have system designers begun to accept the need to take the human, socio-technical approach. They recognize that technically-oriented designs cannot satisfy user needs, and as a result, these designs have not succeeded in the market (Shackel, 1997). The traditional model of information retrieval as a match between a request or a query and a set of documents is no longer working. The emergence of the cognitive approach in IR signified a shift from document representation to the representation of the cognitive structure of users (Vakkari, 2003). The new concept is to consider the user as an essential component of the system (Beaulieu, 2000; Robertson & Hancock-Beaulieu, 1992). At the same time, Wilson (2000) also noted the shift from a system-centered approach to a person-centered approach accompanied by a shift from quantitative methods to qualitative methods.
Interactive IR in OPAC Environments
Authors: Xie Iris
Published: May 2011

Online catalogs are types of interactive computer systems; they can also be called “interactive catalogs” because a user interacts with the computer to find relevant information. The interaction is the main difference between Online Public Access Catalogs (OPACs) and other types of library catalogs (Hildreth, 1982; Matthews, 1985). Online catalogs are regarded as real-time interactive retrieval systems for libraries (Fayen, 1983). According to Peters (1991), the development of online catalogs can be characterized by three decades of development. In the 1960s, the development of online catalogs was led by the development of computer technology and the library community’s desire to increase efficiency in finding library materials. In the 1970s, commercial vendors started to replace large university libraries as the principal developers of computer-based library systems. In the 1980s, local libraries expand their control of the library catalog systems.
Interactive IR in Digital Library Environments
Authors: Xie Iris
Published: May 2011

For centuries, people have been used to printed materials. The emergence of the Internet brings dramatic changes to millions of people in terms of how they collect, organize, disseminate, access, and use information. Researchers (Chowdhury & Chowdhury, 2003; Lesk, 2005; Witten & Bainbridge, 2003) have identified the following factors that contributed to the birth of digital libraries: 1. Vannevar Bush’s pioneering concept and idea of Memex. Vannevar Bush (1945) wrote a classic article, “As We May Think,” which has had a major impact on the emergence of digital libraries. In the article, he described his Memex device, which was able to organize books, journals, and notes in different places by linked association. This associative linking was similar to what is known today as hypertext. 2. The advancement in computer and communication/network technology. The computer was first used to manage information. In the 1960s, the emergence of remote online information search services changed the way people access and search information. By the 1980s, people could remotely and locally access library catalogues via Online Public Access Catalogues (OPACs). The invention of the CD-ROM made it easy and cheap for users to access electronic information. Most importantly, Web technology started in 1990, and the occurrence of Web browsers afterwards have enabled users to access digital information anywhere as long as there is an Internet connection. Web search engines offer an opportunity for millions of people to search full-text documents on the Web. 3. The development of libraries and library access. Since the creation of Alexandrian library around 300 B.C., the size and number of libraries have grown phenomenally. A library catalogue goes from a card catalogue to three generations of online public access catalogues started in the 1980s. Library materials include mainly printed resources to multimedia collections, such as images, videos, sound files, and so forth. Simultaneously, the information explosion in the digital age makes it impossible for libraries to collect all of the available materials.
How Users View Web Pages
Authors: Grier Rebecca , Kortum Philip , Miller James
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents the basic cognitive and perceptual attentional mechanisms that affect how users view web pages and the methods used to measure this attention. It describes the groundbreaking work of Faraday (2000), who proposed a visual scanning model of web pages based on salient visual elements and summarizes data from eye tracking techniques that reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the Faraday model. The primary goal of the chapter is to help the reader gain an understanding of what visual elements on a web page draw a user’s attention, how that knowledge can be collected, and how it can be applied to the design of useful and usable web sites.
Soft Statistical Decision Fusion for Distributed Medical Data on Grids
Authors: Tang Yu , Zhang Yan-Qing
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces the decision fusion as means of exploring information from distributed medical data. It proposes a new method of applying soft data fusion algorithm on gird to analyze massive data and discover meaningful and valuable information. It could potentially help to better understand and process medical data and to provide high quality services in patient diagnosis and treatment. It allows incorporation of multiple physicians into one single case to recover and resolve problem, and integration of distributed data sources overcome some of limitations of geographical locations to share knowledge and experience based on soft data and decision fusion approach.
Colored Local Invariant Features for Distinct Object Description in Vision-Based Intelligent Systems
Authors: Abdel-Hakim Alaa E. , Farag Aly A.
Published: May 2011

This chapter addresses the problem of combining color and geometric invariants for object description by proposing a novel colored invariant local feature descriptor. The proposed approach uses scale-space theory to detect the most geometrically robust features in a physical-based color invariant space. Building a geometrical invariant feature descriptor in a color invariant space grants the built descriptor the stability to both geometric and color variations. The comparison between the proposed colored local invariant features and gray-based local invariant features with respect to stability and distinction supports the potential of the proposed approach. The proposed approach is applicable in any vision-based intelligent system that requires object recognition/retrieval. At the end of this chapter, we present a case study of a local features-based camera planning platform for smart vision systems.
A Stage Model for NPD Process Maturity and IKMS Implementation
Authors: Belbaly Nassim , Benbya Hind
Published: May 2011

The objective of this chapter is to provide an analytical tool to assist organizations in their implementations of Intelligent Knowledge Management Systems (IKMS) along the new product development (NPD) process. Indeed, organizations rely on a variety of systems using Artificial Intelligence to support the NPD process that depends on the maturity stage of both the process and type of knowledge managed. Our framework outlines the technological and organizational path that organizations have to follow to integrate and manage knowledge effectively along their new product development process. In doing so, we also address the main limitations of the systems used to date and suggest the evolution towards a new category of KMS based on artificial intelligence that we refer to as Intelligent Knowledge Management Systems. We illustrate our framework with an analysis of several case studies.
Semantics Enhancing Knowledge Discovery and Ontology Engineering Using Mining Techniques
Authors: Neaga Elena Irina
Published: May 2011

This chapter deals with a roadmap on the bidirectional interaction and support between knowledge discovery (Kd) processes and ontology engineering (Onto) mainly directed to provide refined models using common methodologies. This approach provides a holistic literature review required for the further definition of a comprehensive framework and an associated meta-methodology (Kd4onto4dm) based on the existing theories, paradigms, and practices regarding knowledge discovery and ontology engineering as well as closely related areas such as knowledge engineering, machine/ontology learning, standardization issues and architectural models. The suggested framework may adhere to the Iso-reference model for open distributed processing and Omg-model-driven architecture, and associated dedicated software architectures should be defined.
E-Com Supply Chain and SMEs
Authors: Craig R.
Published: May 2011

This chapter considers the perspective of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in supply chains. It starts with an overview of the important role of SMEs in national and world economies. Following this is an overview of supply chains, information and communication technologies, and e-business. Both opportunities and challenges for supply chains in general and SMEs in particular are considered, and conclusions drawn. The major contribution of the chapter is in providing an extensive overview of the literature as it relates to information and communication technologies, supply chain management, and SMEs, providing researchers and practitioners with a starting point to look for further information as needed.
E-Supply Chain System at Valvex and Its Integration with ERP Systems
Authors: Pal R. , Bose I. , Ye A.
Published: May 2011

ERP and SCM systems have been used in China for some time. Although these two systems complement each other, the integration of these two systems is challenging. We present a case on a leading Chinese manufacturer of industrial valves named Valvex that successfully integrated the ERP systems from Entreplan and the SCM system from Excelvision. The project improved the operations at Valvex and resulted in many benefits. This chapter describes the implementation of the e-SCM system at Valvex and its integration with the existing ERP system. The process of implementation and integration was marked by many challenges, and some of them were unique to a Chinese manufacturing organization. Using several smart strategies the project team was able to overcome these challenges and complete the project successfully. Several lessons can be learned from the experience of Valvex which may be useful for organizations that plan to undertake similar projects.
Instrument Validation for Strategic Business Simulation
Authors: Schlueter Langdon Chris
Published: May 2011

This paper aims to provide a synopsis on the design science of agent-based modeling and how to adapt an agent-based research strategy for the scientific study of complex business systems. Research in information systems (IS) has begun to advance knowledge in the use of agent-based systems as a means to seek different computational explanations for business phenomena that have eluded scientific inquiry reliant on traditional, specifically, law and axiomatic explanation (Kimbrough, 2003). The focus on business problems requires a different research approach than what is successful in computer science. One key modification is to make instrument validation explicit. This chapter extends a discussion of emerging insights on the subject to ensure the rigor of management science research in agent-based IS (Schlueter Langdon, 2005a).
Information Parallax
Authors: Grootjen Franc , van der Weide Theo
Published: May 2011

To effectively use and exchange information among AI systems, a formal specification of the representation of their shared domain of discourse—called an ontology—is indispensable. In this chapter we introduce a special kind of knowledge representation based on a dual view on the universe of discourse and show how it can be used in human activities such as searching, in-depth exploration and browsing. After a formal definition of dualistic ontologies we exemplify this definition with three different (well known) kinds of ontologies, based on the vector model, on formal concept analysis and on fuzzy logic respectively. The vector model leads to concepts derived by latent semantic indexing using the singular value decomposition. Both the set model and the fuzzy-set model lead to formal concept analysis, in which the fuzzy-set model is equipped with a parameter that controls the fine-graining of the resulting concepts. We discuss the relation between the resulting systems of concepts. Finally, we demonstrate the use of this theory by introducing the dual search engine. We show how this search engine can be employed to support the human activities addressed above.
Mail Server Management with Intelligent Agents
Authors: Willow Charles
Published: May 2011

Amidst the era of e-economy, one of the difficulties from the standpoint of the information-systems manger is, among others, the forecast of memory needs for the organization. In particular, the manager is often confronted with maintaining a certain threshold amount of memory for a prolonged period. However, this constraint requires more than technical and managerial resolutions, encompassing knowledge management for the group, eliciting tacit knowledge from the end users, and pattern- and time-series analyses of utilization for various applications. This chapter summarizes current methods for managing server memory by incorporating intelligent agents. In particular, a new framework for building a set of automated intelligent agents with a neural network is proposed under the client-server architecture. The emphasis is on collecting the needs of the organization and acquiring the application-usage patterns for each client involved in real time. Considerations for future work associated with technical matters comprising platform independence, portability, and modularity are discussed.
Predicting Protein Secondary Structure Using Artificial Neural Networks and Information Theory
Authors: Subair Saad O.A. , Deris Safaai
Published: May 2011

Protein secondary-structure prediction is a fundamental step in determining the 3D structure of a protein. In this chapter, a new method for predicting protein secondary structure from amino-acid sequences has been proposed and implemented. Cuff and Barton 513 protein data set is used in training and testing the prediction methods under the same hardware, platforms, and environments. The newly developed method utilizes the knowledge of the GOR-V information theory and the power of the neural networks to classify a novel protein sequence in one of its three secondary-structures classes (i.e., helices, strands, and coils). The newly developed method (NN-GORV-I) is further improved by applying a filtering mechanism to the searched database and hence named NN-GORV-II. The developed prediction methods are rigorously analyzed and tested together with the other five well-known prediction methods in this domain to allow easy comparison and clear conclusions.
The Socio-Pragmatics of IT Artefacts
Authors: Goldkuhl Göran , Agerfalk Par J.
Published: May 2011

There are many attempts to explain success and failure in information systems. Many of these refer to a purported socio-technical gap. In this paper we develop an alternative approach that does not impose such a strong dichotomy, but regards social and technical rather as dimensions along which to study workpractices. The developed theory involves not only the “social” and “technical” constructs but also other generic ones, namely “instrumental”, “semiotic” and “pragmatic”. We call this theory socio-instrumental pragmatism. To illustrate the theoretical concepts introduced, we use an example brought from an extensive action research study including the development of an information system in eldercare, developed through a participatory design approach.
Investigating the Interdependence of Organisations and Information Systems
Authors: Brooks Laurence , Davis Christopher J. , Lycett Mark
Published: May 2011

Using Personal Construct Theory (PCT) as an underlying conceptual frame, this chapter explores the interdependence of organisations and information systems. Two PCT related techniques - Repertory Grid Analysis (RepGrid) and Cognitive Mapping (CM) - were used to investigate the dynamics of this interaction. Changing business models and information technologies were investigated in two distinct work settings: in each case, the technique contributed substantial insight into the role of information systems in that context. The analysis shows that the techniques have matured to a stage where they provide a basis for improved understanding of the organisational complexities related to information technologies. The techniques focus on the social construction of meaning by articulating and interpreting the discourse that surrounds the development, implementation and use of information technology in organisations. It is these ongoing discourses that create the dynamic complexities in the organisations, as they ‘play’ themselves out, and develop, over time. Current research has articulated and improved awareness of the issues and concerns that surround computer-based information systems (CBIS). Despite the differing contexts and work processes, the findings from each case suggest that the techniques facilitated social construction and increased the conceptual agility of managers, leading to improved integration of organisational processes and technology. The chapter concludes by drawing out the idea of the development of a conceptual model to act as a framework for the analysis of cognitive schema and shared understanding. In developing and participating in this shared understanding both organisational and technological communities could increase their awareness of each other’s issues and concerns, thereby enabling them to improve the conceptual agility of the organisation.
Combining Data Warehousing and Data Mining Techniques for Web Log Analysis
Authors: Pedersen Torben , Thorhauge Jesper , Jespersen Søren
Published: May 2011

Enormous amounts of information about Web site user behavior are collected in Web server logs. However, this information is only useful if it can be queried and analyzed to provide high-level knowledge about user navigation patterns, a task that requires powerful techniques. This chapter presents a number of approaches that combine data warehousing and data mining techniques in order to analyze Web logs. After introducing the well-known click and session data warehouse (DW) schemas, the chapter presents the subsession schema, which allows fast queries on sequences of page visits. Then, the chapter presents the so-called “hybrid” technique, which combines DW Web log schemas with a data mining technique called Hypertext Probabilistic Grammars, hereby providing fast and flexible constraint-based Web log analysis. Finally, the chapter presents a “post-check enhanced” improvement of the hybrid technique.
Applications and Future Trends in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
Authors: Dhar Subhankar
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents the current state of the art of mobile ad hoc network and some important problems and challenges related to routing, power management, location management, security as well as multimedia over ad hoc networks. A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a temporary, self-organizing network of wireless mobile nodes without the support of any existing infrastructure that may be readily available on the conventional networks. Since there is no fixed infrastructure available for MANET with nodes being mobile, routing becomes a very important issue. In addition, we also explain the various emerging applications and future trends of MANET.
Addressing WiFi Security Concerns
Authors: Curran Kevin , Smyth Elaine
Published: May 2011

Signal leakage means that wireless network communications can be picked up outside the physical boundaries of the building in which they are being operated, meaning a hacker can operate from the street outside. In addition to signal leakage—the wired equivalent privacy protocol is inherently weak and there are various other attacks that can be initiated against WLAN’s. This research commences by conducting a war driving expedition to ascertain the number of unprotected WLAN devices in use in a one small town. We conclude by making recommendations for three groups of user; home user, small office/home office (SOHO) and medium to large organisations. Home users should implement all the security measures their hardware offers them, to include WEP at the longest key length permitted and implement firewalls on all connected PCs changing their WEP key on a weekly basis. The small office group should implement WPA-SPK; and the medium to large organisations should implement one or more of either WPA enterprise with a RADIUS server, VPN software, IDSs, and provide documented policies in relation to WLANs and their use.
A SEEP Protocol Design Using 3BC, ECC(F2m) and HECC Algorithm
Authors: Lee Byung Kwan , Yang Seung Hae , Lee Tai-Chi
Published: May 2011

Unlike SET (secure electronic transaction) protocol. This chapter proposes a SEEP (highly secure electronic payment) protocol, which uses ECC (elliptic curve cryptosystem with F2 mnot Fp) (Koblitz, 1987; Miller, 1986; Harper, Menezes, & Vanstone, 1993), SHA (secure hash algorithm) and 3BC (block byte bit cipher) instead of RSA and DES. To improve the strength of encryption and the speed of processing, the public key and the private key of ECC and HECC (Hyper Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem) are used in 3BC (Cho, Shin, Lee, & Lee, 2002; Cho & Lee, 2002) algorithm, which generates session keys for the data encryption. In particular, when ECC and HECC are combined with 3BC, the strength of security is improved significantly. As the process of the digital envelope used in the existing SET protocol is removed by the 3BC algorithm in this chapter, the processing time is substantially reduced. In addition, the use of multiple signatures has some advantages of reducing the size of transmission data as an intermediate payment agent and avoiding the danger of eavesdropping of private keys.
Content is King? Interdependencies in Value Networks for Mobile Services
Authors: de Montalvo Uta W.. , Van de Kar Els , Maitland Carleen
Published: May 2011

The advent of new electronic platforms is forcing firms from a range of industries to come together in so-called “value networks” for the provision of innovative mobile services. Firms from different industries have widely varying resources, among which content is often praised as being “king.” We are particularly interested in the role of content and of the content providers, respectively, in the process of value creation to bring these services about. Therefore, our analysis is aimed at specific types of interdependencies, relating the actors’ own and others’ resource contributions. To better understand these interdependencies, we draw on theories about firm resources and inter-organisational relations. We analyse the importance and relevance of different resources in a number of case studies of “mobile information and entertainment services,” in terms of the actors’ resources and contributions to value in the provision of such mobile services. In the cross-case comparison, we contrast the power structures in the different value networks and identify similarities and differences in terms of the types of industrial players that assume positions of greater or lesser importance. This enables us to assess the position of content providers in these mobile services, which turns out to be surprisingly weak. In contrast, intermediaries (service providers) claim a strong position by contributing the service conception and design. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for value network research.
Mobile Agents Meet Web Services
Authors: Mateos Cristian , Zunino Alejandro , Campo Marcelo
Published: May 2011

Web services standards provide the basis for interoperability, discovery and integration of distributed applications. Web services will enable mobile agents to better use and exploit Web accessible applications and resources. However, there is a lack of tools for integrating mobile agents and Web services. This chapter presents MoviLog, a novel programming language for enabling mobile agents to consume Web services. The most interesting aspect of the language is its reactive mobility by failure mechanism that allows programmers to develop mobile agents without explicitly providing code for handling mobility or Web services invocations.