bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The carrying capacity and the effects of protection level in three marine protected areas in the Balearic Islands (NW Mediterranean)
Authors: Coll Josep , Garcia-Rubies Antoni , Morey Gabriel , Grau Antoni M.
Published: September 2012

The monitoring of fisheries target species in three marine protected areas (MPAs) located in the NW Mediterranean provided important conclusions on management effects. The abundance, occurrence and biomass of large fish showed consistent and growing trends inside the MPAs. Fish diversity was also favoured by protection. Nevertheless, spatial variance of these indicators at a medium scale was often of the same order as that caused by time between different protection levels. The carrying capacity was determined for the first time in western Mediterranean MPAs in five out of six sites studied, and in all cases it was achieved within the first five years of protection. The observed values indicate that the system of the studied MPAs is representative of the general coastal environment of the Balearic Islands, but is far from the potential of other MPAs which are considered as hot spots in other localities. Likewise, this study shows that partially protected areas can also be fairly effective if their habitats fit with those required by target species and fishing modalities are suitably regulated or banned.
A Novel Dynamic Noise-Dependent Probabilistic Algorithm for Route Discovery in MANETs
Authors: Al-Bahadili Hussein , Sabri Alia
Published: September 2012

In mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), broadcasting is widely used in route discovery and other network services. The most widely used broadcasting algorithm is simple flooding, which aggravates a high number of redundant packet retransmissions, causing contention and collisions. Proper use of dynamic probabilistic algorithm significantly reduces the number of retransmissions, which reduces the chance of contention and collisions. In current dynamic probabilistic algorithm, the retransmission probability (pt) is formulated as a linear/non-linear function of a single variable, the number of first-hop neighbors (k). However, such algorithm is suffers in the presence of noise due to increasing packet-loss. In this paper, the authors propose a new dynamic probabilistic algorithm in which ptis determined locally by the retransmitting nodes considering both k and the noise-level. This algorithm is referred to as the dynamic noise-dependent probabilistic (DNDP) algorithm. The performance of the DNDP algorithm is evaluated through simulations using the MANET simulator (MANSim). The simulation results show that the DNDP algorithm presents higher network reachability than the dynamic probabilistic algorithm at a reasonable increase in the number of retransmissions for a wide range of noise-level. The effects of nodes densities and nodes speeds on the performance of the DNDP algorithm are also investigated.
Query Processing in a Mediator Based Framework for Linked Data Integration
Authors: Vidal Vânia M. P. , de Macêdo José A. F. , Pinheiro João C. , Casanova Marco A. , Porto Fábio
Published: September 2012

In this paper, the authors present a three-level mediator based framework for linked data integration. In the approach, the mediated schema is represented by a domain ontology, which provides a conceptual representation of the application. Each relevant data source is described by a source ontology, published on the Web according to the Linked Data principles. Each source ontology is rewritten as an application ontology, whose vocabulary is restricted to be a subset of the vocabulary of the domain ontology. The main contribution of the paper is an algorithm for reformulating a user query into sub-queries over the data sources. The reformulation algorithm exploits inter-ontology links to return more complete query results. The approach is illustrated by an example of a virtual store mediating access to online booksellers.
The Role of Twitter in the World of Business
Authors: Curran Kevin , O’Hara Kevin , O’Brien Sean
Published: September 2012

This paper examines the services people seek out on Twitter and the integration of Twitter into businesses. Twitter has experienced tremendous growth in users over the past few years, from users sharing to the world what they had for lunch to their opinions on world events. As a social media website, Twitter has become the third most popular behind only Facebook and YouTube. Its user base statistics ensure a wide audience for business to engage with. However, many find this a daunting prospect as there are no set guidelines as to how business might use the service. The ability to post quick short messages for the whole of the social network to see has encouraged people to use this microblogging platform to comment and share attitudes on company brands and products. The authors present how the business world is using the social network site as a new communication channel to reach customers and examine other possible uses for Twitter in a business context. This paper also discusses how Twitter plans to move forward and evolve with its service, ensuring that personal, business and third party developers’ best interests are catered to.
Fuzzy Logic-based Mobility Metric Clustering Algorithm for MANETs
Authors: Venkateswaran P. , Kundu Mousumi , Shaw Srishti , Orea Kanika , Nandi R.
Published: September 2012

Mobile ad-hoc network, (MANET) is a collection of wireless mobile nodes dynamically forming a temporary communication network without using any existing infrastructure or centralized administration. To reduce routing overhead, computational complexity and overcome the problem of low bandwidth utilization, MANET is divided into several clusters. The authors propose a fuzzy logic based mobility metric for MANET that had been utilized as the basis of cluster formation in the algorithm viz., FUZZY CLUSTERING. This algorithm leads to more stable cluster formation compared to the existing MOBIC algorithm as evidenced by significant reduction in the number of clusterhead changes. As the frequency of cluster reorganization is a significant attribute, the proposed algorithm is expected to yield improved performance for MANETs.
How Evolving Network Access and Network Management Technologies are Redefining the Competitive Wireless Markets
Authors: Beltrán Fernando , Gutiérrez Jairo A. , Melús José Luis
Published: September 2012

This paper examines some of the key problems users encounter when accessing current generation wireless networks. Using a case study of a hypothetical user, the authors explore the emerging services and the new broadband wireless network technologies necessary to carry them out. This paper analyses the issues associated with an observed trend in the industry that exposes potential changes to the long-term, rigid commercial relation between wireless providers and users: as a result of a range of evolved broadband wireless access standards and technologies, autonomic communications and policy-based management, and new pricing schemes, consumers will likely face new opportunities to enter short-term and spot contracts with the new wireless providers. This new landscape also allow multiple competing Access Providers (APs) to dynamically assign prices, and poses new and interesting challenges to the regulatory function. The paper also discusses a framework for the integration of heterogeneous technologies and management policies based on the network context that make up this emerging, hybrid wireless landscape, and describes the economic characteristics of new markets likely to arise.
Enhancing Clustering in Wireless Sensor Networks with Energy Heterogeneity
Authors: Aderohunmu Femi A. , Deng Jeremiah D. , Purvis Martin
Published: September 2012

While wireless sensor networks (WSN) are increasingly equipped to handle more complex functions, in-network processing still requires the battery-powered sensors to judiciously use their constrained energy so as to prolong the elective network life time. There are a few protocols using sensor clusters to coordinate the energy consumption in a WSN, but how to deal with energy heterogeneity remains a research question. The authors propose a modified clustering algorithm with a three-tier energy setting, where energy consumption among sensor nodes is adaptive to their energy levels. A theoretical analysis shows that the proposed modifications result in an extended network stability period. Simulation has been conducted to evaluate the new clustering algorithm against some existing algorithms under different energy heterogeneity settings, and favourable results are obtained especially when the energy levels are significantly imbalanced.
New Strategies and Extensions in Kruskal’s Algorithm in Multicast Routing
Authors: Aissa Mohamed , Ben Mnaouer Adel , Murray Rion , Belghith Abdelfettah
Published: September 2012

Multimedia applications are expected to guarantee end-to-end quality of service (QoS) and are characterized by stringent constraints on delay, delay-jitter, bandwidth, cost, and so forth. The authors observe that Kruskal’s algorithm is limited to minimal (maximal) spanning unconstrained tree. As such, the authors extend Kruskal’s algorithm to incorporate the delay bound constraint. Consequently, a novel algorithm is proposed, called EKRUS (Extended Kruskal), for constructing multicast trees. The EKRUS’ distinguishing features consists of a better management of Kruskal’s priority queues, and in the provision of edge priority aggregation. Preliminary results show that the proposed EKRUS algorithm performs as well as the best-known algorithms (such as the DDMC, DMCTc algorithms) while exhibiting reduced complexity. The authors conducted an intensive analysis and evaluations of different strategies of assigning edges into the classes of the queue as well as edge selection. As a result, the EKRUS algorithm was further extended with different edge assignment and selection strategies. Through extensive simulations, the authors have evaluated various versions of the EKRUS and analyzed their performance under different load conditions.
Extensible Languages
Authors: Verna Didier
Published: September 2012

Out of a concern for focus and concision, domain-specific languages (DSLs) are usually very different from general purpose programming languages (GPLs), both at the syntactic and the semantic levels. One approach to DSL implementation is to write a full language infrastructure, including parser, interpreter, or even compiler. Another approach however, is to ground the DSL into an extensible GPL, giving you control over its own syntax and semantics. The DSL may then be designed merely as an extension to the original GPL, and its implementation may boil down to expressing only the differences with it. The task of DSL implementation is hence considerably eased. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a tour of the features that make a GPL extensible, and to demonstrate how, in this context, the distinction between DSL and GPL can blur, sometimes to the point of complete disappearance.
Semantics-Driven DSL Design
Authors: Erwig Martin , Walkingshaw Eric
Published: September 2012

Convention dictates that the design of a language begins with its syntax. The authors of this chapter argue that early emphasis should be placed instead on the identification of general, compositional semantic domains, and that grounding the design process in semantics leads to languages with more consistent and more extensible syntax. They demonstrate this semantics-driven design process through the design and implementation of a DSL for defining and manipulating calendars, using Haskell as a metalanguage to support this discussion. The authors emphasize the importance of compositionality in semantics-driven language design, and describe a set of language operators that support an incremental and modular design process.
Comparison Between Internal and External DSLs via RubyTL and Gra2MoL
Authors: Cuadrado Jesús Sánchez , Izquierdo Javier Luis Cánovas , Molina Jesús García
Published: September 2012

Domain Specific Languages (DSL) are becoming increasingly more important with the emergence of Model-Driven paradigms. Most literature on DSLs is focused on describing particular languages, and there is still a lack of works that compare different approaches or carry out empirical studies regarding the construction or usage of DSLs. Several design choices must be made when building a DSL, but one important question is whether the DSL will be external or internal, since this affects the other aspects of the language. This chapter aims to provide developers confronting the internal-external dichotomy with guidance, through a comparison of the RubyTL and Gra2MoL model transformations languages, which have been built as an internal DSL and an external DSL, respectively. Both languages will first be introduced, and certain implementation issues will be discussed. The two languages will then be compared, and the advantages and disadvantages of each approach will be shown. Finally, some of the lessons learned will be presented.
Iterative and Pattern-Based Development of Internal Domain-Specific Languages
Authors: Günther Sebastian
Published: September 2012

Internal DSLs are a special kind of DSLs that use an existing programming language as their host. In this chapter, the author explains an iterative development process for internal DSLs. The goals of this process are: (1) to give developers a familiar environment in which they can use known and proven development steps, techniques, tools, and host languages, (2) to provide a set of repeatable, iterative steps that support the continuous adaptation and evolution of the domain knowledge and the DSL implementation, and (3) to apply design principles that help to develop DSLs with essential properties and to use host language independent design patterns to plan and communicate the design and implementation of the DSL. The process consists of three development steps (analysis, language design, and language implementation) and applies four principles: open form, agile and test-driven development, design pattern knowledge, and design principle knowledge.
Formal Semantics for Metamodel-Based Domain Specific Languages
Authors: Arcaini Paolo , Gargantini Angelo , Riccobene Elvinia , Scandurra Patrizia
Published: September 2012

Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) are often defined in terms of metamodels capturing the abstract syntax of the language. For a complete definition of a DSL, both syntactic and semantic aspects of the language have to be specified. Metamodeling environments support syntactic definition issues, but they do not provide any help in defining the semantics of metamodels, which is usually given in natural language. In this chapter, the authors present an approach to formally define the semantics of metamodel-based languages. It is based on a translational technique that hooks to the language metamodel its precise and executable semantics expressed in terms of the Abstract State Machine formal method. The chapter also shows how different techniques can be used for formal analysis of models (i.e., instance of the language metamodel). The authors exemplify the use of their approach on a language for Petri nets.
Software Language Engineering with XMF and XModeler
Authors: Clark Tony , Willans James
Published: September 2012

XMF and XModeler are presented as technologies that have been specifically designed for Software Language Engineering. XMF provides a meta-circular, extensible platform for DSL definition based on syntax-classes that extend object-oriented classes with composable grammars. XModeler is a development environment built on top of XMF that provides an extensible client-based architecture for developing DSL tools.
Abstraction of Computer Language Patterns
Authors: Porubän Jaroslav , Kollár Ján , Sabo Miroslav
Published: September 2012

In general, designing a domain-specific language (DSL) is a complicated process, requiring the cooperation of experts from both application domain and computer language development areas. One of the problems that may occur is a communication gap between a domain expert and a language engineer. Since domain experts are usually non-technical people, it might be difficult for them to express requirements on a DSL notation in a technical manner. Another compelling problem is that even though the majority of DSLs share the same notation style for representing the common language constructs, a language engineer has to formulate the specification for these constructs repeatedly for each new DSL being designed. The authors propose an innovative concept of computer language patterns to capture the well-known recurring notation style often seen in many computer languages. To address the communication problem, they aim for the way of proposing a DSL notation by providing program examples as they would have been written in a desired DSL. As a combination of these two ideas, the chapter presents a method for example-driven DSL notation specification (EDNS), which utilizes computer language patterns for semi-automated inference of a DSL notation specification from the provided program examples.
Integrating DSLs into a Software Engineering Process
Authors: Chiprianov Vanea , Kermarrec Yvon , Rouvrais Siegfried
Published: September 2012

The development of large and complex systems involves many people, stakeholders. Engineeringly speaking, one way to control this complexity is by designing and analyzing the system from different perspectives. For each perspective, stakeholders benefit from means, tools, languages, specific to their activity domain. A Domain Specific Language (DSL) per perspective is such a dedicated means. While DSLs are used for modeling, other means, tools, and languages are needed for other connected activities, like testing or collaborating. However, using such different types of tools together, integrating DSLs into stakeholders’ software process is not straightforward. In this chapter, the authors advance an integration process of DSLs with other tools. The chapter proposes each stakeholder have their own DSL with associated graphical editor, operational semantics, and generation of scripts for off the shelf simulators, e.g., testing. Additionally to the integrated stakeholders’ software process, the authors introduce a model driven process dedicated to the tool vendor which creates the DSLs and its associated tools. Due to the integration of DSLs into this process, they contend that stakeholders will significantly reduce system construction time. The chapter illustrates the two processes on Telecommunications service construction.
Organizing the Aggregate
Authors: Beal Jacob , Dulman Stefan , Usbeck Kyle , Viroli Mirko , Correll Nikolaus
Published: September 2012

As the number of computing devices embedded into engineered systems continues to rise, there is a widening gap between the needs of the user to control aggregates of devices and the complex technology of individual devices. Spatial computing attempts to bridge this gap for systems with local communication by exploiting the connection between physical locality and device connectivity. A large number of spatial computing domain specific languages (DSLs) have emerged across diverse domains, from biology and reconfigurable computing, to sensor networks and agent-based systems. In this chapter, the authors develop a framework for analyzing and comparing spatial computing DSLs, survey the current state of the art, and provide a roadmap for future spatial computing DSL investigation.
A Domain-Specific Language for High-Level Parallelization
Authors: Arora Ritu , Bangalore Purushotham , Mernik Marjan
Published: September 2012

There are several ongoing research efforts in the High Performance Computing (HPC) domain that are employing Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) as the means of augmenting end-user productivity. A discussion on some of the research efforts that can positively impact the end-user productivity without negatively impacting the application performance is presented in this chapter. An overview of the process of developing a DSL for specifying parallel computations, called High-Level Parallelization Language (Hi-PaL), is presented along with the metrics for measuring its impact. A discussion on the future directions in which the DSL-based approaches can be applied in the HPC domain is also included.
The Role of Roadside Assistance in Vehicular Communication Networks
Authors: Kadas George , Chatzimisios Periklis
Published: September 2012

Vehicular Communication Networks is a subcategory of Mobile Communications Networks that has the special characteristics of high node mobility and fast topology changes. In the current chapter, the authors outline the basic characteristics and concepts of vehicular communications and present the standardization and network deployment efforts carried out by the scientific community. In particular, they focus their attention on the vehicle-to-infrastructure component of the network; moreover, the authors specifically investigate security, quality of service, and routing, which constitute three of the most challenging aspects in the field of Vehicular Networks. The authors further examine the ways that infrastructure can provide efficient solutions to the problems that exist for each respective category and review several proposed solutions.
A Survey of Wireless Backhauling Solutions for ITS
Authors: Cicconetti Claudio , Mambrini Raffaella , Rossi Alessandro
Published: September 2012

The deployment of more sustainable land transportation is a non-debatable global issue. It is generally agreed that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will play the role of the main enabler to achieve the ambitious objective of improving transportation efficiency, thus reducing pollution, time and resource wastage, and accidents. In this chapter, after briefly introducing the general architecture of the ICT infrastructure for the new generation of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs), the authors provide a survey of the wireless technologies available for implementing the data network required to transfer information between the peripheral devices, installed roadside and in the vehicles, and the data center where the actual storage and logic resides. Specifically, they consider the following alternatives: IEEE 802.11 in a Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) configuration, IEEE 802.16/WiMAX, Long Term Evolution (LTE), and HiperLAN/2. The latter is investigated in further details by providing results from preliminary laboratory trials carried out in the Italian project IPERMOB.
Real Time Acquisition of Traffic Information through V2V, V2R, and V2I Communications
Authors: Bazzi Alessandro , Masini Barbara M. , Pasolini Gianni
Published: September 2012

Many vehicles are currently equipped with On-Board Units (OBUs) that are in charge of collecting and processing data for some specific purposes (such as for travel monitoring, as requested by many insurance companies). These devices are connected to the cellular network by means of their Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication interface, and are thus able to transmit and receive information also related to real time traffic, pollution, local events, etc. Of course, as the number of OBU-equipped vehicles increases, the cost of this service increases as well, both in terms of network load and billing. In this chapter, the authors discuss the possibility of taking advantage of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Roadside (V2R) communications to save V2I resources, thus reducing the cellular network burden and, consequently, the service cost.
Employing Traffic Lights as Road Side Units for Road Safety Information Broadcast
Authors: Kumar Navin , Nero Alves Luis , Aguiar Rui L.
Published: September 2012

There is great concern over growing road accidents and associated fatalities. In order to reduce accidents, improve congestion and offer smooth flow of traffic, several measures, such as providing intelligence to transport, providing communication infrastructure along the road, and vehicular communication, are being undertaken. Traffic safety information broadcast from traffic lights using Visible Light Communication (VLC) is a new cost effective technology which assists drivers in taking necessary safety measures. This chapter presents the VLC broadcast system considering LED-based traffic lights. It discusses the integration of traffic light Roadside Units (RSUs) with upcoming Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) architecture. Some of the offered services using this technology in vehicular environment together with future directions and challenges are discussed. A prototype demonstrator of the designed VLC systems is also presented.
QoS-Aware Chain-Based Data Aggregation in Cooperating Vehicular Communication Networks and Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: Taghikhaki Zahra , Zhang Yang , Meratnia Nirvana , Havinga Paul
Published: September 2012

Vehicular Communication Networks (VCNs) and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are emerging types of networks, which have individually been extensively explored. However, their cooperation and exploring advantages offered by their integration are poorly explored. Such integration helps better investigate impacts of human mobility and transportation behaviors on safety and well-being of cities, their residents, their surrounding environments, and ecology. In this chapter, the authors propose a QoS-Aware Chain-based data Aggregation (QoS-ACA) technique for wireless sensor networks cooperating with vehicular communication networks, which fast, reliably, and energy efficiently aggregates sensor data and sends the aggregated value to the road side units. Ensuring quality of service parameters has been put forward as an essential consideration for wireless sensor networks, which are often deployed in unattended and open environments and are characterized by their limited resources. To this end, in-network data aggregation is an efficient solution to save energy and bandwidth and to provide meaningful information to end-users.
Understanding Children’s Private Speech and Self-Regulation Learning in Web 2.0
Authors: Agina Adel M. , Tennyson Robert D. , Kommers Piet
Published: September 2012

Web 2.0 offers the Zeitgeist to update seminal research concerning children’s Private Speech (PS) and Self-Regulation Learning (SRL) for application in social networks. Contemporary literature holds a body of research from the Vygotsky through Piaget to constructive theories that can be applied to theoretical foundations of Web 3.0 designs. Specifically, the purpose of the present chapter is to be present an index based on valuable and effective research concerning the subject matter in which a historical overview of both PS and SRL have demonstrated significant complexities and the most significant critiques that exist in the literature. The chapter does not mean to include detailed research methodology and results but, instead, to be used as an indexing review of PS and SRL for possible theoretical foundations in applications in the expanding world of social media. Finally, the conclusion provides a reflection on the future of our children’s PS and SRL and what we should do next to enhance these concepts.
Visualizing Design Project Knowledge on a Collaborative Web 2.0 Platform
Authors: Ermolayev Vadim , Dengler Frank
Published: September 2012

The chapter reports the implementation and validation of the knowledge process visualization technology that extends the basic capabilities of the Semantic MediaWiki platform. The Design Project Visualizer has been developed in the ACTIVE Integrating Project of the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union for the case study in the engineering design in Microelectronics and Integrated Circuits. The concept of knowledge process visualization is based on the paradigm of project navigation. The knowledge workers in this domain are design project managers, designers, and design support engineers. The visualization suggests optimized performance, points to the bottlenecks in executions, and fosters collaboration in development teams. The authors describe the software prototype architecture and implementation. The components and the solution for process knowledge transformation between ontological representations as well as the visualization are presented in detail. Validation results indicate that the solution is helpful in providing expert assistance to design project managers performing their typical tasks of project planning and execution management.
Knowledge Building in Online Environments
Authors: Deed Craig , Edwards Anthony
Published: September 2012

This chapter describes two conceptual frameworks for the analysis of online knowledge building: outsideness and developing adaptive expertise. The affordances of the metaphor of outsideness are outlined in relation to the construction of knowledge through the sharing and exploration of personal and cultural perspectives, asking questions to resolve doubt, and as a driver of purposeful academic conversation. Developing expertise is examined through the identification of the knowledge and skills for idea generation and evaluation in online environments, and optimal engagement in these learning contexts. A case study is provided of higher education students from three countries working together using a wiki to construct knowledge about teaching and learning. The authors present these two frameworks in order to increase understanding of the knowledge and skills needed by students in higher education to engage with the affordances of collective intelligence systems.
An Ontology-Based Search Tool in the Semantic Web
Authors: Bodea Constanta-Nicoleta , Lipai Adina , Dascalu Maria-Iuliana
Published: September 2012

The chapter presents a meta-search tool developed in order to deliver search results structured according to the specific interests of users. Meta-search means that for a specific query, several search mechanisms could be simultaneously applied. Using the clustering process, thematically homogenous groups are built up from the initial list provided by the standard search mechanisms. The results are more user-oriented, thanks to the ontological approach of the clustering process. After the initial search made on multiple search engines, the results are pre-processed and transformed into vectors of words. These vectors are mapped into vectors of concepts, by calling an educational ontology and using the WordNet lexical database. The vectors of concepts are refined through concept space graphs and projection mechanisms, before applying the clustering procedure. The chapter describes the proposed solution in the framework of other existent clustering search solutions. Implementation details and early experimentation results are also provided.
Automatic Sentiment Analysis on Web Texts for Competitive Intelligence
Authors: Loh Stanley , Lorenzi Fabiana , Pasqualotti Paulo Roberto , Rodrigues Sabrina Ferreira , Garcia Luis Fernando Fortes , Reichelt Valesca Persch
Published: September 2012

This chapter presents a software tool that helps the Competitive Intelligence process by collecting and analyzing texts published on the Internet. The goal is to automatically analyze indicators of the sentiment present in texts about a certain theme, whether positive or negative. The sentiment analysis is made through a probabilistic process over keywords present in the texts, using as reference a task ontology with positive and negative words defined with a degree of confidence.
Experiences Using a Free Tool for Voice Therapy Based on Speech Technologies
Authors: Rodríguez William R. , Saz Oscar , Lleida Eduardo
Published: September 2012

This chapter reports the results after two years of deployment of PreLingua, a free computer-based tool for voice therapy, in different educational institutions. PreLingua gathers a set of activities that use speech processing techniques and an adapted interface to train patients who present speech development delays or special voice needs in the environment of special education. Its visual interface is especially designed for children with cognitive disabilities and maps relevant voice parameters like intensity, vocal onset, durations of sounds, fundamental frequency, and formant frequencies to visually attractive graphics. Reports of successful results of the use of PreLingua have been gathered in several countries by audiologists, speech therapists, and other professionals in the fields of voice therapy, and also, in other fields such as early stimulation, mutism, and attention-deficit disorders. This chapter brings together the experiences of these professionals on the use of the tool and how the use of an interface paradigm that maps acoustic features directly to visual elements in a screen can provide improvements in voice disorders in patients with cognitive and speech delays.
Eye-Gaze and Facial Expressions as Feedback Signals in Educational Interactions
Authors: Jokinen Kristiina , Majaranta Päivi
Published: September 2012

In this chapter, the authors explore possibilities to use novel face and gaze tracking technology in educational applications, especially in interactive teaching agents for second language learning. They focus on non-verbal feedback that provides information about how well the speaker has understood the presented information, and how well the interaction is progressing. Such feedback is important in interactive applications in general, and in educational systems, it is effectively used to construct a shared context in which learning can take place: the teacher can use feedback signals to tailor the presentation appropriate for the student. This chapter surveys previous work, relevant technology, and future prospects for such multimodal interactive systems. It also sketches future educational systems which encourage the students to learn foreign languages in a natural and inclusive manner, via participating in interaction using natural communication strategies.
Embodied Conversational Agents in Interactive Applications for Children with Special Educational Needs
Authors: Mencía Beatriz López , Pardo David D. , Trapote Alvaro Hernández , Gómez Luis A. Hernández
Published: September 2012

This chapter describes a collection of experiences and recommendations related with the design and evaluation of interactive applications integrating Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) technology in real environments of use with children in Special Education. Benefits and challenges of using ECAs in this context are presented. These benefits and challenges have guided the creation of Special Education reinforcement applications incorporating ECAs, which have been used for extended periods of time at Infanta Elena Special Education School in Madrid. Co-design principles were applied in the development of two of the applications discussed here, with the participation of the school’s teaching staff and children with severe motor and mental disabilities (mainly with cerebral palsy). From the design experience a set of recommendations and observations were extracted, which the authors hope may serve as guidance for the scientific and educational communities when undertaking further research. For example, in an application to reinforce the learning of emotions it believe it beneficial to include ECAs that display a number of exaggerated facial expressions together with a combination of auditory and gestural reinforcements. The ECA should show its eyes and mouth clearly, in order to help the children focus their attention. These and other ECA strategies have been analysed to provide reinforcement in learning and also to attract the children’s attention when interacting with the application.
Education for Inclusion Using Virtual Worlds
Authors: Mateu Juan , Lasala María José , Alamán Xavier
Published: September 2012

In this chapter, the authors present an introduction to the use of virtual worlds in education, an analysis of the stronger and weaker points that such environments offer for high school education, and an experience on applying such technologies for the inclusion at a concrete high school in Cunit (Spain). In this high school, there is a need for teaching immigrant children the Catalan language when they arrive, in order to allow them to continue their studies integrated with the rest of the students. The chapter describes an experience on using virtual worlds for achieving such goal, based on the open software platform called “OpenSim.”
On the Use of Speech Technologies to Achieve Inclusive Education for People with Intellectual Disabilities
Authors: Pérez Pérez Ana , Callejas Carrión Zoraida , López-Cózar Delgado Ramón , Griol Barres David
Published: September 2012

New technologies have demonstrated a great potential to improve the social, labour, and educational integration of people with special needs. That is why there is a special interest of academia and industry to develop tools to assist this people, improving their autonomy and quality of life. Usually, intellectual disabilities are linked with speech and language disorders. In this chapter, the authors present a review on the efforts directed towards designing and developing speech technologies adapted to people with intellectual disabilities. Also, they describe the work they have conducted to study how to gather speech resources, which can be used to build speech-based systems that help them to communicate more effectively.
“Evaluator”
Authors: Ferrero Paz , Whittaker Rachel , Alda Javier
Published: September 2012

Computational linguistics can offer tools for automatic grading of written texts. “Evaluator” is such a tool. It uses FreeLing as a morpho-syntactic analyzer, providing words, lemmas, and part of speech tags for each word in a text. Multi-words can also be identified and their grammar identified. “Evaluator” also manages leveled glossaries, like the one developed by the Instituto Cervantes, as well as other electronically available dictionaries. All these glossaries enable the tool to identify most words in texts, grading them into the six levels scale of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. To assign a lexical level to the text under analysis, a statistical distribution of leveled qualified lemmas is used. Other ways to assign a lexical level to a text by using corpora of a preset level are also suggested. The syntactic analysis is based on a collection of grammar structures leveled by following the descriptors given by the Instituto Cervantes. These grammar structures are identified within the text using quantitative indices which level a text by comparing it with a given corpus. Finally, semantic identification is done using semantic fields as defined by the Instituto Cervantes. Latent Semantic Analysis is also used to group texts dealing with the same topic together. All these methods have been tested and applied to real texts written in Spanish by native speakers and learners.
REPERIO
Authors: Meyer Frank , Poirier Damien , Tellier Isabelle , Fessant Françoise
Published: September 2012

In this chapter, the authors describe Reperio, a flexible and generic industrial recommender system able to deal with several kinds of data sources (content-based, collaborative, social network) in the same framework and to work on multi-platforms (Web service in a multi-user mode and mobile device in a mono-user mode). The item-item matrix is the keystone of the architecture for its efficiency and flexibility properties. In the first part, the authors present core functionalities and requirements of recommendation in an industrial context. In the second part, they present the architecture of the system and the main issues involved in its development. In the last part, the authors report experimental results obtained using Reperio on benchmarks extracted from the Netflix Prize with different filtering strategies. To illustrate the interest and flexibility of the architecture, they also explain how it is possible to take into account, for recommendations, external sources of information. In particular, the authors show how to exploit user generated contents posted on social networks to fill the item-item matrix. The process proposed includes a step of opinion classification.
Rough Web Intelligent Techniques for Page Recommendation
Authors: Inbarani H. , Thangavel K.
Published: September 2012

Recommender systems represent a prominent class of personalized Web applications, which particularly focus on the user-dependent filtering and selection of relevant information. Recommender Systems have been a subject of extensive research in Artificial Intelligence over the last decade, but with today’s increasing number of e-commerce environments on the Web, the demand for new approaches to intelligent product recommendation is higher than ever. There are more online users, more online channels, more vendors, more products, and, most importantly, increasingly complex products and services. These recent developments in the area of recommender systems generated new demands, in particular with respect to interactivity, adaptivity, and user preference elicitation. These challenges, however, are also in the focus of general Web page recommendation research. The goal of this chapter is to develop robust techniques to model noisy data sets containing an unknown number of overlapping categories and apply them for Web personalization and mining. In this chapter, rough set-based clustering approaches are used to discover Web user access patterns, and these techniques compute a number of clusters automatically from the Web log data using statistical techniques. The suitability of rough clustering approaches for Web page recommendation are measured using predictive accuracy metrics.
Hybrid Neural Architecture for Intelligent Recommender System Classification Unit Design
Authors: Buabin Emmanuel
Published: September 2012

The objective is intelligent recommender system classification unit design using hybrid neural techniques. In particular, a neuroscience-based hybrid neural by Buabin (2011a) is introduced, explained, and examined for its potential in real world text document classification on the modapte version of the Reuters news text corpus. The so described neuroscience model (termed Hy-RNC) is fully integrated with a novel boosting algorithm to augment text document classification purposes. Hy-RNC outperforms existing works and opens up an entirely new research field in the area of machine learning. The main contribution of this book chapter is the provision of a step-by-step approach to modeling the hybrid system using underlying concepts such as boosting algorithms, recurrent neural networks, and hybrid neural systems. Results attained in the experiments show impressive performance by the hybrid neural classifier even with a minimal number of neurons in constituting structures.
Hybrid Neural Genetic Architecture
Authors: Buabin Emmanuel
Published: September 2012

The objective is a neural-based feature selection in intelligent recommender systems. In particular, a hybrid neural genetic architecture is modeled based on human nature, interactions, and behaviour. The main contribution of this chapter is the development of a novel genetic algorithm based on human nature, interactions, and behaviour. The novel genetic algorithm termed “Buabin Algorithm” is fully integrated with a hybrid neural classifier to form a Hybrid Neural Genetic Architecture. The research presents GA in a more attractive manner and opens up the various departments of a GA for active research. Although no scientific experiment is conducted to compare network performance with standard approaches, engaged techniques reveal drastic reductions in genetic operator operations. For illustration purposes, the UCI Molecular Biology (Splice Junction) dataset is used. Overall, “Buabin Algorithm” seeks to integrate human related interactions into genetic algorithms as imitate human genetics in recommender systems design and understand underlying datasets explicitly.
On a Genetic-Tabu Search Based Algorithm for Two-Dimensional Guillotine Cutting Problems
Authors: Gharsellaoui Hamza , Hasni Hamadi
Published: September 2012

The paper deals with the purpose of one hybrid approach for solving the constrained two-dimensional cutting (2DC) problem. The authors study this hybrid approach that combines the genetic algorithm and the Tabu search method. For this problem, they assume a packing of a whole number of rectangular pieces to cut, and that all cuts are of guillotine type in one sheet of a fixed width and an infinite height. Finally, they undertake an extensive experimental study with a large number of problem instances extracted from the literature by the Hopper’s benchmarks in order to support and to prove their approach and to evaluate the performance.
Factors Explaining ICT Diffusion: Case Study of Selected Latin American Countries
Authors: Bakay Aziz , Okafor Collins Emeka , Ujah Nacasius U
Published: September 2012

The eminent presence of globalization coupled with the advancement of information technology continues to penetrate and integrate societies and nations in a manner previously unknown. To stay competitive, most countries advocate and implement policies and amenities to encourage technological acceptance and adaptability. In this study, we investigate into the factors explaining the diffusion of ICT and its impact on economic activities. To gauge such, we examine the influence of ICT diffusion on a country’s economic orientation. Our rationale is that greater the extent of ICT adoption in societies, the greater the economic and social development. For the purpose of this study, a set of Latin American countries is studied to capture the relative effect of various social, economical, and infrastructural variables into the overall ICT level, where ICT level is proxied by the Network Readiness Index adopted from World Economic Forum. The result indicates that a country’s IT expenditure, age dependency ratio, literacy rate, and urbanization draw significant attention in explaining ICT diffusion in this region. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/icter.v3i2.2846 The International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions 2010 03 (02) : 25 -33
Cloud Computing Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS): Issues and Challenges
Authors: Sabahi Farzad
Published: September 2012

Correction: The spelling of the author's name on this paper was changed from Sabiha to Sabahi on 15/02/2013.Cloud computing is one of today’s most exciting technologies because of its capacity to lessen costs associated with computing while increasing flexibility and scalability for computer processes. During the past few years, cloud computing has grown from being a promising business idea to one of the fastest growing sectors of the IT industry. But on the other hand, IT organizations have expressed concerns about critical issues such as security that accompany the widespread implementation of cloud computing. Security, in particular, is one of the most debated issues in the field of cloud computing and several enterprises look at cloud computing warily due to projected security risks. Also, there are two other issues. They are the reliability and availability of the cloud which are as important as security. Although each of those three issues is associated with usage of the cloud, they will have different degrees of importance. Examination of the benefits and risks of cloud computing is necessary for a full evaluation of the viability of cloud computing. This article reviews issues and challenges of cloud computing’s reliability, availability and security (RAS). Beginning with a brief discussion on virtualization technology, a key element of cloud infrastructure, it examines issues facing in cloud RAS fields. Then, it addresses the challenges and problems in cloud computing RAS. It also examines intrusion detection methods and outlines counter measures to improve cloud RAS. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/icter.v4i2.4673 International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions 2011 04 (02) : 12 – 23