Extracting news blog hot topics based on the W2T methodology

Although topic detection and tracking techniques have made great progress, most of the researchers seldom pay more attention to the following two aspects. First, the construction of a topic model does not take the characteristics of different topics into consideration. Second, the factors that determine the formation and development of hot topics are not further analyzed. In order to correctly extract news blog hot topics, the paper views the above problems in a new perspective based on the W2T (Wisdom Web of Things) methodology, in which the characteristics of blog users, context of topic propagation and information granularity are investigated in a unified way. The motivations and features of blog users are first analyzed to understand the characteristics of news blog topics. Then the context of topic propagation is decomposed into the blog community, topic network and opinion network, respectively. Some important factors such as the user behavior pattern, opinion leader and network opinion are identified to track the development trends of news blog topics. Moreover, a blog hot topic detection algorithm is proposed, in which news blog hot topics are identified by measuring the duration, topic novelty, attention degree of users and topic growth. Experimental results show that the proposed method is feasible and effective. These results are also useful for further studying the formation mechanism of opinion leaders in blogspace.

Internet usage trends in medical informatics

Technological growth in the 21st century is exponential. Simultaneously, development of the associated risk, uncertainty and user acceptance are scattered. This required appropriate study to establish people accepting controversial technology (PACT). The Internet and services around it, such as World Wide Web, e-mail, instant messaging and social networking are increasingly becoming important in many aspects of our lives. Information related to medical and personal health sharing using the Internet is controversial and demand validity, usability and acceptance. Whilst literature suggest, Internet enhances patients and physicians’ positive interactions some studies establish opposite of such interaction in particular the associated risk. In recent years Internet has attracted considerable attention as a means to improve health and health care delivery. However, it is not clear how widespread the use of Internet for health care really is or what impact it has on health care utilisation. Estimated impact of Internet usage varies widely from the locations locally and globally. As a result, an estimate (or predication) of Internet use and their effects in Medical Informatics related decision-making is impractical. This open up research issues on validating and accepting Internet usage when designing and developing appropriate policy and processes activities for Medical Informatics, Health Informatics and/or e-Health related protocols. Access and/or availability of data on Internet usage for Medical Informatics related activities are unfeasible. This paper presents a trend analysis of the growth of Internet usage in medical informatics related activities. In order to perform the analysis, data was extracted from ERA (Excellence Research in Australia) ranked “A” and “A*” Journal publications and reports from the authenticated public domain. The study is limited to the analyses of Internet usage trends in United States, Italy, France and Japan. Projected trends and their influence to the field of medical informatics is reviewed and discussed. The study clearly indicates a trend of patients becoming active consumers of health information rather than passive recipients.

Director competencies for effective enterprise technology governance

In relation to enterprise technology governance (ETG), opinions differ between there being no need for board of director involvement to there being an urgent need for such involvement. This research highlights the need for boards to provide ETG oversight of technology-related strategy, investment and risk, and to be competent in doing so. We identify a large gap between board’s awareness of the importance of ETG, their taking action and the competency requirements for effective ETG. Further, while there is considerable research and literature about operational IT governance frameworks and operational IT competencies, there is no known research into the specific competencies boards of directors need to effectively govern enterprise technology. This research focuses on and develops a board-level ETG competency set using a mixed methods approach within a recognised competency development framework. Further development is tracked using a rigour scale to demonstrate a medium to high level of competency validity for the derived set. This research contributes to practice by providing the first known industry validated ETG competency set situated within new and emerging technology. It contributes to the body of knowledge in the modification and application of competency development and competency validation frameworks not previously applied to the role of board director.

Taming the terabytes : a human-centered approach to surviving the information deluge

A fear of imminent information overload predates the World Wide Web by decades. Yet, that fear has never abated. Worse, as the World Wide Web today takes the lion’s share of the information we deal with, both in amount and in time spent gathering it, the situation has only become more precarious. This chapter analyses new issues in information overload that have emerged with the advent of the Web, which emphasizes written communication, defined in this context as the exchange of ideas expressed informally, often casually, as in verbal language. The chapter focuses on three ways to mitigate these issues. First, it helps us, the users, to be more specific in what we ask for. Second, it helps us amend our request when we don't get what we think we asked for. And third, since only we, the human users, can judge whether the information received is what we want, it makes retrieval techniques more effective by basing them on how humans structure information. This chapter reports on extensive experiments we conducted in all three areas. First, to let users be more specific in describing an information need, they were allowed to express themselves in an unrestricted conversational style. This way, they could convey their information need as if they were talking to a fellow human instead of using the two or three words typically supplied to a search engine. Second, users were provided with effective ways to zoom in on the desired information once potentially relevant information became available. Third, a variety of experiments focused on the search engine itself as the mediator between request and delivery of information. All examples that are explained in detail have actually been implemented. The results of our experiments demonstrate how a human-centered approach can reduce information overload in an area that grows in importance with each day that passes. By actually having built these applications, I present an operational, not just aspirational approach.

A people-to-people matching system using graph mining techniques

A people-to-people matching system (or a match-making system) refers to a system in which users join with the objective of meeting other users with the common need. Some real-world examples of these systems are employer-employee (in job search networks), mentor-student (in university social networks), consume-to-consumer (in marketplaces) and male-female (in an online dating network). The network underlying in these systems consists of two groups of users, and the relationships between users need to be captured for developing an efficient match-making system. Most of the existing studies utilize information either about each of the users in isolation or their interaction separately, and develop recommender systems using the one form of information only. It is imperative to understand the linkages among the users in the network and use them in developing a match-making system. This study utilizes several social network analysis methods such as graph theory, small world phenomenon, centrality analysis, density analysis to gain insight into the entities and their relationships present in this network. This paper also proposes a new type of graph called “attributed bipartite graph”. By using these analyses and the proposed type of graph, an efficient hybrid recommender system is developed which generates recommendation for new users as well as shows improvement in accuracy over the baseline methods.

The democratisation of journalism practice for a politically informed citizenry : the capacities of new media to engage citizens in public life - a case study

This research investigates the extent to which the World Wide Web and the participatory news media culture have contributed to the democratisation of journalism since 1997. It examined the different ways in which public service and commercial news media models use digital platforms to fulfil their obligations as members of the Fourth Estate. The research found that the digital environment provides news organisations with greater scope for transparency, interactivity, collaboration and social networking compared to the traditional print and broadcast platforms.

"You’ve modelled and now what?" : Exploring determinants of process model re-use

Business process modelling as a practice and research field has received great attention over recent years. Organizations invest significantly into process modelling in terms of training, tools, capabilities and resources. The return on this investment is a function of process model re-use, which we define as the recurring use of process models to support organizational work tasks. While prior research has examined re-use as a design principle, we explore re-use as a behaviour, because evidence suggest that analysts’ re-use of process models is indeed limited. In this paper we develop a two-stage conceptualization of the key object-, behaviour- and socioorganization-centric factors explaining process model re-use behaviour. We propose a theoretical model and detail implications for its operationalization and measurement. Our study can provide significant benefits to our understanding of process modelling and process model use as key practices in analysis and design.

Enterprise social networks : a business model perspective

Enterprise Social Networks continue to be adopted by organisations looking to increase collaboration between employees, customers and industry partners. Offering a varied range of features and functionality, this technology can be distinguished by the underlying business models that providers of this software deploy. This study identifies and describes the different business models through an analysis of leading Enterprise Social Networks: Yammer, Chatter, SharePoint, Connections, Jive, Facebook and Twitter. A key contribution of this research is the identification of consumer and corporate models as extreme approaches. These findings align well with research on the adoption of Enterprise Social Networks that has discussed bottom-up and top-down approaches. Of specific interest are hybrid models that wrap a corporate model within a consumer model and may, therefore, provide synergies on both models. From a broader perspective, this can be seen as the merging of the corporate and consumer markets for IT products and services.

Software as a service (SaaS) for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) : the role of intermediaries

Software as a Service (SaaS) is anticipated to provide significant benefits to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) due to ease of access to high-end applications, 7*24 availability, utility pricing, etc. However, underlying SaaS is the assumption that SMEs will directly interact with the SaaS vendor and use a self-service model. In practice, we see the rise of SaaS intermediaries who support SMEs with using SaaS. This paper reports on an empirical study of the role of intermediaries in terms of how they support SMEs in sourcing and leveraging SaaS for their business. The knowledge contributions of this paper are: (1) the identification and description of the role of SaaS intermediaries and (2) the specification of different roles of SaaS intermediaries, in particular a more basic role with technology orientation and operational alignment perspective and (3) a more added value role with customer orientation and strategic alignment perspective.

A critical realist perspective of enterprise architecture evolution : preliminary findings

This paper investigates how Enterprise Architecture (EA) evolves due to emerging trends. It specifically explores how EA integrates the Service-oriented Architecture (SOA). Archer’s Morphogenetic theory is used as an analytical approach to distinguish the architectural conditions under which SOA is introduced, to study the relationships between these conditions and SOA introduction, and to reflect on EA evolution (elaborations) that then take place. The paper focuses on reasons for why EA evolution could take place, or not and what architectural changes could happen due to SOA integration. The research builds on sound theoretical foundations to discuss EA evolution in a field that often lacks a solid theoretical groundwork. Specifically, it proposes that critical realism, using the morphogenetic theory, can provide a useful theoretical foundation to study enterprise architecture (EA) evolution. The initial results of a literature review (a-priori model) were extended using explorative interviews. The findings of this study are threefold. First, there are five different levels of EA-SOA integration outcomes. Second, a mature EA, flexible and well-defined EA framework and comprehensive objectives of EA improve the integration outcomes. Third, the analytical separation using Archer’s theory is helpful in order to understand how these different integration outcomes are generated.

Service-oriented architecture integration within enterprise architecture : a-priori model

This paper proposes that critical realism can provide a useful theoretical foundation to study enterprise architecture (EA) evolution. Specifically it will investigate the practically relevant and academically challenging question of how EAs integrate the Service-oriented Architecture (SOA). Archer’s Morphogenetic theory is used as an analytical approach to distinguish the architectural conditions under which SOA is introduced, to study the relationships between these conditions and SOA introduction, and to reflect on EA evolution (elaborations) that then take place. The focus lies on the reasons why EA evolution takes place (or not) and what architectural changes happen. This paper uses the findings of a literature review to build an a-priori model informed by Archer’s theory to understand EA evolution in a field that often lacks a solid theoretical groundwork. The findings are threefold. First, EA can evolve on different levels (different integration outcomes). Second, the integration outcomes are classified into three levels: business architecture, information systems architecture and technology architecture. Third, the analytical separation using Archer’s theory is helpful in order to understand how these different integration outcomes are generated.

Enhancing enterprise social network use : a control theory study

Organizations employ Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs) (e.g., Yammer) expecting better intra-organizational communication, effective knowledge sharing and, in general, greater collaboration. Despite their similarities with Public Social Networks (PSNs) (e.g., Twitter), ESNs are struggling to gain credence with employees. This paper is part of a larger research project that investigates mechanisms to enhance employees’ engagement in the ESNs. Through the lens of Control Theory, this paper reports preliminary findings of a pilot case study aimed to propose formal and informal mechanisms that impact employees’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to encourage their use of ESNs. The study results highlight (i) the need to better understand employees’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivations to use Social Networks, and (ii) that unlike a PSN which acts as a hedonic system, an ESN acts as a utilitarian system, highlighting the importance of supporting intrinsic motivations in its implementation.

Structural dynamics education in the new millennium

Structural Dynamics is the study of the response of structures to dynamic or time varying loads. This topic has emerged to be one of importance to all structural engineers due to three important issues with structural engineering in the new millennium. These are: (1) vibration and problems in slender structures that have emerged due to new material technology and aesthetic requirements, (ii) ageing structures such as bridges whoese health needs to be monitored and appropriate retrofitting carried out to prevent failure and (iii) increased vulnerability of structures to random loads such as seismic, impact and blast loads. Knowledge of structural dynamics is necessary to address these issues and their consequences. During the past two decades, research in structural dynamics has generated considerable amount of new information to address these issues. This new knowledge is not readily made available to practicing engineers and very little or none of it enters the classrooms. There is no universal emphasis on including structural dynamics and their recently generated new knowledge into the civil/structural curriculum. This paper argues for the need to include structural dynamics into the syllabus of all civil engineering courses especially those having a first or second major in structural engineering. This will enable our future structural engineers to design and maintain safe and efficient structures.

Work integrated learning: Exposure to professional practice : expectations and challenges

Prior to graduation engineering students are expected to provide evidence of relevant experience in the workplace. This experience is expected to provide opportunities for exposure to the profession and to help students develop confidence, skills and capabilities as emerging professionals. This investigation considers the expectations and challenges in implementing WIL programs in different contexts. While this will inform the next iteration of engineering course development at QUT the issues and interventions described provide useful insights into options available and engineering curriculum design more broadly. This comparative analysis across three phases highlights expectations and challenges including stakeholder responsibilities, expectations, and assessment. The study draws on the findings of a 2005 investigation into the purpose and provision of WIL and findings of a 2012 Faculty review of the current WIL model. The enhancement of WIL through a series of developmental phases highlights strengths and weaknesses of various models. It is anticipated that this investigation will inform course development decisions on a whole-of-course approach to WIL that improves student engagement and learning experience. The importance of WIL is not disputed. However with industry expectations, increasing student numbers and cohort diversity the ways in which students and industry currently engage in WIL are not sustainable and more creative, flexible and engaging approaches are needed.

Creating efficiencies in teaching : where are the right resources when you need them?

Early career engineering academics are encouraged to join and contribute to established research groups at the leading edge of their discipline. This is often facilitated by various staff development and support programs. Given that academics are often appointed primarily on the basis of their research skills and outputs, such an approach is justified and is likely to result in advancing the individual academic’s career. It also enhances their capacity to attract competitive research funding, while contributing to the overall research performance of their institution, with further potential for an increased share of government funding. In contrast, there is much less clarity of direction or availability of support mechanisms for those academics in their role as teachers. Following a general induction to teaching and learning at their institution, they would commonly think about preparing some lecture materials, whether for delivery in a face-to-face or on-line modality. Typically they would look for new references and textbooks to act as a guide for preparing the content. They would probably find out how the course has been taught before, and what laboratory facilities and experiments have been used. In all of these and other related tasks, the majority of newly appointed academics are guided strongly by their own experiences as students, rather than any firm knowledge of pedagogical principles. At a time of increased demands on academics’ time, and high expectations of performance and productivity in both research and teaching, it is essential to examine possible actions to support academics in enhancing their teaching performance in effective and efficient ways. Many resources have been produced over the years in engineering schools around the world, with very high intellectual and monetary costs. In Australia, the last few years have seen a surge in the number of ALTC/OLT projects and fellowships addressing a range of engineering education issues and providing many resources. There are concerns however regarding the extent to which these resources are being effectively utilised. Why are academics still re-inventing the wheel and creating their own version of teaching resources and pedagogical practice? Why do they spend so much of their precious time in such an inefficient way? A symposium examining the above issues was conducted at the AAEE2012 conference, and some pointers to possible responses to the above questions were obtained. These are explored in this paper and supplemented by the responses to a survey of a group of engineering education leaders on some of the aspects of these research questions. The outcomes of the workshop and survey results have been analysed in view of the literature and the ALTC/OLT sponsored learning and teaching projects and resources. Other factors are discussed, including how such resources can be found, how their quality might be evaluated, and how assessment may be appropriately incorporated, again using readily available resources. This study found a strong resonance between resources reuse with work on technology acceptance (Davis, 1989), suggesting that technology adoption models could be used to encourage resource sharing. Efficient use of outstanding learning materials is an enabling approach. The paper provides some insights on the factors affecting the re-use of available resources, and makes some recommendations and suggestions on how the issue of resources re-use might be incorporated in the process of applying and completing engineering education projects.