Combining image regions and human activity for indirect object recognition in indoor wide-angle views

Traditional methods of object recognition are reliant on shape and so are very difficult to apply in cluttered, wideangle and low-detail views such as surveillance scenes. To address this, a method of indirect object recognition is proposed, where human activity is used to infer both the location and identity of objects. No shape analysis is necessary. The concept is dubbed 'interaction signatures', since the premise is that a human will interact with objects in ways characteristic of the function of that object - for example, a person sits in a chair and drinks from a cup. The human-centred approach means that recognition is possible in low-detail views and is largely invariant to the shape of objects within the same functional class. This paper implements a Bayesian network for classifying region patches with object labels, building upon our previous work in automatically segmenting and recognising a human's interactions with the objects. Experiments show that interaction signatures can successfully find and label objects in low-detail views and are equally effective at recognising test objects that differ markedly in appearance from the training objects.

Understanding the policy implications of ICT for development

Information and communication technologies are thought by some to offer a new solution to world poverty.
It is argued that information and communication technologies (ICT) allow poor countries to ‘leap-frog’
traditional stages of development and become immediately engaged with the ‘new economy’. Such an
optimistic view requires appropriate government policies to facilitate this shift. Interventions required
would include improving access levels and quality of telecommunication and electricity infrastructure,
improved quality of education and numbers of those accessing education, and providing both direct
and indirect support to encourage local firms to become engaged with the global economy. Ironically,
these policies are consistent with current orthodox development policies currently pursued within the
‘traditional’ economy. This chapter therefore considers what exactly is new about ICT in terms of its
potential impact on the poor.

How can the impact of cultural development work in local government be measured? Towards more effective planning and evaluation strategies

The field of cultural development in local government is relatively new, with most councils only having dedicated staff or teams within the last ten to fifteen years. Challenges are associated with that newness in the areas of planning, goal setting and formal evaluation of achievements in relation to goals. How can the best decisions be made about what is needed? How can the outcomes of that work be evaluated? What should be measured and how? This paper explores these challenges and presents some solutions. Program Logic is introduced as a methodology for effective planning and evaluation of cultural development work in local government. The need for both performance and outcome evaluation of cultural development work is discussed, as are the levels of evaluation required; considering the contribution of individual workers, departments, whole of council and the overall community outcomes. Factors beyond the influence of local government, which impact the outcomes of arts initiatives, are also considered in arguing that more sophisticated evaluation processes are required.

We need one district government to be set up to replace other district governments : the beginnings of Provincial Government in Papua New Guinea

Decentralisation, provincial government, and regional autonomy continue as influential factors in Papua New Guinea’s political economy.  The role played in creating PNG’s provincial government system by separatist movements in East New Britain, Bougainville and elsewhere is acknowledged.  However, as the Constitutional Planning Committee (CPC) discovered during its program of consultations with the Papua New Guinean people from 1972 to 1974, there was a strong groundswell around the country for district-level governments.  This article investigates how the CPC stimulated discussion of this issue through its own activities, and how the people in their discussion groups responded to the CPC’s ‘Discussion Paper on Relations Between the Central Government and Other Levels of Government’.

How to make the rhetoric of joined-up government really work

"Joined-up' government and 'whole-of-government' approaches have evolved over the past two decades from the simple 'one-stop-shop' concept to much more formal organisational structures mandated at the highest levels. In many cases, the participants in these developments were learning on the job, as they responded to community and political demands for better service delivery and more accountability. This paper looks back at some of those developments and proposes a schema to assess and place policies, strategies and programs.

Understanding user participation in Australian Government tourism Facebook page

With Facebook being the largest social network site (SNS), can government use Facebook (FB) to increase citizen participation in delivering and promoting their services? This paper presents the case of government use of social media for tourism to provide a general understanding online government and user participation in the Tourism government FB page. This is a case study research into the government FB page of Tourism Australia. FB page wall posts and comments are analysed quantitatively using content analysis to determine what type of online participation is visible in these sites and what the agencies are trying to achieve. Further, the paper employed a spectrum of online engagement matrix to identify the type of engagement being attained by the page. Findings show that the page has successfully served as a platform for its audience to share their Australian experience and it is being used for the purpose of announcing, informing and involving type of online engagement. This is an example of a crowdsourcing endeavour where tourism experiences and stories and pictures are being sourced from public. The research contributes to gaining a better understanding of government FB phenomenon, in particular for Australian context.

Internal organizational factors influencing sustainable implementation of information systems : experiences from a local government in Indonesia

Many information systems (IS) studies have found that information systems implementation sustainability is determined by internal organizational factors. In general these studies have been conducted in private organizations and these factors may not be applicable to IS implementations sustainability within public organizations. This study examines what internal organizational factors play a role in the sustainable implementation of e-government initiatives using a case study of local e-government in Indonesia. It also considers how these factors contribute to sustainable systems by strengthening stakeholders’ commitment through invoking feelings of involvement as responsibilities are assigned to them. The study concludes that the internal factors contribute to collective action that influences sustainable implementation of information systems. Limitations and future research are briefly discussed.

The effects of website quality on adoption of e-government service : an empirical study applying UTAUT model using SEM

In today’s global age, e-government services have become the main channel for online communication between the government and its citizens. They aim to provide citizens with more accessible, accurate, real-time and high quality services. Therefore, the quality of government websites which provide e-services is an essential factor in the successful adoption of e-government services by the public. This paper discusses an investigation of the effect of the Website Quality (WQ) factor on the acceptance of using e-government services (G2C) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) by adopting the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) Model. Survey Data collected from 400 respondents were examined using the structural equation modelling (SEM) technique and utilising AMOS tools. This study found that the factors that significantly influenced the Use Behaviour of e-government services in KSA (USE) include Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort expectancy (EE), Facilitating Conditions (FC) and Website Quality (WQ), while the construct known Social Influence (SI) did not. Moreover, the results confirm the importance of quality government websites and support systems as one of the main significant and influential factors of e-government services adoption. The results of this study can be helpful to Saudi’s governmental sectors to adjust their corporate strategies and plans to advance successful adoption and diffusion of e-government services (G2C) in KSA.

IT governance framework for e-government

E-Government (EG) management represents a challenging task for many stakeholders. As an emerging notion, IT Governance (ITG) represents an opportunity to fulfil different strategic objectives including EG. However, research on the impact of ITG on EG development-phases and success is limited. Thus, the objective of this research is to investigate how ITG could be extended to EG and attempt to develop an ITG framework to assist govern EG. This exploratory research uses qualitative data to investigate how ITG elements impact EG development-phases. The application of the proposed ITG framework makes it possible to enhance and improve the development of EG.

Interplaying user roles in e-government design : a participatory good governance perspective

The interplaying roles among the user groups must be adequately-mapped to fulfil the design needs of Egovernment applications. In previous studies, the design of citizen-centric e-government and its theoretical understanding is still limited in relation to the requirement of engaging malleable features for supporting all relevant users’ roles in governing bodies. Operationalising IS theories to improve the design of e-government application has been a much sought-after objective. Yet, there is a lack of actionable guidance on how to develop e-government application that exhibits high levels of users’ engagement through malleable features. Under a participatory good governance perspective, the paper reports a qualitative study and identifies requirement of malleable provisions to support the interplaying roles among users in a case demonstration of extensional service delivery in government. While service content describes the features available on an e-government application for assisting user groups in completing their support services.

Community perception of mobile payment in e-Government services

Mobile payment and e-Government are emerging topics in the research area of Information Systems. This research addresses the preferred e-Government services for mobile payment, the suitable payment methods of mobile payment, and adoption factors of e-Government services. The research derives the notion of technology adoption and related constructs, however, as no particular Information Systems adoption theory was adequate to study emerging systems of electronic payment, the research did not utilise any specific theory. Rather, the research uses the characteristics of mobile payment as revealed in the contemporary research to develop an adoption model based on user perceptions regarding mobile payments in the context of e-Government services. A survey study on the use of mobile devices to pay for e-Government services was conducted in Western Australia. The findings of this research contribute conceptually and practically by recommending suitable services and mobile payment methods. This paper also addresses the positive and negative factors impacting the adoption of mobile payment for e-Government services.