“Padding” bitmaps to support similarity and mining

The current paper presents a novel approach to bitmap-indexing for data mining purposes. Currently bitmap-indexing enables efficient data storage and retrieval, but is limited in terms of similarity measurement, and hence as regards classification, clustering and data mining. Bitmap-indexes mainly fit nominal discrete attributes and thus unattractive for widespread use, which requires the ability to handle continuous data in a raw format. The current research describes a scheme for representing ordinal and continuous data by applying the concept of “padding” where each discrete nominal data value is transformed into a range of nominal-discrete values. This "padding" is done by adding adjacent bits "around" the original value (bin). The padding factor, i.e., the number of adjacent bits added, is calculated from the first and second derivative degrees of each attribute’s domain-distribution. The padded representation better supports similarity measures, and therefore improves the accuracy of clustering and mining. The advantages of padding bitmaps are demonstrated on Fisher’s Iris dataset.     

“Old” theories, “New” technologies: Understanding knowledge sharing and learning in Brazilian software development companies

ContextNew technologies such as social networks, wikis, blogs and other social software enable collaborative work and are important facilitators of the learning process. They provide a simple mechanism for people to communicate and collaborate and thus support the creation of knowledge. In software-development companies they are used to creating an environment in which communication and collaboration between workers take place more effectively.ObjectiveThis paper identifies the main tools and technologies used by software-development companies in Brazil to manage knowledge and attempts to determine how these tools and technologies relate to important knowledge-sharing and learning theories and how they support the concepts described by these theories.MethodA survey was conducted in a group of Brazilian software development companies with high levels of process software maturity to see how they implement the Brazilian Software Processes Improvement model (MPS.Br) and use new tools and technologies. The survey used a qualitative analysis to identify which tools are used most and how frequently employees use them. The results of the analysis were compared with data from the literature on three knowledge-sharing and learning theories to understand how the use of these tools relates to the concepts proposed in these theories.ResultsThe results show that some of the tools used by the companies do not apply the concepts described in the theories as they do not help promote organizational learning. Furthermore, although the companies have adopted the tools, these are not often used, mainly because they are felt not to organize information efficiently.ConclusionThe use of certain tools can help promote several concepts described in the theories considered. Moreover, the use of these tools can help reduce the impact of, some common organizational problems. However, companies need to improve existing organizational policies that encourage employees to use these tools more regularly.     

Description and assessment of legal knowledge with regard to its “imperfection”

This paper analyzes the problem of improving the quality of legal decision making through additional structuring and better logical assessment of legal knowledge with regard to its “imperfection” expressed in the lack of correct information, the presence of incorrect or unnecessary accompanying information, illegibility, or inconsistency. The described method can be applied in intellectual support systems for decision-making or in computer training systems.     

What drives continued knowledge sharing? An investigation of knowledge-contribution and -seeking beliefs

Knowledge management (KM) research has yielded extensive explanations regarding the individual's motivation to share knowledge, each with different sets of factors. Yet the study of continued knowledge sharing is rare. There has been little research investigating this issue from contributing and seeking perspectives—the two distinct, but closely interrelated, facets of continued knowledge sharing. We propose that knowledge management system (KMS) users' beliefs are contextually differentiated, and thus a distinction between knowledge-contribution and knowledge-seeking behaviors and an adequate emphasis on their variance in terms of user belief is needed. By incorporating the knowledge-contribution and knowledge-seeking perspectives in a single study, we model and examine the differences among driving factors in two behavioral contexts, provide the conceptual comparisons and preliminary discussions, and thus advance our understanding of continued knowledge sharing via the KMS.     

To give or to receive? Factors influencing members’ knowledge sharing and community promotion in professional virtual communities

Professional virtual communities (PVCs) bring together geographically dispersed, like-minded people to form a network for knowledge exchange. To promote knowledge sharing, it is important to know why individuals choose to give or to receive knowledge with other community members. We identified factors that were considered influential in increasing community knowledge transfer and examined their impact in PVCs. Data collected from 323 members of two communities were used in our structural equation modeling (SEM). The results suggested that norm of reciprocity, interpersonal trust, knowledge sharing self-efficacy, and perceived relative advantage were significant in affecting knowledge sharing behaviors in PVCs. The knowledge contributing and collecting behaviors were positively related to knowledge utilization. Furthermore, while the collecting behavior had a significant effect on community promotion, the influence of contributing behavior on community promotion was limited.     

The machine’s role in human’s service automation and knowledge sharing

The possibility of interacting with remote services in natural language opens up new opportunities for sharing knowledge and for automating services. Easy-to-use, text-based interfaces might provide more democratic access to legal information, government services, and everyday knowledge as well. However, the methodology of engineering robust natural language interfaces is very diverse, and widely deployed solutions are still yet to come. The main contribution is a detailed problem analysis on the theoretical level, which reveals that a text-based interface is best understood as an artificial agent that represents the interests of the remote party who is separated in time and space from the client. A possible ethical issue about the development of such an agent is also discussed.     

QSIA – a Web-based environment for learning,assessing and knowledge sharing in communities

This paper describes a Web-based and distributed system named QSIA that serves as an environment for learning, assessing and knowledge sharing. QSIA – Questions Sharing and Interactive Assignments – offers a unified infrastructure for developing, collecting, managing and sharing of knowledge items. QSIA enhances collaboration in authoring via online recommendations and generates communities of teachers and learners. At the same time, QSIA fosters individual learning and might promote high-order thinking skills among its users. QSIA's community, conceptual architecture, structure overview and implementations are discussed.     

Methodologies to evolve formal specifications through refinement and retrenchment in an analysis–revision cycle

The development of requirement specifications is done by accumulating knowledge about the desired systems in a progressive manner. This process can be supported by an analysis–revision cycle, in which the analysis phase checks the correctness of a given specification, and the revision phase modifies it, in case some problems are detected. To date, the analysis and revision activities have been typically considered in isolation, resulting in ineffective support to the stakeholders’ work. In response to that, this article introduces methodologies to conduct an interactive and integrated approach, grounded on the formalization of two basic types of evolutions (refinements and retrenchments) over multi-valued specification and modeling formalisms. Evaluation results are included to show that this approach can indeed help the stakeholders identify and clarify requirements through different stages of development.

TQM: A facilitator to enhance knowledge management? A structural analysis

This study aims to examine the multi-dimensional relationship of total quality management (TQM) and knowledge management (KM) in both service and manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Six key practices of TQM originated from the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) were chosen; whereas the KM elements were made up of knowledge acquisition, distribution and application. Data were gathered from small, medium and large firms from both manufacturing and service sectors. Structural analysis was carried out for the hypotheses and the theoretical model testing. Findings show that strategic planning and human resource management have a positive and significant relationship with the dimensions of KM; whereas process management has significant effects on knowledge acquisition and knowledge distribution. Practically, the findings provide a useful direction for the management team in the manufacturing and service sectors by adopting the relevant TQM practices to further improve the firms’ knowledge management processes. Through a deeper comprehension on the association between TQM practices and the KM dimensions, the management team of these firms can focus their attention, efforts and resources on the specific TQM practices that can ensure successful KM process.     

Symbiosis and synergy? scenarios,task analysis and reuse of HCI knowledge

This paper follows the scenarios and task models debate by reviewing the contributions of task modelling and scenario based approaches from a cognitive perspective. A framework of cognitive affordances is introduced to discuss the merits and limitations of each approach. An extension of the modelling theme, generic task models, is proposed to augment the contribution of knowledge reuse to the design process. The paper concludes by discussing how scenario based design might complement task analysis and reuse of task based knowledge.     

Understanding knowledge sharing between IT professionals – an integration of social cognitive and social exchange theory

The research includes various constructs based on social exchange theory and social cognitive theory. This study mainly explored the relationships among organisational justice, trust, commitment and knowledge-sharing cognition and verified their mediating effects through two variables of trust and commitment. A survey utilising a questionnaire was used with 252 IT professionals from IT companies and departments in Taiwan. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data and to evaluate the research model. The results showed that the research model fitted the data well, and the main determinant of knowledge-sharing intention was the building of organisational justice between knowledge intensive workers, confirming our hypotheses that trust and commitment foster organisational commitment. In turn, organisational commitment will help to build individual knowledge-sharing self-efficacy and both directly and indirectly affect intentions to share knowledge.     

Issues in knowledge access,retrieval and sharing – Case studies in a Caribbean health sector

In knowledge sharing forums different actors access each others knowledge to assist in their own decision making process. However, in absence of a formal knowledge management system this knowledge may not be available for use/reuse. In this research, we explore different scenarios in the healthcare sector to identify the factors which either facilitate or impede the knowledge flows while sharing knowledge. Furthermore, based on the analysis of the scenarios we theorize about use and reuse of knowledge items and the issues in accessing and retrieving them in knowledge sharing events. The barriers and enablers in different case studies are identified which can be applicable to any knowledge sharing event where its actors are working towards a common objective. We examine the patterns of accessibility of a knowledge item in knowledge sharing events and its effect on perceived usability, and perceived usefulness and relevance of a knowledge item.     

Improving the quality of vocational students’ collaboration and knowledge acquisition through instruction and joint reflection

International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning - New societal demands call for schools to train students’ collaboration skills. However, research thus far has focused...     

Past, present and future of information and knowledge sharing in the construction industry: Towards semantic service-based e-construction?

The paper reviews product data technology initiatives in the construction sector and provides a synthesis of related ICT industry needs. A comparison between (a) the data centric characteristics of Product Data Technology (PDT) and (b) ontology with a focus on semantics, is given, highlighting the pros and cons of each approach. The paper advocates the migration from data-centric application integration to ontology-based business process support, and proposes inter-enterprise collaboration architectures and frameworks based on semantic services, underpinned by ontology-based knowledge structures. The paper discusses the main reasons behind the low industry take up of product data technology, and proposes a preliminary roadmap for the wide industry diffusion of the proposed approach. In this respect, the paper stresses the value of adopting alliance-based modes of operation.     

What are the trend and core knowledge of information security? A citation and co-citation analysis

Information technology brings business success opportunities, but also causes potential safety hazards to organizations. In response to the increasing academia and industry concerns regarding information security (ISec), this study systematically explored extant ISec research and identified eight core knowledge groups, including (1) intrusion detection, (2) privacy protection, (3) secure machine learning, (4) cryptosystem, (5) data service security, (6) malware analysis, (7) security decision-making, and (8) security management. The detection of research hotspots shows that data service security and risk management garner the most current research attention. Furthermore, we establish a comprehensive ISec framework to help systematically understand and achieve ISec.     

Domain expertise and knowledge acquisition from “nonlinear” expository text

This article examines some important theoretical issues with regard to how nonlinear text structures of the kind embodied in hypertext might affect learning. Empirical results showing that well-structured nonlinear texts are as effective as conventional linear ones for learning factual information and that they can enhance inferential reasoning are presented and discussed. It is suggested that using a graphic device called a “conceptual map” to represent the relationships between text concepts can help the reader form a coherent view of the textual information and constrain nonlinear reading to useful juxtapositions of text units.     

DisGeReExT: a knowledge discovery system for exploration of disease–gene associations through large-scale literature-wide analysis study

Knowledge and Information Systems - Objective Advanced experimental methods such as next-generation sequencing (NGS) produced a large number of potential indicative genetic biomarkers and gene...     

Comment on “Proactive quantum secret sharing”

In the paper, Qin and Dai (Quantum Inf Process 14:4237–4244, 2015) proposed a proactive quantum secret sharing scheme. We study the security of the proposed scheme and find that it is not secure. In the distribution phase of the proposed scheme, two dishonest participants may collaborate to eavesdrop the secret of the dealer without introducing any error.     

SWATShare – A web platform for collaborative research and education through online sharing,simulation and visualization of SWAT models

Hydrologic models for a particular watershed or a region are created for addressing a specific research or management problem, and most of the models do not get reused after the project is completed. Similarly, multiple models may exist for a particular geographic location from different researchers or organizations. To avoid the duplication of efforts, and enable model reuse and enhancement through collaborative efforts, a prototype cyberinfrastructure, called SWATShare, is developed for sharing, execution and visualization of Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The objective of this paper is to present the software architecture, functional capabilities and implementation of SWATShare as a collaborative environment for hydrology research and education using the models published and shared in the system. Besides the capability of publishing, sharing, discovery and downloading of SWAT models, some of the functions in SWATShare such as model calibration are supported by providing access to high performance computing resources including the XSEDE and cloud. Additionally, SWATShare can create dynamic spatial and temporal plots of model outputs at different scales. SWATShare can also be used as an educational tool within a classroom setting for comparing the hydrologic processes under different geographic and climatic settings. The utility of SWATShare for collaborative research and education is demonstrated by using three case studies. Even though this paper focuses on the SWAT model, the system’s architecture can be replicated for other models as well.