I-WAP: an intelligent WAP site management system

The popularity regarding wireless communications is such that more and more WAP sites have been developed with wireless markup language (WML). Meanwhile, to translate hypertext markup language (HTML) pages into proper WML ones becomes imperative since it is difficult for WAP users to read most contents designed for PC users via their mobile phone screens. However, for those sites that have been maintained with hypertext markup language (HTML), considerable time and manpower costs will be incurred to rebuild them with WML. In this paper, we propose an intelligent WAP site management system to cope with these problems. With the help of the intelligent management system, the original contents of HTML Web sites can be automatically translated to proper WAP content in an efficient way. As a consequence, the costs associated with maintaining WAP sites could be significantly reduced. The management system also allows the system manager to define the relevance of numerals and keywords for removing unimportant or meaningless contents. The original contents will be reduced and reorganized to fit the size of mobile phone screens, thus reducing the communication cost and enhancing readability. Numerical results gained through various experiments have evinced the effective performance of the WAP management system.     

A knowledge engineering approach to developing mindtools for context-aware ubiquitous learning

Recent developments in computing and mobile technologies have enabled the mobile and ubiquitous learning approach, which situates students in an environment that combines real-world and digital-world learning resources. Although such an approach seems to be innovative and interesting, several problems have been revealed when applying it to practical learning activities. One major problem is owing to the lack of proper learning strategies or tools that can guide or assist the students to learn in such a complex learning scenario. Students might feel excited or interested when using the mobile devices to learn in the real world; however, their learning achievements could be disappointing. To cope with this problem, in this study, a knowledge engineering approach is proposed to develop Mindtools for such innovative learning scenarios. Experimental results from a natural science course of an elementary school show that this innovative approach not only enhances learning motivation, but also improves the learning achievements of the students.     

An interactive concept map approach to supporting mobile learning activities for natural science courses

Mobile and wireless communication technologies not only enable anytime and anywhere learning, but also provide the opportunity to develop learning environments that combine real-world and digital-world resources. Nevertheless, researchers have indicated that, without effective tools for helping students organize their observations in the field, the mobile learning performance could be disappointing. To cope with this problem, this study proposes an interactive concept map-oriented approach for supporting mobile learning activities. An experiment has been conducted on an elementary school natural science course to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The experimental results show that the proposed approach not only enhances learning attitudes, but also improves the learning achievements of the students.     

An auto-scoring mechanism for evaluating problem-solving ability in a web-based learning environment

The rapid development of computer and network technologies has attracted researchers to investigate strategies for and the effects of applying information technologies in learning activities; simultaneously, learning environments have been developed to record the learning portfolios of students seeking web information for problem-solving. Although previous research has demonstrated the benefits of applying information technologies to learning activities, the difficulties in doing so have also been revealed. One of the major difficulties is the lack of a mechanism to assist teachers in evaluating the problem-solving ability of the students, such that constructive suggestions can be given to the students, and tutoring strategies can be improved accordingly.     

An SNS-based model for finding collaborative partners

This paper proposes a model, Recommendation of Appropriate Partners (RAP), used on a Social Networking Service (SNS) for locating appropriate “helpers” for users based on individual users’ Chain of Friends (CoF) relationships. Using the RAP model, individual users can participate in a collaborative online community in remote locations, whereby helpers are willing to help other users solve their tasks/problems, and it is intended that both the users and helpers gain knowledge from these interactive online sessions. An example of the RAP-based system was implemented to invite Program Committee members to an international conference. The system was evaluated and the experimental results show that our model is very effective for discovering collaboration partners and finding users with similar interests in order to create communities for providing future and longer-term helping exchange.

     

A cognitive component analysis approach for developing game-based spatial learning tools

Spatial ability has been recognized as one of the most important factors affecting the mathematical performance of students. Previous studies on spatial learning have mainly focused on developing strategies to shorten the problem-solving time of learners for very specific learning tasks. Such an approach usually has limited effects on improving the mathematical performance of students. In this study, a cognitive analysis approach is proposed for developing spatial learning tools by taking game characteristics into consideration. Moreover, the validation of the cognitive components of the spatial sense test for constructing two different kinds of intervention is verified, and the effects of the interventions are compared. To evaluate the performance of the proposed approach, an experiment was conducted on the mathematics course of an elementary school. The experimental results show that the spatial learning tool promotes not only the learning achievement, but also the spatial sense of the students.     

On the development of a cooperative tutoring environment on computer networks

In developing a tutoring system, one of the most difficult tasks is to collect tutoring knowledge from multiple educators, especially courses in which the contents change frequently, due to the advent of new technologies. We propose a Web-based intelligent tutoring strategy construction system, which is able to elicit, analyze, and integrate tutoring knowledge from multiple educators systematically. Experiments on two courses have been performed to evaluate the time, completeness, and accuracy improvement in constructing tutoring knowledge bases with our approach. According to the experimental results, it can be inferred that for most cases, our approach achieves desirable performance.     

Reversible Data Hiding Based on Greedy Pairing Prediction-Error Expansion

Reversible data hiding (RDH) is a method to embed messages into an image that human eyes are difficult to recognize the differences between the original image and the embedded image. The method needs to make sure that the original image and the embedded information can be exactly recovered. The prediction-error expansion (PEE) is a successful way to realize RDH. However, it is fixed when pairing the conventional two-dimensional prediction-error histogram (2D-PEH). So, the embedding capacity (EC) and embedding distortion (ED) are not satisfactory. In this study, we propose a method called greedy pairing prediction-error expansion (GPPEE) based on pairwise RDH and demonstrate GPPEE can achieve a more efficient embedding goal and reduce ED.     

Multimedia Encryption with Multiple Modes Product Cipher for Mobile Devices

The most straight forward method in multimedia encryption is to encrypt the entire stream using standard encryption methods, such as the data encryption standard (DES) or advanced encryption standard (AES). However, in the block ciphering, there exists an attack risk with the weakness of plaintext-ciphertext pairs (i.e. the plaintext-ciphertext pair problem). Therefore, several modes of operation are proposed to solve the above problem. As we all know, channel hopping can defend illegal listening. Thus, this paper has proposed a multimedia encryption scheme with the multiple modes product cipher (MMPC) for mobile devices. In practice, MMPC can increase the security level in wireless multimedia networks. The results of Android applications (Apps) system have shown that the overhead of MMPC is decreased by 2% in throughputs, if it is compared with that of the other straightforward mode ciphers.     

Gray Forecast Approach for Developing Distance Learning and Diagnostic Systems

In recent years, researchers have attempted to apply network techniques to the development of computer-assisted learning systems. They have also attempted to develop more effective programs to test and improve the learning performance of students. However, the most conventional testing systems present only a score as a test result, which is not capable of providing advice to the students. To cope with this problem, we propose a gray forecast approach for modeling the relationships among the subject concepts and the test items. These relationships are then employed to diagnose the student learning problems. A testing and diagnostic system based on our approach has, therefore, been implemented. Some experimental results have demonstrated the feasibility of this approach in enhancing the students' learning performance, making it highly promising for further study