Abstract: Modern information and communication technologies
offer a variety of support options for the efficient handling of
customer relationships. CRM systems have been developed, which
are designed to support the processes in the areas of marketing, sales
and service. Along with technological progress, CRM systems are
constantly changing, i.e. the systems are continually enhanced by
new functions. However, not all functions are suitable for every
company because of different frameworks and business processes. In
this context the question arises whether or not CRM systems are
widely used in Austrian companies and which business processes are
most frequently supported by CRM systems. This paper aims to shed
light on the popularity of CRM systems in Austrian companies in
general and the use of different functions to support their daily
business. First of all, the paper provides a theoretical overview of the
structure of modern CRM systems and proposes a categorization of
currently available software functionality for collaborative,
operational and analytical CRM processes, which provides the
theoretical background for the empirical study. Apart from these
theoretical considerations, the paper presents the empirical results of
a field survey on the use of CRM systems in Austrian companies and
analyzes its findings.
Abstract: Collaborative working environments for distance
education can be considered as a more generic form of contemporary
remote labs. At present, the majority of existing real laboratories are
not constructed to allow the involved participants to collaborate in
real time. To make this revolutionary learning environment possible
we must allow the different users to carry out an experiment
simultaneously. In recent times, multi-user environments are
successfully applied in many applications such as air traffic control
systems, team-oriented military systems, chat-text tools, multi-player
games etc. Thus, understanding the ideas and techniques behind these
systems could be of great importance in the contribution of ideas to
our e-learning environment for collaborative working. In this
investigation, collaborative working environments from theoretical
and practical perspectives are considered in order to build an
effective collaborative real laboratory, which allows two students or
more to conduct remote experiments at the same time as a team. In
order to achieve this goal, we have implemented distributed system
architecture, enabling students to obtain an automated help by either
a human tutor or a rule-based e-tutor.
Abstract: The complexity of today-s software systems makes
collaborative development necessary to accomplish tasks.
Frameworks are necessary to allow developers perform their tasks
independently yet collaboratively. Similarity detection is one of the
major issues to consider when developing such frameworks. It allows
developers to mine existing repositories when developing their own
views of a software artifact, and it is necessary for identifying the
correspondences between the views to allow merging them and
checking their consistency. Due to the importance of the
requirements specification stage in software development, this paper
proposes a framework for collaborative development of Object-
Oriented formal specifications along with a similarity detection
approach to support the creation, merging and consistency checking
of specifications. The paper also explores the impact of using
additional concepts on improving the matching results. Finally, the
proposed approach is empirically evaluated.
Abstract: From an economic standpoint the current and future
road traffic situation in urban areas is a cost factor. Traffic jams and
congestion prolong journey times and tie up resources in trucks and
personnel. Many discussions about imposing charges or tolls for
cities in Europe in order to reduce traffic congestion are currently in
progress. Both of these effects lead – directly or indirectly - to
additional costs for the urban distribution systems in retail
companies. One approach towards improving the efficiency of retail
distribution systems, and thus towards avoiding negative
environmental factors in urban areas, is horizontal collaboration for
deliveries to retail outlets – Urban Retail Logistics. This paper
presents a classification system to help reveal where cooperation
between retail companies is possible and makes sense for deliveries
to retail outlets in urban areas.
Abstract: It is necessary to incorporate technological advances
achieved in the field of engineering into dentistry in order to enhance
the process of diagnosis, treatment planning and enable the doctors to
render better treatment to their patients. To achieve this ultimate goal
long distance collaborations are often necessary. This paper discusses
the various collaborative tools and their applications to solve a few
burning problems confronted by the dentists. Customization is often
the solution to most of the problems. But rapid designing,
development and cost effective manufacturing is a difficult task to
achieve. This problem can be solved using the technique of digital
manufacturing. Cases from 6 major branches of dentistry have been
discussed and possible solutions with the help of state of art
technology using rapid digital manufacturing have been proposed in
the present paper. The paper also entails the usage of existing tools in
collaborative and digital manufacturing area.
Abstract: Nowadays companies in all sectors are looking for the
sources of competitive advantages. Holistic marketing approach
searches for their emergence based on the integration of all
components and elements across the organization. Modern marketing
sees the sources of competitive advantage in implementing the latest
managerial practices, motivation, intelligent project management,
knowledge management, collaborative marketing, CSR and, in the
recent years, also in the business process optimization. With the use
of modern tools including business process management and business
process modelling the company can markedly increase its internal
efficiency which can lead not only to lowering the costs but to
creating the environment for optimal customer care, positive
corporate culture and for origination of innovations as well. In the
article the authors analyze the recent trend in this area and introduce
suggestions to companies to identify and optimize the key processes
that have a significant impact of the company´s competitiveness.
Abstract: The importance of our country-s communication
system is noticeable when a disaster occurs. The communication
system in our country includes wired and wireless telephone
networks, radio, satellite system and more increasingly internet. Even
though our communication system is most extensive and dependable,
extreme conditions can put a strain on them. Interoperability between
heterogeneous wireless networks can be used to provide efficient
communication for emergency first response. IEEE 802.21 specifies
Media Independent Handover (MIH) services to enhance the mobile
user experience by optimizing handovers between heterogeneous
access networks. This paper presents an algorithm to improve
congestion control in MIH framework. It is analytically shown that
by including time factor in network selection we can optimize
congestion in the network.
Abstract: Nowadays, many manufacturing companies try to
reinforce their competitiveness or find a breakthrough by considering
collaboration. In Korea, more than 900 manufacturing companies are
using web-based collaboration systems developed by the
government-led project, referred to as i-Manufacturing. The system
supports some similar functions of Product Data Management (PDM)
as well as Project Management System (PMS). A web-based
collaboration system provides many useful functions for collaborative
works. This system, however, does not support new linking services
between buyers and suppliers. Therefore, in order to find new
collaborative partners, this paper proposes a framework which creates
new connections between buyers and suppliers facilitating their
collaboration, referred to as Excellent Manufacturer Scouting System
(EMSS). EMSS plays a role as a bridge between overseas buyers and
suppliers. As a part of study on EMSS, we also propose an evaluation
method of manufacturability of potential partners with six main factors.
Based on the results of evaluation, buyers may get a good guideline to
choose their new partners before getting into negotiation processes
with them.
Abstract: Cooperative learning has been defined as learners working together as a team to solve a problem to complete a task or to accomplish a common goal, which emphasizes the importance of interactions among members to promote the whole learning performance. With the popularity of society networks, cooperative learning is no longer limited to traditional classroom teaching activities. Since society networks facilitate to organize online learners, to establish common shared visions, and to advance learning interaction, the online community and online learning community have triggered the establishment of web-based societies. Numerous research literatures have indicated that the collaborative learning community is a critical issue to enhance learning performance. Hence, this paper proposes a learning community recommendation approach to facilitate that a learner joins the appropriate learning communities, which is based on k-nearest neighbor (kNN) classification. To demonstrate the viability of the proposed approach, the proposed approach is implemented for 117 students to recommend learning communities. The experimental results indicate that the proposed approach can effectively recommend appropriate learning communities for learners.
Abstract: This study proposes novel hybrid social network analysis and collaborative filtering approach to enhance the performance of recommender systems. The proposed model selects subgroups of users in Internet community through social network analysis (SNA), and then performs clustering analysis using the information about subgroups. Finally, it makes recommendations using cluster-indexing CF based on the clustering results. This study tries to use the cores in subgroups as an initial seed for a conventional clustering algorithm. This model chooses five cores which have the highest value of degree centrality from SNA, and then performs clustering analysis by using the cores as initial centroids (cluster centers). Then, the model amplifies the impact of friends in social network in the process of cluster-indexing CF.
Abstract: Implementing Information Technology/ Information
System (IT/IS) is critical for every industry as its potential benefits
have been to motivate many industries including the Malaysian
construction industry to invest in it. To successfully implement IT/IS
has become the major concern for every organisation. Identifying the
critical success factors (CSFs) has become the main agenda for
researchers, academicians and practitioners due to the wide number
of failures reported. This research paper seeks to identify the CSFs
that influence the successful implementation of IT/IS in construction
industry in Malaysia. Limited factors relating to people issue will be
highlighted here to showcase some as it becomes one of the major
contributing factors to the failure. Three (3) organisations have
participated in this study. Semi-structured interviews are employed as
they offer sufficient flexibility to ensure that all relevant factors are
covered. Several key issues contributing to successful
implementations of IT/IS are identified. The results of this study
reveal that top management support, communication, user
involvement, IT staff roles and responsibility, training/skills, leader/
IT Leader, organisation culture, knowledge/ experience, motivation,
awareness, focus and ambition, satisfaction, teamwork/ collaboration,
willingness to change, attitude, commitment, management style,
interest in IT, employee behaviour towards collaborative
environment, trust, interpersonal relationship, personal characteristic
and competencies are significantly associated with the successful
implementations of IT/IS. It is anticipated that this study will create
awareness and contribute to a better understanding amongst
construction industry players and will assist them to successfully
implement IT/IS.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to introduce an advanced
system for the support of processing of medical image information,
and the terminology related to this system, which can be an important
element to a faster transition to a fully digitalized hospital.
The core of the system is a set of DICOM compliant applications
running over a dedicated computer network. The whole integrated
system creates a collaborative platform supporting daily routines in
the radiology community, developing communication channels,
supporting the exchange of information and special consultations
among various medical institutions as well as supporting medical
training for practicing radiologists and medical students. It gives the
users outside of hospitals the tools to work in almost the same
conditions as in the radiology departments.
Abstract: This study suggests how an order-receiving company
can avoid disclosing schedule information on unit tasks to the
order-placing company when carrying out a collaborative project on
the value chain in an order-oriented industry. Specifically, it suggests
methods for keeping schedule information confidential, and
categorizes potential situations by inter-task dependency. Lastly, an
approach to select the most optimal non-disclosure method is
discussed. With the methods for not disclosing work-related
information suggested in the study, order-receiving companies can
logically deal with political issues relating to the question of whether
or not to disclose information upon the execution of a collaborative
project in cooperation with an order-placing firm. Moreover,
order-placing companies can monitor undistorted information, while
respecting the legitimate rights of an order-receiving company.
Therefore, it is fair to say that the suggestions made in this study will
contribute to the smooth operation of collaborative intercompany
projects.
Abstract: In order to monitor for traffic traversal, sensors can be
deployed to perform collaborative target detection. Such a sensor
network achieves a certain level of detection performance with the
associated costs of deployment and routing protocol. This paper
addresses these two points of sensor deployment and routing algorithm
in the situation where the absolute quantity of sensors or total energy
becomes insufficient. This discussion on the best deployment system
concluded that two kinds of deployments; Normal and Power law
distributions, show 6 and 3 times longer than Random distribution in
the duration of coverage, respectively. The other discussion on routing
algorithm to achieve good performance in each deployment system
was also addressed. This discussion concluded that, in place of the
traditional algorithm, a new algorithm can extend the time of coverage
duration by 4 times in a Normal distribution, and in the circumstance
where every deployed sensor operates as a binary model.
Abstract: Image-based Rendering(IBR) techniques recently
reached in broad fields which leads to a critical challenge to build up
IBR-Driven visualization platform where meets requirement of high
performance, large bounds of distributed visualization resource
aggregation and concentration, multiple operators deploying and
CSCW design employing. This paper presents an unique IBR-based
visualization dataflow model refer to specific characters of IBR
techniques and then discusses prominent feature of IBR-Driven
distributed collaborative visualization (DCV) system before finally
proposing an novel prototype. The prototype provides a well-defined
three level modules especially work as Central Visualization Server,
Local Proxy Server and Visualization Aid Environment, by which
data and control for collaboration move through them followed the
previous dataflow model. With aid of this triple hierarchy architecture
of that, IBR oriented application construction turns to be easy. The
employed augmented collaboration strategy not only achieve
convenient multiple users synchronous control and stable processing
management, but also is extendable and scalable.
Abstract: A virtual collaborative classroom was created at East Carolina University, using videoconference technology via regular internet to bring students from 18 different countries, 2 at a time, to the ECU classroom in real time to learn about each other-s culture. Students from two countries are partnered one on one, they meet for 4-5 weeks, and submit a joint paper. Then the same process is repeated for two other countries. Lectures and student discussions are managed with pre-determined topics and questions. Classes are conducted in English and reading assignments are placed on the website. Administratively all partners are independent, students pay fees and get credits at their home institution. Familiarity with technology, knowledge in cultural understanding and attitude change were assessed, only attitude changes are reported in this paper. After taking this course, all students stated their comfort level in working with, and their desire to interact with, culturally different others grew stronger and their xenophobia and isolationist attitudes decreased.
Abstract: In modern distributed software systems, the issue of communication among composing parts represents a critical point, but the idea of extending conventional programming languages with general purpose communication constructs seems difficult to realize. As a consequence, there is a (growing) gap between the abstraction level required by distributed applications and the concepts provided by platforms that enable communication. This work intends to discuss how the Model Driven Software Development approach can be considered as a mature technology to generate in automatic way the schematic part of applications related to communication, by providing at the same time high level specialized languages useful in all the phases of software production. To achieve the goal, a stack of languages (meta-meta¬models) has been introduced in order to describe – at different levels of abstraction – the collaborative behavior of generic entities in terms of communication actions related to a taxonomy of messages. Finally, the generation of platforms for communication is viewed as a form of specification of language semantics, that provides executable models of applications together with model-checking supports and effective runtime environments.