Computer Sciences Commons^™

G-Sense: A Scalable Architecture For Global Sensing And Monitoring, Alfredo J. Perez, Miguel A. Labrador, Sean J. Barbeau

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The pervasiveness of cellular phones combined with Internet connectivity, GPS embedded chips, location information, and integrated sensors provide an excellent platform to collect data about the individual and its surrounding environment. As a result, new applications have recently appeared to address large-scale societal problems as well as improve the quality of life of the individual. However, these new applications, recently called location-based services, participatory sensing, and human-centric sensing, bring many new challenges, one of them being the management of the huge amount of traffic (data) they generate. This article presents G-Sense, for Global-Sense, an architecture that integrates mobile and static …

A Location-Aware Framework For Intelligent Real-Time Mobile Applications, Sean J. Barbeau, Rafael A. Perez, Miguel A. Labrador, Alfredo J. Perez, Nevine Labib Georggi, Philip L. Winters

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The Location-Aware Information Systems Client (LAISYC) supports intelligent, real-time, mobile applications for GPS-enabled mobile phones by dynamically adjusting platform parameters for application performance while conserving device resources such as battery life.

A Dynamic Energy-Aware Model For Scheduling Computationally Intensive Bioinformatics Applications, Sachin Pawaskar, Hesham Ali

Computer Science Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

High Performance Computing (HPC) resources are housed in large datacenters, which consume huge amounts of energy and are quickly demanding attention from businesses as they result in high operating costs. On the other hand HPC environments have been very useful to researchers in many emerging areas in life sciences such as Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics. In this paper, we provide a dynamic model for energy aware scheduling (EAS) in a HPC environment; we use a widely used bioinformatics tool named BLAT (BLAST-like alignment tool) running in a HPC environment as our case study. Our proposed EAS model incorporates 2-Phases: an …

Can The Presence Of Online Word Of Mouth Increase Product Sales?, Alanah Mitchell, Deepak Khazanchi

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

The power and potential impact of online word of mouth has increased substantially. Consumers have come to accept and rely upon online word of mouth, so it is important to understand how it works and what kind of impact it has on online product sales. This article provides an assessment of this question through an analysis of sales and online word of mouth data from a multi-product e-commerce retail firm.

Sat-Based Answer Set Programming, Yuliya Lierler

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Answer set programming (ASP) is a declarative programming paradigm oriented towards difficult combinatorial search problems. Syntactically, ASP programs look like Prolog programs, but solutions are represented in ASP by sets of atoms, and not by substitutions, as in Prolog. Answer set systems, such as SMODELS, SMODELSCC, and DLV, compute answer sets of a given program in the sense of the answer set (stable model) semantics. This is different from the functionality of Prolog systems, which determine when a given query is true relative to a given logic program. ASP has been applied to many areas of science and technology, from …

Sense Of Place In Virtual World Learning Environments: A Conceptual Exploration, Vipin Arora, Deepak Khazanchi

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

In this paper we conceptually explore the notion of sense of place and its potential use in the design of a ‗place for learning‘ in 3D immersive environments such as virtual worlds. We draw from earlier research in the fields of environmental psychology, social psychology and Human Computer Interaction. Our goal in this paper is to summarize the conceptual foundations that will form the basis for further empirical research aimed to inform institutions aspiring to create learning spaces in 3D virtual worlds.

A Pda Intervention To Sustain Smoking Cessation In Clients With Socioeconomic Vulnerability, Lynne Buchanan, Deepak Khazanchi

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

This article describes a pilot study to explore use of a personal digital assistant (PDA) to sustain smoking cessation after discharge in clients with socioeconomic vulnerability. The major aim is to describe technology acceptance (perceived ease of use, usefulness, and attitude), portability, technical difficulty, satisfaction, and use time. The sample includes 31 medical surgical clients with average age of 47.35 (±13.3), average household income of $13,629 (±8,204), average number in the household of 2.67 (±2.22), and average education of 11th grade. The results demonstrate mean use time of 9.28 (±3.23) hr, or about 1 hr over 8 weeks. Technology acceptance …

Representing Synonymity In Causal Logic And In Logic Programming, Joohyung Lee, Yuliya Lierler, Vladimir Lifschitz, Fangkai Yang

Computer Science Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

We investigate the relationship between rules representing synonymity in nonmonotonic causal logic and in answer set programming. This question is of interest in connection with current work on modular languages for describing actions.

An Intelligent Data-Centric Approach Toward Identification Of Conserved Motifs In Protein Sequences, Kathryn Dempsey Cooper, Benjamin Currall, Richard Hallworth, Hesham Ali

Interdisciplinary Informatics Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

The continued integration of the computational and biological sciences has revolutionized genomic and proteomic studies. However, efficient collaboration between these fields requires the creation of shared standards. A common problem arises when biological input does not properly fit the expectations of the algorithm, which can result in misinterpretation of the output. This potential confounding of input/output is a drawback especially when regarding motif finding software. Here we propose a method for improving output by selecting input based upon evolutionary distance, domain architecture, and known function. This method improved detection of both known and unknown motifs in two separate case studies. …

The Role Of An Effective It Intervention For Microenterprises, Changsoo Song, Sajda Qureshi

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Information technology (IT) interventions for micro-enterprises are fragmented and their approach lacks theoretical foundations. While various researchers have conducted studies on the effects of IT adoption in micro-enterprises, little research has been conducted to explain critical aspects of an effective IT intervention for micro-enterprises from a theoretical perspective. This study aims to fill this gap and empirically investigate how IT interventions can effectively facilitate the process of IT adoption by micro-enterprises. This paper suggests that effective IT interventions may have considerable potential for facilitating IT adoption among micro-enterprises across the United States and the world. Following an analysis of four …

Information Technology Adoption In Latin American Microenterprises, Travis Good, Mehruz Kamal, Sajda Qureshi, Nancy Jimenez

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

The majority of businesses in developing regions across the world are microenterprises. In recent years, this form of business has been particularly resilient to economic downturns. While microenterprises are the least likely to succeed, when they do, their growth increases by a factor of 3.4% when they adopt technology. However, the challenges faced by microenterprises make it very difficult for them to adopt technology successfully. Existing theoretical models of ICT adoption have centered on intent to adopt in large organizations, and thus lack applicability to microenterprises, wherein the intent to adopt is an individual decision. This paper builds on prior …

A Coherent Measurement Of Web-Search Relevance, William Mahoney, Peter Hospodka, William Sousan, Ryan Nickell, Qiuming Zhu

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We present a metric for quantitatively assessing the quality of Web searches. The relevance-of-searching-on-target index measures how relevant a search result is with respect to the searcher's interest and intention. The measurement is established on the basis of the cognitive characteristics of common user's online Web-browsing behavior and processes. We evaluated the accuracy of the index function with respect to a set of surveys conducted on several groups of our college students. While the index is primarily intended to be used to compare the Web-search results and tell which is more relevant, it can be extended to other applications. For …

My Guild, My Team: Applying The Technology Capabilities Of Massively Multiplayer Online Games To Virtual Project Teams, Dawn Owens, Deepak Khazanchi

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Millions of people are playing Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), a computer game genre where thousands of players interact daily in highly complex virtual world environments. These players self-organize, develop skills, and acquire various roles. MMOGs appear to mirror the complexity of the business context while offering unique technology capabilities that appear to encourage group participation and emergent leadership. Managing a remote workforce across different time zones, geography and culture requires effective virtual collaboration and management of communication, coordination challenges and control issues. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the unique technology capabilities of MMOGs and propose …

Information Technology (It) Investment Decisions Under Asymmetric Information: A Modified Rational Expectation Model, Jinlan Ni, Deepak Khazanchi

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

In this paper, we propose that information technology (IT) managers make investment decisions about new IT initiatives based on a modified rational expectation model. Unlike traditional rational expectation models, we emphasize the relevance of market uncertainty and its impact on the return of new IT investment. This results in information acquisition decisions by managers that can cause information asymmetry. This information asymmetry is endogenous and so the IT manager can become well informed if and only if it is beneficial to do so. We also capture different levels of IT investment across managers by introducing heterogeneity across managers in terms …

Moving First Life Into Secondlife: Real World Opportunities For Virtual Teams And Virtual World Project Management, Dawn Owens, Alanah Davis, John D. Murphy, Deepak Khazanchi, Ilze Zigurs

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

Consider a world where you can: conduct training sessions and bring together experts from around the globe in a single, common environment where learning is possible; hold effective meetings in a shared space where distant resources and people can come together to communicate, laugh, and create artifacts quickly and easily; and, coordinate a project with ease and overcome cultural barriers to team effectiveness. These scenarios can be realized with virtual world (VW) technology.

Avatars, People, And Virtual Worlds: Foundations For Research In Metaverses, Alanah Davis, John D. Murphy, Dawn Owens, Deepak Khazanchi, Ilze Zigurs

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

Metaverses are immersive three-dimensional virtual worlds in which people interact as avatars with each other and with software agents, using the metaphor of the real world but without its physical limitations. The ubiquitous availability of high speed Internet access has spurred enormous interest in virtual worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft, both in terms of user gaming and as a new technological platform for global virtual collaboration. These environments have potential for richer, more engaging collaboration, but their capabilities have yet to be examined in depth. Of particular interest in this paper is the use of metaverses for …

The Influence Of Affect, Attitude And Usefulness In The Acceptance Of Telemedicine Systems, Soussan Djamasbi,, Ann L. Fruhling, Eleanor T. Loiacono

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

Grounded in current theories of affect this study examines the role positive and negative moods play on the acceptance of a specialized telemedicine system for microbiology consultation and diagnostics, referred to as telepathology. From a laboratory experiment using microbiology laboratory assistants, the notion that healthcare users’ attitude is an important factor in the acceptance behavior of a healthcare information system is supported. A regression analysis of the data revealed the need to tailor the IS Technology Acceptance Model for the healthcare field. Specifically, our results show that ease of use which is thought to be a main antecedent of end-user …

One More Decidable Class Of Finitely Ground Programs, Yuliya Lierler, Vladimir Lifschitz

Computer Science Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

When a logic program is processed by an answer set solver, the first task is to generate its instantiation. In a recent paper, Calimeri et el. made the idea of efficient instantiation precise for the case of disjunctive programs with function symbols, and introduced the class of “finitely ground” programs that can be efficiently instantiated. Since that class is undecidable, it is important to find its large decidable subsets. In this paper, we introduce such a subset—the class of argumentrestricted programs. It includes, in particular, all finite domain programs, ω-restricted programs, and λ-restricted programs.

Knowledge Management And Organizational Learning, William R. King, Sajda Qureshi, Mehruz Kamal, Peter Keen

Faculty Books and Monographs

Editor: William R. King

Chapter, Knowledge Networking to Overcome the Digital Divide, co-authored by Sajda Qureshi, UNO faculty member.

As organizations become increasingly extended across global boundaries, their reliance on information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support their processes increases. The use of ICTs to activate dispersed knowledge within complex webs of human networks can enable the gap between the information rich and information poor to be overcome. This paper develops a new concept called knowledge networking and investigates how this process enables the digital divide to be overcome. Following a phenomenological analysis of knowledge networking using a selection of …

How Can Information And Communication Technology Bring About Development? An Information Architecture For Guiding Interventions In Developing Regions, Mehruz Kamal, Sajda Qureshi

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

While a great deal is known about how Information and Communication Technologies are used in developing and underserved communities, there are still gaps as to how ICTs may enable development outcomes to be achieved. It appears that the majority of businesses in developing regions are micro-enterprises which employ between 1-5 people and face challenges of limited resources. This research investigates what is known about how ICTs bring about development and uses these insights to develop an information architecture adapted from the Zachman Framework that integrates the different perspectives. In this research, the key stakeholders are the micro-entrepreneurs who adopt technology …

Collecting Open Source Intelligence Via Tailored Information Delivery Systems, William Sousan, Qiuming Zhu, Ryan Nickell, William Mahoney, Peter Hospodka

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The Internet offers a plethora of freely available information for possible use in Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) operations. However, along with this information come challenges in finding relevant information and overcoming information overload. This paper presents the results of an ongoing research in a Tailored Information Delivery Services (TIDS) system that aids users in retrieving relevant information through various open intelligence sources. The TIDS provides a semantics-based query constructor that operates in a “What You Get is What You Need (WYGIWYN^TM)” fashion and builds ontology based information tagging, theme extractor, and contextual model.

Information Technology’S Influence On Productivity, Jason Smith

Student Work

Previous research has had mixed results correlating information technology investments to increases in productivity. This research surveyed the perceptions of information technology managers to determine the impact that information technology, decentralized decision making, and improved business processes have on productivity. It concluded that information technology’s influence on productivity is to magnify the effect of decentralized decision making and improved business processes.

Guidelines For Evaluating Patterns In The Is Domain, Deepak Khazanchi, John D. Murphy, Stacie Clarke Petter

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Patterns were originally developed in the field of architecture as a mechanism for communicating good solutions to recurring classes of problems. Since then researchers have created patterns to provide guidance and solutions associated with virtual project management, software development and engineering, human computer interaction, and design science research. However, there has been limited emphasis on developing guidelines for evaluating the validity of patterns. In this paper, we propose an evaluation framework for patterns that draws upon the literature associated with patterns, philosophy of science and research methods. The evaluation framework can be used to validate patterns in a more consistent …

Risk Analysis In Extended Enterprise Environments: Identification Of Critical Risk Factors In B2b E-Commerce Relationships, Steve G. Sutton, Clark Hampton, Deepak Khazanchi, Vicky Arnold

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

The focus of this study is to identify the critical risk factors that can be used to assess the impact of B2B e-commerce on overall enterprise risk. We apply the Khazanchi and Sutton (2001) framework for B2B e-commerce assurance is applied as the organizing conceptual model for the study. The framework focuses on three primary risk components: (1) technical risks, (2) application-user risks, and (3) business risks. To identify a critical set of B2B risk factors, structured focus groups applying a nominal group technique were conducted with three internal constituency groups (corporate groups consisting of IS security, internal IT audit, …

From Profiles To Patterns: A New View Of Task-Technology Fit, Ilze Zigurs, Deepak Khazanchi

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

Continuing advances in the capabilities of communication and information technologies provide a wide array of interesting ways for people to collaborate across space, time, cultures, and organizational boundaries. While the use of collaboration technologies spreads, researchers seek answers to understanding how best to match different technology capabilities with the tasks that teams need to accomplish. Different theories of task-technology fit have been promoted and these theories help to identify key issues of interest to both researchers and practitioners who seek the answer to the best technology support for collaboration. We examine existing theories of fit for collaboration technology and propose …

Dynamic Energy Aware Task Scheduling For Periodic Tasks Using Expected Execution Time Feedback, Sachin Pawaskar, Hesham Ali

Computer Science Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Scheduling dependent tasks is one of the most challenging problems in parallel and distributed systems. It is known to be computationally intractable in its general form as well as several restricted cases. An interesting application of scheduling is in the area of energy awareness for mobile battery operated devices where minimizing the energy utilized is the most important scheduling policy consideration. A number of heuristics have been developed for this consideration. In this paper, we study the scheduling problem for a particular battery model. In the proposed work, we show how to enhance a well know approach of accounting for …

On The Tradeoff Between Speedup And Energy Consumption In High Performance Computing – A Bioinformatics Case Study, Sachin Pawaskar, Hesham Ali

Computer Science Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

High Performance Computing has been very useful to researchers in the Bioinformatics, Medical and related fields. The bioinformatics domain is rich in applications that require extracting useful information from very large and continuously growing sequence of databases. Automated techniques such as DNA sequencers, DNA microarrays & others are continually growing the dataset that is stored in large public databases such as GenBank and Protein DataBank. Most methods used for analyzing genetic/protein data have been found to be extremely computationally intensive, providing motivation for the use of powerful computers or systems with high throughput characteristics. In this paper, we provide a …

Abstract Answer Set Solvers, Yuliya Lierler

Computer Science Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Nieuwenhuis, Oliveras, and Tinelli showed how to describe enhancements of the Davis-Putnam-Logemann-Loveland algorithm using transition systems, instead of pseudocode. We design a similar framework for three algorithms that generate answer sets for logic programs: SMODELS, ASP-SAT with Backtracking, and a newly designed and implemented algorithm SUP. This approach to describing answer set solvers makes it easier to prove their correctness, to compare them, and to design new systems.

Information Technology Adoption By Small Businesses In Minority And Ethnic Communities, Sajda Qureshi, Anne S. York

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Information systems adoption by small businesses often is viewed as a basic building block of economic development. Yet, the components that impact business success and thus economic development are mostly unexplored, especially within the context of minority and ethnic communities, both domestically and internationally. Given that IT adoption in small businesses is very often the domain of the business owner, an investigation of how the attributes of individual business owners and the context in which they are embedded is essential. This paper develops an integrative model of the role that IT adoption plays in business success and the economic development …

Adoption Of Information Technology By Micro-Enterprises: Insights From A Rural Community, Sajda Qureshi, Mehruz Kamal, Travis Good

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

It appears that the growth of micro-enterprises is a key driver of economic development in underserved communities. However their growth is limited to only 20% of the economy even though they comprise 87% of businesses in Nebraska. Research has shown that IT adoption can increase their growth by 3.5% but the challenges to IT adoption by microenterprises are many. Current theoretical models on IT adoption focus on the intent to adopt IT in large organizations where employees’ attitudes and perceptions are measured in terms of their objectives within the structures of accountability. Microenterprises are unique in that the intention to …