Databases and Information Systems Commons^™

Leadership Strategies For Improving Employee Engagement In The Information Technology Industry, Geneva L. Reed

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Disengaged employees in the information technology industry lead to decreased productivity, increased absenteeism, poor job performance, higher employee turnover, and reduced organizational effectiveness. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the leadership strategies that information technology leaders used to improve employee engagement. The transformational leadership theory was the conceptual framework for this study. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 3 leaders of information technology companies in Illinois and a review of company documents. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis and using Yin's 5-step process of compiling, disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, and concluding data. The 3 emergent themes …

Two-Sided Value-Based Music Artist Recommendation In Streaming Music Services, J. Ren, Robert John Kauffman, D. King

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Most work on music recommendations has focused on the consumer side not the provider side. We develop a two-sided value-based approach to music artist recommendation for a streaming music scenario. It combines the value yielded for the music industry and consumers in an integrated model. For the industry, the approach aims to increase the conversion rate of potential listeners to adopters, which produces new revenue. For consumers, it aims to improve their utility related to recommendations they receive. We use one year of listening records for 15,000+ Last.fm users to train and test the proposed recommendation model on 143 artists. …

Big Data Investment And Knowledge Integration In Academic Libraries, Saher Manaseer, Afnan R. Alawneh, Dua Asoudi

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Recently, big data investment has become important for organizations, especially with the fast growth of data following the huge expansion in the usage of social media applications, and websites. Many organizations depend on extracting and reaching the needed reports and statistics. As the investments on big data and its storage have become major challenges for organizations, many technologies and methods have been developed to tackle those challenges.

One of such technologies is Hadoop, a framework that is used to divide big data into packages and distribute those packages through nodes to be processed, consuming less cost than the traditional storage …

Automated Essay Evaluation Using Natural Language Processing And Machine Learning, Harshanthi Ghanta

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of automated essay evaluation is to assign grades to essays and provide feedback using computers. Automated evaluation is increasingly being used in classrooms and online exams. The aim of this project is to develop machine learning models for performing automated essay scoring and evaluate their performance. In this research, a publicly available essay data set was used to train and test the efficacy of the adopted techniques. Natural language processing techniques were used to extract features from essays in the dataset. Three different existing machine learning algorithms were used on the chosen dataset. The data was divided into …

Women Leaders In Information Technology: A Phenomenological Study Of Their Career Paths, Michelle Newsome

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the United States, women remain underrepresented in senior level positions in the information technology (IT) field. Despite this challenge, a few women have successfully ascended into senior leadership in IT. Using the social cognitive theory as the conceptual framework, the purpose of this qualitative transcendental phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of senior women leaders in the IT field. The research question explored the lived personal and professional experiences of senior women leaders in IT to gain an understanding of their career advancement into senior leadership positions. Through the use of the modified Van Kaam method of …

Cybersecurity Strategies For Universities With Bring Your Own Device Programs, Hai Vu Nguyen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon has proliferated, making its way into different business and educational sectors and enabling multiple vectors of attack and vulnerability to protected data. The purpose of this multiple-case study was to explore the strategies information technology (IT) security professionals working in a university setting use to secure an environment to support BYOD in a university system. The study population was comprised of IT security professionals from the University of California campuses currently managing a network environment for at least 2 years where BYOD has been implemented. Protection motivation theory was the study's conceptual framework. …

Strategies To Recruit Skilled Workers In Manufacturing, Ina Renee Rawlinson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Manufacturing hiring managers in the United States who fail to implement adequate recruitment strategies for skilled production workers experience reduced profits and sustainability challenges. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies that successful manufacturing hiring managers in North Carolina used to recruit skilled production workers to sustain business profitability. Inductive analysis was guided by the human capital theory, and trustworthiness of interpretations was strengthened by member checking. The population for the study consisted of 4 business leaders who demonstrated the use of effective recruitment strategies to sustain profitability in manufacturing businesses in southeastern North Carolina. …

Strategizing Effective Succession Planning For Information Technology Executives, Michael Barr

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Organizations across the United States lose hundreds of millions of dollars each year due to the lack of effective succession planning for information technology executives. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies for the development and implementation of effective succession plans for future information technology executives. Bass and Avolio's transformational leadership theory was the conceptual framework for this study. The 3 participants were selected based upon their roles as executives in technology-related positions and their experiences with succession planning. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with these executives from a company headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. …

Information Technology Outsourcing Strategies To Ensure Customer Satisfaction, Clyde Rajack

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many information technology (IT) outsourcing initiatives fail, resulting in a high impact on business results and customer satisfaction. Without effective strategies, business leaders who outsource their IT services are at considerable risk of failure and stakeholder dissatisfaction. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore outsourcing strategies that IT managers in Southern Ontario, Canada, used to ensure customer satisfaction. Participants included 9 executives with experience in complex IT outsourcing initiatives. Stakeholder theory and transaction cost economics theory were the conceptual frameworks for the study. Data were gathered using semistructured interviews to query 8 topical areas including IT outsourcing …

Exploration Of K-5 Teacher Decision-Making Related To Student Use Of Technology, Eric Noel Rodriguez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Student technology literacy is critical for success in today’s world; however, little is understood about how teachers make the decision for students to use technology for learning due to limited empirical research on the topic of teacher decision-making regarding student use of information communication technologies (ICT). The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to explore the decision-making process of kindergarten to Grade 5 (K-5) teachers regarding implementation of ICT for student use at varying levels. The framework for this study comprised the substitution augmentation modification redefinition model and the technology acceptance model. The research questions focused on how teachers …

Cloud Computing Adoption In Afghanistan: A Quantitative Study Based On The Technology Acceptance Model, George T. Nassif

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cloud computing emerged as an alternative to traditional in-house data centers that businesses can leverage to increase the operation agility and employees' productivity. IT solution architects are tasked with presenting to IT managers some analysis reflecting cloud computing adoption critical barriers and challenges. This quantitative correlational study established an enhanced technology acceptance model (TAM) with four external variables: perceived security (PeS), perceived privacy (PeP), perceived connectedness (PeN), and perceived complexity (PeC) as antecedents of perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEoU) in a cloud computing context. Data collected from 125 participants, who responded to the invitation through an …

Online Burst Events Detection Oriented Real-Time Microblog Message Stream, Guozhong Dong, Jun Gao, Liang Huang, Chunlei Shi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The rapid spread of microblog messages and sensitivity of unexpected events make microblog become the public opinion center of burst events. Online burst events detection oriented real-time microblog message stream has become an important research problem in the field of microblog public opinion. Because of the large amount of real-time microblog message stream and irregular language of microblog message, it is important to process real-time microblog message stream and detect burst events accurately. In this paper, an online burst events detection framework is proposed. In this framework, abnormal messages are detected based on sliding time window and two-level hash table. …

Semi-Supervised Deep Embedded Clustering, Yazhou Ren, Kangrong Hu, Xinyi Dai, Lili Pan, Steven C. H. Hoi, Zenglin Xu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Clustering is an important topic in machine learning and data mining. Recently, deep clustering, which learns feature representations for clustering tasks using deep neural networks, has attracted increasing attention for various clustering applications. Deep embedded clustering (DEC) is one of the state-of-theart deep clustering methods. However, DEC does not make use of prior knowledge to guide the learning process. In this paper, we propose a new scheme of semi-supervised deep embedded clustering (SDEC) to overcome this limitation. Concretely, SDEC learns feature representations that favor the clustering tasks and performs clustering assignments simultaneously. In contrast to DEC, SDEC incorporates pairwise constraints …

An Economic Analysis Of Consumer Learning On Entertainment Shopping Websites, Jin Li, Zhiling Guo, Geoffrey K.F. Tso

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Online entertainment shopping, normally supported by the pay-to-bid auction mechanism, represents an innovative business model in e-commerce. Because the unique selling mechanism combines features of shopping and online auction, consumers expect both monetary return and entertainment value from their participation. We propose a dynamic structural model to analyze consumer behaviors on entertainment shopping websites. The model captures the consumer learning process, based both on individual participation experiences and also on observational learning of historical auction information. We estimate the model using a large data set from an online entertainment shopping website. Results show that consumers’ initial participation incentives mainly come …

The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory Of Organised Social Media Manipulation, Samantha Bradshaw, Philip N. Howard

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Executive Summary

Over the past three years, we have monitored the global organization of social media manipulation by governments and political parties. Our 2019 report analyses the trends of computational propaganda and the evolving tools, capacities, strategies, and resources.

1. Evidence of organized social media manipulation campaigns which have taken place in 70 countries, up from 48 countries in 2018 and 28 countries in 2017. In each country, there is at least one political party or government agency using social media to shape public attitudes domestically.

2.Social media has become co-opted by many authoritarian regimes. In 26 countries, computational propaganda …

Global Inference For Aspect And Opinion Terms Co-Extraction Based On Multi-Task Neural Networks, Jianfei Yu, Jing Jiang, Rui Xia

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Extracting aspect terms and opinion terms are two fundamental tasks in opinion mining. The recent success of deep learning has inspired various neural network architectures, which have been shown to achieve highly competitive performance in these two tasks. However, most existing methods fail to explicitly consider the syntactic relations among aspect terms and opinion terms, which may lead to the inconsistencies between the model predictions and the syntactic constraints. To this end, we first apply a multi-task learning framework to implicitly capture the relations between the two tasks, and then propose a global inference method by explicitly modelling several syntactic …

Factors That Predict The Adoption Of Online Shopping In Saudi Arabia, Momen Nachar

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite the increased numbers of online consumers, e-commerce growth is slow in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In this correlational study, the technology acceptance model (TAM) was used as a theoretical framework to examine whether perceived ease of use of e-commerce platforms and perceived usefulness of e-commerce platforms could predict consumers' intention to adopt shopping online. A pre-existing TAM survey instrument was used to collect data from consumers (N = 95) who live in a City and have shopped at least once online. The regression analysis confirmed a positive statistically significant relationship between perceived ease of use of e-commerce platforms …

Innovation Strategies In Small Agrarian Businesses In Sierra Leone, Solomon Sorba Scholz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In 2015, a sharp decline in the sustainability of small agrarian businesses in Sierra Leone resulted in the gross domestic product declining by 41%. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the innovation strategies owners of small agrarian businesses use to sustain their businesses for longer than 5 years. The disruptive innovation theory was the conceptual framework for this study. The participants were 16 owners of small agrarian businesses from Makeni, Kenema, Bo, and Freetown districts in Sierra Leone who have sustained their businesses for longer than 5 years. Data were collected using semistructured interviews, personal notes, …

Public Servants' Perceptions Of The Cybersecurity Posture Of The Local Government In Puerto Rico, Julio C. Rodriguez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The absence of legislation, the lack of a standard cybersecurity framework, and the failure to adopt a resilient cybersecurity posture can be detrimental to the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of municipal information systems. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the cybersecurity posture of municipalities from the perception of public servants serving in information technology (IT) leadership roles in highly populated municipalities in the San Juan-Carolina-Caguas Metropolitan Statistical Area of Puerto Rico. The study was also used to address key factors influencing the cybersecurity posture of these municipalities. The theoretical framework was open system theory used in combination …

Successful Strategies For Using Knowledge Management In Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises, Josephine Kayaga Nsubuga-Mugoa

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Knowledge management (KM) is vital for an organization to succeed in a highly dynamic and competitive world. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that managers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use to effectively integrate KM into business practices. The study population comprised 5 managers from 2 SMEs operating in Uganda. The eligibility criteria for this study were that participants had to be from Ugandan SMEs with a knowledge-intensive environment, managers with some responsibility of KM in the organization, and experienced with at least 1 year of successful KM practices. The conceptual framework for this …

Use Of Mobile Telephones: Experiences Of First Responders In Rural African Communities, James Harding

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) usually participate in disaster response in rural African communities. Disasters in African communities are often characterized by huge fatalities, which are associated with a slow pace of response. The use of information and communication technology in disaster response is recognized as an effective conduit for enhancing response. Previous research indicates the efficacy of the use of mobile telephones in disaster response in advance countries. However, there remains a critical gap in the available literature on the experiences of EMTs with the use of mobile telephones in disaster response in rural African communities. The purpose of this …

Exploring Data Security Management Strategies For Preventing Data Breaches, Michael Samuel Ofori-Duodu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Insider threat continues to pose a risk to organizations, and in some cases, the country at large. Data breach events continue to show the insider threat risk has not subsided. This qualitative case study sought to explore the data security management strategies used by database and system administrators to prevent data breaches by malicious insiders. The study population consisted of database administrators and system administrators from a government contracting agency in the northeastern region of the United States. The general systems theory, developed by Von Bertalanffy, was used as the conceptual framework for the research study. The data collection process …

Relationship Between Time Estimation, Cost Estimation, And Project Performance, Eyas Nakhleh

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Although the project management role is increasing, project failure rates remain high. Project time and cost are 2 project factors that can affect the performance of the projects. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship between time estimation, cost estimation, and project performance. Data collection involved a purposive sample of 67 project sponsors, managers, and coordinators in Qatar. The theoretical framework was the iron triangle, also known as the triple constraints. Participants were randomly invited to answer 18 questions using the project implementation profile instrument. A standard multiple regression analysis was used to examine the correlation …

Modeling Location-Based Social Network Data With Area Attraction And Neighborhood Competition, Thanh Nam Doan, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Modeling user check-in behavior helps us gain useful insights about venues as well as the users visiting them. These insights are important in urban planning and recommender system applications. Since check-in behavior is the result of multiple factors, this paper focuses on studying two venue related factors, namely, area attraction and neighborhood competition. The former refers to the ability of a spatial area covering multiple venues to collectively attract check-ins from users, while the latter represents the extent to which a venue can compete with other venues in the same area for check-ins. We first embark on empirical studies to …

Clinical Big Data And Deep Learning: Applications, Challenges, And Future Outlooks, Ying Yu, Liangliang Liu, Yaohang Li, Jianxin Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The explosion of digital healthcare data has led to a surge of data-driven medical research based on machine learning. In recent years, as a powerful technique for big data, deep learning has gained a central position in machine learning circles for its great advantages in feature representation and pattern recognition. This article presents a comprehensive overview of studies that employ deep learning methods to deal with clinical data. Firstly, based on the analysis of the characteristics of clinical data, various types of clinical data (e.g., medical images, clinical notes, lab results, vital signs and demographic informatics) are discussed and details …

Web Archives At The Nexus Of Good Fakes And Flawed Originals, Michael L. Nelson

Computer Science Faculty Publications

[Summary] The authenticity, integrity, and provenance of resources we encounter on the web are increasingly in question. While many people are inured to the possibility of altered images, the easy accessibility of powerful software tools that synthesize audio and video will unleash a torrent of convincing “deepfakes” into our social discourse. Archives will no longer be monopolized by a countable number of institutions such as governments and publishers, but will become a competitive space filled with social engineers, propagandists, conspiracy theorists, and aspiring Hollywood directors. While the historical record has never been singular nor unmalleable, current technologies empower an unprecedented …

Renegotiation Of Software Outsourcing Contracts, H. Huang, X. Hu, Robert John Kauffman, H. Xu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Fixed-price and time-and-materials contracts are commonly-used contract forms by clients in software outsourcing. The two parties, client and provider, usually renegotiate the testing time after system development occurs. This research investigates the impacts of such renegotiation on the client’s contract choice. Our analysis shows that under both contract forms, renegotiation can incentivize the provider’s effort, and this effect becomes more influential when the provider has higher bargaining power. Compared with a fixedprice contract, a time-and-materials contract can stimulate the provider’s effort based on the terms for monitoring and reimbursement. The results suggest that when the provider has high bargaining power, …

Large Scale Online Multiple Kernel Regression With Application To Time-Series Prediction, Doyen Sahoo, Steven C. H. Hoi, Bin Lin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Kernel-based regression represents an important family of learning techniques for solving challenging regression tasks with non-linear patterns. Despite being studied extensively, most of the existing work suffers from two major drawbacks as follows: (i) they are often designed for solving regression tasks in a batch learning setting, making them not only computationally inefficient and but also poorly scalable in real-world applications where data arrives sequentially; and (ii) they usually assume that a fixed kernel function is given prior to the learning task, which could result in poor performance if the chosen kernel is inappropriate. To overcome these drawbacks, this work …

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, And Autonomous Technologies In Mining Industry, Zeshan Hyder, Keng Siau, Fiona Nah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The implementation of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and autonomous technologies in the mining industry started about a decade ago with autonomous trucks. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and autonomous technologies provide many economic benefits for the mining industry through cost reduction, efficiency, and improving productivity, reducing exposure of workers to hazardous conditions, continuous production, and improved safety. However, the implementation of these technologies has faced economic, financial, technological, workforce, and social challenges. This article discusses the current status of AI, machine learning, and autonomous technologies implementation in the mining industry and highlights potential areas of future application. The article presents …

Toward Using High-Frequency Coastal Radars For Calibration Of S-Ais Based Ocean Vessel Tracking Models, Ben Freidrich

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Most of the world relies on ships for transportation, shipping, and tourism. Automatic Identification System messages are transmitted from ships and provide a wealth of positional data on these open ocean vessels. This data is being utilized to determine the optimal path for ships, as well as predicting where a ship may be going in the near future. It has only been in the past decade that Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) signals have been easily received with satellites (S-AIS) so there have been few studies that look at using available information and pairing it with the new abundance of ship …