Internet growth seems to amplify the critiques to peer review mechanism: many researchers maintain that Internet would allow a faster, more interactive, and more effective model of publishing. However, just removing peer review would lead to a lack of quality control in scholarly publications. We propose a new kind of electronic scholarly journal, in which the standard submission-review-publication process is replaced by a more democratic approach, based on judgments expressed by the readers. The new electronic scholarly journal is described in both intuitive and formal ways. (pp. 431-438)
Keywords: Digital libraries, scholarly journals, electronic publishing, peer review, quality control
The emerging learning society requires a different development strategy, but also a conceptual and statistical framework that goes beyond the conventional approach and provides a broader dynamic framework for policy analysis. The novel time distance methodology is applied to the analysis of digital divide in the USA by income and educational level. It also shows that different statistical measures lead to diverse conclusions about the gap between North America and Europe in Internet users per capita. Percentage difference is decreasing, while time distance is increasing. Policy discussion relates to preparation of national strategy for information society in Slovenia. (pp. 439-444)
Keywords: time
distance, S-distance, digital divide, gap in Internet users per capita,
USA, Europe, Slovenia
The paper deals with the basic features of the contemporary life-space which has been created and shaped by information industry. On the basis of various analyses and positions put forward in published matters, and on the basis of the results of a survey we carried out, we devised twelve theses which address the most relevant features of the contemporary life-space, as well as the dominant attitudes and tendencies concerned with these features. (pp. 445-448)
Keywords: public
discourse, noise, upgrading, alienation, destructiveness, creativity, solidarity
After some years of uncertainty, confusion and high expectations the Web is slowly becoming a real alternative to the conventional media. Within this framework, the measurement of the Web activities is an extremely important, although difficult task. However, the overall technological trends offer a radical solution (e.g. Pc-meter) to the problem of the global standardized meter. Even more, it seems that the globalisation of the content also follows the path of the globalized measurements. (pp. 449-452)
Keywords: Web,
Survey, Media, Log analysis
Through the digitalisation of telecommunication (TK) systems the radio broadcasting network is also becoming a part of a unified - global telecommunication infrastructure. The new systems are related to new services and to specific technical characteristics of digital networks. The latter shall stem in the users needs of applications and services. The digital broadcasting system will make it possible to transmit not only the traditional radio-television but also multimedia contents, while the introduction of inter-activity will provide the access to the Internet. Consequently it follows from the above that a co-ordinated, economic and efficient construction and utilisation of public telecommunication systems shall be ensured (RTV, railways, electric power management, etc.), naturally considering potential spatial impacts. (pp. 453-457)
Keywords: Broadcasting, Telecommunication infrastructure, Spatial planning, DAB, DVB
An overview
of some internet-related computer applications which were used in several
art presentations and art installations on the Internet is given. The technical
solutions range from the design of typical hypertext contents combining
text and images, creation of virtual environments, sending of life video
images over the Internet and controlling remote robotic devices over the
Internet. These technical solutions were successfully used for presentations
of classical fine arts on the
Internet as
well as for creation of contemporary art installations.
(pp.459-466)
Keywords: multimedia,
video over Internet, virtual galleries
A high speed parallel adder is designed which can perform carry-free addition of two modified signed digit quaternary numbers. Binary coded quaternary logic design is provided as one possible way of implementing the digital and/or optical system. Experimental results are also included for the proposed adder circuit. (pp. 467-473)
Keywords: Modified
Signed-Digit, Smart pixels, programmable logic array, redundant number
system
Current mobile agent systems provide very simple security models. There is a lack of implementations allowing the administrator to manage system resources appropriately while offering comprehensive security to the server and agents against mutual or third party attacks. SAHARA is a security model for Java-based agent systems that takes advantage of the benefits of the Java2 SDK v1.2.1. SAHARA’s main goal is to create an integral security model that can be easily implemented by any system. This architecture offers the following features: specific assignment of privileges; agents’ authorities authentication using digital signatures; allowances management to limit resource consumption by each agent and authority, and a dynamic security policy that allows to modify the security permissions at runtime. Secure agent transmission and server authentication is achieved by using the SSL protocol. Digital signatures are also used to protect agent’s code and to assign responsibility on the agent’s data. In order to verify the performance of the SAHARA security architecture we have created a mobile agent system called MILENIO with basic functionality, but with adequate security capabilities since it implements all SAHARA’s features. MILENIO also has also a user access restriction to avoid undesired users. We managed to create a secure mobile agent system with a graphical interface that can be used in any kind of mobile applications since it assures secure transactions for most of the applications We also show the proper use of the Java2 security model in Java-based mobile agents systems. (pp. 475-485)
Keywords: Mobile agents systems security, Java2 SDK, Mobile agents
In this paper we address the problem of software classification in the context of organizing libraries of reusable software components, and propose a method for organizing software libraries. The described method relies on an off?the?shelf heuristic that can automatically estimate the similarity between two software components. A domain analysis on the software collection at hand is required prior to starting to build the repository. This analysis needs be performed only once during the lifetime of the collection. Once such an analysis is completed, the repository is organized automatically. The software components are expressed in a standard knowledge representation language designed for information systems. The proposed method is tested through a prototype, on a small, but realistic, software collection. The experiments demonstrate that the method organizes a software repository in such a way that it facilitates high levels of retrieval quality as well as having the property that functionally similar components are clustered together. Also, the method is very robust and indifferent to the order of insertion of the software components into the repository. Certain drawbacks and pitfalls are identified and discussed. (pp. 487-496)
Keywords: software reuse, software repositories, heuristic clustering
Natasa
Zupancic-Brouwer
University
of Amsterdam, Department of Chemistry, Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, NL - 1018
WV Amsterdam, The Netherlands nbrouwer@chem.uva.nl
Mateja
Sajovec
Osnovna
sola Simona Jenka Kranj, Ulica XXXI. Divizije 7A, Kranj, Slovenia, mateja.sajovec@guest.arnes.si
The most important result of the long-term project entitled Computer literacy is that the majority of Slovenian primary and secondary schools are now equipped with multimedia computers and with LCD projectors. However, these computerised classrooms should not be used only for teaching computer science and informatics; they should also serve for teaching and learning other subjects e.g. chemistry, physics, languages, etc. Internet offers chemistry teachers previously unavailable possibilities for bridging the gap between concrete and abstract chemical concepts and processes. Research on the spatial ability of students and the quality of knowledge show that well developed spatial abilities enable better results when solving complex chemical problems, especially when dealing with 2-D representation of 3-D chemical structures. In this article we discuss how chemistry teachers can use specialized Internet websites for visualising chemical structures and processes on the macro- and microscopic level, and correlate properties of molecules with their structure. We also present results which demonstrate the effects of different visualisation elements on the quality of chemical knowledge. (pp. 497-503)
Keywords: spatial
ability, visualisation of chemical structures and processes
A watermarking technique for copyright protection of images is proposed in this paper. The idea is to use the human visual effects as the feature of images. The embedding strategy is to put the extracted image feature together with the watermark to generate the secret key for watermark retrieval. This strategy for watermarking system is wholly different from previous works. In addition, a voting approach is used to improve the correctness of the retrieved watermarks. The experimental results show that our method can against attacks by many image altering algorithms, such as filtering, lossy compression, rotation and so on. Furthermore, the proposed scheme is not only applicable to ordinary natural images but also to cartoon graphics. (pp. 505-511)
Keywords: Digital watermarking, human visual effects, intellectual property right, time-stamping
The following
paper points out problems encountered in several business process reengineering
(BPR) projects in Slovenia in the last five years and provides an assessment
of BPR's strategic impact on the quality of information systems (IS). Based
on his own experience and his knowledge of the opportunities offered by
the BPR concept
and the use of new information technology (IT), the author assesses of
the strategic relevance of reengineered processes and consideres the impact
of BPR projects on the quality of an organization's information systems
management.
(pp. 513-521)
Keywords: BPR, IS assessment, business culture, quality of IS management