Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes

Adding, Retrieving and Browsing Content in Social Media and E-Journalism

This thesis explores the use of avatars with facial expressions in social media and e-journalism communication interfaces. This thesis involved three experimental conditions. In the first experimental condition a survey (n=34) and an experiment (n=25) were carried out in order to explore the central problems faced by users during adding and retrieving comments and methods to overcome those problems. The survey intended to find out the position users took towards these metaphors. 25users from the Aljazeera Channel in Doha, Qatar took part. The first experimental condition consisted of two interfaces, TARCS (traditional adding and retrieving comments system) and CMARCS (classification multimodal adding and retrieving comments system). This was carried out in order to assess users' perception of unique text with graphic classification and multimodal in an EARCS (electronic adding and retrieving comments system) interface in the presence and absence of an interactive context. This was implemented in order to assess the role of these unique classification interfaces in a news comment in the term of usability. In the second experiment, forty users evaluated the use of the VARCS (visual adding and retrieving comments system) and MMARCS (multimodal adding and retrieving comments system). Both interfaces evaluated the effect on public opinion as media study and effectiveness, interactivity and user satisfaction in HCI studies. The third experimental condition consisted of one study that investigated the impactbility and usability of facial expressions compared text with graphic and multimodal metaphors. Sixty six users from Al-Arabiya Channel in Dubai, UEA took part in these two experiments. The results obtained show that users had some problems with adding and retrieving comments in social media such as missing data and lack of organisation. Also, the new classification performed better and faster under an interface that implemented avatars with specific facial expressions compared to a textual interface and multimodal. Practical guidelines were also introduced to provide assistance to multimedia designers who use avatars with facial expressions in e-journalism interactive systems as well as its impact on the public opinion.Ministry of High Education in Saudi, the Saudi Arabian Cultural Bureau, Al-Jazeera Channel, MBC Group and Al-Arabiya Channe

THE POWER OF LANGUAGE OF AN INTERNET WEBSITE IN INFLUENCING PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION: A TEXT ANALYSIS OF REPRESENTATION

In this millennial era the Internet has become a very principal media and therefore, the language used in any text in the Internet can automatically serve as a very powerful tool to influence people’s perception. This paper analyzes the language used in a text of a website and tries to reveal the representation of the Self and Other of the text. The text analyzed was published in a website of a community that called itself The Knights Party, a non-aggressive racist group in the United States of America. The text was written by the director of the party, Thomas Robb. Robb is a pastor and director of this racist group. The analysis will apply Systemic Functional Grammar in unveiling the positive representation of the Self and negative representation of the Other. Transitivity and appraisal will be the focus of the analysis. The findings show that through transitivity and appraisal, it is obvious that the text writer is making a positive representation of the Self and negative representation of the Other. The analysis also results in the fact that the racist issue can be found within the text

DEVELOPING AN INDONESIAN HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM OF ELT THROUGH LITERATURE

Teaching English language through literature is a common practice in the countries where English is used as the first or second language. The facts show that ELT in Indonesian high schools is dominated by linguistic contents while the teachers are prepared with both linguistic and literature contents. Thus, the objective of discussing such a topic is to propose the development of an ELT through literature curriculum for high schools in Indonesia. To provide for conceptual bases, a number of ELT curriculum development references including those written by Littlewood (1981), Richards (2001) and Nation (2010) are used in this article

Understanding the Internet: Model, Metaphor, and Analogy

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Personalization by Partial Evaluation.

The central contribution of this paper is to model personalization by the programmatic notion of partial evaluation.Partial evaluation is a technique used to automatically specialize programs, given incomplete information about their input.The methodology presented here models a collection of information resources as a program (which abstracts the underlying schema of organization and flow of information),partially evaluates the program with respect to user input,and recreates a personalized site from the specialized program.This enables a customizable methodology called PIPE that supports the automatic specialization of resources,without enumerating the interaction sequences beforehand .Issues relating to the scalability of PIPE,information integration,sessioniz-ling scenarios,and case studies are presented

From decoding a graph to processing a multimodal message: Interacting with data visualization in the news media

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