Social Capital Modeling In Virtual Communities Bayesian Belief Network Approaches

"In this book researchers have employed different approaches to examine and describe various types of relationships among people in communities by using social capital as a conceptual and theoretical tool"--Provided by publisher.

"This book satisfies the need for methodological consideration and tools for data collection, analysis and presentation in virtual communities, covering studies on various types of virtual communities, making this reference a comprehensive source of research for those in the social sciences and humanities"--Provided by publisher.

"This book provides an excellent, well-balanced collection of areas where Bayesian networks have been successfully applied; it describes the underlying concepts of Bayesian Networks with the help of diverse applications, and theories that prove Bayesian networks valid"--Provided by publisher.

The digital revolution and the explosive growth of the internet have helped the collection of huge amounts of useful data of diverse characteristics, which is a valuable and intangible asset in any business of today. This book treats the new, emerging discipline of soft computing, which exploits this data through tolerance for imprecision and uncertainty to achieve solutions for complex problems. Soft computing methodologies include fuzzy sets, neural networks, genetic algorithms, Bayesian belief networks and rough sets, which are explored in detail through case studies and in-depth research. The advent of soft computing marks a significant paradigm shift in computing, with a wide range of applications and techniques which are presented and discussed in the chapters of this book.

The Web is evolving from a place where a prodigious amount of text and images are stored to a place where educational and other needs are serviced. The Web is becoming increasingly automated with functions that previously required human action undertaken automatically moving learners and other users more quickly to useful support. More and more such services interoperate with each other through computer programs and agents. This is the territory of semantic Web services and Web 3.0. Just as shop bots and auction bots abound in handling a particular task on the Web currently, in higher education of the future such related bots and agents will interact with the heterogeneous information that is the stuff of higher education. The scale of such agent-based mediation and linked data will grow over time. Increasingly, intelligent agents and bots will undertake tasks on behalf of their faculty, administrator, and student owners. Collaborations among faculty and students around the world will be increasingly supported by semantic social networks capable of providing crucial functions. Students can be engaged in participating in the design and development of semantic Web applications in such areas as structuring and representing knowledge. The increasing availability of interactive educational tools and collaborative community-resources, such as wikis, can be the foundation for deploying semantically marked-up and social-connected educational spaces where students construct their own learning pathways in explorations of knowledge and creating new content integration. This volume will share visions and partial realizations of the impact of the semantic Web and associated Web 3.0 features on higher education. This volume will provide accounts of cutting-edge pedagogic applications of the semantic Web with its extremely extensive use of interconnecting information technologies.

This book presents 29 revised invited and selected lectures given by top-researchers at the First International Workshop on Intercultural Collaboration, IWIC 2007, held in Kyoto, Japan. This state-of-the-art survey increases mutual understanding in our multicultural world by featuring collaboration support, social psychological analyses of intercultural interaction, and case studies from field workers.

Professional development of educators is an complex process through which teachers strive continuously for pedagogical improvement. In that sense, professional growth benefits learners and teachers while also promoting the quality of the schools, colleges, and academic departments where it takes place. Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education is an authoritative publication featuring the latest scholarly research on a wide range of professional advancement topics in STEM education with special emphasis on content, process, implementation, and impact, as well as on the implications for teachers, educators, and administrators. Highlighting comprehensive research across a broad scope of relevant issues including, but not limited to, teacher training, development models, and the implementation of leadership practices, this book is a seminal reference source for STEM professionals working in schools, colleges, and various science and mathematics departments at secondary and post-secondary institutions.

With the advent of electronic databases, information technologies, and the Internet, organizations now more than ever have easy access to all the knowledge they need to conduct their affairs. Identifying the useful information in all that data, however, can pose a challenge. Knowledge Discovery, Transfer, and Management in the Information Age brings together the latest empirical research in knowledge management practices and information retrieval strategies to assist organizations in effectively and efficiently utilizing the data at their disposal. Academics, managers, researchers, and professionals within the field of knowledge management will make use of this book to increase their understanding of best practices in the manipulation of information resources.