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Electronic Government (e-gov) research is mainly applied research serving a rapidly growing field of practice. Hence it is torn between academic analysis and practice demands for solutions to immediate problems. The research field has grown rapidly and now features several journals and a huge amount of conferences. Research quality is important to positively influence practice, but it takes time for a research field to settle with focus, borders, and quality standards. This paper follows up on an earlier study (Grönlund, 2004), which found quality lacking, by assessing 117 papers from two e-gov conferences, E-GOV 2005 and HICSS 2006, using rigor and relevance criteria derived from a straightforward maturity model. We find that since the last measurement, e-gov research papers on average are increasingly technically rigorous, increasingly descriptive (as opposed to analytical), increasingly product descriptions, and increasingly focus on IT rather than government, society, or individuals/citizens. Some potential explanations to the findings are discussed, and the paper concludes by discussing the issue of the nature of e-Government research - are we headed towards academic maturity or rather towards production of technical artefacts to support industry in a short-term perspective? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When individuals are risk adverse, they dislike volatility in consumption. In an environment where economic fluctuations are driven by exogenous real shocks, governments try to prevent these exogenous real shocks from inducing consumption volatility. Taking the process that determines these exogenous fluctuations as given, there are two methods through which the government can intervene and prevent excessive consumption volatility. They can use the various tools of government, like monetary policy or government consumption, to smooth aggregate demand and aggregate output in the face of these exogenous shocks. Similarly they can allow fluctuations in output, but use fiscal policy through direct taxes and transfers to smooth any consumption fluctuations. It should be clear from the title that this paper will focus on the latter method. In a currency union like the euro zone, individual national governments ceded their national monetary policies to the European Central Bank. Thus individual governments in the euro zone no longer have monetary policy as a tool to prevent country-specific real shocks from driving fluctuations in country-specific output. As will be clear in a later section, this paper will not model the role of government consumption in smoothing output fluctuations (see Fatás and Mihov 1999, for a discussion on the output stabilizing role of government spending). Instead this paper will focus on the role of a government tax and transfer scheme in smoothing consumption fluctuations given fluctuations in output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting point of Prof. Hallett`s paper is the view, that there is a need for reform of the SGP. Reform should bring more flexibility, but preserve sustainable public finances and credibility of the policy mix. The debate on the SGP, as we know it, usually is about changes within the context of the SGP, e.g. referring to debt levels instead of deficits. Hughes Hallett takes a more fundamental and very interesting approach: He analyzes the problem as a policy game with two players — fiscal policy by governments and parliaments on the one hand and monetary policy, executed by the ECB. The interesting questions now are how to allow coordination without surrendering ECB independence and how to create an adequate incentive structure to conform with a new SGP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to other areas of environmental policy there has been little research addressing the cost-effectiveness of biodiversity conservation policies. One important reason is that meaningfully applying the traditional neoclassical analysis of environmental policy instruments to conservation issues often requires combining it with ecological knowledge. The paper gives an overview of existing research which analyses cost-effectiveness issues of conservation policies integrating ecological and economic knowledge in models and outlines some research opportunities where ecological-economic models could be usefully applied in the future. Furthermore, the paper reflects on the integration of ecological and economic knowledge in models with a particular focus on a topic that certainly complicates co-operation between ecologists and economists but has received little attention so far and needs to be better understood if integration is to be improved: different modelling cultures in economics and ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions about future prospects for the US dollar generally focus on whether the present level of the current account deficit is sustainable.1 If the answer is no, the subsequent question is what depreciation is required to produce a sustainable deficit (see Obstfeld and Rogoff 2004, for example). This short paper addresses both issues, but also explores two additional points. First, we examine whether a significant reduction in the value of the dollar will occur even if large deficits continue, because more net exports are required to service a growing debt burden. Second, we suggest that any depreciation in the dollar is likely to be variable across different currencies, with a relatively modest depreciation against the Euro and Sterling. The paper quantifies both effects using the FABEER model.2 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The customer nowadays expects ubiquitous access to information exactly relevant to their current context during all trip phases. Information has to be provided in a highly personalised way and has to be accessible anytime and anywhere by any possible devices. Consequently, information systems have to adapt themselves to the current usage context. This paper presents an approach to dynamically adapt ubiquitous web applications in the dimensions of content, design and behaviour to the complete usage context (i.e. user, current situation and used device), making use of an XML-based neutral representation of the web application's user interface. The paper discusses existing approaches for adaptive systems, presents a generalpurpose adaptation model and a corresponding IT-framework and introduces the application of the proposed approach within the Innsbruck.mobile web application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comparative analysis of Continuous versus Discrete Visualisation of tourism information. With remarkable web development in the recent years, a broad range of tourism information is distributed over millions of websites. This is a boon as well as a problem for the user. When information on a tour is needed, the user has to explore various web sites and collate discrete chunks of information, we call this Discrete Visualisation. To solve this problem we are developing an Intelligent Visual Travel Recommender System (IVTRS) that finds information form relevant web sites and presents it as a video clip, i.e. Continuous Visualisation. This paper presents an overview of the architecture and the prototype of an IVTRS that presents Continuous Visualisation. A usability study was conducted — using a prototype — with eight users comprising beginner, intermediate as well as advanced users. This study demonstrated that users found Continuous Visualisation easier to work with and to obtain the required information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conversational recommender systems have been introduced in Travel and Tourism applications in order to support interactive dialogues which assist users in acquiring their goals, e.g., travel planning in a dynamic packaging system. Notwithstanding this increased interactivity, these systems employ an interaction strategy that is specified a priori (at design time) and is followed quite rigidly during the interaction. In this paper we illustrate a new type of conversational recommender system which uses Reinforcement Learning techniques in order to autonomously learn an adaptive interaction strategy. After a successful validation in an off-line experiment (with simulated users), the approach is now applied within an online recommender system which is supported by the Austrian Tourism portal (Austria.info). In this paper, we present the methodology behind the adaptive conversational recommender system and a summarization of the most important issues which have been addressed in order to validate the approach in an online context with real users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2000 election called attention to the need for assessing the usability of voting systems and accelerated the introduction of electronic voting systems across the United States. An expert review, usability laboratory study, and field study were conducted to assess six electronic voting systems and four vote-verification/election audit systems. Though most of the systems were evaluated favorably, there were significant differences among them in the difficulty of correcting mistakes, casting a write-in vote, or changing a vote. The differences could be traced to characteristics of the systems, such as the use of automatic advancing, mechanical navigation, and a full-face ballot. It required more time and movements to cast a ballot on some systems; the more time and movement required, the lower the satisfaction ratings. Systems also differed in the frequency with which help was needed. Most voters succeeded in casting their votes as intended, but several types of errors were found, including voting for an opposing candidate. Ballot type greatly affected performance. In addition, certain voter characteristics related to the digital divide had an impact on their voting experiences. There were noteworthy differences in voters' assessments of the verification systems; these were related to ease of use, extent of distraction, and the need for help. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a set of components that support psychotherapy processes on mobile and office settings. One provides patients the required access to psychotherapy artefacts, enabling an adequate and tailored aid and motivation for fulfilment of common therapy tasks. Another offers therapists the ability to define and refine the artefacts, in order to present, help and react to the patient according to his/her specific needs and therapy progress. Two other components allow the analysis and annotation of the aforementioned artefacts. All these components run on a PDA base. Evaluation results validated some of the design choices, and indicate future directions and improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central to the process of query optimization in all real-life modern-day Database Management Systems (DBMS) is the use of histograms. These have been used for decades in approximating query result sizes in the query optimizer, and methods such as the Equi-Width and Equi-Depth histograms have been incorporated in all real-life systems. This is because histograms are simple structures, and can be easily utilized in determining efficient Query Evaluation Plans (QEPs). This paper demonstrates how we can incorporate two recently-developed histogram methods into the ORACLE real-life DBMS. These two new histograms methods were introduced by Oommen and Thiyagarajah [1], and called the the Rectangular Attribute Cardinality Map (R-ACM), and the Trapezoidal Attribute Cardinality Map (T-ACM). The superiority of the R-ACM and the T-ACM in yielding more accurate query result size estimates has been well demonstrated, and the resulting superior QEPs for a theoretically-modeled database was shown in [2]. In this paper we make a "conceptual leap" and demonstrate how the ACMs can be incorporated into a real-life DBMS. This has been done by designing and implementing a prototype which sits on top of an ORACLE 9i system. The integration is achieved in C/C++ and PL/SQL, and serves as a prototype "plug-in" to the ORACLE system, since it is fully integrated and completely transparent to users. The superiority of utilizing the ACM histograms is rigorously validated by conducting an extensive set of experiments on the TPC-H benchmark data sets, and by testing on equi-select and equi-join queries. The entire set of experimental results obtained by integrating the underlying algorithms into the ORACLE query optimizer can be found in [3]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper by Breuss/Roeger (2005) investigates macroeconomic effects of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) in the Euro Area (EA). For this purpose, the authors undertake simulations with the QUEST Model of the European Commission, both without and with the assumption that the rules of the SGP are observed. After describing in some detail the main features of the QUEST Model, a macroeconomic multi-country model combining neoclassical and Keynesian features, they give a survey of macroeconomic developments in the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) during the last years, with special emphasis upon fiscal policies and the SGP. The core of the paper consists of a description and interpretation of the simulations with the QUEST Model. Differences between results under a supply and under a demand shock are pointed out. As a central conclusion, the authors give the SGP higher scores in the case of a supply shock than under a demand shock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to conduct a classification of influence factors on purchase behavior of customers regarding consumption goods. This classification is empirically tested by means of a factor analysis. Data is surveyed using event-contingent protocols, one form of the diary method. Over a couple of weeks, 86 test-subjects evaluated their purchases in terms of relevant influence factors. Altogether, the classification is based on 3,458 purchase evaluations. Particular attention is paid to the comparison between non media-based and media-based influence factors. 12 factors are extracted using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), 9 non media-based and 3 media-based influence factors. Among the media-based influence factors, neutral information transmitted through the media exerts the highest influence on purchase behavior, followed by TV and print advertising. Among the non media-based influence factors, the factor positive brand experience exerts the highest influence on purchase decisions, followed by the situational factor convenience purchase with low cognitive control. The paper further aims to test if personality influences the extracted factors affecting purchase behavior of consumers. Personality is analyzed on the basis of the NEO-FFI (five-factor model) by Costa and McCrae (1992). The five factors of the NEO-FFI are replicated. Cluster-analysis reveals four distinct consumer groups that differ with regard to their personality. The four personality groups show significant differences in all 12 factors. Results suggest that personality may well be suited for explaining which factors influence consumers' purchase decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European decisions in general, and in the energy field in particular, are often scientifically supported. Already before the formal “impact assessment”, which has to accompany all the major policy initiatives launched by the European Commission since 2003, EU energy socio-economic research was used to develop tools and methods (models, software, database) able to evaluate scientifically the expected economic, social and environmental impacts of the proposed energy-related policy. This paper deals with empirical examples highlighting the role of the researchers in supporting EU policies regarding CO2-emission trading, energy taxation, renewable electricity targets and energy efficiency potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the background of energy market reforms and recent electricity market incidents and failures, the paper recalls the principles of economic regulation and highlights the methodological difficulties of any ex-post regulatory impact analysis. It synthesises theoretical contributions on regulation and describes the regulatory toolbox, with reference to the electricity market. After definitions and a discussion of the rationale of regulation, the various theories of regulation are described, distinguishing public-interest theories and private-interest theories. The normative regulatory concepts are divided up into the categories of price-based regulation, cost-based regulation (rate-on-return, sliding-scale and returnon-cost regimes), performance-based regulation (price-cap, revenue-cap, yardstick mechanism, Vogelsang-Finsinger and Sibley mechanisms, incremental surplus subsidy scheme), new regulatory economics and benchmarking. The paper reviews attempts in the literature to link electricity market reforms in the United Kingdom and particular market outcomes which reveal that methodological difficulties persist and comparatively little attention has been given to regulatory impact analysis. Notably, the ex-ante design of a potential ex-post impact analysis would be a useful addition to any new regulatory process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the early studies of the Traveling Salesman and other multivariate optimization problems, employing classical statistical [1] and quantum mechanical [2] tricks, during 1985-1990, the Kolkata group made some of the earliest modelling investigations regarding the nature of wealth and income distribution in societies and its comparison with the energy distribution in some (quantum) gases. In the 1994 Kolkata Conference, many Indian economists (mainly from Indian Statistical Institute campuses) and physicists discussed about the possible formulations of some of the economic problems and their solutions using tricks from physics [3]. In fact, in one of these papers in the proceedings, possibly the first published joint paper involving both physicist and economist (Sugata Marjit) Indian co-authors [4], the possibility of ideal-gas like model of trading market was discussed. Among other things, it tried to identify, from the known effects of various fiscal policies, the equivalence of the kinetic energy of the gas molecules with the money of the agents in the market and of temperature with the average money in the market. Such a ‘finite temperature' gas model of the market was first noted by Dietrich Stauffer (Cologne) [5]. With the possibility of putting more than one agent in the same microstate, identified by the price or money income of the agent in the market, the likely distribution was concluded there [4] to be Bose-Einstein like, rather than Gibbs like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some recent papers have proposed models of trading which produce realistic-looking distributions of wealth. This Comment argues that, while the models are correct arithmetically and the papers claim that the empirical support is persuasive, they involve undeclared simplifications that limit their application and that point to empirical propositions that are easily refuted. Since many of the simplifications involve dismissing the economists' favorite price mechanism, it is important to realize why the models do not propose a coherent alternative. This Comment suggests several directions for future research on this important topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper starts with the assumption that income and wealth distributions are composed of Boltzmann distributions with power low tails at the high end. Examples of alternative energy distributions found in physical systems are discussed, and how they could be used to construct economic models that might allow alternative overall distributions of wealth and income in society. These ideas are further expanded to show alternative ways in which poverty could be tackled, both within individual countries, and globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews recent attempts at modelling inequality of wealth as an emergent phenomenon of interacting-agent processes. We point out that recent models of wealth condensation which draw their inspiration from molecular dynamics have, in fact, reinvented a process introduced quite some time ago by Angle (1986) in the sociological literature. We emphasize some problematic aspects of simple wealth exchange models and contrast them with a monetary model based on economic principles of market mediated exchange. The paper also reports new results on the influence of market power on the wealth distribution in statistical equilibrium. As it turns out, inequality increases but market power alone is not sufficient for changing the exponential tails of simple exchange models into Pareto tails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze the monetary transmission mechanism. In general, the monetary transmission mechanism describes how policy-induced changes in the nominal money stock or the short-term nominal interest rate impact on real variables such as aggregate output and employment. Specific channels of monetary transmission operate through the effects that monetary policy has on interest rates, exchange rates, equity and real estate prices, bank lending and firm balance sheets (Ireland 2005). Recent research on the transmission mechanism seeks to understand how these channels work in the context of dynamic, stochastic, general equilibrium models (e.g. Barran et al. 1995; Boivin and Giannoni 2006; Fukuda 1993; Golinelli and Rovelli 2005; Goodhart and Hofmann 2005; Kim 2003; Lütkepohl and Wolters 2003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been eight years since the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) displaced the European Monetary System (EMS), with the euro becoming the legal successor to the European Currency Unit (ECU). Studies on macroeconomic, international economic and microeconomic issues surrounding this important international monetary development have flourished in the economics and finance literature. There is, however, one question that has received no attention: Has the move to EMU changed the behaviour of exchange rate correlations between the euro (ECU) and other currencies? This question has to do with the debates on the success and prospects of the euro, and so deserves exploration in this short paper. Specifically, our study is motivated by the following considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the factors which influenced the Bank of England's liquidity ratio from 1 January 1876 to the end of 1913. The liquidity ratio is defined as the ratio of gold and silver holdings to banknotes issued by the Bank of England and it is also called the "Proportion". A key aspect of the gold standard, as this period is called, was the legal obligation on the part of Central Banks to convert, on request, banknotes into gold.1 From this obligation resulted the "discipline" imposed on governments and Central Banks at the time. The minimum gold cover of notes outstanding was established by law and varied from country to country. As Central Banks could not let the gold cover of notes issued fall below the legally established minimum, it is clear that the ratio of gold to notes was constantly monitored, leading to apprehension when it was falling rapidly and/or approaching the legal minimum and to a relaxed attitude when it was increasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important issue in relation to fiscal policy is to strike a balance between "stabilisation" and "sustainability". The aim of this paper is to discuss what we consider to be the consensus view on fiscal policy design which seems to have emerged in recent years. This view has two pillars. First, automatic stabilisers should be allowed to work since they are rule based, whereas discretionary policies should only be allowed in exceptional cases. The motivation for this "escape clause only" is that if a more flexible use of discretion is allowed for in the conduct of fiscal policy, it could easily lead to a deficit bias. Second, the structural balance should, "on average" over the business cycle, be in balance or surplus. For example, the Stability and Growth Pact stresses the need to ensure "a medium-term budgetary position of close to balance or in surplus", and in Sweden the fiscal policy framework has been formulated with a requirement of ensuring a given budget surplus (currently 2 % of GDP) on average over the business cycle. Ideally, this type of policy design would guarantee not only that fiscal policy can be used for stabilisation purposes but also that fiscal sustainability problems can be avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to honour Andrew Hughes Hallett. We think that a convenient way to do this is to outline the evolution of the theory of economic policy, in which he has played such a decisive role, from the classical contributions of Frisch, Hansen, Tinbergen and Theil to the present day when a sort of "new" theory of economic policy seems to have emerged from the ashes of the old one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the formation and dissolution of alliances of voters aiming to increase their voting power is relatively new. The present note is a sequel to our earlier paper on this subject (see Felsenthal and Machover 2002). Since the latter's publication, we have obtained some new results which can be viewed also as a complement to some of the results obtained by Gelman (2003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major feature of the emergence of Web 2.0 is the proliferation of ‘consumer-generated content' (CGC) websites, often established as alternatives to corporate or ‘official' sites. Nowhere has this had as great an impact as in the travel and tourism industry. In this paper, we report on a preliminary study designed to demonstrate how techniques drawn from ‘Social Network Analysis' (SNA) might be employed to develop an understanding of the influence relationships and hierarchies within these websites. Armed with this knowledge, tourism companies and authorities may be able to develop strategies as to how they might best co-exist and deal with relevant sites. The focus of this initial study is on tourism events; specifically, the Australian Football League Grand Final. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of IT projects depends on the success of the partnerships on which they are based. However research has identified a significant rate of failure in these partnerships, predominantly due to an overly technical mindset, leading to the question: "how do we ensure that, as technological solutions are implemented within tourism, due consideration is given to human-centred issues?" The tourism partnership literature is explored for insights, revealing that issues connected with power, participation and normative positions play a major role. The method, Open Space, is investigated for its ability to engage stakeholders in free and open debate. This paper reports on a one-day Open Space event sponsored by two major intermediaries in the UK travel industry who wanted to consult their business partners. Both the running of the event and its results reveal how Open Space has the potential to address some of the weaknesses associated with tourism partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural heritage is a major contributor to tourism development. Cultural heritage tourism relies heavily on the communication process for attracting visitors and providing them with a satisfactory experience. The tourist encounter can be significantly enhanced through effective and engaging heritage interpretation. This paper argues that there are opportunities for the application of e-Services in the delivery of heritage interpretation through the Internet — optimising results for the fulfilment of both marketing and interpretation purposes. This paper investigates visitor satisfaction with museums, and explores the use of e-Services for both cultural attraction operators and destination managers over a two-stage empirical investigation. Firstly, this study identifies the contribution of heritage interpretation practices to overall visitor satisfaction in museums, and to the best and most memorable experiences during such visits. Secondly, the paper evaluates the integration of e-Services in cultural attraction and destination websites. The results are integrated and developed into practical industry implications for cultural attractions and destinations websites offer of online heritage interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of research "technological innovations in the passenger process of the airline industry" is introduced in this paper. Based on a literature review and a market analysis, the need for research is shown and the research question is formulated. Subsequently, the field of research and its research question are explored in more detail in a qualitative workshop. As a result, basic hypotheses are generated, which form the basis for further research. For this, a research framework is proposed, which incorporates theoretical constructs and empirical studies in order to derive practical recommendations for action for airlines and airports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New mobile phones and navigation devices are very powerful. In this paper an ethnographic approach is used to gain insight in how one of these devices, a multimedia-phone with GPS, maps and a mobile guide is used by visitors to the city of Philadelphia. An interesting finding is that some of the visitors seem to substitute traditional information sources with the navigation and map-tool on the mobile device. Also, the study documents point of capture archiving of personal experiences by use of a mobile multimedia device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores through a case study approach the progress in the development VisitScotland.com, Scotland's national destination portal. A brief history of Destination Management System (DMS) developments in Scotland is provided to contextualise current activities and the work examines current developments with particular regard to VisitScotland.com's business model, issues surrounding its Public-Private Partnership configuration and an analysis of key performance indicators. Findings show that whilst there are still substantial obstacles to be overcome particularly with regards to engagement and long term financial viability, VisitScotland.com seems to have set in place the appropriate business model and technology infrastructure to become an effective DMS for Scotland [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Web 2.0 concept comprises a second generation of Web-based services, such as social networking sites and wikis, and is becoming an important element in travel planning and buying. This paper adds to Web 2.0 tourism studies, investigating Web 2.0 applications and technologies present with almost 3,000 tourism businesses — destination management organisations, mountain railways, travel agencies and hotel organisations. The low presence of Web 2.0 technologies and applications on tourism enterprise websites suggests that most tourism enterprises are at an early stage in applying Web 2.0 concepts to their businesses. Using diffusion of innovations theory, the results show that enterprises having adopted websites early (early adopters and early majority) also lead in the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimedia plays a role on the Web which is guaranteed to grow in significance as individuals and organizations increasingly generate digital content. Parallel to the development of richer media online is the discovery of "Web as platform", termed Web 2.0 in some quarters.. As rich media and Web 2.0 converge, new requirements arise which need new solutions. In this paper, we describe the SOCITUR project, which aims at implementing innovative user-friendly interfaces for destination marketing and promotion portals based on Web 2.0 technologies that will encourage and simplify the indexation, aggregation and sharing of multimedia content generated by both DMO and tourists. This paper focuses on the architecture and developed components of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenge facing developers of Tourism Information Systems (TIS) is the need to evolve more intelligent and dependable tourism support services. However, these kinds of information systems have largely identical functionalities and delivers almost similar services. The systems differ mostly in the customized information contents they deliver and the scope of the tourism interest that is being promoted. The peculiarity of the e-Tourism domain makes it ideal for product line development. In this paper, a reference Tourism Product Line Architecture (TPLA) as a platform for evolving intelligent component services is proposed. The TPLA is a layered architecture of core reusable components that can be leveraged for the development of a TIS product family. The architecture is extensible and its components are formally specified as possessing intrinsic intelligent attributes and the semantic awareness that are desirable for the next generation of Tourism Information Systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recommender systems (RS) are employed to personalize user interaction with (e.g. tourism) web-sites, supporting both navigation through large service assortments and the configuration of individual service packages. Depending on the interaction strategy, RS are either utilized to elicit users' tastes and preferences or to stimulate desire for different offerings. In addition, as a potentially rich source of digital traces, RS also act as a repository for marketing intelligence. Web-usage mining is an accepted approach to analyse web-usage behaviour based on information traces left by the web-user (Mobasher, 2007). This paper proposes an empirically tested approach which combines typical web-log data with user feedback gathered by an interactive travel advisory system developed for an Austrian spa-resort. The proposed approach focuses on evaluating the RS with respect to efficiency, effectiveness and actionable marketing intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from Solow's (1956) theoretical macromodel, summarized in Chapter 1, which was applied to analyse some of the main determinants of economic growth, a large literature has been devoted to the grand theme of the time evolution of an economy, and of its business cycles.1 In this chapter we focus on one element contributing to economic growth, and to business cycles, that is often not considered explicitly in general theoretical macromodels: this is the working of the labour market. Of course, a number of papers have tried to analyse the dynamic macromodels capable of generating steady growth and/or cyclic time paths, e.g. Goodwin (1967), Gabisch and Lorenz (1987, Ch. 5), Matsuyama (1999) and his references, but none of these papers explicitly introduces the labour market as a possible cause of business cycles.2 Formal analysis of the model, expressed by the system of two difference equations (2.11) and (2.12) below, is somewhat difficult, because of the number of cases that need to be taken into consideration. In Part 3, a number of computer simulations are implemented to provide a concrete picture of the various possibilities that apply to the time paths of the main variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of traditional informal institutions on the sustainable management of upland agricultural fields in indigenous communities of the northern Philippines. The estimated results from the case study suggest significant positive effects of a traditional reciprocal exchange-labour system and customary property rights restrictions on field maintenance activities, although the existence of traditional authority is not found to be significant. The results imply a continuing positive role for embedded customs in these communities, despite some evidences of decaying traditional institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the possible economic consequences of the development of ecotourism on fishing communities of poor countries from two complementary points of view: an empirical survey of a case study, and a bioeconomic model. It is divided into three parts. The first part of the paper is dedicated to the case of the Saloum delta, Senegal, an area where demographic pressure and an agriculture crisis have led to a sharp increase in fishing effort resulting in overfishing, and where attempts have been made to provide alternative income to the local population through ecotourism. The second part of the paper presents a two-sector bioeconomic model, where the link between artisanal fishing and ecotourism relies on their common use of the same natural resource. According to this model, developing ecotourism may help to overcome the dilemma between the need for long-term resource conservation and the immediate necessity to provide jobs and income to the local population. However, due to the negative externality exerted by fishing on ecotourism, the model suggests that this development is likely to be non-optimal if it is left to the initiative of market forces. The last section of the paper discusses the practical significance of these conclusions, with reference to the Saloum delta case. It underlines the major limits of the model, including the assumed non-extractive character of ecotourism, and its lack of spatial dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water allocations as well as water quality and health concerns are often due to inadequate policies and institutions, which pose major challenges for policy reform. The necessary ingredients of such reform include four elements: rules to improve the decision-making process about water projects, principles to improve water allocation, incentives for water conservation, and incentives to improve water quality. The paper shows that improved policies and incentives can address many of the global water problems and lead to environmental sustainability while addressing distributional issues. Some of the reforms may hurt the poor in the short run through higher water prices, but may provide them better access to water and reduce the toll of unsustainable water use in the long run. The direct and indirect implications of increasing prices of energy for water reforms are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter asks: Is Digital (or electronic) Government (DG) a legitimate new field of research? If so, what aspects of government should be studied, and why? Since DG is obviously an interdisciplinary endeavor, which disciplines can or should play a role, and why? How can they interact? Is it likely that a single integrated language, research methodology, project style, and structure of research paper will evolve, and if so, what might this hybrid look like? The chapter presents a model in which government is viewed from three perspectives. First, the technological. As a processor of information, government uses the results of ICT research and development, as performed by computer scientists and human factors specialists. This begs the question: which new technologies should be designed and built, and why? Second, therefore, the normative. The idealized (or at least improved) functioning of government, which tends to be the purview of political scientists, ethicists, and legal scholars, must furnish models toward which new ICT and its deployment can strive. In turn, this begs the question: how well does newly-enabled ICT-enriched government actually do? Third, therefore, the evaluative. This involves the challenges of studying the effects of using technology on society and government itself, enterprises that tend to be the domain of some sociologists and public administration researchers, and, within government, of organization management and information systems specialists. The chapter suggests that good research in DG, and good DG research papers, should combine these three perspectives, thereby including in each study all three aspects: technological, normative, and evaluative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semantic resources, such as ontologies and taxonomies, are used in various domains to facilitate information exchange between people and software applications. However, in many cases, accessing a single semantic resource is no longer adequate. Consequently, new initiatives targeting the interoperability and integration of existing semantic resources have been recently increasingly investigated. This paper describes the methodology used during the FUNSIEC project to develop an Open Semantic Infrastructure for the European Construction Sector (OSIECS). This infrastructure aims to facilitate integration and interoperability between construction related semantic resources, providing a base for the development of a new generation of e-services for the domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product classification schemes aim at semantic interoperability in B2B e-commerce by providing consensual definitions of product categories and recommending properties for describing product instances. Considerable industry work has been carried out on enhancing the size and thus coverage of these schemes. Horizontal classification schemes, however, often consist of more than 10,000 classes, several thousand properties, and an even greater number of class-property relations. The problem is that maintaining these schemes becomes more and more demanding in particular due to the number of definitions and interrelations. This paper proposes measures for coping with the problem of extensive and steadily growing property libraries. We view these schemes from a data modeling perspective and relate the proposed measures to the underlying conceptual data model of product classification schemes. It can be shown that these measures greatly influence both standards makers and standards adopters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of large software applications (like EAI solution) is oriented toward the interoperation of existing software components (like COTS and legacy systems). COTS-based systems are built in ad-hoc manner and it is not possible to reason on them no more it is possible to demonstrate if such systems satisfy properties and/or quality attributes. On the other hand, software architecture domain aims at providing formal languages for the description of software systems allowing checking properties (formal analysis) and to reason about software architecture models. The paper proposes an approach that consists in formalizing, deploying and evolving Service-based EAI architectures. For that purpose, the ArchWare environment and engineering languages (especially the ArchWare formal ADL, based on the π-calculus) and accompanied tools are used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consideration of Product information or Knowledge management, product traceability or genealogy, and product life cycle management implies new strategies and approaches to manage flows of information that relate to flows of material managed in shop floor level. Moreover, throughout product lifecycle coordination needs to be established between reality in the physical world (physical view) and the virtual world handled by manufacturing in-formation systems (informational view). This paper presents a product oriented modelling and a product oriented interoperability approach based on the use of the "Holon" modelling concept as a means for the synchronisation of both physical view and informational views. The Zachman framework is afterwards used as a guideline to establish product oriented interoperability between enterprise systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a methodology and a model-based approach for supporting the requirements elicitation and validation work in the ATHENA project. Numerous interoperability requirements have been gathered by four industrial partners and these requirements are validated against interoperability issues. The process of obtaining requirements from industrial users and developing solutions for them involves several communities such as the users, stakeholders and developers. A model-based methodology and approach are proposed to support the analysis of the requirements and for incorporating the different perspectives and views that are desired by everyone. An example from the telecommunications sector is used to illustrate the methodology and a matrix-based validation approach is supported using a model developed in the Metis modelling environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structuring enterprise information and supporting knowledge management is a growing application field for enterprise ontologies. Research work presented in this paper focuses on construction of enterprise ontologies. In an experiment, two methods were used in parallel when developing an ontology for a company in automotive supplier industries. One method is based on automatic ontology construction, the other method is a manual approach based on cookbook-like instructions. The paper compares and evaluates the methods and their results. For ontology evaluation, selected approaches were combined including both evaluation by ontology engineers and evaluation by domain experts. The main conclusion is that the compared methods have different strengths and an integration of both developed ontologies and used methods should be investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]