Environmental Science

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An Application to Real Estate and Housing Management In the City Government of Addis Ababa (CGAA)
(Addis Ababa University, 2000-06) Belay, Ayalew; Atnafu, Solomon (PhD)
GIS Has Become an Indispensable Tool for Effective Planning, Communication, and Training in the Various Stages for Real Estate and Housing Management Systems. the Prime Concern During any Housing Management System is the Availability of the Spatial Information, and the Dissemination of this Information to All Concerned Bodies. Internet- GIS Can Play a Key Role in this Aspect By Providing Cost-Effective Information at Various Stages For Users Of Real Estate and Housing Management System. In This Work the Available Models and Important Tools For The Development Of Internet- GIS Applications are Investigated and the Appropriate Once Are Used. Moreover, Observation and Questionnaire are Used to Determine Requirements of the Proposed System. To Demonstrate This a System Named as HISAA (Housing Information System Of Addis Ababa) Is Developed. HISAA is in Internet-GIS Application Developed Using An Open Source Software, Map Server With a PHP Scripting Language. Users of HISAA Can Display Mapfile on their Browser From The Central Server And Can Zoom-In, Zoom-Out And Apply Query to Get Certain House Information. Key Words . GIS; Geographic Information System that Enables to Store; Manipulate Analyze and Display Spatial and Non-Spatial Data. Spatial Data; any Information Referencing Location and other Geographic Features Internet-GIS; it is the Integration of GIS and Internet Technology that Helps to Overcome in Formation and Data Accessing Problems Without Burdening and Users With any GIS Software
A frame work for Multi Agent Referralde Clslon Suppor
(Addis Ababa University, 2000-07) Gebeyehu, Zewdu; Libsie, Mulugeta(PhD)
Medical Referral Systems aim at achieving high standards of care by improving patient outcomes and decreasing costs through optimal use of medical services. The success of these systems is highly dependent on the quality of referral decisions. A referral decision is a clinical decision by which physicians determine referral indication, type of required services and selection of appropriate providers. This inherently complicated process depends on a complex mix of patient, provider and healthcare system determinants. It requires medical and non-medical knowledge that exist distributed among several healthcare providers. In addition, the process requires communication and coordination of information between providers. Little research is done in studying how to provide an intelligent decision support that can help physicians in making better referral decisions. Most of the works focus in studying how to improve referral communication by employing e-Referral systems. This in turn leads to minimal effect in terms of achieving the objectives of Medical Referral Systems. This thesis proposes a Multi-Agent Referral Decision Support (MARDS) framework aimed at improving quality of referral decisions. It specifically presents a Multi-Criteria Provider Selection (MCPS) model that can be employed by the MARDS to aid physicians in making a better provider selection. The core part of the selection model is simulated by a Multi-Agent Provider Selection System (MPSS), which is developed using JADE (Java Agent DEvelopment Framework). The system is experimented with limited but relevant data and has shown the feasibility of the selection strategy. The result of this work is believed to be one step towards enhancing existing e-Referral systems with intelligent referral decision support. Moreover, there is a possibility of employing the decision support framework to other application areas of e-Health (like e-Consultation) with some modifications. Keywords: Medical Referral Systems, Referral Decisions, e-Referral Systems, Multi-Agent Systems, Decision Support Systems, Distributed Systemsviii
Shape Sensitive Salient-Object Based Image Query
(Addis Ababa University, 2004-06) Gashaw, Estifanos; Atnafu, Solomon(PhD)
The availability of images in electronic format has resulted in large number of digital images being used for different applications. The growth in the usage and availability of digital images calls for an efficient means of image data management. This has led to the development of content based image retrieval (CBIR) systems, which uses visual contents of an image such as color, texture or shape for querying image databases. CBIR is well researched and there are a large number of image retrieval systems based on this technology. Image retrieval matching can be performed using global features of the whole image (as in CBIR), but a comparison that considers part(s) of images for similarity-based retrieval is sometimes a more natural approach. Regions of an image that are of particular interest to humans are termed salient-objects of an image. Salient –object based image retrieval is not well researched, but there some developed system that model the salient object of the image using a Minimum Bounding Rectangle. In this work a new approach is proposed which considers the natural shape of the salient objects contained within an image. An Image segmentation tool is used to automatically identify salient objects of an image and store them in an object relational DBMS for multi-criteria image query (query based on both image content, positional predicates and metadata). Furthermore, some techniques have been proposed in this work to make the image retrieval system accessible within a pervasive computing environment. Keywords: Salient-Object Based Image Retrieval, Image Database, Image Retrieval in Pervasive Environment, Image Segmentation, Multi-Criteria Image Query.
Open Source Content Management Software Customization for the Ethiopian Government
(Addis Ababa University, 2004-06) Adgo, Zemene; Bekele, Dawit (PhD)
Most Ethiopian government organizations maintain and exchange documents traditionally. This method of document management is time consuming, costly and unsecured. However, managing documents electronically, greatly improves the internal operations of an organization, raises community satisfaction, and simplifies document management and exchange. In this project, OpenCms which is one of the open source content management software is adapted to enable the government organizations to manage their documents. Language is another barrier for the growth and development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the country. This is because most software systems are developed in English language but a small percentage of the population understands that language very well. However, by localizing a software product to the country’s locales, i.e. languages, cultural norms and standards as well as needs and expectations, the users can interact with the software in the settings that feel natural to them. In this project, OpenCms is localized to Ethiopian locales. Open source software are appropriate technology for Ethiopia. This is because they can be acquired free of charge and allow users to redistribute, modify and resell the software. However, they are not widely used in the country, there are III many reasons for this some of them are piracy of proprietary software, lack of awareness about open source software and shortage of open source software experts.
SIMILARITY-BASED VIDEO RETRIEVAL: MODELING and PROCESSING
(Addis Ababa University, 2004-06) Mequanint, Dessalegn; Atnafu, Solomon(PhD)
Nowadays, digital video data is increasingly available for public accesses. However, the rate at which access to this key element of multimedia computing is growing is unparalleled with the tools and techniques that have been developed for retrieving and browsing it. In recent years, a lot of research efforts have been put into video data management, amongst other active research topics, video data modeling has been extensively researched, but nearly no work has been done in the area of video data modeling that reveals the role of metadata in enhancing video retrieval systems, and only little work has been done in the area of video data repository modeling. In many cases the motivation of the research efforts has been the accessibility problem. In this thesis, a video data model with two separate representation schemes is proposed. The proposed video data model distinguishes three parts: the frame-based scheme, the object-based scheme and the external description block. We focus our attention on the frame-based scheme and the external description block. In addition, a video data repository model that can be conveniently used under OR-DBMSs environment is proposed. On the basis of the proposed video data repository models, a similarity-based video retrieval technique in the context of ORDBMS is also proposed. In an effort towards the design of effective and interoperable video retrieval systems, standards play a major role, in this thesis through the video data model we proposed the benefits of MPEG- 7 are directed to reach OR-DBMSs. Furthermore, to demonstrate the practicality of our proposals a prototype system for a soccer application domain which is called SVAMS is developed. Key words: Video data model, Video data repository model, Frame-based representation, Object-based representation, Video databases, Similarity-based video retrieval
Query Optimization Heuristics for Content-Based Image Database
(Addis Ababa University, 2004-06) Geleta, Seifu; Atnafu, Solomon(PhD)
The goal of query optimization is to select an efficient query evaluation strategy. Query optimization is a widely studied problem in the context of traditional database systems. As a result many query optimization techniques have been developed and integrated into the query processing module of these database systems. Due to the differences in query processing strategy followed by content-based image database systems, query optimization in these systems is different. In recent years, the number of image used in different application areas is increasing at a high rate. As a result, many content-based image retrieval systems and content-based image database systems have been developed. These systems have become important to manage image queries based on low level features when the size of images to be managed is small. However, as the size of image collection to be managed increases, these systems could not be efficient. This is because the underlying database do not provide query optimization scheme for similarity-based image queries. In this thesis we developed heuristic-based query optimization techniques that transform declarative query posed on content-based image database into more efficient form. To test the performance of the proposed optimization techniques we conducted experiments. The result of our experimental tests showed that our optimization techniques have brought a significant cost saving by reducing execution time of queries. In addition to the query optimization techniques, we proposed a method of integrating these query optimization techniques with existing content-based image database systems. As the query optimizer of commercial database systems that support content-based image processing are not fully extensible, we proposed to develop and integrate a query optimizer into the Image query processing module previously proposed. This requires the development of query optimizer that implements the optimization techniques. Hence, we have identified the requirement of query optimizer for content-based image database and presented the design of an extensible rule-based query optimizer. Keywords: Query optimization, image database, similarity-based query processing, Optimization for content-based image database.
A Framework for Requirements Elicitation Techniques Selection
(Addis Ababa University, 2004-06) Abebe, Semahegn; Ayalew, Yirsaw(PhD)
The success of a system development is greatly dependent on the quality of the requirements. The quality of the requirements, in turn, is highly affected by the type of elicitation techniques that are employed during the requirements elicitation process. On the other hand, the effectiveness of elicitation techniques is dependent on the situation in which they are used. Some techniques may be more suitable to one situation than others. Little research is done to match elicitation techniques to situations where they are most effective. In addition, the effort to study the driving factors for the selection of elicitation techniques is very small. Most studies focus on advocating specific elicitation techniques or methodologies, instead of providing a guideline on when to use the techniques. This results in serious challenge on analysts, causing them to be confused, being left in the middle of several techniques without the necessary guide on when to use them. This thesis presents a framework, which will assist analysts in the selection process of elicitation techniques that best fit the goal of elicitation session, the project environment and the problem domain. The framework, proposed in this thesis, has three steps and is probe-based. It takes the goal of an elicitation session, information about the project environment and the problem domain and generates list of suitable elicitation techniques in their priority of applicability to a given condition. The result of this thesis work is also included in the ETS prototype, which is a Web based application used to demonstrate the applicability of the framework.
Business Rules Object-Oriented Method [Broom)
(Addis Ababa University, 2004-07) Tareke, Tadesse; Midekso, Dida(PhD)
Business rules systems are automated systems in which the business rules are separated from the procedural codes and database constructs. In addition, these business rules are shared across data stores, user interfaces and applications. The formal way of developing such systems is known as Business Rules Approach (BRA). Any approach has its own tradeoffs. To that end, BRA and other approaches such as Object-Oriented Approach (OOA) have their own strengths and weaknesses in developing business rules systems. This research is targeted to bring about a new, lightweight, and viable method known as Business Rules Object-Oriented Method (BROOM, for short) by taking the strengths of both approaches. Persistency of business rules is a prerequisite for separating business rules from the procedural codes and database constructs. This is, however, a less addressed issue by OOA although the concept of objects has been spread since 1967. Furthermore, this separation of business rules is a basic principle of BRA in which its proponents consider that OOA and the Unified Modeling Language (UML) are incapable of addressing the development problem of a business rules system. In this research, to alleviate the problems stated above, UML was extended with stereotype extension mechanism to model the business rules flavors (i.e., term, fact and rule). The support tools for the method were also prototyped. These support tools include Metamodel Management Tool (MMT), Rules Management Tool (RMT), and Data Management Tool (DMT). Moreover, a general architectural framework for the method was provided from which an extended version of the framework was drawn. This extended framework utilized Java, eXtensible Markup Language (XML), and eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) in order to realize a design pattern for a lightweight Rule Engine. Last but not least, BROOM was demonstrated with a system and the extended framework as a case study. The system rigorously used the prototype tools after it was modeled with the UML extensions made earlier. Finally, the results of the case study were analyzed. Keywords: Method, Business Rules, Business Rules System, Rule Engine, Support Tools
Salient-Object-Based Image Query by Visual Content
(Addis Ababa University, 2004-07) Bulcha, Dawit; Atnafu, Solomon (PhD)
The rise in the intense utilization of images in our daily life resulted in a high volume of images produced from different sectors of human endeavor. This resulted in the need for an efficient management of image data. Recently, Content-based image retrieval has attracted much attention from the research community. As exact matching is not possible with image retrieval, the approach is to use similarity-based matching. Much of the works on similaritybased image retrieval use the global features (color, shape, texture, etc) of the entire image to compute similarity score between two images. Equally important to using the entire image is the use of salient-objects; objects in an image that are of particular interest to the user, as the basis of similarity-based computation. The current works on content-based image retrieval do not address very well the issues related to salient-objects based image retrieval. In this work, we have proposed an extension to a previous work on image database modeling and query processing. To support salient object based image retrieval, we have proposed an extension of the data repository model so that spatial features of contained salient objects are captured. Moreover, we proposed an extension to the similarity-based selection operator defined earlier so that salient object based selection operation be part of image database systems for similarity-based image retrieval. We have also proposed spatial operators that can be used to compute spatial relation between an image and contained salient objects. We have reviewed and presented refined formulations of previous works on spatial relations between objects in 2D space to compute spatial relation between salient objects. To demonstrate the viability of salient-objects-based image retrieval, we have extended a previous work named EMIMS, to develop a system named EMIMS-S (Extended Medical Image Management System to support Salient objects). We have also used this prototype to experimentally show the retrieval effectiveness of salient-objects-based image queries. Keywords: Salient-object-based image retrieval, similarity of salient-objects, image database, image data model, similarity-based algebra, spatial relation of salient-objects.
Fault Tolerance Mobile Software Agents Communication Mechanism
(Addis Ababa University, 2004-07-07) Negash, Addisalem; Bekele, Dawit (PhD)
Mobile software agent systems have becomes an important tool for developing distributed applications. The use of mobile software agents is recommended in environment where network connection is not reliable and where there is low bandwidth. This is because mobile agents can perform the work with limited communication with the system that has created them. One important feature of mobile software agents is their ability to communicate to each other. Providing communication mechanism that guarantees delivery of message is that mobile software agent systems developer has to solve. A number of algorithms have been proposed to guarantee message delivery to highly mobile agents [13,8], but in our knowledge only one of them considers the existence of fault [8] and even that algorithm give responsibility transmitting message to a mailbox. In this thesis we have developed an algorithm that provides guaranteed delivery of message in the existence of fault particularly without assuming the location of mobile agent and without inhibiting movement of mobile software agent.
Integration of Computer Assisted Learning Into The Curricula of Ethiopian Schools
(Addis Ababa University, 2004-08) Mesfin, Gebremariam; Midekso, Dida(PhD)
This thesis is an investigation into the feasibility of integrating Computer Assisted Learning into the curricula of Ethiopian schools. It analyses the availability of appropriate and sufficient hardware and software, literacy level of teachers and students on computers, knowledge and skill of teachers about use of computers for instructional purposes. The results of these factors were used to compare status of the schools with different models for the integration of Computer Assisted Learning into the teaching and learning process. The findings of this study indicated that the use of computers beyond the actual computer classes is poorly exercised. The distribution of hardware and software and computer related skills of teachers and students are generally low. The comparison of the schools’ status with some models for Computer Assisted Learning integration in the teaching and learning process showed that almost all schools are either at the initial phase or do not correspond at all. A courseware was developed for the subject “Int. to Information Technology” for grade eleven. Lesson presentation, dynamic and randomly generated test questions, auto scoring and immediate feedback are some of the features of the courseware. Based on the results obtained from this study a number of recommendations are given on how Computer Assisted Learning can be integrated in the Ethiopian schools. Key words/phrases: CAL, computers in education, CAI, Computer Assisted Learning/Instruction, Integration, Models
Design of Architecture and Implemantation Issues for a Terresterial and Vsat Based National Telemedicine Network
(Addis Ababa University, 2004-11) Lemma, Fikreyohannes; Kinde, Samuel (PhD)
For a developing country such as Ethiopia with a difficult mountainous terrain and limited transportation infrastructure coupled with one of the lowest patient-doctor ratios anywhere in the world (almost 30,000 to 1), telemedicine offers a costeffective health-care system. This awareness is slowly gaining traction in the country with a pilot program entering a trial stage. Looking forward, however, we argue that telemedicine should play a more prominent role in the national healthcare plan mainly due to its cost-effectiveness and the availability of a substantial number of Ethiopian physicians living abroad - in some accounts more Ethiopian physicians live outside Ethiopia than inside - whose expertise can be tapped. To study the past and current effort on the application of telemedicine in Ethiopia, a survey of government, public and private hospitals was conducted. The survey included stakeholders of the health care system of the country through interviews and questionnaires. The result of the survey indicated that there have been few attempts to introduce telemedicine in Ethiopia. These efforts were found to be effective in creating awareness about the benefits of telemedicine; but with a limited scope. The study also investigates interests of the growing number of private hospitals that may have sufficient funds to implement telemedicine systems and identifies the specific area of telemedicine the private hospitals would be interested. Further, we propose a comprehensive design of network architecture for a nationwide telemedicine network that connects all regional hospitals and health centers with the urban public and government hospitals. Specifically, we propose a high level telemedicine network architecture, which can be implemented over the existing/emerging ICT infrastructure in Ethiopia to. The network connects all regional clinics with public/government urban hospitals for the purpose of data transmission in the form of text and images, as well as instantaneous access to patient information. We also propose a web based telemedicine system, which provides basic services for medical tele-consultation. The system can be used by health care providers to store and retrieve patient information, to write referrals and give feedback to referrals, by using a web based Graphical User Interface. Since implementation of telemedicine could be challenged by factors such as medical ethics and medico-legal issues as well as user's resistance, we have presented these challenges. In the long run, we propose that the success of telemedicine efforts in the country will depend on its financial and operational sustainability. Commercialization, as one possible vehicle of financial sustainability is investigated.
Soft Computing Approaches for Estimating Software Development Effort
(Addis Ababa University, 2005-06) Demsis, Melaku; Ayalew, Yirsaw(PhD)
Estimating software development effort has been the focus of intensive research investigations in the field of software engineering, especially software project management. As a result, various cost estimation models have been proposed. However, most of the cost estimation models that have been proposed do not properly handle imprecision and uncertainty that is inherent in software project effort estimation. In this thesis, we propose a neuro-fuzzy approach that has the potential to improve software development effort estimation by applying fuzzy logic and neural networks in the process of effort estimation. This approach has been applied for the use case based estimation model, which is used in the process of object-oriented software development project. The applicability of the approach has been tested using an experiment with fifteen historical software project data. The result of the experiment shows that the neuro-fuzzy approach provides a reasonably better accuracy in software development effort estimation. Keywords: software project planning, effort estimation, use case based effort estimation, software development
Medical Data Access with A PDA-Based Client
(Addis Ababa University, 2005-06) Hunde, Dejene; Atnafu, Solomon (PhD)
In countries like Ethiopia, there is a very high shortage of medical specialists and doctors. This is a big problem that affects the quality of health care to patients. Due to inadequate treatment and guidance, which is caused by not effectively accessing medical specialists, a patient may suffer tremendously to the extent of losing life. A solution to this problem is to effectively utilize the existing or the available professionals by using modern technologies and by allowing professionals to have adequate access to patient data. An enabling technology in this respect is for example mobile access to patient medical data. Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) offer the medical specialists the ability to access the medical data from remote site. PDA-based client systems have already been implemented for medical application purpose in different places. These systems allow the medical specialists to access medical data from anywhere, and at anytime to give better treatment and guidance to patients. But these systems are not accessible to external users. In this project, we propose PDA-based client to access medical data from anywhere possible as wireless infrastructure may allow. In this work, we explored the tools and technologies available for this purpose and developed a prototype for a PDA-Based client to access medical data from remote sites. We tested the prototype with palm operating system Emulator (POSE). The prototype enables a medical specialist to access the medical data of a patient so that he can give better treatment and guidance. We believe that this approach will tap the problem of the medical professionals shortage in Ethiopia. Keywords: Mobile Medical Data Access, PDA-based Client, MAMI, POSE
Impact of Face Image Currency on Recongition Rates of the Eigenface Algorithm
(Addis Ababa University, 2005-06) Tesfay, Tamirat; Ricanek, Karl(PhD)
A technology evaluation is administrated to assess the impact of face image currency on the recognition rates of the Eigenface algorithm. Several experiments have been carried out to highlight the challenging problem in Face Recognition, -- ageing or aging. The MORPH database is used as a data source since it contains long-term data that spans from few days up to 29 years, between the acquisition of the first (gallery) and the subsequent (probe) image sets. The Identification test indicates that 1) the performance of the Eigenface algorithm decreased linearly (in general) with age-progression. 2) The Eigenface algorithm performed better in identifying older people than younger people. 3) The algorithm performed better in identifying males at younger age than females. 4) The algorithm achieved more or less similar results for the African-American and the Caucasian ethnic origin. In general, the overall performance evaluation test on the Eigenface algorithm indicates that the performance of the Eigenface approach is very sensitive to age-progression. Keywords: Eigenface, age-progression, MORPH, FERET, FRVT, PCA
Online Handwriting Recognition for Ethiopic Characters
(Addis Ababa University, 2005-06) Shimeles, Abnet; Atnafu, Solomon (PhD)
A new computing scheme, pen computing, which includes mobile devices and applications in which electronic pen along with pen sensitive writing pad is used as the main input tool has been emerging. To implement pen-computing applications, online handwriting recognition system should be used. Online handwriting recognition engines have been developed for various character sets. Despite that, no attempt has ever been made to build an online handwriting recognition engine for Ethiopic character set. Pen-based inputting incorporated with online handwriting recognition feature allows people to write texts and enter input data in their own natural way of handwriting on an electronic pad. This thesis then is the first attempt to develop an online handwriting character recognition engine for Ethiopic characters. The pen-based devices are evidently unusual in Ethiopia and one reason for that is the absence of localized applications. Bringing an online handwriting recognition engine for Ethiopic character set to such devices would play an important role in making these devices available and usable for the Ethiopian society. In this study, a model for Ethiopic online handwriting character recognition is proposed and a writer-dependent online handwriting character recognition engine for the 33+1 basic Ethiopic characters is designed. The designed engine integrates five modules: the data collection and preparation module, the preprocessing module, the feature extraction module, the training module and the classification module. Data collection is done with the aid of digitizer software named Neuroscript MovAlyzer, which samples data points along the trajectory of an input device (electronic pen or mouse) while the character is drawn. Various algorithms are designed for the preprocessing activities. In the feature extraction module, a new online handwriting data representation scheme that makes use of the X and Y coordinate observation code sequences is proposed. A training algorithm and most importantly a three-layered recognizer is designed. We are able to show that a reasonably good accuracy is obtained by implementing the proposed algorithms. On the average, a recognition accuracy of up to 99.4% is achieved for the sampled two writers. Recognition accuracy 93.4%, 99%, 99.8% are also obtained for each of the layers of the recognizer respectively. Keywords: Online handwriting recognition, Online handwriting recognition for Ethiopic Characters, algorithms for Ethiopic online handwriting recognition, Model for Ethiopic character online handwriting recognition.
E-Payment: a Framework for Ethiopia Condition
(Addis Ababa University, 2005-06-06) Tadesse, Wondwossen; Atnafu, Solomon (PhD)
Electronic commerce provides a chance for developing countries like Ethiopia to open their door to international market very easily. To have an effective e-commerce it is necessary to have an effective e-payment system. In this project we have developed an e-payment system that is appropriate for Ethiopia that is used for B2C and C2C business transactions. Electronic payment heavily relates to a county’s financial structure, people payment habit and government policy. Investigations regarding payment system have been made. A variety of e-payment systems have been also surveyed. In this project we have designed and implemented an e-payment system based on Internet cash card called E-PCC( Electronic Payment through Cash Card). SSL is used for encryption and to provide other similar security functionalities. The system provides two options to authenticate clients. These are smart card and SMS of a mobile phone. E-PCC provides payment functionalities. Through E-PCC it is possible to transfer money to a bank account.
Multimedia Content’s Metadata Management for Pervasive Environments
(Addis Ababa University, 2005-07) Meshesha, Fitsum; Bekele, Dawit(PhD)
One of the important aspects of a pervasive environment is the adaptation of content to suit a client’s specific needs and choices such as the client’s preferences, the characteristics of the client device, the characteristics of the network to which the client is currently connected, as well as other related factors. In order for the adaptation to be efficient while satis fying the client’s requirements and maintaining the semantics and quality of the content, the adaptation system needs to have adequate information regarding the content to be adapted, the client’s profile, the network profile and others. This thesis work addresses the issue of content metadata management in a pervasive environment in relation to content adaptation. For this purpose, a distributed architecture for the management of metadata of multimedia content is proposed. The proposed architecture consists of components for storage, retrieval, update, and removal of metadata in the system. It also provides interfaces to external components through which metadata can be accessed. In addition, restrictions on the adaptations that may be applied on the content are incorporated in the metadata. This enables the content creator to impose constraints on adaptations that may potentially cause the loss of critical information or a decrease in the quality of the adapted content
WAP for Ethiopic Content an application for Accessing Marketing Information
(Addis Ababa University, 2005-07) Assefa, Teferi; Atnafu, Solomon(PhD)
Accessing current and accurate information being any where at anytime is becoming a growing interest nowadays. WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) is an application protocol that creates an opportunity to access information of an interest from WAP servers using mobile phones. WAP supports a UTF-8 encoding, which can be used for developing a multilingual WAP pages. In this work, the necessary standards, tools and configuration requirements for Ethiopic WAP content development are identified and studied. As a result of this study we observed that WAP technology could be applicable for information delivery in Ethiopic content on mobile phones. To demonstrate the result of this work, we have developed a WAP application for agricultural market information delivery in Amharic language. Key words: WAP for Ethiopic, WAP based Marketing Information, WAP localization, WAPE, XHTML MP for Ethiopic
Semantic Description of Multimedia Content Adaptation Web Services
(Addis Ababa University, 2005-07-07) Lemma, Surafel; Bekele, Dawit (PhD)
In pervasive computing, multimedia information is accessed using different devices with different processing power, storage size, display size, etc. Hence, the information that needs to be displayed has to be modified in order to meet the devices’ requirements. This modification is called content adaptation. Multimedia content adaptation can be done at various places in different frameworks. Some frameworks propose that content adaptation should be done by content servers, while others consider that it should be done at the client side. Another approach considers that content adaptation should be performed by third party services that can be implemented using web services. The objective of this research is to find ways of facilitating discovery of these third party content adaptation web services by users of these services. In order to use these web services, one has to be able to find them on the Web. However, today, finding the right web service for a specific task (multimedia content adaptation in our case) is difficult. This is mainly because of the type of description used to advertise the web services. Current standards that are used to describe web services are syntactic. Syntactic description of web services contains some keywords and signature of the web service, which is later, used for searching the services. However, this information does not allow high rate of success during service discovery. These limitations of the current standards can be improved by using semantic description methods. Semantic description gives the meanings and relationships of the terms and concepts used in describing a web service, which improves the discovery of a web service. In order to allow semantic description of multimedia content adaptation web services, we have developed an ontology for multimedia content adaptation web services. To develop this ontology, we first studied different ontology development methods based on which we formulated an approach using which we have developed the ontology by identifying different types of audio content adaptation web services and their properties that can be used to increase the semantic information of the audio content adaptation web services. In this research, we have also developed a prototype to show the usability of the ontology that we developed. The prototype allows a user to advertise a web service using the ontology and look for a specific web service.

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