Ron Chi-Wai Kwok

IT outsourcing evolution---: past, present, and future

To achieve complex solutions in the rapidly changing world of e-commerce, it is impossible to go it alone. This explains the latest trend in IT outsourcing---global and partner-based alliances. But where do we go from here?

Determination of multi-element profiles of street dust using energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF)

Street dust samples have been collected in different areas in Hong Kong associated with various levels of traffic and pedestrian flow, and the concentrations of 23 chemical elements have been determined using energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF). The 23 studied elements were Na, Al, Si, Cl, Ti, Ba, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, K, Ca, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Pb, Rb, Sr, Y, Zr and Sn. A profile for average street dust for Hong Kong has been determined by taking average values for different areas. The values for the Hong Kong street dust are commensurate with the values derived in previous investigations or for other countries, except that Hong Kong street dust has much higher Cl, Ca and As concentrations. A factor analysis gives four sources for the street dust in Hong Kong: namely, mixture of metallic dust and crustal material, vehicles, road pavement materials, and mixture of marine aerosols and crustal material.

An organizational decision support system for effective R&D project selection

Research and development (R&D) project selection is an important task for organizations with R&D project management. It is a complicated multi-stage decision-making process, which involves groups of decision makers. Current research on R&D project selection mainly focuses on mathematical decision models and their applications, but ignores the organizational aspect of the decision-making process. This paper proposes an organizational decision support system (ODSS) for R&D project selection. Object-oriented method is used to design the architecture of the ODSS. An organizational decision support system has also been developed and used to facilitate the selection of project proposals in the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). The proposed system supports the R&D project selection process at the organizational level. It provides useful information for decision-making tasks in the R&D project selection process.

Text mining and probabilistic language modeling for online review spam detection

In the era of Web 2.0, huge volumes of consumer reviews are posted to the Internet every day. Manual approaches to detecting and analyzing fake reviews (i.e., spam) are not practical due to the problem of information overload. However, the design and development of automated methods of detecting fake reviews is a challenging research problem. The main reason is that fake reviews are specifically composed to mislead readers, so they may appear the same as legitimate reviews (i.e., ham). As a result, discriminatory features that would enable individual reviews to be classified as spam or ham may not be available. Guided by the design science research methodology, the main contribution of this study is the design and instantiation of novel computational models for detecting fake reviews. In particular, a novel text mining model is developed and integrated into a semantic language model for the detection of untruthful reviews. The models are then evaluated based on a real-world dataset collected from amazon.com. The results of our experiments confirm that the proposed models outperform other well-known baseline models in detecting fake reviews. To the best of our knowledge, the work discussed in this article represents the first successful attempt to apply text mining methods and semantic language models to the detection of fake consumer reviews. A managerial implication of our research is that firms can apply our design artifacts to monitor online consumer reviews to develop effective marketing or product design strategies based on genuine consumer feedback posted to the Internet.

Remote learning technologies: effectiveness of hypertext and GSS

Abstract We examine the effectiveness of two important technologies for remote learning. More specifically, we investigate the effect of hypertext on individual learning and the effect of group support systems (GSS) on collaborative learning. We propose and empirically test two models explaining these effects. The first model stipulates that hypertext can support knowledge construction by facilitating the transition from declarative knowledge to structural knowledge. The second model stipulates that GSS enhance knowledge construction by supporting the active participation and cooperation attributes of effective learning. Based on concept mapping techniques, the empirical results confirm predictions of both models.

The effects of peer intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on MMOG game-based collaborative learning

We combined Massively Multiplayer Online Game and technology-based collaborative learning methods to examine peer motivational factors influencing intention to learn; these have seldom been jointly examined. We proposed two new constructs, peer intrinsic motivation and peer extrinsic motivation, and investigated their effect on a players intention to learn individually and collaboratively. Our survey and interview findings showed that an individual players peer intrinsic and extrinsic motivations had significantly positive influence on his or her intention to learn collaboratively and individually. Implications for academics, educators, game developers, and players are discussed.

Study of pollution dispersion in urban areas using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Geographic Information System (GIS)

Abstract The computational fluid dynamics software, CFX5.5 is employed to determine dispersions of emissions from vehicles traversing the streets. Information on the layouts and heights of buildings in the selected area is contained in a digitized map layer of buildings. The Geographic Information System software, ArcView 3.2a, with its programming facility, Avenue, has been used to extract the coordinates and heights of each building polygon under research. These are then input into the CFX-Build component of CFX5.5 to construct the geometry for simulations. The dispersion characteristics, such as the spread of the pollution dispersions, have been determined for different wind speeds and wind directions.

Do Mobile Device Applications Affect Learning

Mobile devices (e.g., PDAs and smartphones) are increasingly emerging as part of daily life, particularly with university students. The City University of Hong Kong has embarked on a long-term program to develop and integrate mobile learning activities into the context of undergraduate courses. This paper reports on the development, introduction and evaluation of a portfolio of collaborative mobile learning applications. Results support convictions that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to embrace mobile applications correlates with enhanced performance, albeit with constructive alignment of student learning interests as a moderator

Collaborative assessment in education: An application of a fuzzy GSS

Abstract Educators are increasingly pressed to deal effectively and efficiently with multiple criteria evaluation in a variety of circumstances as students become more actively involved in assessment. This paper demonstrates that a “fuzzy set” collaborative assessment approach implemented with a group support system (GSS) can be successfully applied in university classroom contexts. Student learning was significantly enhanced, as was satisfaction, when a collaborative assessment approach was taken. This approach has broad-based applicability in dealing with assessment complexity encountered in a wide variety of business and government contexts, as well as educational institutions.

A fuzzy GSS framework for organizational knowledge acquisition

Although the concept of viewing knowledge as a critical resource has been widely accepted in prior studies, it is not fully understood how to acquire available knowledge in order to improve organizational effectiveness. However, it is sure that organizational knowledge management should pursue the achievement of the business goal by delivering relevant and useful information to the right person at the right time. Group Support Systems (GSS) can play an important role in transfering scattered information into meaningful business knowledge for supporting strategic corporate decision-making. This study proposes a fuzzy GSS framework for acquiring workgroup knowledge from individual memory and aggregating workgroup knowledge into organizational knowledge. This study also proposes an architecture to support the fuzzy GSS framework. The architecture consists of user agents, information management agents, and a fuzzy model manager. To illustrate how the fuzzy GSS framework can be used to support the whole process of organizational knowledge acquisition, an Internet-based GSS was developed and applied in a marketing decision process. It showed that the framework was effective for acquiring organizational knowledge.