International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology (5 papers in press)

Regular Issues

• Context-aware Adaptive Personalized Recommendation: A Meta-Hybrid  
  by Peter Tibensky, Michal Kompan 
  Abstract: Recommenders take place on a wide scale of e-commerce systems, reducing the problem of information overload. The most common approach is to choose a recommender used by the system to make predictions. However, users vary from each other; thus, a one-fits-all approach seems to be sub-optimal. In this paper, we propose a meta-hybrid recommender that uses machine learning to predict an optimal algorithm. In this way, the best-performing recommender is used for each specific session and user. This selection depends on contextual and preferential information collected about the user. We use standard MovieLens and The Movie DB datasets for offline evaluation. We show that based on the proposed model, it is possible to predict which recommender will provide the most precise recommendations to a user. The theoretical performance of our meta-hybrid outperforms separate approaches by 20-50% in normalized Discounted Gain and Root Mean Square Error metrics. However, it is hard to obtain the optimal performance based on widely-used standard information stored about users.
  Keywords: personalized recommendation; hybrid recommender; context; machine learning.
  
  
• Technostress in the Workplace: Triggers, Outcomes, and Coping Strategies With a Special Focus on Generational Differences  
  by Teresa Spiess, Christian Ploder, Reinhard Bernsteiner, Thomas Dilger 
  Abstract: Being part of the modern world of work also usually means having to deal with information and communication technologies. These technologies are designed to enhance task performance and productivity. However, sometimes they can have the opposite effect e.g., triggered by mechanisms like technostress. This paper analyzes whether this form of ICT-related stress can be connected to different triggers, outcomes, and coping strategies for Generation Y and Babyboomer generation knowledge workers. Ten episodic interviews led to the conclusion that all interview partners face various forms of technostress during their work. For the Generation Y, technostress is largely created by the technostress creators techno-overload and techno-invasion. For the Babyboomer generation, technostress is triggered by other technostress creators, namely by techno-complexity and techno-uncertainty. Furthermore, there is also a difference in how the two generations deal with technostress. Members of Generation Y focus on problem-oriented and emotional coping strategies, whereas members of the Babyboomer generation mostly use emotional coping strategies. Moreover, the outcomes of technostress vary. While Generation Y experiences role conflicts due to techno-invasion and productivity losses due to techno-overload, for the Babyboomer generation technostress reduces productivity owing to techno-uncertainty.
  Keywords: Technostress; ICT-related Stress; Future of Work; Task Performance; Transactional Model of Stress; Coping Strategies; Generational Differences; Generation Y; Baby Boomers.
  
  
• Fuzzy Control based Manufacturing Service Composition in Graph Database  
  by Ming ZHU, Guodong Fan, Aikui Tian, Lu Zhang 
  Abstract: In recent years, the manufacturing industry is changing its way of production enabled by emerging technologies. Enterprises publish visualized resources as services on the cloud. To fulfill a complex manufacturing request, services can be composed together. However, how to compose proper services among a large number of services becomes a challenge. This paper presents a service composition graph model to deal with the challenge by using a graph database. Specifically, the service composition graph model is stored in the Neo4j graph database. Services and their inputs/outputs are stored as nodes in a directed bipartite graph that are connected with edges. The weights of edges are synthesized via a Fuzzy Control system according to the QoS of services. Possible compositions of services are calculated and pre-composed. When the manufacturing task arrives, an extended Dijkstra algorithm is used to find a solution. Experimental results show that the approach could return a solution satisfying both functional and QoS requirements within a short time.
  Keywords: manufacturing service; service composition; QoS; fuzzy control; graph database.
  
  
• Dynamic composition of services: an approach driven by the user's intention and context  
  by Abdelmajid Daosabah, Hatim Guermah, Mahmoud Nassar 
  Abstract: Thanks to the continuous development of services in different information systems, especially ubiquitous and complex systems, service orientation is becoming increasingly important in its structuring. As a result, the design and development of applications are gradually evolving from a traditional model to a more dynamic and service-oriented model, where reusability and adaptability play an important role. To this end, several works have focused on the idea of using software based on artificial intelligence (AI) planning to address the problem of service composition. Through this article, we propose an approach for service composition guided by the context and the intention of the user. In this sense, we are inspired by related works that tackle service composition, to implement a flexible composition system that uses AI planning techniques, by taking into account the permanent dynamism of the user's context and its varied requirements that express its intention. The present work seeks to propose architecture for service composition, to reduce the complexity of the generated planning problem, and to ensure the use of any planning system independently of domain planners. The idea of the approach is also to design an intentional-contextual metamodel that will be transformed into an OWL model using OMG (Object Management Group) standards, which will be used to map the web service composition problem into AI planning problems. This document describes the architectural aspect, the conceptual tool and strategies used to deal with the problems of web service composition and goal specification.
  Keywords: Intention; service composition; context-awareness; ontology; OWL-S; artificial intelligence; OMG; Spring Cloud Framework.
  
  
• A Survey of Tools for Social Network Analysis
  by Poonam Rani, Jyoti Shokeen 
  Abstract: .
  Keywords: .