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This article aims to propose an adaptation algorithm that combines the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), a rule-based system, and a k-means clustering algorithm. Informatic tools are very useful to enhance the learning process in the classroom. The large variety of these tools require advanced decision-making techniques to select parameters, such as student profiles and preferences, to adjust content and information display, according to specific characteristics and necessities of students. They are part of the Kamachiy–Idukay (KI), a platform to offer adaptative educational services to students with learning difficulties or disabilities.

The design and implementation of the adaptation algorithm comprises the following phases: utilization of the AHP to determine the most important student parameters, parameter to take into account in the adaptation process, such as preferences, learning styles, performance in language, attention and memory aspects and disabilities; designing the first part of the adaptation algorithm, based on a rule-based system; designing the second part of the adaptation algorithm, based on k-means clustering; integration of the adaptation algorithm to KI; and validation of the approach in a primary school in Bogotá (Colombia).

The main approach is the application of computational techniques, namely, rule-based systems and k-means clustering, plus an AHP prioritization at design time to yield a system to support the teaching–learning process for students with disabilities or learning difficulties.

The algorithm found several groups of students with specific learning difficulties that required adapted activities. The algorithm also prioritized activities according to learning style and preferences. The results of the application of this system in a real classroom yielded positive results.

The algorithm performs adaptation for students with mild disabilities or learning difficulties (language, attention and memory). The algorithm does not address severe disabilities that could greatly affect cognitive abilities.

The main contribution of this paper is an adaptation algorithm with the following distinctive characteristics, namely, designed utilizing the AHP, which ensures a proper prioritization of the student characteristics in the adaptation process, and utilizes a rule-based system to identify different adaptation scenarios and k-means clustering to group students with similar adaptation requirements.

Ubiquitous web applications (UWA) are a new type of web applications which are accessed in various contexts, i.e. through different devices, by users with various interests, at anytime from anyplace around the globe. For such full‐fledged, complex software systems, a methodologically sound engineering approach in terms of model‐driven engineering (MDE) is crucial. Several modeling approaches have already been proposed that capture the ubiquitous nature of web applications, each of them having different origins, pursuing different goals and providing a pantheon of concepts. This paper aims to give an in‐depth comparison of seven modeling approaches supporting the development of UWAs.

This methodology is conducted by applying a detailed set of evaluation criteria and by demonstrating its applicability on basis of an exemplary tourism web application. In particular, five commonly found ubiquitous scenarios are investigated, thus providing initial insight into the modeling concepts of each approach as well as to facilitate their comparability.

The results gained indicate that many modeling approaches lack a proper MDE foundation in terms of meta‐models and tool support. The proposed modeling mechanisms for ubiquity are often limited, since they neither cover all relevant context factors in an explicit, self‐contained, and extensible way, nor allow for a wide spectrum of extensible adaptation operations. The provided modeling concepts frequently do not allow dealing with all different parts of a web application in terms of its content, hypertext, and presentation levels as well as their structural and behavioral features. Finally, current modeling approaches do not reflect the crosscutting nature of ubiquity but rather intermingle context and adaptation issues with the core parts of a web application, thus hampering maintainability and extensibility.

Different from other surveys in the area of modeling web applications, this paper specifically considers modeling concepts for their ubiquitous nature, together with an investigation of available support for MDD in a comprehensive way, using a well‐defined as well as fine‐grained catalogue of more than 30 evaluation criteria.

The simple environment for context aware systems (SECAS) Project deals with the adaptation of applications to the context (user preferences and environment, terminal, etc.). The authors aim to develop a platform which makes the services, data and the user interface of applications adaptable to different context situations.

Previous research has concentrated on how to capture context data and how to carry it to the application. The present work focuses on the impact of context on the application core. A case study in the medical field is also analysed.

The paper illustrates a new definition of the context which separates the application data from the parameters of the context. This definition helps to establish a complete study on how to adapt applications on their three dimensions (services, content and presentation) to the context.

The paper presents the SECAS platform, one that ensures the deployment of adaptive context‐aware applications.

Students have learning difficulties, mainly in processes that involve attention and interpretation of written or spoken language. Technological tools allow to create computational platforms with adaptation aspects depending on the student’s characteristics. It is also important to highlight the progress of the measurement of cognitive processes such as attention through NeuroSky’s MindWave EEG sensors. This paper aims to present the results of analyzing attention levels of children with learning difficulties, based on the acquired brain waves. As a final result, an adaptive computational system that displays educational activities regarding educational profiles of children is obtained.

The Kamachiy–Idukay platform was chosen to make the validation. The platform generates the educational activities according to the students’ profile. The validation phases were identification of the test environment, the first environment required a scenario that involved students with learning difficulties, to verify the functionality of the system, when analyzing cases of the students with learning difficulties; identification of two validation criteria, type of educational activity and attention difficulties of the students; and analysis of the brain signal when children interact with the educational content.

The adaptation of contents that include music and animations generate higher levels of attention in students with difficulty. The analysis of signals from the NeuroSky sensor to determine the attentional levels in children allowed a generation of content adapted to the characteristics of the difficulty in each child.

For the validation, it was necessary at the beginning of the activity to determine the stability of the signal emitted by the NeuroSky sensor. Two cases were studied in children with difficulty and their measure of attention versus adaptive contents.

A k-means algorithm was used to establish the attention levels of the children.

Children with learning difficulties have different learning styles, which implies an adaptation of content that generates an attentional process according to their characteristics.

Evaluation content adaptation taking into account the signal brain sensor NeuroSky for learning process. The signal brain of the student when interacting with the activities is include in the student profile.

This paper aims to present a detailed description of Agents for Enriching Services (AES), an agent-oriented framework that allows adapting a service in an information system. AES provides an adaptation logic that can be instantiated and extended to be useful in different domains. In previous works, we presented the adaptation mechanism of AES, which considers context aspects such as location, infrastructure; user aspects such as preferences and interests; and device aspects such as hardware and software features.

The first step was the definition of different profiles, mainly user and context profiles. Then the adaptation mechanism was defined, which considers these profiles. With this mechanism, the adaptation filters to apply them to the initial queries was specified. Finally, feedback was provided, which included implicit and explicit information from the user and the system. AES is an agent-based framework implemented in Java, using the multi-agent platform BESA and a rule-based engine Drools.

AES can be used as the starting point to adapt services by enriching them considering different stimulus whether they come from the environment, devices or user preferences.

This work was tested in an academic environment and was only applied to enhance queries by using keywords. AES uses the query mechanism implemented in the system that invokes it.

This paper focuses on: an integrated view of AES including its formal description and details about its implementation. Particularly, it includes an exhaustive and formal definition of the filters used to create the adaptation rules and three different scenarios of the application of AES to adapt content according to user and context features. Finally, a comparison analysis is presented to highlight the strengths of our framework, specially its capacity of integration with systems that require providing user- and context-oriented services.

This research aims to investigate how a generic web‐based ITS can be created which will adapt the training content in real time, to the needs of the individual trainee across any domain.

After examining the various alternatives SCORM was adopted in this project because it provided an infrastructure that makes it possible to deliver personalised learning dynamically using re‐usable learning objects.

The results show that a system which presents a student with content that is supplementary to an authored course should be accompanied by a tool to help the trainee's navigation. For such a tool, key functionality would be: first, to identify learning objects that would take the student towards the ultimate learning goals; second, to suggest a pathway through the authored course structure and additional learning objects to the student; and finally, to present the student with different choices of pathway, such as fastest, most comprehensive and most popular routes.

This investigation has taken another approach of adapting the course by displaying an adapted set of learning objects to the trainee, instead of using a linear course structure.

This paper illuminates the distinction between individual and organizational actors in business-to-business markets as well as the coexistence of formal and informal mechanisms of coordination in multinational corporations. The main questions addressed include the following. (1) What factors influence the occurrence of personal contacts of foreign subsidiary managers in industrial multinational corporations? (2) How such personal contacts enable coordination in industrial markets and within multinational firms? The theoretical context of the paper is based on: (1) the interaction approach to industrial markets, (2) the network approach to industrial markets, and (3) the process approach to multinational management. The unit of analysis is the foreign subsidiary manager as the focal actor of a contact network. The paper is empirically focused on Portuguese sales subsidiaries of Finnish multinational corporations, which are managed by either a parent country national (Finnish), a host country national (Portuguese) or a third country national. The paper suggests eight scenarios of individual dependence and uncertainty, which are determined by individual, organizational, and/or market factors. Such scenarios are, in turn, thought to require personal contacts with specific functions. The paper suggests eight interpersonal roles of foreign subsidiary managers, by which the functions of their personal contacts enable inter-firm coordination in industrial markets. In addition, the paper suggests eight propositions on how the functions of their personal contacts enable centralization, formalization, socialization and horizontal communication in multinational corporations.

This paper examines a user categorisation of documents related to a particular literary work. Fifty study participants completed an unconstrained sorting task of documents related to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas carol. After they had finished the sorting task, participants wrote descriptions of the attributes they used to create each group. Content analysis of these descriptions revealed categories of attributes used for grouping. Participants used physical format, audience, content description, pictorial elements, usage, and language most frequently for grouping. Many of the attributes participants used for grouping already exist in bibliographic records and may be used to cluster records related to works automatically in online catalogue displays. The attributes used by people in classifying or grouping documents related to a work may be used to guide the design of summary online catalogue work displays.

With a comparative aim, the purpose of this paper is to challenge the general assumption behind relationship longevity. The question under attention is whether firms' relationship of a discontinuous nature is different from continuous relationships and if so what this diversity entails. In the essay, a conceptual view is developed and tested statistically. The ambition is to add new knowledge to the field of business relationships.

The essay's theoretical foundation rests on relationship theory and employs the four relationship behaviour elements of trust, commitment, cooperation and adaptation. Differences/similarities in the effects among these elements are tested for two types of relationships, i.e. those of continuous and discontinuous exchange, using data from 353 Swedish firms.

The results show that a firm's behaviour in continuous relationships rests on incremental change, in the sense that the relationship elements of trust, commitment, cooperation and adaptation display sequential and progressive effects. This supports the common notion of a gradual strengthening of the business relationship resulting in longevity. Contrary to this, a firm's behaviour in discontinuous relationships is guided by the level of trust, which thus forms the base for the remaining elements. The absence of incremental change in the relationship behaviour and the pivotal role of trust mean that these relationships are weaker and are faced with interruptions and interference from competitors. Thereby business firms are confronted with different marketing challenges. The differences in the relationship behaviour of the two types signify that the view of relationships indeed needs advancement.

Falling from a continuous to a discontinuous business relationship is becoming more common due to reasons such as market crises, business or firm crisis or because of the nature of the businesses as such. While earlier research studied the relationships' continuity and discontinuity separately, this paper enriches the earlier efforts and compares the two types. Understanding the differences between the two types of relationship can enrich the knowledge, not only for researchers but also for business managers.