bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
trans-Resveratrol in Nutraceuticals: Issues in Retail Quality and Effectiveness
Authors: Rossi Damiano , Guerrini Alessandra , Bruni Renato , Brognara Eleonora , Borgatti Monica , Gambari Roberto , Maietti Silvia , Sacchetti Gianni
Published: October 2012

Fourteen brands of resveratrol-containing nutraceuticals were evaluated in order to verify their actual resveratrol content and to control if their health-promoting properties are related to manufacturing quality. Products included pure resveratrol capsules or multi-ingredient formulations with standardized amounts of resveratrol and other phytochemicals. Samples were analyzed for total trans-resveratrol, flavonoids, procyanidin, polyphenol content and the results were compared with the content declared on-label. Only five out of 14 brands had near label values, compliant with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) requirements (95–105% content of active constituent), four products were slightly out of this range (83–111%) and three were in the 8–64% range. Two samples were below the limit of detection. The greater the difference between actual and labeled resveratrol content, the lower was the antioxidant and antiproliferative activity strength. Dietary supplements containing pure trans-resveratrol exhibited a greater induction of differentiation towards human leukemic K562 cells when compared to multicomponent products. Great differences currently exist among resveratrol food supplements commercially available and GMP-grade quality should not be taken for granted. On the other side, dosages suggested by most “pure”, “high-dosage” supplements may allow a supplementation level adequate to obtain some of the purported health benefits.
Acute Toxicity and Gastroprotective Effect of the Schiff Base Ligand 1H-Indole-3-ethylene-5-nitrosalicylaldimine and Its Nickel (II) Complex on Ethanol Induced Gastric Lesions in Rats
Authors: Ibrahim Mohamed Mustafa , Ali Hapipah Mohd , Abdullah Mahmood Ameen , Hassandarvish Pouya
Published: October 2012

The present study was performed to evaluate the gastroprotective activity of Schiff base ligand derived from the condensation reaction of tryptamine (an indole derivative) and 5-nitrosalicylaldehyde (TNS) and its nickel (II) complex against ethanol-induced gastric ulcer in rats. The compounds were orally administered with low (30 mg/kg) and high (60 mg/kg) doses to ulcer-induced Sprague-Dawley rats. Macroscopically, the ulcer control group exhibited severe mucosal injury, whereas pre-treatment with either cimetidine or TNS and its nickel (II) complex each resulted in significant protection against gastric mucosal injury. Flattening of gastric mucosal folds was also observed in rats pretreated with TNS and its nickel complex. Histological studies of the gastric wall of ulcer control group revealed severe damage of gastric mucosa, along with edema and leucocytes infiltration of the submucosal layer compared to rats pre-treated with either cimetidine or TNS and its nickel (II) compound, where there was marked gastric protection along with reduction of edema and leucocytes infiltration of the submucosal layer. Acute toxicity study done on mice with a higher dose of 5 g/kg of TNS and its nickel (II) complex did not manifest any toxicological signs. Research finding suggest that TNS and its nickel (II) complex could be considered as effective gastroprotective compounds.
Tocotrienols Reverse Cardiovascular, Metabolic and Liver Changes in High Carbohydrate, High Fat Diet-Fed Rats
Authors: Wong Weng-Yew , Poudyal Hemant , Ward Leigh C. , Brown Lindsay
Published: October 2012

Tocotrienols have been reported to improve lipid profiles, reduce atherosclerotic lesions, decrease blood glucose and glycated haemoglobin concentrations, normalise blood pressure in vivo and inhibit adipogenesis in vitro, yet their role in the metabolic syndrome has not been investigated. In this study, we investigated the effects of palm tocotrienol-rich fraction (TRF) on high carbohydrate, high fat diet-induced metabolic, cardiovascular and liver dysfunction in rats. Rats fed a high carbohydrate, high fat diet for 16 weeks developed abdominal obesity, hypertension, impaired glucose and insulin tolerance with increased ventricular stiffness, lower systolic function and reduced liver function. TRF treatment improved ventricular function, attenuated cardiac stiffness and hypertension, and improved glucose and insulin tolerance, with reduced left ventricular collagen deposition and inflammatory cell infiltration. TRF improved liver structure and function with reduced plasma liver enzymes, inflammatory cell infiltration, fat vacuoles and balloon hepatocytes. TRF reduced plasma free fatty acid and triglyceride concentrations but only omental fat deposition was decreased in the abdomen. These results suggest that tocotrienols protect the heart and liver, and improve plasma glucose and lipid profiles with minimal changes in abdominal obesity in this model of human metabolic syndrome.
Exploitation of Cellular Cytoskeletons and Signaling Pathways for Cell Entry by Kaposi’s Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus and the Closely Related Rhesus Rhadinovirus
Authors: Zhang Wei , Gao Shou-Jiang
Published: October 2012

As obligate intracellular pathogens, viruses depend on the host cell machinery to complete their life cycle. Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is an oncogenic virus causally linked to the development of Kaposi’s sarcoma and several other lymphoproliferative malignancies. KSHV entry into cells is tightly regulated by diverse viral and cellular factors. In particular, KSHV actively engages cellular integrins and ubiquitination pathways for successful infection. Emerging evidence suggests that KSHV hijacks both actin and microtubule cytoskeletons at different phases during entry into cells. Here, we review recent findings on the early events during primary infection of KSHV and its closely related primate homolog rhesus rhadinovirus with highlights on the regulation of cellular cytoskeletons and signaling pathways that are important for this phase of virus life cycle.
Detection of Interference Phase by Digital Computation of Quadrature Signals in Homodyne Laser Interferometry
Authors: Rerucha Simon , Buchta Zdenek , Sarbort Martin , Lazar Josef , Cip Ondrej
Published: October 2012

We have proposed an approach to the interference phase extraction in the homodyne laser interferometry. The method employs a series of computational steps to reconstruct the signals for quadrature detection from an interference signal from a non-polarising interferometer sampled by a simple photodetector. The complexity trade-off is the use of laser beam with frequency modulation capability. It is analytically derived and its validity and performance is experimentally verified. The method has proven to be a feasible alternative for the traditional homodyne detection since it performs with comparable accuracy, especially where the optical setup complexity is principal issue and the modulation of laser beam is not a heavy burden (e.g., in multi-axis sensor or laser diode based systems).
Numerical Study of Opto-Fluidic Ring Resonators for Biosensor Applications
Authors: Cho Han Keun , Han Jinwoo
Published: October 2012

The opto-fluidic ring resonator (OFRR) biosensor is numerically characterized in whispering gallery mode (WGM). The ring resonator includes a ring, a waveguide and a gap separating the ring and the waveguide. Dependence of the resonance characteristics on the resonator size parameters such as the ring diameter, the ring thickness, the waveguide width, and the gap width between the ring and the waveguide are investigated. For this purpose, we use the finite element method with COMSOL Multiphysics software to solve the Maxwell’s equations. The resonance frequencies, the free spectral ranges (FSR), the full width at half-maximum (FWHM), finesse (F), and quality factor of the resonances (Q) are examined. The resonant frequencies are dominantly affected by the resonator diameter while the gap width, the ring thickness and the waveguide width have negligible effects on the resonant frequencies. FWHM, the quality factor Q and the finesse F are most strongly affected by the gap width and moderately influenced by the ring diameter, the waveguide width and the ring thickness. In addition, our simulation demonstrates that there is an optimum range of the waveguide width for a given ring resonator and this value is between ~2.25 μm and ~2.75 μm in our case.
Hexagonal Inflation Tilings and Planar Monotiles
Authors: Baake Michael , Gähler Franz , Grimm Uwe
Published: October 2012

Aperiodic tilings with a small number of prototiles are of particular interest, both theoretically and for applications in crystallography. In this direction, many people have tried to construct aperiodic tilings that are built from a single prototile with nearest neighbour matching rules, which is then called a monotile. One strand of the search for a planar monotile has focused on hexagonal analogues of Wang tiles. This led to two inflation tilings with interesting structural details. Both possess aperiodic local rules that define hulls with a model set structure. We review them in comparison, and clarify their relation with the classic half-hex tiling. In particular, we formulate various known results in a more comparative way, and augment them with some new results on the geometry and the topology of the underlying tiling spaces.
Anthrax Lethal Toxin and the Induction of CD4 T Cell Immunity
Authors: Ascough Stephanie , Ingram Rebecca J. , Altmann Daniel M.
Published: October 2012

Bacillus anthracis secretes exotoxins which act through several mechanisms including those that can subvert adaptive immunity with respect both to antigen presenting cell and T cell function. The combination of Protective Antigen (PA) and Lethal Factor (LF) forming Lethal Toxin (LT), acts within host cells to down-regulate the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling cascade. Until recently the MAPK kinases were the only known substrate for LT; over the past few years it has become evident that LT also cleaves Nlrp1, leading to inflammasome activation and macrophage death. The predicted downstream consequences of subverting these important cellular pathways are impaired antigen presentation and adaptive immunity. In contrast to this, recent work has indicated that robust memory T cell responses to B. anthracis antigens can be identified following natural anthrax infection. We discuss how LT affects the adaptive immune response and specifically the identification of B. anthracis epitopes that are both immunogenic and protective with the potential for inclusion in protein sub-unit based vaccines.
Calyculin A from Discodermia Calyx Is a Dual Action Toxin that Blocks Calcium Influx and Inhibits Protein Ser/Thr Phosphatases
Authors: Holy Maja , Brautigan David L.
Published: October 2012

Calyculin A (Caly A) is cell permeable toxin widely used in cell biology research as an inhibitor of type 1 and type 2A protein Ser/Thr phosphatases of the PPP family. Here we tested effects of low concentrations of Caly A on proliferation of human cancer and non-cancer cell lines. We found that long-term 0.3 nM Caly A prevented G1 to S phase cell cycle progression in human Hs-68 fibroblasts and ARPE19 epithelial cells, but not human breast cancer MDA-MB-468, MDA-MB-231 and MCF7 cells. These conditions produced no change in cyclin D1 levels or in the phosphorylation of endogenous proteins. However, acute application of 0.3 nM Caly A blocked serum-induced increase in intracellular calcium levels in Hs-68 fibroblasts, but not in MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cells. We propose that subnanomolar Caly A prevents cell cycle progression because it blocks calcium uptake by fibroblasts. This probably involves non-selective cation channels and cancer cell proliferation was not affected because calcium enters these cells by other channels. Our results suggest that calyculin A has dual actions and acts as a channel blocker, in addition to its well-established effects as a phosphatase inhibitor.
RNA Structural Elements of Hepatitis C Virus Controlling Viral RNA Translation and the Implications for Viral Pathogenesis
Authors: Piñeiro David , Martinez-Salas Encarnación
Published: October 2012

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) genome multiplication requires the concerted action of the viral RNA, host factors and viral proteins. Recent studies have provided information about the requirement of specific viral RNA motifs that play an active role in the viral life cycle. RNA regulatory motifs controlling translation and replication of the viral RNA are mostly found at the 5' and 3' untranslated regions (UTRs). In particular, viral protein synthesis is under the control of the internal ribosome entry site (IRES) element, a complex RNA structure located at the 5'UTR that recruits the ribosomal subunits to the initiator codon. Accordingly, interfering with this RNA structural motif causes the abrogation of the viral cycle. In addition, RNA translation initiation is modulated by cellular factors, including miRNAs and RNA-binding proteins. Interestingly, a RNA structural motif located at the 3'end controls viral replication and establishes long-range RNA-RNA interactions with the 5'UTR, generating functional bridges between both ends on the viral genome. In this article, we review recent advances on virus-host interaction and translation control modulating viral gene expression in infected cells.
Hepatitis C Virus and Cellular Stress Response: Implications to Molecular Pathogenesis of Liver Diseases
Authors: Ke Po-Yuan , Chen Steve S.-L.
Published: October 2012

Infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a leading risk factor for chronic liver disease progression, including steatosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. With approximately 3% of the human population infected worldwide, HCV infection remains a global public health challenge. The efficacy of current therapy is still limited in many patients infected with HCV, thus a greater understanding of pathogenesis in HCV infection is desperately needed. Emerging lines of evidence indicate that HCV triggers a wide range of cellular stress responses, including cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress/unfolded protein response (UPR), and autophagy. Also, recent studies suggest that these HCV-induced cellular responses may contribute to chronic liver diseases by modulating cell proliferation, altering lipid metabolism, and potentiating oncogenic pathways. However, the molecular mechanism underlying HCV infection in the pathogenesis of chronic liver diseases still remains to be determined. Here, we review the known stress response activation in HCV infection in vitro and in vivo, and also explore the possible relationship of a variety of cellular responses with the pathogenicity of HCV-associated diseases. Comprehensive knowledge of HCV-mediated disease progression shall shed new insights into the discovery of novel therapeutic targets and the development of new intervention strategy.
Function and Regulation of Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) / CRISPR Associated (Cas) Systems
Authors: Richter Corinna , Chang James T. , Fineran Peter C.
Published: October 2012

Phages are the most abundant biological entities on earth and pose a constant challenge to their bacterial hosts. Thus, bacteria have evolved numerous ‘innate’ mechanisms of defense against phage, such as abortive infection or restriction/modification systems. In contrast, the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) systems provide acquired, yet heritable, sequence-specific ‘adaptive’ immunity against phage and other horizontally-acquired elements, such as plasmids. Resistance is acquired following viral infection or plasmid uptake when a short sequence of the foreign genome is added to the CRISPR array. CRISPRs are then transcribed and processed, generally by CRISPR associated (Cas) proteins, into short interfering RNAs (crRNAs), which form part of a ribonucleoprotein complex. This complex guides the crRNA to the complementary invading nucleic acid and targets this for degradation. Recently, there have been rapid advances in our understanding of CRISPR/Cas systems. In this review, we will present the current model(s) of the molecular events involved in both the acquisition of immunity and interference stages and will also address recent progress in our knowledge of the regulation of CRISPR/Cas systems.
Junín Virus Pathogenesis and Virus Replication
Authors: Grant Ashley , Seregin Alexey , Huang Cheng , Kolokoltsova Olga , Brasier Allan , Peters Clarence , Paessler Slobodan
Published: October 2012

Junín virus, the etiological agent of Argentine hemorrhagic fever, causes significant morbidity and mortality. The virus is spread through the aerosolization of host rodent excreta and endemic to the humid pampas of Argentina. Recently, significant progress has been achieved with the development of new technologies (e.g. reverse genetics) that have expanded knowledge about the pathogenesis and viral replication of Junín virus. We will review the pathogenesis of Junín virus in various animal models and the role of innate and adaptive immunity during infection. We will highlight current research regarding the role of molecular biology of Junín virus in elucidating virus attenuation. We will also summarize current knowledge on Junín virus pathogenesis focusing on the recent development of vaccines and potential therapeutics.
Phosphoinositides in the Hepatitis C Virus Life Cycle
Authors: Bishé Bryan , Syed Gulam , Siddiqui Aleem
Published: October 2012

Eukaryotes possess seven different phosphoinositides (PIPs) that help form the unique signatures of various intracellular membranes. PIPs serve as docking sites for the recruitment of specific proteins to mediate membrane alterations and integrate various signaling cascades. The spatio-temporal regulation of PI kinases and phosphatases generates distinct intracellular hubs of PIP signaling. Hepatitis C virus (HCV), like other plus-strand RNA viruses, promotes the rearrangement of intracellular membranes to assemble viral replication complexes. HCV stimulates enrichment of phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PI4P) pools near endoplasmic reticulum (ER) sites by activating PI4KIIIα, the kinase responsible for generation of ER-specific PI4P pools. Inhibition of PI4KIIIα abrogates HCV replication. PI4P, the most abundant phosphoinositide, predominantly localizes to the Golgi and plays central roles in Golgi secretory functions by recruiting effector proteins involved in transport vesicle generation. The PI4P effector proteins also include the lipid-transfer and structural proteins such as ceramide transfer protein (CERT), oxysterol binding protein (OSBP) and Golgi phosphoprotein 3 (GOLPH3) that help maintain Golgi-membrane composition and structure. Depletion of Golgi-specific PI4P pools by silencing PI4KIIIβ, expression of dominant negative CERT and OSBP mutants, or silencing GOLPH3 perturb HCV secretion. In this review we highlight the role of PIPs and specifically PI4P in the HCV life cycle.
Knowledge Transfer in Offshore Outsourcing
Authors: Huong Nguyen Thu , Katsuhiro Umemoto , Chi Dam Hieu
Published: October 2012

This paper discusses the knowledge transfer process in offshore outsourcing. The focus is a case study of software offshore outsourcing from Japan to Vietnam. Initial results confirm that willingness to cooperate and good impressions facilitate the knowledge transfer process. In addition, communication barriers, cultural differences, lack of equivalence in individual competence, and lack of common rules slow down the transfer process. The study also identifies the Bridge System Engineer (Bridge SE)-a type of coordinator who mediates and enhances the relationship between Japanese clients and Vietnamese service providers. Employing a Bridge SE is an effective way to fill the communication gap, the cultural gap, and generally improve the business relationship. Bridge SEs use their background of higher education and long-term residence in Japan to give advice to Vietnamese software teams on Japanese cultural characteristics, such as the apology culture and the separation between work and private time. In other situations, Bridge SEs use their IT background and communication skills to verify and adjust communication contents before information is sent from one side to another.
Influence of Knowledge Management Infrastructure on Innovative Business Processes and Market-Interrelationship Performance
Authors: Lee Wen-Ting , Hung Shin-Yuan , Chau Patrick Y.K.
Published: October 2012

Knowledge management (KM) infrastructure is the foundation for managing and embodying valuable knowledge in firms. Based on the resource-based view (RBV) and process level analysis, this study investigates how KM infrastructure influences market interrelationship performance through innovative business processes. The study collected a sample of 126 hospitals in the Taiwanese healthcare industry. The results suggest that technological capability and cultural capability positively affect market interrelationships via innovative business processes. Cultural capability is associated with market interrelationship performance whereas structural capability is unrelated to innovative business processes. The findings advance understanding of the influence of KM infrastructure on market interrelationship performance as well as provide managerial insights on the influence of innovative business processes on market interrelationships performance.
Offshore Vendors’ Software Development Team Configurations
Authors: Chakraborty Suranjan , Sarker Saonee , Rai Sudhanshu , Sarker Suprateek , Nadadhur Ranganadhan
Published: October 2012

This research uses configuration theory and data collected from a major IT vendor organization to examine primary configurations of distributed teams in a global off-shoring context. The study indicates that off-shoring vendor organizations typically deploy three different types of configurations, which the authors term as thin-at-client, thick-at-client, and hybrid. These configurations differ in terms of the size of the sub-teams in the different distributed locations and the nature of the ISD-related tasks performed by the distributed team members. In addition, the different configurations were compared on their inherent process-related and resource-related flexibilities. The thick-at-client configuration emerged as the one that offers superior flexibility (in all dimensions).However, additional analysis also revealed contingencies apart from flexibility that may influence the appropriateness of the distributed ISD team configuration, including the volatility of the client organization’s environment and the extent to which the ISD tasks can be effortlessly moved to the vendor’s home location.
Modeling the Success of Small and Medium Sized Online Vendors in Business to Business Electronic Marketplaces in China
Authors: Wang Shan , Hong Yili , Archer Norm , Wang Youwei
Published: October 2012

This paper explores the performance of Chinese small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) on Business-to-Business (B2B) electronic marketplaces (EMs). Based on a content analysis of 155 cases of high performing online Chinese vendors, this paper explains the success of SME online B2B vendors within a Motivation-Capability framework. This first generation of SME B2B online vendors proved highly motivated to increase sales and developed a set of Internet leveraged organizational capabilities to compete online, including capabilities for online marketing, product innovation, eCommerce management, etc. This study differs from traditional wisdom that online marketplaces will render Guanxi (a Chinese cultural phenomenon defined as close and pervasive interpersonal relationships, Yang, 1994) irrelevant since online marketplaces are perceived to be impersonal. In fact, Guanxi still matters online, but it takes new forms. This research offers important managerial implications for B2B SME online vendors on how to leverage EMs for higher performance.
Towards the Synergy of Cognitive Informatics, Neural Informatics, Brain Informatics, and Cognitive Computing
Authors: Wang Yingxu
Published: October 2012

The contemporary wonder of sciences and engineering recently refocused on the starting point: how the brain processes internal and external information autonomously rather than imperatively as those of conventional computers? This paper explores the interplay and synergy of cognitive informatics, neural informatics, abstract intelligence, denotational mathematics, brain informatics, and computational intelligence. A key notion recognized in recent studies in cognitive informatics is that the root and profound objective in natural, abstract, and artificial intelligence, and in cognitive informatics and cognitive computing, is to seek suitable mathematical means for their special needs. A layered reference model of the brain and a set of cognitive processes of the mind are systematically developed towards the exploration of the theoretical framework of cognitive informatics. A wide range of applications of cognitive informatics and denotational mathematics are recognized in the development of highly intelligent systems such as cognitive computers, cognitive knowledge search engines, autonomous learning machines, and cognitive robots.
Role-Based Human-Computer Interactions
Authors: Zhu Haibin , Hou Ming
Published: October 2012

With increased understanding of cognitive informatics and the advance of computer technologies, it is becoming clear that human-computer interaction (HCI) is an interaction between two kinds of intelligences, i.e., natural intelligence and artificial intelligence. This paper attempts to clarify interaction-related terminologies through step-by-step definitions, and discusses the nature of HCI, arguing that shared models are the most important aspect of HCI. This paper also proposes that a role-based interaction can be taken as an appropriate shared model for HCI, i.e., Role-Based HCI.
A Computational Simulation of the Cognitive Process of Children Knowledge Acquisition and Memory Development
Authors: Bancroft Jeff , Wang Yingxu
Published: October 2012

The cognitive mechanisms of knowledge representation, memory establishment, and learning are fundamental issues in understanding the brain. A basic approach to studying these mental processes is to observe and simulate how knowledge is memorized by little children. This paper presents a simulation tool for knowledge acquisition and memory development for young children of two to five years old. The cognitive mechanisms of memory, the mathematical model of concepts and knowledge, and the fundamental elements of internal knowledge representation are explored. The cognitive processes of children’s memory and knowledge development are described based on concept algebra and the object-attribute-relation (OAR) model. The design of the simulation tool for children’s knowledge acquisition and memory development is presented with the graphical representor of memory and the dynamic concept network of knowledge. Applications of the simulation tool are described by case studies on children’s knowledge acquisition about family members, relatives, and transportation. This work is a part of the development of cognitive computers that mimic human knowledge processing and autonomous learning.
On Machine Symbol Grounding and Optimization
Authors: Kramer Oliver
Published: October 2012

From the point of view of an autonomous agent the world consists of high-dimensional dynamic sensorimotor data. Interface algorithms translate this data into symbols that are easier to handle for cognitive processes. Symbol grounding is about whether these systems can, based on this data, construct symbols that serve as a vehicle for higher symbol-oriented cognitive processes. Machine learning and data mining techniques are geared towards finding structures and input-output relations in this data by providing appropriate interface algorithms that translate raw data into symbols. This work formulates the interface design as global optimization problem with the objective to maximize the success of the overlying symbolic algorithm. For its implementation various known algorithms from data mining and machine learning turn out to be adequate methods that do not only exploit the intrinsic structure of the subsymbolic data, but that also allow to flexibly adapt to the objectives of the symbolic process. Furthermore, this work discusses the optimization formulation as a functional perspective on symbol grounding that does not hurt the zero semantical commitment condition. A case study illustrates technical details of the machine symbol grounding approach.
Equivalence between LDA/QR and Direct LDA
Authors: Li Rong-Hua , Liang Shuang , Baciu George , Chan Eddie
Published: October 2012

Singularity problems of scatter matrices in Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) are challenging and have obtained attention during the last decade. Linear Discriminant Analysis via QR decomposition (LDA/QR) and Direct Linear Discriminant analysis (DLDA) are two popular algorithms to solve the singularity problem. This paper establishes the equivalent relationship between LDA/QR and DLDA. They can be regarded as special cases of pseudo-inverse LDA. Similar to LDA/QR algorithm, DLDA can also be considered as a two-stage LDA method. Interestingly, the first stage of DLDA can act as a dimension reduction algorithm. The experiment compares LDA/QR and DLDA algorithms in terms of classification accuracy, computational complexity on several benchmark datasets and compares their first stages. The results confirm the established equivalent relationship and verify their capabilities in dimension reduction.
Secure by Design
Authors: Mouratidis Haralambos , Kang Miao
Published: October 2012

This paper describes results and reflects on the experience of engineering a secure web based system for the pre-employment screening domain. In particular, the paper presents results from a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project between the School of Computing, IT and Engineering at the University of East London and the London-based award winning pre-employment company Powerchex Ltd. The Secure Tropos methodology, which is based on the principle of secure by design, has been applied to the project to guide the development of a web based system to support employment reference and background checking specifically for the financial services industry. Findings indicate the potential of the methodology for the development of secure web based systems, and support the argument of incorporating security considerations from the early stages of the software development process, i.e., the idea of secure by design. The developed system was tested by a third, independent to the project, party using a well known method of security testing, i.e., penetration testing, and the results provided did not indicate the presence of any major security problems. The experience and lessons learned by the application of the methodology to an industrial setting are also discussed in the paper.
Security Evaluation of Service-Oriented Systems Using the SiSOA Method
Authors: Jung Christian , Rudolph Manuel , Schwarz Reinhard
Published: October 2012

The Service-Oriented Architecture paradigm (SOA) is commonly applied for the implementation of complex, distributed business processes. The service-oriented approach promises higher flexibility, interoperability and reusability of the IT infrastructure. However, evaluating the quality attribute security of such complex SOA configurations is not sufficiently mastered yet. To tackle this complex problem, the authors developed a method for evaluating the security of existing service-oriented systems on the architectural level. The method is based on recovering security-relevant facts about the system by using reverse engineering techniques and subsequently providing automated support for further interactive security analysis at the structural level. By using generic, system-independent indicators and a knowledge base, the method is not limited to a specific programming language or technology. Therefore, the method can be applied to various systems and adapt it to specific evaluation needs. The paper describes the general structure of the method, the knowledge base, and presents an instantiation aligned to the Service Component Architecture (SCA) specification.
Eliciting Policy Requirements for Critical National Infrastructure Using the IRIS Framework
Authors: Faily Shamal , Fléchais Ivan
Published: October 2012

Despite existing work on dealing with security and usability concerns during the early stages of design, there has been little work on synthesising the contributions of these fields into processes for specifying and designing systems. Without a better understanding of how to deal with both concerns at an early stage, the design process risks disenfranchising stakeholders, and resulting systems may not be situated in their contexts of use. This paper presents the IRIS process framework, which guides technique selection when specifying usable and secure systems. The authors illustrate the framework by describing a case study where the process framework was used to derive missing requirements for an information security policy for a UK water company following reports of the Stuxnet worm. The authors conclude with three lessons informing future efforts to integrate Security, Usability, and Requirements Engineering techniques for secure system design.
JavaSPI
Authors: Avalle Matteo , Pironti Alfredo , Pozza Davide , Sisto Riccardo
Published: October 2012

This paper presents JavaSPI, a “model-driven” development framework that allows the user to reliably develop security protocol implementations in Java, starting from abstract models that can be verified formally. The main novelty of this approach stands in the use of Java as both a modeling language and the implementation language. The JavaSPI framework is validated by implementing a scenario of the SSL protocol. The JavaSPI implementation can successfully interoperate with OpenSSL, and has comparable execution time with the standard Java JSSE library.
Introduction to the Migration from Legacy Applications to Service Provisioning
Authors: Ionita Anca Daniela
Published: October 2012

This chapter presents the fundamental ideas related to migrating legacy applications to service-oriented systems, and provides an overview of the available approaches that are presented in this book. The goal is to provide a “big picture” while also analyzing each chapter and indicating the way it covers several essential concerns, such as state-of-the-art, methods, standards, tools, business perspective, practical experiments, strategies, and roadmaps.
Reengineering and Wrapping Legacy Modules for Reuse as Web Services
Authors: Sneed Harry M.
Published: October 2012

This chapter deals with how this reengineering can be done. The goal is to make modular, flexible, and independent Web services from the monolithic, rigid, and dependent legacy modules. The methods used to achieve this goal are static analysis, code restructuring, code stripping, code transformation, and code wrapping. The legacy code can be either left in a procedural form in the original language or translated to an object-oriented architecture in the Java language. The result is in both cases an independent, wrapped service with a standard WSDL interface and a separate database access shell. All of the steps of the migration process are supported by automated tools. The wrapped services are available to all applications capable of sending and receiving SOAP messages. The automated process described here has been successfully applied in three industrial migration projects. The experience gained in those projects is discussed at the end of the chapter.
Cloud Environment Controls Assessment Framework
Authors: Shah Bharat
Published: October 2012

Recent years have seen the rapid growth of on-demand, flexible, low-cost cloud-based information technology services. Government and business organizations around the world have started transforming their traditional in-house data center environments to cloud-based outsourced data centers. This transformation is opening doors to new risks given that the cloud computing delivery models, related services, and technologies are still maturing and evolving. Before deployment, organizations must implement cloud environment assessment methodologies to comply with the applicable standards and regulations. They must evaluate the environment’s quality attributes of Internet connectivity, user access control, privacy and confidentiality, asset protection, multiple platforms locality, availability, reliability, performance, and scalability. The purpose of this chapter is to assist organizations that are considering providing and consuming cloud-based services in developing an assessment plan specific to organizational policies, strategies and their business and applicable legal and regulatory requirements; and assessing the cloud environment controls for infrastructure, platform, and software services.
Using Test Clouds to Enable Continuous Integration Testing of Distributed Real-Time and Embedded System Applications
Authors: Hill James H. , Schmidt Douglas C.
Published: October 2012

It is critical to evaluate the quality-of-service (QoS) properties of enterprise distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) system early in their lifecycle—instead of waiting until system integration—to minimize the impact of rework needed to remedy QoS defects. Unfortunately, enterprise DRE system developers and testers often lack the necessary resources to support such testing efforts. This chapter discusses how test clouds (i.e., cloud-computing environments employed for testing) can provide the necessary testing resources. When combined with system execution modeling (SEM) tools, test clouds can provide the necessary toolsets to perform QoS testing earlier in the lifecycle. A case study of design and implementing resource management infrastructure from the domain of shipboard computing environments is used to show how SEM tools and test clouds can help identify defects in system QoS specifications and enforcement mechanisms before they become prohibitively expensive to fix.
Threatening the Cloud
Authors: Zech Philipp , Kalb Philipp , Felderer Michael , Breu Ruth
Published: October 2012

Today’s increasing trend towards outsourcing IT landscapes and business processes into the Cloud is a double-edged sword. On the one side, companies can save time and money; however, on the other side, moving possible sensitive data and business processes into the Cloud demands for a high degree of information security. In the course of this chapter, the authors give an overview of a Cloud’s various vulnerabilities, how to address them properly, and last but not least, a model-driven approach to evaluate the state of security of a Cloud environment by means of negative testing. Besides, the authors incorporate the idea of living models to allow tracking and incorporating of changes in the Cloud environment and react properly and, more important, in time on evolving security requirements throughout the complete Cloud Life Cycle.
Testing of Future Internet Applications Running in the Cloud
Authors: Vos Tanja , Tonella Paolo , Wegener Joachim , Harman Mark , Prasetya Wishnu , Ur Shmuel
Published: October 2012

The cloud will be populated by software applications that consist of advanced, dynamic, and largely autonomic interactions among services, end-user applications, content, and media. The complexity of the technologies involved in the cloud makes testing extremely challenging and demands novel approaches and major advancements in the field. This chapter describes the main challenges associated with the testing of applications running in the cloud. The authors present a research agenda that has been defined in order to address the testing challenges. The goal of the agenda is to investigate the technologies for the development of an automated testing environment, which can monitor the applications under test and can react dynamically to the observed changes. Realization of this environment involves substantial research in areas such as search based testing, model inference, oracle learning, and anomaly detection.
Towards Improving the Testability of Cloud Application Services
Authors: King Tariq M. , Ganti Annaji S. , Froslie David
Published: October 2012

In cloud computing, applications are hosted, deployed, and delivered as services over the Internet. New cloud application services can be developed by tailoring existing ones, while hiding the complexity of the underlying implementation. Cloud applications may be able to adapt to changes in their environment, which should be secure and reliable. The infrastructure on which cloud applications are built is characterized by power, storage, and virtualization. But how does all of this affect the ability to adequately test cloud applications? This chapter investigates the testability of cloud application services. It focuses on the specific problem of reduced controllability and observability of software services hosted in the cloud, and proposes a novel solution referred to as Test Support as-a-Service (TSaaS). A prototype of TSaaS is also presented, and is used to discuss the feasibility, challenges, and benefits of the approach.
D-Cloud
Authors: Hanawa Toshihiro , Sato Mitsuhisa
Published: October 2012

Various information systems are widely used in the information society era, and the demand for highly dependable system is increasing year after year. However, software testing for such a system becomes more difficult due to the enlargement and the complexity of the system. In particular, it is often difficult to test parallel and distributed systems in the real world after deployment, although reliable systems, such as high-availability servers, are parallel and distributed systems. To solve these problems, the authors propose a software testing environment for dependable parallel and distributed system using the cloud computing technology, named D-Cloud. D-Cloud consists of the cloud management software as the role of the resource management, and a lot of virtual machine monitors with fault injection facility in order to simulate hardware faults. In addition, D-Cloud introduces the scenario manager, and it makes a number of different tests perform automatically. Currently, D-Cloud is realized by the use of Eucalyptus as the cloud management software. Furthermore, the authors introduce FaultVM based on QEMU as the virtualization software, and D-Cloud frontend that interprets test scenario, constructs test environment, and dispatches commands. D-Cloud enables automating the system configuration and the test procedure as well as performing a number of test cases simultaneously and emulating hardware faults flexibly. This chapter presents the concept and design of D-Cloud, and describes how to specify the system configuration and the test scenario. Furthermore, the preliminary test example as the software testing using D-Cloud is presented. As the result, the authors show that D-Cloud allows easy setup of the environment, and to test the software testing for the distributed system.
Cloud Scalability Measurement and Testing
Authors: Bai Xiaoying , Gao Jerry Zeyu , Tsai Wei-Tek
Published: October 2012

Cloud computing introduces a new paradigm for software deployment, hosting, and service renting. Based on the XaaS architecture, a large number of users may share computing resources, platform services, and application software in a multi-tenancy approach. To ensure service availability, the system needs to support an advanced level of massive scalability so that it can provide necessary resources on demand following the pay-per-use pricing model. This chapter analyzes the unique requirements of cloud performance and scalability, compared with traditional distributed systems. Measurements are proposed with performance indicators, meters, and metrics identified from different perspectives. To support scalability testing in a dynamic environment, an agent-based testing framework is proposed to facilitate adaptive load generation and simulation using a two-layer control architecture.
Building a Cloud-Based Mobile Application Testbed
Authors: Turner Hamilton , White Jules , Reed Jeff , Galindo José , Porter Adam , Marathe Madhav , Vullikanti Anil , Gokhale Aniruddha
Published: October 2012

A proliferation of mobile smartphone platforms, including Android devices, has triggered a rise in mobile application development for a diverse set of situations. Testing of these smartphone applications can be exceptionally difficult, due to the challenges of orchestrating production-scale quantities of smartphones such as difficulty in managing thousands of sensory inputs to each individual smartphone device. This work presents the Android Tactical Application Assessment and Knowledge (ATAACK) Cloud, which utilizes a cloud computing environment to allow smartphone-based security, sensing, and social networking researchers to rapidly use model-based tools to provision experiments with a combination of 1,000+ emulated smartphone instances and tens of actual devices. The ATAACK Cloud provides a large-scale smartphone application research testbed.
Reliability Based Scheduling Model (RSM) for Computational Grids
Authors: Raza Zahid , Vidyarthi Deo P.
Published: October 2012

Computational Grid attributed with distributed load sharing has evolved as a platform to large scale problem solving. Grid is a collection of heterogeneous resources, offering services of varying natures, in which jobs are submitted to any of the participating nodes. Scheduling these jobs in such a complex and dynamic environment has many challenges. Reliability analysis of the grid gains paramount importance because grid involves a large number of resources which may fail anytime, making it unreliable. These failures result in wastage of both computational power and money on the scarce grid resources. It is normally desired that the job should be scheduled in an environment that ensures maximum reliability to the job execution. This work presents a reliability based scheduling model for the jobs on the computational grid. The model considers the failure rate of both the software and hardware grid constituents like application demanding execution, nodes executing the job, and the network links supporting data exchange between the nodes. Job allocation using the proposed scheme becomes trusted as it schedules the job based on a priori reliability computation.
Performance of Wireless Sensor Networks for Different Mobile Event Path Scenarios
Authors: Yang Tao , Mino Gjergji , Barolli Leonard , Ikeda Makoto , Xhafa Fatos , Durresi Arjan
Published: October 2012

In this paper, the authors investigate how the sensor network performs when the event moves with special movement path. Simulation results are compared with four scenarios: when the event is stationary, moving randomly, moving with simple 4 path, and boids path. The simulation results show that for the case when the event is moving randomly, the performance is the worst in the four scenarios. The characteristic of goodput decreases with the increase of number of sensor nodes. In the case of the boids model, the goodput is unstable when the is lower than 10 pps. The consumed energy characteristic increases with the increase of Simulation results show that the consumed energy of random movement is the worst among the four scenarios. The consumed energy of boids model is the lowest in four cases. This shows that the event movement with boids model can decrease the consumed energy in large scale WSNs.