bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Aqueous Extracts of the Edible Gracilaria tenuistipitata are Protective Against H2O2-Induced DNA Damage, Growth Inhibition, and Cell Cycle Arrest
Authors: Yang Jing-Iong , Yeh Chi-Chen , Lee Jin-Ching , Yi Szu-Cheng , Huang Hurng-Wern , Tseng Chao-Neng , Chang Hsueh-Wei
Published: June 2012

Potential antioxidant properties of an aqueous extract of the edible red seaweed Gracilaria tenuistipitata (AEGT) against oxidative DNA damage were evaluated. The AEGT revealed several antioxidant molecules, including phenolics, flavonoids and ascorbic acid. In a cell-free assay, the extract exhibited 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity that significantly reduced H2O2-induced plasmid DNA breaks in a dose-response manner (P < 0.001). The AEGT also suppressed H2O2-induced oxidative DNA damage in H1299 cells by reducing the percentage of damaged DNA in a dose-response manner (P < 0.001) as measured by a modified alkaline comet-nuclear extract (comet-NE) assay. The MTT assay results showed that AEGT confers significant protection against H2O2-induced cytotoxicity and that AEGT itself is not cytotoxic (P < 0.001). Moreover, H2O2-induced cell cycle G2/M arrest was significantly released when cells were co-treated with different concentrations of AEGT (P < 0.001). Taken together, these findings suggest that edible red algae Gracilaria water extract can prevent H2O2-induced oxidative DNA damage and its related cellular responses.
Hypervalent Nonbonded Interactions of a Divalent Sulfur Atom. Implications in Protein Architecture and the Functions
Authors: Iwaoka Michio , Isozumi Noriyoshi
Published: June 2012

In organic molecules a divalent sulfur atom sometimes adopts weak coordination to a proximate heteroatom (X). Such hypervalent nonbonded S···X interactions can control the molecular structure and chemical reactivity of organic molecules, as well as their assembly and packing in the solid state. In the last decade, similar hypervalent interactions have been demonstrated by statistical database analysis to be present in protein structures. In this review, weak interactions between a divalent sulfur atom and an oxygen or nitrogen atom in proteins are highlighted with several examples. S···O interactions in proteins showed obviously different structural features from those in organic molecules (i.e., πO → σS* versus nO → σS* directionality). The difference was ascribed to the HOMO of the amide group, which expands in the vertical direction (πO) rather than in the plane (nO). S···X interactions in four model proteins, phospholipase A2 (PLA2), ribonuclease A (RNase A), insulin, and lysozyme, have also been analyzed. The results suggested that S···X interactions would be important factors that control not only the three-dimensional structure of proteins but also their functions to some extent. Thus, S···X interactions will be useful tools for protein engineering and the ligand design.
Impact of Soil Field Water Capacity on Secondary Metabolites, Phenylalanine Ammonia-lyase (PAL), Maliondialdehyde (MDA) and Photosynthetic Responses of Malaysian Kacip Fatimah (Labisia pumila Benth)
Authors: Jaafar Hawa Z. E. , Ibrahim Mohd Hafiz , Mohamad Fakri Nur Farhana
Published: June 2012

A randomized complete block design 2 × 4 experiment was designed and conducted for 15 weeks to characterize the relationships between production of total phenolics, flavonoid, anthocyanin, leaf gas exchange, total chlorophyll, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) and malondialdehyde (MDA) activity in two varieties of Labisia pumila Benth, namely the var. alata and pumila, under four levels of evapotranspiration replacement (ER) (100%; well watered), (75%, moderate water stress), (50%; high water stress) and (25%; severe water stress). The production of total phenolics, flavonoids, anthocyanin, soluble sugar and relative leaf water content was affected by the interaction between varieties and SWC. As the ER levels decreased from 100% to 25%, the production of PAL and MDA activity increased steadily. At the highest (100%) ER L. pumila exhibited signiﬁcantly higher net photosynthesis, apparent quantum yield, maximum efficiency of photosystem II (fv/fm) and lower dark respiration rates compared to the other treatment. The production of total phenolics, flavonoids and anthocyanin was also found to be higher under high water stress (50% ER replacement) compared to severe water stress (25% ER). From this study, it was observed that as net photosynthesis, apparent quantum yield and chlorophyll content were downregulated under high water stress the production of total phenolics, flavonoids and anthocyanin were upregulated implying that the imposition of high water stress can enhance the medicinal properties of L. pumila Benth.
Substituted Benzamides Containing Azaspiro Rings as Upregulators of Apolipoprotein A-I Transcription
Authors: Du Yu , Yang Yuan , Jiang Wei , Wang Li , Jia Xiao-Jian , Si Shu-Yi , Chen Xiao-Fang , Hong Bin
Published: June 2012

Apolipoprotein A-I (Apo A-I) is the principal protein component of high density lipoprotein (HDL), which is generally considered as a potential therapeutic target against atherosclerosis. The understanding of the Apo A-I regulation mechanism has fuelled the development of novel HDL targeted therapeutic approaches. To identify novel agents that can upregulate Apo A-I expression, we performed a cell-based reporter assay to screen 25,600 small molecules. Based on the dataset obtained from screening, a series of novel analogs of substituted benzamides containing azaspiro rings were assessed for their ability to induce the transcription of the Apo A-I gene, and the structure-activity relationship (SAR) around these analogs was also proposed. The results indicated that the trifluoromethyl substituted benzamide containing an azaspiro ring is a promising backbone for designing Apo A-I transcriptional upregulator and could be viable leads for development of new drugs to prevent and treat atherosclerosis in the future.
Long-Term Outdoor Reliability Assessment of a Wireless Unit for Air-Quality Monitoring Based on Nanostructured Films Integrated on Micromachined Platforms
Authors: Leccardi Matteo , Decarli Massimiliano , Lorenzelli Leandro , Milani Paolo , Mettala Petteri , Orava Risto , Barborini Emanuele
Published: June 2012

We have fabricated and tested in long-term field operating conditions a wireless unit for outdoor air quality monitoring. The unit is equipped with two multiparametric sensors, one miniaturized thermo-hygrometer, front-end analogical and digital electronics, and an IEEE 802.15.4 based module for wireless data transmission. Micromachined platforms were functionalized with nanoporous metal-oxides to obtain multiparametric sensors, hosting gas-sensitive, anemometric and temperature transducers. Nanoporous metal-oxide layer was directly deposited on gas sensing regions of micromachined platform batches by hard-mask patterned supersonic cluster beam deposition. An outdoor, roadside experiment was arranged in downtown Milan (Italy), where one wireless sensing unit was continuously operated side by side with standard gas chromatographic instrumentation for air quality measurements. By means of a router PC, data from sensing unit and other instrumentation were collected, merged, and sent to a remote data storage server, through an UMTS device. The whole-system robustness as well as sensor dataset characteristics were continuously characterized over a run-time period of 18 months.
A Novel Sensor for Monitoring of Iron(III) Ions Based on Porphyrins
Authors: Vlascici Dana , Fagadar-Cosma Eugenia , Popa Iuliana , Chiriac Vlad , Gil-Agusti Mayte
Published: June 2012

Three A3B porphyrins with mixed carboxy-, phenoxy-, pyridyl- and dimethoxy-substituent functionalization on the meso-phenyl groups were obtained by multicomponent synthesis, fully characterized and used as ionophores for preparing PVC-based membrane sensors selective to iron(III). The membranes have an ionophore:PVC:plasticizer composition ratio of 1:33:66. Sodium tetraphenylborate was used as additive (20 mol% relative to ionophore). The performance characteristics (linear concentration range, slope and selectivity) of the sensors were investigated. The best results were obtained for the membrane based on 5-(4-carboxyphenyl)-10,15,20-tris(4-phenoxyphenyl)-porphyrin plasticized with bis(2-ethylhexyl)sebacate, in a linear range from 1 × 10−7–1 × 10−1 M with a slope of 21.6 mV/decade. The electrode showed high selectivity with respect to alkaline and heavy metal ions and a response time of 20 s. The influence of pH on the sensor response was studied. The sensor was used for a period of six weeks and the utility has been tested for the quantitative determination of Fe(III) in recovered solutions from spent lithium ion batteries and for the quantitative determination of Fe(III) in tap water samples.
Open-WiSe: A Solar Powered Wireless Sensor Network Platform
Authors: González Apolinar , Aquino Raúl , Mata Walter , Ochoa Alberto , Saldaña Pedro , Edwards Arthur
Published: June 2012

Because battery-powered nodes are required in wireless sensor networks and energy consumption represents an important design consideration, alternate energy sources are needed to provide more effective and optimal function. The main goal of this work is to present an energy harvesting wireless sensor network platform, the Open Wireless Sensor node (WiSe). The design and implementation of the solar powered wireless platform is described including the hardware architecture, firmware, and a POSIX Real-Time Kernel. A sleep and wake up strategy was implemented to prolong the lifetime of the wireless sensor network. This platform was developed as a tool for researchers investigating Wireless sensor network or system integrators.
A Fast MEANSHIFT Algorithm-Based Target Tracking System
Authors: Sun Jian
Published: June 2012

Tracking moving targets in complex scenes using an active video camera is a challenging task. Tracking accuracy and efficiency are two key yet generally incompatible aspects of a Target Tracking System (TTS). A compromise scheme will be studied in this paper. A fast mean-shift-based Target Tracking scheme is designed and realized, which is robust to partial occlusion and changes in object appearance. The physical simulation shows that the image signal processing speed is > 50 frame/s.
An Indoor Navigation System for the Visually Impaired
Authors: Guerrero Luis A. , Vasquez Francisco , Ochoa Sergio F.
Published: June 2012

Navigation in indoor environments is highly challenging for the severely visually impaired, particularly in spaces visited for the first time. Several solutions have been proposed to deal with this challenge. Although some of them have shown to be useful in real scenarios, they involve an important deployment effort or use artifacts that are not natural for blind users. This paper presents an indoor navigation system that was designed taking into consideration usability as the quality requirement to be maximized. This solution enables one to identify the position of a person and calculates the velocity and direction of his movements. Using this information, the system determines the user’s trajectory, locates possible obstacles in that route, and offers navigation information to the user. The solution has been evaluated using two experimental scenarios. Although the results are still not enough to provide strong conclusions, they indicate that the system is suitable to guide visually impaired people through an unknown built environment.
Atomic Force Microscopy as a Tool Applied to Nano/Biosensors
Authors: Steffens Clarice , Leite Fabio L. , Bueno Carolina C. , Manzoli Alexandra , Herrmann Paulo Sergio De Paula
Published: June 2012

This review article discusses and documents the basic concepts and principles of nano/biosensors. More specifically, we comment on the use of Chemical Force Microscopy (CFM) to study various aspects of architectural and chemical design details of specific molecules and polymers and its influence on the control of chemical interactions between the Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) tip and the sample. This technique is based on the fabrication of nanomechanical cantilever sensors (NCS) and microcantilever-based biosensors (MC-B), which can provide, depending on the application, rapid, sensitive, simple and low-cost in situ detection. Besides, it can provide high repeatability and reproducibility. Here, we review the applications of CFM through some application examples which should function as methodological questions to understand and transform this tool into a reliable source of data. This section is followed by a description of the theoretical principle and usage of the functionalized NCS and MC-B technique in several fields, such as agriculture, biotechnology and immunoassay. Finally, we hope this review will help the reader to appreciate how important the tools CFM, NCS and MC-B are for characterization and understanding of systems on the atomic scale.
Diagnostic Devices for Isothermal Nucleic Acid Amplification
Authors: Chang Chia-Chen , Chen Chien-Cheng , Wei Shih-Chung , Lu Hui-Hsin , Liang Yang-Hung , Lin Chii-Wann
Published: June 2012

Since the development of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, genomic information has been retrievable from lesser amounts of DNA than previously possible. PCR-based amplifications require high-precision instruments to perform temperature cycling reactions; further, they are cumbersome for routine clinical use. However, the use of isothermal approaches can eliminate many complications associated with thermocycling. The application of diagnostic devices for isothermal DNA amplification has recently been studied extensively. In this paper, we describe the basic concepts of several isothermal amplification approaches and review recent progress in diagnostic device development.
Application of Adaptive Resonance Theory Neural Network for MR Brain Tumor Image Classification
Authors: Hemanth D. Jude , Selvathi D. , Anitha J.
Published: June 2012

In the present study, the effectiveness of the adaptive resonance theory neural network (ART2) is illustrated in the context of automatic classification of abnormal brain tumor images. Abnormal images from four different classes namely metastase, meningioma, glioma and astrocytoma have been used in this work. Initially, textural features are extracted from these images. An extensive feature selection is performed to optimize the number of features. These optimized features are then used to classify the images using ART2 neural network. Experimental results show promising results for the ART2 network in terms of classification accuracy and convergence rate. A comparison is made with other conventional classifiers to show the superior nature of ART2 neural network. The classification accuracy of the ART2 classifier is significantly higher than the statistical classifiers. ART2 classifier is also computationally feasible over other neural classifiers. Thus this work suggests ART2 neural network as an optimal image classifier which finds application in clinical field.
Random Forest Classifier Based ECG Arrhythmia Classification
Authors: V.Mahesh  , Kandaswamy A. , Vimal C. , Sathish B.
Published: June 2012

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) analysis is a non-invasive tool for assessing the autonomic nervous system and for arrhythmia detection and classification. This paper presents a Random Forest classifier based diagnostic system for detecting cardiac arrhythmias using ECG data. The authors use features extracted from ECG signals using HRV analysis and DWT for classification. The experimental results indicate that a prediction accuracy of more than 98% can be obtained using the proposed method. This system can be further improved and fine-tuned for practical applications.
ECG Signal De-Noising with Asynchronous Averaging and Filtering Algorithm
Authors: Gautam Alka , Lee Hoon-Jae , Chung Wan-Young
Published: June 2012

In this study, a new algorithm is proposed—Asynchronous Averaging and Filtering (AAF) for ECG signal de-noising. R-peaks are detected with another proposed algorithm—Minimum Slot and Maximum Point selecting method (MSMP). AAF algorithm reduces random noise (major component of EMG noise) from ECG signal and provides comparatively good results for baseline wander noise cancellation. Signal to noise ratio (SNR) improves in filtered ECG signal, while signal shape remains undistorted. The authors conclude that R-peak detection with MSMP method gives comparable results from existing algorithm like Pan-Tomkins algorithm. AAF algorithm is advantageous over adaptation algorithms like Wiener and LMS algorithm. Overall performance of proposed algorithms is comparatively good.
An Enterprise Architecture Approach for Designing an Integrated Wood Supply Management System
Authors: Marques A. F. , Borges J. G. , Sousa P. M. , Fonseca M. , Gonçalves J. , Oliveira J.
Published: June 2012

The wood supply chains encompass a multitude of agents with independent business processes and information systems. The network of interrelationships and information flows among the agents is often neglected when designing information systems. Common processes and automatic data exchanges can enhance collaboration as well as improve IT alignment with business needs across multiple organizations in the supply chain. This article proposes an Enterprise Architecture methodological approach for designing an integrated modular Wood Supply Management System. Both Process Architecture Framework and Information Architecture were developed and used to define individual systems and integration requirements, discussed on the Applications Architecture. The Technological Architecture was further addressed. Results of its application to the Portuguese pulpwood, biomass and lumber-based supply chains are presented. Results show that this approach can effectively specify individual systems requirements driven from the processes descriptions built in collaboration with the agents. It further shows that a Service-Oriented Architecture can be derived, ensuring systems integration and interoperability.
The Role of Social Networks in Distributed Informal Information Systems for Innovation
Authors: Vasconcelos Vasco , Campos Pedro
Published: June 2012

Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 concepts offer a whole new set of collaborative tools that allow new approaches to market research, in order to explore continuously and ever fast-growing social and media environments. Simultaneously, the exponential growth of online Social Networks, along with a combination of computer-based tools, is contributing to the construction of new kinds of research communities, in which respondents interact with researchers as well as with each other. Furthermore, by studying the networks, researchers are able to manage multiple data sources - user-generated contents. The main purpose of this paper is to propose a new concept of Distributed Informal Information Systems for Innovation that arises from the interaction of the accumulated stock of knowledge emerging at the individual (micro) level. A descriptive study unveils and reports when and how market research professionals use Social Networks for their work and therefore create distributed information systems for Innovation.
Organization Identity
Authors: Páscoa Carlos , Leal Pedro , Tribolet José
Published: June 2012

Organizations not only play an increasingly active role in today’s society but also address everyday necessities and concerns of individuals. To achieve a competitive advantage, it is becoming more and more necessary that organizations perform efficiently in order to survive. As organizations can be defined as a group of people who work together to obtain common results, it is imperative that all its constituents represent themselves as part of the whole. Essential issues belonging to self-identity such as: who is the organization, what it does, for whom it operates, and what its core values are can be answered by building a Business Model. In this context, the Business Model and artifacts like the Business Motivation Model, which help to specify the enterprise business architecture, can be complementary. This paper shows how the Portuguese Air Force developed its generic Business Model and describes two example of application in the strategic and operational levels.
The Use of Experts Panels in ERP Cost Estimation Research
Authors: Elragal Ahmed , Haddara Moutaz
Published: June 2012

This chapter is an effort towards illustrating the use of expert panels (EP) as a means of eliciting knowledge from a group of enterprise resource planning (ERP) experts in an exploratory research. The development of a cost estimation model for ERP adoptions is very crucial for research and practice, and that was the main reason behind the willingness of experts to participate in this research. The use of EP was very beneficial as it involved various data collection and visualization techniques, as well as data validation and confirmation. Arguments for using EP over other group techniques are presented in this chapter. Experts modified and enhanced the initial cost drivers list and their sub-factors significantly, as they added, modified, merged and split different costs. Moreover, they ranked the cost drivers according to their weight on total costs. All of this helped the authors to better understand relationships among various cost factors.
Two Case Studies on RFID Initiatives
Authors: Angeles Rebecca
Published: June 2012

This paper features the results of an empirical online survey focusing on radio frequency identification initiatives and the revalidation of these results using brief case studies on Charles Voegele and Vail Resorts. The empirical study investigates the ability of information technology (IT) infrastructure integration and supply chain process integration to moderate the relationships between the importance of the perceived seven adoption attributes and system deployment outcomes, operational efficiency and market knowledge creation in radio frequency identification (RFID)-enabled supply chains. Using the online survey method, data was collected from members of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals in North America. The moderated regression procedure suggested by Aguinis (2004) was applied. The three adoption attributes, relative advantage, results, and images turned out to be the most important attributes in these RFID systems. Indeed, both IT infrastructure integration and supply chain process integration moderate the relationships between these three adoption attributes and the RFID system outcomes.
A New Dynamic Framework for Managing ERP Development and Enterprise Strategy
Authors: Clegg Ben , Wan Yi
Published: June 2012

The enterprise management (EM) approach provides a holistic view of organizations and their related information systems. In order to align information technology (IT) innovation with global markets and volatile virtualization, traditional firms are seeking to reconstruct their enterprise structures alongside repositioning strategy and establish new information system (IS) architectures to transform from single autonomous entities into more open enterprises supported by new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. This chapter shows how ERP engage-abilities cater to three distinctive EM patterns and resultant strategies. The purpose is to examine the presumptions and importance of combing ERP and inter-firm relations relying on the virtual value chain concept. From a review of the literature on ERP development and enterprise strategy, exploratory inductive research studies in Zoomlion and Lanye have been conducted. In addition, the authors propose a dynamic conceptual framework to demonstrate the adoption and governance of ERP in the three enterprise management forms and points to a new architectural type (ERPIII) for operating in the virtual enterprise paradigm.
Electronic Procurement
Authors: Andrade Paulo , Alturas Bráulio , Oliveira Tiago
Published: June 2012

E-procurement systems make purchasing activities more effective in terms of both time and cost. However, over the past years there is evidence that some of the expected benefits have not been achieved. Among several causes, supplier’s low adherence to such platforms has been regarded as one. The focus of this work is in supplier adoption of e-Procurement. It will help to better address the issues actually faced by suppliers within e-Procurement. The authors have conducted a questionnaire-based survey to 721 Portuguese companies and performed an empirical analysis of the data. The findings from this work provide evidence that the supplier perceived indirect benefits and business partner pressures are most important to e-Procurement adoption while barriers have a negative impact on their adoption. The main critical success factors on e-Procurement adoption are also presented.
An Approach for Recovering the Connections between Business Process and Software System
Authors: Aversano Lerina , Marulli Fiammetta , Tortorella Maria
Published: June 2012

The relationship existing between a business process and the supporting software system is a critical concern for organizations, as it directly affects their performance. The knowledge regarding this relationship plays an important role in the software evolution process, as it helps to identify the software components involved by a software change request. The research described in this chapter concerns the use of information retrieval techniques in the software maintenance activities. In particular, the chapter addresses the problem of recovering traceability links between the entities of the business process model and components of the supporting software system. Therefore, an information retrieval approach is proposed based on two processing phases including syntactic and semantic analysis. The usefulness of the approach is discussed through a case study.
Vector Consensus Model
Authors: Monguet José M. , Gutiérrez Alfredo , Ferruzca Marco , Alatriste Yadira , Martínez Claudia , Córdoba Carlos , Fernández Joaquín , Sanguino Teresa , Aguilá José , Ramírez Miguel
Published: June 2012

Two case studies are presented; the first one is focused on the prioritization of the drivers that motivate a researcher in an innovative group, and the second is dedicated to the assessment of the drivers for the future internet.
Efficient Alternatives in the Adoption of Software for Public Companies
Authors: Heredero Carmen de Pablos , Berzosa David López
Published: June 2012

Public Administrations are seeking more efficient alternatives for the use of information and communication technologies in terms of a cost-benefit analysis. Open source standards can offer them rational alternatives. Up to this moment one can find some good experiences in the implementation of open source software in Public Administrations worldwide. This study offers the results of research where a group of eighteen Public Administration experiences of integral systems migration to open software standards have been analyzed. Public Administrations perceive improvements in the way they offer services, a reduction of the costs, and better secured information systems. The authors think this analysis can be of value for IT decision makers at Public Administrations.
Analysing the Impact of Enterprise Governance of IT Practices on Business Performance
Authors: De Haes Steven , Van Grembergen Wim
Published: June 2012

Enterprise governance of IT (EGIT) is about the definition and implementation of processes, structures and relational mechanisms that enable both business and IT people to execute their responsibilities in support of business/IT alignment and the creation of business value from IT-enabled business investments. In this field, practice-oriented guidance like COBIT and Val IT are often promoted as broad frameworks to implement enterprise governance of IT, but very little academic research is available that empirically supports the assumption that implementing EGIT practices, as defined by COBIT and Val IT, improve business performance. This article explores the relationship between Enterprise Governance of IT practices and business performance, and finds little support to identify a direct link between EGIT practices and business performance. However, clear empirical evidence is revealed demonstrating that the implementation of EGIT practices impacts the achievement of specific IT goals, which in turn impacts the achievement of specific business goals. A three-layered cascade is proposed to demonstrate the impact of EGIT practices, through IT goals, on business performance.
Explorative Study on the Influence of National Cultures on Business/IT Alignment Maturity
Authors: Silvius A. J. Gilbert , De Haes Steven , Van Grembergen Wim
Published: June 2012

A key success factor for a successful company in a dynamic environment is effective and efficient information technology (IT) supporting business strategies and processes. Organizations that successfully align their business strategy and their IT strategy outperform their non-aligned peers (Chan et al., 1997). In recent surveys IT executives consistently name IT to Business alignment their top-concern. The alignment between business needs and IT capabilities is therefore still a prominent area of concern. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the alignment challenge by exploring the impact of (national) cultures on the maturity of business / IT alignment (BIA).The paper relies on Hofstede’s framework of cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 1980) to understand the concept of national culture. After a brief introduction on BIA and Luftman’s framework for measuring BIA maturity (Luftman, 2000), the authors analyze the influence of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on the variables of BIA maturity. This conceptual exercise is than tested in a small-scale empirical exploration by comparing BIA maturity scores of Belgium and Dutch financial institutions. The results support a potential effect of national cultures on BIA maturity, especially in ‘governance maturity’ and ‘skills maturity’, but not all expected results are confirmed.
Prioritising and Linking Business Goals and IT Goals in the Financial Sector
Authors: De Haes Steven , Van Grembergen Wim
Published: June 2012

In today’s complex and constantly changing business world, business/IT alignment is high on the agenda of executive management. To achieve such alignment, it is important that an organization should have a clearly established corporate mission and a well-defined support strategy and business goals. Furthermore, the translation into and linkage with the company’s IT strategy and goals must be carefully planned. However, these requirements appear to be rather difficult to meet in reality, so that companies must often look for additional practical guidance in identifying their principal business and IT goals, as well as in determining how these should be geared to one another. Therefore, a series of research steps has been designed for the purpose of providing pragmatic assistance in defining a cascade of business goals and supporting IT goals. This paper presents the results of a Delphi study conducted in the financial sector. It offers qualitative information on how to establish a firm set of business objectives, IT goals and their interrelationships. In addition, it provides some recommendations on how to adapt and fine-tune the proposed procedure with a view to either complementing the results or replicating them for other sectors of industry.
A Research Journey into Maturing the Business Information Security of Mid Market Organizations
Authors: Bobbert Yuri , Mulder Hans
Published: June 2012

Most information security methodologies are aimed at large enterprise organizations with a top-down structure, while relatively smaller organizations have insufficient knowledge to adopt this methodology. Most of the frameworks used by enterprises focus on high-level policy-making and the overwhelming amount of controls might suffocate practitioners in smaller organizations. This article examines the results of an exploratory study, performed in the Netherlands in Q1&Q2 of 2010. The study used expert panel research followed by a survey. The research found essential interventions to easily and effectively increase security maturity for mid market organizations. The research also found barriers for not implementing these interventions by the midmarket. This paper provides a minimum core set of practices for organizations. It shows that mid market organizations struggle with implementing relevant interventions. This research contributes a new pragmatic approach to assist mid market organizations’ practitioners with more guidance on how to effectively establish the desired state of security maturity.
Supporting Knowledge-Based Decision Making in the Medical Context
Authors: Anselma Luca , Bottrighi Alessio , Molino Gianpaolo , Montani Stefania , Terenziani Paolo , Torchio Mauro
Published: June 2012

Knowledge-based clinical decision making is one of the most challenging activities of physicians. Clinical Practice Guidelines are commonly recognized as a useful tool to help physicians in such activities by encoding the indications provided by evidence-based medicine. Computer-based approaches can provide useful facilities to put guidelines into practice and to support physicians in decision-making. Specifically, GLARE (GuideLine Acquisition, Representation and Execution) is a domain-independent prototypical tool providing advanced Artificial Intelligence techniques to support medical decision making, including what-if analysis, temporal reasoning, and decision theory analysis. The paper describes such facilities considering a real-world running example and focusing on the treatment of therapeutic decisions.
The Paradigm Shift in Organizational Research
Authors: Zhang Yanli , Wang Yawei , Colucci William , Wang Zhongxian
Published: June 2012

The creation and development of theory and methods used in the study of organizations is predominantly carried out grounded in the positivist paradigm – epistemological and methodological assumptions similar to those of the natural sciences. This essay looks at the limitations of that paradigm for the study of human organizations and the benefits of relativist, humanist and post-modern assumptions, theory and methods. Limitations of the predominant paradigm are taken up by analyzing basic assumptions – objectivity, generality, empiricism, and linearity. The benefits of a more inclusive paradigm are reviewed in terms of two topic areas: Organizational learning and decision making, and financial markets and price distortion.
Negotiating Knowledge Gaps in Dispersed Knowledge Work
Authors: Assudani Rashmi H.
Published: June 2012

Reviews from the two streams of research - knowledge based view of the firm and dispersed work – offers evidence for knowledge gaps that exist among dispersed members. Dispersed members therefore cannot take for granted that they have a common context, making dispersed collaboration problematic. A major challenge for such teams is thus to co-create a commonly shared context. This paper examines the process of how dispersed teams negotiate knowledge gaps to create a common context. The study uses a multiple case design on dispersed teams at a knowledge-based marketing organization in the US. The findings from this field study highlight three strategies to negotiate knowledge gaps: (1) active engagement strategies, (2) negotiating relationally, and (3) redundant knowledge structures. Taken together, these findings have the potential to help managers in knowledge based organizations to discern appropriate social and technological interventions that may be needed for conducting dispersed knowledge work.
Expanding the Model of Competitive Business Strategy for Knowledge-Based Organizations
Authors: Alstete Jeffrey W. , Meyer John P.
Published: June 2012

The established competitive generic business strategy model continues to be the dominant paradigm, despite the rapidly changing internal and external environments that companies face today. This article evaluates other strategy-related elements identified in current business research and determines if an expanded model can be applied to companies that have become more knowledge-based organizations. Ten such companies are selected for case study examination of their generic strategy, purity of usage, innovation, strategic entrepreneurship and clarity. The results provide a potential basis for an expanded model of the dominant competitive business strategy paradigm that includes these additional elements and provides a framework for future research.
Cross-Border Cooperative Network in the Perspective of Innovation Dynamics
Authors: Platonov Vladimir , Bergman Jukka-Pekka
Published: June 2012

This study proposes a framework for the empirical research of cross-border innovation networks dealing with network characteristics, resource and information flows, and decision-making concerning technological innovations. The authors develop a conceptual model that relates network properties, flows of knowledge, and tangible resources with the likelihood of a decision on open innovation, closed innovation, and business expansion without innovations. The model decomposes knowledge flows, considered as the most significant factor for innovation dynamics, into flows of information, trust, and technological competence. The likelihood of strategic decisions in a cross-border innovation network environment is supposed to be dependent on the peculiarities of these flows, network properties such as structural cohesion, autonomy, equivalence, as well as cognitive distance. The paper discusses some distinctive features of this type of network between the North-West of Russia and South-East of Finland.
Fuzzy Multiple Criteria Workflow Robustness and Resiliency Modeling with Petri Nets
Authors: Tavana Madjid , Busch Timothy E. , Davis Eleanor L.
Published: June 2012

The increasing complexity and tight coupling between people and computer systems in military operations has led to improved efficiency, as well as greater vulnerability due to system failure. Careful management of workflow systems can minimize operational vulnerability in command and control. Tavana et al. (2011) developed a workflow management framework capable of both modeling structure and providing a wide range of quantitative analysis with high-level Petri nets (PNs). The framework is based on a sustainability index that captures the concepts of self-protecting and self-healing systems. This index uses crisp numerical values to measure the robustness and resiliency of the system. However, the observed values of data in real-world military operations are often imprecise or vague. These inexact data can be represented by fuzzy numbers to reflect the decision makers’ intuition and subjective judgments. In this paper, the authors extend this model to a fuzzy framework by proposing a new fuzzy workflow modeling system with PNs. The new model plots the fuzzy robustness and resiliency measures in a Cartesian coordinate system and derives an overall fuzzy sustainability index for the system based on the theory of displaced ideals. The proposed model also considers multiple criteria to produce this fuzzy index.
Using Ontologies in Drug Prescription
Authors: Rodríguez-González Alejandro , García-Crespo Ángel , Colomo-Palacios Ricardo , Gómez-Berbís Juan Miguel , Jiménez-Domingo Enrique
Published: June 2012

Medical prescription has been touted as following an accurate approach to addressing particular health problems. However, the importance of the process might demand considering a formal knowledge-driven procedure to ensure its correctness which can be achieved through Medical Decision Support Systems (MDSS). Semantic Technologies have emerged as a potential silver bullet to become the backbone of those particular Information Systems since it provides seamless integration and an underlying logical formalism. This paper sheds light into using ontologies for drug prescription through the SemMed model, architecture and proof-of-concept implementation, being able to face challenges in these areas and solve day-to-day problems of health professionals in terms of drug prescription
An Efficient Algorithm for Data Cleaning
Authors: Pahwa Payal , Arora Rajiv , Thakur Garima
Published: June 2012

The quality of real world data that is being fed into a data warehouse is a major concern of today. As the data comes from a variety of sources before loading the data in the data warehouse, it must be checked for errors and anomalies. There may be exact duplicate records or approximate duplicate records in the source data. The presence of incorrect or inconsistent data can significantly distort the results of analyses, often negating the potential benefits of information-driven approaches. This paper addresses issues related to detection and correction of such duplicate records. Also, it analyzes data quality and various factors that degrade it. A brief analysis of existing work is discussed, pointing out its major limitations. Thus, a new framework is proposed that is an improvement over the existing technique.
An Abstract Model for Integrated Intrusion Detection and Severity Analysis for Clouds
Authors: Arshad Junaid , Townend Paul , Xu Jie
Published: June 2012

Cloud computing is an emerging computing paradigm which introduces novel opportunities to establish large scale, flexible computing infrastructures. However, security underpins extensive adoption of Cloud computing. This paper presents efforts to address one of the significant issues with respect to security of Clouds i.e. intrusion detection and severity analysis. An abstract model for integrated intrusion detection and severity analysis for Clouds is proposed to facilitate minimal intrusion response time while preserving the overall security of the Cloud infrastructures. In order to assess the effectiveness of the proposed model, detailed architectural evaluation using Architectural Trade-off Analysis Model (ATAM) is used. A set of recommendations which can be used as a set of best practice guidelines while implementing the proposed architecture is discussed.
The Challenge of Service Level Scalability for the Cloud
Authors: Vaquero Luis M. , Cáceres Juan , Morán Daniel
Published: June 2012

This paper presents a brief overview of the available literature on distributed systems scalability that serves as a justification for presenting some of the most prominent challenges that current Cloud systems need to face in order to deliver their pledged easy-to-use scalability. Through illustrative comparisons and examples, this paper aims to make the reader’s acquaintance with this long needed problem in distributed systems: user-oriented service-level scalability. Scalability issues are analyzed from the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and the Platform as a Service (PaaS) point of view, as they deal with different functions and abstraction levels. Next generation Cloud provisioning models rely on advanced monitoring and automatic scaling decision capabilities to ensure quality of service (QoS), security and economic sustainability.
Beyond Hadoop
Authors: Xu Zhiwei , Yan Bo , Zou Yongqiang
Published: June 2012

As a main subfield of cloud computing applications, internet services require large-scale data computing. Their workloads can be divided into two classes: customer-facing query-processing interactive tasks that serve hundreds of millions of users within a short response time and backend data analysis batch tasks that involve petabytes of data. Hadoop, an open source software suite, is used by many Internet services as the main data computing platform. Hadoop is also used by academia as a research platform and an optimization target. This paper presents five research directions for optimizing Hadoop; improving performance, utilization, power efficiency, availability, and different consistency constraints. The survey covers both backend analysis and customer-facing workloads. A total of 15 innovative techniques and systems are analyzed and compared, focusing on main research issues, innovative techniques, and optimized results.
Security Issues in Cloud Computing
Authors: Dahbur Kamal , Mohammad Bassil , Tarakji Ahmad Bisher
Published: June 2012

Cloud Computing (CC) is revolutionizing the methodology by which IT services are being utilized. It is being introduced and marketed with many attractive promises that are enticing to many companies and managers, such as reduced capital costs and relief from managing complex information technology infrastructure. However, along with desirable benefits come risks and security concerns that must be considered and addressed correctly. Thus, security issues must be considered as a major issue when considering Cloud Computing. This paper discusses Cloud Computing and its related concepts; highlights and categorizes many of the security issues introduced by the “cloud”; surveys the risks, threats, and vulnerabilities; and makes the necessary recommendations that can help promote the benefits and mitigate the risks associated with Cloud Computing.
Toward Understanding the Challenges and Countermeasures in Computer Anti-Forensics
Authors: Dahbur Kamal , Mohammad Bassil
Published: June 2012

The term computer anti-forensics (CAF) generally refers to a set of tactical and technical measures intended to circumvent the efforts and objectives of the field of computer and network forensics (CF). Many scientific techniques, procedures, and technological tools have evolved and effectively applied in the field of CF to assist scientists and investigators in acquiring and analyzing digital evidence for the purpose of solving cases that involve the use or misuse of computer systems. CAF has emerged as a CF counterpart that plants obstacles throughout the path of computer investigations. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the challenges introduced by anti-forensics, explore various CAF mechanisms, tools, and techniques, provide a coherent classification for them, and discuss their effectiveness. Moreover, the authors discuss the challenges in implementing effective countermeasures against these techniques. A set of recommendations are presented with future research opportunities.
Custom-Made Cloud Enterprise Architecture for Small Medium and Micro Enterprises
Authors: Mvelase Promise , Dlodlo Nomusa , Williams Quentin , Adigun Matthew O.
Published: June 2012

Small, Medium, and Micro enterprises (SMMEs) usually do not have adequate funds to acquire ICT infrastructure and often use cloud computing. In this paper, the authors discuss the implementation of virtual enterprises (VE) to enable SMMEs to respond quickly to customers’ demands and market opportunities. The virtual enterprise model is based on the ability to create temporary co-operations and realize the value of a short term business opportunity that the partners cannot fully capture on their own. The model of virtual enterprise is made possible through virtualisation technology, which is a building block of cloud computing. To achieve a common goal, enterprises integrate resources, organisational models, and process models. Through the virtual business operating environment offered by cloud computing, the SMMEs are able to increase productivity and gain competitive advantage due to the cost benefit incurred. In this paper, the authors propose a virtual enterprise enabled cloud enterprise architecture based on the concept of virtual enterprise at both business and technology levels. The business level comprises of organisational models, process models, skills, and competences whereas the technology level comprises of IT resources.