bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Agile Software Development
Authors: Nicolaysen Torstein , Sassoon Richard , Line Maria B. , Jaatun Martin Gilje
Published: April 2012

In this article, the authors contrast the results of a series of interviews with agile software development organizations with a case study of a distributed agile development effort, focusing on how information security is taken care of in an agile context. The interviews indicate that small and medium-sized agile software development organizations do not use any particular methodology to achieve security goals, even when their software is web-facing and potential targets of attack. This case study confirms that even in cases where security is an articulated requirement, and where security design is fed as input to the implementation team, there is no guarantee that the end result meets the security objectives. The authors contend that security must be built as an intrinsic software property and emphasize the need for security awareness throughout the whole software development lifecycle. This paper suggests two extensions to agile methodologies that may contribute to ensuring focus on security during the complete lifecycle.
Towards Designing E-Services that Protect Privacy
Authors: Yee George O. M.
Published: April 2012

The growth of electronic services (e-services) has resulted in large amounts of personal information in the hands of service organizations like banks, insurance companies, and online retailers. This has led to the realization that such information must be protected, not only to comply with privacy regulations but also and more importantly, to attract clients. One important dimension of this goal is to design e-services that protect privacy. In this paper, the author proposes a design approach that incorporates privacy risk analysis of UML diagrams to minimize privacy risks in the final design. The approach iterates between the risk analysis and design modifications to eliminate the risks until a design is obtained that is close to being risk free.
Security Requirements Engineering for Evolving Software Systems
Authors: Nhlabatsi Armstrong , Nuseibeh Bashar , Yu Yijun
Published: April 2012

Long-lived software systems often undergo evolution over an extended period. Evolution of these systems is inevitable as they need to continue to satisfy changing business needs, new regulations and standards, and introduction of novel technologies. Such evolution may involve changes that add, remove, or modify features; or that migrate the system from one operating platform to another. These changes may result in requirements that were satisfied in a previous release of a system not being satisfied in subsequent versions. When evolutionary changes violate security requirements, a system may be left vulnerable to attacks. In this paper we review current approaches to security requirements engineering and conclude that they lack explicit support for managing the effects of software evolution. We then suggest that a cross fertilisation of the areas of software evolution and security engineering would address the problem of maintaining compliance to security requirements of software systems as they evolve.
Monitoring Buffer Overflow Attacks
Authors: Shahriar Hossain , Zulkernine Mohammad
Published: April 2012

Buffer overflow (BOF) is a well-known, and one of the worst and oldest, vulnerabilities in programs. BOF attacks overwrite data buffers and introduce wide ranges of attacks like execution of arbitrary injected code. Many approaches are applied to mitigate buffer overflow vulnerabilities; however, mitigating BOF vulnerabilities is a perennial task as these vulnerabilities elude the mitigation efforts and appear in the operational programs at run-time. Monitoring is a popular approach for detecting BOF attacks during program execution, and it can prevent or send warnings to take actions for avoiding the consequences of the exploitations. Currently, there is no detailed classification of the proposed monitoring approaches to understand their common characteristics, objectives, and limitations. In this paper, the authors classify runtime BOF attack monitoring and prevention approaches based on seven major characteristics. Finally, these approaches are compared for attack detection coverage based on a set of BOF attack types. The classification will enable researchers and practitioners to select an appropriate BOF monitoring approach or provide guidelines to build a new one.
A Formal Approach for Securing XML Document
Authors: Bai Yun
Published: April 2012

With the ever increasing demand for the Web-based applications over the Internet, the related security issue has become a great concern. Web document security has been studied by many researchers and various security mechanisms have been proposed. The aim of this paper is to investigate the security issue of the XML documents. We discuss a protection mechanism and investigate a formal approach to ensure the security of Web-based XML documents. Our approach starts by introducing a high level language to specify an XML document and its protection authorizations. We also discuss and investigate the syntax and semantics of the language. The flexible and powerful access control specification can effectively protect the documents from unauthorized attempts.
Secure Software Education
Authors: Simpson J. J. , Simpson M. J. , Endicott-Popovsky B. , Popovsky V.
Published: April 2012

This article establishes a context for secure information systems development as well as a set of models used to develop and apply a secure software production pedagogy. A generic system model is presented to support the system context development, and to provide a framework for discussing security relationships that exist between and among information systems and their applications. An asset protection model is tailored to provide a conceptual ontology for secure information system topics, and a stable logical framework that is independent of specific organizations, technologies, and their associated changes. This asset protection model provides a unique focus for each of the three primary professional communities associated with the development and operation of secure information systems. In this paper, a secure adaptive response model is discussed to provide an analytical tool to assess risk associated with the development and deployment of secure information systems, and to use as a security metric. A pedagogical model for information assurance curriculum development is then established in the context and terms of the developed secure information system models. The relevance of secure coding techniques to the production of secure systems, architectures, and organizational operations is also discussed.
Emotion in the Pursuit of Understanding
Authors: Levine Daniel S. , Perlovsky Leonid I.
Published: April 2012

Theories of cognitive processes, such as decision making and creative problem solving, for a long time neglected the contributions of emotion or affect in favor of analysis based on use of deliberative rules to optimize performance. Since the 1990s, emotion has increasingly been incorporated into theories of these cognitive processes. Some theorists have in fact posited a “dual-systems approach” to understanding decision making and high-level cognition. One system is fast, emotional, and intuitive, while the other is slow, rational, and deliberative. However, one’s understanding of the relevant brain regions indicate that emotional and rational processes are deeply intertwined, with each exerting major influences on the functioning of the other. Also presented in this paper are neural network modeling principles that may capture the interrelationships of emotion and cognition. The authors also review evidence that humans, and possibly other mammals, possess a “knowledge instinct,” which acts as a drive to make sense of the environment. This drive typically incorporates a strong affective component in the form of aesthetic fulfillment or dissatisfaction.
Are Robots Autistic?
Authors: Khetrapal Neha
Published: April 2012

This paper discusses the implications of the embodied approach for understanding emotional processing in autism and the consequent application of this approach for robotics. In this pursuit, author contrasts the embodied approach with the traditional amodal approach in cognitive science and highlights the gaps in understanding. Other important issues on intentionality, intelligence and autonomy are also raised. The paper also advocates a better integration of disciplines for advancing the understanding of emotional processing in autism and deploying cognitive robotics for the purpose of developing the embodied approach further.
A Heuristic Meta Scheduler for Optimal Resource Utilization and Improved QoS in Cloud Computing Environment
Authors: Jeyarani R. , Nagaveni N.
Published: April 2012

This paper presents a novel Meta scheduler algorithm using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for cloud computing environment that focuses on fulfilling deadline requirements of the resource consumers as well as energy conservation requirement of the resource provider contributing towards green IT. PSO is a population-based heuristic method which can be used to solve NP-hard problems. The nature of jobs is considered to be independent, non pre-emptive, parallel and time critical. In order to execute jobs in a cloud, primarily Virtual Machine (VM) instances are launched in appropriate physical servers available in a data-center. The number of VM instances to be created across different servers to complete the time critical jobs successfully, is identified using PSO by exploiting the idle resources in powered-on servers. The scheduler postpones the power-up/activation of new servers/hosts for launching enqueued VM requests, as long as it is possible to meet the deadline requirements of the user. The Meta Scheduler also incorporates Backfilling Strategy which improves makespan. The results conclude that the proposed novel Meta scheduler gives optimization in terms of number of jobs meeting their deadlines (QoS) and utilization of computing resources, helping both cloud service consumer as well as cloud service provider.
The Effects of Blended Learning Approach through an Interactive Multimedia E-Book on Students’ Achievement in Learning Chinese as a Second Language at Tertiary Level
Authors: Hwa Siew Pei , Weei Pang Set , Len Lew Hoi
Published: April 2012

Almost all higher institutions in Malaysia offer Chinese as a second language (some may consider as a third language) course. Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman offers an elective subject called ’Introduction to Chinese Language I’ to teach the basis of Chinese to non-Chinese educated students. In general, the majority of foreign language is taught face-to-face in classrooms. There are three crucial challenges in learning Chinese as a second language: pronunciation, Chinese writing, and verbal communication skills. Hence, Chinese language is recognized as one of the most challenging and difficult languages to master. Teaching a language in the classroom improves significantly when technology complements and extends the functionality of the traditional methods. In view of the limitations of traditional instruction and e-learning approaches, this paper explores the possibilities of introducing a blended learning approach in TCSL (Teaching Chinese as a Second Language) classrooms at a tertiary level. The focus of this study is to determine the efficiency of the blended learning environment in which instructions are imparted through the blend of existing instructional methods and an interactive multimedia e-book. It also studies the impact on students’ achievement in Chinese language proficiency.
Understanding Optimal Investment in Cyber Terrorism
Authors: Bandyopadhyay Tridib
Published: April 2012

In this work, the author develops and explains a set of economic models under the decision theoretic framework to conceptualize the requisite levels of investment in the defense against cyber terrorism. This paper begins with a naïve model of cyber defense, on which the author progressively implements aspects of layered defense and domain conditionality to investigate practicable investment levels for countering cyber terrorism related risks. The proposed model characterizes the minimum budget below which a defending nation cannot feasibly contemplate to deploy more than one layer of defense against cyber terrorism. Beyond budgetary considerations, the paper also calculates the relative technological capabilities that the defending nation must possess to deploy a detection regime behind the first layer of protection regime. Finally, the author calculates and presents the optimal bifurcation of budget between the prevention and detection regimes should the defending nation possesses adequate funds to deploy layered defense in cyber terrorism.
A Multi-Criteria Intuitionistic Fuzzy Group Decision Making Method for Supplier Selection with VIKOR Method
Authors: Roostaee Razieh , Izadikhah Mohammad , Lotfi Farhad Hosseinzadeh , Rostamy-Malkhalifeh Mohsen
Published: April 2012

Supplier selection, the process of finding the right suppliers who are able to provide the buyer with the right quality products and/or services at the right price, at the right time and in the right quantities, is one of the most critical activities for establishing an effective supply chain, and is typically a multi-criteria group decision problem. In many practical situations, there usually exists incomplete and uncertain information, and the decision makers cannot easily express their judgments on the candidates with exact and crisp values. Therefore, in this paper an extended VIKOR method for group decision making with intuitionistic fuzzy numbers is proposed to solve the supplier selection problem under incomplete and uncertain information environment. In other researches in this area, the weights of each decision makers and in many of them the weights of criteria are pre-determined, but these weights have been calculated in this paper by using the decision matrix of each decision maker. Also, normalized Hamming distance is proposed to calculate the distance between intuitionistic fuzzy numbers. Finally, a numerical example for supplier selection is given to clarify the main results developed in this paper.
Selecting Adequate Security Mechanisms in E-Business Processes Using Fuzzy TOPSIS
Authors: Mohammadi Shahriar , Golara Sina , Mousavi Nasim
Published: April 2012

Security mechanisms are substantial to an e-business environment. While many security mechanisms have been developed to secure e-business processes (EBP) and networks, little attention is given to actual process of a systematic decision making. In most cases strongest security level available is selected. In many cases there are low risks and threats associated with the processes and the use of strong security wastes the available resources. In this paper the authors developed a practical multiple criteria decision making model based on the group fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (GFTOPSIS) for choosing adequate security mechanism for e-business processes and making a trade-off between security and other important factors in the enterprise. Data was acquired from experts and implemented fuzzy approach. The authors differentiated four phases in the EBP. Each phase of the process which has specific security requirements thus we suggested the use of specified security mechanisms for each phase which improves the efficiency of the system.
Using Bibliometrics and Text Mining to Explore the Trends of E-Marketing Literature from 2001 to 2010
Authors: He Wu , Chee Thad , Chong Dazhi , Rasnick Elizabeth
Published: April 2012

This paper describes a hybrid approach, using bibliometrics and text-mining, used to analyze longitudinal trends in the literature of e-marketing research from 2001 to 2010. The abstracts of 888 articles from six leading marketing journals were analyzed. The analysis identifies several core topics and themes of e-marketing research and reveals trends occurring in this growing area. The study reveals that combing bibliometrics with text-mining is a useful way to identify themes and trends for a topic in the literature and can produce meaningful results to help researchers achieve a deeper understanding of an area of interest.
Investigating the Impact of Entrepreneurship Online Teaching on Science and Technology Degrees on Students Attitudes in Developing Economies
Authors: El-Gohary Hatem , O’Leary Simon , Radway Paul
Published: April 2012

This paper investigates the influence of entrepreneurship online teaching in science and technology degree courses in developing economies and the impact of this teaching on students’ attitudes towards starting a small business enterprise (SBE). An organised examination of the literature related to entrepreneurship teaching is discussed and illustrated to provide an archive of past research points to explore and develop a clear understanding about the influence of entrepreneurship online teaching to science and technology degree students in developing economies (Egypt). Based on this review, the study validates a conceptual model utilising a positivist research philosophy with a quantitative approach, in which data is collected based on survey strategy through questionnaires to address different levels of the study. The findings indicated that there is very few research studies related to entrepreneurship teaching in developing countries and no single study related to entrepreneurship teaching in Egypt. The study provides great benefits for entrepreneurs, policy makers, practitioners, researchers, and educators by providing an understanding for all the issues related to teaching entrepreneurship on science and technology degree courses. This paper benefits researchers and scholars towards suitable future research studies which in turn will contribute to the related accumulated knowledge in the field.
Spatial Resolution of Shapes in Gamma Camera Imaging Using an Exact Formula for Solid Angle of View
Authors: Zimeras S.
Published: April 2012

Modeling of the tomographic weights usually incorporates angle of view, decay and attenuation. A usual assumption is that the gamma camera is a long way from the object, this leads to the approximation that the angle of view subtending the front of the collimator tube is the same as that subtending the back (Weir & Green, 1994). However, if the distance between camera and subject is small then this approximation may not be good enough and artifacts may be produced. In this paper, the derivations of the angle of view and the solid angle of view are analyzed considering distances when the camera is close to the body. The solid angle is explained by an appropriate formula which is defined as the exact solid angle of view. The effect of the solid angle of view for different distances is examined. A comparison between exact solid angle and the approximate solid angle formula of Weir and Green (1994) is presented. Finally the effects of the two formulae on reconstruction are studied using simulated data from circular gamma camera rotation systems. Comparison between the resolution could be achieved by applying multiresolutio-multigrid approaches.
Understanding Continuance of Using VoIP Applications to Improve Intercultural Communication
Authors: Chen Charlie C. , Mitchell Alanah , Hunsinger Scott
Published: April 2012

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a cost-effective medium to help learners improve their intercultural communication competency. However, the proliferation of VoIP applications has not accelerated the mass adoption of VoIP technology by users for the purposes of intercultural communication training. This study investigates the possibility of using VoIP technology as a learning tool to educate and train individuals to improve their intercultural communication. The perspectives of information and system qualities are adopted to investigate how to enhance users’ satisfaction and intention to reuse a VoIP technology for intercultural communication competencies. Information quality, system quality, and perceived task technology fit are important predictors of satisfaction. Satisfied users are more likely to continue using a VoIP technology. To test the authors’ expectations, 93 American and 45 Taiwanese subjects participated in a four-week experiment to virtually converse with each other via a VoIP technology (i.e., Skype). After working together one-on-one to communicate, participants completed a survey, resulting in 116 valid data points for analysis. The authors’ findings provide grounds for theoretical and practical implications concerning the adoption of VoIP technology by users as an e-learning tool.
Evaluating Customer Relationship Management in the Context of Higher Education
Authors: Kosch Lubov , Friedrich Ina , Breitner Michael H.
Published: April 2012

The current economic climate has its effect on the higher education sector as less money is provided by governments and increasing number of students with higher demands and expectations intensify competition among universities. Customer relationship management (CRM) has become a key instrument in attracting paying students as retaining a long-lasting relationship provides financial and other benefits. This paper presents a structured literature review to analyze requirements for a student relationship management system (SRMS) as discussed in literature and analyzes the findings with results gained through an online survey which was conducted with students and alumni from four Ivy League universities. The results of this preliminary study show that universities need to focus on perceived service quality, satisfaction and trust of their students to enhance student and alumni retention. Preferred communication channels vary by communication partner and topic. In regard to student-university communication, university administrations need to improve their relationship and communication habits as student satisfaction with administrative services is lowest in comparison to lecturers and mentors. Current SRMS revealed gaps for student life support, class selection and financial aid.
Semiotic Systems, Computers, and the Mind
Authors: Rapaport William J.
Published: April 2012

In this reply to James H. Fetzer’s “Minds and Machines: Limits to Simulations of Thought and Action”, the author argues that computationalism should not be the view that (human) cognition is computation, but that it should be the view that cognition (simpliciter) is computable. It follows that computationalism can be true even if (human) cognition is not the result of computations in the brain. The author also argues that, if semiotic systems are systems that interpret signs, then both humans and computers are semiotic systems. Finally, the author suggests that minds can be considered as virtual machines implemented in certain semiotic systems, primarily the brain, but also AI computers. In doing so, the author takes issue with Fetzer’s arguments to the contrary.
Capability Enhancement of Women through Information Technology to Reduce Poverty, Inequality and Radical Feminism
Authors: Sharma Vinay , Seth Piyush , Niyazi Shujauddin
Published: April 2012

This paper considers the development of women (especially rural and the poor) as the central aspect to the poverty alleviation and reduction of inequality. The paper proposes an extensive usage of information technology to enhance the ‘capability’ (as in the concept of ‘Capability Approach’ by Prof. Amrtya Sen) of women so as to reduce poverty and inequality. The paper is suggestive of examples of few prominent business oriented and development related efforts designed and executed for the development of women by Government and other organizations and is logically indicative of the idea that those efforts would have given wondrous results, if information technology would have played a role there. One of the examples quoted in the paper would be DWCRA (the development of women and children in rural areas) scheme. The Paper actually emphasizes on the fact and proposes that Radical Feminism may be reduced through the ‘Capability Development’ of women through Business Opportunity Development, through the usage of Information and Communication Technology. The paper further quotes few examples of ICT based efforts in other South Asian Countries also.
Analysis of Neural Network of C.elegans by Converting into Bipartite Network
Authors: Harada Keiu , Suzuki Ikuo , Yamamoto Masahito , Furukawa Masashi
Published: April 2012

It is important to understand living systems, mimic them, and design them. A directed network can represent a neural signal flow that living systems have. To understand the network, the authors extract two types of community structure by converting directed network of C.elegans into bipartite network. The extracted community structure and its connections give some properties of communities. Namely, the neural network of C.elegans has 12 and 10 deeply correlated communities and many single size communities. Also, it has many small collecting communities and a few large repeating communities in itself.
Neighbor Topology for Dynamic Plane Coverage in Swarm Leading Control
Authors: Naruse Keitaro , Sato Tatsuya
Published: April 2012

The objective of this paper is to solve the dynamic plane coverage problem by the movement of multiple robots, for example, sprinkling water to a large field by several vehicles or aircrafts, in which all of the points in the field should be covered by the robots in an almost equal density. One of the ways to solve it is the swarm leading control method, in which one of the robots, called a target, moves along a path in the field, and all the other robots move around the target with a fixed distance. In the process, the topology of the robots affects to the efficiency of the dynamic plane coverage problem. If the topology is a tight one, the swarm can be stable but the coverage area can be limited in a small area. On the other hand, if it is a loose one, an opposite thing can be happened. In this paper, the relation between the topology and the efficiency is discussed numerically.
Driver Recognition on Segway
Authors: Sato Hiroshi , Rossignol Julien
Published: April 2012

Statistical machine learning approach to understand human behaviors has been attracting considerable amounts of attention in recent years. If the authors understand more about humans, the authors can make more user-friendly machines. In this paper, the authors propose the driver recognition method from their record of manipulations using support vector machine. The authors demonstrate the efficiency of the authors’ method using the Segway. The performance of the recognition is quite good especially when the authors introduce the pre-process with FFT.
Scheduling Cellular Manufacturing Systems Using ACO and GA
Authors: Taghavifard Mohammad T.
Published: April 2012

In this paper, cellular manufacturing scheduling problems are studied. The objective is to minimize makespan (Cmax) considering part family in the manufacturing cell flow line where the setup times are sequence dependent. Minimizing Cmax will result in the increment of output rate and the speed of manufacturing systems which is the main goal of such systems. This problem is solved using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Genetic Algorithm (GA) operators, and local search technique. To show the validity of proposed approach, it is compared with a tailor-made heuristic algorithm, called SVS. The obtained results indicate that the proposed method is quite fast and efficient.
Beyond 3G Techniques of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing and Performance Analysis via Simulation
Authors: Wang Chunyan
Published: April 2012

As one of the techniques beyond 3G, because of the effective performance of high spectrum utilization and anti-fading for frequency selecting and adopted multi-carrier modulation technique that meets the requirement of the explosive traffic capacity, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) has carried great weight in wireless communications. This paper expounds OFDM technical characteristics and performs computer simulation on the OFDM system based on Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) by means MATLAB. During the course of simulation, comparison between OFDM and traditional single-carrier technology is performed. The simulation results have great significance for research and applications in the field.
A Novel Detection Method of Paper Defects Based on Visual Attention Mechanism
Authors: Jiang Ping , Gao Tao
Published: April 2012

In this paper, an improved paper defects detection method based on visual attention mechanism computation model is presented. First, multi-scale feature maps are extracted by linear filtering. Second, the comparative maps are obtained by carrying out center-surround difference operator. Third, the saliency map is obtained by combining conspicuity maps, which is gained by combining the multi-scale comparative maps. Last, the seed point of watershed segmentation is determined by competition among salient points in the saliency map and the defect regions are segmented from the background. Experimental results show the efficiency of the approach for paper defects detection.
Dynamic and Secure Business Data Exchange Model for SaaS-based Collaboration Supporting Platform of Industrial Chain
Authors: Wang Shuying , Li Jizi , Ma Shihua
Published: April 2012

In this paper, by analyzing the characteristics of data exchange process of SaaS-based collaboration supporting platform for industrial chain, a dynamic and secure business data exchange model for the platform is established. On this basis, methods for business data automatic obtain and format conversion, client authentication based on encryption lock and SOAP extension, business data encryption based on public key of the platform, and instant key created by client is discussed. The implementation of these methods is studied based on a .NET environment. Furthermore, the dynamic and secure business data exchange model is used in the SaaS platform of the automotive industry chain and SaaS platform of the injection industry chain, as it meets the multi-source and heterogeneous information exchange requirements.
The Problematics of Mentoring, and the Professional Learning of Trainee Teachers in the English Further Education Sector
Authors: Tummons Jonathan , Ingleby Ewan
Published: April 2012

This paper, drawing on research carried out as part of a qualitative case study, explores the effectiveness of the mentoring of trainee teachers within the further education sector. Drawing on data collected through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews from mentors and mentees in a network of further education colleges in the North of England and from documentary analysis of the forms and reports that are produced by the mentoring process, the paper explores three key problematic issues: firstly, the ways in which mentors and mentees define and understand their roles; secondly, the extent to which both mentors and mentees find worth or value within their professional relationship; and thirdly, the processes by which these invariably informal relationships are established. The paper concludes by suggesting that the complexities and vagaries of mentor-mentee relationships that are outlined both in this and other research raise further questions concerning what mentees learn as a consequence of the mentoring relationship.
Discovering Data and Information Quality Research Insights Gained through Latent Semantic Analysis
Authors: Blake Roger , Shankaranarayanan Ganesan
Published: April 2012

In the recent decade, the field of data and information quality (DQ) has grown into a research area that spans multiple disciplines. The motivation here is to help understand the core topics and themes that constitute this area and to determine how those topics and themes from DQ relate to business intelligence (BI). To do so, the authors present the results of a study which mines the abstracts of articles in DQ published over the last decade. Using Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) six core themes of DQ research are identified, as well as twelve dominant topics comprising them. Five of these topics--decision support, database design and data mining, data querying and cleansing, data integration, and DQ for analytics--all relate to BI, emphasizing the importance of research that combines DQ with BI. The DQ topics from these results are profiled with BI, and used to suggest several opportunities for researchers.
A Data-Intensive Approach to Named Entity Recognition Combining Contextual and Intrinsic Indicators
Authors: Osesina O. Isaac , Talburt John
Published: April 2012

Over the past decade, huge volumes of valuable information have become available to organizations. However, the existence of a substantial part of the information in unstructured form makes the automated extraction of business intelligence and decision support information from it difficult. By identifying the entities and their roles within unstructured text in a process known as semantic named entity recognition, unstructured text can be made more readily available for traditional business processes. The authors present a novel NER approach that is independent of the text language and subject domain making it applicable within different organizations. It departs from the natural language and machine learning methods in that it leverages the wide availability of huge amounts of data as well as high-performance computing to provide a data-intensive solution. Also, it does not rely on external resources such as dictionaries and gazettes for the language or domain knowledge.
Real-Time Data Quality Monitoring System for Data Cleansing
Authors: Varol Cihan , Neumann Henry
Published: April 2012

To assist business intelligence companies dealing with data preparation problems, different approaches have been developed to handle the dirty data. However, these data cleansing approaches do not have real-time monitoring capabilities. Therefore, business intelligence companies and their clients are not able to predict the final outcome before running all business process. This yields an extra cost for the company if the data are highly corrupted. Therefore, to reduce cost for these types of businesses, the authors design a framework that monitors the quality attributes during the data cleansing process. Moreover, the system provides feedback to the user and allows the user to restructure the workflow based on quality attributes. The main concept of the framework is based on client-server architecture that uses multithreading to allow real-time monitoring of the process. A child thread is dedicated to run and another is dedicated to monitor the processes and give feedback to the user. The real-time monitoring system not only displays the cleansing process done on the data set, but also estimates the risk propagation probabilities in the data cleansing process. De-duplication elimination, address normalization, spelling correction for personal names, and non-ASCII character removal techniques are employed.
Haptic Interaction with Elastic Volumetric Structures
Authors: Prados Francisco J. R. , Salas Alejandro León , Torres Juan Carlos
Published: April 2012

Considerable efforts have been done to produce realistic results when simulating interaction with elastic materials. Many applications such as surgery planning, medical training, or virtual sculpting would benefit from a plausible simulation scenario. However, even though many works have proposed very satisfactory results, realistic simulation of deformable bodies is still an open issue. One of the challenges when designing a realistic elastic body simulation is the huge amount of data that needs to be processed. For the inner properties of the material are crucial when it comes to reproduce the elastic problem, the simulation naturally calls for volumetric information. In this paper the authors propose a technique to interactively deform 3D images, such as those acquired by a CT scanner. While producing a physically plausible haptic feedback, deformation and visualization algorithms produce an efficient and natural feeling. Using a free form deformation structure as a wrapper, it is possible to deform complex structures at high frame rates, independently of the size of the volume.
Mapping Culture and Compromised Art in the Era of Globalization
Authors: Tavares Paula , Félix Maria João , Teixeira Pedro Mota
Published: April 2012

This work presents an analysis of the cultural and artistic field, positively compromised with social and political questions. The authors start with the categorization of the idea of culture and move to vindication art movements. These movements, which followed the first vanguards and worked from the compromise with “otherness”, are at the origin of the contemporary denomination of political art. In this context, the authors approach the origins of activist art, referring to issues of gender, multiculturalism, globalization, and poverty. The different forms of presenting content are also an object of analysis: from art tradition to the contamination of daily life, from local to global, from street contact to digital.
Inter-Governmental Collaboration Through E-Document Computation
Authors: Lamphun Phannachet Na , Wuwongse Vilas
Published: April 2012

In the past government operations tended to be rather inefficient and time consuming; recent developments in technology have provided the medium for government offices to revamp their operations in an effort to improve the efficiency of the services they provide. This also provides the opportunity for inter-action between various government agencies or organizations through implementing the use of ICT or in this case known as e-Government collaboration. Efficient and effective collaboration among different units of a government could lead to its efficient utilization of resources and better services; and, as a result, could enhance its economic, social as well as human development. This paper proposes an approach to improve e-Government collaboration by the employment of document standards and document computation. The document computation is materialized by means of ontology and rules checking. A case study of collaboration in provincial budgeting in Thailand is presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
A Conceptual Organization for Websites Metrics and E-Government Websites
Authors: Alsmadi Izzat , Al-Kabi Mohammed , Wahbeh Abdullah
Published: April 2012

E-government websites contain sensitive and important information where security and reliability are crucial. However, due to the large number of visitors, they are expected to be user friendly and provide services quickly. There are several methods to evaluate websites. Quality attributes of a website depend on several characteristics such as: its domain, type of information, and services it provides. This paper examines several e-government websites in Jordan for a comprehensive list of possible metrics, attributes and tools for evaluating websites. Websites and tools that can gather the described metrics are used to compare results. Results showed that such metrics have important information related to the overall properties and quality of those websites. This paper examines this list of metrics to evaluate e-government websites because such websites should have a combination of several high quality attributes that most other websites may not need to have. Similar to e-commerce websites, they need to provide high end quick secure services to a large number of users. Further, due to the type of sensitive data that they hold, they can be targets for a large number of hackers or invaders. Without the continuous evaluation and assessment for all required attributes such websites may fail catastrophically and cause a significant damage to data and reputation.
Applying Semantic Web Technologies to Ontology Alignment
Authors: Wimmer Hayden , Yoon Victoria , Rada Roy
Published: April 2012

Ontologies are the backbone of intelligent computing on the World Wide Web but also crucial in many decision support situations. Many sophisticated tools have been developed to support working with ontologies, including prominently exploiting the vast array of existing ontologies. A system called ALIGN is developed that demonstrates how to use freely available tools to facilitate ontology alignment. First two ontologies are built with the ontology editor Protégé and represented in OWL. ALIGN then accesses these ontologies via Java’s JENA framework and SPARQL queries. The efficacy of the ALIGN prototype is demonstrated on a drug-drug interaction problem. The prototype could readily be applied to other domains or be incorporated into decision support tools.
A Blame-Based Approach to Generating Proposals for Handling Inconsistency in Software Requirements
Authors: Mu Kedian , Liu Weiru , Jin Zhi
Published: April 2012

Inconsistency has been considered one of the main classes of defects in software requirements specification. Various logic-based techniques have been proposed to manage inconsistencies in requirements engineering. However, identifying an appropriate proposal for resolving inconsistencies in software requirements is still a challenging problem. This paper proposes a logic-based approach to generating appropriate proposals for handling inconsistency in software requirements. Informally speaking, given an inconsistent requirements specification, the authors identify which requirements should be given priority to be changed for resolving the inconsistency in that specification, by balancing the blame of each requirement for the inconsistency against its value for that requirements specification. The authors follow the viewpoint that minimal inconsistent subsets of a set of formulas are the purest forms of inconsistencies in that set. According to this viewpoint, a potential proposal for resolving inconsistencies can be described by a possible combination of some requirements to be changed that can eliminate minimal inconsistent subsets. Then a method is proposed of evaluating the degree of disputability of each requirement involved in the inconsistency in a requirements specification. Finally, an algorithm is provided of generating appropriate proposals for resolving the inconsistency in a given requirements specification based on the degree of disputability of requirements.
E-Business Strategy in Franchise Relationship Management
Authors: Chen Ye-Sho , Liu Chuanlan , Zeng Qingfeng , Azevedo Renato F. L.
Published: April 2012

Franchising as a global growth strategy, especially in emerging markets, is gaining its popularity. For example, the U.S. Commercial Service estimated that China, having over 2,600 brands with 200,000 franchised retail stores in over 80 sectors, is now the largest franchise market in the world. The popularity of franchising continues to increase, as people witness an emergence of a new e-business model, Netchising, which is the combination power of the Internet for global demand-and-supply processes and the international franchising arrangement for local responsiveness. The essence of franchising lies in managing the good relationship between the franchisor and the franchisee. This paper shows e-business strategy plays an important role in growing and nurturing such a good relationship. Specifically, the authors discuss: managing the franchisor/franchisee relationship, harnessing the e-business strategy, aligning the e-business strategy with application service providers, and an attention-based framework for franchisee training.
Toward Automatic Answers in User-Interactive Question Answering Systems
Authors: Hao Tianyong , Xu Feifei , Lei Jingsheng , Wenyin Liu , Li Qing
Published: April 2012

A strategy of automatic answer retrieval for repeated or similar questions in user-interactive systems by employing semantic question patterns is proposed in this paper. The used semantic question pattern is a generalized representation of a group of questions with both similar structure and relevant semantics. Specifically, it consists of semantic annotations (or constraints) for the variable components in the pattern and hence enhances the semantic representation and greatly reduces the ambiguity of a question instance when asked by a user using such pattern. The proposed method consists of four major steps: structure processing, similar pattern matching and filtering, automatic pattern generation, question similarity evaluation and answer retrieval. Preliminary experiments in a real question answering system show a precision of more than 90% of the method.
Constitutive Nuclear Localization of NFAT in Foxp3+ Regulatory T Cells Independent of Calcineurin Activity
Authors: Li Qiuxia , Shakya Arvind , Guo Xiaohua , Zhang Hongbo , Tantin Dean , Jensen Peter E. , Chen Xinjian
Published: April 2012

Foxp3 plays an essential role in conferring suppressive functionality to CD4+/Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Tregs). Although studies showed that Foxp3 has to form cooperative complexes with NFAT to bind to target genes, it remains unclear whether NFAT is available in the nucleus of primary Tregs for Foxp3 access. It is generally believed that NFAT in resting cells resides in the cytoplasm, and its nuclear translocation depends on calcineurin (CN) activation. We report that a fraction of NFAT protein constitutively localizes in the nucleus of primary Tregs, where it selectively binds to Foxp3 target genes. Treating Tregs with CN inhibitor does not induce export of NFAT from the nucleus, indicating that its nuclear translocation is independent of CN activity. Consistently, Tregs are resistant to CN inhibitors in the presence of IL-2 and continue to proliferate in response to anti-CD3 stimulation, whereas proliferation of non-Tregs is abrogated by CN inhibitors. In addition, PMA, which activates other transcription factors required for T cell activation but not NFAT, selectively induces Treg proliferation in the absence of ionomycin. TCR interaction with self-MHC class II is not required for PMA-induced Treg proliferation. Tregs expanded by PMA or in the presence of CN inhibitors maintain Treg phenotype and functionality. These findings shed light on Treg biology, paving the way for strategies to selectively activate Tregs.
IL-22 Is Expressed by the Invasive Trophoblast of the Equine (Equus caballus) Chorionic Girdle
Authors: Brosnahan Margaret M. , Miller Donald C. , Adams Mackenzie , Antczak Douglas F.
Published: April 2012

The invasive trophoblast cells of the equine placenta migrate into the endometrium to form endometrial cups, dense accumulations of trophoblast cells that produce equine chorionic gonadotropin between days 40 and 120 of normal pregnancy. The mechanisms by which the trophoblast cells invade the endometrium while evading maternal immune destruction are poorly defined. A gene expression microarray analysis performed on placental tissues obtained at day 34 of gestation revealed a >900-fold upregulation of mRNA encoding the cytokine IL-22 in chorionic girdle relative to noninvasive chorion. Quantitative RT-PCR assays were used to verify high expression of IL-22 in chorionic girdle. Additional quantitative RT-PCR analysis showed a striking increase in IL-22 mRNA expression in chorionic girdle from days 32 to 35 and an absence of IL-22 expression in other conceptus tissues. Bioinformatic analysis and cDNA sequencing confirmed the predicted length of horse IL-22, which carries a 3′ extension absent in IL-22 genes of humans and mice, but present in the cow and pig. Our discovery of IL-22 in the chorionic girdle is a novel finding, as this cytokine has been previously reported in immune cells only. IL-22 has immunoregulatory functions, with primary action on epithelial cells. mRNA of IL-22R1 was detected in pregnant endometrium at levels similar to other equine epithelia. Based upon these findings, we hypothesize that IL-22 cytokine produced by the chorionic girdle binds IL-22R1 on endometrium, serving as a mechanism of fetal-maternal communication by modulating endometrial responses to trophoblast invasion.