bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Eye Tracker Hardware Design
Authors: Daunys Gintautas
Published: December 2012

Designing an eye tracker involves choosing the most appropriate hardware components. A variety of hardware components are available for building an eye tracker, but it is not obvious which ones are the most appropriate. The common factors to consider are: sensitivity to low light, conditions, camera speed, camera fidelity, weight, the working distance of the user, light emission levels (for safety), and cost. This chapter discusses the hardware components used in most eye trackers. It is our hope that the overview provides sufficient understanding of the hardware components that it could be used to make your own eye tracker.
Safety Issues and Infrared Light
Authors: Mulvey Fiona , Villanueva Arantxa , Sliney David , Lange Robert , Donegan Michael
Published: December 2012

Infrared light is the most common choice for illumination of the eye in current eye trackers, usually produced via IR light-emitting diodes (LEDs). This chapter provides an overview of the potential hazards of over-exposure to infrared light, the safety standards currently in place, configurations and lighting conditions employed by various eye tracking systems, the basics of measurement of IR light sources in eye trackers, and special considerations associated with continuous exposure in the case of gaze control for communication and disabled users. It should be emphasised that any eye tracker intended for production should undergo testing by qualified professionals at a recognised test house, in a controlled laboratory setting. However, some knowledge of the measurement procedures and issues involved should be useful to designers and users of eye tracking systems.
Discussion and Future Directions for Eye Tracker Development
Authors: Hansen Dan Witzner , Mulvey Fiona , Mardanbegi Diako
Published: December 2012

Eye and gaze tracking have a long history but there is still plenty of room for further development. In this concluding chapter for Section 6, we consider future perspectives for the development of eye and gaze tracking.
Service Selection Based on Customer Preferences of Non-Functional Attributes
Authors: Srivastava Abhishek , Sorenson Paul G.
Published: December 2012

With service-oriented systems driving the economies around the world there has been an exponential rise in the number and choices of available services. As a result of this, for most tasks there are a large number of services that can adequately cater to the requirements of the customers. Choosing the service that best conforms to the requirements from the set of functionally equivalent services is non-trivial. Research in the past has utilized the non-functional attributes of such services to select the best service. These efforts however make the assumption that the services with the best non-functional attributes are the ones that most closely conform to the requirements of the customer. This is not always true since the customer may sometimes prefer to settle for a slightly “inferior” service owing to price constraints. In this chapter, we apply the Mid-level Splitting technique to better assess the requirements of the customer and make a more judicious service selection. Furthermore, we also address the issue of assignment of weights to the various non-functional attributes of the services. These weights are reflective of the emphasis that the concerned customer wants to put on the various non-functional attributes of the service. These weights are normally assigned based on the intuition of certain expert personnel and are prone to human error and incorrect judgment. We utilize the Hypothetical Equivalents and Inequivalents technique to more systematically assign weights to the services based on customer preferences. The techniques are demonstrated with a real world example.
Reconciliation of Contractual Concerns of Web Services
Authors: Truong Hong-Linh , Gangadharan G.R. , Comerio Marco , D’Andrea Vincenzo , De Paoli Flavio , Dustdar Schahram
Published: December 2012

There exist many works addressing service contracts fully or partially. They often mention the same notion with different languages and terminologies. This causes several problems in the specification, negotiation, and monitoring of contractual concerns in service-oriented environments, in particular in the Internet-scale and cloud computing environments. With the objective of reconciling contractual concerns, in this chapter, we will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of existing languages and standards for describing service contracts. We will present our research efforts for dealing with multiple contract specifications and semantics mismatching when identifying, specifying, negotiating, and establishing service contracts for service composition in the Internet and cloud computing environments. We will explore the issues of service contracts compatibility and present our solutions. Furthermore, we will analyze crucial points in monitoring and enforcement emerging contractual terms for Internet-based and cloud-based services that so far have not been in the research focus.
A Framework for Multi-Level SLA Management
Authors: Theilmann Wolfgang , Gomez Sergio Garcia , Lorenzoli Davide , Rathfelder Christoph , Roeblitz Thomas , Zacco Gabriele
Published: December 2012

In this chapter we present a technical architecture for a multi-level SLA management framework. We discuss the fundamental components and interfaces in this architecture and explain the developed integrated framework. Furthermore, we show results from a qualitative evaluation of the framework in the context of an open reference case. Last, we elaborate on important future directions for the area of SLA management.
Executives Perception of the Impact of Flexitime on Organizational Performance
Authors: Omotayo Osibanjo Adewale , Abiodun Abolaji Joachim , Fadugba Akinrole Olumuyiwa
Published: December 2012

The paper investigates the perception of Nigerian executives on the impact of flexitime on organizational performance. Effort is made to explore the attitudinal disposition of employees towards flexitime and how gender affects employee satisfaction with flexitime. The study, based on administered questionnaires as the main medium for data collection from managers in private sector of the Nigerian economy, utilizes correlations and multi-variate regression analysis to determine variables that significantly contribute to manager’s satisfaction with flexible work arrangement. The study finds that marital status and gender exert significant negative impact on level of satisfaction with flexitime. In addition, gender, marital status and motivation capabilities of flexitime were found to be a significant determinant of satisfaction with flexitime. Therefore, given the cultural context of the study it does appear that organizations might found it profitable to adopt a flexitime policy so as to relieve their employees some family or domestic burden with the attendant motivation benefit that increases employee performances.
A New Image Distortion Measure Based on Natural Scene Statistics Modeling
Authors: Abdelouahad Abdelkaher Ait , El Hassouni Mohammed , Cherifi Hocine , Aboutajdine Driss
Published: December 2012

In the field of Image Quality Assessment (IQA), this paper examines a Reduced Reference (RRIQA) measure based on the bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition. The proposed measure belongs to Natural Scene Statistics (NSS) modeling approaches. First, the reference image is decomposed into Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMF); the authors then use the Generalized Gaussian Density (GGD) to model IMF coefficients distribution. At the receiver side, the same number of IMF is computed on the distorted image, and then the quality assessment is done by fitting error between the IMF coefficients histogram of the distorted image and the GGD estimate of IMF coefficients of the reference image, using the Kullback Leibler Divergence (KLD). In addition, the authors propose a new Support Vector Machine-based classification approach to evaluate the performances of the proposed measure instead of the logistic function-based regression. Experiments were conducted on the LIVE dataset.
Reversible Data Hiding Based on Statistical Correlation of Blocked Sub-Sampled Image
Authors: Nafari Mona , Jahromi Mansour Nejati , Sheisi Gholam Hosein
Published: December 2012

In this paper, a reversible data hiding scheme has been proposed which is based on correlation of subsample images. The proposed method modifies the blocks of sub-sampled image to prepare vacant positions for data embedding. The PSNR of the stego image produced by the proposed method is guaranteed to be above 47.5 dB, while the embedding capacity is at least, almost 6.5 times higher than that of the Kim et al. techniques with the same PSNR. This technique has the capability to control the capacity-PSNR. Experimental results support that the proposed method exploits the correlation of blocked sub-sampled image outperforms the prior works in terms of larger capacity and stego image quality. On various test images, the authors demonstrate the validity of the proposed method by comparing it with other existing reversible data hiding algorithms.
Investigation on Visualization, Analysis, and Control of Complex Networks Dynamics
Authors: Zelinka Ivan , Davendra Donald , Jašek Roman , Šenkerík Roman
Published: December 2012

In this article the authors discuss a new method of the so-called complex networks dynamics and its visualization by means of so called coupled map lattices method. The main aim of this article is to investigate whether it is possible to visualize complex network dynamics by means of the same method that is used to model spatiotemporal chaos. The authors suggest using coupled map lattices system to simulate complex network so that each site is equal to one vertex of complex network. Interaction between network vertices is in coupled map lattices equal to the strength of mutual influence between system sites. To promote their ideas, two kinds of complex networks dynamics has been selected for visualization, i.e., network with increasing number of vertices and network with constant number of vertices. All results have been properly visualized and explained.
On the Forces Between Micro and Nano Objects and a Gripper
Authors: Valchev Galin , Dantchev Daniel , Kostadinov Kostadin
Published: December 2012

The authors study the van der Waals force, between the gripper jaw and an object – cubical, spherical and conical in shape, situated at a distance L of closest approach from it. The generic and most general case is considered, when the materials of the working jaw of the gripper and the particle are made of different materials strongly preferring the liquid phase of the fluid being at temperature T and chemical potentialm. The contributions due to the standard van der Waals, as well as of the retarded (Casimir) van der Waals interactions are considered. They concluded that strongly depends on the contrast, at given fixed T and m, between the physical properties of the fluid and the material of the arms of the gripper and the particle. In addition, as expected, strongly depends on the shape of the object, its size, and the distance L between it and the working jaw of the gripper. Their approach can be applied to any nonpolar fluid.
Emergent Solutions for Global Climate Change
Authors: Dwyer Catherine , Hasan Helen
Published: December 2012

In the emerging field of Green IT/IS, 2% is often quoted as the percentage of environmentally harmful emissions attributed to the IT industry. The term ‘Green IT’ is now part of the vocabulary, recognizing the problem of IT as a polluter and the responsibility of IT professionals. There is a counter argument that in IT, IS people have the potential to positively influence the global environmental future – in other words, develop Green IS to reduce the other 98%. Given the urgent need for progress on Climate Change, the authors argue that it is the duty of IS academics, researchers, and practitioners to reorient IS and develop new IS practices that optimize processes in support of sustainable outcomes. This argument is supported by the ability of IS to transform business processes. This paper describes Climate Change as an example of a ‘wicked problem,’ and argues that IS research has often demonstrated that imposed, top down solutions are ineffective for highly complex problems. In contrast, bottom up, emergent solutions have more promise for creating real change.
Measuring the Success of Social Software Adoption in the Firm
Authors: Steinhüser Melanie , Smolnik Stefan , Hoppe Uwe
Published: December 2012

Recently, the use of social software has gained enormous popularity in many organizations. However, despite its development from a trend topic to a well established technology, there is little theoretical study on how to measure the success of this kind of information system. Allowing for the unique characteristics of social software, the author assumes that existing IS success models are not applicable to social software without modifications. Therefore, this article aims to develop a model for measuring social software success, which is based on theoretic foundations and the findings of a multiple case study. Results show that existing models are not able to represent all dimensions which are relevant in this context. Especially social aspects related to the organization and the people within have to be taken into account.
A Business Model Derived From the Chinese Context
Authors: Yaohui Zhang , Lei Luo , Xuyang Xie
Published: December 2012

The business success of “Brain Platinum” is a success of a business model based on thorough analysis of the Chinese context. Underlying its advertisements is a well designed business logic which embodies keen understanding of the Chinese situation and creation of customer value. Although there are numerous business models effective in different parts of the world, not every one could be made to work in China: only those that comply with the Chinese situation can grow and prosper in the soil of the Chinese market economy. The business model of the famous health product “Brain Platinum” is such a successful case.
The Opportunity to Chinese Enterprise in Foreign Direct Investment During the Period of Greece Economic Recovery
Authors: Naixiao Zhu , Zhuoqi Ding
Published: December 2012

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has taken an important role in economy development in China. During the period of Greece economy recovery, new Marshall Plan would offer good opportunities to Chinese enterprises, if FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) can be made on scientific analysis basis in order to avoid risks. As a growing country, China would make more contribution in economy recovery in Greece.
Conceptually Advancing “Application Mobility” Towards Design
Authors: Johansson Dan , Wiberg Mikael
Published: December 2012

Mobility has become an omnipresent part of our modern IT society. Alongside the general mobility taxonomy of mobile users, terminals, sessions and services, there are also more specialized forms of mobility. Context Awareness Supported Application Mobility (CASAM) or “Application Mobility” is one such form that is explored in this paper. CASAM builds on the idea of using context to move an application between different devices during its execution, in order to provide relevant information and/or services. In this article we use a concept-driven approach to advance mobile systems research, integrating it with a more traditional user-centric method and a case study, further exploring the concept of CASAM. To empirically situate our design work we conducted an empirical study of a home care service group serving the Swedish municipality of Skellefteå, followed by an exercise in matching the properties of the CASAM concept in relation to problems within current workflow (e.g. scheduling, travel, care situation, communication and debriefing). The result is a proposal for an IT artifact manifesting the CASAM concept, attending to all the identified problems while at the same time validating the concept.
Fractal Estimation Using Extended Triangularisation and Box Counting Algorithm for any Geo-Referenced Point Data in GIS
Authors: Sridhar R. , Balasubramaniam S.
Published: December 2012

Fractal dimension is often used as a measure of how fast length, area, or volume increases or decreases with increase or decrease in scale, or as a measure of complexity of a system. In this paper, input depends only on the Geo-referenced point data where the point event has occurred. An Extended Triangularisation Algorithm is developed to cover the area of point data as a polygon and its perimeter is calculated. Box Counting Algorithm is applied on those point data to calculate the Fractal values, which in turn work as an input to Prediction Plot Linear Model, to show that fractal value increases or decreases as perimeter of Polygon increases or decreases. To validate this model, Crime data was used and its results were analyzed. It provides information to police officials about the intensity of crime, area of patrolling and deputation of police in the sensitivity area. This model could be applied for any Geo-referenced point data such as cancer data, hypertension data and so on.
Optimization of Matched Chaotic Frequency Modulation Excitation Sequences for Multichannel Simultaneously Triggered Ultrasonic Ranging System
Authors: Yao Zhen-Jing , Gao Tao
Published: December 2012

The matched spectrum and correlation characteristics are both important to realize the multichannel ultrasonic sensors working together. The spectrum matching can make full use of the bandwidth of the ultrasonic ranging system, and the good correlation characteristic can eliminate crosstalk among multichannel ultrasonic sensors triggering simultaneously. Linear frequency modulation (LFM) excitation sequences have been used as transmission signals for ultrasonic sensors. Due to the narrow bandwidth of the ultrasonic ranging system, the number of available LFM excitation sequences is limited. The chaotic frequency modulation (CFM) excitation sequences, which can generate more available excitation signals, are proposed in this paper. The nondominated sorting genetic algorithm-II is adopted to optimize both the spectrum and correlation characteristic of the CFM excitation sequences. After optimization, the CFM excitation sequences are spectrally matched to the ultrasonic ranging system as well as have best correlation characteristic. Real experiments have been implemented using an ultrasonic ranging system consisting of eight-channel SensComp 600 series electrostatic sensors excited with 2 ms CFM sequences. Experimental results show that spectra of the optimized CFM excitation sequences can match to the system and can work together without crosstalk.
A Framework for Modeling Social Groups in Agent-Based Pedestrian Crowd Simulations
Authors: Qiu Fasheng , Hu Xiaolin
Published: December 2012

Grouping is a common phenomenon in pedestrian crowds and social groups can have significant impacts on crowd behavior. Despite its importance, how to model social groups in pedestrian crowd simulations is still an open and challenging issue. This paper presents a framework for modeling social groups in agent-based pedestrian crowd simulations. The developed framework integrates agent behavior modeling, group modeling, and social context modeling in a layered architecture, where each layer focuses on modeling a specific aspect of pedestrian crowds. A model of dynamic grouping behavior is developed to demonstrate the utility of the developed framework, and experimental results are presented.
Developing the Performance of Tiling Arrays
Authors: Abbas Mohamed Abdelhamid
Published: December 2012

Genomic tiling arrays are able to inspect the genome of haphazard species for which the sequence is known. The plan of proper oligonucleotide probes for such arrays is computationally difficult if features such as oligonucleotide quality and recurring regions are considered. Prior works have developed the minimal tiling path problem for the choice of oligonucleotides using Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm to compute universal finest tiling paths from millions of candidate oligonucleotides on computers. Although Dijkstra’s algorithm works well, it is complicated and may take a long time for routers to process it and the efficiency of the network fails. In this paper, the author discusses a search approach that can decrease the average complexity time of tilling arrays. This aspiration is realized by searching for the shortest path to the probes using a faster algorithm. This paper enhances A* Algorithm and exploits the enhanced version, called A**, instead of Dijkstra’s algorithm. The enhanced version is more efficient and can decrease the average time complexity, thus increasing the performance of tiling array.
The Antecedents and Consequence of Customer Relationship Management Performance
Authors: Wahab Samsudin
Published: December 2012

Nowadays, customer relationship management is an important marketing strategy to retain the customer. Many literatures proved that by maintaining a good relationship with the customers, they will come back to the premise. This empirical paper investigates the antecedent factors of customer relationship management performance and its impact on electronic banking adoption. This is subjected to a thorough validation process from a valid sample of 325 electronic banking customers in Malaysia via exploratory factor analysis for validity and reliability assurance. Seventy-four original items was tested in this preliminary analysis. The results indicate 39 constructs measuring social value, ease of use, delivery performance, economic value, usefulness, privacy; customer relationship management performance and electronic banking adoption satisfied the rigorous validation. This paper will end with the completed original hypothesized model ready for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Structural equation modeling was used since it has the ability to examine a series of dependence relationships simultaneously.
Can I Consider the Pong Racket as a Part of My Body?
Authors: Di Tore Stefano , Aiello Paola , Di Tore Pio Alfredo , Sibilio Maurizio
Published: December 2012

Up to which point can people consider as part of their body the Pong racket, or an avatar on the screen, on which do people exert direct motor control as well? When individuals move in a virtual environment, do the proprioceptors convey information about the location of which body? In which environment? How will the information contaminate each other? How does the temperature felt on the real environment influence the interaction in the virtual environment? This paper is not intended to answer these questions, it is rather intended to raise fundamental questions of perception and phenomenology in a digital context in which bodies “are not born; they are made” (Haraway, 1991). The work should act as a positio quaestionis, with the aim of affirming the urgent need for a necessarily interdisciplinary reflection on the overall design of the body - perception - cognition - technology perimeter; it also identifies in the Berthoz simplexity and Ginzburg evidential paradigms, and in the Hansen concept of mixed reality, the building blocks of a theoretical framework aimed to the solution of these questions.
The Adoption of Web-Based Supply Chain Management Applications
Authors: Al Omoush Khaled Saleh , Al Ali Ibrahim Mahmoud
Published: December 2012

The objective of this study is to develop a comprehensive model to explain why organizations adopt Web-based Supply Chain Management (SCM) applications from an institutional perspective. Questionnaire survey was used to collect data from manufacturing firms in Jordan. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), using EQS was used to analyze the data. The results indicated that the environmental coercive and mimetic pressures and organizational characteristics have a positive effect on the top management’s perception and support of Web-based SCM adoption and usage. Furthermore, the study revealed that the Web-based SCM applications represent the pool that reflects the degree of response to institutional pressures. This study was the first to empirically explain why organizations adopt Web-based SCM from an institutional perspective, adding new contribution to the developing literature on Web-based SCM. Understanding the external pressures and the effect of organizational factors will provide the practitioners with better knowledge on how to manage the adoption of Web-based SCM applications.
Exploring the Effects of Enterprise Instant Messaging Presence Information on Employee Attendance in a Distributed Workforce
Authors: Baškarada Saša , Koronios Andy
Published: December 2012

According to John Adams’ equity theory for employee motivation, employees place great importance on relative effort or input to its outcomes at the work place. However, as actual employee productivity is often difficult to estimate, anecdotal evidence suggests that employees frequently tend to compare the average number of hours worked per day. Geographically distributed or mobile workforces are of particular interest because such employees may not easily be able to physically observe their co-workers and, thus, estimate their relative effort. Instant Messaging (IM) has recently been adopted in many workplaces; yet, research on potential effects that IM presence awareness feature may have on employee attendance in a distributed workforce is virtually non-existent. This paper bridges that gap in the literature by presenting relevant findings, which have been derived from a 12-month-long ethnographic study of a large professional services organization. The authors show that, depending on the relative employee power relationship, presence awareness information may have significant positive or negative effects on a range of employee attendance dimensions.
Transferring Collaboration Process Designs to Practitioners
Authors: Kolfschoten Gwendolyn L. , van der Hulst Sandra , den Hengst-Bruggeling Mariëlle , de Vreede Gert-Jan
Published: December 2012

Collaboration Engineering (CE) is an approach to design and implement sustained collaboration support for collaborative work practices. A collaboration engineer designs a collaboration process and trains a practitioner to execute it on a recurring basis, without further support from professional facilitators. The CE design should be predictable and transferable for successful reuse by the practitioner. The documentation requirements for a CE design are addressed so it can be effectively transferred to practitioners. This documentation or script should contain precise instructions and interventions that the practitioner should make to guide the group in achieving their goals. To detail the requirements for this design document, the authors analyzed the tasks of a facilitator as a basis to derive the tasks of a practitioner. Cognitive Load Theory was used to derive documentation requirements with respect to the CE process design. The authors validated these requirements in an expert validation session and through two case studies.
Mobile Commerce Adoption in Organizations
Authors: Alfahl Husam , Sanzogni Louis , Houghton Luke
Published: December 2012

The paper comprehensively reviews research conducted on mobile commerce adoption in organizations. From the literature, factors adopted form a number of adoption theories such as the diffusion of innovation theory, the technology acceptance model, etc. are identified, analyzed and tabulated together with a set of research propositions in order to demonstrate areas in need of further research. The paper proposes 15 adoption factors that may affect the intention to adopt mobile commerce in organizations. These factors are categorized into three groups, namely environmental and organizational, technological, and managerial and other factors. We conclude our argument by presenting a proposed adoption model and showing potential areas of interest to future researchers.
Theoretical Analysis of Overlay GNSS Receiver Effects
Authors: Rügamer Alexander , Mongrédien Cécile , Urquijo Santiago , Rohmer Günter
Published: December 2012

Having given a short overview of GNSS signals and state-of-the-art multi-band front-end architectures, this paper presents a novel contribution to efficient multi-band GNSS reception. A general overlay based front-end architecture is introduced that enables the joint reception of two signals broadcast in separate frequency bands, sharing just one common baseband stage. The consequences of this overlay are analyzed for both signal and noise components. Signal overlay is shown to have a negligible impact on signal quality. It is shown that the noise floor superposition results in non-negligible degradations. However, it is also demonstrated that these degradations can be minimized by judiciously setting the relative gain between the two signal paths. As an illustration, the analytical optimal path-control expression to combine overlaid signals in an ionospheric-free pseudorange is derived for both Cramér-Rao Lower Bound and practical code tracking parameters. Finally, some practical overlay receiver and path control aspects are discussed.
Motion Restricted Information Filter for Indoor Bluetooth Positioning
Authors: Chen Liang , Kuusniemi Heidi , Chen Yuwei , Pei Ling , Kröger Tuomo , Chen Ruizhi
Published: December 2012

This paper studies wireless positioning using a network of Bluetooth signals. Fingerprints of received signal strength indicators (RSSI) are used for localization. Due to the relatively long interval between the available consecutive Bluetooth signal strength measurements, the authors propose a method of information filtering with speed detection, which combines the estimation information from the RSSI measurements with the prior information from the motion model. Speed detection is further assisted to correct the outliers of position estimation. The field tests show that the new algorithm proposed applying information filter with speed detection improves the horizontal positioning accuracy of indoor navigation with about 17% compared to the static fingerprinting positioning method, achieving a 4.2 m positioning accuracy on the average, and about 16% improvement compared to the point Kalman filter.
Mobile Applications for Rural India
Authors: Roy Debasish
Published: December 2012

Some of the most notable rural mobile applications attempt to improve rural livelihood productivity by making information available to farmers and fishermen on market prices, weather forecasts and other critical news, while mobile banking targets the unbanked and under banked rural populations. Corporations which have spearheaded these rural mobile applications have diverse core competence, like Thomson Reuters’ reliable and critical information, Tata Telecom is the leading telecom service provider and Iffco is a premier fertilizer company, EKO and FINO are startups. Do these companies believe that developing mobile applications for rural communities in India is “Innovations at the Bottom of the Pyramid which will be Core Drivers of the next practices” (Pralhad, 2005)? With their initial limited experience of mobile applications for rural India how did these companies set about understanding the needs of the rural people and developing mobile applications? This paper makes an in depth study of two best in class rural mobile application initiatives, i.e., Reuters Market Light and EKO by studying the situation, the actors, and the process. The learning from case study of these two companies is used to develop a framework for successful implementation of rural mobile applications targeted at rural India and strategizes how these can make more of an impacted if scaled up.
Currency Exchange Rate Forecasting Using Artificial Neural Networks Backpropagation Method
Authors: Meilani Difana , Richardo Ivan
Published: December 2012

Since 1997, the rupiah currency has a tendency to change at any time since the economic crisis that hit Indonesia. One of the most widely traded currencies in the international exchange market is the U.S. dollar. This paper forecasts the exchange rate by using back propagation neural networks. Variables that affecting currency exchange rates is inflation, gross national product and interest rates. After performing data processing with the help of software VB.net forecasting results and forecasting program, it is displayed online by using PHP to construct the webpage.
Virtualization in Practice
Authors: Correia Eduardo
Published: December 2012

Virtualization has the potential to revolutionise the way networking is taught in higher learning institutions. This article outlines, through the use of a case study, the way in which VMware Workstation and VMware ESX Server are used so that each student in the class runs his or her own set of seven virtual servers, including a Linux router. The Linux router connects virtual networks within the context of student physical machines to one another as well as a lecturer virtual server, which runs on an ESX server. In this way, a class of twenty two students can together run an enterprise-like network comprising of some 177 servers and implement Microsoft Active Directory sites and associated services in order to optimize a specific scenario-based replication topology.
Looking Glass
Authors: Coden Anni R. , Harrald John R. , Tanenblatt Michael , Jefferson Theresa , Murray-Tuite Pamela
Published: December 2012

Looking Glass enables the discovery of a city’s vulnerabilities in a scenario along with the exploration of alternative resolutions and their accompanying side effects. It is a tool for enabling city officials to bridge the silos defined by people, processes, and organizations; the decision support framework can be used to discover interdependencies between a city’s infrastructure elements, its protocols (procedures) and its people’s actions over time. It is a tool for preparedness planning for natural and man-made threats, providing visualization of scenarios as they unfold, allowing observation and measurement of the effects of ad-hoc decisions. Looking Glass is a dynamic data driven system where the data can be interactively manipulated with the human-in-the-loop module during simulation. In general, the key performance parameters are the time, resources, and cost of resolving an incident, both financial costs and the costs associated with the health, safety, and happiness of the population. A prototype was demonstrated to city and county officials who were excited about the benefits of Looking Glass for their organizations.
E-Inclusion for People with Disabilities in E-Government Services through Accessible Multimedia
Authors: García-Crespo Ángel , Paniagua-Martín Fernando , Colomo-Palacios Ricardo , Gómez-Berbís Juan Miguel
Published: December 2012

One of the main challenges of e-Government is the communication of these services to citizens. In the context of people with disabilities, communication channels should be equally accessible, in particular those based on innovative media such as e-Services. This paper, illustrates Pasmao, an initiative for the diffusion of e-Government, using accessible media for people with disabilities. Pasmao is an accessible multimedia platform aimed to promote the use of information technology (IT), specifically, the digital signature within Leganés, a town near Madrid, Spain. The results of the evaluation of the experimental implementation of Pasmao reveal a new and promising way to promote e-Services among people with disabilities.
Development of a Faculty Work Load System
Authors: Chantrapornhchai Chantana
Published: December 2012

In a Thai public university, a faculty member has multiple duties besides teaching and researching, such as administrative work: the committee members in many faculty projects. The workload for a faculty member varies depends on the university policy, the faculty policy and the department policy. The target at the university policy being the research and teaching, a faculty member must concentrate on these tasks. However, the administrative work cannot be avoided and the workload depends on the number of people in the department. Each university has different ways to divide the workload. In the author’s university, the information on the work done on each type of job is split. Thus, in this paper, the author describes the case on gathering the workload information and proposes to integrate the information which helps organize the workload for the whole department effectively. The author presents the developed information system which divides the overall workload based on existing information and views the workload for each faculty member, and department. They also discuss the integration issues to existing Management Information Systems in the university.
An Organizational Culture Perspective in Business-IT Alignment
Authors: El-Mekawy Mohamed , Kaboudvand Ehsan , Rusu Lazar
Published: December 2012

Business-IT alignment (BITA) has gained attention during the last decade. As a result, a number of theoretical models that can be applied as supportive tools for assessing different components of BITA have been developed. However, most of these efforts have been produced in different countries and they ignore the factor that’s subjected to change due to cultural contexts. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of organizational culture on achieving BITA and influences its maturity. The research method and process follows the design science research and is done in three phases. First, an in-depth literature survey followed by a survey was carried out to identify and classify limitations of BITA attributes (based on Luftman’s strategic alignment maturity (SAM)) model and then, hypothesize the potential impact of organizational culture element (based on the Smit et al. model) on BITA attributes. Second, an empirical study is carried out to test the hypotheses in order to identify the limited BITA attributes based on organizational culture context. These attributes are further classified for proposing an extended version to the SAM model. Finally, the extended-SAM model is evaluated in 6 Swedish large and medium organizations to test its practicality for comparing its assessment with the assessment of the original SAM model.
Dependability in Pervasive Computing
Authors: Ortmeier Frank
Published: December 2012

In 1988, Marc Weiser was one of the first computer scientists who envisioned that computers would become invisible; that computing power and communication technology would become part of many objects of society’s daily life. Many modern systems would not be able without pervasive technology. Today, most such systems might be invisible or wearable, but society is either still aware of them or they only communicate to a limited extent with each other. In the near future many objects of day to day life will be equipped with some kind of computing and communication capability and people won’t be aware of it anymore. The great benefit is that they will offer citizens support and guidance in everyday life. For example, most people do not know that nice features like jam prediction and avoidance rely on feedback of the navigation system to some centralized server clusters. These analyze the data and thus predict possible traffic jams. Although, dependability issues most often form rigid limits. Because the systems are so smoothly integrated into normal life, they are expected to be robust against intended manipulations to guarantee functional requirements and/or to be traceable and understandable for the human user. In addition, the adaptive nature of many Pervasive Computing systems makes them very difficult to analyze and predict.
Mobile Acquisition and Monitoring System for Improved Diabetes Management Using Emergent Wireless and Web Technologies
Authors: Al-Taee Majid A. , Abood Suhail N.
Published: December 2012

Presented is a mobile-health (m-health) system architecture utilizing Bluetooth and web technologies for remote health data acquisition and monitoring. The proposed system aims at improving chronic disease management and diabetes in particular using a combination of existing patients’ medical sensors, PDAs and PDAs-related Bluetooth technology. This offers a relatively low-cost solution compared to equivalent customized health data acquisition systems. At the patient end, the health data is acquired serially from the medical sensors and sent to the mobile devices using Bluetooth connectivity. The acquired data are then transmitted to a remote health hub using core IP network. Design and implementation of the Wireless Data Acquisition Module (WDAM), wireless connectivity protocols, and architecture of the remote health hub applications are presented in this paper. The distributed nature of the proposed system allows for continuous acquisition and monitoring of patients’ data anytime, anywhere and by anyone with modest technological background. Likewise, the patient’s health providers can continuously monitor the acquired data of their patients for better disease management. Performance of the developed data acquisition system is assessed experimentally and seamless data acquisition and monitoring have been demonstrated.
A Generic Model for Universal Data Storage and Conversion and Its Web Based Prototypical Implementation
Authors: Unterweger Andreas , Himmelbauer Bernadette , Kranzer Simon , Ott Peter , Merz Robert , Jöchtl Gerhard
Published: December 2012

This paper presents a prototypical, Web based data conversion framework and its underlying data representation principles which allow conversions from and to any data format. Therefore, a data model is proposed which allows storing values of arbitrary types, including inter-data dependencies and meta information. Furthermore, an Extensible Markup Language (XML) based model to describe data formats is provided which allows specifying programs to convert data represented in existing formats both from and to the proposed data model. It will be shown that these programs are Turing complete, thus allowing the same arbitrarily complex conversions which are possible with Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) or the C programming language. Finally, the components of a prototypical Web based implementation in form of a validator, a data converter and a data generator are described. In combination with a data editor, parts of this prototypical implementation are already employed in several use cases in the industry and other research projects to transform data between different formats.
A Fast and Deterministic Approach to a Near Optimal Solution for the p-Median Problem
Authors: Li Xiang , Claramunt Christophe , Zhang Xihui , Huang Yingping
Published: December 2012

Finding solutions for the p-median problem is one of the primary research issues in the field of location theory. Since the p-median problem has proved to be a NP-hard problem, several heuristic and approximation methods have been proposed to find near optimal solutions with acceptable computational time. This study introduces a computationally efficient and deterministic algorithm whose objective is to return a near optimal solution for the p-median problem. The merit of the proposed approach, called Relocation Median (RLM), lies in solving the p-median problem in superior computational time with a tiny percentage deviation from the optimal solution. This approach is especially relevant when the problem is enormous where, even when a heuristic method is applied, the computational time is quite high. RLM consists of two parts: The first part uses a greedy search method to find an initial solution; the second part sequentially substitutes medians in the initial solution with additional vertices to reduce the total travel cost. Experiments show that to solve the same p-median problem, the RLM approach can significantly shorten the computational time needed by a genetic algorithm based approach to obtain solutions with similar quality.
Pricing Strategy and Corporate Bond Value
Authors: Shi Min , Yu Wei
Published: December 2012

Pricing strategy is expected to impose profound impacts on a firm’s cash flow and default risk. However, little research has been done to examine its direct impacts on financial markets. Applying event study methodology on the airline industry data, this paper aims to fill this gap by investigating whether and how corporate bond value is affected by pricing cut events in the airline industry in various time windows. The authors’ empirical results find significant positive abnormal bond returns in the announcement month. However, the price effect becomes insignificant and vanishes in the following months. By integrating financial market and marketing behavior analysis, this paper provides managerial insights for both marketing managers and corporate bond investors.
Leakage Detection Utilizing Active Acoustic Systems
Authors: Eriksen Peter Koldgaard
Published: December 2012

This paper will describe the state of art in active acoustic detection ofoil and gas in the water volume as well as the seafloor. Examples of real datawill be described with the relevance to the leakage detection challenges wheresurveillance and early detection is crucial. Active acoustic data will bepresented from several trials from various parts of the world, examples hereofis California natural seeps, Brazil leakage detection, Norway plume mixingphenomenon's and more.

Applications: Leakage detection on subsea assets, Site surveys of leakages, Oil response capabilities, Oil recovery capabilities, Dispersant efficiencyespecially sub surface, Quantification of leak flux both gas and fluid.

Results, Observations, and Conclusions: Expedition results will be reviewedbased on several real life tests and deployments of active acoustic systems. Conclusion of expected performance of active acoustic systems will be drawn. Miniaturization and adaptation of power requirement as well as uplink demand, combined with sufficient processing to avoid false alarms will bediscussed.

Significance of Subject Matter: Early subsea leakage detection is absolutelykey to any arctic project, quantifiable flux rates is an important key input toall decision-making during operation of oil fields in all regions.

Introduction

Today oil companies/authorities use aircrafts, long-range radar and surfacevessels to detect oil leakages, it is seen that in many instances the leakagesoriginates kilometers under the surface. Those methods are expensive anddifficult to operate efficiently and rely on unsophisticated visual reports, which are not consistently accurate, and more importantly a leak detected atthe surface is far from its origin. Most leaks are not detected until a slickcomes to the surface and is visible to the human eye. This paper describes newacoustic technologies aimed to provide a compact, robust volumetricsurveillance system that can be permanently installed for example on criticalsubsea infrastructure or known high probability fault lines/natural seeps toprovide early detection of leakages.

Active acoustics, multibeam technologies

Modern active acoustic multibeam sonars have in the last 1.5 years achieveda major breakthrough in terms of performance, physical size, power consumption, uplink flexibility, processing and not least price. This now allows the tool tobe used in a much wider context during subsea hydro carbonate (Oil/gas)detection, quantification and visualization. As the new generation sonar is soflexible it will easily integrate to any subsea platform.