bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Outils de dramatisation chez Phylarque
Authors: Vanhaegendoren Koen
Published: December 2014

Les Histoires de Phylarque, dont des citateurs tels qu’Athénée nous ont transmis moins de cent fragments, sont censées être représentatives d’une mise en forme particulière qui aurait des affinités avec les techniques tragiques. Si la notion d’ « historiographie tragique » est abandonnée de nos jours, et de bon droit, Phylarque semble avoir aspiré à une dramatisation du récit historique. À l’aide de fragments choisis, le présent article donne une typologie des outils littéraires, rhétoriques et stylistiques mis en oeuvre par l’auteur en vue de cette dramatisation : la prise de parole par les acteurs de l’histoire, l’expression émotionnelle, l’exagération, la gradation, le contraste, l’humour, la destinée tragique des personnages, le mythe comme fonds de sujets tragiques et la référence explicite au théâtre, notamment la comédie.
Autour de la mort de Romulus (à partir du texte de Tite-Live, 1.15.6–16)
Authors: Salamon Gérard
Published: December 2014

Les auteurs anciens donnent deux versions opposées de la mort de Romulus : son assassinat par les Romains ou son apothéose sous le nom de Quirinus. Or Tite-Live semble privilégier la version plus poétique qu’historique de l’apothéose. Mais paradoxalement, ce choix est celui d’un historien : incapable de trancher entre des traditions qui lui paraissent toutes deux peu crédibles, il choisit celle qui montre que l’Histoire dépend moins des événements que du récit qui en est fait.
Du guerrier-fauve au « meilleur des Hellènes » : l’histoire d’Aristoménès (re-) vue par Pausanias
Authors: Vincent Jean-Christophe
Published: December 2014

From fierce warrior to “most excellent of Hellenes”: the story of Aristomenes (revisited) by Pausanias.

In Pausanias’s Messêniaka, the narrative construction of the life of the Messenian national hero Aristomenes is executed with particular diligence. Actually, the author does not content himself with a summary or compilation of different sources, for he organizes them with the clearly perceptible desire to contribute a unique page to the book of Greek history. Pausanias takes care to let his readers know about his reasons to make his selections from two very different authors, Rhianos and Myron. The story, however, is not as homogeneous as the “historian-geographer” (the periegete) would have his readers believe, because he constantly draws on other sources as well. Pausanias’s very personal vision of the figure of Aristomenes makes it necessary for him to rewrite the story in which the somber aspect of the savage warrior gives way to the image of an exemplary leader, shining with virtue — in short, “the most excellent of Hellenes”.
Jeux et enjeux de l’annonce de l’Empire dans l’Histoire Auguste
Authors: Smadja Elisabeth
Published: December 2014

Proclaiming the empire : interplay and issues at stake in Historia Augusta.

Constituted on a repertory of references found in history, biography and literature, the image of the imperial power is established on a traditional pagan theology, jovian, herculean and solar. Augustus, the founder, is given an important part in that system of signs which contributes to the expression of the ideology of the Roman aristocracy, marginalized at the end of the IVth century.
Assyriens, Babyloniens, Perses achéménides : la matrice impériale
Authors: Joannes Francis
Published: December 2014

Le modèle de l’empire pluriethnique s’est développé dans le Proche-Orient ancien au premier millénaire av. n. è. De -900 à -610, les Assyriens sont passés d’un système de relations vassaliques établi par la conquête militaire à un essai d’unification politique et économique. Les Babyloniens qui leur succédèrent de 626 à 539 tentèrent de garder le même cadre territorial, mais avec une insistance particulière sur la mise en valeur du centre politique, économique et culturel qu’était Babylone. Enfin l’empire perse achéménide se constitua en “empire-monde” de 539 à 330, cherchant à concilier unité impériale et diversité des particularismes locaux. On peut considérer que ces trois formules successives d’organisation territoriale du pouvoir ont servi de matrice aux constructions impériales postérieures au premier rang desquelles celle d’Alexandre le Grand.
L’empire athénien est-il toujours un empire comme les autres ?
Authors: Pébarthe Christophe
Published: December 2014

L'histoire de l''empire athénien (Ve siècle a. C.) a connu en un siècle et demi des changements considérables. Progressivement, un modèle évolutionniste s''est mis en place. Les Athéniens auraient constitué autour de leur autorité une alliance militaire (symmachia), la ligue de Délos, qui serait devenue un empire (archè) dans les années 450. De nouvelles options concernant la datation des principales inscriptions athéniennes ont amené certains historiens à reconsidérer cette chronologie et à abaisser cette évolution dans les années 420. Toutefois, l''ensemble de la documentation laisse penser que les Athéniens sont à la tête d''un empire au plus tard à la fin des années 470.
Sicile mythique, Sicile historique : la place de la Sicile dans l’histoire universelle de Diodore
Authors: Giovannelli-Jouanna Pascale
Published: December 2014

Mythic Sicily, historic Sicily: Sicily in Diodorus’ Universal History.

The present study aims at confronting the large thematic presence of Sicily in the Library of History with structural and conceptual principles of universal history as defined by Diodorus. To answer the question of the place assigned to Sicily in koinai praxeis (κοιναι πραξεις) of the historian of Agyrion, three levels of study are considered successively. The first examines the distribution of the passages devoted to the island in the general structure of the work. It shows in particular that, depending on its place in the global architecture, Sicily represents a different structural principle. The second level deals with the adequacy of Sicily with the conceptual framework of the Historical Library. It appears that the Sicilian mythic figures, as well as historical figures, are integrated and contribute to the moral vision of the history of Diodorus. Finally, beyond the genre of universal history, the third level analyses the emphasis placed on his home island by the native of Agyrion and identifies the elements of Sicilian patriotism in his work.
Diodore de Sicile témoin du Ve siècle av. J.-C. : un âge d’or pour la Sicile ?
Authors: Collin-Bouffier Sophie
Published: December 2014

Entre la bataille d'Himère en 480 et l'accession au pouvoir de Denys l'Ancien en 405 av. J.-C., la Sicile apparaît chez Diodore comme une terre de contrastes : d'abord Eldorado terrestre, comme le soulignent les descriptions de l'économie et de la société des sikéliotes, mais également lieu de conflits politiques et ethniques où l'historien met en place l'image d'une grécité soucieuse de s'affirmer contre toute tentative de « contamination » barbare. L'article se propose d'étudier cette bivalence de l'image donnée par l'historien sur sa terre natale, en se concentrant sur trois champs principaux : politique, socioéconomique et culturel.
Gérer la haine, fabriquer l’ennemi. Grecs et Carthaginois en Sicile entre les Ve et IVe siècles av. J.-C.
Authors: Cusumano Nicola
Published: December 2014

Cette étude se propose de réfléchir, à travers quelques passages de la Bibliothèque de Diodore, sur la représentation historiographiques des Carthaginois, en tant que figures exemplaires et extrêmes de l'ennemi, en Sicile, entre la fin du Ve et le début du IVe siècle av. J.-C. L'attention est focalisée sur les mécanismes de fabrication de l'ennemi et de gestion de la haine, par le biais du rôle particulier attribué aux Carthaginois dans les récits de Diodore consacrés aux sièges de Sélinonte et de Motyé. Le discours de l'historien vise à ce but par une opération anthropologique qui entrelace - de façon parfois paradoxale - éléments de réciprocité et d'asymétrie.
Le témoignage de Diodore de Sicile sur deux cités élymes : Ségeste et Éryx (VIe et Ve siècles av. J.-C.)
Authors: Cohen-Skalli Aude
Published: December 2014

The evidence of Diodorus of Sicily on two Elymian cities: Segesta and Eryx (VIth and Vth century B. C.).

In the Library of History, the Segesta described by Diodorus of Sicily has a subtle identity, as it is an indigenous, Elymus (thus non Hellenic) city, but it is also deeply hellenized. This perspective is similar to Cicero’s in his Verrines. The point of view of both authors on the city seems to be moderated by a posterior reality, i. e. the evolution of the city between the Vth and the Ist century B. C.: both of them seem to actually depict Sicily as they perceive it in the Ist century.
Bridging Data Models and Terminologies to Support Adverse Drug Event Reporting Using EHR Data
Authors: Hussain S. , Daniel C. , Yuksel M. , Laleci G. B. , Twagirumukiza M. , Jaulent M. -C. , Declerck G.
Published: December 2014

Introduction: This article is part of the Focus Theme of Methods of Information in Medicine on “Managing Interoperability and Complexity in Health Systems”.

Background: SALUS project aims at building an interoperability platform and a dedicated toolkit to enable secondary use of electronic health records (EHR) data for post marketing drug surveillance. An important component of this toolkit is a drug-related adverse events (AE) reporting system designed to facilitate and accelerate the reporting process using automatic prepopulation mechanisms. Objective: To demonstrate SALUS approach for establishing syntactic and semantic inter-operability for AE reporting.

Method: Standard (e.g. HL7 CDA-CCD) and proprietary EHR data models are mapped to the E2B(R2) data model via SALUS Common Information Model. Terminology mapping and terminology reasoning services are designed to ensure the automatic conversion of source EHR terminologies (e.g. ICD-9-CM, ICD-10, LOINC or SNOMED-CT) to the target terminology MedDRA which is expected in AE reporting forms. A validated set of terminology mappings is used to ensure the reliability of the reasoning mechanisms.

Results: The percentage of data elements of a standard E2B report that can be completed automatically has been estimated for two pilot sites. In the best scenario (i.e. the avail able fields in the EHR have actually been filled), only 36% (pilot site 1) and 38% (pilot site 2) of E2B data elements remain to be filled manually. In addition, most of these data elements shall not be filled in each report.

Conclusion: SALUS platform’s interopera bility solutions enable partial automation of the AE reporting process, which could con tribute to improve current spontaneous reporting practices and reduce under-report ing, which is currently one major obstacle in the process of acquisition of pharmacovigilance data.
Si/Ge intermixing during Ge Stranski–Krastanov growth
Authors: Portavoce Alain , Hoummada Khalid , Ronda Antoine , Mangelinck Dominique , Berbezier Isabelle
Published: December 2014

The Stranski–Krastanov growth of Ge islands on Si(001) has been widely studied. The morphology changes of Ge islands during growth, from nucleation to hut/island formation and growth, followed by hut-to-dome island transformation and dislocation nucleation of domes, have been well described, even at the atomic scale, using techniques such as scanning tunneling microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Although it is known that these islands do not consist of pure Ge (due to Si/Ge intermixing), the composition of the Ge islands is not precisely known. In the present work, atom probe tomography was used to study the composition of buried dome islands at the atomic scale, in the three-dimensional space. The core of the island was shown to contain about 55 atom % Ge, while the Ge composition surrounding this core decreases rapidly in all directions in the islands to reach a Ge concentration of about 15 atom %. The Ge distribution in the islands follows a cylindrical symmetry and Ge segregation is observed only in the {113} facets of the islands. The Ge composition of the wetting layer is not homogeneous, varying from 5 to 30 atom %.
Palladium-catalyzed 2,5-diheteroarylation of 2,5-dibromothiophene derivatives
Authors: Belkessam Fatma , Mohand Aidene , Soulé Jean-François , Elias Abdelhamid , Doucet Henri
Published: December 2014

Conditions allowing the one pot 2,5-diheteroarylation of 2,5-dibromothiophene derivatives in the presence of palladium catalysts are reported. Using KOAc as the base, DMA as the solvent and only 0.5–2 mol % palladium catalysts, the target 2,5-diheteroarylated thiophenes were obtained in moderate to good yields and with a wide variety of heteroarenes such as thiazoles, thiophenes, furans, pyrroles, pyrazoles or isoxazoles. Moreover, sequential heteroarylation reactions allow the access to 2,5-diheteroarylated thiophenes bearing two different heteroaryl units.
Ebola : une épidémie postcoloniale
Authors: Niang Cheikh Ibrahima
Published: December 2014

Si l’épidémie d’Ebola de 2014 est si difficile à endiguer, c’est qu’elle a émergé dans des pays marqués par les stigmates de la pauvreté et de la violence, et se reproduit dans un climat général de méfiance. Les populations – qui ont encore en tête les injustices des périodes coloniale et postcoloniale – ne font confiance ni à leurs propres pouvoirs publics, ni aux Occidentaux venus aider. Elles désertent les hôpitaux, considérés comme des mouroirs, ce qui ne fait que renforcer la propagation d’Ebola.
La judiciarisation du champ de bataille
Authors: Kim Olivier
Published: December 2014

La judiciarisation croissante de l’action militaire extérieure pousse à aligner le droit des militaires sur le droit commun. La loi de programmation militaire de 2013 a tenté d’encadrer cette évolution, pour la mise en mouvement de l’action publique et plus généralement la responsabilité des militaires. Pour mettre en œuvre ce cadre juridique, la gendarmerie prévôtale a un rôle essentiel, conduisant ses investigations concernant militaires et ressortissants français en environnement hostile.
In vitro zearalenone adsorption by a mixture of organic and inorganic adsorbents: application of the Box Behnken approach
Authors: Bordini J.G. , Borsato D. , Oliveira A.S. , Ono M.A. , Zaninelli T.H. , Hirooka E.Y. , Ono E.Y.S.
Published: December 2014

Zearalenone (ZEA) adsorption by a mixture of organic (yeast cell wall) and inorganic (activated charcoal) adsorbents was evaluated by an incomplete Box Behnken (33) statistical design with a quintuplicate at the central point. The variables analysed were different ratios of adsorbents (yeast cell wall and activated charcoal) at 100:0, 87.5:12.5 and 75:25, pH (3.0, 4.5 and 6.0) and ZEA concentrations (300, 750 and 1,200 ng/ml). The adsorbent mixture at 75:25 showed higher efficiency for ZEA adsorption (≯96.1%) than the 87.5:12.5 ratio (81.3 to 93.7%) and with the pure yeast cell wall (78.1 to 55.7%). The significant variables were the ratio of adsorbent mixture and ZEA concentration. The effect of pH was not significant (P=0.05), indicating that the binding between ZEA and the adsorbent would be stable at different pH (3.0, 4.5 and 6.0). The quadratic model obtained by the Box Behnken (33) design can be used for predictive purposes, because it showed a non-significant deviation (P=49.54%) and a good correlation coefficient (R2=0.98), suggesting that the ZEA adsorption would be maximum (100%) when the adsorbent mixture is set at 75:25 and the ZEA concentration at 300 ng/ml. Although the predictive model showed that an increase in adsorption efficiency could occur in a smaller ZEA concentration (300 ng/ml), the mixture at the 75:25 ratio presented high efficiency (≯98%) in adsorption when high ZEA concentrations were used (1,200 ng/ml), indicating that these mixtures would be able to adsorb a wide range of ZEA concentrations. Therefore, this mixture of yeast cell wall and activated charcoal adsorbents at 75:25 might be a candidate for furtherin vivo testing.
Presumed Ocular Juvenile Xanthogranuloma and Biopsy-Proven Cutaneous Mastocytosis Occurring Sequentially in a Young Boy
Authors: Kodsi Sylvia , Djougarian Alina , Naysan Jonathan , Kristal Leonard , Marr Brian
Published: December 2014

Juvenile xanthogranuloma is a benign non-Langerhans cell histiocytosis characterized by skin lesions that tend to be self-limited. Ocular lesions can occur in juvenile xanthogranuloma, most commonly presenting as an iris granuloma. Skin lesions of juvenile xanthogranuloma may appear similar to lesions of mastocytosis. Mastocytosis includes a heterogeneous group of diseases characterized by the proliferation and abnormal infiltration of mast cells. Rubbing of cutaneous lesions leads to the release of histamine, causing the lesions to urticate. Juvenile xanthogranuloma and mastocytosis skin lesions occurring concurrently is extremely rare, with only four cases reported. Ocular juvenile xanthogranuloma and cutaneous lesions of mastocytosis have never been described in the same patient in the literature. The authors describe a patient with an ocular juvenile xanthogranuloma presenting at birth with cutaneous mastocytosis developing several years later.
[J Pediatr Ophthalmol Strabismus 2014;51:e89–e91.]
How to Use e-Learning Activities to Connect with the Introvert Corporate Language Learner
Authors: Zimmermann Lisa Birgit
Published: December 2014

The aim of this contribution is to show some best-practice examples about how to use e-learning activities to connect with introvert learners who must improve their foreign language skills for their jobs. After a short introduction, different possibilities to help the introvert employee to succeed at improving their foreign language skills using an online-learning platform will be presented.
Improving Corporate Governance and Managerial Skills in Banking Organizations
Authors: Capriglione Francesco , Casalino Nunzio
Published: December 2014

At the present, the focus on management and corporate governance of banks will play an ever more crucial role given the prevailing importance of banking institutions as a source of finance for the corporate sector. Improved board structures, administrative procedures and disclosure requirements could result in better-governed banks, which are more likely to allocate investments proficiently. Therefore, a strong corporate governance can be an important pillar for banking organizations assets, because effective boards of directors complement the regulatory oversight. Efforts to promote good corporate governance in financial institutions face a number of challenges. One is getting the most innovative and experienced people to serve on bank’s boards and management, given the complexity of the business environment and new financial products. This requires also finding competent leaders who also understand new business opportunities and their risks, have a healthy scepticism and take decisions quickly. Regulatory and supervisory frameworks alone cannot guarantee financial stability. Effective corporate governance, change management approaches and innovative managerial skills can act as a first line of defence for banks and financial institutions, against any impending crisis and unethical business practices.
Managing Virtual Team Work in IT Projects: Survey
Authors: El-Sofany Hosam Farouk , Alwadani Hassan M. , Alwadani Amer
Published: December 2014

the nature of managing team work has changed significantly because of changes in organizations and the nature of the work they do. Organizations have become more distributed across geography and across industries. Relationships between people inside an organization and those previously considered outside (customers, suppliers, managers of collaborating organizations, other stakeholders) are becoming more important. Organizations have discovered the value of collaborative work. When implementing IT projects in a global environment, a popular strategy is the establishment of virtual teams. The objective of this paper is to examine what competence an IT project manager has to have to lead a virtual IT team successfully. The question is approached from the perspective of competences presented in the IPMA (International Project Management Association) competence baseline, or The Eye of Competences. Results from research, as well as a survey conducted, highlighted that both soft and hard skills are needed for the optimal IT project manager to lead a virtual team. To be successful in this area it is not sufficient to be outstanding in technical competences. Soft skills like communication, teamwork and leadership are no less essential. The competences scoring highest in the survey were: clarity of objectives, leadership & project management, communication, reliability & efficiency, teamwork and quality management.
A New Method for Promoting Critical Thinking in Online Education
Authors: Al-Mubaid Hisham
Published: December 2014

The critical thinking process is a mental activity of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion. It can also be viewed as a mental process that involves high quality and high level of thinking for problem solving and decision making. This paper presents and explains a new method for applying and promoting critical thinking for online education. The presented method can be applied in both online and regular classroom contexts, with being more practical and more appropriate for online education. The method consists of two components: an individual component and a team-based component. Each component includes a number of steps and the entire process is completed with a group setting. The Individual Component includes three steps: –List –Evaluate, and –Restructure; whereas the Team-based Component consists of three steps: –List, –Discuss and Evaluate, and –Integrate and Restructure. In each component, the learner is given essential opportunity to practice high level thinking and independent reasoning, and another chance to discuss and debate with other learners leading to an effective critical thinking medium. The method is straightforward to apply; and it guides students to practice and apply critical thinking to achieve quality learning and high level of understanding in the given learning task. This model has been applied and tested in both regular classroom setting and online education reaching satisfying and high levels of achieving critical thinking and intellectual growth among the learners.
Facets and Dimensions of Online Social Gambling
Authors: Prasad Jason , Ozuem Wilson
Published: December 2014

While the concern with online gambling and its implications for marketing communications scholars and practitioners has increased during the recent years, it remains an understudied area. This is unfortunate since the advent of Internet technology widens the platform for global gambling, and many companies face some challenges in balancing online social gambling and real money gambling. Drawing on qualitative research, this chapter examines online social gambling and real money gambling marketing communication practices and offers some insights on the development and implementation of effective marketing communication programmes. In contrast to existing studies, the chapter, in part, proposes integrative and higher levels of marketing communication programmes between online social gambling and real money gambling environments.
Habermas and the Meaning of the Post-Secular Society
Authors: Welton Michael R.
Published: December 2014

This essay argues that if social justice is to prevail in our world, we must understand the post-secular nature of our globalized society as a prerequisite for moving beyond “might is right” to national and international relations that heed all voices towards evidence-based interaction. Our post-secular world and postmetaphysical world-orientation requires of us complementary learning processes. This exploration engages Habermas' thinking post-secularity as the framework for the pedagogical project that replaces the speechlessness of violence with the building of the conversable world.
Application of Meta-Heuristics Methods on PIR Protocols Over Cloud Storage Services
Authors: Bouarara Hadj Ahmed , Hamou Reda Mohamed , Rahmani Amine , Amine Abdelmalek
Published: December 2014

The term of big, data is an important concept that represents the exponential growth of volume and variety of data collection, one of the advantages of this technology is the ability of treating heterogeneous data, such as textual documents, also as its name indicates ‘big data' refers to the huge volume of data counted by petabytes which implies an information retrieval extension to help users to find their need this extension must incorporate other protection against existent threats. In fact, big data services such as cloud computing do keep traces about user activities and queries, which compromise the user privacy and can offer useful information to network hackers that attack users or even cloud server to adapt or personalize their platforms without the user's agreement, and maybe the most known attack can be man-in-the-middle during a storage or extracting data session between a user and a cloud server for this cause, the need to a secure protocol represent a high necessity which gives birth to the concept of Private Information Retrieval (PIR), as the authors mention before, one of the checks is the vast mass of data that hinders the correct handling of data and increases the error rate for retrieving a relevant information, for that the use of new techniques and approaches that allow the improvement of retrieval models over this kind of services is an important case to be processed. In this purpose, the authors introduce a new proposition called Meta-heuristic Privet Information Retrieval (M-PIR) in order to benefit from the success of meta-heuristics methods and improve the efficiency of PIR protocols in term of returned information; to better meet the needs of users, they use a bag of word for the text representation, TFIDF as weighting for the digitalization, the benchmarking MEDLINE corpus for the experimentation and panoply of validation tools (Recall, Precision, F-measure and Entropy) for the evaluation of our results. So that the paper is over the application of a meta-heuristics algorithms on a set of PIR protocols using a multitude of cryptographic schemes in order to study the influence of these schemes on quality of results.
Analysis on Cloud Classification using Accessibility
Authors: Kundu Anirban , Xu Guanxiong , Ji Chunlin
Published: December 2014

In this paper, Cloud classification has been demonstrated using accessibility factor of distinct Cloud clusters. Group and non-group Cloud structures have been classified using its direction of scope of activities. Each type of Cloud is further divided into different clusters based on its unique status, such as reachable cluster, non-reachable cluster, basin cluster, momentary cluster, and initiation cluster. Set theory has been applied to realize our proposed Cloud system.
Ranking Model for SLA Resource Provisioning Management
Authors: Rajarajeswari C. S. , Aramudhan M.
Published: December 2014

Cloud computing is an amazing technology, which provides services to users on-demand. Since there are many providers in the cloud, users get confused in selecting the optimal cloud service provider. To overcome this limitation, federated cloud management architecture was proposed. There is no standard framework for ranking the cloud service providers in the existing federated cloud model. The proposed work provides a new federated cloud mechanism, in which Cloud Broker Manager (CBM) takes up the responsibility of resource provisioning and ranking. Differentiated Service Module (DSM) is projected in CBM that classifies the incoming users as SLA or non-SLA members. Dynamic Loose Priority Scheduling (DLPS) is proposed in CBM to manage the number of services. To reduce the overload of the CBM, a secondary CBM (sCBM) is proposed. Experimental results show that the proposed DLPS technique improves the resource provisioning and Quality of Service (QoS) to SLA members and improves the performance of federated cloud by 18% than the existing model.
Visualising Inconsistency and Incompleteness in RDF Gene Expression Data using FCA
Authors: Nwagwu Honour Chika
Published: December 2014

The integration of data from different data sources can result to the existence of inconsistent or incomplete data (IID). IID can undermine the validity of information retrieved from an integrated dataset. There is therefore a need to identify these anomalies. This work presents SPARQL queries that retrieve from an EMAGE dataset, information which are inconsistent or incomplete. Also, it will be shown how Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) tools notably FcaBedrock and Concept Explorer can be applied to identify and visualise IID existing in these retrieved information. Although, instances of IID can exist in most data formats, the investigation is focused on RDF dataset.
A Novel Medical Image Tamper Detection and Recovery Scheme using LSB Embedding and PWLCM
Authors: Gao Lin , Gao Tiegang
Published: December 2014

A novel medical image tamper detection and recovery scheme based on Least Significant Bit (LSB) embedding and Piecewise Linear Chaotic Map (PWLCM) is proposed in the paper. To meet the demand of medical usage, the proposed scheme not only improved the precision of detection compared with block-wise scheme of watermark embedding, but also guaranteed the security of the scheme by applying PWLCM. To evaluate the proposed scheme, a former scheme proposed by Xiao et al is used for comparison; the two scheme's visual quality, accuracy of detection, recovery quality and security are tested during the experiment. The experimental results suggest that the proposed scheme meets the demand of visual quality and security for using in medical image tamper detection and recovery.
Detection of Content-Aware Image Resizing for Forensic Applications
Authors: Sheng Guorui , Gao Tiegang , Zhang Shun
Published: December 2014

Seam-Carving is widely used for content-Aware image resizing. To cope with the digital image forgery caused by Seam-Carving, a new detecting algorithm based on Expanded Markov Feature (EMF) is presented. The algorithm takes full advantage of Transition Probability Matrix to represent correlation change caused by Seam-Carving operation. Different with traditional Markov features, the EMF not only reflects the change of correlation within the intra-DCT block, it also represents the change of correlation in more extensive range. The EMF is a fusion of traditional and expanded Markov Transition Probability Matrix. In the proposed algorithm, The EMF of normal image and that of forged image is trained by SVM, and thus the nornal image and forged image by Seam-Carving can be discriminated by SVM. The experimental result shows that the performance of proposed method is better than that of the method based on traditional Markov features and other existing methods
Optimizing Non-Local Pixel Predictors for Reversible Data Hiding
Authors: Hu Xiaocheng , Zhang Weiming , Yu Nenghai
Published: December 2014

This paper presents a two-step clustering and optimizing pixel prediction method for reversible data hiding, which exploits self-similarities and group structural information of non-local image patches. Pixel predictors play an important role for current prediction-error expansion (PEE) based reversible data hiding schemes. Instead of using a fixed or a content- adaptive predictor for each pixel independently, the authors first employ pixel clustering according to the structural similarities of image patches, and then for all the pixels assigned to each cluster, an optimized pixel predictor is estimated from the group context. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms state-of-art counterparts such as the simple rhombus neighborhood, the median edge detector, and the gradient-adjusted predictor et al.
Lessons on Measuring e-Government Satisfaction
Authors: Waller Paul , Irani Zahir , Lee Habin , Weerakkody Vishanth
Published: December 2014

This paper summarises lessons learned in relation to an ongoing study to collect feedback on e-government systems that have been implemented to e-enable several core administrative functions in the UK as part of the I-MEET project. Previous work summarises findings from surveys of users of such systems and this paper reports on the experience of surveying providers. An extensive survey was designed and administered to explore provider perspectives on the e-government application in general, system aspects, cost, implementation, prerequisites (e.g. policy support), various dimensions of effects, and the respondent's overall opinion of the system. The survey found a complex mix of internal and external contacted service providers and commissioners, each of whom has a different set of success measures for a service, and shared services (such as common web site providers) that were not obvious but could result in correlated observations. These findings provide signposts for future researchers to potential pitfalls. Nevertheless, when complete, the integration by the I-MEET project of user and provider perspectives will give policy makers the opportunity to balance the scale, complexity and expense of electronically delivered transactions on the government side with the usability and satisfaction from the user perspective, revealing linkages between aspects of both.
The Need for Policies to Overcome eGov Implementation Challenges
Authors: Alsaeed Abraheem , Adams Carl , Boakes Rich
Published: December 2014

Electronic Government (hereafter eGov) is a transformative agent upon political and civic activity: it involves the provision and use of information and services by citizens, businesses and governments; and thus has the potential to increase civic efficiency and transparency; to facilitate interaction between public, private and government entities; and ultimately to promote democracy and political stability. Academic literature covering transformational eGov activity in times of geopolitical instability (such as that which Syria is currently facing) is uncommon. We selected thirty-five papers for review, each covering aspects of eGov relevant to the Middle-East Arabic Countries and Syria, for the period between 2000 and 2013. This paper exposes five categories of challenge (Syrian Civil war and Instability, Human, Political, Infrastructure and Organisational) faced by eGov implementations in Middle-East Arabic Countries/Syria and proposes further work to investigate these.
iReport SportsPhysio Platform
Authors: Macedo Patricia , Madeira Rui Neves , Jardim Marco
Published: December 2014

An accumulation of scientific evidence has emerged during the 1980s and 1990s, that is, physical activity would have significant benefits on health and well-being. Consequently, increasing participation of people in physical activities over the last decades has also led to a growing number of sports injuries and, simultaneously, higher demands on financial resources in global healthcare systems. Today, sports injuries are seen as a major public health problem in many developed, as well as developing, countries. This article illustrates the importance of having a platform such as iReport SportsPhysio to address such a rising issue globally. iReport SportsPhysio is a Web-based platform directed to sports health professionals to provide standard sports injuries monitoring and surveillance at a national level. The platform supports the acquisition, analysis and dissemination of sports injuries information, allowing health professionals to register and analyze sports injuries across various sports populations. Essentially, the platform provides a mechanism to house diverse statistical data in the form of tables and charts to analyze injuries at three levels: (1) athlete level independently of where individual athlete practices; (2) specific sports level across organizations; and (3) sports organizations level. A module for a global analysis is also made available, which allows the iReport SportsPhysio to obtain the incidence and prevalence measures, besides the socioeconomics costs relating to sports injuries at a global level. In order to offer these features, the platform is based on a global sports injury data model with the goal of standardizing data related to sports injuries.
A Proposal to Elicit Usability Requirements within a Model-Driven Development Environment
Authors: Ormeño Yeshica Isela , Panach Jose Ignacio , Condori-Fernández Nelly , Pastor Óscar
Published: December 2014

Nowadays there are sound Model-Driven Development (MDD) methods that deal with functional requirements, but in general, usability is not considered from the early stages of the development. Analysts that work with MDD implement usability features manually once the code has been generated. This manual implementation contradicts the MDD paradigm and it may involve much rework. This paper proposes a method to elicit usability requirements at early stages of the software development process such a way non-experts at usability can use it. The approach consists of organizing several interface design guidelines and usability guidelines in a tree structure. These guidelines are shown to the analyst through questions that she/he must ask to the end-user. Answers to these questions mark the path throughout the tree structure. At the end of the process, the paper gathers all the answers of the end-user to obtain the set of usability requirements. If it represents usability requirements according to the conceptual models that compose the framework of a MDD method, these requirements can be the input for next steps of the software development process. The approach is validated with a laboratory demonstration.
Intentional Process Mining
Authors: Deneckère Rebecca , Hug Charlotte , Khodabandelou Ghazaleh , Salinesi Camille
Published: December 2014

Understanding people's goals is a challenging issue that is met in many different areas such as security, sales, information retrieval, etc. Intention Mining aims at uncovering intentions from observations of actual activities. While most Intention Mining techniques proposed so far focus on mining individual intentions to analyze web engine queries, this paper proposes a generic technique to mine intentions from activity traces. The proposed technique relies on supervised learning and generates intentional models specified with the Map formalism. The originality of the contribution lies in the demonstration that it is actually possible to reverse engineer the underlying intentional plans built by people when in action, and specify them in models e.g. with intentions at different levels, dependencies, links with other concepts, etc. After an introduction on intention mining, the paper presents the Supervised Map Miner Method and reports two controlled experiments that were undertaken to evaluate precision, recall and F-Score. The results are promising since the authors were able to find the intentions underlying the activities as well as the corresponding map process model with satisfying accuracy, efficiency and performance.
Document Model and Prototyping Methods for Web Engineering
Authors: Lecarpentier Jean-Marc , Le Crosnier Hervé , Brixtel Romain , Bazin Cyril
Published: December 2014

This paper proposes models for managing documents in a web engineering context. First, it proposes a document model to better manage multilingual composite documents. The approach, inspired by the FRBR report, is to group all versions, translations, formats, etc. of a document in a unique document tree, putting document data and metadata at the same level. Then it proposes a model for prototyping applications, using a combination of class-based inheritance and prototype programming principles. This model applies to document models, documents views and actions. Finally, it proposes a metadata management model, laying foundations for easier integration and management of information in web applications. The proposed models are implemented in the framework Sydonie and several applications are built with the model and framework.
Supply Chain Coordination through a Revenue-Sharing Contract with Two Kinds of Fuzzy Demand
Authors: Wang Junyan , Li Xiazhong , Du Ziping
Published: December 2014

This paper studies a supply chain coordinated by a revenue-sharing contract in fuzzy environment. Two kinds of fuzzy programming models are discussed: revenue-sharing contract with fuzzy linear demand model and fuzzy iso-price-elastic demand model. Supply chain coordination in both centralized decision setting and centralized decision setting are achieved by obtaining the optimal solutions in the discussed settings.
A Support for Organizational Learning Needs
Authors: Leblanc Adeline , Abel Marie-Hélène
Published: December 2014

Knowledge and competences capital of an organization are increasingly crucial. The organization survival depends mainly on its capacity to access new knowledge, to diffuse its competences quickly and to exploit and preserve its expertise fields efficiently and durably. Thus today, organizations are aware of the necessity to become learning organizations and to maximize organizational learning. Organizational learning process is composed by three sub-processes: a learning process, a knowledge management process and a social process. A web platform based on learning organization memory can answer to needs of all these sub-processes. This paper's aim, within the approach MEMORAe, is to model and design an organizational learning support. To that end, in order to take into account all the identified needs, it proposes to associate: educational engineering (e-learning), knowledge engineering (knowledge management and semantic web) and social engineering (web 2.0 technologies). This support is a web platform using ontologies, semantic annotations and Web 2.0 technologies in order to organize, share, and capitalize organizational competences, knowledge and resources. This article specifies concepts of learning organization, organizational learning and it underlines the existence of the three different sub-processes in this learning form: learning, knowledge management and social. It presents all these sub-processes and their needs. Then it presents its approach in describing learning organizational memory modelling and how it takes into account learning, knowledge management and social sub-processes. Finally, it describes the platform E-MEMORAe2.0 as tool to support organizational learning.
Asynchronous Message-Passing and Inter-Application Communication Software for Process Improvement in Complex Systems
Authors: Galinec Darko , Luić Ljerka
Published: December 2014

Complex systems nowadays are usually supported by previously developed or inherited application systems, which have been developed on the basis of business functions standard model. Such application systems cover particular business fields, however, since they have been developed in an independent and uncoordinated way, there are modest possibilities of interacted automated data exchange because of heterogeneous data. Because of increasing data exchange needs, enforcement of development and upgrade of programmatic procedures is required. In this connection it is necessary to find ways and means to integrate all existing application systems in given circumstances and render possible exchange and usage of all needed data in a reliable and consistent way. The problem can be solved in different ways. Asynchronous message-passing and inter-application communication software appliance imply commencement of automated data exchange among existing organizations application systems, providing for full scale control and management of mutually exchangeable data, internally as well as externally. In this connection contributing model of the running application systems integrated by means of Message-Oriented Middleware (MOM) of the complex system has been created.
Arabic Observatory for Websites and Social Media (AOWSM)
Authors: Alwagait Esam
Published: December 2014

Ranking of the web sites and organizations is vital to maintain the quality of service and obtain improvements where possible. Arabic Observatory for Websites and Social Media (AOWSM) is a system that takes into consideration the web presence of organizations and ranks them based on different metrics and standards that are described later in the paper. This paper presents an introductory study about the AOWSM and describes its working, limitations, and modules. AOWSM is set to make its way for becoming a standard in the ranking of the organizations based on their quality of web services, presence, and standards.
A Multi-Stage Framework for Classification of Unconstrained Image Data from Mobile Phones
Authors: Mujumdar Shashank , Porat Dror , Rajamani Nithya , Subramaniam L.V.
Published: December 2014

During the past decade, the number of mobile electronic devices equipped with cameras has increased dramatically and so has the number of real-world applications for image classification. In many of these applications, the image data is captured in an uncontrolled manner and in complex environments and conditions under which existing image classification techniques may not perform well. In this paper, the authors provide a detailed description of an efficient multi-stage image classification framework that is robust enough to remain effective also under challenging imaging conditions, and demonstrate its effectiveness in the context of classification of real-world images of dumpsters captured by mobile phones in the metropolitan city of Hyderabad. Their system is able to achieve accurate classification of the cleanliness state of the dumpsters by utilizing a multi-stage approach, where the first stage is the efficient detection of the dumpster and the second stage is the classification of its state. The authors provide a detailed analysis of the performance of the system as well as comprehensive experimental results on real-world image data.
Requirements to a Search Engine for Semantic Multimedia Content
Authors: Weiland Lydia , Hanser Felix , Scherp Ansgar
Published: December 2014

The authors investigate user requirements regarding the interface design for semantic multimedia search and retrieval based on a prototypical implementation of a search engine for multimedia content on the web. Thus, unlike existing image or video search engines, they are interested in true multimedia content combining different media assets into multimedia documents like PowerPoint presentations and Flash files. In a user study with 20 participants, the authors conducted a formative evaluation based on the think-aloud method and semi-structured interviews in order to obtain requirements to a future web search engine for multimedia content. The interviews are complemented by a paper-and-pencil questionnaire to obtain quantitative information. As a result, the authors elicit requirements to a web search engine for multimedia content. Among them, scalability and personalization of the presented information are identified as the main goals. Based on the requirements, they present mockups demonstrating the user interface of a future multimedia search and retrieval engine.