Abstract: Adapting quickly to environmental dynamism is
essential for an organization to develop outsourcing strategic and
management in order to sustain competitive advantage. This research
used the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLSSEM)
tool to investigate the factors of environmental dynamism
impact on the strategic outsourcing success among electrical and
electronic manufacturing industries in outsourcing management.
Statistical results confirm that the inclusion of customer demand,
technological change, and competition level as a new combination
concept of environmental dynamism, has positive effects on
outsourcing success. Additionally, this research demonstrates the
acceptability of PLS-SEM as a statistical analysis to furnish a better
understanding of environmental dynamism in outsourcing
management in Malaysia. A practical finding contributes to
academics and practitioners in the field of outsourcing management.
Abstract: Recommendation systems are widely used in
e-commerce applications. The engine of a current recommendation
system recommends items to a particular user based on user
preferences and previous high ratings. Various recommendation
schemes such as collaborative filtering and content-based approaches
are used to build a recommendation system. Most of current
recommendation systems were developed to fit a certain domain such
as books, articles, and movies. We propose1 a hybrid framework
recommendation system to be applied on two dimensional spaces
(User × Item) with a large number of Users and a small number
of Items. Moreover, our proposed framework makes use of both
favorite and non-favorite items of a particular user. The proposed
framework is built upon the integration of association rules mining
and the content-based approach. The results of experiments show
that our proposed framework can provide accurate recommendations
to users.
Abstract: Communicating and managing customers’
requirements in software development projects play a vital role in the
software development process. While it is difficult to do so locally, it
is even more difficult to communicate these requirements over
distributed boundaries and to convey them to multiple distribution
customers. This paper discusses the communication of multiple
distribution customers’ requirements in the context of customised
software products. The main purpose is to understand the challenges
of communicating and managing customisation requirements across
distributed boundaries. We propose a model for Communicating
Customisation Requirements of Multi-Clients in a Distributed
Domain (CCRD). Thereafter, we evaluate that model by presenting
the findings of a case study conducted with a company with
customisation projects for 18 distributed customers. Then, we
compare the outputs of the real case process and the outputs of the
CCRD model using simulation methods. Our conjecture is that the
CCRD model can reduce the challenge of communication
requirements over distributed organisational boundaries, and the
delay in decision making and in the entire customisation process
time.
Abstract: Map is a powerful and convenient tool in helping us to
navigate to different places, but the use of indirect devices often
makes its usage cumbersome. This study intends to propose a new
map navigation dialogue that uses hand gesture. A set of dialogue
was developed from users’ perspective to provide users complete
freedom for panning, zooming, rotate, tilt and find direction
operations. A participatory design experiment was involved here
where one hand gesture and two hand gesture dialogues had been
analysed in the forms of hand gestures to develop a set of usable
dialogues. The major finding was that users prefer one-hand gesture
compared to two-hand gesture in map navigation.
Abstract: The Smart Help for persons with disability (PWD) is a
part of the project SMARTDISABLE which aims to develop relevant
solution for PWD that target to provide an adequate workplace
environment for them. It would support PWD needs smartly through
smart help to allow them access to relevant information and
communicate with other effectively and flexibly, and smart editor
that assist them in their daily work. It will assist PWD in knowledge
processing and creation as well as being able to be productive at the
work place. The technical work of the project involves design of a
technological scenario for the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) - based
assistive technologies at the workplace consisting of an integrated
universal smart solution that suits many different impairment
conditions and will be designed to empower the Physically disabled
persons (PDP) with the capability to access and effectively utilize the
ICTs in order to execute knowledge rich working tasks with
minimum efforts and with sufficient comfort level. The proposed
technology solution for PWD will support voice recognition along
with normal keyboard and mouse to control the smart help and smart
editor with dynamic auto display interface that satisfies the
requirements for different PWD group. In addition, a smart help will
provide intelligent intervention based on the behavior of PWD to
guide them and warn them about possible misbehavior. PWD can
communicate with others using Voice over IP controlled by voice
recognition. Moreover, Auto Emergency Help Response would be
supported to assist PWD in case of emergency. This proposed
technology solution intended to make PWD very effective at the
work environment and flexible using voice to conduct their tasks at
the work environment. The proposed solution aims to provide
favorable outcomes that assist PWD at the work place, with the
opportunity to participate in PWD assistive technology innovation
market which is still small and rapidly growing as well as upgrading
their quality of life to become similar to the normal people at the
workplace. Finally, the proposed smart help solution is applicable in
all workplace setting, including offices, manufacturing, hospital, etc.
Abstract: This paper reports a structured literature review of the
application of Health Information Technology in developing
countries, defined as the World Bank categories Low-income
countries, Lower-middle-income, and Upper-middle-income
countries. The aim was to identify and classify the various
applications of health information technology to assess its current
state in developing countries and explore potential areas of research.
We offer specific analysis and application of HIT in Libya as one of
the developing countries. A structured literature review was
conducted using the following online databases: IEEE, Science
Direct, PubMed, and Google Scholar. Publication dates were set for
2000-2013. For the PubMed search, publications in English, French,
and Arabic were specified. Using a content analysis approach, 159
papers were analyzed and a total number of 26 factors were identified
that affect the adoption of health information technology. Of the 2681
retrieved articles, 159 met the inclusion criteria which were carefully
analyzed and classified. The implementation of health information
technology across developing countries is varied. Whilst it was
initially expected financial constraints would have severely limited
health information technology implementation, some developing
countries like India have nevertheless dominated the literature and
taken the lead in conducting scientific research. Comparing the
number of studies to the number of countries in each category, we
found that Low-income countries and Lower-middle-income had
more studies carried out than Upper-middle-income countries.
However, whilst IT has been used in various sectors of the economy,
the healthcare sector in developing countries is still failing to benefit
fully from the potential advantages that IT can offer.
Abstract: In this paper, Fuzzy C-Means clustering with
Expectation Maximization-Gaussian Mixture Model based hybrid
modeling algorithm is proposed for Continuous Tamil Speech
Recognition. The speech sentences from various speakers are used
for training and testing phase and objective measures are between the
proposed and existing Continuous Speech Recognition algorithms.
From the simulated results, it is observed that the proposed algorithm
improves the recognition accuracy and F-measure up to 3% as
compared to that of the existing algorithms for the speech signal from
various speakers. In addition, it reduces the Word Error Rate, Error
Rate and Error up to 4% as compared to that of the existing
algorithms. In all aspects, the proposed hybrid modeling for Tamil
speech recognition provides the significant improvements for speechto-
text conversion in various applications.
Abstract: Many of the ever-growing elderly population require
exercise, such as running, for health management. One important
element of a runner’s training is the choice of shoes for exercise; shoes
are important because they provide the interface between the feet and
road. When we purchase shoes, we may instinctively choose a pair
after trying on many different pairs of shoes. Selecting the shoes
instinctively may work, but it does not guarantee a suitable fit for
running activities. Therefore, if we could select suitable shoes for each
runner from the viewpoint of brain activities, it would be helpful for
validating shoe selection. In this paper, we describe how brain
activities show different characteristics during particular task,
corresponding to different properties of shoes. Using five subjects, we
performed a verification experiment, applying weight, softness, and
flexibility as shoe properties. In order to affect the shoe property’s
differences to the brain, subjects run for 10 min. Before and after
running, subjects conducted a paced auditory serial addition task
(PASAT) as the particular task; and the subjects’ brain activities
during the PASAT are evaluated based on oxyhemoglobin and
deoxyhemoglobin relative concentration changes, measured by
near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). When the brain works actively,
oxihemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentration drastically
changes; therefore, we calculate the maximum values of concentration
changes. In order to normalize relative concentration changes after
running, the maximum value are divided by before running maximum
value as evaluation parameters. The classification of the groups of
shoes is expressed on a self-organizing map (SOM). As a result,
deoxyhemoglobin can make clusters for two of the three types of
shoes.
Abstract: The growth in the volume of text data such as books
and articles in libraries for centuries has imposed to establish
effective mechanisms to locate them. Early techniques such as
abstraction, indexing and the use of classification categories have
marked the birth of a new field of research called "Information
Retrieval". Information Retrieval (IR) can be defined as the task of
defining models and systems whose purpose is to facilitate access to
a set of documents in electronic form (corpus) to allow a user to find
the relevant ones for him, that is to say, the contents which matches
with the information needs of the user.
Most of the models of information retrieval use a specific data
structure to index a corpus which is called "inverted file" or "reverse
index".
This inverted file collects information on all terms over the corpus
documents specifying the identifiers of documents that contain the
term in question, the frequency of each term in the documents of the
corpus, the positions of the occurrences of the word...
In this paper we use an oriented object database (db4o) instead of
the inverted file, that is to say, instead to search a term in the inverted
file, we will search it in the db4o database.
The purpose of this work is to make a comparative study to see if
the oriented object databases may be competing for the inverse index
in terms of access speed and resource consumption using a large
volume of data.
Abstract: The method of introducing the proxy interpretation for
sending and receiving requests increase the capability of the server
and our approach UDIV (User-Data Identity Security) to solve the
data and user authentication without extending size of the data makes
better than hybrid IDS (Intrusion Detection System). And at the same
time all the security stages we have framed have to pass through less
through that minimize the response time of the request. Even though
an anomaly detected, before rejecting it the proxy extracts its identity
to prevent it to enter into system. In case of false anomalies, the
request will be reshaped and transformed into legitimate request for
further response. Finally we are holding the normal and abnormal
requests in two different queues with own priorities.
Abstract: The demand of high quality services has fueled
dimensional research and development in wireless communications
and networking. As a result, different wireless technologies like
Wireless LAN, CDMA, GSM, UMTS, MANET, Bluetooth and
satellite networks etc. have emerged in the last two decades. Future
networks capable of carrying multimedia traffic need IP convergence,
portability, seamless roaming and scalability among the existing
networking technologies without changing the core part of the
existing communications networks. To fulfill these goals, the present
networking systems are required to work in cooperation to ensure
technological independence, seamless roaming, high security and
authentication, guaranteed Quality of Services (QoS). In this paper, a
conceptual framework for a cooperative network (CN) is proposed
for integration of heterogeneous existing networks to meet out the
requirements of the next generation wireless networks.
Abstract: Steganography is the art and science that hides the information in an appropriate cover carrier like image, text, audio and video media. In this work the authors propose a new image based steganographic method for hiding information within the complex bit planes of the image. After slicing into bit planes the cover image is analyzed to extract the most complex planes in decreasing order based on their bit plane complexity. The complexity function next determines the complex noisy blocks of the chosen bit plane and finally pixel mapping method (PMM) has been used to embed secret bits into those regions of the bit plane. The novel approach of using pixel mapping method (PMM) in bit plane domain adaptively embeds data on most complex regions of image, provides high embedding capacity, better imperceptibility and resistance to steganalysis attack.
Abstract: Image spam is a kind of email spam where the spam
text is embedded with an image. It is a new spamming technique
being used by spammers to send their messages to bulk of internet
users. Spam email has become a big problem in the lives of internet
users, causing time consumption and economic losses. The main
objective of this paper is to detect the image spam by using histogram
properties of an image. Though there are many techniques to
automatically detect and avoid this problem, spammers employing
new tricks to bypass those techniques, as a result those techniques are
inefficient to detect the spam mails. In this paper we have proposed a
new method to detect the image spam. Here the image features are
extracted by using RGB histogram, HSV histogram and combination
of both RGB and HSV histogram. Based on the optimized image
feature set classification is done by using k- Nearest Neighbor(k-NN)
algorithm. Experimental result shows that our method has achieved
better accuracy. From the result it is known that combination of RGB
and HSV histogram with k-NN algorithm gives the best accuracy in
spam detection.
Abstract: Red blood cells (RBC) are the most common types of
blood cells and are the most intensively studied in cell biology. The
lack of RBCs is a condition in which the amount of hemoglobin level
is lower than normal and is referred to as “anemia”. Abnormalities in
RBCs will affect the exchange of oxygen. This paper presents a
comparative study for various techniques for classifying the RBCs as
normal or abnormal (anemic) using WEKA. WEKA is an open
source consists of different machine learning algorithms for data
mining applications. The algorithms tested are Radial Basis Function
neural network, Support vector machine, and K-Nearest Neighbors
algorithm. Two sets of combined features were utilized for
classification of blood cells images. The first set, exclusively consist
of geometrical features, was used to identify whether the tested blood
cell has a spherical shape or non-spherical cells. While the second
set, consist mainly of textural features was used to recognize the
types of the spherical cells. We have provided an evaluation based on
applying these classification methods to our RBCs image dataset
which were obtained from Serdang Hospital - Malaysia, and
measuring the accuracy of test results. The best achieved
classification rates are 97%, 98%, and 79% for Support vector
machines, Radial Basis Function neural network, and K-Nearest
Neighbors algorithm respectively.
Abstract: Fuzzy inference method based approach to the
forming of modular intellectual system of assessment the quality of
communication services is proposed. Developed under this approach
the basic fuzzy estimation model takes into account the
recommendations of the International Telecommunication Union in
respect of the operation of packet switching networks based on IPprotocol.
To implement the main features and functions of the fuzzy
control system of quality telecommunication services it is used
multilayer feedforward neural network.
Abstract: Safety is one of the most important considerations
when buying a new car. While active safety aims at avoiding
accidents, passive safety systems such as airbags and seat belts
protect the occupant in case of an accident. In addition to legal
regulations, organizations like Euro NCAP provide consumers with
an independent assessment of the safety performance of cars and
drive the development of safety systems in automobile industry.
Those ratings are mainly based on injury assessment reference values
derived from physical parameters measured in dummies during a car
crash test.
The components and sub-systems of a safety system are designed
to achieve the required restraint performance. Sled tests and other
types of tests are then carried out by car makers and their suppliers
to confirm the protection level of the safety system. A Knowledge
Discovery in Databases (KDD) process is proposed in order to
minimize the number of tests. The KDD process is based on the
data emerging from sled tests according to Euro NCAP specifications.
About 30 parameters of the passive safety systems from different data
sources (crash data, dummy protocol) are first analysed together with
experts opinions. A procedure is proposed to manage missing data
and validated on real data sets. Finally, a procedure is developed to
estimate a set of rough initial parameters of the passive system before
testing aiming at reducing the number of tests.
Abstract: The star network is one of the promising
interconnection networks for future high speed parallel computers, it
is expected to be one of the future-generation networks. The star
network is both edge and vertex symmetry, it was shown to have
many gorgeous topological proprieties also it is owns hierarchical
structure framework. Although much of the research work has been
done on this promising network in literature, it still suffers from
having enough algorithms for load balancing problem. In this paper
we try to work on this issue by investigating and proposing an
efficient algorithm for load balancing problem for the star network.
The proposed algorithm is called Star Clustered Dimension Exchange
Method SCDEM to be implemented on the star network. The
proposed algorithm is based on the Clustered Dimension Exchange
Method (CDEM). The SCDEM algorithm is shown to be efficient in
redistributing the load balancing as evenly as possible among all
nodes of different factor networks.
Abstract: We present a trigonometric scheme to approximate a
circular arc with its two end points and two end tangents/unit
tangents. A rational cubic trigonometric Bézier curve is constructed
whose end control points are defined by the end points of the circular
arc. Weight functions and the remaining control points of the cubic
trigonometric Bézier curve are estimated by variational approach to
reproduce a circular arc. The radius error is calculated and found less
than the existing techniques.
Abstract: Braille alphabet is an important tool that enables
visually impaired individuals to have a comfortable life like those
who have normal vision. For this reason, new applications related to
the Braille alphabet are being developed. In this study, a new
Refreshable Braille Display was developed to help visually impaired
individuals learn the Braille alphabet easier. By means of this system,
any text downloaded on a computer can be read by the visually
impaired individual at that moment by feeling it by his/her hands.
Through this electronic device, it was aimed to make learning the
Braille alphabet easier for visually impaired individuals with whom
the necessary tests were conducted.
Abstract: Cloud computing has provided the impetus for change
in the demand, sourcing, and consumption of IT-enabled services.
The technology developed from an emerging trend towards a ‘musthave’.
Many organizations harnessed on the quick-wins of cloud
computing within the last five years but nowadays reach a plateau
when it comes to sustainable savings and performance. This study
aims to investigate what is needed from an organizational perspective
to make cloud computing a sustainable success. The study was
carried out in Germany among senior IT professionals, both in
management and delivery positions. Our research shows that IT
executives must be prepared to realign their IT workforce to sustain
the advantage of cloud computing for today and the near future.
While new roles will undoubtedly emerge, roles alone cannot ensure
the success of cloud deployments. What is needed is a change in the
IT workforce’s business behaviour, or put more simply, the ways in
which the IT personnel works. It gives clear guidance on which
dimensions of an employees’ working behaviour need to be adapted.
The practical implications are drawn from a series of semi-structured
interviews, resulting in a high-level workforce enablement plan.
Lastly, it elaborates on tools and gives clear guidance on which
pitfalls might arise along the proposed workforce enablement
process.