Abstract: Innovations, especially technological, are considered
key-drivers for sustainable economic growth and competitiveness in
the globalised world. As such they should also play an important role
in the process of economical convergence inside the EU.
Unfortunately, the problem of insufficient innovation performance
concerns around half of the EU countries. Poland shows that a lack of
a consistent high-tech financing system constitutes a serious obstacle
for the development of innovative firms. In this article we will
evaluate these questions referring to the example of Ammono S.A., a
Polish company established to develop and commercialise an original
technology for the production of bulk GaN crystals. We will focus on
its efforts to accumulate the financial resources necessary at different
stages of its development. The purpose of this article is to suggest
possible ways to improve the national innovative system, which
would make it more competent in generating high-tech leaders.
Abstract: School experiences, family bonding and self-concept
had always been a crucial factor in influencing all aspects of a
student-s development. The purpose of this study is to develop and to
validate a priori model of self-concept among students. The study
was tested empirically using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)
and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to validate the structural
model. To address these concerns, 1167 students were randomly
selected and utilized the Cognitive Psycho-Social University of
Malaya instrument (2009).Resulted demonstrated there is indirect
effect from family bonding to self-concept through school
experiences among secondary school students as a mediator. Besides
school experiences, there is a direct effect from family bonding to
self-concept and family bonding to school experiences among
students.
Abstract: Over recent years, the number of building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) installations for home systems have been increasing in Malaysia. The paper concerns an analysis - as part of current Research and Development (R&D) efforts - to integrate photovoltaics as an architectural feature of a detached house in the new satellite township of Putrajaya, Malaysia. The analysis was undertaken using calculation and simulation tools to optimize performance of BIPV home system. In this study, a the simulation analysis was undertaken for selected bungalow units based on a long term recorded weather data for city of Kuala Lumpur. The simulation and calculation was done with consideration of a PV panels' tilt and direction, shading effect and economical considerations. A simulation of the performance of a grid connected BIPV house in Kuala Lumpur was undertaken. This case study uses a 60 PV modules with power output of 2.7 kW giving an average of PV electricity output is 255 kWh/month..
Abstract: Service innovations are central concerns in fast
changing environment. Due to the fitness in customer demands and
advances in information technologies (IT) in service management, an
expanded conceptualization of e-service innovation is required.
Specially, innovation practices have become increasingly more
challenging, driving managers to employ a different open innovation
model to maintain competitive advantages. At the same time, firms
need to interact with external and internal customers in innovative
environments, like the open innovation networks, to co-create values.
Based on these issues, an important conceptual framework of e-service
innovation is developed. This paper aims to examine the contributing
factors on e-service innovation and firm performance, including
financial and non-financial aspects. The study concludes by showing
how e-service innovation will play a significant role in growing the
overall values of the firm. The discussion and conclusion will lead to a
stronger understanding of e-service innovation and co-creating values
with customers within open innovation networks.
Abstract: This paper discusses E-government, in particular the
challenges that face adoption in Saudi Arabia. E-government can be
defined based on an existing set of requirements. In this research we
define E-government as a matrix of stakeholders: governments to
governments, governments to business and governments to citizens,
using information and communications technology to deliver and
consume services. E-government has been implemented for a
considerable time in developed countries. However, E-government
services still face many challenges in their implementation and
general adoption in many countries including Saudi Arabia. It has
been noted that the introduction of E-government is a major
challenge facing the government of Saudi Arabia, due to possible
concerns raised by its citizens. In addition, the literature review and
the discussion identify the influential factors that affect the citizens’
intention to adopt E-government services in Saudi Arabia.
Consequently, these factors have been defined and categorized
followed by an exploratory study to examine the importance of these
factors. Therefore, this research has identified factors that determine
if the citizen will adopt E-government services and thereby aiding
governments in accessing what is required to increase adoption.
Abstract: Database management systems that integrate user preferences promise better solution for personalization, greater flexibility and higher quality of query responses. This paper presents a tentative work that studies and investigates approaches to express user preferences in queries. We sketch an extend capabilities of SQLf language that uses the fuzzy set theory in order to define the user preferences. For that, two essential points are considered: the first concerns the expression of user preferences in SQLf by so-called fuzzy commensurable predicates set. The second concerns the bipolar way in which these user preferences are expressed on mandatory and/or optional preferences.
Abstract: The lack of any centralized infrastructure in mobile ad
hoc networks (MANET) is one of the greatest security concerns in
the deployment of wireless networks. Thus communication in
MANET functions properly only if the participating nodes cooperate
in routing without any malicious intention. However, some of the
nodes may be malicious in their behavior, by indulging in flooding
attacks on their neighbors. Some others may act malicious by
launching active security attacks like denial of service. This paper
addresses few related works done on trust evaluation and
establishment in ad hoc networks. Related works on flooding attack
prevention are reviewed. A new trust approach based on the extent of
friendship between the nodes is proposed which makes the nodes to
co-operate and prevent flooding attacks in an ad hoc environment.
The performance of the trust algorithm is tested in an ad hoc network
implementing the Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV)
protocol.
Abstract: This paper presents an approach for repairing word order errors in English text by reordering words in a sentence and choosing the version that maximizes the number of trigram hits according to a language model. A possible way for reordering the words is to use all the permutations. The problem is that for a sentence with length N words the number of all permutations is N!. The novelty of this method concerns the use of an efficient confusion matrix technique for reordering the words. The confusion matrix technique has been designed in order to reduce the search space among permuted sentences. The limitation of search space is succeeded using the statistical inference of N-grams. The results of this technique are very interesting and prove that the number of permuted sentences can be reduced by 98,16%. For experimental purposes a test set of TOEFL sentences was used and the results show that more than 95% can be repaired using the proposed method.
Abstract: We present a theory for optimal filtering of infinite sets of random signals. There are several new distinctive features of the proposed approach. First, we provide a single optimal filter for processing any signal from a given infinite signal set. Second, the filter is presented in the special form of a sum with p terms where each term is represented as a combination of three operations. Each operation is a special stage of the filtering aimed at facilitating the associated numerical work. Third, an iterative scheme is implemented into the filter structure to provide an improvement in the filter performance at each step of the scheme. The final step of the concerns signal compression and decompression. This step is based on the solution of a new rank-constrained matrix approximation problem. The solution to the matrix problem is described in this paper. A rigorous error analysis is given for the new filter.
Abstract: A virtualized and virtual approach is presented on
academically preparing students to successfully engage at a strategic
perspective to understand those concerns and measures that are both
structured and not structured in the area of cyber security and
information assurance. The Master of Science in Cyber Security and
Information Assurance (MSCSIA) is a professional degree for those
who endeavor through technical and managerial measures to ensure
the security, confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, control,
availability and utility of the world-s computing and information
systems infrastructure. The National University Cyber Security and
Information Assurance program is offered as a Master-s degree. The
emphasis of the MSCSIA program uniquely includes hands-on
academic instruction using virtual computers. This past year, 2011,
the NU facility has become fully operational using system
architecture to provide a Virtual Education Laboratory (VEL)
accessible to both onsite and online students. The first student cohort
completed their MSCSIA training this past March 2, 2012 after
fulfilling 12 courses, for a total of 54 units of college credits. The
rapid pace scheduling of one course per month is immensely
challenging, perpetually changing, and virtually multifaceted. This
paper analyses these descriptive terms in consideration of those
globalization penetration breaches as present in today-s world of
cyber security. In addition, we present current NU practices to
mitigate risks.
Abstract: Public housing is a vital factor in community
development. Successful city, housing and eco system regeneration
design is essential in providing positive community development.
This concerns work places, nice dwellings, providing premises for
child care, care of the elderly, providing qualitative premises for
different kinds of commercial service, providing a nice built
environment and housing areas and not the least activating tenants.
The public housing companies give value to society by stimulating
people, renovating socially and economically sustainable as well as
being partners to local business and authorities. By their activities the
housing companies contribute to sustainable local and regional
growth and the identity and reputation of cities. A Social, Economic
and Ecological Reputation Effect (SEERE) model for actions to
promote housing and community reputation is presented. The model
emphasizes regenerative actions to restore natural eco systems as part
of housing renewal strategies and to strengthen municipality
reputation.
Abstract: Concurrency and synchronization are becoming big
issues as every new PC comes with multi-core processors. A major
reason for Object-Oriented Programming originally was to enable
easier reuse: encode your algorithm into a class and thoroughly
debug it, then you can reuse the class again and again. However,
when we get to concurrency and synchronization, this is often not
possible. Thread-safety issues means that synchronization constructs
need to be entangled into every class involved. We contributed a
detailed literature review of issues and challenges in concurrent
programming and present a methodology that uses the Aspect-
Oriented paradigm to address this problem. Aspects will allow us to
extract the synchronization concerns as schemes to be “weaved in"
later into the main code. This allows the aspects to be separately
tested and verified. Hence, the functional components can be weaved
with reusable synchronization schemes that are robust and scalable.
Abstract: Bottle water is getting very popular all through the
world; especially in the gulf countries as the main source of drinking
water. However, concerns over leaching of toxic chemicals are
increasing. In this study, a health risk assessment was conducted in
accordance with the guidelines indicated by United States
Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). It is conducted based on
leaching of Diethyl Phthalate (DEP) from Polyethylene terephthalate
(PET). The toxicity and exposure assessment of diethyl phthalate was
conducted to characterize its risk on human health. Risk management
is also discussed.
Abstract: Due to heightened concerns over environmental and economic issues the growing important of air pollution, and the importance of conserving fossil fuel resources in the world, the automotive industry is now forced to produce more fuel efficient, low emission vehicles and new drive system technologies. One of the most promising technologies to receive attention is the hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), which consists of two or more energy sources that supply energy to electric traction motors that in turn drive the wheels. This paper presents the various structures of HEV systems, the basic theoretical knowledge for describing their operation and the general behaviour of the HEV in acceleration, cruise and deceleration phases. The conventional design and sizing of a series HEV is studied. A conventional bus and its series configuration are defined and evaluated using the ADVISOR. In this section the simulation of a standard driving cycle and prediction of its fuel consumption and emissions of the HEV are discussed. Finally the bus performance is investigated to establish whether it can satisfy the performance, fuel consumption and emissions requested. The validity of the simulation has been established by the close conformity between the fuel consumption of the conventional bus reported by the manufacturer to what has achieved from the simulation.
Abstract: Safety Critical hard Real-Time Systems are ever
present in the avionics industry. The Model Driven Architecture
(MDA) offers different levels of model abstraction and generation.
This paper discusses our concerns relating to model development and
generation when using the MDA approach in the avionics industry.
These concerns are based on our experience when looking into
adopting the MDA as part of avionics systems development. We
place emphasis on transformations between model types and discuss
possible benefits of adopting an MDA approach as part of the
software development life cycle.
Abstract: Restoration research has become important on principle recently in Czech Republic. The reason is simple. More than 70 % of mined brown coal comes from the North Bohemian Basin these days. Open cast brown coal mining has lead to large damage on the landscape. Reclamation of phytotoxic areas is one of the serious problems in the North Bohemian Basin. It mainly concerns the areas with the occurrence of overburden rocks from the coal bed enriched with coal. The presented paper includes the characteristics of the important phytotoxic areas and the methodology of their reclamation. The results are documented with the long term monitoring of physical, mineralogical, chemical and pedological parameters of rocks in the testing areas.
Abstract: The ability of information systems to operate in conjunction with each other encompassing communication protocols, hardware, software, application, and data compatibility layers. There has been considerable work in industry on the development of component interoperability models, such as CORBA, (D)COM and JavaBeans. These models are intended to reduce the complexity of software development and to facilitate reuse of off-the-shelf components. The focus of these models is syntactic interface specification, component packaging, inter-component communications, and bindings to a runtime environment. What these models lack is a consideration of architectural concerns – specifying systems of communicating components, explicitly representing loci of component interaction, and exploiting architectural styles that provide well-understood global design solutions. The development of complex business applications is now focused on an assembly of components available on a local area network or on the net. These components must be localized and identified in terms of available services and communication protocol before any request. The first part of the article introduces the base concepts of components and middleware while the following sections describe the different up-todate models of communication and interaction and the last section shows how different models can communicate among themselves.
Abstract: Recognizing the increasing importance of using the
Internet to conduct business, this paper looks at some related matters
associated with small businesses making a decision of whether or not
to have a Website and go online. Small businesses in Saudi Arabia
struggle to have this decision. For organizations, to fully go online,
conduct business and provide online information services, they need
to connect their database to the Web. Some issues related to doing
that might be beyond the capabilities of most small businesses in
Saudi Arabia, such as Website management, technical issues and
security concerns. Here we focus on a small business firm in Saudi
Arabia (Case Study), discussing the issues related to going online
decision and the firm's options of what to do and how to do it. The
paper suggested some valuable solutions of connecting databases to
the Web. It also discusses some of the important issues related to
online information services and e-commerce, mainly Web hosting
options and security issues.
Abstract: Setting up of rural telecentres, popularly referred to as
Common Service Centres (CSCs), are considered one of the initial
forerunners of rural e-Governance initiatives under the Government
of India-s National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). CSCs are
implemented on public-private partnership (PPP) – where State
governments play a major role in facilitating the establishment of
CSCs and investments are made by private companies referred to as
Service Centre Agencies (SCAs). CSC implementation is expected to
help in improving public service delivery in a transparent and
efficient manner. However, there is very little research undertaken to
study the actual impact of CSC implementation at the grassroots
level. This paper addresses the gap by identifying the circumstances,
concerns and expectations from the point-of-view of citizens and
examining the finer aspects of social processes in the context of rural
e-Governance.
Abstract: Solid waste can be considered as an urban burden or
as a valuable resource depending on how it is managed. To meet the
rising demand for energy and to address environmental concerns, a
conversion from conventional energy systems to renewable resources
is essential. For the sustainability of human civilization, an
environmentally sound and techno-economically feasible waste
treatment method is very important to treat recyclable waste. Several
technologies are available for realizing the potential of solid waste as
an energy source, ranging from very simple systems for disposing of
dry waste to more complex technologies capable of dealing with
large amounts of industrial waste. There are three main pathways for
conversion of waste material to energy: thermo chemical,
biochemical and physicochemical. This paper investigates the thermo
chemical conversion of solid waste for energy recovery. The
processes, advantages and dis-advantages of various thermo chemical
conversion processes are discussed and compared. Special attention
is given to Gasification process as it provides better solutions
regarding public acceptance, feedstock flexibility, near-zero
emissions, efficiency and security. Finally this paper presents
comparative statements of thermo chemical processes and introduces
an integrated waste management system.