Abstract: Culture and family structure provide a sense security.
Further, the chrono, macro and micro contexts of development
influence developmental transitions and timetable particularly owing
to variations in the macrosystem associated with non normative life
events like migration. Migration threatens family links, security and
attachment bonds. Rising migratory trends have prompted an
increased interest in migration consequences on familial bonds,
developmental autonomy, socialization process, and sense of
security. This paper takes a narrative approach and applies the
attachment paradigm from a lifespan perspective, to examine the
settlement experiences of an India-born migrant student in Sydney,
Australia. It focuses on her quest to preserve family ties; her remote
secure base; her continual struggle to balance dependency and
autonomy, a major developmental milestone. As positional parental
power is culturally more potent in the Indian society, the paper
therefore raises some important concerns related to cultural
expectations, adaptation, acculturative stress and sense of security.
Abstract: Design Patterns have gained more and more
acceptances since their emerging in software development world last
decade and become another de facto standard of essential knowledge
for Object-Oriented Programming developers nowadays.
Their target usage, from the beginning, was for regular computers,
so, minimizing power consumption had never been a concern.
However, in this decade, demands of more complicated software for
running on mobile devices has grown rapidly as the much higher
performance portable gadgets have been supplied to the market
continuously. To get along with time to market that is business
reason, the section of software development for power conscious,
battery, devices has shifted itself from using specific low-level
languages to higher level ones. Currently, complicated software
running on mobile devices are often developed by high level
languages those support OOP concepts. These cause the trend of
embracing Design Patterns to mobile world.
However, using Design Patterns directly in software development
for power conscious systems is not recommended because they were
not originally designed for such environment. This paper
demonstrates the adapted Design Pattern for power limitation system.
Because there are numerous original design patterns, it is not possible
to mention the whole at once. So, this paper focuses only in creating
Energy Conscious version of existing regular "Builder Pattern" to be
appropriated for developing low power consumption software.
Abstract: In recent years, an increased competition and lower profit margins have necessitated a focus on improving the performance of the product development process, an area that traditionally have been excluded from detailed steering and evaluation. A systematic improvement requires a good understanding of the current performance, wherefore the interest for product development performance measurement has increased dramatically. This paper presents a case study that evaluates the performance of the product development performance measurement system used in a Swedish company that is a part of a global corporate group. The study is based on internal documentation and eighteen in-depth interviews with stakeholders involved in the product development process. The results from the case study includes a description of what metrics that are in use, how these are employed, and its affect on the quality of the performance measurement system. Especially, the importance of having a well-defined process proved to have a major impact on the quality of the performance measurement system in this particular case.
Abstract: The InAlGaN alloy has only recently began receiving
serious attention into its growth and application. High quality InGaN
films have led to the development of light emitting diodes (LEDs) and
blue laser diodes (LDs). The quaternary InAlGaN however, represents
a more versatile material since the bandgap and lattice constant can be
independently varied. We report an ultraviolet (UV) quaternary
InAlGaN multi-quantum wells (MQWs) LD study by using the
simulation program of Integrated System Engineering (ISE TCAD).
Advanced physical models of semiconductor properties were used in
order to obtain an optimized structure. The device performance which
is affected by piezoelectric and thermal effects was studied via
drift-diffusion model for carrier transport, optical gain and loss. The
optical performance of the UV LD with different numbers of quantum
wells was numerically investigated. The main peak of the emission
wavelength for double quantum wells (DQWs) was shifted from 358
to 355.8 nm when the forward current was increased. Preliminary
simulated results indicated that better output performance and lower
threshold current could be obtained when the quantum number is four,
with output power of 130 mW and threshold current of 140 mA.
Abstract: Environmental studies have expanded dramatically all
over the world in the past few years. Nowadays businesses interact
with society and the environment in ways that put their mark on both
sides. Efforts improving human standard living, through the control
of nature and the development of new products, have also resulted in
contamination of the environment. Consequently companies play an
important role in environmental sustainability of a region or country.
Therefore we can say that a company's sustainable development is
strictly dependent on the environment. This article presents a fuzzy
model to evaluate a company's environmental impact. Article
illustrates an example of the automotive industry in order to prove the
usefulness of using such a model.
Abstract: This paper presents an architecture to assist in the
development of tools to perform experimental analysis. Existing
implementations of tools based on this architecture are also described
in this paper. These tools are applied to the real world problem of
fault attack emulation and detection in cryptographic algorithms.
Abstract: For a variety of safety and economic reasons, engineering undergraduates in Australia have experienced diminishing access to the real hardware that is typically the embodiment of their theoretical studies. This trend will delay the development of practical competence, decrease the ability to model and design, and suppress motivation. The author has attempted to address this concern by creating a software tool that contains both photographic images of real machinery, and sets of graphical modeling 'tools'. Academics from a range of disciplines can use the software to set tutorial tasks, and incorporate feedback comments for a range of student responses. An evaluation of the software demonstrated that students who had solved modeling problems with the aid of the electronic tutor performed significantly better in formal examinations with similar problems. The 2-D graphical diagnostic routines in the Tutor have the potential to be used in a wider range of problem-solving tasks.
Abstract: This paper describes a paradigmatic approach to develop architecture of secure systems by describing the requirements from four different points of view: that of the owner, the administrator, the user, and the network. Deriving requirements and developing architecture implies the joint elicitation and describing the problem and the structure of the solution. The view points proposed in this paper are those we consider as requirements towards their contributions as major parties in the design, implementation, usage and maintenance of secure systems. The dramatic growth of the technology of Internet and the applications deployed in World Wide Web have lead to the situation where the security has become a very important concern in the development of secure systems. Many security approaches are currently being used in organizations. In spite of the widespread use of many different security solutions, the security remains a problem. It is argued that the approach that is described in this paper for the development of secure architecture is practical by all means. The models representing these multiple points of view are termed the requirements model (views of owner and administrator) and the operations model (views of user and network). In this paper, this multiple view paradigm is explained by first describing the specific requirements and or characteristics of secure systems (particularly in the domain of networks) and the secure architecture / system development methodology.
Abstract: The river flow forecasting represents a crucial point to employ for improving a management policy addressed to the right use of water resources as well as for conjugating prevention and defense actions against environmental degradation. The difficulties occurring during the field activities encourage the development and implementation of operative computation and measuring methods addressed to time reduction for data acquisition and processing maintaining a good level of accuracy. Therefore, the aim of the present work is to test a new entropy based expeditive methodology for the evaluation of the rating curves on three gauged sections with different geometric and morphological characteristics. The methodology requires the choice of only three verticals along the measure section and the sampling of only the maximum velocity. The results underline how in most conditions the rating curves drawn can replace those built with classic methodologies, simplifying thus the procedures of data monitoring and calculation.
Abstract: This paper illustrates why existing technology
acceptance models are only of limited use for predicting and
explaining the adoption of future information and communication
technologies. It starts with a general overview over technology
adoption processes, and presents several theories for the acceptance
as well as adoption of traditional information technologies. This is
followed by an overview over the recent developments in the area of
information and communication technologies. Based on the
arguments elaborated in these sections, it is shown why the factors
used to predict adoption in existing systems, will not be sufficient for
explaining the adoption of future information and communication
technologies.
Abstract: This work attempts to improve the permselectivity of poly-ortho-phenylenediamine (PPD) coating for glutamate biosensor applications on Pt microelectrode, using constant potential amperometry and cyclic voltammetry. Percentage permeability of the modified PPD microelectrode was carried out towards hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and ascorbic acid (AA) whereas permselectivity represents the percentage interference by AA in H2O2 detection. The 50-μm diameter Pt disk microelectrode showed a good permeability value toward H2O2 (95%) and selectivity against AA (0.01%) compared to other sizes of electrode studied here. The electrode was further modified with glutamate oxidase (GluOx) that was immobilized and cross linked with glutaraldehyde (GA, 0.125%), resulting in Pt/PPD/GluOx-GA electrode design. The maximum current density Jmax and apparent Michaelis constant, KM, obtained on Pt/PPD/GluOx-GA electrodes were 48 μA cm-2 and 50 μM, respectively. The linear region slope (LRS) was 0.96 μA cm-2 mM-1. The detection limit (LOD) for glutamate was 3.0 ± 0.6 μM. This study shows a promising glutamate microbiosensor for brain glutamate detection.
Abstract: Software development is moving towards agility with use cases and scenarios being used for requirements stories. Estimates of software costs are becoming even more important than before as effects of delays is much larger in successive short releases context of agile development. Thus, this paper reports on the development of new linear use case based software cost estimation model applicable in the very early stages of software development being based on simple metric. Evaluation showed that accuracy of estimates varies between 43% and 55% of actual effort of historical test projects. These results outperformed those of wellknown models when applied in the same context. Further work is being carried out to improve the performance of the proposed model when considering the effect of non-functional requirements.
Abstract: Recent developments in automotive technology are focused on economy, comfort and safety. Vehicle tracking and collision detection systems are attracting attention of many investigators focused on safety of driving in the field of automotive mechatronics. In this paper, a vision-based vehicle detection system is presented. Developed system is intended to be used in collision detection and driver alert. The system uses RGB images captured by a camera in a car driven in the highway. Images captured by the moving camera are used to detect the moving vehicles in the image. A vehicle ahead of the camera is detected in daylight conditions. The proposed method detects moving vehicles by subtracting successive images. Plate height of the vehicle is determined by using a plate recognition algorithm. Distance of the moving object is calculated by using the plate height. After determination of the distance of the moving vehicle relative speed of the vehicle and Time-to-Collision are calculated by using distances measured in successive images. Results obtained in road tests are discussed in order to validate the use of the proposed method.
Abstract: This paper seeks to give a general idea of the universe of project portfolio management, from its multidisciplinary nature, to the many challenges it raises, passing through the different techniques, models and tools used to solve the multiple problems known. It is intended to contribute to the clarification, with great depth, of the impacts and relationships involved in managing the projects- portfolio. It aims at proposing a technique for the project alignment with the organisational strategy, in order to select projects that later on will be considered in the analysis and selection of the portfolio. We consider the development of a methodology for assessing the project alignment index very relevant in the global market scenario. It can help organisations to gain a greater awareness of market dynamics, speed up the decision process and increase its consistency, thus enabling the strategic alignment and the improvement of the organisational performance.
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: Nowadays, efficiency, effectiveness and economy are regarded as the main objectives of managers and the secret of the continuity of an organization in competing economy. In such competing settings, it is essential that the management of an organization has not been neglected and been obliged to identify quickly the opportunities for improving the operation of organization and remove the shortcomings of their managed system in order to use the opportunities for development. Operational auditing is a useful tool for system adjustment and leading an organization toward its objectives. Operational auditing is indeed a viewpoint which identifies the causes of insufficiencies, weaknesses and deficiencies of system and plans to eliminate them. Operational auditing is useful in the effectiveness and optimization of executive managers- decisions and increasing the efficiency and economy of their performance in the future and prevents the waste and incorrect use of resources. Evidence shows that operational auditing is used at a limited level in Iran. This matter raises some questions like the following ones in the minds. Why do a limited number of corporations use operational auditing? Which factors can guarantee its full implementation? What obstacles are there in its implementation? The purpose of this article is to determine executive objectives, the operation domain of operational auditing, the components of operational auditing and the executive obstacles to operational auditing in Iran.
Abstract: With the resource exhaustion, bad affections of human
activities and the awakening of the human rights, the corporate social
responsibility became popular corporate strategy achieving
sustainable development of both corporation and society. The issue of
Guideline of Chinese Corporate Social Responsibility Report
promotes greatly corporation to take social responsibility. This paper
built the index system according to this guideline and takes the textile
industry as an example, uses the analytical hierarchy process to
identify the weightings of different responsibilities of corporation to
guide the corporate social responsibility performance assessment.
Abstract: Sinc-collocation scheme is one of the new techniques
used in solving numerical problems involving integral equations. This
method has been shown to be a powerful numerical tool for finding
fast and accurate solutions. So, in this paper, some properties of the
Sinc-collocation method required for our subsequent development
are given and are utilized to reduce integral equation of the first
kind to some algebraic equations. Then convergence with exponential
rate is proved by a theorem to guarantee applicability of numerical
technique. Finally, numerical examples are included to demonstrate
the validity and applicability of the technique.
Abstract: In the past 20 years the economy of the Czech
Republic has experienced substantial changes. In the 1990s the
development was affected by the transformation which sought to
establish the right conditions for privatization and creation of
elementary market relations. In the last decade the characteristic
elements such as private ownership and corresponding institutional
framework have been strengthened. This development was marked by
the accession of the Czech Republic to the EU. The Czech Republic
is striving to reduce the difference between its level of economic
development and the quality of institutional framework in
comparison with other developed countries. The process of finding
the adequate solutions has been hampered by the negative impact of
the world financial crisis on the Czech Republic and the standard of
living of its inhabitants. This contribution seeks to address the
question of whether and to which extent the economic development
of the transitive Czech economy is affected by the change in
behaviour of households and their tendency to consumption, i.e. in
the sense of reduction or increase in demand for goods and services.
It aims to verify whether the increasing trend of household
indebtedness and decreasing trend of saving pose a significant risk in
the Czech Republic. At a general level the analysis aims to contribute
to finding an answer to the question of whether the debt increase of
Czech households is connected to the risk of "eating through" the
borrowed money and whether Czech households risk falling into a
debt trap. In addition to household indebtedness risks in the Czech
Republic the analysis will focus on identification of specifics of the
transformation phase of the Czech economy in comparison with the
EU countries, or selected OECD countries.
Abstract: The number of the companies accepting RFID in Korea
has been increased continuously due to the domestic development of
information technology. The acceptance of RFID by companies in
Korea enabled them to do business with many global enterprises in a
much more efficient and effective way. According to a survey[33,
p76], many companies in Korea have used RFID for inventory or
distribution manages. But, the use of RFID in the companies in Korea
is in the early stages and its potential value hasn-t fully been realized
yet. At this time, it would be very important to investigate the factors
that affect RFID acceptance. For this study, many previous studies
were referenced and some RFID experts were interviewed. Through
the pilot test, four factors were selected - Security Trust, Employee
Knowledge, Partner Influence, Service Provider Trust - affecting
RFID acceptance and an extended technology acceptance
model(e-TAM) was presented with those factors. The proposed model
was empirically tested using data collected from employees in
companies or public enterprises. In order to analyze some
relationships between exogenous variables and four variables in TAM,
structural equation modeling(SEM) was developed and SPSS12.0 and
AMOS 7.0 were used for analyses. The results are summarized as
follows: 1) security trust perceived by employees positively
influences on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use; 2)
employee-s knowledge on RFID positively influences on only
perceived ease of use; 3) a partner-s influence for RFID acceptance
positively influences on only perceived usefulness; 4) service provider
trust very positively influences on perceived usefulness and perceived
ease of use 5) the relationships between TAM variables are the same as
the previous studies.