Search results for: security of business
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 1960

Search results for: security of business

190 A TRIZ-based Approach to Generation of Service-supporting Product Concepts

Authors: Seungkyum Kim, Yongtae Park

Abstract:

Recently, business environment and customer needs have become rapidly changing, hence it is very difficult to fulfill sophisticated customer needs by product or service innovation only. In practice, to cope with this problem, various manufacturing companies have developed services to combine with their products. Along with this, many academic studies on PSS (Product Service System) which is the integrated system of products and services have been conducted from the viewpoint of manufacturers. On the other hand, service providers are also attempting to develop service-supporting products to increase their service competitiveness and provide differentiated value. However, there is a lack of research based on the service-centric point of view. Accordingly, this paper proposes a concept generation method for service-supporting product development from the service-centric point of view. This method is designed to be executed in five consecutive steps: situation analysis, problem definition, problem resolution, solution evaluation, and concept generation. In the proposed approach, some tools of TRIZ (Theory of Solving Inventive Problem) such as ISQ (Innovative Situation Questionnaire) and 40 inventive principles are employed in order to define problems of the current services and solve them by generating service-supporting product concepts. This research contributes to the development of service-supporting products and service-centric PSSs.

Keywords: TRIZ, PSS (Product Service System), service-supporting product, concept generation

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189 Analytic Network Process in Location Selection and Its Application to a Real Life Problem

Authors: Eylem Koç, Hasan Arda Burhan

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Location selection presents a crucial decision problem in today’s business world where strategic decision making processes have critical importance. Thus, location selection has strategic importance for companies in boosting their strength regarding competition, increasing corporate performances and efficiency in addition to lowering production and transportation costs. A right choice in location selection has a direct impact on companies’ commercial success. In this study, a store location selection problem of Carglass Turkey which operates in vehicle glass branch is handled. As this problem includes both tangible and intangible criteria, Analytic Network Process (ANP) was accepted as the main methodology. The model consists of control hierarchy and BOCR subnetworks which include clusters of actors, alternatives and criteria. In accordance with the management’s choices, five different locations were selected. In addition to the literature review, a strict cooperation with the actor group was ensured and maintained while determining the criteria and during whole process. Obtained results were presented to the management as a report and its feasibility was confirmed accordingly.

Keywords: Analytic Network Process, BOCR, location selection, multi-actor decision making, multi-criteria decision making, real life problem.

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188 The Effectiveness of Banks’ Web Sites: A Study of Turkish Banking Sector

Authors: Raif Parlakkaya, Huseyin Cetin, Duygu Irdiren

Abstract:

By the development of World Wide Web, the usage rate of Internet has rapidly grown globally; and provided a basis for the emergence of electronic business. As well as other sectors, the banking sector has adopted the use of internet with the developments in information and communication technologies. Due to the public disclosure and transparency principle of Corporate Governance, the importance of information disclosure of banks on their web sites has increased significantly. For the purpose of this study, a Bank Disclosure Attribute Index (BDAI) in Turkey has been constructed through classifying the information disclosure on banks’ web sites into general, financial, investors and corporate governance attributes. All 47 banks in Turkish Banking System have been evaluated according to the index with the aim of providing a comparison between banks. By Chi Square Test, Pearson Correlation, T-Test, and ANOVA statistical tools, it has been concluded that the majority of banks in Turkey have shared information on their web sites adequately with respect to their total index score. Although there is a positive correlation between various types of information on banks’ web sites, there is no uniformity among them. Also, no significant difference between various types of information disclosure and bank types has been observed. Compared with the total index score averages of the five largest banks in Turkey, there are some banks that need to improve the content of their web sites.

Keywords: Banking sector, public disclosure, Turkey, web site evaluation.

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187 Data Hiding in Images in Discrete Wavelet Domain Using PMM

Authors: Souvik Bhattacharyya, Gautam Sanyal

Abstract:

Over last two decades, due to hostilities of environment over the internet the concerns about confidentiality of information have increased at phenomenal rate. Therefore to safeguard the information from attacks, number of data/information hiding methods have evolved mostly in spatial and transformation domain.In spatial domain data hiding techniques,the information is embedded directly on the image plane itself. In transform domain data hiding techniques the image is first changed from spatial domain to some other domain and then the secret information is embedded so that the secret information remains more secure from any attack. Information hiding algorithms in time domain or spatial domain have high capacity and relatively lower robustness. In contrast, the algorithms in transform domain, such as DCT, DWT have certain robustness against some multimedia processing.In this work the authors propose a novel steganographic method for hiding information in the transform domain of the gray scale image.The proposed approach works by converting the gray level image in transform domain using discrete integer wavelet technique through lifting scheme.This approach performs a 2-D lifting wavelet decomposition through Haar lifted wavelet of the cover image and computes the approximation coefficients matrix CA and detail coefficients matrices CH, CV, and CD.Next step is to apply the PMM technique in those coefficients to form the stego image. The aim of this paper is to propose a high-capacity image steganography technique that uses pixel mapping method in integer wavelet domain with acceptable levels of imperceptibility and distortion in the cover image and high level of overall security. This solution is independent of the nature of the data to be hidden and produces a stego image with minimum degradation.

Keywords: Cover Image, Pixel Mapping Method (PMM), StegoImage, Integer Wavelet Tranform.

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186 Investigating Crime Hotspot Places and their Implication to Urban Environmental Design: A Geographic Visualization and Data Mining Approach

Authors: Donna R. Tabangin, Jacqueline C. Flores, Nelson F. Emperador

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Information is power. Geographical information is an emerging science that is advancing the development of knowledge to further help in the understanding of the relationship of “place" with other disciplines such as crime. The researchers used crime data for the years 2004 to 2007 from the Baguio City Police Office to determine the incidence and actual locations of crime hotspots. Combined qualitative and quantitative research methodology was employed through extensive fieldwork and observation, geographic visualization with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and data mining. The paper discusses emerging geographic visualization and data mining tools and methodologies that can be used to generate baseline data for environmental initiatives such as urban renewal and rejuvenation. The study was able to demonstrate that crime hotspots can be computed and were seen to be occurring to some select places in the Central Business District (CBD) of Baguio City. It was observed that some characteristics of the hotspot places- physical design and milieu may play an important role in creating opportunities for crime. A list of these environmental attributes was generated. This derived information may be used to guide the design or redesign of the urban environment of the City to be able to reduce crime and at the same time improve it physically.

Keywords: Crime mapping, data mining, environmental design, geographic visualization, GIS.

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185 Non-Invasive Data Extraction from Machine Display Units Using Video Analytics

Authors: Ravneet Kaur, Joydeep Acharya, Sudhanshu Gaur

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform manufacturing by improving shop floor processes such as production, maintenance and quality. However, industrial datasets are notoriously difficult to extract in a real-time, streaming fashion thus, negating potential AI benefits. The main example is some specialized industrial controllers that are operated by custom software which complicates the process of connecting them to an Information Technology (IT) based data acquisition network. Security concerns may also limit direct physical access to these controllers for data acquisition. To connect the Operational Technology (OT) data stored in these controllers to an AI application in a secure, reliable and available way, we propose a novel Industrial IoT (IIoT) solution in this paper. In this solution, we demonstrate how video cameras can be installed in a factory shop floor to continuously obtain images of the controller HMIs. We propose image pre-processing to segment the HMI into regions of streaming data and regions of fixed meta-data. We then evaluate the performance of multiple Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies such as Tesseract and Google vision to recognize the streaming data and test it for typical factory HMIs and realistic lighting conditions. Finally, we use the meta-data to match the OCR output with the temporal, domain-dependent context of the data to improve the accuracy of the output. Our IIoT solution enables reliable and efficient data extraction which will improve the performance of subsequent AI applications.

Keywords: Human machine interface, industrial internet of things, internet of things, optical character recognition, video analytic.

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184 Identifying Corporate Managerial Topics with Web Pages

Authors: Juan Llopis, Reyes Gonzalez, Jose Gasco

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This paper has as its main aim to analyse how corporate web pages can become an essential tool in order to detect strategic trends by firms or sectors, and even a primary source for benchmarking. This technique has made it possible to identify the key issues in the strategic management of the most excellent large Spanish firms and also to describe trends in their long-range planning, a way of working that can be generalised to any country or firm group. More precisely, two objectives were sought. The first one consisted in showing the way in which corporate websites make it possible to obtain direct information about the strategic variables which can define firms. This tool is dynamic (since web pages are constantly updated) as well as direct and reliable, since the information comes from the firm itself, not from comments of third parties (such as journalists, academicians, consultants...). When this information is analysed for a group of firms, one can observe their characteristics in terms of both managerial tasks and business management. As for the second objective, the methodology proposed served to describe the corporate profile of the large Spanish enterprises included in the Ibex35 (the Ibex35 or Iberia Index is the reference index in the Spanish Stock Exchange and gathers periodically the 35 most outstanding Spanish firms). An attempt is therefore made to define the long-range planning that would be characteristic of the largest Spanish firms.

Keywords: Web Pages, Strategic Management, Corporate Description, Large Firms, Spain.

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183 Authenticity Issues of Social Media: Credibility, Quality and Reality

Authors: Shahrinaz Ismail, Roslina Abdul Latif

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Social media has led to paradigm shifts in ways people work and do business, interact and socialize, learn and obtain knowledge. So much so that social media has established itself as an important spatial extension of this nation-s historicity and challenges. Regardless of the enabling reputation and recommendation features through social networks embedded in the social media system, the overflow of broadcasted and publicized media contents turns the table around from engendering trust to doubting the trust system. When the trust is at doubt, the effects include deactivation of accounts and creation of multiple profiles, which lead to the overflow of 'ghost' contents (i.e. “the abundance of abandoned ships"). In most literature, the study of trust can be related to culture; hence the difference between Western-s “openness" and Eastern-s “blue-chip" concepts in networking and relationships. From a survey on issues and challenges among Malaysian social media users, 'authenticity' emerges as one of the main factors that causes and is caused by other factors. The other issue that has surfaced is credibility either in terms of message/content and source. Another is the quality of the knowledge that is shared. This paper explores the terrains of this critical space which in recent years has been dominated increasingly by, arguably, social networks embedded in the social media system, the overflow of broadcasted and publicized media content.

Keywords: Authenticity, credibility, knowledge quality and social media.

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182 Moving from Rule-based to Principle-based in Public Sector: Preparers' Perspective

Authors: Roshayani Arshad, Normah Omar, Siti Fatimah Awang

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The move from cash accounting to accrual accounting, or rule-based to principle-based accounting, by many governments is part of an ongoing efforts in promoting a more business-like and performance-focused public sector. Using questionnaire responses from preparers of financial statements of public universities in Malaysia, this study examines the implementation challenges and benefits of principle-based accounting. Results from these responses suggest that most respondents perceived significant costs would be incurred in relation to staff training and recruitment of staffs with relevant technical knowledge. In addition, most respondents also perceived that there will be significant changes in the current accounting system and structure in order to comply with the principle-based accounting requirements. However, most respondents perceived that these changes might not result in significant benefits for management purposes, for example, financial management, budgeting and allocation of resources. Nevertheless, most respondents perceived that principle-based accounting information would facilitate the monitoring function of the board. The general perception is that adoption of principle-based accounting information is not significantly useful than rule-based accounting information is expected to change over time as preparers of the financial statements gradually understand and appreciate the benefits of principle-based accounting information. This infers that the perceived usefulness of different accounting system is a function of familiarity by the preparers.

Keywords: Accrual accounting, principle-based accounting, public sector, rule-based accounting.

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181 The Conception of Implementation of Vision for European Forensic Science 2020 in Lithuania

Authors: Eglė Bilevičiūtė, Vidmantas Egidijus Kurapka, Snieguolė Matulienė, Sigutė Stankevičiūtė

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The Council of European Union (EU Council) has stressed on several occasions the need for a concerted, comprehensive and effective solution to delinquency problems in EU communities. In the context of establishing a European Forensic Science Area and the development of forensic science infrastructure in Europe, EU Council believes that forensic science can significantly contribute to the efficiency of law enforcement, crime prevention and combating crimes. Lithuanian scientists have consolidated to implement a project named “Conception of the vision for European Forensic Science 2020 implementation in Lithuania” (the project is funded for the period of 1 March 2014 - 31 December 2016) with the objective to create a conception of implementation of the vision for European Forensic Science 2020 in Lithuania by 1) evaluating the current status of Lithuania’s forensic system and opportunities for its improvement; 2) analysing achievements and knowledge in investigation of crimes listed in conclusions of EU Council on the vision for European Forensic Science 2020 including creation of a European Forensic Science Area and the development of forensic science infrastructure in Europe: trafficking in human beings, organised crime and terrorism; 3) analysing conceptions of criminalistics, which differ in different EU member states due to the variety of forensic schools, and finding means for their harmonization. Apart from the conception of implementation of the vision for European Forensic Science 2020 in Lithuania, the Project is expected to suggest provisions that will be relevant to other EU countries as well. Consequently, the presented conception of implementation of vision for European Forensic Science 2020 in Lithuania could initiate a project for a common vision of European Forensic Science and contribute to the development of the EU as an area of freedom, security and justice. The article presents main ideas of the project of the conception of the vision for European Forensic Science 2020 of EU Council and analyses its legal background, as well as prospects of and challenges for its implementation in Lithuania and the EU.

Keywords: EUROVIFOR, standardization, Vision for European Forensic Science 2020.

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180 Agile Methodology for Modeling and Design of Data Warehouses -AM4DW-

Authors: Nieto Bernal Wilson, Carmona Suarez Edgar

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The organizations have structured and unstructured information in different formats, sources, and systems. Part of these come from ERP under OLTP processing that support the information system, however these organizations in OLAP processing level, presented some deficiencies, part of this problematic lies in that does not exist interesting into extract knowledge from their data sources, as also the absence of operational capabilities to tackle with these kind of projects.  Data Warehouse and its applications are considered as non-proprietary tools, which are of great interest to business intelligence, since they are repositories basis for creating models or patterns (behavior of customers, suppliers, products, social networks and genomics) and facilitate corporate decision making and research. The following paper present a structured methodology, simple, inspired from the agile development models as Scrum, XP and AUP. Also the models object relational, spatial data models, and the base line of data modeling under UML and Big data, from this way sought to deliver an agile methodology for the developing of data warehouses, simple and of easy application. The methodology naturally take into account the application of process for the respectively information analysis, visualization and data mining, particularly for patterns generation and derived models from the objects facts structured.

Keywords: Data warehouse, model data, big data, object fact, object relational fact, process developed data warehouse.

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179 Performance Assessment of Computational Gridon Weather Indices from HOAPS Data

Authors: Madhuri Bhavsar, Anupam K Singh, Shrikant Pradhan

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Long term rainfall analysis and prediction is a challenging task especially in the modern world where the impact of global warming is creating complications in environmental issues. These factors which are data intensive require high performance computational modeling for accurate prediction. This research paper describes a prototype which is designed and developed on grid environment using a number of coupled software infrastructural building blocks. This grid enabled system provides the demanding computational power, efficiency, resources, user-friendly interface, secured job submission and high throughput. The results obtained using sequential execution and grid enabled execution shows that computational performance has enhanced among 36% to 75%, for decade of climate parameters. Large variation in performance can be attributed to varying degree of computational resources available for job execution. Grid Computing enables the dynamic runtime selection, sharing and aggregation of distributed and autonomous resources which plays an important role not only in business, but also in scientific implications and social surroundings. This research paper attempts to explore the grid enabled computing capabilities on weather indices from HOAPS data for climate impact modeling and change detection.

Keywords: Climate model, Computational Grid, GridApplication, Heterogeneous Grid

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178 Using Knowledge Management and Critical Thinking to Understand Thai Perceptions and Decisions towards Work-Life Balance in a Multinational Software Development Firm

Authors: N. Mantalay, N. Chakpitak, W. Janchai, P. Sureepong

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Work-life balance has been acknowledged and promoted for the sake of employee retention. It is essential for a manager to realize the human resources situation within a company to help employees work happily and perform at their best. This paper suggests knowledge management and critical thinking are useful to motivate employees to think about their work-life balance. A qualitative case study is presented, which aimed to discover the meaning of work-life balance-s meaning from the perspective of Thai knowledge workers and how it affects their decision-making towards work resignation. Results found three types of work-life balance dimensions; a work- life balance including a workplace and a private life setting, an organizational working life balance only, and a worklife balance only in a private life setting. These aspects all influenced the decision-making of the employees. Factors within a theme of an organizational work-life balance were involved with systematic administration, fair treatment, employee recognition, challenging assignments to gain working experience, assignment engagement, teamwork, relationship with superiors, and working environment, while factors concerning private life settings were about personal demands such as an increasing their salary or starting their own business.

Keywords: knowledge management, work-life balance, knowledge workers, decision-making, critical thinking, diverse workforce

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177 Association of Smoking with Chest Radiographic and Lung Function Findings in Retired Bauxite Mining Workers

Authors: L. R. Ferreira, R. C. G. Bianchi, L. C.R. Ferreira, C. M. Galhardi, E. P. Baciuk, L. H. Oliveira

Abstract:

Inhalation hazards are associated with potentially injurious exposure and increased risk for lung diseases, within the bauxite mining industry, especially for the smelter workers. Smoking is related to decreased lung function and leads to chronic lung diseases. This study had the objective to evaluate whether smoking is related to functional and radiographic respiratory changes in retired bauxite mining workers. Methods: This was a retrospective and cross-sectional study involving the analysis of database information of 140 retired bauxite mining workers from Poços de Caldas-MG evaluated at Worker’s Health Reference Center and at the Social Security Brazilian National Institute, from July 1st, 2015 until June 30th, 2016. The workers were divided into three groups: non-smokers (n = 47), ex-smokers (n = 46), and smokers (n = 47). The data included: age, gender, spirometry results, and the presence or not of pulmonary pleural and/or parenchymal changes in chest radiographs. Chi-Squared test was used (p < 0,05). Results: In the smokers’ group, 83% of spirometry tests and 64% of chest x-rays were altered. In the non-smokers’ group, 19% of spirometry tests and 13% of chest x-rays were altered. In the ex-smokers’ group, 35% of spirometry tests and 30% of chest x-rays were altered. Most of the results were statistically significant. Results demonstrated a significant difference between smokers’ and non-smokers’ groups in regard to spirometric and radiographic pulmonary alterations. Ex-smokers’ and non-smokers’ group demonstrated better results when compared to the smokers’ group in relation to altered spirometry and radiograph findings. These data may contribute to planning strategies to enhance smoking cessation programs within the bauxite mining industry.

Keywords: Bauxite mining, spirometry, chest radiography, smoking.

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176 An Analysis of Economic Capital Allocation of Global Banks

Authors: Petr Teply, Ondrej Vejdovec

Abstract:

There are three main ways of categorizing capital in banking operations: accounting, regulatory and economic capital. However, the 2008-2009 global crisis has shown that none of these categories adequately reflects the real risks of bank operations, especially in light of the failures Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers or Northern Rock. This paper deals with the economic capital allocation of global banks. In theory, economic capital should reflect the real risks of a bank and should be publicly available. Yet, as discovered during the global financial crisis, even when economic capital information was publicly disclosed, the underlying assumptions rendered the information useless. Specifically, some global banks that reported relatively high levels of economic capital before the crisis went bankrupt or had to be bailed-out by their government. And, only 15 out of 50 global banks reported their economic capital during the 2007-2010 period. In this paper, we analyze the changes in reported bank economic capital disclosure during this period. We conclude that relative shares of credit and business risks increased in 2010 compared to 2007, while both operational and market risks decreased their shares on the total economic capital of top-rated global banks. Generally speaking, higher levels of disclosure and transparency of bank operations are required to obtain more confidence from stakeholders. Moreover, additional risks such as liquidity risks should be included in these disclosures.

Keywords: global crisis, economic capital, risk management, risk allocation, bank

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175 Understanding Innovation by Analyzing the Pillars of the Global Competitiveness Index

Authors: Ujjwala Bhand, Mridula Goel

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Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) prepared by World Economic Forum has become a benchmark in studying the competitiveness of countries and for understanding the factors that enable competitiveness. Innovation is a key pillar in competitiveness and has the unique property of enabling exponential economic growth. This paper attempts to analyze how the pillars comprising the Global Competitiveness Index affect innovation and whether GDP growth can directly affect innovation outcomes for a country. The key objective of the study is to identify areas on which governments of developing countries can focus policies and programs to improve their country’s innovativeness. We have compiled a panel data set for top innovating countries and large emerging economies called BRICS from 2007-08 to 2014-15 in order to find the significant factors that affect innovation. The results of the regression analysis suggest that government should make policies to improve labor market efficiency, establish sophisticated business networks, provide basic health and primary education to its people and strengthen the quality of higher education and training services in the economy. The achievements of smaller economies on innovation suggest that concerted efforts by governments can counter any size related disadvantage, and in fact can provide greater flexibility and speed in encouraging innovation.

Keywords: Innovation, Global Competitiveness Index, BRICS, economic growth.

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174 Computational Feasibility Study of a Torsional Wave Transducer for Tissue Stiffness Monitoring

Authors: Rafael Muñoz, Juan Melchor, Alicia Valera, Laura Peralta, Guillermo Rus

Abstract:

A torsional piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer design is proposed to measure shear moduli in soft tissue with direct access availability, using shear wave elastography technique. The measurement of shear moduli of tissues is a challenging problem, mainly derived from a) the difficulty of isolating a pure shear wave, given the interference of multiple waves of different types (P, S, even guided) emitted by the transducers and reflected in geometric boundaries, and b) the highly attenuating nature of soft tissular materials. An immediate application, overcoming these drawbacks, is the measurement of changes in cervix stiffness to estimate the gestational age at delivery. The design has been optimized using a finite element model (FEM) and a semi-analytical estimator of the probability of detection (POD) to determine a suitable geometry, materials and generated waves. The technique is based on the time of flight measurement between emitter and receiver, to infer shear wave velocity. Current research is centered in prototype testing and validation. The geometric optimization of the transducer was able to annihilate the compressional wave emission, generating a quite pure shear torsional wave. Currently, mechanical and electromagnetic coupling between emitter and receiver signals are being the research focus. Conclusions: the design overcomes the main described problems. The almost pure shear torsional wave along with the short time of flight avoids the possibility of multiple wave interference. This short propagation distance reduce the effect of attenuation, and allow the emission of very low energies assuring a good biological security for human use.

Keywords: Cervix ripening, preterm birth, shear modulus, shear wave elastography, soft tissue, torsional wave.

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173 Authentic Learning for Computer Network with Mobile Device-Based Hands-On Labware

Authors: Kai Qian, Ming Yang, Minzhe Guo, Prabir Bhattacharya, Lixin Tao

Abstract:

Computer network courses are essential parts of college computer science curriculum and hands-on networking experience is well recognized as an effective approach to help students understand better about the network concepts, the layered architecture of network protocols, and the dynamics of the networks. However, existing networking labs are usually server-based and relatively cumbersome, which require a certain level of specialty and resource to set up and maintain the lab environment. Many universities/colleges lack the resources and build-ups in this field and have difficulty to provide students with hands-on practice labs. A new affordable and easily-adoptable approach to networking labs is desirable to enhance network teaching and learning. In addition, current network labs are short on providing hands-on practice for modern wireless and mobile network learning. With the prevalence of smart mobile devices, wireless and mobile network are permeating into various aspects of our information society. The emerging and modern mobile technology provides computer science students with more authentic learning experience opportunities especially in network learning. A mobile device based hands-on labware can provide an excellent ‘real world’ authentic learning environment for computer network especially for wireless network study. In this paper, we present our mobile device-based hands-on labware (series of lab module) for computer network learning which is guided by authentic learning principles to immerse students in a real world relevant learning environment. We have been using this labware in teaching computer network, mobile security, and wireless network classes. The student feedback shows that students can learn more when they have hands-on authentic learning experience. 

Keywords: Mobile computing, android, network, labware.

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172 Digital Transformation of Payment Systems Using Field Service Management

Authors: Hamze Torabian, Mohammad Mehrabioun Mohammadi

Abstract:

Like many other industries, the payment industry has been affected by digital transformation. The importance of digital transformation in the payment industry is very crucial. Because the payment industry is considered a leading industry in digital and emerging technologies, and the digitalization of other industries such as retail, health, and telecommunication, it also depends on the growth rate of digitalized payment systems. One of the technological innovations in service management is Field Service Management (FSM). Despite the widespread use of FSM in various industries such as petrochemical, health, maintenance, etc., this technology can also be recruited in the payment industry, transforming the payment industry into a more agile and efficient one. Accordingly, the present study pays close attention to the application of FSM in the payment industry. Given the importance of merchants' bargaining power in the payment industry, this study aims to use FSM in the digital transformation initiative with a targeted focus on providing real-time services to merchants. The research method consists of three parts. Firstly, conducting the review of past research, applications of FSM in the payment industry are considered. In the next step, merchants' benefits such as emotional, functional, economic, and social benefits in using FSM are identified using in-depth interviews and content analysis methods. The related business model in helping the payment industry transforming into a more agile and efficient industry is considered in the following step. The results revealed the 10 main pillars required to realize the digital transformation of payment systems using FSM.

Keywords: Digital transformation, field service management, merchant support systems, payment industry.

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171 Procedure Model for Data-Driven Decision Support Regarding the Integration of Renewable Energies into Industrial Energy Management

Authors: M. Graus, K. Westhoff, X. Xu

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The climate change causes a change in all aspects of society. While the expansion of renewable energies proceeds, industry could not be convinced based on general studies about the potential of demand side management to reinforce smart grid considerations in their operational business. In this article, a procedure model for a case-specific data-driven decision support for industrial energy management based on a holistic data analytics approach is presented. The model is executed on the example of the strategic decision problem, to integrate the aspect of renewable energies into industrial energy management. This question is induced due to considerations of changing the electricity contract model from a standard rate to volatile energy prices corresponding to the energy spot market which is increasingly more affected by renewable energies. The procedure model corresponds to a data analytics process consisting on a data model, analysis, simulation and optimization step. This procedure will help to quantify the potentials of sustainable production concepts based on the data from a factory. The model is validated with data from a printer in analogy to a simple production machine. The overall goal is to establish smart grid principles for industry via the transformation from knowledge-driven to data-driven decisions within manufacturing companies.

Keywords: Data analytics, green production, industrial energy management, optimization, renewable energies, simulation.

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170 Market Feasibility for New Brand Coffee House: The Case Study of Thailand

Authors: Pongsiri K.

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This research aimed to study the market feasibility for new brand coffee house, the case study of Thailand.. This study is a mixed methods research combining quantitative research and the qualitative research. Primary data 350 sets of questionnaires were distributed, and the high quality completed questionnaires of 320 sets returned. Research samples are identified as customers’ of Hi-end department stores in Thailand. The sources of secondary data were critical selected from highly reliable sources, both from public and private sectors. The results were used to classify the customer group into two main groups, the younger than 25 and the older than 25years old. Results of the younger group, are give priority to the dimension of coffee house and its services dimension more than others, then branding dimension and the product dimension respectively. On the other hand, the older group give the difference result as they rate the important of the branding, coffee house and its services, then the product respectively. Coffee consuming is not just the trend but it has become part of people lifestyle. And the new cultures also created by the wise businessman. Coffee was long produced and consumed in Thailand. But it is surprisingly the hi-end brand coffee houses in Thai market are mostly imported brands. The café business possibility for Thai brand coffee house in Thai market were discussed in the paper.

Keywords: Coffee House, Café, Coffee Consuming and new entry branding, market feasibility

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169 Artificial Intelligence: A Comprehensive and Systematic Literature Review of Applications and Comparative Technologies

Authors: Z. M. Najmi

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Over the years, the question around Artificial Intelligence has always been one with many answers. Whether by means of use in business and industry or complicated algorithmic programming, management of these technologies has always been the core focus. More recently, technologies have been questioned in industry and society alike as to whether they have improved human-centred design, assisted choices and objectives, and had a hand in systematic processes across the board. With these questions the answer may lie within AI technologies, and the steps needed in removing common human error. Elements such as Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Recommender Systems and Natural Language Processing will all be features to consider moving forward. Our previous intervention with AI applications has resulted in increased productivity, however, raised concerns for the continuation of traditional human-centred occupations. Emerging technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality have all played a part in this during AI’s prominent rise. As mentioned, AI has been constantly under the microscope; the benefits and drawbacks may seem endless is wide, but AI is something we must take notice of and adapt into our everyday lives. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the technologies surrounding A.I. and its’ related technologies. A comprehensive review has been written as a timeline of the developing events and key points in the history of Artificial Intelligence. This research is gathered entirely from secondary research, academic statements of knowledge and gathered to produce an understanding of the timeline of AI.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Augmented Reality, Reinforcement Learning, Machine Learning, Supervised Learning.

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168 Designing a Model for Preparing Reports on the Automatic Earned Value Management Progress by the Integration of Primavera P6, SQL Database, and Power BI: A Case Study of a Six-Storey Concrete Building in Mashhad, Iran

Authors: Hamed Zolfaghari, Mojtaba Kord

Abstract:

Project planners and controllers are frequently faced with the challenge of inadequate software for the preparation of automatic project progress reports based on actual project information updates. They usually make dashboards in Microsoft Excel, which is local and not applicable online. Another shortcoming is that Microsoft project does not store the data in database, so the data cannot automatically be imported from Microsoft Project into Microsoft Excel. This study aimed to propose a model for the preparation of reports on automatic online project progress based on actual project information updates by the integration of Primavera P6, SQL database, and Power BI (Business Intelligence) for a construction project. The designed model could be applicable to project planners and controller agents by enabling them to prepare project reports automatically and immediately after updating the project schedule using actual information. To develop the model, the data were entered into P6, and the information was stored on the SQL database. The proposed model could prepare a wide range of reports, such as earned value management, Human Resource (HR) reports, and financial, physical, and risk reports automatically on the Power BI application. Furthermore, the reports could be published and shared online.

Keywords: Primavera P6, SQL, Power BI, Earned Value Management, Integration Management.

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167 Adoption and Use of an Electronic Voting System in Ghana

Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah

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The manual system of voting has been the most widely used system of electing representatives around the globe, particularly in Africa. Due to the known numerous problems and challenges associated with the manual system of voting, many countries are migrating to the electronic voting system as a suitable and credible means of electing representatives over the manual paper-based system. This research paper therefore investigated the factors influencing adoption and use of an electronic voting system in Ghana. A total of 400 Questionnaire Instruments (QI) were administered to potential respondents in Ghana, of which 387 responded representing a response rate of 96.75%. The Technology Acceptance Model was used as the theoretical framework for the study. The research model was tested using a simple linear regression analysis with SPSS. A little of over 71.1% of the respondents recommended the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana to adopt an electronic voting system in the conduct of public elections in Ghana. The results indicated that all the six predictors such as perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived free and fair elections (PFFF), perceived credible elections (PCE), perceived system integrity (PSI) and citizens trust in the election management body (CTEM) were all positively significant in predicting the readiness of citizens to adopt and use an electronic voting system in Ghana. However, jointly, the hypotheses tested revealed that apart from Perceived Free and Fair Elections and Perceived Credible and Transparent Elections, all the other factors such as PU, Perceived System Integrity and Security and Citizen Trust in the Election Management Body were found to be significant predictors of the Willingness of Ghanaians to use an electronic voting system. All the six factors considered in this study jointly account for about 53.1% of the reasons determining the readiness to adopt and use an electronic voting system in Ghana. The implications of this research finding on elections in Ghana are discussed.

Keywords: Credible elections, democracy, Election Management Body (EMB), electronic voting, Ghana, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).

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166 ParkedGuard: An Efficient and Accurate Parked Domain Detection System Using Graphical Locality Analysis and Coarse-To-Fine Strategy

Authors: Chia-Min Lai, Wan-Ching Lin, Hahn-Ming Lee, Ching-Hao Mao

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As world wild internet has non-stop developments, making profit by lending registered domain names emerges as a new business in recent years. Unfortunately, the larger the market scale of domain lending service becomes, the riskier that there exist malicious behaviors or malwares hiding behind parked domains will be. Also, previous work for differentiating parked domain suffers two main defects: 1) too much data-collecting effort and CPU latency needed for features engineering and 2) ineffectiveness when detecting parked domains containing external links that are usually abused by hackers, e.g., drive-by download attack. Aiming for alleviating above defects without sacrificing practical usability, this paper proposes ParkedGuard as an efficient and accurate parked domain detector. Several scripting behavioral features were analyzed, while those with special statistical significance are adopted in ParkedGuard to make feature engineering much more cost-efficient. On the other hand, finding memberships between external links and parked domains was modeled as a graph mining problem, and a coarse-to-fine strategy was elaborately designed by leverage the graphical locality such that ParkedGuard outperforms the state-of-the-art in terms of both recall and precision rates.

Keywords: Coarse-to-fine strategy, domain parking service, graphical locality analysis, parked domain.

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165 Mathematical Study for Traffic Flow and Traffic Density in Kigali Roads

Authors: Kayijuka Idrissa

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This work investigates a mathematical study for traffic flow and traffic density in Kigali city roads and the data collected from the national police of Rwanda in 2012. While working on this topic, some mathematical models were used in order to analyze and compare traffic variables. This work has been carried out on Kigali roads specifically at roundabouts from Kigali Business Center (KBC) to Prince House as our study sites. In this project, we used some mathematical tools to analyze the data collected and to understand the relationship between traffic variables. We applied the Poisson distribution method to analyze and to know the number of accidents occurred in this section of the road which is from KBC to Prince House. The results show that the accidents that occurred in 2012 were at very high rates due to the fact that this section has a very narrow single lane on each side which leads to high congestion of vehicles, and consequently, accidents occur very frequently. Using the data of speeds and densities collected from this section of road, we found that the increment of the density results in a decrement of the speed of the vehicle. At the point where the density is equal to the jam density the speed becomes zero. The approach is promising in capturing sudden changes on flow patterns and is open to be utilized in a series of intelligent management strategies and especially in noncurrent congestion effect detection and control.

Keywords: Statistical methods, Poisson distribution, car moving techniques, traffic flow.

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164 Quality Service Standard of Food and Beverage Service Staff in Hotel

Authors: Thanasit Suksutdhi

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This survey research aims to study the standard of service quality of food and beverage service staffs in hotel business by studying the service standard of three sample hotels, Siam Kempinski Hotel Bangkok, Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai, and Banyan Tree Phuket. In order to find the international service standard of food and beverage service, triangular research, i.e. quantitative, qualitative, and survey were employed. In this research, questionnaires and in-depth interview were used for getting the information on the sequences and method of services. There were three parts of modified questionnaires to measure service quality and guest’s satisfaction including service facilities, attentiveness, responsibility, reliability, and circumspection. This study used sample random sampling to derive subjects with the return rate of the questionnaires was 70% or 280. Data were analyzed by SPSS to find arithmetic mean, SD, percentage, and comparison by t-test and One-way ANOVA. The results revealed that the service quality of the three hotels were in the international level which could create high satisfaction to the international customers. Recommendations for research implementations were to maintain the area of good service quality, and to improve some dimensions of service quality such as reliability. Training in service standard, product knowledge, and new technology for employees should be provided. Furthermore, in order to develop the service quality of the industry, training collaboration between hotel organization and educational institutions in food and beverage service should be considered.

Keywords: Service standard, food and beverage department, sequence of service, service method.

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163 Loss Function Optimization for CNN-Based Fingerprint Anti-Spoofing

Authors: Yehjune Heo

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As biometric systems become widely deployed, the security of identification systems can be easily attacked by various spoof materials. This paper contributes to finding a reliable and practical anti-spoofing method using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) based on the types of loss functions and optimizers. The types of CNNs used in this paper include AlexNet, VGGNet, and ResNet. By using various loss functions including Cross-Entropy, Center Loss, Cosine Proximity, and Hinge Loss, and various loss optimizers which include Adam, SGD, RMSProp, Adadelta, Adagrad, and Nadam, we obtained significant performance changes. We realize that choosing the correct loss function for each model is crucial since different loss functions lead to different errors on the same evaluation. By using a subset of the Livdet 2017 database, we validate our approach to compare the generalization power. It is important to note that we use a subset of LiveDet and the database is the same across all training and testing for each model. This way, we can compare the performance, in terms of generalization, for the unseen data across all different models. The best CNN (AlexNet) with the appropriate loss function and optimizers result in more than 3% of performance gain over the other CNN models with the default loss function and optimizer. In addition to the highest generalization performance, this paper also contains the models with high accuracy associated with parameters and mean average error rates to find the model that consumes the least memory and computation time for training and testing. Although AlexNet has less complexity over other CNN models, it is proven to be very efficient. For practical anti-spoofing systems, the deployed version should use a small amount of memory and should run very fast with high anti-spoofing performance. For our deployed version on smartphones, additional processing steps, such as quantization and pruning algorithms, have been applied in our final model.

Keywords: Anti-spoofing, CNN, fingerprint recognition, loss function, optimizer.

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162 Ontology of Collaborative Supply Chain for Quality Management

Authors: Jiaqi Yan, Sherry Sun, Huaiqing Wang, Zhongsheng Hua

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In the highly competitive and rapidly changing global marketplace, independent organizations and enterprises often come together and form a temporary alignment of virtual enterprise in a supply chain to better provide products or service. As firms adopt the systems approach implicit in supply chain management, they must manage the quality from both internal process control and external control of supplier quality and customer requirements. How to incorporate quality management of upstream and downstream supply chain partners into their own quality management system has recently received a great deal of attention from both academic and practice. This paper investigate the collaborative feature and the entities- relationship in a supply chain, and presents an ontology of collaborative supply chain from an approach of aligning service-oriented framework with service-dominant logic. This perspective facilitates the segregation of material flow management from manufacturing capability management, which provides a foundation for the coordination and integration of the business process to measure, analyze, and continually improve the quality of products, services, and process. Further, this approach characterizes the different interests of supply chain partners, providing an innovative approach to analyze the collaborative features of supply chain. Furthermore, this ontology is the foundation to develop quality management system which internalizes the quality management in upstream and downstream supply chain partners and manages the quality in supply chain systematically.

Keywords: Ontology, supply chain quality management, service-oriented architecture, service-dominant logic.

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161 The Impact of Innovation Best Practices in Economic Development

Authors: Hanadi Mubarak AL-Mubaraki, Michael Busler

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Innovation is the process of making changes, differences, and novelties in the products and services, adding values and business practices to create economic and social benefit. The purpose of this paper is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of innovation programs in developed and developing countries. We used a mixed-methods approach, quantitative as survey and qualitative as a multi-case study to examine innovation best practices in developed and developing countries. In addition, four case studies of innovation organisations based on the best practices and successful implementation in the developed and developing countries are selected for examination. The research findings provide guidance, suggestions, and recommendations for future implementation in developed and developing countries for practitioners such as policy makers, governments, funded organizations, and strategic institutions. In conclusion, innovation programs are vital tools for economic growth, knowledge, and technology transfer based on the several indicators such as creativity, entrepreneurship, role of government, role of university, strategic focus, new products, survival rate, job creation, start-up companies, and number of patents. The authors aim to conduct future research which will include a comparative study of innovation case studies between developed and developing countries for policy implications worldwide. The originality of this study makes a contribution to the current literature about the innovation best practice in developed and developing countries.

Keywords: Economic development, entrepreneurship, developed countries, innovation program.

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