A multidisciplinary approach to the investigation of computer abuse incidents

The investigation of incidents of computer abuse requires many diverse technical skills beyond the training of most investigators. These skills are necessary to conduct the investigation properly and to minimize the impact of both the abuse and the investigation on the victim organization.Basic concepts and procedural recommendations for those who will conduct computer abuse investigations will be presented. A multi-disciplinary team approach will be stressed to enable the investigator to collect and analyze evidence necessary to solve the problem and prosecute the abuser.     

Anomalous spatial modifications of beams diffracted by two-dimensional periodic media

By using a rigorous plane-wave representation, we examine the diffracted fields generated by a Gaussian beam incident onto the planar upper boundary of a 2D periodic structure. We first determine a geometric profile for every diffracted beam by neglecting the amplitude variation of its plane-wave spectrum. We then account for the spectral variation and show that, with respect to that geometric profile, every actual diffracted beam exhibits spatial modifications in the form of 2D lateral displacements, focal shifts, angular deviations, and beam-width alterations. These effects are relatively large if the incidence conditions tend to generate grating resonances. The magnitudes of the beam modifications are illustrated by using a canonic grating model that consists of a planar surface whose impedance varies sinusoidally along its two orthogonal directions. We also develop accurate analytical expressions for the spatial modifications by expressing the spectral amplitude functions in terms of Padé approximants. We thus find that the 2D spatial effects exhibit greater complexity and include features that are absent in previously reported cases involving 1D periodic surfaces.     

An Internet-based decision support tool for non-industrial private forest landowners

Landowners need a simple-to-use, readily available tool to contribute to sustainable management of family forests. We developed an Internet-based decision-support system, 4S Tool (Forest Stand Software Support System), which is designed to encourage informed forest management and to bridge the gap between a new generation of family forest owners (e.g. exurbanites) and natural resources professionals. We describe the technical and educational components of the 4S Tool and present several considerations for application to other geographic regions. The tool requires users to provide information on the species group, typical tree size, and density of trees in their forest. Users also select a forest management technique to apply to their “virtual forest.” The tool then estimates forest dynamics and wildlife habitat availability for up to 40 years into the future. The output provides projected changes in commercial timber, as well as changes in the diversity of berries, ferns, herbs, flowers, birds, and mammals as a consequence of the selected management option. Projected changes are based on primary and secondary data sources and modeled via the Forest Vegetation Simulator. 4S Tool provides a means of enhancing landowner awareness of options associated with management of forest property and provides users with access to additional resources and natural resource professionals to aid in future forest planning efforts.     

Factors influencing Internet shopping value and customer repurchase intention

This research empirically examines the effect of various Internet shopping site qualities on the utilitarian and hedonic values of Internet shopping. The influence of the perceived level of Internet shopping value on customer satisfaction and repurchase intention is also investigated. We perform structural equation analysis with a sample of 293 observations consisting of two different income groups (workforce and student). Our results show that while system and service qualities are critical factors affecting utilitarian shopping value, information and service qualities are the factors most closely associated with hedonic shopping value. These findings suggest that service quality plays a significant role in increasing both utilitarian and hedonic shopping values. Our results also show that the impact of quality factors on Internet shopping values and subsequent repurchase intention differs across the two income groups.     

An efficient approach for the multiprocessor non-preemptive strictly periodic task scheduling problem

Strict periodicity constraint is of great importance since it concerns some hard real-time systems where missing deadlines leads to catastrophic situations. However, the problem of schedulability analysis for non-preemptive strictly periodic tasks on a multiprocessor platform is even more intractable than the one with the common periodicity. In order to implement such systems, designers need effective tools based on fast and near-optimal solutions.This paper presents a schedulability analysis which results mainly in a, two versions, task assignment and start-time calculation algorithm. The first one targets the harmonic task periods case while the second one targets the non-harmonic task periods case. Each version is based on a sufficient uniprocessor schedulability test. In addition, for the non-harmonic case which is the most intractable, the uniprocessor sufficient schedulability test uses the strictly periodic task utilization factor. This factor stands for the fraction of time spent to execute a task while its strict periodicity and the ones of the already scheduled tasks are met. As a result, an efficient and easily implementable scheduling algorithm is proposed which begins by assigning tasks to processors then attributes a start-time to every task in such a way that strict periodicity and deadline constraints are met. The effectiveness of the proposed scheduling algorithm, in both versions, has been shown by a performance evaluation and comparisons with an optimal and a similar suboptimal solution.     

Cholesky factorization on SIMD multi-core architectures

Many linear algebra libraries, such as the Intel MKL, Magma or Eigen, provide fast Cholesky factorization. These libraries are suited for big matrices but perform slowly on small ones. Even though State-of-the-Art studies begin to take an interest in small matrices, they usually feature a few hundreds rows. Fields like Computer Vision or High Energy Physics use tiny matrices. In this paper we show that it is possible to speed up the Cholesky factorization for tiny matrices by grouping them in batches and using highly specialized code. We provide High Level Transformations that accelerate the factorization for current multi-core and many-core SIMD architectures (SSE, AVX2, KNC, AVX512, Neon, Altivec). We focus on the fact that, on some architectures, compilers are unable to vectorize and on other architectures, vectorizing compilers are not efficient. Thus hand-made SIMDization is mandatory. We achieve with these transformations combined with SIMD a speedup from × 14 to × 28 for the whole resolution in single precision compared to the naive code on a AVX2 machine and a speedup from × 6 to × 14 on double precision, both with a strong scalability.     

Developing global supply chain quality management systems

This paper presents a global supply chain quality management (SCQM) framework as an extension of the traditional supply chain operations and quality management. Three distinct groups of variables are adopted in this study to illustrate the conceptual framework: a hierarchy of design variables, a hierarchy of system variables, and a hierarchy of problem solving methods. The aim of this theoretical framework is to offer practical guidelines to global business leaders and their value chain partners. This study also involves interviews with senior executives from a multinational enterprise in Taiwan. Four major SCQM themes are identified – design for six sigma (DFSS); international standards; supply chain management (SCM); global leadership and human resource management. In this study, we also view the cycle of decision making as an integral part of any global SCQM strategy. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to develop priority indices for the following three hierarchical levels: environmental scanning, strategic choice, and tactical choice. The presented framework adopts a systems approach and ensures that quality conscious products are designed, manufactured, and distributed.     

System reliability and congestion in a material handling system

Congestion in a transportation system prevents vehicles from traveling freely. Therefore, congestion in a material handling system can reduce the system's performance. This paper: (1) develops an analytical methodology for measuring congestion in a material handling system, (2) develops a congestion measure that is measurable in real-time and readily incorporated into existing analytical models for material handling system design and (3) develops quantitative relationships between critical material handling system variables and system congestion.     

INtools软件在有色冶金工程设计中的应用与开发

简述INtools软件的特点和主要功能,并结合实际工程项目阐述了INtools软件二次开发的基本工作,介绍了INtools软件包括的各模块构成以及INtools在有色冶金工程设计中应用的一般流程。展现了INtools软件在设计过程中的一致性和连续性以及其公共数据库建立避免了大量的重复输入,在有色冶金工程设计中的显著优势。