The Hidden Face of the Vault: Unveiling The Expression of the Avant-Garde Through the Use of the Sphere in Teposcolula’s Open Chapel

Benjamin Ibarra-Sevilla examines the role of the sphere in the Open Chapel built in San Pedro y San Pablo Teposcolula during sixteenth century. This unique Mexican building contains a complex ribbed vault designed on a hexagonal plan forming a semi-spherical dome. The investigation examines the use of the sphere in this structure in light of the design precepts practiced during the Renaissance in Europe. Furthermore, the study finds the connections of these precepts with a mathematical solution to the sphere based on convex shapes theories. By revealing the intricacies of the underlying geometry applied to design this building, this text aims to demonstrate the scholastic and architectural relevance of this refined Mexican piece of architecture.     

Citizens’ Adoption Behavior of Mobile Government (mGov): A Cross-Cultural Study

This study aims to address the paradigms of consumers’ adoption behavior for mobile government, posits the factors which pursue citizens’ intention to adopt mobile government services, and reveals the impact of cultural dimensions in perceiving driving factors of mobile government adoption. The mobile government adoption model was developed and tested among users of three different countries, namely Bangladesh, Canada, and Germany. The finding suggests the rationale that cross-cultural differences impact consumers’ perception of mobile government adoption behavior.     

A comparative analysis of the EU GDPR to the US’s breach notifications

One component of the newly implemented European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a revision of a 1995 directive, is mandatory breach notification. The US has no such federal law. This means companies must satisfy multiple US laws and that makes it more challenging to comply. This study is a comparison of the GDPR with the statutes of the 50 US states, highlights the challenges companies face and reveals the types of decisions companies must make to be in compliance with these statutes.     

On the Identification of Quantifiers’ Witness Sets: A Study of Multi-quantifier Sentences

Natural language sentences that talk about two or more sets of entities can be assigned various readings. The ones in which the sets are independent of one another are particularly challenging from the formal point of view. In this paper we will call them ‘Independent Set (IS) readings’. Cumulative and collective readings are paradigmatic examples of IS readings. Most approaches aiming at representing the meaning of IS readings implement some kind of maximality conditions on the witness sets involved. Two kinds of maximization have been proposed in the literature: ‘Local’ and ‘Global’ maximization. In this paper, we present an online questionnaire whose results appear to support Local maximization. The latter seems to capture the proper interplay between the semantics and the pragmatics of multi-quantifier sentences, provided that witness sets are selected on pragmatic grounds.     

A hijacker’s guide to communication interfaces of the trusted platform module

In this paper, we analyze the communication of trusted platform modules and their interface to the hosting platforms. While trusted platform modules are considered to be tamper resistant, the communication channel between these modules and the rest of the trusted platform turns out to be comparatively insecure. It has been shown that passive attacks can be mounted against TPMs and their bus communication with fairly inexpensive equipment, however, similar active attacks have not been reported, yet. We pursue the idea of an active attack and show how the communication protocol of the LPC bus can be actively manipulated with basic and inexpensive equipment. Moreover, we show how our manipulations can be used to circumvent the security mechanisms, e.g. the chain of trust, provided by modern trusted platforms. In addition, we demonstrate how the proposed attack can be extended to manipulate communication buses on embedded systems.     

Better Safe than Sorry: A Study of Investigating Individuals’ Protection of Privacy in the Use of Storage as a Cloud Computing Service

Since the use of network-based storage as a cloud computing service [Storage as a Service (StaaS)] becomes ubiquitous, users who store data in the cloud are exposed to risk and potentially severe consequences. Therefore, individuals should carefully consider security and privacy issues when using StaaS. Drawing upon the principle of self-preservation and the theory of protection motivation, this study develops a research model explaining the mechanisms leading to the development of a protection strategy for individuals’ safe use of StaaS and empirically tests the proposed model. The results show that the natural propensity to trust, an individual trait, influences an individual’s need for privacy. This, in turn, along with perception of privacy risk, significantly affects individuals’ perception of the need to protect themselves. Three coping appraisal factors, preventive measures, self-efficacy, and willingness to incur cost of prevention, together with the individual perceived need to protect self, directly and positively affect users’ need to develop a protection strategy in a cloud computing environment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Chasing the White “WHALE”: A Case Study in Using iPads to Promote Active Learning

In order to encourage more active learning in the library classroom, the college librarians at the Tidewater Community College/City of Virginia Beach Joint-Use Library turned one of their library instruction classrooms into a dynamic and flexible space using movable seating and iPads. This article explores the reasons for making such a change, the benefits of doing so, how the new classroom has affected librarians' teaching methods, and gives specific information about apps used for class activities.     

Study of the mathematical model of an organism’s immune response to the intrusion of an infection using methods of pattern recognition

The possibilities of using a new approach to study specific multivariate dynamic systems based on applying methods of pattern recognition and statistical modeling are demonstrated in the paper using the example of the mathematical model of an organism’s immune response to the intrusion of an infection. Yurii Isaakovich Neimark. Born in 1920. He is a Doctor of Technical Sciences, professor at Nizhni Novgorod State University, Honored Science Worker of Russian Federation, winner of Andronov and Wiener scientific prizes, and member of Russian National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. Scientific interests include theory of oscillations, theory of dynamic systems, management theory, mathematical modeling, and cybernetics. Neimark is the author of ten monographs, five of which have been translated into English, Spanish, and Polish, as well as more than 400 publications and 20 inventions. Igor’ Vyacheslavovich Kotel’nikov. Born in 1935. Graduated from Gorkii State University in 1959. Since 1972, he has been with the Research Institute of Applied Mathematics and Cybernetics as a senior researcher. Scientific interests include optimal irreducible fuzzy tests and syndromes, as well as the discovery of logical patterns in statistical samples of multivariate objects on their basis. He is the author of more than 40 publications. Larisa Grigor’evna Teklina. Born in 1948. Senior Researcher at Research Institute of Applied Mathematics and Cybernetics, Nizhni Novgorod State University. Candidate of Physics and Mathematics. She is the author of more than 40 publications on theoretical cybernetics and mathematical modeling.     

A framework to identify factors affecting the performance of third-party B2B e-marketplaces: A seller’s perspective

This study conducted exploratory research to determine factors affecting the performance of third-party B2B e-marketplaces from a seller’s perspective. Building on the relevant literature, ten factors were proposed and mapped into the domain-specific model for e-marketplaces. The performance of e-marketplaces was measured in terms of customer loyalty and trading volume. The proposed model was tested on data from 200 selling companies in Thailand participating in various third-party B2B e-marketplaces. The exploratory factor analysis generated seven factors. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed to test the research model. There were three major findings. First, the reputation of e-marketplace and trust in market makers, as well as transaction cost reduction and website usability, had significant effects on customer loyalty. Second, website reliability had a positive impact on trading volume. Finally, the relative advantage and number of buyers had significant effects on both customer loyalty and trading volume. These findings reveal factors previously unreported in the literature on e-marketplaces, and they can be used by practitioners to improve performance.     

At the Other End of the Sun’s Path: A New Interpretation of Machu Picchu

The Inca citadel of Machu Picchu is usually interpreted as a “royal estate” of the Inca ruler Pachacuti. This idea is challenged here by a critical reappraisal of existing sources and a re-analysis of existing evidence. It is shown that such evidence actually point at a quite different interpretation suggested, on one hand, by several clues coming from the urban layout (the interior arrangement of the town, the ancient access ways, the position with respect to the landscape and the cycles of the celestial bodies in Inca times), and, on the other hand, by a comparison with known information about the Inca pilgrimage center on the Island of the Sun of Lake Titicaca. Altogether, these clues lead us to propose that Machu Picchu was intentionally planned and built as a pilgrimage center connected with the Inca “cosmovision”.     

A Perspective Analysis of the Proportions of Palladio’s Villa Rotonda: Making the Invisible Visible

Because of differences between Palladio’s architecture as built and the ideal architecture represented in the Quattro libri, many analyses have been performed in order to bring to light the proportions that underlie the beauty of the architecture. This present paper proposes a method of analysis based on perspective grids laid out on photographs to reveal how perspective is used to heighten the spectator’s perception of the forms.     

A Study of Users’ Reactions to a Mixed Online Discussion Model: A Lag Sequential Analysis Approach

There is an increasing growth of Social Network Services (SNSs). A variety of SNSs are applied in online interpersonal platforms. Among them, asynchronous and synchronous discussions are widely examined. However, there is a lack of research into the effects of integrated discussion services that combines asynchronous and synchronous discussions. Thus, the study investigates users’ performances and behavior patterns in a mixed discussion model that integrates asynchronous and synchronous discussions with a lag sequential analysis. The results showed that most groups chose to adopt the mixed discussion model (i.e., using both synchronous and asynchronous discussions), and only one group totally adopted the asynchronous discussion model. The study further analyzed the learners’ learning effectiveness and behavioral patterns, and the results indicated that the groups using the mixed model had a positive performance to a certain extent in terms of learning effectiveness and knowledge construction. In addition, users with the mixed discussion model demonstrated diverse behaviors, which were more complex than that of those with a single-way discussion model. Furthermore, regarding the groups using “balanced synchronous and asynchronous discussions” and the groups “mainly using synchronous discussion supplemented by less asynchronous discussion” in the mixed model (simultaneously using synchronous and asynchronous discussions), those users who mainly used synchronous discussion supplemented by asynchronous discussion had more diverse behaviors of knowledge construction.     

Operational-Optimal Finite-Dimensional Dynamic Controller of the Stochastic Differential Plant’s State According to Its Output: I. General Nonlinear Case

Journal of Computer and Systems Sciences International - The problem of synthesizing the average-optimal control law for a dynamic plant subjected to random disturbances is considered. In this...     

A network approach to the French system of legal codes—part I: analysis of a dense network

We explore one aspect of the structure of a codified legal system at the national level using a new type of representation to understand the strong or weak dependencies between the various fields of law. In Part I of this study, we analyze the graph associated with the network in which each French legal code is a vertex and an edge is produced between two vertices when a code cites another code at least one time. We show that this network distinguishes from many other real networks from a high density, giving it a particular structure that we call concentrated world and that differentiates a national legal system (as considered with a resolution at the code level) from small-world graphs identified in many social networks. Our analysis then shows that a few communities (groups of highly wired vertices) of codes covering large domains of regulation are structuring the whole system. Indeed we mainly find a central group of influent codes, a group of codes related to social issues and a group of codes dealing with territories and natural resources. The study of this codified legal system is also of interest in the field of the analysis of real networks. In particular we examine the impact of the high density on the structural characteristics of the graph and on the ways communities are searched for. Finally we provide an original visualization of this graph on an hemicyle-like plot, this representation being based on a statistical reduction of dissimilarity measures between vertices. In Part II (a following paper) we show how the consideration of the weights attributed to each edge in the network in proportion to the number of citations between two vertices (codes) allows deepening the analysis of the French legal system.