A value-driven approach to the design of service-oriented information systems—making use of conceptual models

We explain the importance of conceptual models for process design with service-oriented architectures (SOA) and illustrate how these models can be used to evaluate the value of SOA. To do so, a methodology is introduced, which comprises both the configuration and the implementation of processes by services and IT components. The approach presented here, makes it possible to evaluate the monetary and objective potentials of SOA, as well as to enhance SOA implementation by providing guidelines. The requirements analysis from an online-mail order company serves as a case study. The results show that up to now, economic aspects were ascribed too little importance in the SOA discussion.     

How does e-mail use affect perceived control of time?

It is well established in the psychology literature that personality predicts performance to some degree. However, personality neither solely nor directly predicts outcomes. Rather, performance and outcomes unfold through context-specific mediating constructs. This study identified two constructs that mediate the relationship between proactivity and perceived control of time in e-mail use and tested the model with data from 251 knowledge workers. The results show that proactivity predicts the perceived control of time in e-mail use through both e-mail-specific time management behavior and e-mail self-efficacy. Further, greater e-mail self-efficacy leads to improved e-mail-specific time management behavior.     

Changing the role of the air traffic controller: how will free flight affect memory for spatial events?

At present, air traffic controllers (ATCOs) exercise strict control over routing authority for aircraft movement in airspace. The onset of a free flight environment, however, may well result in a dramatic change to airspace jurisdictions, with aircraft movements for the large part being governed by aircrew, not ATCOs. The present study examined the impact of such changes on spatial memory for recent and non-recent locations of aircraft represented on a visual display. The experiment contrasted present conditions, in which permission for manoeuvres is granted by ATCOs, with potential free flight conditions, in which aircrew undertake deviations without explicit approval from ATCOs. Results indicated that the ATCO role adopted by participants impacted differently on short-term and long-term spatial representations of aircraft manoeuvres. Although informing participants of impending deviations has beneficial effects on spatial representations in the short term, long-term representations of spatial events are affected deleteriously by the presentation of subsequent information pertaining to other aircraft. This study suggests strongly that recognition of the perceptual and cognitive consequences of changing to a free flight environment is crucial if air safety is not to be jeopardized.     

How does the smartphone usage of college students affect academic performance?

The present study aims to investigate the effects of smartphone use by college students on their perceived academic performance. Using five hypotheses derived from the literature related to smartphone use, the initial model was set up for path analysis to reveal the relationships among variables regarding college students' smartphone use in the academic setting. Moreover, multiple group analyses were additionally conducted to verify whether students exhibited different relationships in the hypothesized model depending on their majors. The results from path analyses showed that all path coefficients were positive and statistically significant, which indicated that all five hypothesized paths were supported. Above all, the results from multiple group analysis showed that one path (from Behavioural Intention to Use Smartphone to Academic Performance) differed significantly across groups. The findings from the current study provide educational policymakers and educators with information on how smartphone utilization in learning activities influences students' academic performance.     

How close are we to solving the problem of automated visual surveillance?

The problem of automated visual surveillance has spawned a lively research area, with 2005 seeing three conferences or workshops and special issues of two major journals devoted to the topic. These alone are responsible for somewhere in the region of 240 papers and posters on automated visual surveillance before we begin to count those presented in more general fora. Many of these systems and algorithms perform one small sub-part of the surveillance task, such as motion detection. But even with low level image processing tasks it is often difficult to compare systems on the basis of published results alone. This review paper aims to answer the difficult question “How close are we to developing surveillance related systems which are really useful?” The first section of this paper considers the question of surveillance in the real world: installations, systems and practises. The main body of the paper then considers existing computer vision techniques with an emphasis on higher level processes such as behaviour modelling and event detection. We conclude with a review of the evaluative mechanisms that have grown from within the computer vision community in an attempt to provide some form of robust evaluation and cross-system comparability.     

Studying the code compression design space – A synthesis approach

Embedded domain has witnessed the application of different code compression methodologies on different architectures to bridge the gap between ever-increasing application size and scarce memory resources. Selection of a code compression technique for a target architecture requires a detailed study and analysis of the code compression design space. There are multiple design parameters affecting the space, time, cost and power dimensions. Standard approaches of exploring the code compression design space are tedious, time consuming, and almost impractical with the increasing number of proposed compression algorithms. This is one of the biggest challenges faced by an architect trying to adopt a code compression methodology for a target architecture. We propose a novel synthesis based tool-chain for fast and effective exploration of the code compression design space and for evaluation of the tradeoffs. The tool-chain consists of a frontend framework that works with different compression/decompression schemes and a backend with high-level-synthesis, logic-synthesis, and power estimation tools to output the critical design parameters. We use the tool-chain to effectively analyze different code compression/decompression schemes of varying complexities.     

Modular approach to the design and analysis of password-based security protocols

In this paper, a general framework for designing and analyzing password-based security protocols is presented. First we introduce the concept of "weak computational indistinguishability" based on current progress of password-based security protocols. Then, we focus on cryptographic foundations for password-based security protocols, i.e., the theory of "weak pseudorandomness". Furthermore, based on the theory of weak pseudorandomness, we present a modular approach to design and analysis of password-based security protocols. Finally, applying the modular approach, we design two kinds of password-based security protocols, i.e., password-based session key distribution (PSKD) protocol and protected password change (PPC) protocol. In addition to having forward secrecy and improved efficiency, new protocols are proved secure.     

A GRASP × ELS approach for the job-shop with a web service paradigm packaging

The Job-Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP) is well known for its complexity as an NP-hard disjunctive scheduling problem. The problem addressed in this paper is JSSPs with an objective of minimizing makespan while satisfying a number of hard constraints. An efficient GRASP × ELS approach is introduced for solving this problem. The efficiency is evaluated using the widely known 40 Laurence’s instances which encompass medium and large scale instances. The computational results prove that the proposed method competes with the best published methods in both quality of results and computational time. Recently, Web services have generated great interest in researchers. Such application architecture is based on the client–server model using existing Internet protocols and open standards. It provides new approaches to optimization methods. The proposed GRASP × ELS is packaged into a Web Service (WS), i.e., it offers for the research community an open access to our optimization approach. Moreover, the proposed web service can be even included in research future works with a very small programming effort.To favor utilization of the web service and to prove the facility in which the service could be used, we provide an example in Java proving that it is possible to obtain in less than 10 min a client application using the different methods exposed by this web service. Such usage extends to classical library inclusion in program with the difference that a method is called in the client side and represents an execution on the server.The Web Service paradigm is a new approach in spreading algorithms and therefore this paper stands at the crossroads of optimization research community and the web service community expectations. The GRASP × ELS provided in the web service, is a state of the art method which competes with previously published ones and which has the advantage of being available for free, in any languages, everywhere contributing in spreading operational research contribution.     

A stress–based approach to the optimal design of structures with unilateral behavior of material or supports

The paper presents a stress-based approach that copes with the optimal design of truss-like elastic structures in case of unilateral behavior of material or ground supports. The conventional volume-constrained minimization of compliance is coupled with a set of local stress constraints that are enforced, all over the domain or along prescribed boundaries, to control the arising of members with tension-only or compression-only strength. A Drucker–Prager failure criterion is formulated to provide a smooth approximation of the no-tension or no-compression conditions governing the stress field. A selection strategy is implemented to handle efficiently the multi-constrained formulation that is solved through mathematical programming. Benchmark examples are investigated to discuss the features of the achieved optimal designs, as compared with problems involving material and ground supports with equal behavior in tension and compression. Numerical simulations show that a limited set of constraints is needed in the first iterations to steer the solution of the energy-driven optimization towards designs accounting for the prescribed assumption of unilateral strength.     

Why you will use the deep X-ray LIG(A) technology to produce MEMS?

Geometrical and dimensional tolerances, obtainable precisions, accuracy, surface quality and roughness need to be controlled in order to realise effective processes and to achieve a real improvement in micromanufacturing technologies. For the fabrication of highly precise mm parts, different processes can be chosen. The LIGA technique, a German acronym consisting of the letters LI (Röntgen Lithographie meaning X-ray lithography), G (Galvanik meaning electroforming) and A (Abformung meaning molding) developed at the Research Center Karlsruhe, offers the possibility to manufacture microstructures with a number of unique features. With these properties, LIGA is on the leading edge of microfabrication. This is a well known issue to most participants in the micro sector. However, most actors consider LIGA to be very expensive, to take much time from design up to realization, and to impose a number of quality problems. In this paper, we try to modify the perception of the LIGA process by addressing some quality properties of the process by taking two different examples and we address the throughput and cost situation by establishing a mass fabrication line for direct LIGA products at ANKA.     

Application of the QFD as a design approach to ensure comfort in using hand tools: Can the design team complete the House of Quality appropriately?

Quality Function Deployment is proposed as an effective design method to integrate ergonomics needs and comfort into hand tool design because it explicitly addresses the translation of customer needs into engineering characteristics. A crucial step during QFD concerns the linking of engineering characteristics to customer needs in the House of Quality by the design team. It is generally assumed (looking at all the QFD success stories) that design teams can accurately predict the correlations between customer needs and engineering characteristics (also referred to as “Whats”/“Hows” correlations). This paper explicitly tests this assumption by comparing the “Whats”/“Hows” correlations estimated by a design team with those observed in a systematic user evaluation study, which has not been done before. Testing the assumption is important, because inaccurate estimates may lead to ergonomically ineffective (re)design of hand tools and a waste of company resources. Results revealed that the design team's correlation estimates were not as accurate as is generally assumed. Twenty-five percent of the estimates differed significantly with those observed in the user evaluation study. Thus, QFD is a useful method to assist design teams in designing ergonomically more comfortable hand tools, but only on the condition that the correlations between customer needs and engineering characteristics are validated, preferably by means of a systematic user evaluation study.     

Who votes for what? A visual query language for opinion data

Surveys and opinion polls are extremely popular in the media, especially in the months preceding a general election. However, the available tools for analyzing poll results often require specialized training. Hence, data analysis remains out of reach for many casual computer users. Moreover, the visualizations used to communicate the results of surveys are typically limited to traditional statistical graphics like bar graphs and pie charts, both of which are fundamentally noninteractive. We present a simple interactive visualization that allows users to construct queries on large tabular data sets, and view the results in real time. The results of two separate user studies suggest that our interface lowers the learning curve for naive users, while still providing enough analytical power to discover interesting correlations in the data.     

Synthesized or digitized? A guide to the use of computer speech

In addition to technical and cost determinants, a range of human factors issues governs the appropriateness of synthesized or digitized speech for a particular system. For example, since synthesized messages are created textually, they may reflect the rules and habits of written language, rather than spoken language. This may cause listeners some difficulty interpreting the intended meaning of the message. Moreover, the different speech media place constraints upon techniques of message creation editing, transmission and reception. Synthesized speech is easy to edit in terms of lexical content, but the production of sophisticated prosodic features can be problematic. In contrast, unedited digitized speech will normally have appropriate prosodic cues and because of this will be difficult to edit. The influence of these factors is examined and illustrations of both good and poor practice are given. The paper concludes with a decision criteria checklist for speech output devices.     

Learning from instructional animations: How does prior knowledge mediate the effect of visual cues?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of cueing and prior knowledge on learning and mental effort of students studying an animation with narration. This study employed a 2 (no cueing vs. visual cueing) × 2 (low vs. high prior knowledge) between‐subjects factorial design. The results revealed a significant interaction effect between prior knowledge and cueing on learning. Low prior knowledge learners had higher scores after studying an instructional animation with visual cues, compared to those who studied the same instructional animation without visual cues. Conversely, when cues were not provided, high prior knowledge learners outperformed those high prior knowledge learners who studied with the cued version of an instructional animation. These results indicated that the effects of cueing in an instructional animation change depending on the learners' level of prior knowledge. Specifically, low prior knowledge learners benefited more when visual cues were provided, whereas cues did not facilitate learning for high prior knowledge learners.     

Training materials for advanced information skills in engineering: A web‐based approach

This paper describes the GAELS Information Skills course, the product of a collaborative project involving the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde. The project team developed a WWW‐based course providing training in information skills for post‐graduate students in engineering. The rationale behind the course is outlined, and the target users, the course itself and the method of design and construction are described. Finally, lessons learnt in the course of the project are examined.     

Out of the picture? How incompatible knowledge and distant visual stimuli may foster idea generation

Visual stimuli such as pictures, sketches or prototypes play a major role in idea generation. Companies today often promote the use of these non‐verbal tools during creativity sessions, at the early stages of design. However, recent studies tend to show that these tools do not systematically enhance idea generation. Our research project therefore aims to better understand the contribution of visual stimuli during creativity sessions, and especially the contribution of distant stimuli which present knowledge that appears to be incompatible with the design topic. This study is based on an exploration led at the automotive company Renault by a team working on new services for charging electric vehicles. During idea generation sessions, a set of pictures was used by a meeting facilitator to inspire the team with new ideas. We show that the effects produced by the different pictures are varied: they do not always promote radical expansion, and when they do, expansion is not always of the same nature. Moreover, represented knowledge appears to have a major influence on idea generation, as the most original ideas came from pictures that not only expanded initial knowledge, but also helped to reorder the team's knowledge base and introduce new design rules.     

Some applications of Loop-subdivision wavelet tight frames to?the?processing of 3D graphics

Multiresolution analysis based on subdivision wavelets is an important method of 3D graphics processing. Many applications of this method have been studied and developed, including denoising, compression, progressive transmission, multiresolution editing and so on. Recently Charina and St?ckler firstly gave the explicit construction of wavelet tight frame transform for subdivision surfaces with irregular vertices, which made its practical applications to 3D graphics became a subject worthy of investigation. Based on the works of Charina and St?ckler, we present in detail the wavelet tight frame decomposition and reconstruction formulas for Loop-subdivision scheme. We further implement the algorithm and apply it to the denoising, compression and progressive transmission of 3D graphics. By comparing it with the biorthogonal Loop-subdivision wavelets of Bertram, the numerical results illustrate the good performance of the algorithm. Since multiresolution analysis based on subdivision wavelets or subdivision wavelet tight frames requires the input mesh to be semi-regular, we also propose a simple remeshing algorithm for constructing meshes which not only have subdivision connectivity but also approximate the input mesh.     

A study on the use of tactile instructions for developing robot’s motions

Developing motions for humanoid robots is time consuming. However, sport and dance instructors can easily adjust their students?? postures by simple touches. This suggests the possibility of exploiting touch for motion development, and allows us to propose a methodology based on this concept. To realize such a system, it is required to define how the robot should interpret touches. We propose a supervised learning approach to cope with this issue, and verify its feasibility experimentally. We then study the data collected by the algorithm, and show that the system is practical both for motion development and for studying human-robot tactile communication. In particular, we present considerations on the sparsity that characterize the whole process and suggest how sparsity can be exploited for efficient interpretation of tactile instructions.     

How do thermal conditions in intensive care units affect the health and well-being of intensivists?

This study presents situational risk scenarios to predict the potential implications of predicted and perceived thermal configurations on the health and well-being of health care professionals in intensive care units (ICUs). Nine ICUs were selected, and thermal variables were collected; simultaneously, 128 health care professionals were interviewed to assess their perceptions, satisfaction, and health conditions related to their workplace environment. In scenarios with thermal comfort (either predicted or perceived), the risk of exposure to physical and psychological symptoms was reduced. This effect also extends to predictions and perceptions tending toward slightly cooler temperatures. In situations with a predicted mean vote below −1.5 and above 0.5, symptom complaints increased, even when the health care professionals perceived their environment as thermally comfortable, with the most extreme cases generating an increase of up to 27% in the baseline probability. Adjusting the workplace environment to be thermally comfortable can reduce symptom complaints.