Team workload: Review and conceptualization

Since many tasks are performed through teamwork, team workload becomes a highly concerned issue over time. However, there is still conceptual confusion. The purpose of this paper is to provide a clear and systematic model of the team workload. From the view of resource requirement, system, and interaction perspectives, models and conceptual framework of the team workload are summarized. With a broad perspective, a nominal definition of team workload is proposed as the total effort spent for processes involved in the execution of team tasks. Subsequently, the components and indicators of teamwork are identified from various team processes. This paper constructs team workload in four dimensions, task-focused activities, task-induced team activities, situational response, and team maintenance and development. Finally, the proposed model is compared with the existing models.     

Proactive defense against malicious documents: formalization,implementation and case studies

The current detection model used by modern antivirus software is based on the same basic principle. Any antivirus has to analyze the threat in order to protect the user afterwards. This implies to have first a few systems to be infected, then to perform a manual or partially automated analysis of the malware to finally update the malware databases. Quite no prevention model is considered to mitigate this inherent limitation of AV software. This issue becomes critical when considering office documents (Microsoft Office, Libre Office, PDF files\(\ldots \)) which become more and more vectors of targeted attacks and hence represent a major threat. The huge variability of documents makes the current detection model quite useless. To protect against the specific risks presented by these documents, we propose a new model of antiviral protection acting proactively and offering a strong prevention model. The document is transformed into an inactive file format to protect the user from any known or unknown threat. This module of proactive threat management has been implemented into the DAVFI project (French and International AntiVirus Demonstrator), funded by the French Strategic Digital Fund. Real and concrete cases of malicious office documents have been submitted to the analysis of this module as well as its transformation principles, demonstrating its effectiveness and accuracy.     

Stateful traits and their formalization

Traits offer a fine-grained mechanism to compose classes from reusable components while avoiding problems of fragility brought by multiple inheritance and mixins. Traits as originally proposed are stateless, that is, they contain only methods, but no instance variables. State can only be accessed within stateless traits by accessors, which become required methods of the trait. Although this approach works reasonably well in practice, it means that many traits, viewed as software components, are artificially incomplete, and classes that use such traits may contain significant amounts of boilerplate glue code. We present an approach to stateful traits that is faithful to the guiding principle of stateless traits: the client retains control of the composition. Stateful traits consist of a minimal extension to stateless traits in which instance variables are purely local to the scope of a trait, unless they are explicitly made accessible by the composing client of a trait. We demonstrate by means of a formal object calculus that adding state to traits preserves the flattening property: traits contained in a program can be compiled away. We discuss and compare two implementation strategies, and briefly present a case study in which stateful traits have been used to refactor the trait-based version of the Smalltalk collection hierarchy.     

The distributed constraint satisfaction problem: formalization andalgorithms

We develop a formalism called a distributed constraint satisfaction problem (distributed CSP) and algorithms for solving distributed CSPs. A distributed CSP is a constraint satisfaction problem in which variables and constraints are distributed among multiple agents. Various application problems in distributed artificial intelligence can be formalized as distributed CSPs. We present our newly developed technique called asynchronous backtracking that allows agents to act asynchronously and concurrently without any global control, while guaranteeing the completeness of the algorithm. Furthermore, we describe how the asynchronous backtracking algorithm can be modified into a more efficient algorithm called an asynchronous weak-commitment search, which can revise a bad decision without exhaustive search by changing the priority order of agents dynamically. The experimental results on various example problems show that the asynchronous weak-commitment search algorithm is, by far more, efficient than the asynchronous backtracking algorithm and can solve fairly large-scale problems     

Protein structure prediction problem: formalization using quaternions

The authors discuss the formalization of protein tertiary structure prediction problem based on Dill’s HP-model. Three-dimensional discrete lattices and different approaches to representing paths on them are the subjects of investigation. Two ways of path encoding are proposed and formalized, one of which is based on quaternions.     

Software component licensing: a primer

For developers to feel it worthwhile to invest in software components, both licensors and licensees must be fairly compensated for the time and resources invested in making and using such components. The authors suggest that properly framed software licensing agreements provide the vehicle for ensuring such compensation     

Information Systems Use: Construct conceptualization and scale development

Information Systems Use (ISU) is an essential part of the human behaviors in utilizing computers in organizations. The construct has been widely used to measure IS adoption or IS success. However, few studies attempt to understand ISU in a job and organizational setting where employees use various types of IS for different tasks. To better understand ISU, it is necessary to contextualize the construct in users’ overall work related activities. We classified the overall IS/IT use in an organization into three different types of IS; Information Reporting Systems (IRSs), Decision Support Systems (DSSs), and Group Support System (GSSs). Based on this classification, we developed four items for each type of ISU behaviors. The resulting ISU instrument was tested using a dataset of 231 responses collected in a survey. Both exploratory factor analysis and PLS are employed to successfully establish reliability, convergent/discriminate validity, and predictive validity. The contribution of this research is to provide better and more robust measurements for the ISU construct, which should help to lay a firmer foundation for further research on IS success.     

CIM建模及模型形式化方法研究综述

以模型为驱动的开发方法是当前软件工程领域研究的热点,计算无关模型(computation independent model,CIM)在模型驱动架构中关注系统的需求和环境,其有效的建模方法和模型形式化是实现高层概念模型至代码自动转换的关键.首先介绍了现有CIM建模内容和方法;然后分析了现有CIM模型形式化方法现状与不足;最后探讨了针对不同应用系统可行的多视图多层次CIM建模方法及一致性问题研究,并提出CIM完全形式化方法研究的可行方案.     

The Fractional CIO in SMEs: conceptualization and research agenda

We conceptualize the new phenomenon of the Fractional Chief Information Officer (CIO) as a part-time executive who usually works for more than one primarily small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) and develop promising avenues for future research on Fractional CIOs. We conduct an empirical study by drawing on semi-structured interviews with 40 individuals from 10 different countries who occupy a Fractional CIO role. We derive a definition for the Fractional CIO, distinguish it from other forms of employment, and compare it with existing research on CIO roles. Further, we find four salient engagement types of Fractional CIOs offering value for SMEs in various situations: Strategic IT management, Restructuring, Rapid scaling, and Hands-on support. The results reveal similarities with existing CIO roles as well as novel insights concerning the different engagement types. Lastly, we propose a research agenda for the Fractional CIO field, based on four research themes derived from existing CIO research and insights from the interviews.

     

User satisfaction with business-to-employee portals: conceptualization and scale development

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate the business-to-employee portal user satisfaction (B2EPUS) measure. Five sequential stages of scale development were undertaken to achieve this purpose: conceptual model development, item generation, content validation, exploratory study, and confirmatory study. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the five dimensions of the B2EPUS, namely Usefulness, Confidentiality, Ease of Use, Convenience of Access, and Portal Design as the dimensions of the construct. Competing model analysis indicates that the second-order factor model is the better fitting for the B2EPUS construct. The theoretical and practical implications of the study as well as directions for future research are discussed in the concluding sections of this paper.     

Geometry-based 3D face morphology analysis: soft-tissue landmark formalization

The face is perhaps the most important human anatomical part, and its study is very important in many fields, such as the medical one and the identification one. Technical literature presents many works on this topic involving bi-dimensional solutions. Even if these solutions are able to provide interesting results, they are strongly subjected to images distortion. Thanks to the significant improvements obtained in the 3D scanner domain (photogrammetry for instance), today it is possible to replace the 2D images with more precise and complete 3D models (triangulated points clouds). Working on three-dimensional data, in fact, it is possible to obtain a more complete set of information about the face morphology. At present, even if it is possible to find interesting papers on this field, there is the lack of a complete protocol for converting the big amount of data coming from the three-dimensional point clouds in a reliable set of facial data, which could be employed for recognition and medical tasks. Starting from some anatomical human face concepts, it has been possible to understand that some soft-tissue landmarks could be the right data set for supporting many processes working on three-dimensional models. So, working in the Differential Geometry domain, through the Coefficients of the Fundamental Forms, the Principal Curvatures, Mean and Gaussian Curvatures and also with the derivatives and the Shape and Curvedness Indexes, the study has proposed a structured methodology for soft-tissue landmark formalization in order to provide a methodology for their automatic identification. The proposed methodology and its sensitivity have been tested with the involvement of a series of subjects acquired in different scenarios.     

从网页目录到轻量级本体——自然语言处理及形式化*

为了解决以自然语言表示节点标签的分类树很难通过自动软件agents来进行自动推理的问题,通过词性标志、词义辨析、连接词辨析和受约束的自然语言定义及转换等步骤,将分类树中每一个节点对应的自然语言标签转换成了机器能够识别的逻辑表达式,从而使整个分类树转换成了一个轻量级本体,它适合应用在数据整合的语义匹配、文档分类和语义搜索等方面的自动推理,从而促进了本体知识的自动化推理,为以后文本自动检索奠定基础。     

新的域间身份认证协议及其形式化验证

Internet上不同的安全域间要实现信息资源的安全访问首先需要认证.目前常用的认证协议是Kerberos协议,但在网络环境下,该协议无法对真实的客户端进行认证.因此,给出了新的域间身份认证协议以及相应的"现时"产生方案,并利用改进的Spi演算对所设计的认证协议进行了分析,证明了该协议的安全性,能够有效地解决网间的信息安全传输.     

The formalization and analysis of a communications protocol

The MSMIE protocol [SBC89] allows processors in a distributed system to communicate via shared memory. It was designed to meet the reliability and efficiency needs of applications such as nuclear safety systems. We present a formal model of the MSMIE protocol expressed in the notation CCS. Desirable properties of the protocol are expressed in the modal mu-calculus, an expressive modal logic. We show that the protocol lacks an important liveness property. In actual operation, additional operating constraints are checked to avoid potential problems. We present a modified protocol and show that it possesses the liveness property even without checking operating constraints. We also show how parts of the analysis were automated with the Concurrency Workbench.     

堆栈溢出的BLP形式化研究及实现

堆栈溢出是一种在各种操作系统、应用软件中广泛存在普遍且危险的漏洞,可以利用它执行非授权指令,甚至可以取得系统特权,进而进行各种非法操作.从安全操作系统的角度分析了堆栈溢出的原理,以BLP模型为工具对堆栈溢出进行了形式化并在此基础上适当调整了该模型,从安全模型的层次上消除了堆栈溢出的隐患.最后给出了调整后的BLP模型在LSM(Linlux security module)上的实现.     

Integrating technology in the classroom: a visual conceptualization of teachers' knowledge, goals and beliefs

Abstract   In this paper, we devise a diagrammatic conceptualization to describe and represent the complex interplay of a teacher's knowledge (K), goals (G) and beliefs (B) in leveraging technology effectively in the classroom. The degree of coherency between the KGB region and the affordances of the technology serves as an indicator of the teachers' developmental progression through the initiation, implementation and maturation phases of using technology in the classroom. In our study, two teachers with differing knowledge, goals and beliefs are studied as they integrated GroupScribbles technology in their classroom lessons over a period of 1 year. Our findings reveal that the transition between the teacher's developmental states (as indicated by coherency diagrams) is nonlinear, and thus the importance of ensuring high coherency right at the initiation stage. Support for the teacher from other teachers and researchers remains an important factor in developing the teacher's competency to leverage the technology successfully. The stability of the KGB region further ensures smooth progression of the teacher's effective integration of technology in the classroom.