Towards Pseudonymous e-Commerce

The lack of privacy is one of the main reasons that limits trust in e-commerce. Current e-commerce practice enforces a customer to disclose her identity to the e-shop and the use of credit cards makes it straightforward for an e-shop to know the real identity of its customers. Although there are some payment systems based on untraceable tokens, they are not as widely used as credit cards. Furthermore, even without buying anything, a customer is already disclosing some information about who or where she may be by just connecting to the e-shop's web server and leaving behind an IP-address. In this paper, we present novel components that enable secure pseudonymous e-commerce. On the one hand, these components allow a customer to browse through an e-shop, select goods, and pay the goods with her credit card such that neither the e-shop operator nor the credit card issuer nor an eavesdropper is able to get any information about the customer's identity. On the other hand, it is guaranteed that none of the involved parties is able to act dishonestly during the credit card payment. Such a system could greatly enhance trust in e-commerce since it overcomes the customers' privacy concerns.     

Sensitivity Analysis for Scheduling Problems

This paper represents a first attempt at a systematic study of sensitivity analysis for scheduling problems. Because schedules contain both combinatorial and temporal structures, scheduling problems present unique issues for sensitivity analysis. Some of the issues that we discuss have not been considered before. Others, while studied before, have not been explored in the context of scheduling. The applicability of these issues is illustrated using well-known scheduling models. We provide fast methods to determine when a previously optimal schedule remains optimal. Other methods restore an optimal schedule after a parameter change. The value of studying the sensitivity of an optimal sequence instead of the sensitivity of an optimal schedule is demonstrated. We show that, for some problems, sensitivity analysis results depend on the positions of jobs with changed parameters. We identify scheduling problems where performing additional or different computations during optimization facilitates sensitivity analysis. To improve the robustness of an optimal schedule, selection among multiple optimal schedules is considered. We discuss which types of sensitivity analysis questions are intractable because the scheduling problem itself is intractable. We also study how heuristic error bounds vary when the data of a scheduling problem is continuously modified. Although we focus on scheduling problems, several of the issues we discuss and our classification scheme can be extended to other optimization problems.     

Nonlinear averaging theorems, and the determination of parameter convergence rates in adaptive control

The paper presents nonlinear averaging theorems for two-time scale systems, where the dynamics of the fast system are allowed to vary with the slow system. The results are applied to the Narendra-Valavani adaptive control algorithm, and estimates of the parameter convergence rates are obtained which do not rely on a linearization of the system around the equilibrium, and therefore are valid in a larger region in the parameter space.     

Representing Animations by Principal Components

In this paper, we present a representation for three-dimensional geometric animation sequences. Different from standard key-frame techniques, this approach is based on the determination of principal animation components and decouples the animation from the underlying geometry. The new representation supports progressive animation compression with spatial, as well as temporal, level-of-detail and high compression ratios. The distinction of animation and geometry allows for mapping animations onto other objects.     

Microwave radiation as heating method in the synthesis of titanium dioxide nanoparticles from hexafluorotitanate-organic salts

Nanocrystalline anatase was obtained from ionic liquid-like precursors containing hexafluorotitanate-organic salts and less than 25 wt.% of water, and using boric acid as fluoride scavenger. Two alternative heating methods were explored using either a conventional oven or a domestic microwave apparatus. A significant reduction in the reaction time from 24 h to only few minutes was obtained using the microwave route. The as-prepared materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, nitrogen sorption analysis, and attenuated total reflectance Fourier transformed infrared, X-ray photoelectronic and Raman spectroscopes. The convenience of using the microwave heating option was a function of the organic cation present in the precursor. Thus, organic ammonium cations containing only hydrocarbon substituents, such as diethylammonium, phenylammonium and benzyltrimethylammonium led to the precipitation of nanocrystalline anatase powder with high specific surface area (up to 120 m² g⁻¹) in a short processing time (1-3 min). Otherwise, alcohol and carboxylate functionalized cations decomposed under microwave treatment. Moreover, the choice of the organic cation allowed tuning several properties of the end material, such as particle size and pore morphology.     

A robust bus evacuation model with delayed scenario information

Due to natural or man-made disasters, the evacuation of a whole region or city may become necessary. Apart from private traffic, the emergency services also need to consider transit-dependent evacuees which have to be transported from collection points to secure shelters outside the endangered region with the help of a bus fleet. We consider a simplified version of the arising bus evacuation problem (BEP), which is a vehicle scheduling problem that aims at minimizing the network clearance time, i.e., the time needed until the last person is brought to safety. In this paper, we consider an adjustable robust formulation without recourse for the BEP, the robust bus evacuation problem (RBEP), in which the exact numbers of evacuees are not known in advance. Instead, a set of likely scenarios is known. After some reckoning time, this uncertainty is eliminated and planners are given exact figures. The problem is to decide for each bus, if it is better to send it right away—using uncertain information on the evacuees—or to wait until the the scenario becomes known. We present a mixed-integer linear programming formulation for the RBEP and discuss solution approaches; in particular, we present a tabu search framework for finding heuristic solutions of acceptable quality within short computation time. In computational experiments using both randomly generated instances and the real-world scenario of evacuating the city of Kaiserslautern, Germany, we compare our solution approaches.     

Social networking and the risk to companies and institutions

Social networks open up new business opportunities for customer acquisition and retention, facilitate knowledge transfer within the company, and can positively influence work climate. However, they can also quickly destroy a company image that took years to build, while the use of social networks at work not only risks a loss in productivity but may also undermine legal obligations. Eager networkers might also divulge company internals to competitors or the public at large. And last but not least, “friendships” open up completely new attack vectors for professional hackers, thus significantly increasing company exposure to online break-ins. This article briefly summarizes the opportunities and dangers that this development poses for business. This contribution is based on an earlier article by the same authors (in German) (Langheinrich and Karjoth, 2010).     

Membrane Targeting and GTPase Activity of Rab7 Are Required for Its Ubiquitination by RNF167

Rab7 is a GTPase that controls late endosome and lysosome trafficking. Recent studies have demonstrated that Rab7 is ubiquitinated, a post-translational modification mediated by an enzymatic cascade. To date, only one ubiquitin E3 ligase and one deubiquitinase have been identified in regulating Rab7 ubiquitination. Here, we report that RNF167, a transmembrane endolysosomal ubiquitin ligase, can ubiquitinate Rab7. Using immunoprecipitation and in vitro ubiquitination assays, we demonstrate that Rab7 is a direct substrate of RNF167. Subcellular fractionation indicates that RNF167 activity maintains Rab7′s membrane localization. Epifluorescence microscopy in HeLa cells shows that Rab7-positive vesicles are larger under conditions enabling Rab7 ubiquitination by RNF167. Characterization of its ubiquitination reveals that Rab7 must be in its GTP-bound active form for membrane anchoring and, thus, accessible for RNF167-mediated ubiquitin attachment. Cellular distribution analyses of lysosome marker Lamp1 show that vesicle positioning is independent of Rab7 and RNF167 expression and that Rab7 endosomal localization is not affected by RNF167 knockdown. However, both Rab7 and RNF167 depletion affect each other’s lysosomal localization. Finally, this study demonstrates that the RNF167-mediated ubiquitination of Rab7 GTPase is impaired by variants of Charcot–Marie–Tooth Type 2B disease. This study identified RNF167 as a new ubiquitin ligase for Rab7 while expanding our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying the ubiquitination of Rab7.     

Some natural flavonoids are competitive inhibitors of Caspase-1, -3 and -7 despite their cellular toxicity

A common feature of both apoptosis and inflammation is the activation of caspases. Caspases are aspartate-directed cysteine proteases that have numerous cellular targets. It has been discovered that several flavonoids are inhibitors of caspases. Flavonoids are members of a family of polyphenolic compounds from plants that have many biological properties, one of which is the ability to induce cell death. Some flavonoids are selective inhibitors of particular caspases. Since some of the inhibitory flavonoids are nevertheless cytotoxic, these results suggest that flavonoid-induced cell death may be occurring through a non-classical apoptosis pathway that is not dependent on caspase activity.     

The Inference of Perceived Usability From Beauty

A review of 15 papers reporting 25 independent correlations of perceived beauty with perceived usability showed a remarkably high variability in the reported coefficients. This may be due to methodological inconsistencies. For example, products are often not selected systematically, and statistical tests are rarely performed to test the generality of findings across products. In addition, studies often restrict themselves to simply reporting correlations without further specification of underlying judgmental processes.

The present study's main objective is to re-examine the relation between beauty and usability, that is, the implication that “what is beautiful is usable.” To rectify previous methodological shortcomings, both products and participants were sampled in the same way and the data aggregated both by averaging over participants to assess the covariance across ratings of products and by averaging over products to assess the covariance across participants. In addition, we adopted an inference perspective to qualify underlying processes to examine the possibility that, under the circumstances pertaining in most studies of this kind where participants have limited experience of using a website or product, the relationship between beauty and usability is mediated by goodness.

A mediator analysis of the relationship between beauty, the overall evaluation (i.e., “goodness”) and pragmatic quality (as operationalization of usability) suggests that the relationship between beauty and usability has been overplayed as the correlation between pragmatic quality and beauty is wholly mediated by goodness. This pattern of relationships was consistent across four different data sets and different ways of data aggregation. Finally, suggestions are made regarding methodologies that could be used in future studies that build on these results.