ALBERT

Description: Up to now, biometric recognition has shown significant advantages as to be considered a reliable solution for security systems in mobile environments. Nevertheless, due to the short lifetime of biometrics in mobile devices, a handful of concerns regarding usability and accessibility need to be covered in order to meet users’ requirements. This work is focused on analysing the usability and accessibility of a face recognition system used by visually impaired people, focusing on the time spent in the process, which is a critical aspect. Specifically, we cover different key questions including which kind of feedback is more useful for visually impaired users and beneficial for performance and how is the performance evolution in contrast with the time spent in the recognition. Our findings suggest that several parameters improve along with the time spent in the process, including performance. The audio feedback provided in real time involves also better performance and user experience than instructions given previously.

Description: The emergence of social networks have opened a new paradigm for professional groups to student groups to exchange their information with their contemporaries quickly and efficiently. The social networking enables to set up relations among the people (called actors) who share common interests, activities or connections. An actor or a person plays a predominant role in sharing social networking services, hence optimal modelling of an actor is essential. An actor model must be defined with several issues concerning to interests, activities, devices used, etc. In this paper, we present a generic actor model for a professional social network (GAMPSON) by considering actor’s personally identifiable information, professional information, activity, social status, etc. The designed GAMPSON is tested over professional social networks such as agriculture social network and museum social network, where GAMPSON generates unique actors associated with the agriculture and museum social network, and renders relations among the actors. Results demonstrated that it is simple and accurate to generate actors and their relations in any social network along with provision of information over database.

Description: Many people who discuss sensitive or private issues on social media services are using pseudonyms or aliases in order to not reveal their true identity, while using their usual, non-private accounts when posting messages on less sensitive issues. Previous research has shown that if those individuals post large amounts of user-generated content, stylometric techniques can be used to identify the author based on the characteristics of the textual content. In this article we show how an author’s identity can be unmasked in a similar way using various time features (e.g., period of the day and the day of the week when a user’s posts have been published). We combine several different time features into a timeprint, which can be seen as a type of fingerprint when identifying users on social media. We use supervised machine learning (i.e., author identification) and unsupervised alias matching (similarity detection) in a number of different experiments with forum data to get an understanding of to what extent timeprints can be used for identifying users in social media, both in isolation and when combined with stylometric features. The obtained results show that timeprints indeed can be a very powerful tool for both author identification and alias matching in social media.

Description: Phishing is an online criminal act that occurs when a malicious webpage impersonates as legitimate webpage so as to acquire sensitive information from the user. Phishing attack continues to pose a serious risk...

Description: A key problem in mobile computing is providing people access to cyber-information associated with their surrounding physical objects. Mobile augmented reality is one of the emerging techniques that addresses t...

Description: The continual advancement of internet technologies has led to the evolution of how individuals and organizations operate. For example, through the internet, we can now tap a remote workforce to help us accompl...

Description: Soft wearables include clothing and textile-based accessories that incorporate smart textiles and soft electronic interfaces to enable responsive and interactive experiences. When designed well, soft wearables...

Description: As new speech technologies emerge, telecommunication service providers have to provide superior user experience in order to remain competitive. To this end, quality-of-experience (QoE) perception modelling and...

Description: The websites vigorously grow and inevitably need to provide consumers high-quality service to create excellent experience and win the customers’ heart to establish mutually beneficial and long-term relationshi...

Description: Achieving data privacy before publishing has been becoming an extreme concern of researchers, individuals and service providers. A novel methodology, Cooperative Privacy Game (CoPG), has been proposed to achieve ...

Description: This article has two main objectives. First, we describe the design of an e-learning system for a University Income Tax Law course. Second, we analyze and explore learning results in terms of students’ learning satisfaction and learning achievement. Learning achievement was examined by questions derived from the course content while learning satisfaction was analyzed based on an adaptation of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).Results indicate that neither gender nor the school system affect students’ e-learning system satisfaction. Since students’ knowledge and exposure to computers are equal regardless of gender or educational background this reduces the significance of both these variables. Participating samples are divided into three groups: traditional, fully on-line and blended learning. We find, however, a statistically significant difference existed in learning achievement among groups. The blended learning group, combining on- line learning with paper-and-pencil testing, has the best learning achievement among the three groups.

Description: The objective of this study is to assess the combined performance of textural and morphological features for the detection and diagnosis of breast masses in ultrasound images. We have extracted a total of forty four features using textural and morphological techniques. Support vector machine (SVM) classifier is used to discriminate the tumors into benign or malignant. The performance of individual as well as combined features are assessed using accuracy(Ac), sensitivity(Se), specificity(Sp), Matthews correlation coefficient(MCC) and area AZ under receiver operating characteristics curve. The individual features produced classification accuracy in the range of 61.66% and 90.83% and when features from each category are combined, the accuracy is improved in the range of 79.16% and 95.83%. Moreover, the combination of gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) and ratio of perimeters (P ratio ) presented highest performance among all feature combinations (Ac 95.85%, Se 96%, Sp 91.46%, MCC 0.9146 and AZ 0.9444).The results indicated that the discrimination performance of a computer aided breast cancer diagnosis system increases when textural and morphological features are combined.Graphical AbstractDiagnosis of breast masses in ultrasound

Description: This article presents results from a pilot study addressed to investigate the design of behavior change intervention using smartphones for cycle commuting. In this specific case, a smartphone app, BikeTogether, was developed to encourage and support its users to cycle home with each other over the Internet. The app employs the metaphor of a bicycle flashlight to represent closeness, leading, and following between two sides. The cycling performance can also be recorded so the users can track how they are doing over time. 10 participants were instructed and randomly paired to take a two-phases test ride on different routes. Results indicated that the app can help create the sense of being with each other while cycling and promote not only accompanied but competing ride. In addition, the outcome of the desirability towards the app implies a higher chance it will lead to a behavior change. This provides a new way of seeing, being and knowing solitude, a state that we commit to remain encouraged.

Description: Popular network scan detection algorithms operate through evaluating external sources for unusual connection patterns and traffic rates. Research has revealed evasive tactics that enable full circumvention of existing approaches (specifically the widely cited Threshold Random Walk algorithm). To prevent use of these circumvention techniques, we propose a novel approach to network scan detection that evaluates the behavior of internal network nodes, and combine it with other established techniques of scan detection. By itself, our algorithm is an efficient, protocol-agnostic, completely unsupervised method that requires no a priori knowledge of the network being defended beyond which hosts are internal and which hosts are external to the network, and is capable of detecting network scanning attempts regardless of the rate of the scan (working even with connectionless protocols). We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on both live data from an enterprise-scale network and on simulated scan data, finding a false positive rate of just 0.000034% with respect to the number of inbound flows. When combined with both Threshold Random Walk and simple rate-limiting detection, we achieve an overall detection rate of 94.44%.

Description: Wildlife trafficking, a focus of organized transnational crime syndicates, is a threat to biodiversity. Such crime networks span beyond protected areas holding strongholds of species of interest such as African rhinos. Such networks extend over several countries and hence beyond the jurisdiction of any one law enforcement authority. We show how a federated database can overcome disjoint information kept in different databases. We also show how social network analyses can provide law enforcers with targeted responses that maximally disrupt a criminal network. We introduce an actionable intelligence report using social network measures that identifies key players and predicts player succession. Using a rhino case study we illustrate how such a report can be used to optimize enforcement operations.

Description: Effectively assessing and configuring security controls to minimize network risks requires human judgment. Little is known about what factors network professionals perceive to make judgments of network risk. The purpose of this research was to examine first, what factors are important to network risk judgments (Study 1) and second, how risky/safe each factor is judged (Study 2) by a sample of network professionals. In Study 1, a complete list of factors was generated using a focus group method and validated on a broader sample using a survey method with network professionals. Factors detailing the adversary and organizational network readiness were rated highly important. Study 2 investigated the level of riskiness for each factor that is described in a vignette-based factor scenario. The vignette provided context that was missing in Study 1. The highest riskiness ratings were of factors detailing the adversary and the lowest riskiness ratings detailed the organizational network readiness. A significant relationships existed in Study 2 between the level of agreement on each factor’s rating across our sample of network professionals and the riskiness level each factor was judged. Factors detailing the adversary were highly agreed upon while factors detailing the organizational capability were less agreed upon. Computational risk models and network risk metrics ask professionals to perceive factors and judge overall network risk levels but no published research exists on what factors are important for network risk judgments. These empirical findings address this gap and factors used in models and metrics could be compared to factors generated herein. Future research and implications are discussed at the close of this paper.

Description: Background: In recent years, the population structure in Taiwan has changed so dramatically. Based on concerns of social welfare issues, Taiwanese government began to seek principles for assessment of disability. After seven years of carefully evaluation, the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (Abbreviated to ICF) is officially adopted as Taiwan’s assessment standard while most of the assessment procedures of ICF are sophisticated, and time consuming.In this paper, we propose a sensor based decision supporting system for ICF. Our prototype system aims to reduce the burden of medical staffs, and to assist subjects to perform the assessments. Methods: This paper integrate multiple devices including ASUS XtionTM, temperature/acceleration/gyro sensors on Arduino, and Zigbee to measure the mobility of limbs and joints. The subject’s log of assessments is then recorded in the database so that the medical staffs can remote-monitor the condition of subjects immediately, and analyze the results later. Additionally, in our system, a user-friendly interface is implemented for the detection of dementia. Results: In this paper, three experiments have been conducted for different purpose. The experiment was conducted to compare the variation between thermometer and our device. Moreover, we invited 20 elders aged for 65 to 80 to use our system and all of them gave positive feedback. Two elders were invited to perform full assessment for dementia and the results show that both of them didn’t have sign of dementia. Also, the assessment of joint movement was performed by a 67 year-old elder and the result shows that the elder had well physical function and could take care of daily life. Conclusions: The proposed system has potential for aiding users to perform the ICF testing better and provide benefits to medical staffs and society. With current technology, integration between sensor network systems and artificial intelligence approaches will more and more important. We develop a simple interface for user to manipulate and perform the ICF assessment. In addition, the early detection of dementia likely has the potential to provide patients with an increased level of precaution, which may improve quality of life.

Description: Background: Presenting significant building or engineering 3D-models is a crucial part of the planning, construction and maintenance phases in terms of collaboration and understanding. Especially in complex or large-scale models, immersion is one of the major key factors for being able to intuitively perceive all aspects of the scene. A fully immersive system needs to give the user a large field-of-view with reduced latency for lifelike impression. Technologies such as VRwalls and shutter glasses can deliver high refresh rates, yet fail to give a large field-of-view. Head-mounted-devices for virtual reality fill this gap. Head tracking mechanisms translate movements of the user’s head into virtual camera movements and enable a natural way of examining models. Unlike a stereoscopic representation with projectors, point-of-view tracking can be achieved separately for each individual user. Hardware costs for such systems were very high in the past, but have dropped due to virtual reality systems now gaining traction in the mainstream gaming community. Methods: In this paper we present a way to build a low-cost, highly immersive virtual reality environment for engineering and construction applications. Furthermore, we present a method to simplify and partly automate the process of reusing digital building models, which are already used in construction, to create virtual scenes, instead of having to do parallel content creation for visualization. Using the Oculus Rift head-mounted display and the Leap Motion hand-tracking device, we show the possibilities of naturally interacting within a virtual space in different use cases. The software, based on the popular game engine Unreal Engine 4, will be used as a basis for further research and development. Results: Building Information Modeling data can be imported to UE4 with our presented plugin. Using an automated database for mapping materials to the geometry simplifies the process of importing Building Information Modeling entities. The refresh rate of the system stays within acceptable margins needed for virtual reality applications using head-mounted devices. Conclusions: Head-mounted devices present a great potential for the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry, as a person can experience realistic first-person situations without having to care about injuries. Automated processes for the simplification of content creation, leveraging existing models, and the usage of visual programming languages enable even nonprogrammers to create scenarios to their needs.

Description: Background: Nowadays wind energy is becoming increasingly significant in the planning, development and growth of new electricity supply systems. Special attention has been given to land-based turbines for ensuring the efficient economical operation of massive hubs rising 100m above the ground, based on the idea that the bigger the turbine, the more complicated are the transportation and assembly processes. Methods: A new design of a wind turbine has several advantages compared to conventional designs; one of these advantages lies in the use of prefabricated elements, which increases efficiency. The implementation of information technology as a complement to prefabrication techniques is a further aim of this research, which seeks to improve the overall performance of the project. Consequently, Building Information Modelling is suggested as the most suitable methodology for complementing off-site techniques and reaching higher efficiency by improving design, manufacture, transportation and assembly processes. Results: This paper will present the research project “hybrid² tower for wind turbines” funded by the State of Hesse, Germany, which focuses on a new, efficient and economical design for high wind turbine towers. The new hybrid² tower is composed of a concrete tower containing prefabricated concrete quarter-circle elements, steel beams and a steel tube tower on the top. The combination of concrete and steel beams improves the static and dynamic performance of the main supporting structure. With this new design, the weight of the concrete tower is estimated to decrease by 40 % compared to a traditional full-concrete tower and, as a positive consequence, the cost of assembly (including assembly on site) is reduced. Conclusions: Due to the energy revolution, a special focus is put on the development of renewable energies, especially wind power. The steadily increasing hub heights of wind turbines means that tower structures have to be more massive. The development of the hybrid² tower by using Building Information Modeling and prefabrication techniques leads to an optimized performance and reduces transport and assembly costs.

Description: Project archives are becoming increasingly large and complex. On construction projects in particular, the increasing amount of information and the increasing complexity of its structure make searching and expl...

Description: The accurate, efficient and economical monitoring of settlements caused by tunnel boring machines, especially in regions of particular interest such as critical inner city areas, has become an important aspect...

Description: Ensuring the cloud data security is a major concern for corporate cloud subscribers and in some cases for the private cloud users. Confidentiality of the stored data can be managed by encrypting the data at the client side before outsourcing it to the remote cloud storage server. However, once the data is encrypted, it will limit server’s capability for keyword search since the data is encrypted and server simply cannot make a plaintext keyword search on encrypted data. But again we need the keyword search functionality for efficient retrieval of data. To maintain user’s data confidentiality, the keyword search functionality should be able to perform over encrypted cloud data and additionally it should not leak any information about the searched keyword or the retrieved document. This is known as privacy preserving keyword search. This paper aims to study privacy preserving keyword search over encrypted cloud data. Also, we present our implementation of a privacy preserving data storage and retrieval system in cloud computing. For our implementation, we have chosen one of the symmetric key primitives due to its efficiency in mobile environments. The implemented scheme enables a user to store data securely in the cloud by encrypting it before outsourcing and also provides user capability to search over the encrypted data without revealing any information about the data or the query.

Description: DNSSEC offers protection against spoofing of DNS data by providing origin authentication, ensuring data integrity and authentication of non-existence by using public-key cryptography. Although the relevance of securing a technology as crucial to the Internet as DNS is obvious, the DNSSEC implementation increases the complexity of the deployed DNS infrastructure, which may result in misconfiguration. In this article, we measure and analyze the misconfigurations for domains in six zones (.bg, .br, .co, .com, .nl and .se). Furthermore, we categorize these misconfigurations and provide an explanation for their possible causes. Finally, we evaluate the effects of misconfigurations on the reachability of a zone’s network. Our results show that, although progress has been made in the implementation of DNSSEC, over 4 % of evaluated domains show misconfigurations. The domains with the most frequently appearing misconfiguration are often hosted at a very limited set of hosting providers. Of these misconfigured domains, almost 75 % were unreachable from a DNSSEC-aware resolver. This illustrates that although the authorities of a domain may think their DNS is secured, it is in fact not. Worse still, misconfigured domains are at risk of being unreachable from the clients who care about and implement DNSSEC verification, while the publisher may remain unaware of the error and its consequences.

Description: An ultimate goal of human-centered computing is making human beings the center of computing technologies. To make people a core component of the technology, first of all, we need to understand people and socie...

Description: Enterprises enhance their business on the web with the help of web services. This enhancement is achieved by composing the pre-existing services, so that they will be able to provide solutions for the problems...

Description: Coordinated multi-display environments from the desktop, second-screen to gigapixel display walls are increasingly common. Personal and intimate mobile and wearable devices such as head-mounted displays, smart...

Description: Today, personal data is becoming a new economic asset. Personal data which generated from our smartphone can be used for many purposes such as identification, recommendation system, and etc. The purposes of our research are to discover human behavior based on their smartphone life log data and to build behavior model which can be used for human identification. In this research, we have collected user personal data from 37 students for 2 months which consist of 19 kinds of data sensors. There is still no ideal platform that can collects user personal data continuously and without data loss. The data which collected from user’s smartphone have various situations such as the data came from multiple sensors and multiple source information which sometimes one or more data does not available. We have developed a new approach to building human behavior model which can deal with those situations. Furthermore, we evaluate our approach and present the details in this paper.

Description: This study examined the effectiveness of two example-based instructional procedures. One procedure examines the effect of example-problem pairs when they are simultaneously presented to a participant. The other procedure involved studying an example and then removing it and having the participant solve a similar problem. Participants were assigned randomly to two above procedures. Cognitive load effects and learning outcomes were assessed. The results indicate that in the low prior knowledge group, learners who were simultaneously given examples and problems performed more effectively and efficiently, and reported significantly lower cognitive load than those who learned from example-problem pairs. In the high prior knowledge group, no significant difference was observed between the two procedures. This study provides empirical support for the process of learning from examples and problems simultaneously. It suggests that the effectiveness of certain instructional procedures in example-based learning depends upon the level of a learner’s prior knowledge.

Description: This paper introduces a generic people-centric mobile augmented reality systems (MARS) framework to leverage the application system design and implementation. Proposed 4Any framework could be used as a meta architecture to guide the development of MARS. The main challenge in MARS design is providing a generic framework flexible enough to allow rapid development of applications to be used by different types of people. The paper demonstrates how 4Any framework has been applied in an ongoing project ArcHIVE 4Any using two field studies in Chalon sur Saone, France and Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, Turkey. ArcHIVE 4Any was implemented by using Django framework. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of the framework in terms of flexibility of system architecture and usability in recording landmarks in a number of heritage sites. In 4Any Framework we assume learning has to occur anywhere, anyway, anytime for anybody. The actors in this framework are specified as Instructor, Learner, Device and Programmer. Each actor initiates an action with respective entities Information, Media, Location and Time. What mediates each action is the metadata layer between the entities and people profiles using the same system. Metadata layer provides mapping between the underlying structures and definitions of associated content between the actors and entities. This way, each user sees a different face of the same system. The 4Any system architecture separates the system into four modules: Instruction, Learning, Device and Coding. There are 2 main sides of this framework to support learning anytime, anywhere, anyway by anybody: Pedagogical and Technological. The framework is composed of four layers that correspond to each row: Actors, Profiles, Metadata to be shared, and Scenario. With the rapid development of mobile technologies, new features of mobile devices will become available. The usability test results with ten Instructor profiles suggest that 4Any framework will be able serve as a vehicle for people-centric computing, to be used by anybody, anywhere, anyway, and anytime. Thus, the paper contributes to the knowledge in Human Centric Computing by taking into account multiple users and presenting different faces to each user demonstrating an example of the People Centric Computing paradigm.

Description: Over the last decade, substantial progress has been made in understanding and mitigating phishing attacks. Nonetheless, the percentage of successful attacks is still on the rise. In this article, we critically...

Description: Today, the architectural, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) industry is motivated to employ graduates educated about Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools, techniques, and processes, which he...

Description: With the spread of digitalization of art paintings, research on diverse scientific approaches on painted images has become active. In this paper, the method of classifying painting styles by extracting various...

Description: Since 2008, soaring international oil prices and environmental awareness have pushed bicycle to be a green transport vehicle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a significant global trend. Consequently, Taiwan’s bicycle industry earned the “bicycle kingdom” has entered a new peak period of demand under popular social trends of bicycling for health conscious and a healthy exercise tool; thus, to co-create value with customers to retain the reputation is important for Taiwan’s bicycle industry. In Internet age, plus the prevailing of service-dominant logic, virtual customer environments (VCEs) can be greatly leveraged to promote customers’ active engagement in the value co-creation activities. After an extensive literature review, this study organizes a hybrid expert-based DANP model based on the applications of multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) tools, such as decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL)-based analytical network process (ANP), for investigating the iterative and dynamic nature of customer’s engagement and value co-creation behavior in the key bicycle industry in Taiwan. In the empirical study of analysis, the use and gratification framework of prior studies is validated on concerning the dynamic value co-creation behavior in bicycling VCEs and yields the following empirical results: (1) Tribal behavior drives the pursuit of realized benefits through VCE engagement and affects the related participation and citizenship behaviors in turn; (2) recognize the importance of social influences toward personal commitment and engagement of bicycling activities and related VCEs; and (3) four broad types of interaction-based benefits derived from engagement in VCEs include cognitive, social integrative, personal integrative, and hedonic benefits. The major research findings on theoretical implications and managerial implications provide helpful insights on marketing of Taiwan’s bicycle industry.

Description: An online community is a virtual community where people can express their opinions and their knowledge freely. There are a great deal of information in online communities, however there is no way to determine its authenticity. Thus the knowledge which has been shared in online communities is not reliable. By determining expertise level of users and finding experts in online communities the accuracy of posted comments can be evaluated.In this study, a hybrid method for expert finding in online communities is presented which is based on content analysis and social network analysis. The content analysis is based on concept map and the social network analysis is based on PageRank algorithm. To evaluate the proposed method java online community was selected and then correlation between our results and scores prepared by java online community was calculated. Based on obtained results Spearman correlation for 11 subcategories of java online community using this method is 0.904, which is highly an acceptable value.

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Description: Active contours are used in the image processing application including edge detection, shape modeling, medical image-analysis, detectable object boundaries, etc. Shape is one of the important features for describing an object of interest. Even though it is easy to understand the concept of 2D shape, it is very difficult to represent, define and describe it. In this paper, we propose a new method to implement an active contour model using Daubechies complex wavelet transform combined with B-Spline based on context aware. To show the superiority of the proposed method, we have compared the results with other recent methods such as the method based on simple discrete wavelet transform, Daubechies complex wavelet transform and Daubechies complex wavelet transform combined with B-Spline.

Description: In order to provide a foundation for education on e-discovery and security in Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, this paper identifies emerging issues in the area. Based on a detailed literature review it details key categories: Development in EHR, E-discovery policy and strategy, and Security and privacy in EHR and also discusses e-discovery issues in cloud computing and big data contexts. This may help to create a framework for potential short course-design on e-discovery and security in the healthcare domain.

Description: Background: Wayfinding is an exceedingly complicated cognitive process, especially in complex environments such as hospitals, shopping centers and airports. Inhabitants of such large environments can become lost very easily if they are unfamiliar with the environment. Although they may eventually be able to discover the route to a specific destination, interacting with conventional wayfinding aids, such as consulting a map, understanding signs, and asking people for directions, can be very time-consuming. Methods: The research presented in this paper developed a customized instrument (questionnaire) with factors identified as influencing the cognitive process of wayfinding, and conducted an explorative study to investigate user experience and requirements of wayfinding in complex environments; in this paper, a hospital was chosen as the context. Results: The results demonstrate that current wayfinding aids are insufficient to support a person's natural navigational behaviors in the environment. Augmented Reality (AR), which is an innovative concept of enabling digital information to be superimposed onto a real view in real time and context, has great potential to supplement current wayfinding aids. Therefore, we also conceived, developed and implemented an AR-based wayfinding system based on the user requirements identified by the aforementioned instrument. Conclusion: The AR-based wayfinding system was partially validated through case studies, which concluded that AR significantly reduced the time and cognition workload of human wayfinding behaviors.

Description: Software as a Service (SaaS) in Cloud Computing offers reliable access to software applications for end users over the Internet without direct investment in infrastructure and software. SaaS providers utilize resources of internal datacenters or rent resources from a public Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider in order to serve their customers. Internal hosting can increase cost of administration and maintenance, whereas hiring from an IaaS provider can impact quality of service due to its variable performance. To surmount these challenges, we propose a knowledge-based admission control along with scheduling algorithms for SaaS providers to effectively utilize public Cloud resources in order to maximize profit by minimizing cost and improving customers’ satisfaction level. In the proposed model, the admission control is based on Service Level Agreement (SLA) and uses different strategies to decide upon accepting user requests for that minimal performance impact, avoiding SLA penalties that are giving higher profit. However, because the admission control can make decisions optimally, there is a need of machine learning methods to predict the strategies. In order to model prediction of sequence of strategies, a customized decision tree algorithm has been used. In addition, we conducted several experiments to analyze which solution in which scenario fit better to maximize SaaS provider’s profit. Results obtained through our simulation shows that our proposed algorithm provides significant improvement (up to 38.4 % cost saving) compared to the previous research works.

Description: Online service providers often use challenge questions (a.k.a. knowledge‐based authentication) to facilitate resetting of passwords or to provide an extra layer of security for authentication. While prior schemes explored both static and dynamic challenge questions to improve security, they do not systematically investigate the problem of designing challenge questions and its effect on user recall performance. Interestingly, as answering different styles of questions may require different amount of cognitive effort and evoke different reactions among users, we argue that the style of challenge questions itself can have a significant effect on user recall performance and usability of such systems. To address this void and investigate the effect of question types on user performance, this paper explores location‐based challenge question generation schemes where different types of questions are generated based on users’ locations tracked by smartphones and presented to users. For evaluation, we deployed our location tracking application on users’ smartphones and conducted two real‐life studies using four different kinds of challenge questions. Each study was approximately 30 days long and had 14 and 15 users respectively. Our findings suggest that the question type can have a significant effect on user performance. Finally, as individual users may vary in terms of performance and recall rate, we investigate and present a Bayesian classifier based authentication algorithm that can authenticate legitimate users with high accuracy by leveraging individual response patterns while reducing the success rate of adversaries.

Description: Background: Simulation is a proven technique for effective construction site layout planning and heavy equipment resource optimization. Traditional simulation uses historical data as input for task durations. Data is fed into activity cycle diagrams which many times do not consider any of the rapidly changing spatial constraints that are present on a construction site. Despite the potential of enhancing the quality of simulations that ultimately advance decision making in project management, very little research has been conducted towards more realistic, rapid simulation involving data gathering from live actors and documenting change in the spatial-temporal environment on construction sites. Methods: Cell-based simulation, incorporating spatial changes to the site layout during the project execution and real-time location tracking data from equipment resources, is introduced for more realistic and rapid modeling in simulation. A novel framework based on continuous data collection using Global Positioning System (GPS) and a cell-based simulation model is developed for spatial consideration of earthmoving cycles. The potential of analyzing and visualizing the effects of varying resource combinations on productivity and traffic congestion on site are explored. The selected approach will aid in increasing insight and awareness for decision making in resource management, site layout and internal traffic control planning. Results: The capabilities of the system to handle a complex and more realistic system were demonstrated and the parameters of the cells were tested in a case study of common earthmoving operations. The advantages of using a cell-based system over a traditional simulation model include ease of visualization and simplicity in modeling spatial constraints (e.g., a ramp restricting the traffic flow to one-way). The system of cells provided full control over the flow of resources by using predefined rules or algorithms. The cell-based system also simplified the design process since, except for some certain key cells, other ordinary cells followed the same rules and did not need to be programmed individually. Future research may involve multiple, non-interacting crews competing for resources and study time-space conflicts in more detail. Conclusions: The presented cell-based simulation system has the ability to model and visualize the cyclic activities of earthmoving equipment that occur on a construction site in greater detail than previous simulation methods have done. Using near real-time location data from equipment as input value in the simulation helps construction site project engineers, planners, and managers to improve coordination and monitoring of such construction resources.

Description: Background: Rate models for predicting vehicular emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO X) are insensitive to the vehicle modes of operation, such as cruise, acceleration, deceleration and idle, because these models are usually based on the average trip speed. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using other variables such as vehicle speed, acceleration, load, power and ambient temperature to predict (NO X) emissions to ensure that the emission inventory is accurate and hence the air quality modelling and management plans are designed and implemented appropriately. Methods: We propose to use the non-parametric Boosting-Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (B-MARS) algorithm to improve the accuracy of the Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) modelling to effectively predict NO X emissions of vehicles in accordance with on-board measurements and the chassis dynamometer testing. The B-MARS methodology is then applied to the NO X emission estimation. Results: The model approach provides more reliable results of the estimation and offers better predictions of NO X emissions. Conclusion: The results therefore suggest that the B-MARS methodology is a useful and fairly accurate tool for predicting NO X emissions and it may be adopted by regulatory agencies.

Description: This article is aimed to describe the method of testing the implementation of voice control over operating and technical functions of Smart Home Come. Custom control over operating and technical functions was implemented into a model of Smart Home that was equipped with KNX technology. A sociological survey focused on the needs of seniors has been carried out to justify the implementation of voice control into Smart Home Care. In the real environment of Smart Home Care, there are usually unwanted signals and additive noise that negatively affect the voice communication with the control system. This article describes the addition of a sophisticated system for filtering the additive background noise out of the voice communication with the control system. The additive noise significantly lowers the success of recognizing voice commands to control operating and technical functions of an intelligent building. Within the scope of the proposed application, a complex system based on fuzzy-neuron networks, specifically the ANFIS (Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Interference System) for adaptive suppression of unwanted background noises was created. The functionality of the designed system was evaluated both by subjective and by objective criteria (SSNR, DTW). Experimental results suggest that the studied system has the potential to refine the voice control of technical and operating functions of Smart Home Care even in a very noisy environment.

Description: Visualization of as-built and as-planned data may change the future of construction project management to a more efficient area of knowledge if appropriate and easy photography and reconstruction tools would be developed and used by practitioners.Most of the current reconstructed 3D point cloud models use unordered photograph collections to generate 4D as-built models. Some of these photographs are not used in the final model mostly because of either a possible overlap with other photos or some faults in photography procedure. Computation time increases exponentially as the number of photos in a photo collection increases. Therefore, the unstructured processes may reduce the performance of a point-cloud model representation.This work shows how the available application of unordered photograph collections are regularly inefficient by measuring the performance of some important criteria, such as the registration success score and the computation time.This study provides an easy applicable on-site photography procedure. By adopting the proposed approach and by training the photographers, the model would be more desirable for application in more construction projects. The application of the step-by-step photography procedure (SPP) in a gas compressor station project shows a significant improvement in the final reconstructed 3D point cloud model and as-built data visualization criteria.

Description: Background: Deep excavations in urban areas have the potential to cause unfavorable effects on ground stability and nearby structures. Thus, it is necessary to evaluate and monitor the environmental impact during deep excavation construction processes. Generally, construction project teams will set up monitoring instruments to control and monitor the overall environmental status, especially during the construction of retaining walls, main excavations, and when groundwater is involved. Large volumes of monitoring data and project information are typically created as the construction project progresses, making it increasingly difficult to manage them comprehensively. Methods: To address the abovementioned issues, this project develops a Building Information Model (BIM)-based monitoring system to integrate and visualize monitoring data for risk assessments during urban deep excavation projects. A BIM can be used to establish a comprehensive model of managing a construction project. The system developed herein can access required data from BIM models, and allow complicated numerical data to be displayed effectively in an easily understandable visual format. It is composed of intelligent building components, which includes data attributes and parametric rules for each object. This system can provide a construction project team with a full monitoring view of the ongoing project, along with functions to integrate the information and display it in various ways to present complex engineering monitoring information quickly and clearly. Results: Testing examples of the developed system on the excavation of the O6 station in the Kaohsiung metro system in Taiwan are presented to illustrate the improvements of safety management for adjacent structures in urban deep excavation projects. The risks and issues affecting the safety of excavation activities and proximal structures during a project can be identified earlier through effective visualization of information in the system, enabling construction project teams to address them promptly and appropriately by performing accurate risk assessments and decision making. Conclusions: This system assists construction project teams in identifying and understanding possible blind spots when attempting to achieve risk assessments during urban deep excavation projects, and further enables the adoption of mitigation measures to reduce risk levels.

Description: Background: Aging infrastructure in the US has gained quite a bit of attention in the past decade. Being one type of a critical infrastructure, embankment dams in the US require significant investment to upgrade the deteriorated parts. Due to limited budgets, understanding the behavior of structures over time through risk assessment is essential to prioritize dams. During the risk assessment for embankment dams, engineers utilize current and historical data from the design, construction, and operation phases of these structures. The challenge is that during risk assessment, various engineers from different disciplines (e.g., geotechnical, hydraulics) come together and how they would like to visualize the available data sets changes based on the discipline-specific analyses they need to perform. The objective of this research study is to understand the discipline specific visualization needs of engineers from US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) who are involved in risk assessment of embankment dams when they deal with large set of data accumulated since the inception of dams. Methods: The requirements were identified through a three-phased research approach including interviews with engineers who are regularly involved in risk assessment processes, a card game and review of standards and published work on risk assessment of embankment dams.Results and conclusionsThe findings suggest that the visualization of the dam layout, components and geometry within 3D settings overlaid with sensor data (which could be queried based on engineers? discipline specific needs) and data analytics results provide a better flexibility to engineers to understand the risk associated with potential failure modes.

Description: The power-performance trade-off is one of the major considerations in micro-architecture design. Pipelined architecture has brought a radical change in the design to capitalize on the parallel operation of various functional blocks involved in the instruction execution process, which is widely used in all modern processors. Pipeline introduces the instruction level parallelism (ILP) because of the potential overlap of instructions, and it does have drawbacks in the form of hazards, which is a result of data dependencies and resource conflicts. To overcome these hazards, stalls were introduced, which are basically delayed execution of instructions to diffuse the problematic situation. Out-of-order (OOO) execution is a ramification of the stall approach since it executes the instruction in an order governed by the availability of the input data rather than by their original order in the program. This paper presents a new algorithm called Left-Right (LR) for reducing stalls in pipelined processors. This algorithm is built by combining the traditional in-order and the out-of-order (OOO) instruction execution, resulting in the best of both approaches. As instruction input, we take the Tomasulo’s algorithm for scheduling out-of-order and the in-order instruction execution and we compare the proposed algorithm’s efficiency against both in terms of power-performance gain. Experimental simulations are conducted using Sim-Panalyzer, an instruction level simulator, showing that our proposed algorithm optimizes the power-performance with an effective increase of 30% in terms of energy consumption benefits compared to the Tomasulo’s algorithm and 3% compared to the in-order algorithm.

Description: Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) demand low power and energy efficient hardware and software. Dynamic Power Management (DPM) technique reduces the maximum possible active states of a wireless sensor node by controlling the switching of the low power manageable components in power down or off states. During DPM, it is also required that the deadline of task execution and performance are not compromised. It is seen that operational level change can improve the energy efficiency of a system drastically (up to 90%). Hence, DPM policies have drawn considerable attention. This review paper classifies different dynamic power management techniques and focuses on stochastic modeling scheme which dynamically manage wireless sensor node operations in order to minimize its power consumption. This survey paper is expected to trigger ideas for future research projects in power aware wireless sensor network arenas.

Description: Background: The emerging Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) / Facility Management (FM) industry promotes life cycle process and collaborative way of working. Currently, many efforts have been contributed for professional integrated design / construction / maintenance process, there are very few practical methods that can enable a professional designer to effectively interact and collaborate with end-users/clients on a functional level.MethodThis paper tries to address the issue via the utilisation of computer game software combined with Building Information Modelling (BIM). Game-engine technology is used due to its intuitive controls, immersive 3D technology and network capabilities that allow for multiple simultaneous users. BIM has been specified due to the growing trend in industry for the adoption of the design method and the 3D nature of the models, which suit a game engine?s capabilities. Results: The prototype system created in this paper is based around a designer creating a structure using BIM and this being transferred into the game engine automatically through a two-way data transferring channel. This model is then used in the game engine across a number of network connected client ends to allow end-users to change/add elements to the design, and those changes will be synchronized back to the original design conducted by the professional designer. The system has been tested for its robustness and functionality against the development requirements, and the results showed promising potential to support more collaborative and interactive design process. Conclusion: It was concluded that this process of involving the end-user could be very useful in certain circumstances to better elaborate the end user?s requirement to design team in real time and in an efficient way.

Description: The arising trend of building information modeling technology application with innovative and revolutionary approach has changed the workflow and deliberation in A/E/C industry. By considering the condensed schedule of the project, operation safety, and information correctness during design and construction stages, Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation (THSRC) brings BIM technology into Changhua Station construction project. The accumulated massive information helps engineers to coordinate design information among different expertise (architecture, structure, MEP, etc.) into BIM model at earlier phases. The effectiveness of BIM coordination technology increases the design quality and reduces significantly the conflicts of various interfaces. Three-dimension visualized interface increases the problem solving efficiency. During construction stage, construction information is integrated by the model to enhance fluency of construction process among different construction sectors. Application of BIM coordination technology reduces information gap, enhances construction quality and meets the schedule.

Description: Image fusion is used to enhance the quality of images by combining two images of same scene obtained from different techniques. In medical diagnosis by combining the images obtained by Computed Tomography (CT) scan and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) we get more information and additional data from fused image. This paper presents a hybrid technique using curvelet and wavelet transform used in medical diagnosis. In this technique the image is segmented into bands using wavelet transform, the segmented image is then fused into sub bands using curvelet transform which breaks the bands into overlapping tiles and efficiently converting the curves in images using straight lines. These tiles are integrated together using inverse wavelet transform to produce a highly informative fused image. Wavelet based fusion extracts spatial details from high resolution bands but its limitation lies in the fusion of curved shapes. Therefore for better information and higher resolution on curved shapes we are blending wavelet transform with curvelet transform as we know that curvelet transform deals effectively with curves areas, corners and profiles. These two fusion techniques are extracted and then fused implementing hybrid image fusion algorithm, findings shows that fused image has minimum errors and present better quality results. The peak signal to noise ratio value for the hybrid method was higher in comparison to that of wavelet and curvelet transform fused images. Also we get improved statistics results in terms of Entropy, Peak signal to noise ratio, correlation coefficient, mutual information and edge association. This shows that the quality of fused image was better in case of hybrid method.

Description: The purpose of this study was to demonstrate how to manage digital customer relationships (i.e. relationships with the brand, the product, the company, and other fans) on social media based community (i.e. Facebook brand fan-pages) and to influence post-purchase intentions (i.e. word-of-mouth and re-purchase intentions). This study used partial least squares to test the hypotheses and analyze the data. The results of this study indicated that all these four customer-community relationships can enhance post-purchase behaviors by improving individual community participation or identification. The findings are of benefit to both academics and practitioners and this research is one of the first to demonstrate how to manage digital customer relationships on social media brand community.

Description: A high-precision full quaternion based finite-time three-axis cascade attitude control strategy is considered in the present research with respect to state-of-the-art to deal with a class of overactuated space systems. The main idea behind the subject is to design a new quaternion based proportional derivative approach, which is realized along with the linear quadratic regulator method. In a word, the control technique proposed here is organized based upon an inner closed loop control to handle the angular rates in the three axes and the corresponding outer closed loop to handle the rotational angles in the same three axes, as well. It aims us to cope with the present complex and complicated systems, in the productive and constructive manner, in a number of programmed space missions such as orbital, communicational, thermal and so on maneuvers. It can be shown that the proposed cascade control strategy is organized in association with a set of pulse-width pulse-frequency modulators to drive a number of on–off reaction thrusters. It should be noted that these ones could significantly be increased w. r. t. the investigated control efforts, in order to provide overall accurate performance of the present space systems. There is currently a control allocation realization to complete the process of the approach presentation and organization. At last, the investigated results are presented in comparison with some potential benchmarks to guarantee and verify the approach performance.

Description: Power management is a major concern for computer architects and system designers. As reported by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), energy consumption has become one of the most dominant issues for the semiconductor industry when the size of transistors scales down from 22 to 11 nm nodes. In this regard, current existing techniques such as dynamic voltage scaling, clock gating, and the Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor technology have shown their physical limits; therefore, scaling will no longer be a valid strategy for achieving power-performance improvement. To overcome this critical issue in energy-efficient processor design, there is a clear demand for alternative solution. In this paper, an approach that provides a promising solution for energy reduction is proposed, by using a micro-architectural technique referred to as variable stage pipelining, which can be further validated and extended to different application domains such as mobile and desktop. An analytical model for evaluating the relationship between the number of cores and the pipeline stage depth in a chip multi-processor is also proposed, based on which the optimal pipeline depth for various metrics are calculated.

Description: Spatial data warehouses store a large amount of historized and aggregated data. They are usually exploited by Spatial OLAP (SOLAP) systems to extract relevant information. Extracting such information may be complex and difficult. The user might ignore what part of the warehouse contains the relevant information and what the next query should be. On the other hand, recommendation systems aim to help users to retrieve relevant information according to their preferences and analytical objectives. Hence, developing a SOLAP recommendation system would enhance spatial data warehouses exploitation. This paper proposes a SOLAP recommendation approach that aims to help users better exploit spatial data warehouses and retrieve relevant information by recommending personalized spatial MDX (Multidimensional Expressions) queries. The approach detects implicitly the preferences and needs of SOLAP users using a spatio-semantic similarity measure. The approach is described theoretically and validated by experiments.

Description: Software update messages are commonly used to inform users about software updates, recent bug fixes, and various system vulnerabilities, and to suggest recommended actions (e.g., updating software). While various design features (e.g., update options, message layout, update message presentation) of these messages can influence the actions taken by users, no prior study can be found that investigated users opinions regarding various design alternatives. To address this void, this paper focuses on identifying software update message design features (e.g., layout, color, content) that may affect users positively or negatively. Toward that, we conducted a user study where users are shown 13 software update messages along with 1 virus warning message. We collect responses from 155 users through an online survey. Participants gave a total of 809 positive comments and 866 negative comments along with ranking of each image in terms of perceived importance, noticeability, annoyance and confusion. As many of the comments are repetitive and often contain multiple themes, we manually analyzed and performed a bottom-up, inductive coding to identify and refine the underlying themes. Over multiple iterations, positive comments were grouped into 52 categories which were subsequently grouped under four themes. Similarly, negative comments were first grouped into 38 categories which were subsequently grouped under four themes. Based on our analysis, we present the list of design features that are found to be highly correlated to confusion, annoyance, noticeability, and importance, either positively or negatively.

Description: Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have many potential applications, such as delivery, leisure, and surveillance. To enable these applications, making the UAVs fly autonomously is the key issue, and requires defining UAV motor primitives. Diverse attempts have been made to automatically generate motor primitives for UAVs and robots. However, given that UAVs usually do not fly as expected because of external environmental factors, a novel approach for UAVs needs to be designed. This paper proposes a demonstration-based method that generates a graph-based motor primitive. In the experiment, an AR.Drone 2.0 was utilized. By controlling the AR.Drone 2.0, four motor primitives are generated and combined as a graph-based motor primitive. The generated motor primitives can be performed by a planner or a learner, such as a hierarchical task network or Q-learning. By defining the executable conditions of the motor primitives based on measured properties, the movements of the graph-based motor primitive can be chosen depending on changes in the indoor environment.

Description: Background: Finding the current location of a specific utility or oneself in an unfamiliar facility can be difficult and time consuming. The hypothesis tested in this paper is that using the information contained within Building Information Models (BIM) can increase the accuracy of indoor positioning algorithms using context-aware sensing technology. The presented work demonstrates how the integration of passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking technology and Building Information Modeling (BIM) can assist indoor localization for potential applications in facilities management for proactive preventative maintenance. Methods: This paper includes (1) developing a framework that utilizes the integration of commercially-available RFID and a building information model; (2) evaluating the framework for real-time resource location tracking within an indoor environment; and (3) developing an algorithm for real-time localization and visualization in a BIM. A prototype application has been developed that simultaneously connects the RFID readers on a maintenance cart, an asset maintenance database and a BIM model. Three multilateralization approaches were compared in the system to use in the algorithm. Testing was conducted in a facility with a corridor that loops around in a rectangle. Results: The goal is to have a system accuracy within 3 m. Results show that fusing BIM with multilateralization techniques for RFID technology can decrease the number of false reads by 64 % versus standalone multilateralization equations. The greatest system accuracy achieved was 1.66 m. Conclusions: Significantly, the results validate the hypothesis that BIM can increase indoor localization accuracy, and show the usefulness of using BIM for indoor localization in addition to real-time visualization.

Description: The performance of operational teams in the security domain relies on quick and adequate exchange of context-related information. Currently, this information exchange is mainly based on oral communication. Thi...

Description: Attackers increasingly take advantage of naive users who tend to treat non-executable files casually, as if they are benign. Such users often open non-executable files although they can conceal and perform mal...

Description: Many people who discuss sensitive or private issues on social media services are using pseudonyms or aliases in order to not reveal their true identity, while using their usual, non-private accounts when posti...

Description: DNSSEC offers protection against spoofing of DNS data by providing origin authentication, ensuring data integrity and authentication of non-existence by using public-key cryptography. Although the relevance of...

Description: Digital games have the potential for changing attitudes towards social issues such as climate change and sustainability. This paper presents the experience of developing a prototype locative game with an augme...

Description: Social media channels, such as Facebook or Twitter, allow for people to express their views and opinions about any public topics. Public sentiment related to future events, such as demonstrations or parades, i...

Description: Facility management (FM) is an important phase in the building lifecycle. Although building information modeling (BIM) technology has been widely used in the design and construction phase, efforts to transfer ...

Description: Software update messages are commonly used to inform users about software updates, recent bug fixes, and various system vulnerabilities, and to suggest recommended actions (e.g., updating software). While vari...

Description: Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have many potential applications, such as delivery, leisure, and surveillance. To enable these applications, making the UAVs fly autonomously is the key issue, and requires defi...

Description: This paper introduces a generic people-centric mobile augmented reality systems (MARS) framework to leverage the application system design and implementation. Proposed 4Any framework could be used as a meta ar...

Description: Nowadays wind energy is becoming increasingly significant in the planning, development and growth of new electricity supply systems. Special attention has been given to land-based turbines for ensuring the eff...

Description: Over the past few years, the application of camera-equipped Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for visually monitoring construction and operation of buildings, bridges, and other types of civil infrastructure sys...

Description: Presenting significant building or engineering 3D-models is a crucial part of the planning, construction and maintenance phases in terms of collaboration and understanding. Especially in complex or large-scale...

Description: Finding the current location of a specific utility or oneself in an unfamiliar facility can be difficult and time consuming. The hypothesis tested in this paper is that using the information contained within B...

Description: This paper demonstrates that contemporary smartphones act as effective message filtering systems in high traffic environments such as emergency response organisations, without relying on central servers. We ha...

Description: This article presents results from a pilot study addressed to investigate the design of behavior change intervention using smartphones for cycle commuting. In this specific case, a smartphone app, BikeTogether...

Description: Spatial index and query are enabling techniques for achieving the vision of the Internet of Things. K-NN is an algorithm which is used widely in spatial database. Traditional query algorithms use R-tree as the...

Description: Recently, traffic jams and accidents increase due to increase of traffic volume. Thus, intelligent transport system (ITS) is developed to provide efficient road situation and information is actively studying....

Description: This paper attempts to establish a correlation between the human speech, emotions and human heart rate. The study highlights a possible contactless human heart rate measurement technique useful for monitoring ...

Description: One school of thought argues that the Traditional Chinese Private Garden's (TCPG) primary spatial property is that it features both freestanding buildings in space, and spaces freely positions in the landscape...

Description: Pervasive computing has the potential to offer low-cost, high performance, and user centric solutions to exchange the information and communicate seamlessly in highly dynamic, heterogeneous environment. Here small and influential dissimilar devices or nodes have to set up independent network unknown by the user. Communicating devices are resource-restricted and equipped with micro or bio-sensors to acknowledge the signals where traditional security systems based on cryptography and encryption are not enough for promising level of security assurance. In this paper we explore trust and security challenges and appraise the opportunities in autonomous mobile pervasive ad-hoc networks to improve security. Trust management models in human-centric applications can enhance the security assurance. Many researchers proposed various trust models for different scenarios. Inspiring from such models we propose a trust computation metric based on node’s impulsive behavior to become malicious node in dynamic scenario and breach the security. In winding up, we put our efforts to present energy efficient, secure and trusted clustering to enhance the security assurance and significant adaptation of trustworthy communication in user-centric m-healthcare applications where information is ubiquitous.

Description: Recently, traffic jams and accidents increase due to increase of traffic volume. Thus, intelligent transport system (ITS) is developed to provide efficient road situation and information is actively studying. However, it is mainly focused on traffic jam and management of traffic situation that a systematic management is not provided when an accident occurs. An action to prevent an accident providing the reliable information and a systematic management after accident is needed. In this paper we propose a service based intelligent transportation system framework (s-ITSF) to provide efficient and systematic accident management. The s-ITSF provides an efficient ITS service such as before/after accident management using the accident prevention and management and traffic information data through provision of highly reliable information through encryption and authentication based on vehicular cloud computing (VCC) environment. In addition, it provides systematic accident management which may reduce loss of lives and properties from the traffic accident by quick settlement.

Description: Social media channels, such as Facebook or Twitter, allow for people to express their views and opinions about any public topics. Public sentiment related to future events, such as demonstrations or parades, indicate public attitude and therefore may be applied while trying to estimate the level of disruption and disorder during such events. Consequently, sentiment analysis of social media content may be of interest for different organisations, especially in security and law enforcement sectors. This paper presents a new lexicon-based sentiment analysis algorithm that has been designed with the main focus on real time Twitter content analysis. The algorithm consists of two key components, namely sentiment normalisation and evidence-based combination function, which have been used in order to estimate the intensity of the sentiment rather than positive/negative label and to support the mixed sentiment classification process. Finally, we illustrate a case study examining the relation between negative sentiment of twitter posts related to English Defence League and the level of disorder during the organisation’s related events.

Description: The performance of operational teams in the security domain relies on quick and adequate exchange of context-related information. Currently, this information exchange is mainly based on oral communication. This paper reports on different scenarios from the security domain in which augmented reality (AR) techniques are used to support such information exchange. The scenarios have been elicited using an end-user centred design approach. To support these scenarios, an AR environment has been developed and the usability of the AR support has been evaluated with experts from different operational units in the security domain. The first evaluation shows that the scenarios are well defined and the AR environment can successfully support information exchange in teams operating in the security domain.

Description: Background: The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry lacks a framework for capturing, managing, and exchanging project, product, and social information over the lifecycle of a building. The current tools have various limitations, such as lack of interoperability, slow to transfer huge building model files, and possibility of data inconsistency. Methods: In this paper, we present a cloud-based BIM server framework namely Social BIMCloud that facilitates BIM information exchange through dynamic merging and splitting of building models. The data model of Social BIMCloud is based on but not limited to IFC. The data model of Social BIMCloud was further extended to accommodate social interactions, by studying the formal modes of communication in the AEC industry. An object-based approach to capture and manage social interactions in AEC projects through a BIM-based visual user interface was also developed and demonstrated. Results: Social BIMCloud addresses the issues of inefficient data transfer speed and data inconsistency in a distributed environment by facilitating the storage and partial exchange of integrated nD BIM models. Data interoperability is facilitated through open BIM standards such as IFC and direct integration with construction software. High performance, scalability, fault tolerance, and cost effectiveness are facilitated through data partitioning, data replication strategies, multi-node structures, and pay-per-use tariff systems, respectively, through a cloud-based NoSQL database. Conclusion: The Social BIMCloud framework helps to develop and exchange BIM models, which are rich in project information such as social interactions, cost, and energy analyses. This framework improves the communication efficiency between project participants, leading to better designs and less rework. The information captured by this framework could also be useful to determine important metrics such as industry trends, relationships among project participants, and user requirements.

Description: Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE) is suitable for data access control on a cloud storage system. In CP-ABE, the data owner encrypts data under the access structure over attributes and a set of attributes assigned to users is embedded in user’s secret key. A user is able to decrypt if his attributes satisfy the ciphertext’s access structure. In CP-ABE, processes of user’s attribute revocation and grant are concentrated on the authority and the data owner. In this paper, we propose a ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption scheme delegating attribute revocation processes to Cloud Server by proxy re-encryption. The proposed scheme does not require generations of new secret key when granting attributes to a user and supports any Linear Secret Sharing Schemes (LSSS) access structure. We prove that the proposed scheme is secure against attack by unauthorized users and Cloud Server.

Description: Background: A reasonable management and monitoring of construction projects requires accurate construction schedules. Accuracy depends highly on availability of reliable actual logistics data. Such data contain information about available material, equipment, personnel, updated delivery dates, and other data on site conditions. However, such data is often associated with different types of uncertainties due to infrequent collections, varying transport times, or manual assessments. Nonetheless, consideration of these uncertainties is important for evaluating actual data regarding their impact on the overall construction progress. Currently, the integration of such data into construction schedules is a time-consuming, manual and, thus, error-prone process. Therefore, in practice schedules are not updated as often as they should be. Methods: To ease the handling of actual data and their integration into construction schedules, a reactive construction scheduling approach is presented. The approach is structured into four successive steps. To evaluate and systematically analyze uncertain actual data, fuzzy set theory and α-cut method are incorporated. Thus, actual data can be integrated into discrete-event simulation models. These models are used to perform simulation-based sensitivity analyzes, which evaluate impacts on construction schedules. As a result, an actual schedule is generated, such that a target-actual schedule comparison can be performed. If significant deviations or problems are identified, adaption is necessary and a new schedule needs to be generated. Thereby, different restrictions on the target schedule, such as contracted delivery dates, milestones or resource allocation must be considered. To perform this required adaption simulation-based optimization is utilized. Results: To validate the method and show its advantages, an initial construction schedule example is created. The example is extended to incorporate uncertain actual logistics data. The proposed method shows how efficient actual data can be analyzed to update construction schedules. Further, the results show a competitive adaption of invalid construction schedules, such that contracted milestones, or other project objectives can be achieved. Conclusion: The presented reactive construction scheduling method has the ability to improve current treatment of uncertain actual logistics data. This helps construction project managers to improve the management and monitoring of construction projects by reducing the time-consuming, error-prone process of updating inconsistent schedules.

Description: In recent, numerous useful visual analytics tools have been designed to help domain experts solve analytical problems. However, most of the tools do not reflect the nature of solving real-world analytical tasks collaboratively because they have been designed for single users in desktop environments. In this paper, a complete visual analytics system is designed for solving real-world tasks having two integrated components: a single-user desktop system and an extended system suitable for a collaborative environment. Specifically, we designed a collaborative touch-table application (iPCA-CE) by adopting an existing single-user desktop analytical tool (iPCA). With the system, users can actively transit from individual desktop to shared collaborative environments without losing track of their analysis. They can also switch their analytical processes from collaborative to single-user workflows. To understand the usefulness of the system for solving analytical problems, we conducted a user study in both desktop and collaborative environments. From this study, we found that both applications are useful for solving analytical problems individually and collaboratively in different environments.

Description: “BAU GIS” is an efficient and flexible Geographic Information System (GIS) that supports manipulation, analysis, and viewing of geospatial data and associated attribute data in various GIS data formats. “BAU GIS” system is a stand-alone application, developed using (Map Window Open Source GIS) and (visual basic 10.0). It has been designed and developed to address the need for a GIS programming tool that could be used in engineering research and project software, without requiring end users to purchase a complete GIS system, or become a GIS experts. It is both a GIS modeling system, and a GIS application programming interface (API); all in a convenient redistributable package. The BAU GIS application is free and extensible GIS that can be used as an open-source alternative to desktop GIS, in order to distribute data to others and to develop and distribute custom spatial data analysis tools.

Description: Marine radar simulator is a useful approach endorsed by International Maritime Organization (IMO) to train the seafarers on how to operate marine radar equipment and use marine radar equipment for positioning ...

Description: Duplicate and false identity records are quite common in identity management systems due to unintentional errors or intentional deceptions. Identity resolution is to uncover identity records that are co-referent to the same real-world individual. In this paper we introduce a framework of identity resolution that covers different identity attributes and matching algorithms. Guided by social identity theories, we define three types of identity cues, namely personal identity attributes, social behavior attributes, and social relationship attributes. We also compare three matching algorithms: pair-wise comparison, transitive closure, and collective clustering. Our experiments using synthetic and real-world data demonstrate the importance of social behavior and relationship attributes for identity resolution. In particular, a collective identity resolution technique, which captures all three types of identity attributes and makes matching decisions on identities collectively, is shown to achieve the best performance among all approaches.

Description: The research presented, investigates the optimal set of operational codes (opcodes) that create a robust indicator of malicious software (malware) and also determines a program’s execution duration for accurat...

Description: Falling, and the fear of falling, is a serious health problem among the elderly. It often results in physical and mental injuries that have the potential to severely reduce their mobility, independence and ove...

Description: According to current researches, much of the electric power is being consumed by the server cooling system at the Data Center. Moreover, the power consumption rate increases when the number of the equipments a...

Description: Cooperative communication systems use cooperative relays for transmitting their data packets to the destination. Cooperative communication schemes having all relays participating in transmission may cause unne...

Description: Every mobile phone emits radio frequency electromagnetic energy. The amount of this energy absorbed by the human head is measured by the specific absorption rate (SAR). There are standard limits, according to ...

Description: Crowdsourcing has become a popular method for involving humans in socially-aware computational processes. This paper proposes and investigates algorithms for finding regions of interest using mobile crowdsourc...

Description: Walking and typing on a smartphone is an extremely common interaction. Previous research has shown that error rates are higher when walking than when stationary. In this paper we analyse the acceleration data ...

Description: A retraction article was published for this article. It is available from the following link; http://​www.​comcjournal.​com/​content/​1/​1/​4.

Description: In this short text the authors claim that the challenges posed by Internet of Things cannot be managed with the current policy tools and research programs, as these are too slow and too instrumental. These cha...

Description: This paper presents a one-page visual tool for adaptively planning and managing potentially disruptive business models such as in RFID-Startups. The visual tool is called “The Disruptor’s Arrow of Time.” The m...