Locality-Sensitive Hashing with Margin Based Feature Selection

We propose a learning method with feature selection for Locality-Sensitive Hashing. Locality-Sensitive Hashing converts feature vectors into bit arrays. These bit arrays can be used to perform similarity searches and personal authentication. The proposed method uses bit arrays longer than those used in the end for similarity and other searches and by learning selects the bits that will be used. We demonstrated this method can effectively perform optimization for cases such as fingerprint images with a large number of labels and extremely few data that share the same labels, as well as verifying that it is also effective for natural images, handwritten digits, and speech features.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 3 table

Project characteristics for design and build procurement in Malaysian construction industry

Design & Build procurement approach is one of the procurement methods which is known to be widely gaining popularity in order to serve the modern day construction clients desire of having a constructed facility. To effectively service the market-driven expansion of this project delivery strategy in the construction community, a fundamental understanding of the characteristics of the Design & Build procurement approach is necessary. This study is aimed at appraising the Design & Build procurement approach in the Malaysian construction industry based on current practice through identifying the characteristics of the procurement approach. For this purpose, a detailed literature review of the Design & Build characteristics was conducted and data was collected from a two round Delphi questionnaire survey conducted with experienced professionals that have vast experience in the Design & Build procurement practice. The relative importance of these characteristics were quantified by the relative importance index method demonstrating their level of priority. The key findings in the study showed that the practice of the procurement approach in Malaysia is most importantly characterized by the fact that it is most suitable for projects that are complex in nature, while ‘effective client representation’ is the least important characteristic of the Design & Build procurement approach with regard to the Malaysian construction industry. It is expected that with the consideration of these characteristics of the D&B procurement approach, it will consequently result in the overall improvement in the performance of the Malaysian construction industry in relation to project delivery

Building trustworthy e-Commerce wesite

The process of building consumer trust in E-Commerce is based on the presence of trust features or trust attributes in the websites. Consumer may examine e-Commerce websites for the existence of trust attributes. However, to date, which trust attributes contribute to the website’s trustworthiness and which trust attributes give more value to consumer has not been adequately explored. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to look for the relevant trust attributes for e-Commerce websites and to identify the importance ranking of trust attributes that contribute significantly to the trustworthiness of e-Commerce website. Various journal papers and articles related to e-Commerce field have been referred in order to identify the trust attributes. An online survey that received 1230 respondents was carried out to investigate the importance ranking of ten trust attributes. The paper contributes to the discussion on how to build trust in e-Commerc

Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

Considerations Regarding the Security and Protection of E-Banking Services Consumers’ Interests

A significant number of breaches in the security of electronic banking (e-Banking) system is reported each year, drawing attention to the need to protect and inform customers about the risk of exposure to malicious actions initiated by cyber-criminals. Financial institutions and consumers recognize the fact that attacks and financial frauds are becoming more complex and are perpetrated by a different class of criminal. This class is increasingly sophisticated and uses technology as part of their strategy. Furthermore, the specialists forecast that the current global recession is likely to increase the frequency of internal fraud and security breaches. The present research tries: (1) to analyze the potential dangers threatening the security of e- Banking services through a comprehensive investigation of the relevant literature; (2) to identify the tools and methods that can ensure the consumers’ protection in E-Banking, (3) to present the results of a pilot study regarding the Romanian consumer perception on the protection and security related to E-Banking servicesE-Banking services, security, consumer protection, cyber-attack