Semantics for incident identification and resolution reports

In order to achieve a safe and systematic treatment of security protocols, organizations release a number of technical briefings describing how to detect and manage security incidents. A critical issue is that this document set may suffer from semantic deficiencies, mainly due to ambiguity or different granularity levels of description and analysis. An approach to face this problem is the use of semantic methodologies in order to provide better Knowledge Externalization from incident protocols management. In this article, we propose a method based on semantic techniques for both, analyzing and specifying (meta)security requirements on protocols used for solving security incidents. This would allow specialist getting better documentation on their intangible knowledge about them.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-41086-

Innovation’s governance and investments for enhancing competitiveness of manufacturing SMEs

To become innovative and competitive manufacturing contractors, SMEs have to be capable to supply manufacturers with advanced equipment, components, and tools for improved manufacturing and engineering operations. Besides, despite their foremost numbers and importance in job creation, traditionally SMEs encounter difficulty in obtaining formal credit or equity. Maturities of commercial bank loans extended to SMEs are often limited to a period far too short to pay off any sizeable investment. Many European governments and international financial institutions have tried to address the problems of high transaction costs and risks by creating subsidized credit programmes and/or providing loan guarantees. Such projects have often fostered a culture of non-repayment or failed to reach the target group or achieve financial self-sustainability. Further, it tries to understand what are the main barriers for SMEs with respect to the realisation of their innovative potential and their capacity to improve internal processes by the adoption of innovative manufacturing techniques and a graduated organizational change. They are becoming particularly important for achieving greater productivity, lower operational costs, and higher revenues (usually characterized by reduced access to external finance, unavailability of wider distribution channels, low internationalization, etc.). The purpose of this article at last is to clarify how on-line training on automation and innovation fields can bring economic and organizational benefits. Innovative training contents can improve manufacturing knowledge of managers and employees, especially on industrial automation systems.To become innovative and competitive manufacturing contractors, SMEs have to be capable to supply manufacturers with advanced equipment, components, and tools for improved manufacturing and engineering operations. Besides, despite their foremost numbers and importance in job creation, traditionally SMEs encounter difficulty in obtaining formal credit or equity. Maturities of commercial bank loans extended to SMEs are often limited to a period far too short to pay off any sizeable investment. Many European governments and international financial institutions have tried to address the problems of high transaction costs and risks by creating subsidized credit programmes and/or providing loan guarantees. Such projects have often fostered a culture of non-repayment or failed to reach the target group or achieve financial self-sustainability. Further, it tries to understand what are the main barriers for SMEs with respect to the realisation of their innovative potential and their capacity to improve internal processes by the adoption of innovative manufacturing techniques and a graduated organizational change. They are becoming particularly important for achieving greater productivity, lower operational costs, and higher revenues (usually characterized by reduced access to external finance, unavailability of wider distribution channels, low internationalization, etc.). The purpose of this article at last is to clarify how on-line training on automation and innovation fields can bring economic and organizational benefits. Innovative training contents can improve manufacturing knowledge of managers and employees, especially on industrial automation systems.Articles published in or submitted to a Journal without IF refereed / of international relevanc

Tracing the Scenarios in Scenario-Based Product Design: a study to support scenario generation

Scenario-based design originates from the human-computer interaction and\ud software engineering disciplines, and continues to be adapted for product development. Product development differs from software development in the former’s more varied context of use, broader characteristics of users and more tangible solutions. The possible use of scenarios in product design is therefore broader and more challenging. Existing design methods that involve scenarios can be employed in many different stages of the product design process. However, there is no proficient overview that discusses a\ud scenario-based product design process in its full extent. The purposes of creating scenarios and the evolution of scenarios from their original design data are often not obvious, although the results from using scenarios are clearly visible. Therefore, this paper proposes to classify possible scenario uses with their purpose, characteristics and supporting design methods. The classification makes explicit different types of scenarios and their relation to one another. Furthermore, novel scenario uses can be referred or added to the classification to develop it in parallel with the scenario-based design\ud practice. Eventually, a scenario-based product design process could take inspiration for creating scenarios from the classification because it provides detailed characteristics of the scenario

Formalization of security patterns as a means to infer security controls in business processes

The growing trend towards the automation and externalization of business processes by means of Technology Infrastructure (TI), such as Business Process Management Systems, has increased the security risks in the organizations. In the majority of cases, the issue of security is overlooked by default in these systems. Therefore, the early selection and implementation of security controls that mitigate risks is a real and crucial need. Nevertheless, there exists an enormous range of IT security controls and their configuration is a human, manual, time-consuming and error-prone task. In addition, security controls are implemented out separately from the organization perspective and involve many stakeholders. This separation makes difficult to ensure the effectiveness of these controls with regard to organizational requirements. In this article, we propose a formalization of security controls based on security pattern templates and feature models. This formalization allows applying feature domain-oriented analysis and constraint programming techniques for the automatic inference, selection and generation of optimal security controls with regard to single and multiple business objectivesJunta de Andalucía P08-TIC-04095Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2009-1371

Improving Introductory Computer Science Education with DRaCO

Today, many introductory computer science courses rely heavily on a specific programming language to convey fundamental programming concepts. For beginning students, the cognitive capacity required to operate with the syntactic forms of this language may overwhelm their ability to formulate a solution to a program. We recognize that the introductory computer science courses can be more effective if they convey fundamental concepts without requiring the students to focus on the syntax of a programming language. To achieve this, we propose a new teaching method based on the Design Recipe and Code Outlining (DRaCO) processes. Our new pedagogy capitalizes on the algorithmic intuitions of novice students and provides a tool for students to externalize their intuitions using techniques they are already familiar with, rather than with the syntax of a specific programming language. We validate the effectiveness of our new pedagogy by integrating it into an existing CS1 course at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. We find that the our newly proposed pedagogy shows strong potential to improve students’ ability to program

The Development of a User Self-Help Knowledge Management System for Help Desk: Deployment of Knowledge Management Approach and Software Agent Technology

Most help desks have admitted their call volume has increased in the past decade while “help unavailable when needed” is the major reason for service delivery failure and user dissatisfaction. The habit of calling help desk for simple problems has prompted the investigation of transferring part of first-level troubleshooting duty from help desk to user. This research proposes the development of user self-help knowledge management system that allows user to solve simple and routine technical enquiries. The proposed approach incorporates software agent to allow autonomous handling of enquiries so that the most appropriate solution and user communication can be facilitated

Knowledge Management in Information Technology Help Desk:Past, Present and Future

Information technology has changed the way organizations function. This resulted in the reliance of help desks to deal with information technology related areas such as hardware, software, and telecommunication. Besides, the adoption of business process reengineering and downsizing have led to the shrinkage of the size of help desk. The shorter information technology product life cycle has worsened the situation by increasing the already sizeable help desk’s user base. Consequently, the help desk has to cover more information technology products and resolute more technical enquiries with less staff. Thus, the outcome is clear that users have to wait comparably longer before help desk staff is available to offer assistance. This paper describes the contribution of knowledge management in retaining knowledge and solving “knowledge leaking” problem. The research presents the development of user selfhelp knowledge management system to re-distribute incoming enquiries so that simple and routine technical enquiries can be resolved without help desk intervention

Exploratory Study of Anger and Behavior in an Incarcerated Offender Population Utilizing the Mahan and DiTomasso Anger Scale

The present study proposed to advance the treatment and assessment of anger disorders by exploring the properties of the Mahan and DiTomasso Anger Scale (MAD-AS). Previous research of the reliability, validity, and factor structure of the MAD-AS was conducted with inpatient (Mahan, 2001) and outpatient participants (Beardmore, 2003) . In the present study a psychometric investigation was undertaken utilizing 300 male incarcerated offenders. The MAD-AS correlated positively with the presence of antisocial and borderline personality disorders and with violent offenses. Those inmates with a history of violent offenses scored significantly higher than those convicted of nonviolent offenses on the MAD-AS. The MAD-AS possessed sound psychometric properties in terms of reliability and validity. Results indicated the MAD-AS reflects the multidimensional quality of anger including its cognitive, physiological, and behavioral components. In clinical forensic work the MAD-AS may assist in identifying dynamic criminogenic needs, selecting interventions to address those needs, monitoring treatment outcomes, and assessing risk factors for recidivism

Software knowledge management using wikis : a plugin for weakly typed pages

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201