21,575 research outputs found
ePortfolios: models and implementation
This paper explores the use of ePortfolio tools to support teaching, learning and the personal and professional development of postgraduate students at the Institute of
Education, University of London (IOE). The needs of tutors and students are considered alongside the affordances and limitations of specific tools in relation to these
needs. The study involved five areas of postgraduate study at the IOE, one at PhD level, two at Masters level (MA in ICT in Education and MTeach) and two PGCE courses
(PGCE in ICT and Post-Compulsory PGCE). Preliminary discussions with IOE staff revealed five common themes relating to the perceived purpose of an ePortfolio:
model, ownership, collaboration, accessibility and support. The first theme relates to the definition of the ePortfolio, whilst the remaining themes address questions
relating to ownership, control, use and user needs/development. In this paper, each of the themes and the questions raised within those areas are addressed in
detail and a cross-comparative table of responses across each of five teaching scenarios is provided with levels of importance measured on a scale of 1 (low) to
4 (high)
Structure motivator: a tool for exploring small three-dimensional elements in proteins
<br>Background:
Protein structures incorporate characteristic three-dimensional elements defined by some or all of hydrogen bonding, dihedral angles and amino acid sequence. The software application, Structure Motivator, allows interactive exploration and analysis of such elements, and their resolution into sub-classes.</br>
<br>Results:
Structure Motivator is a standalone application with an embedded relational database of proteins that, as a starting point, can furnish the user with a palette of unclassified small peptides or a choice of pre-classified structural motifs. Alternatively the application accepts files of data generated externally. After loading, the structural elements are displayed as two-dimensional plots of dihedral angles (φ/ψ, φ/χ1 or in combination) for each residue, with visualization options to allow the conformation or amino acid composition at one residue to be viewed in the context of that at other residues. Interactive selections may then be made and structural subsets saved to file for further sub-classification or external analysis. The application has been applied both to classical motifs, such as the β-turn, and ‘non-motif’ structural elements, such as specific segments of helices.</br>
<br>Conclusions:
Structure Motivator allows structural biologists, whether or not they possess computational skills, to subject small structural elements in proteins to rapid interactive analysis that would otherwise require complex programming or database queries. Within a broad group of structural motifs, it facilitates the identification and separation of sub-classes with distinct stereochemical properties.</br>
Web Tracking: Mechanisms, Implications, and Defenses
This articles surveys the existing literature on the methods currently used
by web services to track the user online as well as their purposes,
implications, and possible user's defenses. A significant majority of reviewed
articles and web resources are from years 2012-2014. Privacy seems to be the
Achilles' heel of today's web. Web services make continuous efforts to obtain
as much information as they can about the things we search, the sites we visit,
the people with who we contact, and the products we buy. Tracking is usually
performed for commercial purposes. We present 5 main groups of methods used for
user tracking, which are based on sessions, client storage, client cache,
fingerprinting, or yet other approaches. A special focus is placed on
mechanisms that use web caches, operational caches, and fingerprinting, as they
are usually very rich in terms of using various creative methodologies. We also
show how the users can be identified on the web and associated with their real
names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, or even street addresses. We show why
tracking is being used and its possible implications for the users (price
discrimination, assessing financial credibility, determining insurance
coverage, government surveillance, and identity theft). For each of the
tracking methods, we present possible defenses. Apart from describing the
methods and tools used for keeping the personal data away from being tracked,
we also present several tools that were used for research purposes - their main
goal is to discover how and by which entity the users are being tracked on
their desktop computers or smartphones, provide this information to the users,
and visualize it in an accessible and easy to follow way. Finally, we present
the currently proposed future approaches to track the user and show that they
can potentially pose significant threats to the users' privacy.Comment: 29 pages, 212 reference
SurveyMan: Programming and Automatically Debugging Surveys
Surveys can be viewed as programs, complete with logic, control flow, and
bugs. Word choice or the order in which questions are asked can unintentionally
bias responses. Vague, confusing, or intrusive questions can cause respondents
to abandon a survey. Surveys can also have runtime errors: inattentive
respondents can taint results. This effect is especially problematic when
deploying surveys in uncontrolled settings, such as on the web or via
crowdsourcing platforms. Because the results of surveys drive business
decisions and inform scientific conclusions, it is crucial to make sure they
are correct.
We present SurveyMan, a system for designing, deploying, and automatically
debugging surveys. Survey authors write their surveys in a lightweight
domain-specific language aimed at end users. SurveyMan statically analyzes the
survey to provide feedback to survey authors before deployment. It then
compiles the survey into JavaScript and deploys it either to the web or a
crowdsourcing platform. SurveyMan's dynamic analyses automatically find survey
bugs, and control for the quality of responses. We evaluate SurveyMan's
algorithms analytically and empirically, demonstrating its effectiveness with
case studies of social science surveys conducted via Amazon's Mechanical Turk.Comment: Submitted version; accepted to OOPSLA 201
Dynamic business process management
Open e-PRIOR is an open source e-Procurement system developed by the European Commission. Currently Open e-PRIOR system is handling simple choreographies based on the exchange of a single main object. However, these different objects are related and part of larger business process and by handling the objects separately the full overview is lost.
Business process management (BPM) helps organizations to understand and maintain complicated business workflow. This master thesis focuses on how BPM can provide a way to monitor the full business process and provide information to the stakeholders using the e-Prior system.
The first part of the thesis explores the business context and relevant capabilities of the open e-PRIOR system. Secondly candidate BPM tools are compared against the modeling needs to select the most suitable one. Thereafter, Logical view of open e-PRIOR is re-designed and a new logical model of the open e-PRIOR system is proposed by implementing business process management system. Finally, a business process management task is designed and implemented by a business process management tool
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Towards NFC payments using a lightweight architecture for the Web of Things
The Web (and Internet) of Things has seen the rapid emergence of new protocols and standards, which provide for innovative models of interaction for applications. One such model fostered by the Web of Things (WoT) ecosystem is that of contactless interaction between devices. Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is one such enabler of contactless interactions. Contactless technology for the WoT requires all parties to agree one common definition and implementation and, in this paper, we propose a new lightweight architecture for the WoT, based on RESTful approaches. We show how the proposed architecture supports the concept of a mobile wallet, enabling users to make secure payments employing NFC technology with their mobile devices. In so doing, we argue that the vision of the WoT is brought a step closer to fruition
Towards a Layered Architectural View for Security Analysis in SCADA Systems
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems support and control
the operation of many critical infrastructures that our society depend on, such
as power grids. Since SCADA systems become a target for cyber attacks and the
potential impact of a successful attack could lead to disastrous consequences
in the physical world, ensuring the security of these systems is of vital
importance. A fundamental prerequisite to securing a SCADA system is a clear
understanding and a consistent view of its architecture. However, because of
the complexity and scale of SCADA systems, this is challenging to acquire. In
this paper, we propose a layered architectural view for SCADA systems, which
aims at building a common ground among stakeholders and supporting the
implementation of security analysis. In order to manage the complexity and
scale, we define four interrelated architectural layers, and uses the concept
of viewpoints to focus on a subset of the system. We indicate the applicability
of our approach in the context of SCADA system security analysis.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Embedded face detection application based on local binary patterns
Comunicación presentada al "HPCC", "ICESS" y "CSS"
IEEE International Conference on Embedded Software and Systems, ICESS
International Symposium on Cyberspace Safety and Security, CSSIn computer vision during the recent years a new paradigm for object detection has stimulated researchers and designers
interest. The foundation of this new paradigm is the Local Binary Pattern (LBP) which is a nonparametric operator that efficiently
extracts the features of local structures in images. This communication describes a software embedded implementation of LBP based
algorithm for object detection, in particular targeting frontal face detection
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