Cloud WorkBench - Infrastructure-as-Code Based Cloud Benchmarking

To optimally deploy their applications, users of Infrastructure-as-a-Service clouds are required to evaluate the costs and performance of different combinations of cloud configurations to find out which combination provides the best service level for their specific application. Unfortunately, benchmarking cloud services is cumbersome and error-prone. In this paper, we propose an architecture and concrete implementation of a cloud benchmarking Web service, which fosters the definition of reusable and representative benchmarks. In distinction to existing work, our system is based on the notion of Infrastructure-as-Code, which is a state of the art concept to define IT infrastructure in a reproducible, well-defined, and testable way. We demonstrate our system based on an illustrative case study, in which we measure and compare the disk IO speeds of different instance and storage types in Amazon EC2

What good are markets in punishment?

There are two chronically unexamined assumptions about privatisation in punishment. First is the idea that it is a relatively new development. In fact, penal activity has always been (at least partly) private. Second, it is assumed that the state can create a market when and where it wants. This article aims to unpack such intuitions in order to expose neglected aspects of privatisation in punishment. I argue that the experiment with the kinds of privatisation that sceptics worry most about, private companies owning and running whole prisons, has amounted to a ripple rather than a tidal wave in the sea of penal activity. Attempts to increase the private sector's role have largely failed to produce efficient markets. These activities have been transformative, however, by instilling a market ethos among public servants and a professional identity as business managers rather than as agents of social control. A case study of an American jurisdiction that attempted to privatise all of its youth justice institutions provides the data for this analysis

Performance Management in Action

Outlines how collecting and sharing data enables educators to assess student performance in real time and predict and address issues early in order to improve achievement levels and graduation rates. Profiles successful programs in three urban districts

IO Bound Property: A System Perspective Evaluation

File systems have been mostly benchmarked as per the application perspective. This approach hides all the underlying complexities of the system including the actual I/O being done with the secondary storage device like magnetic disk. The IO bound property of a file system is necessarily to be evaluated because the most dominant performance limiting factor of a file system is its I/O operation with secondary storage device. This IO bound property of file system dictates the quantity and frequency of IO that a file system does with secondary storage device. In this paper, we argue system perspective of file system benchmarks and develop a benchmark to evaluate some common disk file systems for IO bound property. The goal of this paper is to better understand the behavior of file systems and unveil the low level complexities faced by file systems

Turning Passion Into Action: Giving While Living

This publication explores the practice of Giving While Living as exemplified by our Founder Chuck Feeney. Our intention is to inspire individuals at varying levels of wealth to actively give their funds, skills and time during their lives, and receive enormous satisfaction in the process. This report includes profiles of Mr. Feeney and 10 other philanthropists who are giving generously during their lifetimes, explains the most-cited motivating factors for Giving While Living, and lays out a range of ways to set up and execute a Giving While Living programme

A New Role for Human Resource Managers: Social Engineering Defense

[Excerpt] The general risk of social engineering attacks to organizations has increased with the rise of digital computing and communications, while for an attacker the risk has decreased. In order to counter the increased risk, organizations should recognize that human resources (HR) professionals have just as much responsibility and capability in preventing this risk as information technology (IT) professionals. Part I of this paper begins by defining social engineering in context and with a brief history pre-digital age attacks. It concludes by showing the intersection of HR and IT through examples of operational attack vectors. In part II, the discussion moves to a series of measures that can be taken to help prevent social engineering attacks

TOWARDS ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK MODEL TO DIAGNOSE THYROID PROBLEMS

Medical diagnosis can be viewed as a pattern classification problem: based a set of input features the goal is to classify a patient as having a particular disorder or as not having it. Thyroid hormone problems are the most prevalent problems nowadays. In this paper an artificial neural network approach is developed using a back propagation algorithm in order to diagnose thyroid problems. It gets a number of factors as input and produces an output which gives the result of whether a person has the problem or is healthy. It is found that back propagation algorithm is proved to be having high sensitivity and specificity