Design and optimisation of a low cost Cognitive Mesh Network

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have been touted as the most promising wireless technology in providing high-bandwidth Internet access to rural, remote and under-served areas, with relatively lower investment cost as compared to traditional access networks. WMNs structurally comprise of mesh routers and mesh clients. Furthermore, WMNs have an envisaged ability to provide a heterogeneous network system that integrates wireless technologies such as IEEE 802.22 WRAN, IEEE 802.16 WiMAX, IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi, Blue-tooth etc. The recent proliferation of new devices on the market such as smart phones and, tablets, and the growing number of resource hungry applications has placed a serious strain on spectrum availability which gives rise to the spectrum scarcity problem. The spectrum scarcity problem essentially results in increased spectrum prices that hamper the growth and efficient performance of WMNs as well as subsequent transformation of WMN into the envisaged next generation networks. Recent developments in TV white space communications technology and the emergence of Cognitive radio devices that facilitate Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) have provided an opportunity to mitigate the spectrum scarcity problem. To solve the scarcity problem, this thesis reconsiders the classical Network Engineering (NE) and Traffic Engineering (TE) problems to objectively design a low cost Cognitive Mesh network that promotes efficient resources utilization and thereby achieve better Quality of Service (QoS) levels

Big Data Security (Volume 3)

After a short description of the key concepts of big data the book explores on the secrecy and security threats posed especially by cloud based data storage. It delivers conceptual frameworks and models along with case studies of recent technology

Service Quality and Profit Control in Utility Computing Service Life Cycles

Utility Computing is one of the most discussed business models in the context of Cloud Computing. Service providers are more and more pushed into the role of utilities by their customer's expectations. Subsequently, the demand for predictable service availability and pay-per-use pricing models increases. Furthermore, for providers, a new opportunity to optimise resource usage offers arises, resulting from new virtualisation techniques. In this context, the control of service quality and profit depends on a deep understanding of the representation of the relationship between business and technique. This research analyses the relationship between the business model of Utility Computing and Service-oriented Computing architectures hosted in Cloud environments. The relations are clarified in detail for the entire service life cycle and throughout all architectural layers. Based on the elaborated relations, an approach to a delivery framework is evolved, in order to enable the optimisation of the relation attributes, while the service implementation passes through business planning, development, and operations. Related work from academic literature does not cover the collected requirements on service offers in this context. This finding is revealed by a critical review of approaches in the fields of Cloud Computing, Grid Computing, and Application Clusters. The related work is analysed regarding appropriate provision architectures and quality assurance approaches. The main concepts of the delivery framework are evaluated based on a simulation model. To demonstrate the ability of the framework to model complex pay-per-use service cascades in Cloud environments, several experiments have been conducted. First outcomes proof that the contributions of this research undoubtedly enable the optimisation of service quality and profit in Cloud-based Service-oriented Computing architectures

Platformization in the European Union. Politico-Legal Challenges of Platforms as Infrastructures.

Il manoscritto esamina il fenomeno della piattaformizzazione nell'Unione europea (UE) ed esplora le sfide politiche e giuridiche relative all’emersione delle piattaforme come infrastrutture digitali in diversi sistemi sociali. Il manoscritto e organizzato in sei capitoli, ognuno dei quali affronta un aspetto del fenomeno della piattaformizzazione e le sue implicazioni per il sistema politico-giuridico e per il quadro costituzionale europeo. Il capitolo 1 fornisce un'introduzione al tema di ricerca, evidenziando la crescente importanza delle piattaforme come forze trasformative e modelli organizzativi presenti in tutti i settori della societa . Esso delinea inoltre la domanda di ricerca, la metodologia utilizzata, e definisce l'ascesa delle piattaforme come le conseguenze organizzative della computazione di una societa in cui l'azione sociale e coordinata tramite computer portatili. Individua inoltre il contributo alla letteratura nel campo degli studi sulle piattaforme. Il capitolo 2 presenta una genealogia della concettualizzazione della piattaforma, la quale si divide in due rami principali. La prima parte esamina il discorso manageriale delle piattaforme, tracciando lo sviluppo storico dell'economia delle piattaforme nella sua evoluzione temporale. Esso esplora le varie lenti concettuali attraverso le quali le piattaforme sono state comprese dal punto di vista economico e tecnologico. Questa parte si concentra principalmente sull'emersione delle imprese-piattaforma e del concetto di piattaforma in paesi capitalisti come il Giappone, l’Europa e gli Stati Uniti. Gli esempi di piattaforme qui riportati vanno dalle automobili alle console per computer e ai primi smartphones. La seconda parte si concentra sui tentativi socialisti, cibernetici e statali di creare una piattaforma governativa per migliorare l'economia centralizzata in Paesi come l'Unione Sovietica e il Cile. La tesi riguarda il fatto che le piattaforme digitali superano efficacemente la dicotomia centralizzazione-decentralizzazione nell’organizzazione costituendo mercati decentralizzati che possono essere anche pianificati da un’autorita centralizzata. Questo capitolo pone le basi per una comprensione piu approfondita delle complessita delle piattaforme come nuove forme organizzative. Il capitolo 3 si concentra sulla piattaforma come forma organizzativa. Esso esamina le caratteristiche e le peculiarita che distinguono le piattaforme dai modelli di business tradizionali, evidenziando la loro natura di mercati piu parti e a rete, la loro riprogrammabilita e modularita e le operazioni data-driven attraverso le quali realizzano la governance del loro ecosistema. Il capitolo identifica ed esamina sei tradizioni di ricerca sulle piattaforme: management, economia politica, studi sul software, studi sulle infrastrutture, studi urbani e studi organizzativi. Il capitolo e concluso con una rassegna delle definizioni, delle categorie e delle metafore della piattaforma. Il capitolo 4 approfondisce l'interazione tra la piattaforma e il sistema giuridico europeo ed e suddiviso in tre parti. Nella prima parte si esamina la transizione in corso del diritto come basato sulle affordances della stampa a quelle del diritto come basato sulle affordances dell'infrastruttura digitale, facendo sorgere il problema della gestione tecnologica nella governance da parte delle piattaforme che non e soggetta ad una delega manageriale. La seconda parte, analizzando diversi sottosistemi giuridici quali la protezione dei dati personali, il diritto della concorrenza e il diritto amministrativo, mostra come le piattaforme siano storicamente riuscite a evitare la responsabilita per le loro azioni a livello europeo. La terza parte descrive la specificita della governance delle piattaforme, ottenuta attraverso i termini del servizio, la progettazione delle infrastrutture con cui sono messe in vigore e applicate le regole, e le procedure paragiudiziali che la piattaforma costituisce. Il capitolo 5 esplora la costituzionalizzazione delle piattaforme come infrastrutture. Esso contestualizza il progetto emergente denominato "costituzionalismo digitale" alla luce del discorso sul "costituzionalismo globale" ed esamina la sua coerenza normativa. Il capitolo evidenzia la necessita di una costituzionalizzazione delle piattaforme come infrastrutture come prerequisito per l'esercizio dei diritti fondamentali ed esplora la possibilita di creare un meccanismo per contestare la legittimita dell'infrastruttura della piattaforma. Il capitolo 6 conclude il manoscritto sintetizzando i risultati chiave dei capitoli precedenti. Riflette sulle implicazioni politiche e legali della piattaformizzazione nell'Unione Europea e discute le potenziali strategie per affrontare le sfide individuate. Il capitolo identifica anche le strade per future ricerche, sottolineando la necessita di approcci interdisciplinari per navigare efficacemente nel complesso panorama della platformization e salvaguardare i diritti fondamentali all'interno dell'UE. Questa ricerca intende percio contribuire al dibattito sulla governance delle piattaforme e sulla protezione dei diritti fondamentali in un ambiente sempre piu “piattaformizziato”

Information technology and military performance

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 519-544).Militaries have long been eager to adopt the latest technology (IT) in a quest to improve knowledge of and control over the battlefield. At the same time, uncertainty and confusion have remained prominent in actual experience of war. IT usage sometimes improves knowledge, but it sometimes contributes to tactical blunders and misplaced hubris. As militaries invest intensively in IT, they also tend to develop larger headquarters staffs, depend more heavily on planning and intelligence, and employ a larger percentage of personnel in knowledge work rather than physical combat. Both optimists and pessimists about the so-called "revolution in military affairs" have tended to overlook the ways in which IT is profoundly and ambiguously embedded in everyday organizational life. Technocrats embrace IT to "lift the fog of war," but IT often becomes a source of breakdowns, misperception, and politicization. To describe the conditions under which IT usage improves or degrades organizational performance, this dissertation develops the notion of information friction, an aggregate measure of the intensity of organizational struggle to coordinate IT with the operational environment. It articulates hypotheses about how the structure of the external battlefield, internal bureaucratic politics, and patterns of human-computer interaction can either exacerbate or relieve friction, which thus degrades or improves performance. Technological determinism alone cannot account for the increasing complexity and variable performances of information phenomena. Information friction theory is empirically grounded in a participant-observation study of U.S. special operations in Iraq from 2007 to 2008. To test the external validity of insights gained through fieldwork in Iraq, an historical study of the 1940 Battle of Britain examines IT usage in a totally different structural, organizational, and technological context.(cont.) These paired cases show that high information friction, and thus degraded performance, can arise with sophisticated IT, while lower friction and impressive performance can occur with far less sophisticated networks. The social context, not just the quality of technology, makes all the difference. Many shorter examples from recent military history are included to illustrate concepts. This project should be of broad interest to students of organizational knowledge, IT, and military effectiveness.by Jon Randall Lindsay.Ph.D

Factors Influencing Customer Satisfaction towards E-shopping in Malaysia

Online shopping or e-shopping has changed the world of business and quite a few people have decided to work with these features. What their primary concerns precisely and the responses from the globalisation are the competency of incorporation while doing their businesses. E-shopping has also increased substantially in Malaysia in recent years. The rapid increase in the e-commerce industry in Malaysia has created the demand to emphasize on how to increase customer satisfaction while operating in the e-retailing environment. It is very important that customers are satisfied with the website, or else, they would not return. Therefore, a crucial fact to look into is that companies must ensure that their customers are satisfied with their purchases that are really essential from the ecommerce’s point of view. With is in mind, this study aimed at investigating customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed among students randomly selected from various public and private universities located within Klang valley area. Total 369 questionnaires were returned, out of which 341 questionnaires were found usable for further analysis. Finally, SEM was employed to test the hypotheses. This study found that customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia is to a great extent influenced by ease of use, trust, design of the website, online security and e-service quality. Finally, recommendations and future study direction is provided. Keywords: E-shopping, Customer satisfaction, Trust, Online security, E-service quality, Malaysia

6th International Scientific Conference on Hardwood Processing : PROCEEDINGS

City of Lahti, Finland, has the opportunity to host the 6th International Conference of Hardwood Processing (ISCHP 2017) during September 25 to 28, 2017. The main events of the conference are arranged in the spectacular Sibelius Hall, an internationally acknowledged congress and concert center with attractive wooden interiors and excellent acoustics. Lahti region constitutes also one of the main hardwood industry clusters in Finland with versatile manufacturing of hardwood products and processing machinery, high-quality birch resources, and long history of education in wood products sector. The conference exhibits a continuum to the 10-year old history of ISCHP, the previous events being in Canada (2007 and 2015), France (2009), USA (2011), and Italy (2013). The scientific collaborators in the ISCHP family, listed before in page 2, take in turn the responsibility of the conference organization, and now it is the Finnish turn. Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) is the responsible organizer of this conference with a substantial support from University of Eastern Finland (UEF) and Aalto University. We are especially happy of this unique task in 2017, while Republic of Finland celebrates its centennial history as an independent country. The main objective of this conference is to bring together the scientific and research communities working on hardwood, from the source to the customer, to share knowledge and ideas. Around 80 international experts, scientists, government employees, hardwood industry representatives, suppliers, and customers attend the conference to discuss recent progress and innovative work in this valuable area of wood-based economy. Topics covered by ISCHP 2017 1) Forest management, wood procurement, wood properties and quality and analysis of hardwoods 2) Markets, sustainability, and value chains of hardwood cluster 3) Hardwood product development and performance 4) Hardwood processing, optimization and technology development for solid and composite products 5) Hardwood biorefining and value-added chemical products This conference book contains abstracts of all presentations in the conference, descriptions of industry and field visits and practical information for the attendees. A total of 42 scientific oral and poster presentations from 131 authors coming from 22 countries, and four keynote presentations from invited academic and industry experts provide the basis for the scientific success of ISCHP 2017. Papers written on the presentations have undergone a scientific peer-review process. They are available for readers in an electronic format in the Conference Proceedings. On behalf of the organizing committee of the conference, I have the pleasure to wish the very best results and pleasure from the scientific and industry contents and networking with colleagues, not to talk about an enjoyable time in Lahti region. Erkki Verkasalo Chair of ISCHP 2017201