Analysing usability and security issues in design and development of information systems

Recent technological advancements and the global economic challenges have meant that, individuals and businesses are constantly seeking new ways to exploit Information Systems (IS) and in manners that not only enhance user experiences and/or improve business processes and productivity, but also protect the individual‟s privacy and business assets for competitive advantage. Therefore, Information Systems need to be designed and developed to meet these challenges and/or other objectives. This thesis will delve primarily into the history of IS as a basis for establishing where the problem(s) lie or emanate from. It will focus on critically analysing existing Information Systems, and investigating the conflicting issues of usability and security, from an Information Systems Design and Development perspective by analysing various approaches. An in-depth review of literature and critical analysis of requirements necessary for the design and development of a usable and secure Information System will be carried out and will form the intellectual framework for this research. The premise therefore, is to look for a balanced approach or appropriate trade-off framework for designing usable-secure systems. The research will conclude with a discussion on how an envisaged conceptual framework or model can be developed based on certain influential factors, and how the framework can be experimentally evaluated, and to suggest areas for further improvement or future research

Formal specification of human-computer interfaces

A high-level formal specification of a human computer interface is described. Previous work is reviewed and the ASLAN specification language is described. Top-level specifications written in ASLAN for a library and a multiwindow interface are discussed

WG1N5315 - Response to Call for AIC evaluation methodologies and compression technologies for medical images: LAR Codec

This document presents the LAR image codec as a response to Call for AIC evaluation methodologies and compression technologies for medical images.This document describes the IETR response to the specific call for contributions of medical imaging technologies to be considered for AIC. The philosophy behind our coder is not to outperform JPEG2000 in compression; our goal is to propose an open source, royalty free, alternative image coder with integrated services. While keeping the compression performances in the same range as JPEG2000 but with lower complexity, our coder also provides services such as scalability, cryptography, data hiding, lossy to lossless compression, region of interest, free region representation and coding

NASA space station automation: AI-based technology review

Research and Development projects in automation for the Space Station are discussed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based automation technologies are planned to enhance crew safety through reduced need for EVA, increase crew productivity through the reduction of routine operations, increase space station autonomy, and augment space station capability through the use of teleoperation and robotics. AI technology will also be developed for the servicing of satellites at the Space Station, system monitoring and diagnosis, space manufacturing, and the assembly of large space structures

FPGAs in Industrial Control Applications

The aim of this paper is to review the state-of-the-art of Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technologies and their contribution to industrial control applications. Authors start by addressing various research fields which can exploit the advantages of FPGAs. The features of these devices are then presented, followed by their corresponding design tools. To illustrate the benefits of using FPGAs in the case of complex control applications, a sensorless motor controller has been treated. This controller is based on the Extended Kalman Filter. Its development has been made according to a dedicated design methodology, which is also discussed. The use of FPGAs to implement artificial intelligence-based industrial controllers is then briefly reviewed. The final section presents two short case studies of Neural Network control systems designs targeting FPGAs

Design and Implementation of a Web-Based Lead Management System Using Oracle and Coldfusion Technologies

In business a key to being successful is being able to identify who your customers are and evaluating their needs. Most businesses are not only comprised of a single customer; therefore, there is a need to retain customer information and to track the customer from initial contact to the point of sale. While there are numerous off the shelf products that can store customer data, often times they do not easily allow for modifications and many of these products would require some sort of wide area network (WAN), which could incur extensive costs, in order for highly distributed sales people to access the application. As of this writing, Affordable Residential Communities (ARC) is currently the largest owner and operator of manufactured home communities in the United States, managing over 57,600 home sites in more than 278 properties across 24 states. Prior to the implementation of this application, ARC used Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to track customer inquiries and possible sales leads. However, using this method did not provide an easy way for ARC to assign leads to the sales staff nor did it provide a way for the sales staff to track and monitor the lead until the point of sale. The Excel spreadsheets were also used as traffic logs for ARC\u27s communities which were sent to district level and regional level personnel for evaluation. ARC needed an efficient system in place which would eliminate the need for the Excel based system and one which would facilitate in the assigning, tracking and reporting on possible leads who want to move into one of their communities or who want to take part in one of the housing options ARC offers. The Excel spreadsheets were the only tool upper-level personnel had to report how much traffic was moving through a community and it was only by combining and manipulating these spreadsheets that they were able to see the traffic at a district or regional level. Currently, ARC uses Oracle Report Server to generate reports based on data stored in Oracle databases which the company relies on for its day to day operations, its financial reporting, and its property management data; it is in the reporting system that the lead management reports were to be integrated. Throughout this paper this author will touch on the lead tracking and assignment problems encountered by ARC and document the design, development and implementation of a customer relationship management (CRM) tool that can be used by numerous sales people via an Internet connection and a Web browser

Design and implementation of a prototype to include security activities as part of application systems design

M.Com. (Information systems)This study has its origin in the growing need for information systems to be classified as 'secure'. With the increasing use of Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools in the design of application systems for commercial use, the risks that exist in terms of information security have become more prominent. The importance of considering security during the analysis and design of an information system, in other words, on a logical level, is increasing daily. Usually security features are added to existing application systems on an ad hoc basis. Security design activities should become such an integrated part of systems analysis and design activities on a logical level, that a complete integration of the two fields, security and computer aided software engineering, can be achieved. The aim of this dissertation is to study the literature to discover existing approaches to this integration, and to extract the strengths from them and expand on those strengths in order to compile an approach that is completely implementable in the form of a prototype data flow design tool (DFD tool). The proposed approach to the secure analysis and design of an application system of a logical level, which is presented in Chapter 4, is designed in conjunction with H.A.S. Booysen [Booysen, Kasselman, Eloff - 1994]. Existing CASE-tools have also been studied by the author to determine their current capabilities, especially in terms of security definition activities, but also in terms of their support to the systems analyst during the analysis and design phases of the project life cycle when developing a target application system

A Systems Approach to Countermeasures in Credibility Assessment Interviews

Countermeasures, or techniques for hiding guilt during a credibility assessment examination, have long been an important topic in cognitive psychology and criminal justice fields. With recent IS research on automated screening systems, understanding the potential for countermeasures in this new paradigm is of increasing importance. This paper reports on a large experiment examining countermeasures in an automated deception detection screening context. The effectiveness of traditional countermeasure types (mental and physical) are examined, as well as an exploratory approach of trying several countermeasures at once. The exploratory approach was tested to investigate a proposed novel systems-inspired solution to countermeasures—triangulating on deception likelihood using multiple sensors measuring multiple behavioral and psychophysiological anomalies. The findings give credence to the proposition that monitoring multiple heterogeneous cues to deception may be a viable solution for mitigating the effectiveness of countermeasures