Major Indian ICT firms and their approaches towards achieving quality

Of the three basic theories of innovation: the entrepreneur theory, the technology-economics theory and the strategic theory, the third one seems to be highly appropriate for the analysis of recent growth of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry in many developing countries including India. The central measure for achieving quality by the various major Indian ICT firms is widely agreed to have been the adoption of Six Sigma Methodology and various other approaches like Total Quality Management (TQM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), etc. It is apparent that the main objective of the firms chosen has been to increase the pace of innovation activities, irrespective of their different areas of product specialisation. Its success also depends largely on the overall improvement in infrastructure, besides active market interaction. To enable both the above, a brief highlight on the establishment of interaction and learning sites (ILSs) in every regional State in India comes to the foreground. The chapter concludes with a mention of the elements observed to be missing among the firms under consideration, and, thereby, delineating the scope for their further improvement.

The future of Cybersecurity in Italy: Strategic focus area

This volume has been created as a continuation of the previous one, with the aim of outlining a set of focus areas and actions that the Italian Nation research community considers essential. The book touches many aspects of cyber security, ranging from the definition of the infrastructure and controls needed to organize cyberdefence to the actions and technologies to be developed to be better protected, from the identification of the main technologies to be defended to the proposal of a set of horizontal actions for training, awareness raising, and risk management

Grand Challenges of Traceability: The Next Ten Years

In 2007, the software and systems traceability community met at the first Natural Bridge symposium on the Grand Challenges of Traceability to establish and address research goals for achieving effective, trustworthy, and ubiquitous traceability. Ten years later, in 2017, the community came together to evaluate a decade of progress towards achieving these goals. These proceedings document some of that progress. They include a series of short position papers, representing current work in the community organized across four process axes of traceability practice. The sessions covered topics from Trace Strategizing, Trace Link Creation and Evolution, Trace Link Usage, real-world applications of Traceability, and Traceability Datasets and benchmarks. Two breakout groups focused on the importance of creating and sharing traceability datasets within the research community, and discussed challenges related to the adoption of tracing techniques in industrial practice. Members of the research community are engaged in many active, ongoing, and impactful research projects. Our hope is that ten years from now we will be able to look back at a productive decade of research and claim that we have achieved the overarching Grand Challenge of Traceability, which seeks for traceability to be always present, built into the engineering process, and for it to have "effectively disappeared without a trace". We hope that others will see the potential that traceability has for empowering software and systems engineers to develop higher-quality products at increasing levels of complexity and scale, and that they will join the active community of Software and Systems traceability researchers as we move forward into the next decade of research

Grand Challenges of Traceability: The Next Ten Years

In 2007, the software and systems traceability community met at the first Natural Bridge symposium on the Grand Challenges of Traceability to establish and address research goals for achieving effective, trustworthy, and ubiquitous traceability. Ten years later, in 2017, the community came together to evaluate a decade of progress towards achieving these goals. These proceedings document some of that progress. They include a series of short position papers, representing current work in the community organized across four process axes of traceability practice. The sessions covered topics from Trace Strategizing, Trace Link Creation and Evolution, Trace Link Usage, real-world applications of Traceability, and Traceability Datasets and benchmarks. Two breakout groups focused on the importance of creating and sharing traceability datasets within the research community, and discussed challenges related to the adoption of tracing techniques in industrial practice. Members of the research community are engaged in many active, ongoing, and impactful research projects. Our hope is that ten years from now we will be able to look back at a productive decade of research and claim that we have achieved the overarching Grand Challenge of Traceability, which seeks for traceability to be always present, built into the engineering process, and for it to have "effectively disappeared without a trace". We hope that others will see the potential that traceability has for empowering software and systems engineers to develop higher-quality products at increasing levels of complexity and scale, and that they will join the active community of Software and Systems traceability researchers as we move forward into the next decade of research

Integration of Cost andWork Breakdown Structures in the Management of Construction Projects

Scope management allows project managers to react when a project underperforms regarding schedule, budget, and/or quality at the execution stage. Scope management can also minimize project changes and budget omissions, as well as improve the accuracy of project cost estimates and risk responses. For scope management to be effective, though, it needs to rely on a robust work breakdown structure (WBS). A robust WBS hierarchically and faithfully reflects all project tasks and work packages so that projects are easier to manage. If done properly, the WBS also allows meeting the project objectives while delivering the project on time, on budget, and with the required quality. This paper analyzes whether the integration of a cost breakdown structure (CBS) can lead to the generation of more robust WBSs in construction projects. Over the last years, some international organizations have standardized and harmonized different cost classification systems (e.g., ISO 12006-2, ISO 81346-12, OmniClass, CoClass, UniClass). These cost databases have also been introduced into building information modeling (BIM) frameworks. We hypothesize that in BIM environments, if these CBSs are used to generate the project WBS, several advantages are gained such as sharper project definition. This enhanced project definition reduces project contradictions at both planning and execution stages, anticipates potential schedule and budget deviations, improves resource allocation, and overall it allows a better response to potential project risks. The hypothesis that the use of CBSs can generate more robust WBSs is tested by the response analysis of a questionnaire survey distributed among construction practitioners and project managers. By means of structural equation modeling (SEM), the correlation (agreement) and perception differences between two 250-respondent subsamples (technical project staff vs. project management staff) are also discussed. Results of this research support the use of CBSs by construction professionals as a basis to generate WBSs for enhanced project management (PM)

Educating The Next Generation Of Computer Security Professionals: The Rise And Relevancy Of Professional Certifications

This paper discusses the recent ascent and proliferation of computer security professional certifications.  Based upon the premise that secure information technology not only underpins the current US economy but also represents a pivot point for future economic growth, it highlights the recent phenomenon of many information technology professionals complementing their Computer Science (CS), Information Systems (IS), and Information Technology (IT) degrees with highly specialized certification-based training to secure jobs that help to protect our national IT infrastructure.   It also raises the question as to whether the trend of narrowly-focused specialized training signals a possible shift away from traditional academic computer security programs.  If the present trend continues, the longer-term consequences for traditional academic degree programs could be dramatic.  However, from the short-term perspective of this study, the proliferation of certification programs as a source of supplementary education is viewed as a positive phenomenon, helping to mitigate the disastrous effects associated with the continuous onslaught of domestic- and international-sourced cyber-attacks that threaten our national economic livelihood

The Role of Evidence in Establishing Trust in Repositories

This article arises from work by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Working Group examining mechanisms to roll out audit and certification services for digital repositories in the United Kingdom. Our attempt to develop a program for applying audit and certification processes and tools took as its starting point the RLG-NARA Audit Checklist for Certifying Digital Repositories. Our intention was to appraise critically the checklist and conceive a means of applying its mechanics within a diverse range of repository environments. We were struck by the realization that while a great deal of effort has been invested in determining the characteristics of a 'trusted digital repository', far less effort has concentrated on the ways in which the presence of the attributes can be demonstrated and their qualities measured. With this in mind we sought to explore the role of evidence within the certification process, and to identify examples of the types of evidence (e.g., documentary, observational, and testimonial) that might be desirable during the course of a repository audit.

Life Cycle Assessment Practices: Benchmarking Selected European Automobile Manufacturers

With the rise of environmental concerns in the general public, re-appropriated by influential politicians, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has become a widely used set of tools for the management of all impacts on environment by industrial products. LCA is carried out at the very early stages of product research, development and design. This is particularly true in the automobile industry where vehicle manufacturers Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are launching several new or re-vamped models each year. The automobile industry is therefore a very emblematic sector for best practices of LCA. The paper is based on available literature and interviews with top LCA professionals in Germany-based OEMsLife cycle assessment; automobile; best practices