Efficient Two-Step Adversarial Defense for Deep Neural Networks

In recent years, deep neural networks have demonstrated outstanding performance in many machine learning tasks. However, researchers have discovered that these state-of-the-art models are vulnerable to adversarial examples: legitimate examples added by small perturbations which are unnoticeable to human eyes. Adversarial training, which augments the training data with adversarial examples during the training process, is a well known defense to improve the robustness of the model against adversarial attacks. However, this robustness is only effective to the same attack method used for adversarial training. Madry et al.(2017) suggest that effectiveness of iterative multi-step adversarial attacks and particularly that projected gradient descent (PGD) may be considered the universal first order adversary and applying the adversarial training with PGD implies resistance against many other first order attacks. However, the computational cost of the adversarial training with PGD and other multi-step adversarial examples is much higher than that of the adversarial training with other simpler attack techniques. In this paper, we show how strong adversarial examples can be generated only at a cost similar to that of two runs of the fast gradient sign method (FGSM), allowing defense against adversarial attacks with a robustness level comparable to that of the adversarial training with multi-step adversarial examples. We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed two-step defense approach against different attack methods and its improvements over existing defense strategies.Comment: 12 page

Knowledge Creation and Firm Performance: Mediating Processes from an Organizational Agility Perspective

Knowledge creation has emerged as a critical area in information systems research in the past decade (Nonaka 1994). However, the mechanism through which knowledge creation enhances firm performance remains unclear. This paper examines the role of organization agility as a mediator between knowledge creation processes and firm performance. Our survey study of 134 firms indicates that two forms of organizational agility – customer agility and operational agility, significantly and fully mediate the effect of knowledge creation on firm performance. Our findings extend prior research by providing insights into the role of organizational agility in facilitating the effect of knowledge creation processes on firm performance. Implications for researchers and managers are discussed

Editor’s Introduction

This issue includes two peer-reviewed research articles. The first paper by Ghandour, Benwell,and Deans proposes a second-order measurement of website performance from the owner’s perspective. Given the increased use of websites, measuring website performance is an important issue. The proposed measurement is interesting in that the construct includes the owner’s satisfaction, rather than the user’s satisfaction. Empirical analysis shows that the instrument is reliable and valid as an alternative benchmark for website performance

Organizational Adoption of Information Technologies

Organizational adoption of information technologies is critical toward enhancing firm’s competitiveness. Many factors have been found influential and plenty of theories have been applied to this area of research. Research in recent years, however, is increasingly oriented toward individual level of technology adoption. One possible reason is the low cost of data collection due to the convenience of online survey. Although this strengthens our understanding of individual’s attitude and intention to use IT; this may in the long run reduce the value of information systems (IS) research from top management perspective. I believe we need to spend more effort to encourage and publish organizational level research in the IS area

Editorial Introduction

This issue starts the tenth year of continuing publication of the Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems. A decade is not a long nor a short time period. The journal started from scratch with the goal of facilitating research in the Asia Pacific Region. After ten years’ effort, I am glad to see the journal to be recognized as a major journal in information systems by many universities and in many countries. We intend to continue publishing high-quality research reports and would like to invite high-profile scholars to submit your best research outputs

Editorial Introduction

Online shopping has become a habit for most consumers after three decades’ evolution of e-commerce. This is particular significant in developing economies such as China and Korea. Alibaba’s Bachelor Festival on November 11 in China has resulted in an incredible number of 168 billion RMB in a single day and 93% of the transactions were on mobile devices, an increase from 82% in 2016. Electronic commerce is really the major driving force for enhancing information technology infrastructure of most organizations

Editor’s Introduction

As the last issue of 2013, the journal presents two papers that cover two important issues in information systems. Online marketing is an important area in electronic commerce. Social media provides a platform for many creative relationship marketing mechanisms