A case study of SME web application development effectiveness via agile methods

Abstract: The development of Web applications is an important focus of the modern information enabled organization – whether the Web application development is in-house, outsourced, or purchased as ‘commercial-off-the-shelf’ (COTS) software. Traditionally Web application development has been delivered via the dominant waterfall system. The waterfall system relies upon well-defined governance structures, linear phases, gating, and extensive reporting and sign-off documentation. An increasing number of development stakeholders criticise the waterfall system for web application development. The criticisms include a disproportionate focus on governance and process at the direct expense of flexibility and, most importantly, reduced productivity. One consequence of these criticisms is the increasing adoption of Web application development via agile-system methods. This agile-system approach centres upon smaller design teams, fewer development phases, and shorter development time tables

Auditing the data confidentiality of wireless local area networks

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) provide many significant advantages to the contemporary business enterprise. WLANs also provide considerable security challenges for network administrators and users. Data confidentiality breaches (ie, unauthorized access to data) are the major security vulnerability within WLANs. To date, the major IT security standards from the International Standards Organisation (the ISO/IEC 17799) and the National Institute of Science and Technology (the Special Publication or SP suite) have only a superficial coverage of WLAN security controls and compliance certification strategies. The clear responsibility for WLAN managers is to provide network users with best practice security strategies to mitigate the real risk of unauthorized data access. The clear responsibility for IT auditors is to ensure that best practice security practices are in place and that operational compliance is consistently achieved. This paper describes a newly researched software auditing artifact for the evaluation of the data confidentiality levels of WLAN transmissions – and therefore by extension for the evaluation of existing security controls to mitigate the risk of WLAN confidentiality breaches. The paper describes how the software auditing artifact has been evolved via a design science research methodology, and pivots upon the real time passive sampling of data packets as they are transmitted between mobile users and mobile transmission access points. The paper describes how the software auditing artifact uses these sampled data packets to produce a very detailed evaluation of the levels of data confidentiality in effect across the WLAN. This detailed evaluation includes specific identification (for network managers) of the types of software services operating across the WLAN that are not supported with the appropriate data confidentiality controls. The paper concludes by presenting an analysis of the results achieved during beta testing of the auditing artifact within a university production WLAN environment

Single ion implantation for single donor devices using Geiger mode detectors

Electronic devices that are designed to use the properties of single atoms such as donors or defects have become a reality with recent demonstrations of donor spectroscopy, single photon emission sources, and magnetic imaging using defect centers in diamond. Improving single ion detector sensitivity is linked to improving control over the straggle of the ion as well as providing more flexibility in lay-out integration with the active region of the single donor device construction zone by allowing ion sensing at potentially greater distances. Using a remotely located passively gated single ion Geiger mode avalanche diode (SIGMA) detector we have demonstrated 100% detection efficiency at a distance of >75 um from the center of the collecting junction. This detection efficiency is achieved with sensitivity to ~600 or fewer electron-hole pairs produced by the implanted ion. Ion detectors with this sensitivity and integrated with a thin dielectric, for example 5 nm gate oxide, using low energy Sb implantation would have an end of range straggle of <2.5 nm. Significant reduction in false count probability is achieved by modifying the ion beam set-up to allow for cryogenic operation of the SIGMA detector. Using a detection window of 230 ns at 1 Hz, the probability of a false count was measured as 1E-1 and 1E-4 for operation temperatures of 300K and 77K, respectively. Low temperature operation and reduced false, dark, counts are critical to achieving high confidence in single ion arrival. For the device performance in this work, the confidence is calculated as a probability of >98% for counting one and only one ion for a false count probability of 1E-4 at an average ion number per gated window of 0.015.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Nanotechnolog

Costs of Reproduction and Terminal Investment by Females in a Semelparous Marsupial

Evolutionary explanations for life history diversity are based on the idea of costs of reproduction, particularly on the concept of a trade-off between age-specific reproduction and parental survival, and between expenditure on current and future offspring. Such trade-offs are often difficult to detect in population studies of wild mammals. Terminal investment theory predicts that reproductive effort by older parents should increase, because individual offspring become more valuable to parents as the conflict between current versus potential future offspring declines with age. In order to demonstrate this phenomenon in females, there must be an increase in maternal expenditure on offspring with age, imposing a fitness cost on the mother. Clear evidence of both the expenditure and fitness cost components has rarely been found. In this study, we quantify costs of reproduction throughout the lifespan of female antechinuses. Antechinuses are nocturnal, insectivorous, forest-dwelling small (20–40 g) marsupials, which nest in tree hollows. They have a single synchronized mating season of around three weeks, which occurs on predictable dates each year in a population. Females produce only one litter per year. Unlike almost all other mammals, all males, and in the smaller species, most females are semelparous. We show that increased allocation to current reproduction reduces maternal survival, and that offspring growth and survival in the first breeding season is traded-off with performance of the second litter in iteroparous females. In iteroparous females, increased allocation to second litters is associated with severe weight loss in late lactation and post-lactation death of mothers, but increased offspring growth in late lactation and survival to weaning. These findings are consistent with terminal investment. Iteroparity did not increase lifetime reproductive success, indicating that terminal investment in the first breeding season at the expense of maternal survival (i.e. semelparity) is likely to be advantageous for females

Recognition of picornavirus internal ribosome entry sites within cells; influence of cellular and viral proteins.

The ability of different picornavirus internal ribosome entry site (IRES) elements to direct initiation of protein synthesis has been assayed in different cell lines in the presence and absence of viral proteases that inhibit cap-dependent protein synthesis. Reporter plasmids that express dicistronic mRNAs, containing different IRES elements, with the general structure CAT/IRES/LUC, have been assayed. In each plasmid, the CAT sequence encodes chloramphenicol acetyl transferase and the LUC sequence encodes luciferase. The poliovirus (PV) 2A protease and the foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) Lb protease induce the cleavage of the translation initiation factor elF4G and hence inhibit the activity of the cap-binding complex, elF4F. In human osteosarcoma (HTK-143) cells, each of the various IRES elements functioned efficiently. In these cells, the co-expression of the viral proteases severely inhibited the expression of CAT, but the proteases had little effect on the activities of the various IRES elements. In contrast, in baby hamster kidney (BHK) cells, the efficiencies of the different IRES elements varied significantly, whereas, in normal rat kidney (NRK) cells, each of the IRES elements was relatively inefficient. In both BHK and NRK cells, the activities of those IRES elements that functioned inefficiently were strongly stimulated by the co-expression of the PV 2A or FMDV Lb proteases. This stimulation was independent of the loss of cap-dependent protein synthesis and was not achieved by the co-expression of the C-terminal fragment of elF4G. The results suggest that the PV 2A and FMDV Lb proteases induce the cleavage of another cellular protein, in addition to elF4G, which influences IRES function

Modelling trust in artificial agents, a first step toward the analysis of e-trust

“The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com”. Copyright Springer.This paper provides a new analysis of e-trust, trust occurring in digital contexts, among the artificial agents of a distributed artificial system. The analysis endorses a non-psychological approach and rests on a Kantian regulative ideal of a rational agent, able to choose the best option for itself, given a specific scenario and a goal to achieve. The paper first introduces e-trust describing its relevance for the contemporary society and then presents a new theoretical analysis of this phenomenon. The analysis first focuses on an agent’s trustworthiness, this one is presented as the necessary requirement for e-trust to occur. Then, a new definition of e-trust as a second-orderproperty of first-order relations is presented. It is shown that the second-orderproperty of e-trust has the effect of minimising an agent’s effort and commitment in the achievement of a given goal. On this basis, a method is provided for the objective assessment of the levels of e-trust occurring among the artificial agents of a distributed artificial system.Peer reviewe

Central Receiver Test Facility (CRTF) experiment manual

The Central Receiver Test Facility is operated by Sandia Laboratories for the US Department of Energy. The CRTF is being used for component and subsystem evaluation within the Solar Thermal Large Power Systems Program. This experiment manual provides users of the CRTF detailed information about: (1) implementation of testing at the CRTF; (2) details of the CRTF capabilities and interfaces, and (3) requirements of experimenters

Solar Thermal Test Facility experiment manual

Information is provided on administrative procedures, capabilities, and requirements of experimenters using the Solar Thermal Test Facility. (MHR