International Journal of Computers

 
E-ISSN: 1998-4308
Volume 9, 2015

Notice: As of 2014 and for the forthcoming years, the publication frequency/periodicity of NAUN Journals is adapted to the 'continuously updated' model. What this means is that instead of being separated into issues, new papers will be added on a continuous basis, allowing a more regular flow and shorter publication times. The papers will appear in reverse order, therefore the most recent one will be on top.

Main Page

Submit a paper | Submission terms | Paper format

 


Volume 9, 2015


Title of the Paper: On the Practical Implementation of L-systems

 

Authors: David Brebera

Pages: 125-128

Abstract: L-system, sometimes called Lindenmayer system is a formal way of writing an algorithm first introduced in 1968 by Hungarian biologist Aristide Lindenmayer (1925-1989), and is primarily designed as a tool to describe the growth of plants [Lin68]. Over time, however, the L system has become a tool used not only in biology, but also today, mainly in computer science (as an example for the study of context-free grammars) and mathematics (a tool used to describe and exploration of fractal curves). As a visualization tool L-system often uses turtle graphics (below), i.e. LOGO programming language.


Title of the Paper: The Use of Grounded Theory Techniques in IS Research

 

Authors: Osama Alfarraj, Salem Alkhalaf, Sue Nielsen, Rayed Alghamdi

Pages: 115-124

Abstract: This paper focuses on exploring the use of grounded theory and its derived types in Information System (IS) research. Specifically, it brings the light to the use of grounded theory techniques as a research method to analyse the data collected through interviews. The study uses the literature as background material to explore the types of grounded theory used in IS research. It also provides an example of the application and employment of its techniques in empirical IS study. This paper is a part of a large study investigating the factors influencing the implementation and development of eGovernment in Saudi Arabia based on the developers’ perceptive.


Title of the Paper: Measuring Cloud Readiness

 

Authors: Maurice Danaher, Saif Al Rumaithy

Pages: 105-114

Abstract: Over the past few years there has been a huge movement to cloud services by businesses, consumers and governments. Cloud technology is significantly changing the IT landscape with users assessing a wide range of IT services provided by cloud service providers via the Internet. There is much evidence that points to the importance of cloud computing for global growth. The move to cloud computing is accelerating, but some observers and researchers have produced evidence that shows that the policy environment in some countries is not improving sufficiently to support this rapid expansion. Further, countries that lag behind in their policy environment hamper not only their own users but global expansion as a whole. Researchers have developed a scorecard system which can be used to measure “cloud readiness” for a country. It examines seven policy categories and also considers ICT infrastructure. It was used by the developers to investigate the cloud readiness in studies that covered 24 countries. In the project described here the method is presented in detail and it has been used to examine the UAE and show how it compares with the other 24 countries. The scorecard consists of 66 questions, each of which was researched.


Title of the Paper: Cloud Computing Implementations Challenges, Insight, and the Way Forward: A GCC Study

 

Authors: Loay A., Hanadi S.

Pages: 98-104

Abstract: Organizations view cloud computing as a way to gain competitive advantage by improving performance, reducing cost, and providing better services. With increasing advancement in IT (hardware and software), companies are offered infinite numbers of virtual machines to use with what seem to be unlimited resources. This tempts many companies and governments to move their operations to the cloud. Developing countries align with this trend. Many companies in the Middle East and the Gulf region have started exploring and some have shifted to the cloud. With this shift come concerns and worries that slow this transition. Companies in the Gulf are no different. They are jumping on the Cloud wagon but as they do that they are facing challenges and fears. This paper will set the framework to research the effect, benefits, risks and fears of shifting to the cloud. The research sets the framework to answer the question: What should managers expect when moving their infrastructure to the cloud.


Title of the Paper: Data Security Approaches and Solutions for Data Warehouse

 

Authors: Saiqa Aleem, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Faheem Ahmed

Pages: 91-97

Abstract: Data Warehouse (DWH) contains large amount of historical data from heterogeneous operational sources and provide multidimensional views, thus supplying sensitive and critical information which help decision-makers to improve the organization’s business processes. The critical business information at one place and nature of the aggregated queries make it vulnerable for malicious outside and inside attackers. For database aggregated queries most of the existing data security solutions are not sufficient, require too many resources along with increase query response time and results into many false alarms. In this study, we conducted a survey of available data security approaches, solutions, and strategies for data warehouse environment.


Title of the Paper: Usability of ARM ANN Anomaly Detector in Local Networks

 

Authors: David Malanik, Radek Vala

Pages: 85-90

Abstract: The paper deals with techniques that allow implementation of the ARM platform based network anomaly detector in the computer network. The anomaly detection is based on the ANN. The ARM device is represented by the one board solution with Ethernet port. The main focus of this paper is inside the benchmarking of the ARM platform. The priority output is inside the decision of the usability in real computer environment. The second goal flows from realized test and might provide recommendation for the implementation. The ARM is basically limited power devices and it has limited usage in the high power operation. But for many application it has sufficient power.


Title of the Paper: The Usability of the Data-Cluster Based on the CEPH Platform in Real Network Environment

 

Authors: David Malanik

Pages: 73-84

Abstract: This paper is focused to the real implementation of the data cluster based on the CEPH [1] technology. The first part is focused to the solution with geographically separated nodes placed on the shared network infrastructure. Each node; store point is in different physical location and on different subnets. The second part of this paper shows the comparison of the separated node and non-separated nodes. The non-separated solution is located in one room with one isolated network infrastructure. Realized test show the dependency of number of concurrent clients connected to the cluster and cluster read/write bandwidth. These tests show the potential limits of the developed solution. The test compares the effect of shared infrastructure and geographical separation of data-cluster nodes.


Title of the Paper: Model-Driven Conception for Planning and Implementation of Software Configuration Management

 

Authors: Arturs Bartusevics, Leonids Novickis

Pages: 62-72

Abstract: Software Configuration Management controls evolution of software development process to include only valid configuration items in the final product. To establish this control, a set of tasks should be implemented in software development project: version control, build and deploy management, source code management etc. Usually companies already have tools and solutions to implement mentioned tasks. The main challenge is an implementation of software configuration management tasks in new projects. This implementation should be done with minimum additional efforts and customization using existing solutions and tools where it is possible. The study offers novel model-driven approach for planning and implementation of software configuration management using models with different level of abstraction. Firstly, meta-model for general model-driven approach is provided. Using this meta-model, three different models are developed for planning and implementation of software configuration management. Finally, simplified use case provided to describe designed models from practical side and direction of further works are underlined.


Title of the Paper: Adding More Functionality to the Matrix Vector Transition Net for Interaction Modelling

 

Authors: A. Spiteri Staines

Pages: 53-61

Abstract: Petri nets have been used for system modelling for the past three decades. However for representing complexity at the architectural level there are certain issues. Modern systems have many complex states and connections that are not easily visible. A Matrix Vector Transition Net (MVTN) introduced in previous work is explained. This model can represent certain types of complexities in a compact form. The MVTN is based on Petri net like semantics. The MVTN is an executable structure that is more expressive for certain classes of system modelling problems. The inputs and outputs of this structure can be matrices or vectors. This work presents the addition or combination of Petri net structures to the MVTN for enhanced modelling. These can be added places or an entire net. Several toy examples from communicating systems are presented to show the enhanced MVTN. The resultant models preserve properties similar to Petri nets and are both symbolic and executable models. Results and findings are discussed.


Title of the Paper: Image Compression Using Gaussian White Noise Irregular Segmentation Technique

 

Authors: Benabdellah Yagoubi

Pages: 48-52

Abstract: The aim of this work is to look for a simple technique for the image compression. This method consists in determining the different Gaussian white noise (GWN) segments in each image matrix row. The resulting GWN segments lengths are dependent on the reconstructed image quality. The irregularly compressed image, in this case, is represented by the parameters vector of the corresponding mono-dimensional stochastic model; the variances, means and the corresponding segments lengths. We have, in addition, compared the results obtained with the GWN to those obtained using a uniform distribution model and as a result, we have found that the GWN is more adequate for the irregular image compression. The irregular compression rate obtained in this work is higher than the regular compression rate.


Title of the Paper: Human Action Recognition Using Combined Contour-Based and Silhouette-Based Features and Employing KNN or SVM Classifier

 

Authors: Salim Al-Ali, Mariofanna Milanova, Agata Manolova, Victoria Fox

Pages: 37-47

Abstract: This paper presents a new algorithm for human action recognition in videos. This algorithm is based on a combination of two different feature types extracted from Aligned Motion Images (AMIs). The AMI is a method for capturing the motion of all frames in a human action video in one image. The first feature is a contour-based type and is employed to grasp boundary details of the AMI. It relies on the 1st and 2nd discrete time differential of the chord-distance signature feature, so it is called Derivatives of Chord-Distance Signature (DCDS). The second feature is a silhouette-based type that is used to capture regional appearance details. It catches most of the visual components for the AMI using a Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) feature. Combining both features creates a complementary feature vector that makes it possible to obtain an optimal correct recognition rate of 100%. For the classification, the algorithm is utilized two different classifiers: K-Nearest-Neighbor (KNN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). The KNN is based on the 1st norm distance and achieves slightly better results than this obtained by SVM. The performance of the algorithm is tested through six experiments. Three experiments for the KNN classifier and others for the SVM. For each classifier, three experiments conducted to determine the effectiveness of each feature separately and when combined. The experimental results demonstrate the potential power of this algorithm and its promising success in human action recognition in videos.


Title of the Paper: Security Risks of Java Applets and Possible Solutions for Remote Laboratories

 

Authors: P. Špiláková, R. Jašek, F. Schauer

Pages: 28-36

Abstract: The contribution deals with the Java language security, predominantly the holes, which can be misused by the hackers´ attacks. Emphasis is on Java applets, used for ISES (Internet School Experimental system) control software of remote experiments spread across the Internet. Due to the security constraints, imposed by the corporation Oracle, these applets need to be replaced by other available alternatives for web communication. For the purpose the programming languages Dart, ActiveX and JavaScript are compared from the point of view of security and the transport rate and we choose as the best one JavaScript.


Title of the Paper: Modern and Next-Generation High-Performance Computer Systems with Reconfigurable Architecture

 

Authors: Ilya I. Levin, Alexey I. Dordopulo, Yuri I. Doronchenko, Maxim K. Raskladkin

Pages: 21-27

Abstract: The paper covers architectures and comparison characteristics of reconfigurable computer systems (RCS): computational modules 24V7-750 and Taygeta, placed into a computational rack, and a desktop reconfigurable computational block “Celaeno”. These systems are based on field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) of the Xilinx Virtex-7 family. In the paper we also consider architecture and assembly of next-generation RCSs with a liquid cooling system and give results of calculations and prototyping of principal technical solutions. We consider technologies of allied task solving by means of a complex of application software development tools. Next-generation RCSs with a liquid cooling subsystem provide the performance of 1 PFlops for a standard computational 47U rack with the power of 150 kWatt. Such systems have a considerable advantage of such engineering and economical parameters as real and specific performance, power efficiency, mass and dimension characteristics, etc., in comparison with similar systems.


Title of the Paper: Automatic Image Annotation on Object and Scene Levels

 

Authors: Marina Ivašić-Kos, Miran Pobar, Ivo Ipšić

Pages: 13-20

Abstract: Automatic annotation methods deal with visual features such as color, texture and structure that can be extracted from the raw image data, and can automatically assign keywords to an unlabeled image. The major goal is to bridge the so-called semantic gap between the available features and keywords that could be useful to humans for image retrieval. Although different people will most likely annotate the same image with different words, most people when searching for images use object or scene labels. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to annotate the images with on both object and scene labels, and to compare the performance of automatic image annotation both levels. The assumption is that there can be many objects in each image, but an image can be classified into only one scene. Therefore, the object level annotation is considered as a multi-label classification problem and the scene level annotation as a single-label multi-class classification problem. In order to facilitate the comparison the same features sets composed of dominant colors, GIST and SIFT descriptors for the both annotation levels were used. Due to the different types of classification problems, different classification methods were more appropriate, so we have used RAKEL and ML-kNN multi-label classification methods to perform the annotation of object level and the Naïve Bayes and SVM classifier for annotation on scene level. The Naïve Bayes and SVM classifier were also used in case of object level annotation, but on transformed data. Results of scene and object level annotations of outdoor images are compared using different feature subsets on Corel and Flickr images.


Title of the Paper: Method of Involvement Rapid Application Development into ITIL® Method

 

Authors: V. Veselá, L. Králík

Pages: 9-12

Abstract: This paper brings recommendation for faster development of it services using ITIL® methodology. There are a big amount of offered tools, which very often leads to poor implementation of ITIL® because of badly chosen tools. This article aims to consider using Rapid application development tools for creating a service desk. It is the important part of ITIL methodology. In this case end-users can be connected to development. This way can effectively implemented involvement service desk to operation very fast.


Title of the Paper: Multimodal E-Government Interfaces: Increase Usability with the Aid of Expressive Avatars

 

Authors: Dimitrios Rigas, Badr Almutairi

Pages: 1-8

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of multimodal interaction metaphors on ease of use in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, user satisfaction, user trust and communication performance of users in e-government interfaces. This study has been implemented by developing two different conditions on an experimental e-government platform. The first condition was based on the use of the avatar facial expression with text to present the messaging content between the sender and receiver. The second condition was concerned with using a combination of new multimodal metaphors (avatars with full body and text) to communicate the same information. These conditions were then empirically evaluated by two independent groups of users. Both conditions measured the performance of user on typical tasks and evaluation questions. The results obtained from this experiment confirm that multimodal metaphors do in fact help to improve usability and user perception of trust on e-government interfaces. They reduced the time needed for users to respond to messages, enabled users to undertake activities more accurately, users were more satisfied with the interface and had a positive influence on the perception of trust. Therefore, the improved parameters were effectiveness, efficiency, user satisfaction and user trust. It is therefore proposed to include multimodal metaphors in e-government interfaces, and this need to be taken in mind when designing such interfaces.