International Journal of Computers
E-ISSN: 1998-4308
Volume 10, 2016
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.
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Volume 10, 2016
Title of the Paper: Visual Computing and Platform Services in Multimedia Clouds: Challenges and Solutions
Authors: D. A. Milovanovic, Z. S. Bojkovic
Pages: 155-159
Abstract: This paper focuses on recent advances in cloud computing for multimedia. Multimedia computing has emerged as technology to generate, edit, process, and search media contents (such as images, video, audio, graphics) in order to provide rich media services. Several fundamental challenges for multimedia computing in the cloud are highlighted as multimedia/service/ network/QoS/device heterogeneity. Key research of cloud-assisted visual computing and streaming include encoding/decoding with cloud computing resources, and transcoding with balanced cloud and edge resources for mobile media. The optimization problem is identified as three-way trade-off between the caching, transcoding, and bandwidth costs. We outline a mobile cloud-based platform solution for live transcoding and streaming-as-a-service using the standard MPEG-DASH dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP and adaptive client framework.
Title of the Paper: Methodology for Verification of a New Model for Evaluating the Usability of an M-Banking Application
Authors: Hamisu Ibrahim Abubakar, Nor laily Hashim, Azham Hussain
Pages: 147-154
Abstract: Many models for evaluating the usability of mobile application exists, but they are static, crumbled and have not undergone a verification process by usability experts to examine their capability of collecting data for the intended applications. Therefore, the proposed model is established and verified in response to the need identified in the literature because it is important for m-banking applications to provide customers with the anticipated and likely sense of interaction, to be easy to use and encourage the customers to accept the technology. This paper describes the verification procedure for a newly proposed model for evaluating the usability of m-banking applications. The purpose of this verification procedure is to identify the main practices for model verification methods for evaluating the usability of an m-banking application. The verification was conducted through the use of usability experts in mobile application development and academia to examine the model and its components. The verification form and questionnaire that measured the model in terms of consistency, understandable, easy to use, tailorable, verifiable and overall impressions have been completed by the usability experts, and the proposed model has been improved based on the feedback received from the experts. The finding from the experts’ questionnaire shows that the proposed model is complete, original and acceptable for the intended application. Therefore, this paper will provide additional knowledge in both theory and practice on model verification methods, especially for usability evaluations of commercial applications.
Title of the Paper: Study of Lyapunov Function for Different Strategies of Analogue Circuit Optimization
Authors: Alexander Zemliak, Fernando Reyes, Tatiana Markina
Pages: 139-146
Abstract: The problem of designing of analog network for a minimal computer time has been formulated as the functional minimization problem of the control theory. The design process in this case is formulated as the controllable dynamic system. The optimal sequence of the control vector switch points was determined as a principal characteristic of the minimal-time system design algorithm. The conception of the Lyapunov function was proposed to analyze the behavior of the process of designing. The special function that is a combination of the Lyapunov function and its time derivative was proposed to predict the design time of any strategy by means of the analysis of initial time interval of the process of network optimization. Thus, analyzing and comparing the behavior of function of Lyapunov for various strategies of optimization, it is possible to draw conclusions about the perspective strategies, from the point of view of speed. The parallel computing serves to compare the different strategies of optimization in real time and to select the best strategy that has the minimal computer time. This approach gives us the possibility to select the quasi optimal strategy of network optimization by analyzing the initial part of the total design process. Numerical results of optimization of various analog circuits confirm a possibility of the choice of the best, in sense of speed, strategy of the optimization allowing solving a problem of design in several orders of magnitude faster than traditional approach.
Title of the Paper: Extending Protection Motivation Theory to Understand Security Determinants of Anti-Virus Software Usage on Mobiles Devices
Authors: Waleed Al-Ghaith
Pages: 125-138
Abstract: This study proposes and develops a theoretical model by adopting and extending the protection motivation theory to identify factors affecting mobile’s users’ anti-virus software adoption by considering subjective norm with threat appraisal and coping appraisal variables which have been rarely examined before. The results show that threat appraisal and coping appraisal variables with subjective norm are able to explain 94% of mobile’s users’ intention to adopt antivirus software on their mobile’s devices. The study findings show that perceived severity alone explains 50.7% of mobile’s users’ intention to adopt anti-virus on their mobile’s devices followed by subjective norm which explains around 21.3% of intention, and then response cost that has the ability to lessening intention of mobile’s users to adopt anti-virus on their mobile’s devices by 20.6%. Perceived vulnerability, self-efficacy and response efficacy also have significant positive influence on mobile’s users’ intention to adopt anti-virus for their mobile’s devices by 17.8%, 12.7% and 12% respectively.
Title of the Paper: Printing of Rich Data Forms and Reports in wxWidgets GUI Toolkit
Authors: Michal Bližňák, Tomáš Dulík, Roman Jašek
Pages: 114-124
Abstract: Well-known cross-platform GUI toolkit called wxWidgets currently available in its 3rd major version is often used for crossplatform desktop applications development covering all major desktop OSes not only by wide open-source community but also by big commercial companies such are Intel [1], AVG, etc. Unfortunately, despite its maturity and wide range of built-in features, the well-known cross-platform GUI toolkit called wxWidgets still lacks support for easy printing of reports and forms. This paper introduces new library add-on called wxReportDocument which fills this gap and allows users to easily create rich reports and forms able to preview and/or print run-time application data.
Title of the Paper: A Design and Structure of Travel SNS Application
Authors: Kyeonhoon Kwak, Hankyu Lim
Pages: 109-113
Abstract: This paper designed and structured SNS (Social Network Service) targeting young backpacking travelers. Considering the characteristics of young backpacking travelers, several functions that are appropriate for them were designed (travel cost calculation and division process, footprint process, trip note process). Gathered in public SNS, we upload our emotions and information in a form of text, image or videos and share them with others. With abundant information in diverse fields, a huge amount of traffic is generated. Vertical SNS such as Instagram and Pinterest that induce large traffic by focusing on a specific topic and style began to emerge. Web application was materialized using HTML5, while footprint function was materialized using Geo location which is one of the HTML5 functions. When application is materialized using HTML5, materialization is possible regardless of the types of platform.
Title of the Paper: Warden 3: Internet Threat Sharing Platform
Authors: Pavel Kacha, Michal Kostěnec, Andrea Kropačova
Pages: 101-108
Abstract: For large existing body of automatically detected security events, be it honeypot machines or IDS systems, golden mine of netflow data or log data of production machines, manual distribution is infeasible. The Warden project is a platform for automated sharing detected security events among security teams. Involved parties can expand their own detected threat stream by events from other members, and vastly improve their security threat evasion and knowledge about network health. Clients, connected to Warden, can use incoming data as early warning systems, data mining and analysis engines, reputation databases, blacklist or firewall rule generators or just a data storage pools for history and trend analysis. This paper describes the design and implementation of Warden 3, the fundamental rewrite of previous version, taking advantage of nowadays technologies, using flexible JSON based Intrusion Detection Extensible Alert (IDEA) format, and aiming for robustness and solid performance.
Title of the Paper: A Computer-Aided Translation of the Phaistos Disk
Authors: Peter Z. Revesz
Pages: 94-100
Abstract: This paper presents a novel semi-automatic translation method for the Phaistos Disk that had no convincing translation for over a century. The method uses for a recently discovered connection between the Phaistos Disk symbols and other ancient scripts, including the Old Hungarian alphabet. The connection between the Phaistos Disk script and the Old Hungarian alphabet suggested the possibility that the Phaistos Disk language may be related to Proto-Finno-Ugric, Proto-Ugric, or Proto-Hungarian. Using words and suffixes from those languages, it is possible to translate the Phaistos Disk text as an ancient sun hymns that are connected to a winter solstice ceremony and a mythological explanation of the perceived daily route of the Sun in the sky.
Title of the Paper: Universal DAQ Microcontroller Unit: Evolution II
Authors: Petr Dostálek, Libor Pekař
Pages: 87-93
Abstract: Hardware design, software equipment and the functionality of the second evolution of the intelligent multipurpose input/output microcontroller converter and control unit is the goal of this contribution. Preceding stages of the unit development are concisely overviewed first. Then separate hardware parts are described in details including electronic schematic diagrams. The device firmware and software capabilities are introduced as well. User-related functionality issues are then provided to the reader followed by a concise measurement example. In the contrary to previous evolutions, a more compact hardware design, increased A/D and D/A converter resolutions, added USB communication capability, better and more accurate analog circuits with more advanced operation amplifiers, the use of OLED instead of LCD display, the pulse-width modulated signal generated by the microcontroller unit itself can be considered among the most important improvements. Moreover, the direct use of the serial link may reduce noise significantly.
Title of the Paper: A Comparison of Open-Source CMS and Analysis of Security Vulnerability
Authors: Youseck Yang, Yonggoon Kim, Yangwon Lim, Hankyu Lim
Pages: 82-86
Abstract: Following development of the Internet, interest in open software based Content Management Systems has been increasing. Many websites were bom, provoking software development that helps developers easily build websites. Using these Open-Source CMSs, web pages can be developed and managed more easily and quickly. In this study, the performances, technologies, and usability of popular CMSs were compared centering on the Open-Source CMS in Republic of Korea. In addition, vulnerabilities in contents security was examined and what are necessary for users to prevent security problems was investigated.
Title of the Paper: Verification of Smart Building Control Algorithms
Authors: Tomas Sysala, Petr Neumann
Pages: 75-81
Abstract: Article deals with smart building supporting components control algorithm verification. Two simplified models of real devices are presented. The first one is a more complex five-floor lift model composed from two cages linked up for control. The second one is a family house simplified model where the centralized and decentralized control of smaller systems takes place. Heating, lighting, controlled access, security and air condition system are illustrating those smaller systems. The assumption for control algorithm verification is a programmable logical controller (PLC) controlling the whole system and exploiting all feasible communication variants.
Title of the Paper: A Timestamp Database Structure of Efficiency for Big Data Generated from Sensors
Authors: Hyontai Sug
Pages: 69-74
Abstract: In the environment of Internet of Things (IoT) sensor data are generated and collected in very large scale. We should store the data in databases for later analysis or data mining. Sensor data consist of measured date and time as well as fractional seconds information. Because the interval of sensor data gathering is usually very narrow and a lot of sensor data are generated in a short period of time, it is highly possible that the data contain a lot of redundant measurement time or date information. As a result, the redundant data consume a large portion of storage space. In order to use the storage space more efficiently, we suggest a database structure consisting of key and time or date information to store the redundant part of time information separately. We also suggest related functions that will split time or date part from the original time format and merge the split data together for later retrieval. Because computing resource becomes cheaper and cheaper and in-memory database technology that can allow database operations cheaper becomes more popular, the expense for the additional database operations may be ignored. As a result, we may save significant amount of storage space by the expense of the additional database tables and related database operations.
Title of the Paper: Modeling of Asymmetric Modular Encryption System
Authors: R. Biyashev, S. Nyssanbayeva, N. Kapalova, D. Dyusenbayev
Pages: 65-68
Abstract: The encryption system with public key developed on the basis of the ElGamal cipher system and non-positional polynomial notations (NPNs) has been constructed and investigated. The software realization of this system has been realized. Work of the computer program has been checked on concrete examples. The efficiency of the realized non-positional system of encryption can significantly increase owing to the possibility of parallel processing of polynoms which are the remainders on the chosen base number system of NPNs.
Title of the Paper: A Secure and Audit-Able Cryptographic E-Voting Scheme for the Middle East and North Africa
Authors: Mona F. M. Mursi, Ghazy M. R. Assassa, Ahmed A. Abdel Hafez, Kareem M. AboSamra
Pages: 52-64
Abstract: A new cryptographic electronic voting scheme based on public key cryptography is proposed, to replace the conventional voting methods that are widely used in most developing countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The proposed e-voting scheme is based on the concept of Prêt à Voter, a paper ballot e-voting scheme. The new e-voting scheme uses paper ballots, due to its familiarity among the public, but with strong cryptographic algorithms with proven security features, to provide enhanced level of ballot secrecy, verifiability and security. The new e-voting scheme eliminates the need for anonymous channels to anonymize the votes in Mixnet based e-voting schemes, yet provides comparable level of security and anonymity with less system complexity. For MENA countries, it is concluded that the replacement of paper-based voting by cryptographic electronic voting to conduct large scale elections is feasible.
Title of the Paper: Enterprise Architect and Development Solution of Application Framework
Authors: J. Sedivy, R. Borkovec
Pages: 45-51
Abstract: Application design can theoretically occur using only pencil, brain and notepad. When we use these basic tools, we create only any simple application model. This model but will use only you familiar syntax and semantics. We will hardly their mysterious pictures to share. Another problem is that behind these sketches usually costs no consistent or logical meta-model formally codified semantics of model elements. Communicating such proposal is accompanied by the words "probably", "maybe" and "how it was meant."
Title of the Paper: Domain-Driven Design: Overview of Performance Benchmarks and Feasibility Assessment for DSL Platform
Authors: Nikola Vlahovic
Pages: 32-44
Abstract: Domain-driven design (DDD) is a software development approach that focuses on the development of a complete model of the software system domain. The model itself can then be used to generate system components. Unlike traditional software development approaches focus of DDD is on the process experts and, in the case of business applications, on business experts’ knowledge about business processes. In order to bring the development process closer to business experts that are usually non-IT experts or programmers new software tool or platform is required. One such platform is DSL Platform. DSL Platform is an infrastructure that can be used to develop and maintain critical complex software systems that supports DDD approach in higher extent than other available software solutions. In this paper we will examine and analyze available benchmarks of the DSL Platform in comparison to leading software development tools, methodologies and techniques. The results will show the benefits and advantages in implementation of this tool both for the development of complex software systems and even more importantly the maintenance of existing complex software systems.
Title of the Paper: Real-Time Specular Highlight Removal Using the GPU
Authors: Costin A. Boiangiu, Razvan M. Oita, Mihai Zaharescu
Pages: 25-31
Abstract: This paper focuses on a computationally-intense image preprocessing technique, specular light removal, operation which is essential for the correctness of many of the modern computer vision algorithms. The specular component is different from other lightning components in the way that it is dependent on the position of the viewer. This causes apparent changes in object shape during camera movement. Removal of this component has been implemented in multiple ways, but usually the processing takes a long time. We port an existing algorithm on a SIMT GPU architecture and prove that such complex algorithms can work in real-time, thus being of high importance for robot vision.
Title of the Paper: A Survey to Determine the Significance of Software Requirements Defects from Practitioners’ Perspectives in Malaysia
Authors: Sabrina Ahmad, Siti Azirah Asmai
Pages: 18-24
Abstract: It is important to have quality software requirements as they set a foundation to the software project resource estimation, provide a baseline for architecture and design and eventually mould the shape of the software products. Besides, history proves that good quality software requirements are crucial and the cost of fixing defects increased exponentially the later the defects were detected in the software development life cycle. Through a survey technique, this paper presents a study to position the significance of software requirements defects in the software development life cycle. It was conducted among practitioners in Malaysia which includes various industry background and level of experiences. Based on the survey analysis, the IT practitioners agreed on the existence of software requirements defects in the current practice and the types of defects were identified. Referring to the early stage of requirements elicitation, the types of defects identified were incomplete, incorrect, inconsistent, unclear, infeasible, irrelevant and incomprehensible. This paper is expected to provide an insight into the relevance of conducting research to deal with software requirements defects.
Title of the Paper: A Development Method for Cloud-Based e-Book Software-as-a-Service
Authors: Jyhjong Lin, Chaoyu Lin
Pages: 10-17
Abstract: For the rapid development of internet technologies, using internet-accessed devices for on-line reading has become a must part of everyone’s day life. Among all attractive readings, e-Book is receiving more attentions in recent years for benefiting on-line readers; two typical e-Book services can be found from Amazon and Google e-Book stores. However, some desirable features for more satisfying reader needs are still not supported well in these existing services. To address this, we present in this paper a cloud-based method for the development of such desirable e-Book services (i.e., cloud-based e-Book SaaS). The method starts from the consideration of e-Book characteristics and SaaS-provision cloud features, through the recognition of the architectural components that support the employment of cloud features into e-Book, and finally ends with the deployment of these architectural components on the configuration elements in selected realistic SaaS-provision clouds for realizing the desirable e-Book SaaS.
Title of the Paper: Case Studies of the Use of MS Office as Non-Traditional Software for Modeling, Computer Animation and Simulation
Authors: P. Hanzalova, S. Hubalovsky
Pages: 5-9
Abstract: The paper highlights the non-traditional use of MS Office – concretely MS PowerPoint. The paper describes two specific examples of how to create animations and simulations using the graphical interface of MS office software. The Visual Basic for Application implemented to MS Office applications has great importance for creation of interactive learning materials. Based on macro programming in Visual Basic for application can be obtained functional simulation. The main aim is to point out that, even in such a simple and commercially available applications useful learning materials (e.g. for presentation or instruction).
Title of the Paper: Advanced Motion Vector Smoothing for Frame Rate Up-Conversion
Authors: Yonghoon Kim, Jechang Jeong
Pages: 1-4
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a new motion vector smoothing algorithm to be used for motion-compensated frame rate up conversion (FRUC). The FRUC techniques are used to enhance the visual quality of the low frame rate video on display. Motion estimation process searches a motion vector which refers the relative block position where it has the minimum sum of difference (SAD) between the reference and target block. By using the motion vectors obtained from motion estimation process, the new frames can be interpolated. Because of plane region and repeated pattern of the background, motion estimation sometimes produces outliers. To detect and correct the outliers of motion vectors, motion vector smoothing process is utilized. In identifying the motion vector outliers, the proposed algorithm uses distance of neighboring motion vectors as weights for producing corrected motion vector. The experimental result shows that the proposed algorithm gives the best objective and subjective results.
