Special Issue on Extended Papers from Science and Information Conference 2013

Copyright Statement: This is an open access publication licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, even commercially as long as the original work is properly cited.

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Paper 1: Approximate SER for M-PSK using MRC and STTD Techniques over Fading Channels

Abstract: In this study, approximate symbol error rate (SER) expressions for M-ary phase shift keying (M-PSK) modulation scheme over independent and identically distributed (i.i.d) slow-flat Rician and Rayleigh fading channels are derived. Simulation results show the superior impact of using the maximum ratio combining (MRC) space diversity technique on the overall performance. In particular, the communication reliability (i.e., capacity and coverage) will increase by increasing the diversity order (i.e., the number of the combiner’s branches), where less power is needed to achieve the same probability of error. Then, a comparison between the approximate and exact probability of symbol error is performed and the results are shown to be comparable (1–2 dB). Next, approximate SER expression is derived over i.i.d slow-flat Nakagami-m fading channels. In particular, space time transmit diversity (STTD) technique is used to enhance the reliability of the proposed model using two transmit antennas and one receive antenna. The simulation results show the effect of the Nakagami-m parameter, m, on the SER where the performance will improve by increasing the value of m where fading is less severe in this case. Furthermore, the performance of the SER is lower for higher values of SNR and is worse for high order PSK modulation schemes.

Author 1: Mahmoud A. Khodeir
Author 2: Muteeah A. Jawarneh

Keywords: Rician fading channel; Rayleigh fading channel; Nakagami-m fading channel; maximum ratio combining; space diversity; space time transmit diversity; symbol error rate.

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Paper 2: A Socially Driven, Goal-Oriented Approach to Business Process Management

Abstract: Over the recent years, there has been much discussion about the concept of Social Business Process Management (SBPM) and how it is able to overcome some of the limitations of the traditional BPM systems. This paper aims to address gaps in social BPM research by working towards a goal-driven SBPM meta-model that seamlessly integrate the process design and enactment stages. This approach also makes use of a process recommendation system to guide the activities of the users based on their social behavior and social goals. We argue that this approach will lead to truly social driven process enactment environments.

Author 1: Mohammad Ehson Rangiha
Author 2: Bill Karakostas

Keywords: BPM; Social BPM; Goal-Based Modeling; Social Goals; Process Goals

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Paper 3: Measuring Homophily in Social Network: Identification of Flow of Inspiring Influence under New Vistas of Evolutionary Dynamics

Abstract: Interaction with different person leads to different kinds of ideas and sharing or some nourishing effects which might influence others to believe or trust or even join some association and subsequently become the member of that community. This will facilitate to enjoy all kinds of social privileges. These concepts of grouping similar objects can be experienced as well as could be implemented on any Social Networks. The concept of homophily could assist to design the affiliation graph (of similar and close similar entities) of every member of any social network thus identifying the most popular community. In this paper we propose and discuss three tier data-mining algorithms) of a social network and evolutionary dynamics from graph properties perspective (embeddedness, betweenness and graph occupancy). A novel contribution is made in the proposal incorporating the principle of evolutionary dynamics to investigate the graph properties. The work also has been extended towards certain specific introspection about the distribution of the impact, and incentives of evolutionary algorithm for social network based events. The experiments demonstrate the interplay between on-line strategies and social network occupancy to maximize their individual profit levels.

Author 1: Hameed Al-Qaheri
Author 2: Soumya Banerjee

Keywords: Homophily; Affiliation; Embeddedness; Betweenness; Graph occupancy; Evolutionary dynamics

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Paper 4: Generating a Domain Specific Checklist through an Adaptive Framework for Evaluating Social Networking Websites

Abstract: The growth of the Internet and related technologies has enabled the development of a new breed of dynamic websites and applications that are growing rapidly in use and that have had a great impact on many businesses. These websites need to be continuously evaluated and monitored to measure their efficiency and effectiveness, to assess user satisfaction, and ultimately to improve their quality. The lack of an adaptive usability evaluation checklist for improvement of the usability assessment process for social network sites (SNSs) represents a missing piece in usability testing. This paper presents an adaptive Domain Specific Inspection (DSI) checklist as a tool for evaluating the usability of SNSs. The results show that the adaptive social network usability checklist helped evaluators to facilitate the evaluation process, and it helped website owners to choose the specific-context usability areas that they feel are important to their usability evaluations. Moreover, it was more efficient and effective than user testing and heuristics evaluation methods.

Author 1: Roobaea AlRoobaea
Author 2: Ali H. Al-Badi
Author 3: Pam J. Mayhew

Keywords: Heuristic evaluation (HE); User Testing (UT); Domain Specific Inspection (DSI); social networks domain; social networks checklist

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Paper 5: Sociomaterial analysis of Music Notation Lessons: Virtual work and digital materialities

Abstract: The present research rests and elaborates on sociomaterial aspects of virtual practices, as manifested through distributed and collaborative work. This is approached through an interpretive case study of music notation lessons (MNLs) using the DIAMOUSES system. Our empirical data suggest that sociomateriality shifts the focus of designing interactive technologies from mere considerations of digital manifestation (i.e., forms of representation) towards explicit accounts of the representational practices (i.e., the particular material properties of these forms) and the quality attributes to be embedded in technology.

Author 1: Demosthenes Akoumianakis

Keywords: Virtual work; affordances; design qualities; case study research

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Paper 6: Strategic Analysis towards the Formulation of Micro Sourcing Strategic Trusts

Abstract: Malaysian government, realising its responsibility to upgrade the quality of life, has identified micro sourcing industry as one of the potential industry to elevate the livelihoods of the poor especially the B40 group. The B40 in Malaysia is defined as household income level of less than RM 2,300 per month. The huge potential impacts of micro sourcing industry provide motivation for this research. In determining the best way for Malaysia to implement micro sourcing industry using the available resources, strategic analysis was conducted. Tools such as SWOT and Gap analysis were used to perform the strategic analysis. Thus, the objective of the paper is to develop a full awareness of the situation through Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis. In order to determine the factors that define its current state, gap analysis was used to list down the factors needed to reach the target state and to fill the gap between these two states. Through these analyses it helps with both strategic planning and decision-making. Workshops were held to gather information from stakeholders and to discuss on the internal Strength and Weakness and the external Opportunity and Threat of micro sourcing. The discussions reveal the gap between where we are and where we want to be and also reveal areas where it must improve to meet the micro sourcing goals. The findings from the SWOT and Gap analyses will provide perspective, will reveal connections, areas for action and also identify deficiencies. The analyses will also build on the strengths, minimize the weaknesses, seize opportunities and counteracts threats and fine tuning one process. Finally, micro sourcing strategic trusts will be formulated.

Author 1: Noor Habibah Arshad
Author 2: Siti Salwa Salleh
Author 3: Syaripah Ruzaini Syed Aris
Author 4: Norjansalika Janom

Keywords: micro workers; job providers; crowd sourcing; B40 group; SWOT analysis; Gap analysis

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Paper 7: Lightweight Symmetric Encryption Algorithm for Secure Database

Abstract: Virtually all of today’s organizations store their data in huge databases to retrieve, manipulate and share them in an efficient way. Due to the popularity of databases for storing important and critical data, they are becoming subject to an overwhelming range of threats, such as unauthorized access. Such a threat can result in severe financial or privacy problems, as well as other corruptions. To tackle possible threats, numerous security mechanisms have emerged to protect data housed in databases. Among the most successful database security mechanisms is database encryption. This has the potential to secure the data at rest by converting the data into a form that cannot be easily understood by unauthorized persons. Many encryption algorithms have been proposed, such as Transposition-Substitution-Folding-Shifting encryption algorithm (TSFS), Data Encryption Standard (DES), and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithms. Each algorithm has advantages and disadvantages, leaving room for optimization in different ways. This paper proposes enhancing the TSFS algorithm by extending its data set to special characters, as well as correcting its substitution and shifting steps to avoid the errors occurring during the decryption process. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm, as it has outperformed the well-established benchmark algorithms, DES and AES, in terms of query execution time and database added size.

Author 1: Hanan A. Al-Souly
Author 2: Abeer S. Al-Sheddi
Author 3: Heba A. Kurdi

Keywords: Encryption; Security; Protection; Transposition; Substitution; Folding; Shifting

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Paper 8: Advancing Research Infrastructure Using OpenStack

Abstract: Cloud computing, which evolved from grid computing, virtualisation and automation, has a potential to deliver a variety of services to the end user via the Internet. Using the Web to deliver Infrastructure, Software and Platform as a Service (SaaS/PaaS) has benefits of reducing the cost of investment in internal resources of an organisation. It also provides greater flexibility and scalability in the utilisation of the resources. There are different cloud deployment models - public, private, community and hybrid clouds. This paper presents the results of research and development work in deploying a private cloud using OpenStack at the University of Huddersfield, UK, integrated into the University campus Grid QGG. The aim of our research is to use a private cloud to improve the High Performance Computing (HPC) research infrastructure. This will lead to a flexible and scalable resource for research, teaching and assessment. As a result of our work we have deployed private QGG-cloud and devised a decision matrix and mechanisms required to expand HPC clusters into the cloud maximising the resource utilisation efficiency of the cloud. As part of teaching and assessment of computing courses an Automated Formative Assessment (AFA) system was implemented in the QGG-Cloud. The system utilises the cloud’s flexibility and scalability to assign and reconfigure required resources for different tasks in the AFA. Furthermore, the throughput characteristics of assessment workflows were investigated and analysed so that the requirements for cloud-based provisioning can be adequately made.

Author 1: Ibad Kureshi
Author 2: Carl Pulley
Author 3: John Brennan
Author 4: Violeta Holmes
Author 5: Stephen Bonner
Author 6: Yvonne James

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Paper 9: Modifying the IEEE 802.11 MAC to improve performance of multiple broadcasting of multimedia data in wireless ad-hoc networks

Abstract: Multimedia applications over wireless networks have dramatically increased over the past years. Numerous new devices and applications that distribute audio and video over wireless networks are introduced every day and all of them demands a reliable and efficient wireless standard. Either operating as independent ad-hoc networks or as terminal parts of wired networks or the internet, wireless networks are frequently facing the need to broadcast multimedia data from multiple sources to multiple users. IEEE 802.11 standard (Wi-Fi) is the primary technology in wireless networking today. However, it has some inherited problems when it comes to broadcasting caused mainly by the lack of an acknowledgment mechanism. These problems do not allow the standard to take full advantage of the bandwidth offered by its latest amendments. In this paper two independent modifications of the medium access control (MAC) mechanism of the standard, are proposed along with the expanded use of the CTS-to-Self protection mechanism. The main objective of this study is to explore the ability of the modified MAC mechanisms to improve broadcasting performance while are operating in conjunction with a regular wireless network, and also to define the cases were the use of CTS-to-Self-protection mechanism can improve the overall performance of the network. The results show that the overall performance can be improved using these alternative MAC methods. Also, the cases where the CTS-to-Self technique can additionally contribute to the network performance are defined and analyzed.

Author 1: Christos Chousidis
Author 2: Rajagopal Nilavalan

Keywords: wireless networks; broadcasting; multimedia; linear increase of CW; EBNA; CTS-to-Self

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Paper 10: Constructing and monitoring processes in BPM using hybrid architectures

Abstract: with the entrance of BPM in the Cloud, a change in the conception and design of Business Processes has been produced. Distributed environments, in this context offer computing possibilities which are advantageous for processes, especially in a decomposition context. This last concept has been introduced in BPM allowing processes to be executed in a cloud environment as well as in an embedded one. This situation takes advantage of both approaches under criteria like sensitive data, high computing performance and system portability. An unexplored aspect in current bibliography is process monitoring over a decomposed environment. In the present article we introduce the analysis of some concepts presented in current bibliography, and we propose also the architecture for a distributed process monitoring system. In this architecture we consider different design factors like location transparency, and the data needed for instance tracking over a cloud system.

Author 1: José Martinez Garro
Author 2: Patricia Bazán

Keywords: BPM; Cloud Computing; Execution; Monitoring

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