1522 research outputs found
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ConnectKey.com: The use of Open Source technologies to provide cost effective services for eBusiness to SMEs
Get PDFThe emergence of Linux as an open source operating system for business use over the past decade, and of the WWW as a platform for distributed applications development, has led to the availability of a complete software environment which is open source, and yet robust enough to allow the development of on-line services for SMEs. This paper analyses the various open source options available, and explores the experience of ConnectKey.com in offering a subset of these to Irish SMEs. This NITOURA II project was funded under EU TEN-Telecom
From Information Systems in Social Settings To Information Systems as Social Settings
Get PDFResearch into the social impact of automation sees automation systems as separate entities to the social systems that they affect. This paper examines this research position. Social systems are defined as systems of organisation and work involving human cooperation and inter-relations (adapted from OED 1990). It explores the possibility that some automation systems are themselves social systems. This proposition reframes the question of social impact by placing the impacting system as part of the impacted social system. Manufacturing information systems (IS) are presented as an example of automation applied to information processing. Manufacturing IS’s attempt to provide streamlined, automated information processing in their host organisations. Information systems development (ISD) methodologies are centred upon delivering a technical solution in this space. The focus upon technology in ISD de-emphasises the social impact of these systems and places the technical system outside the impacted social system. This paper briefly summarises results from an empirical study, which reveals that the delivery of a new information system means the delivery of a new social system. This social system is the primary outcome of ISD. This issue is not explicitly recognised by most current research trajectories. This paper contends that the implications of this are extremely significant for research and development of complex automata for information systems
Implementing Software Building Blocks to Create an Inter-Enterprise B2B Service Management Environment: The FORM perspective
No full textNew generation IP-services are forecasted to be the future technology enablers of commercial Business-to-Business (B2B) services and solutions. The Information Societies Technology (IST) FORM project has defined an open development framework for the management of these new B2B enabling environments. A key element of the framework is the concept of reusable components or Building Blocks for the rapid development of inter-enterprise management solutions. This paper presents the FORM open development framework and its application in the design and implementation of a federated billing and accounting solution for inter-enterprise service management
Firmware Deployment of Strong Encryption: An Investigation and Implementation
Get PDFSoftware encipherment and an equivalent firmware implementation is the general scope of this work. Current cryptographic implementations rely on software running under general purpose, often multi-user, operating systems alongside a horde of untrusted and possibly malicious applications. Additionally there are other threats to security, such as that posed by "crackers'' or government agencies listening in to network traffic. This work addresses one method for minimising these risks.
A framework is presented for implementation of a cryptographic coprocessor,
capable of securely performing encryption, decryption and key management. To achieve maximum performance and security the algorithm is instantiated in firmware. This achieves superior performance to pure software implementations.
This work also examines various issues related to the choice of algorithms out "in the wild" today, how they operate, and how they can be used for different purposes. It shows how a software algorithm can be brought into the hardware/firmware domain and deployed as effectively therein. The framework implemented retains all the functionality of the pure software solution while gaining significantly in performance. This approach is also significantly more secure, as a firmware implementation is not open to the standard security workarounds and breaches commonly applied to software solutions.
As part of the project a corresponding software implementation has been verified against the firmware equivalent, and an assessment made on the relative merits of both approaches with respect to speed, security, and ease of implementation
Letter Writing and Collaborative Note Making in Social Work Practice
Get PDFThis paper presents the use of letter writing and collaborative note taking as an ethical means of recording social work conversations
Federated Accounting: Service Charging and Billing in a Business-to-Business Environment
Get PDFThe liberalisation of the telecommunications industry has resulted in a proliferation of new services and services providers. This is particularly the case in the rapidly expanding IP-based services market. Providers include Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Virtual Private Network (VPN), communication (backbone operators), and application service providers. The final service set delivered to the customer enduser will result from the combination of these service offerings. From a service usage accounting perspective, this new environment creates a number of important challenges, which did not apply in the traditional monopolistic telecommunications environment. The first issue is that of multiple administrative domains from the customer and service provider side and the second issue concerns applying customer Service Level Agreements (SLA) and Quality of Service (QoS). This paper addresses the issue of settlement of service usage charging across several service providers when they collectively provide application, information, or communication service to a customer. The issue at the stake is to develop standardised mechanisms that allow various business and operation support systems operating in various domains to exchange service usage information. The work presented in this paper focuses on the development of a business-tobusiness (B2B) service provisioning and management architecture to provide guidance to international organisations on the development of a federated accounting management solution. This architecture aims to be both open and adaptable and draws requirements from standardisation work going on in TMForum (TeleManagement Forum), IPDR (IP Detail Record), IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and ETSI (European Telecommunication Standardisation Institute)
Flexible Multi-Service Telecommunications Accounting System
Get PDFDue to market deregulation and technological advances, a multi-service broadband environment is emerging,
generating a requirement for a new approach to pricing systems. This paper presents such an approach and
describes a working implementation of an innovative and flexible multi-service accounting system. The system
is based on a mature understanding of the nature of charging algorithms, and is implemented as a set of
interoperating distributed components. At the heart of the system is a rating engine built around a service
portfolio, tying together spreadsheet specification of arbitrarily complex services, charging algorithms and tariff
tables. The very wide range of service delivery technologies in existence motivates the design of a system that is
independent of proprietary formats and based on a dynamic service portfolio structure and a generic service
detail record definition
Modification of the Internal Temperature Distribution in Broad Area Semiconductor Lasers and the effect on Spatial Coherence
Get PDFFostering Healthy Transitions: Honouring the Healing Power of Stories
Get PDFIreland has a long tradition of storytelling. We create our identity through the stories we tell of ourselves in a narrative approach to becomming who we were born to be. This paper uses the story of Fionn Mac Cumhaill as a way of honouring the stories children bring with them when they come into care or live in foster families
The Role of Oxidative Stress in the Pathogenesis of Age-Related Macular Degeneration
Get PDFAge-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blind registration in the developed
world, and yet its pathogenesis remains poorly understood. Oxidative stress, which refers to cellular
damage caused by reactive oxygen intermediates (ROI), has been implicated in many disease processes,
especially age-related disorders. ROIs include free radicals, hydrogen peroxide, and singlet oxygen, and they
are often the byproducts of oxygen metabolism. The retina is particularly susceptible to oxidative stress
because of its high consumption of oxygen, its high proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids, and its exposure
to visible light. In vitro studies have consistently shown that photochemical retinal injury is attributable
to oxidative stress and that the antioxidant vitamins A, C, and E protect against this type of injury. Furthermore,
there is strong evidence suggesting that lipofuscin is derived, at least in part, from oxidatively damaged
photoreceptor outer segments and that it is itself a photoreactive substance. However, the relationships
between dietary and serum levels of the antioxidant vitamins and age-related macular disease are less clear,
although a protective effect of high plasma concentrations of
a
-tocopherol has been convincingly demonstrated.
Macular pigment is also believed to limit retinal oxidative damage by absorbing incoming blue light
and/or quenching ROIs. Many putative risk-factors for AMD have been linked to a lack of macular pigment,
including female gender, lens density, tobacco use, light iris color, and reduced visual sensitivity. Moreover,
the Eye Disease Case-Control Study found that high plasma levels of lutein and zeaxanthin were associated
with reduced risk of neovascular AMD. The concept that AMD can be attributed to cumulative oxidative
stress is enticing, but remains unproven. With a view to reducing oxidative damage, the effect of nutritional
antioxidant supplements on the onset and natural course of age-related macular disease is currently being
evaluated. (
Surv Ophthalmol 45
:115–134, 2000. © 2000 by Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.