George S. Nezlek

Rich Internet Applications The Next Stage of Application Development

Early Internet applications were written using a classic client/server model, with multiple content pages refreshed for each user action. As users continue to demand more sophisticated and increasingly interactive Internet programming, applications development is evolving to permit more efficient communication between clients and servers. Techniques such as Ajax are being used to promote this new style of Internet programming. Rich Internet Applications (RIA) offer greatly enhanced usability, and allow Internet programs to rival their desktop counterparts for functionality. This paper explores technologies deployed in creating RIA, and considers relative merits and limitations of this new style of application development.

Gender Wage Differentials in Information Systems: 1991 – 2008 A Quantitative Analysis

This paper investigates trends and changes in the gender earnings gap for individuals employed in clerical and professional level information systems positions in the U.S. labor market for the period of 1991 through 2008. It examines changes in the earnings gap for IS workers, specifically considering changes relative to the so-called “Internet bubble†observed primarily during the late 1990s. Quantitative analysis of changes in the wage gap, adjusted for key determinants, is based on data from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Examination of these data suggests that the gender earnings gap is persistent despite frequent claims to the contrary from industry surveys and that the gap is narrower for professional level positions. Furthermore, the data suggest that female IS workers, particularly in professional level occupations, may have experienced a beneficial effect from the internet bubble, but it is unclear whether or not that beneficial effect may be fading in the post-bubble internet bust of the early 21st century.

Lightweight RFID authentication protocol: An experimental study

The market for passive RFID tags has experienced significant growth in recent years. However, passive RFID tags suffer from having a limited physical memory space for strong cryptography. The rapid proliferation of the technology, combined with the technologypsilas physical limitations, encourages the development of a ldquolightweightrdquo authentication protocol. In this paper, a means to implement such an authentication protocol is presented. The protocol takes advantage of the password protected ldquokillrdquo function of a tag, to permit its alternative use as a simple password dialog. Experimental studies have been carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach, and promising results are obtained.

The quest for an administrative nexus for information technology programs

Information Technology and Information Systems have evolved as inherently interdisciplinary fields. While an essentially haphazard proliferation of programs has helped to create a field of study that can necessarily and appropriately cross boundaries between mathematics, science, engineering, and business disciplines, the historical ambiguity with respect to program naming and classification has been, for many individuals and institutions, a source of confusion. As a discipline, if indeed there can be a single discipline to consider, individuals, educational institutions, and practitioners are constantly addressing the issue of where programs belong, both pedagogically and administratively. The existence of numerous, competing classification schemes, none of which appears to either offer a compelling advantage or commands a consensus concerning appropriateness, is the core issue the authors address in this paper. An analysis of data that are freely available (web sites for relevant academic institutions and programs) reveals literally hundreds of titles and dozens of administrative configurations for programs that fall under the broader and typical headings of CS, IS, IT, MIS, etc.. A similar inquiry into the practitioner side of the problem reveals numerous competing schemes that include, CIP & SOC, not to mention a myriad of taxonomies from various industry and professional groups (ACM, IEEE, etc.). The one thing that can be asserted with essentially absolute confidence is that this amalgam is confusing at best, and the status quo is not in the long-term interests of the discipline. The authors make no grandiose claims to having developed a unified paradigm to magically make sense of the wide range of program offerings in the numerous Information Technology and Information Systems related disciplines. Rather, this paper recognizes and begins to address the need to lay a foundation for appropriately categorizing and classifying this diverse collection of programs and configuration.

Distributed support for distributed database resources: a framework for analysis

Distributed information management implicitly assumes a suitable infrastructure providing reliable, high quality electric power. Recent large scale disruptions of power infrastructures are a reminder that power requirements of contemporary commerce must be considered by organizations that deploy distributed databases. IT managers are increasingly becoming aware that 20 th century electric power infrastructures may not provide acceptable answers to 21 st century power requirements. This paper considers the relationship between distributed information resources and the distributed power infrastructures needed to support them. An analytical framework for organizations to consider tradeoffs in providing increased uptime in the context of power infrastructure reliability is proposed.