Yousif Al-Bastaki

Handbook of Research on E-Services in the Public Sector: E-Government Strategies and Advancements

We live in an increasingly interconnected and highly sophisticated society, where the Internet has led to tremendous improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of public services. The Handbook of Research on E-Services in the Public Sector: E-Government Strategies and Advancements illustrates how technology in e-government saves individuals significant amounts of time and money, while adding value to citizens experiences with government, thus better serving their needs. This handbook provides comprehensive coverage of the issues facing managers, consultants, and practitioners in e-government and assists them in formulating ICT strategies for use within their field. These new strategies will enable them to implement collaborative policy initiatives within the private, public, and non-profit sectors to ultimately eliminate the global digital divide.

Building a Competitive Public Sector with Knowledge Management Strategy

The formulation of a competitive strategy requires an appropriate incorporation of knowledge contents for fostering the development of the competitive advantage. Visual artifacts, in the form of strategy maps, are generally considered useful for making the intertwining between different knowledge bases within the strategy making explicit. However, literature has not systematically analyzed the methods and tools for explaining how strategy making is enabled and constrained. Moreover, the public sector is a research field in which there is a call for a deeper understanding of strategic issues. In order to fill this gap, this chapter explores how strategy maps shape the strategy processes mobilizing knowledge across boundaries. Using the case study of Ca’Foscari University of Venice, a public body in the Italian University setting, the authors find that strategy maps function as boundary objects and can make strategizing a joint managerial practice. Filippo Zanin University of Udine, Italy Maurizio Massaro University of Udine, Italy Carlo Bagnoli Ca’Foscari University of Venice, Italy DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4434-2.ch017

e-learning of security and information assurance with sequence diagrams

During the last two decades postal mail became e-mail, cash transactions became cashless, libraries became digital libraries, learning became e-learning, banking became online banking, news, TV and games became online entertainment. As soon as a computer starts to share the resources available on the web or local network, it immediately becomes vulnerable to attacks or infiltration. To prevent unscrupulous attacks on such systems it is necessary to consolidate confidentiality, integrity and authentication into applications. For many years, we have been experimenting with methods for introducing important concepts related to computer security and improving e-learning and research experiences for upper-level security and information assurance students. To achieve this goal, sequence diagrams which represent the progression of events over time are introduced to our students. This paper describes an e-learning module developed to help students understand secure distributed systems applications using sequence diagrams.

Secure Digital Cashless Transactions with Sequence Diagrams and Spatial Circuits to Enhance the Information Assurance and Security Education

Often students have difficulties mastering cryptographic algorithms. For some time we have been developing with methods for introducing important security concepts for both undergraduate and graduate students in Information Systems, Computer Science and Engineering students. To achieve this goal, Sequence diagrams and spatial circuit derivation from equations are introduced to students. Sequence diagrams represent progression of events with time. They learn system security concepts more effectively if they know how to transform equations and high level programming language constructs into spatial circuits or special purpose hardware. This paper describes an active learning module developed to help students understand secure protocols, algorithms and modeling web applications to prevent attacks and both software and hardware implementations related to encryption. These course materials can also be used in computer organization and architecture classes to help students understand and develop special purpose circuitry for cryptographic algorithms. Keywords-e-cashless; transactions; cryptographic; algorithms; Sequence diagrams, Spatial circuits.

ANN Based Approach to Integrate Smell Sense in Multimedia Systems

Despite the wide usage of multimedia in several applications, research in the field of olfaction is immature in helping humans work and communicate through multi-sensory interfaces, including smell. There is no consistent method of testing user capability of smell. Therefore, smell detection and generation systems are not well integrated into todays multimedia systems. In this paper, the authors propose an odor sensing system with the capability of the discrimination among closely similar 20 different odor patterns and propose an on-line classification method using a handheld odor meter OMX-GR sensor and neural network that can be used in different multimedia applications. The proposed system is integrated to enhance the functionality of an online multimedia shopping system that is capable of selling products with visual and auditory senses.

Designing a Resilient and High Performance Network

This article describes the detailed configuration and LAN infrastructure design at the University of Bahrain (UOB). The article describes the configuration based on the new setup and migration requirements and indicates how the design satisfies those requirements. The article explains the detailed configuration of the design process of the distribution layer switches and shows how these switches can be configured in the final implementation. The article also discusses the modifications that occurred during the implementation/migration phase. The design of the network at UOB campuses incorporates resiliency into the network core in order to manage problems effectively. This will enable user access points to remain connected to the network even in the event of a failure. This incorporation aims to provide services and benefits to users without impediments.