User facilitated congestion and attack mitigation

The IEEE Wireless LAN standard has been a true success story by enabling convenient, efficient and low-cost access to broadband networks for both private and professional use. However, the increasing density and uncoordinated operation of wireless access points, combined with constantly growing traffic demands have started hurting the users' quality of experience. On the other hand, the emerging ubiquity of wireless access has placed it at the center of attention for network attacks, which not only raises users' concerns on security but also indirectly affects connection quality due to proactive measures against security attacks. In this work, we introduce an integrated solution to congestion avoidance and attack mitigation problems through cooperation among wireless access points. The proposed solution implements a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) as an intelligent distributed control system. By successfully differentiating resource hampering attacks from overload cases, the control system takes an appropriate action in each detected anomaly case without disturbing the quality of service for end users. The proposed solution is fully implemented on a small-scale testbed, on which we present our observations and demonstrate the effectiveness of the system to detect and alleviate both attack and congestion situations.

Mutually unbiased bases as submodules and subspaces

Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) have been used in several cryptographic and communications applications. There has been much speculation regarding connections between MUBs and finite geometries. Most of which has focused on a connection with projective and affine planes. We propose a connection with higher dimensional projective geometries and projective Hjelmslev geometries. We show that this proposed geometric structure is present in several constructions of MUBs.

The digital transformation of 21st century news journalism

This paper deals with the transformations that have occurred in news journalism worldwide in the early 21st century. I argue that they havebeen the most significant changes to the profession for 100 years, and the challenges facing the news media industry in responding to them are substantial, as are those facing journalism education. This argument is developed in relation to the crisis of the newspaper business model, and why social media, blogging and citizen journalism have not filled the gap left by the withdrawal of resources from traditional journalism. It also draws upon Wikileaks as a case study in debates about computational and data-driven journalism, and whether large-scale "leaks" of electronic documents may be the future of investigative journalism.

Reducing alcohol-related driving on China's roads : Traffic police officers' perceptions and practice

Alcohol-related driving is a longstanding, serious problem in China (Li, Xie, Nie, & Zhang, 2012). On 1st May, 2011 a national law was introduced to criminalize drunk driving, and imposed serious penalties including jail for driving with a blood alcohol level of above 80mg/100ml. This pilot study, undertaken a year after introduction of the law, sought traffic police officers’ perceptions of drink driving and the practice of breath alcohol testing (BAT) in a large city in Guangdong Province, southern China. A questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews were used to gain an in-depth understanding of issues relevant to alcohol-related driving. Fifty-five traffic police officers were recruited for the survey and six traffic police officers with a variety of working experience including roadside alcohol breath testing, traffic crash investigation and police resourcing were interviewed individually. The officers were recruited by the first author with the assistance of the staff from Guangdong Institute of Public Health, Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Interview participants reported three primary reasons why people drink and drive: 1) being prepared to take the chance of not being apprehended by police; 2) the strong traditional Chinese drinking culture; and 3) insufficient public awareness about the harmfulness of drink driving. Problems associated with the process of breath alcohol testing (BAT) were described and fit broadly into two categories: resourcing and avoiding detection. It was reported that there were insufficient traffic police officers to conduct routine traffic policing, including alcohol testing. Police BAT equipment was considered sufficient for routine traffic situations but not highway traffic operations. Local media and posters are used by the Public Security Bureau which is responsible for education about safe driving but participants thought that the education campaigns are limited in scope. Participants also described detection avoidance strategies used by drivers including: changing route; ignoring a police instruction to stop; staying inside the vehicle with windows and doors locked to avoid being tested; intentionally not performing breath tests correctly; and arguing with officers. This pilot study provided important insights from traffic police in one Chinese city which suggest there may be potential unintended effects of introducing more severe penalties including a range of strategies reportedly used by drivers to avoid detection. Recommendations for future research include a larger study to confirm these findings and examine the training and education of drivers; the focus and reach of publicity; and possible resource needs to support police enforcement.

Extraordinary wealth, globalization, and corruption

The billionaires of the world attract significant attention from the media and the public. Surprisingly, only a limited number of studies have explored empirically the determinants of extraordinary wealth. Using a large dataset we investigate whether globalization and corruption affect extreme wealth accumulation. We find evidence that an increase in globalization increases super-affluence. In addition, we also find that an increase in corruption leads to an increase in the creation of super fortune. This supports the argument that in kleptocracies large sums are transferred into the hands of a small group of individuals.

QoS differentiation in IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks for real-time control

IEEE 802.11 based wireless local area networks (WLANs) are being increasingly deployed for soft real-time control applications. However, they do not provide quality-ofservice (QoS) differentiation to meet the requirements of periodic real-time traffic flows, a unique feature of real-time control systems. This problem becomes evident particularly when the network is under congested conditions. Addressing this problem, a media access control (MAC) scheme, QoS-dif, is proposed in this paper to enable QoS differentiation in IEEE 802.11 networks for different types of periodic real-time traffic flows. It extends the IEEE 802.11e Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) by introducing a QoS differentiation method to deal with different types of periodic traffic that have different QoS requirements for real-time control applications. The effectiveness of the proposed QoS-dif scheme is demonstrated through comparisons with the IEEE 802.11e EDCA mechanism.

Multidisciplinary design and flight testing of a remote gas/particle airborne sensor system

The main objective of this paper is to describe the development of a remote sensing airborne air sampling system for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and provide the capability for the detection of particle and gas concentrations in real time over remote locations. The design of the air sampling methodology started by defining system architecture, and then by selecting and integrating each subsystem. A multifunctional air sampling instrument, with capability for simultaneous measurement of particle and gas concentrations was modified and integrated with ARCAA’s Flamingo UAS platform and communications protocols. As result of the integration process, a system capable of both real time geo-location monitoring and indexed-link sampling was obtained. Wind tunnel tests were conducted in order to evaluate the performance of the air sampling instrument in controlled nonstationary conditions at the typical operational velocities of the UAS platform. Once the remote fully operative air sampling system was obtained, the problem of mission design was analyzed through the simulation of different scenarios. Furthermore, flight tests of the complete air sampling system were then conducted to check the dynamic characteristics of the UAS with the air sampling system and to prove its capability to perform an air sampling mission following a specific flight path.

Chinese media

From an area of specialist research a decade ago China’s media has become now an important element of research and teaching worldwide, not only in specific Chinese cultural studies courses at the university level but increasingly in post-graduate research and in the domain of business consultancy. Edited by Michael Keane and Wanning Sun, leading experts in the field, this new title is a ‘mini library’ of the foundational and the very best cutting-edge scholarship on Chinese media

Building essential BPM capabilities to assist successful ICT deployment in the developing context : observations and recommendations from Sri Lanka

The role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has been identified as an important factor by the United Nations in achieving the millennium development goals (UNAPCICT, 2012)1. The potential for ICT has been identified as a means to reducing poverty, creating global communities by providing access to the internet and mobile networks to rural communities, improving education services, medical services, and information availability. As of today, significant amounts of funds have been invested by the governments and donor organizations in ‘Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D)’projects by establishing telecenters, e-villages, e-health, electronic and mobile banking, and egovernment systems for citizens in general, and more specifically, rural communities to bridge the digital divide (Heeks & Molla, 2009).

Stakeholder pressures and climate change disclosure : Australian evidence

This paper investigates the stakeholder pressures behind corporate accountability and disclosures in relation to climate change. By means of a questionnaire survey, the study focuses on ascertaining the views of a sample of stakeholder groups such as government bodies, institutional investors, environmental NGOs, media accounting professionals, and researchers to examine their perceptions of pressures upon Australian corporations to be accountable in relation to climate change. Prior social and environmental research found that NGOs (Deegan and Blomquist, 2006; Tilt, 1994) and the media (Brown and Deegan, 1996; Islam and Deegan, 2010) were powerful stakeholder groups influencing corporate social and environmental disclosure practices. Our paper finds that along with NGOs and the media, institutional investors and regulators (governments) are equally important and powerful actors for applying pressure for corporate accountability in relation to climate change. Based on the findings of the paper, we would argue that climate change is an issue with no single stakeholder group involved, rather it is a set of stakeholder groups including regulators, institutional investors, the media, and NGOs who demand corporations to be accountable.

Speaking truth to power : sexism, outrage and the public consciousness

Alan Jones's now infamous comment that women are destroying the joint' sparked a flurry of observations and interpretations in the national and international media and in the blogosphere about the motivations and meanings of such a statement. The overriding tone of this commentary was outrage - how dare an influential figure like Jones state with such blatant and provocative hostility that women are at best unsuitable for leadership and at worst, damaging our public and private institutions? The answers, as we have seen, are likely to be complex, but an alternative question could also be posed. Why the outrage? Public male figures have, throughout history, made derogatory, demeaning and sexist remarks about women, and the material effects of gender inequality continue to be felt- consider the gender pay gap and glass ceiling phenomenon for starters. So why did this particular comment ignite such widespread indignation and anger?

Emerging methods for digital media research : an introduction

Now as in earlier periods of acute change in the media environment, new disciplinary articulations are producing new methods for media and communication research. At the same time, established media and communication studies meth- ods are being recombined, reconfigured, and remediated alongside their objects of study. This special issue of JOBEM seeks to explore the conceptual, political, and practical aspects of emerging methods for digital media research. It does so at the conjuncture of a number of important contemporary trends: the rise of a ‘‘third wave’’ of the Digital Humanities and the ‘‘computational turn’’ (Berry, 2011) associated with natively digital objects and the methods for studying them; the apparently ubiquitous Big Data paradigm—with its various manifestations across academia, business, and government — that brings with it a rapidly increasing interest in social media communication and online ‘‘behavior’’ from the ‘‘hard’’ sciences; along with the multisited, embodied, and emplaced nature of everyday digital media practice.

Convergence of corporate social responsibility and corporate governance in weak economies : the case of Bangladesh

The convergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate governance (CG) has changed the corporate accountability mechanism. This has developed a socially responsible ‘corporate self-regulation’, a synthesis of governance and responsibility in the companies of strong economies. However, unlike in the strong economies, this convergence has not been visible in the companies of weak economies, where the civil society groups are unorganised, regulatory agencies are either ineffective or corrupt and the media and non-governmental organisations do not mirror the corporate conscience. Using the case of Bangladesh, this article investigates the convergence between CSR and CG in the self-regulation of companies in a less vigilant environment.

Information accountability and usability : are there any connections?

Availability of health information is rapidly increasing and the expansion and proliferation of health information is inevitable. The Electronic Healthcare Record, Electronic Medical Record and Personal Health Record are at the core of this trend and are required for appropriate and practicable exchange and sharing of health information. However, it is becoming increasingly recognized that it is essential to preserve patient privacy and information security when utilising sensitive information for clinical, management and administrative processes. Furthermore, the usability of emerging healthcare applications is also becoming a growing concern. This paper proposes a novel approach for integrating consideration of information accountability with a perspective from usability engineering that can be applied when developing healthcare information technology applications. A social networking user case in the healthcare information exchange will be presented in the context of our approach.