Enhanced three-factor security protocol for consumer USB mass storage devices

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an extremely popular interface standard for computer peripheral connections and is widely used in consumer Mass Storage Devices (MSDs). While current consumer USB MSDs provide relatively high transmission speed and are convenient to carry, the use of USB MSDs has been prohibited in many commercial and everyday environments primarily due to security concerns. Security protocols have been previously proposed and a recent approach for the USB MSDs is to utilize multi-factor authentication. This paper proposes significant enhancements to the three-factor control protocol that now makes it secure under many types of attacks including the password guessing attack, the denial-of-service attack, and the replay attack. The proposed solution is presented with a rigorous security analysis and practical computational cost analysis to demonstrate the usefulness of this new security protocol for consumer USB MSDs.

A follow-up study of characteristics of young people that dropout and continue psychotherapy: service implications for a clinic in the community

Background: The paper reports the findings from a follow-up study of the factors that contribute to whether young people dropout or continue once-weekly psychotherapy at a voluntary sector psychotherapy service for young people aged 12 to 21 years. Method: The study uses data from an ongoing audit of the psychotherapy service that started in 1993; 882 young people were included in the study. Premature termination of treatment was defined as dropping out before the 21st session. Continuation in treatment was defined as remaining in therapy after 20 sessions. Measures and areas of interest used in the study include diagnostic measures, the Youth Self Report Form and Young Adult Self Report Form, demographic characteristics and treatment related information. Results: Young people who continued in treatment were more likely to be older, have anxieties about sexual and relationship issues and have higher scores on self-reported anxiety-depression. Young people who dropped out of treatment were more likely to be younger, have higher self-reported delinquency scores, have a diagnosis of hyperactivity-conduct disorder and be homeless. Conclusions: The study of treatment termination has demonstrated the value of service audit and has led to a significant change in clinical practice.

Modelling requirements of supplier selection for benchmarking service provision

Supplier selection has a great impact on supply chain management. The quality of supplier selection also affects profitability of organisations which work in the supply chain. As suppliers can provide variety of services and customers demand higher quality of service provision, the organisation is facing challenges for making the right choice of supplier for the right needs. The existing methods for supplier selection, such as data envelopment analysis (DEA) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) can automatically perform selection of competitive suppliers and further decide winning supplier(s). However, these methods are not capable of determining the right selection criteria which should be derived from the business strategy. An ontology model described in this paper integrates the strengths of DEA and AHP with new mechanisms which ensure the right supplier to be selected by the right criteria for the right customer's needs.

Key drivers of frontline employee generation of ideas for customer service improvement

Anchored in the service-dominant logic and service innovation literature, this study investigates the drivers of employee generation of ideas for service improvement (GISI). Employee GISI focuses on customer needs and providing the exact service wanted by customers. GISI should enhance competitive advantage and organizational success (cf. Berry et al. 2006; Wang and Netemeyer 2004). Despite its importance, there is little research on the idea generation stage of the service development process (Chai, Zhang, and Tan 2005). This study contributes to the service field by providing the first empirical evaluation of the drivers of GISI. It also investigates a new explanatory determinant of reading of customer needs, namely, perceived organizational support (POS), and an outcome of POS, in the form of emotional exhaustion. Results show that the major driver of GISI is reading of customer needs by employees followed by affective organizational commitment and job satisfaction. This research provides several new and important insights for service management practice by suggesting that special care should be put into selecting and recruiting employees who have the ability to read customer needs. Additionally, organizations should invest in creating work environments that encourage and reward the flow of ideas for service improvement

Living up to the value agenda: the empirical realities of through-life value creation in construction

Current research agendas are increasingly encouraging the construction industry to operate on the basis of 'added value'. Such debates echo the established concept of 'high value manufacturing' and associated trends towards servitization. Within construction, the so-called 'value agenda' draws heavily from the notion of integrated solutions. This is held to be especially appropriate in the context of PFI projects. Also relevant is the concept of service-led projects whereby the project rationale is driven by the client's objectives for delivering an enhanced service to its own customers. Such ideas are contextualized by a consideration of broader trends of privatization and outsourcing within and across the construction industry's client base. The current emphasis on integrated solutions reflects long-term trends within privatized client organizations towards the outsourcing of asset management capabilities. However, such trends are by no means uniform or consistent. An in-depth case study of three operating divisions within a major construction company illustrates that firms are unlikely to reorientate their business in response to the 'value agenda'. In the case of PFI, the tendency has been to establish specialist units for the purposes of winning work. Meanwhile, institutionally embedded operating routines within the rest of the business remain broadly unaffected.

Evidence of systematic approaches to innovation in facilities management

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the nature of “service innovation” in the facilities management (FM) context. It reviews recent thinking on “service innovation” as distinct from “product innovation”. Applying these contemporary perspectives it describes UK case studies of 11 innovations in different FM organisations. These include both in-house client-based innovations and third-party innovations. Design/methodology/approach – The study described in the paper encompasses 11 different innovations that constitute a mix of process, product and practice innovations. All of the innovations stem from UK-based organisations that were subject to in-depth interviews regarding the identification, screening, commitment of resources and implementation of the selected innovations. Findings – The research suggested that service innovation is highly active in the UK FM sector. However, the process of innovation rarely followed a common formalized path. Generally, the innovations were one-shot commitments at the early stage. None of the innovations studied failed to proceed to full adoption stage. This was either due to the reluctance of participating organisations to volunteer “tested but unsuccessful” innovations or the absence of any trial methods that might have exposed an innovations shortcomings. Research limitations/implications – The selection of innovations was restricted to the UK context. Moreover, the choice of innovations was partly determined by the innovating organisation. This selection process appeared to emphasise “one-shot” high profile technological innovations, typically associated with software. This may have been at the expense of less resource intensive, bottom-up innovations. Practical implications – This paper suggests that there is a role for “research and innovation” teams within larger FM organisations, whether they are client-based or third-party. Central to this philosophy is an approach that is open to the possibility of failure. The innovations studied were risk averse with a firm commitment to proceed at the early stage. Originality/value – This paper introduces new thinking on the subject of “service innovation” to the context of FM. It presents research and development as a planned solution to innovation. This approach will enable service organisations to fully test and exploit service innovations.

Improvement of link failure restoration utilising MPLS as a means to maintain QoS

The availability of a network strongly depends on the frequency of service outages and the recovery time for each outage. The loss of network resources includes complete or partial failure of hardware and software components, power outages, scheduled maintenance such as software and hardware, operational errors such as configuration errors and acts of nature such as floods, tornadoes and earthquakes. This paper proposes a practical approach to the enhancement of QoS routing by means of providing alternative or repair paths in the event of a breakage of a working path. The proposed scheme guarantees that every Protected Node (PN) is connected to a multi-repair path such that no further failure or breakage of single or double repair paths can cause any simultaneous loss of connectivity between an ingress node and an egress node. Links to be protected in an MPLS network are predefined and an LSP request involves the establishment of a working path. The use of multi-protection paths permits the formation of numerous protection paths allowing greater flexibility. Our analysis will examine several methods including single, double and multi-repair routes and the prioritization of signals along the protected paths to improve the Quality of Service (QoS), throughput, reduce the cost of the protection path placement, delay, congestion and collision.

Conceptualisation of an application of adaptive synthetic socioeconomic agents for intelligent network control

The deployment of Quality of Service (QoS) techniques involves careful analysis of area including: those business requirements; corporate strategy; and technical implementation process, which can lead to conflict or contradiction between those goals of various user groups involved in that policy definition. In addition long-term change management provides a challenge as these implementations typically require a high-skill set and experience level, which expose organisations to effects such as “hyperthymestria” [1] and “The Seven Sins of Memory”, defined by Schacter and discussed further within this paper. It is proposed that, given the information embedded within the packets of IP traffic, an opportunity exists to augment the traffic management with a machine-learning agent-based mechanism. This paper describes the process by which current policies are defined and that research required to support the development of an application which enables adaptive intelligent Quality of Service controls to augment or replace those policy-based mechanisms currently in use.

Service charge management

Service Charge Management is an area of concern to property managers acting for both property occupiers and investors. This paper reviews the background to service charge management in the UK, and examines, by means of a survey, the current state of service charge practice in the surveying profession.

The relationship between well-being, future planning and intentions to utilise intervention programmes: what can be learned from homeless service users?

There has been an increasing interest in the impact of individual well-being on the attitudes and actions of people receiving services designed to offer support. If well-being factors are important in the uptake and success of service programmes it is important that the nature of the relationships involved is understood by service designers and implementers. As a contribution to understanding, this paper examines the impact of well-being on the uptake of intervention programmes for homeless people. From the literature on well-being a number of factors are identified that contribute towards overall well-being, which include personal efficacy and identity, but also more directly well-being can be viewed as personal or group/collective esteem. The impact of these factors on service use is assessed by means of two studies of homelessness service users, comparing the implementation of two research tools: a shortened and a fuller one. The conclusions are that the factors identified are related to service use. The higher the collective esteem – esteem drawn from identification with services and their users and providers – and the less that they feel isolated, the more benefits that homeless people will perceive with service use, and in turn the more likely they are to be motivated to use services. However, the most important factors in explaining service use are a real sense that it is appropriate to accept social support from others, a rejection of the social identity as homeless but a cultivation of being valued as part of a non-homeless community, and a positive perception of the impact of the service.

Continuity of care for carers of people with severe mental illness: results of a longitudinal study

Introduction: Continuity of care has been demonstrated to be important for service users and carer groups have voiced major concerns over disruptions of care. We aimed to assess the experienced continuity of care in carers of patients with both psychotic and non-psychotic disorders and explore its association with carer characteristics and psychological well-being. Methods: Friends and relatives caring for two groups of service users in the care of community mental health teams (CMHTs), 69 with psychotic and 38 with non-psychotic disorders, were assessed annually at three and two time points, respectively. CONTINUES, a measure specifically designed to assess continuity of care for carers themselves, was utilized along with assessments of psychological well-being and caregiving. Results: One hundred and seven carers participated. They reported moderately low continuity of care. Only 22 had had a carer’s assessment and just under a third recorded psychological distress on the GHQ. For those caring for people with psychotic disorders, reported continuity was higher if the carer was male, employed, lived with the user and had had a carer’s assessment; for those caring for people with non-psychotic disorders, it was higher if the carer was from the service user’s immediate family, lived with them and had had a carer’s assessment. Conclusion: The vast majority of the carers had not had a carer’s assessment provided by the CMHT despite this being a clear national priority and being an intervention with obvious potential to increase carers’ reported low levels of continuity of care. Improving continuity of contact with carers may have an important part to play in the overall improvement of care in this patient group and deserves greater attention.

Infotainment across access devices: the perceptual impact of multimedia QoS

The introduction of multimedia on pervasive and mobile communication devices raises a number of perceptual quality issues. However, limited work has been done examining the 3-way interaction between use of equipment, user perceptual quality and quality of service. Our work measures user perceptual quality with the quality of perception (QoP) metrics which comprises levels of informational transfer (objective) and user satisfaction (subjective) when users are presented with multimedia video clips at three different frame rates, using four different display devices. Finally, our results will show that variation in frame-rate does not impact a user’s level of information assimilation (IA), however, does impact a users’ perception of multimedia video ‘quality’.

Modelling QoS of a pervasive MVNO/M2M using semi-group theory

This paper aims to develop a mathematical model based on semi-group theory, which allows to improve quality of service (QoS), including the reduction of the carbon path, in a pervasive environment of a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). This paper generalise an interrelationship Machine to Machine (M2M) mathematical model, based on semi-group theory. This paper demonstrates that using available technology and with a solid mathematical model, is possible to streamline relationships between building agents, to control pervasive spaces so as to reduce the impact in carbon footprint through the reduction of GHG.

EU membership of the WTO: international trade disputes and judicial protection of individuals by EU Courts

The European Union (EU) is embedded in a pluralistic legal context because of the EU and its Member States’ treaty memberships and domestic laws. Where EU conduct has implications for both the EU’s international trade relations and the legal position of individual traders, it possibly affects EU and its Member States’ obligations under the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO law) as well as the Union’s own multi-layered constitutional legal order. The present paper analyses the way in which the European Court of Justice (ECJ) accommodates WTO and EU law in the context of international trade disputes triggered by the EU. Given the ECJ’s denial of direct effect of WTO law in principle, the paper focuses on the protection of rights and remedies conferred by EU law. It assesses the implications of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) – which tolerates the acceptance of retaliatory measures constraining traders’ activities in sectors different from those subject to the original trade dispute (Bananas and Hormones cases) – for the protection of ‘retaliation victims’. The paper concludes that governmental discretion conferred by WTO law has not affected the applicability of EU constitutional law but possibly shapes the actual scope of EU rights and remedies where such discretion is exercised in the EU’s general interest.

Sustainable agricultural intensification or Jevons paradox? The role of public governance in tropical South America

The process of global deforestation calls for urgent attention, particularly in South America where deforestation rates have failed to decline over the past 20 years. The main direct cause of deforestation is land conversion to agriculture. We combine data from the FAO and the World Bank for six tropical Southern American countries over the period 1970–2006, estimate a panel data model accounting for various determinants of agricultural land expansion and derive elasticities to quantify the effect of the different independent variables. We investigate whether agricultural intensification, in conjunction with governance factors, has been promoting agricultural expansion, leading to a ‘‘Jevons paradox’’. The paradox occurs if an increase in the productivity of one factor (here agricultural land) leads to its increased, rather than decreased, utilization. We find that for high values of our governance indicators a Jevons paradox exists even for moderate levels of agricultural productivity, leading to an overall expansion of agricultural area. Agricultural expansion is also positively related to the level of service on external debt and population growth, while its association with agricultural exports is only moderate. Finally, we find no evidence of an environmental Kuznets curve, as agricultural area is ultimately positively correlated to per-capita income levels.