Information Technology papers

The balance of routing energy consumption in wireless sensor networks

Xiaoguang Zhang et al. — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 23:30:27 PDT

In order to tackle the energy hole problem of sensor networks, the non-uniform node deployment strategy was presented recently. For achieving the expected performance of this deployment method, nodes need to transmit data to the sink node by selecting a node in the adjacent inner region decided by the deployment strategy. Since nodes near the outer boundary of a region will be covered by more nodes, the random selection method will cause the unbalanced energy consumption problem. In this paper, this issue is rigorously studied and a region constraint selection scheme is proposed based on the analytical result. By combining the region constraint strategy and the maximum energy node selection mechanism, a hybrid scheme is presented. Numerical and simulation results show that the region constraint scheme can achieve acceptable performance improvements over the random scheme and the hybrid mechanism also gains better performance in comparison to the maximum energy node selection scheme.

Modelling and analysis of strategies in the design of WSAN coordination systems

Zheng da Wu — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 23:30:24 PDT

During the past five years, considerable research has been reported on the design of various coordination systems for Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks (WSANs). Though the coordination mechanism taxonomy was presented, there has been no work published for the performance comparison among these different strategies or protocols quantitatively. In this paper, we attempt to address this challenge. The contribution of this paper is as follows: (i) an approach for the performance comparison among different strategies of sensoractor coordination in WSANs is proposed; (ii) analytical models to abstract the system characteristics and operation for each kind of solutions are developed; (iii) the performance of each individual strategy under various conditions is analysed; (vi) the performance among three typical strategies is compared. The results may be helpful for the users to understand the advantage of each strategy over others under a certain condition.

The Number Crunch game: A simple vehicle for building algebraic reasoning skills

Stephen Sugden — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:09:55 PDT

A newspaper numbers game based on simple arithmetic relationships is discussed. Its potential to give students of elementary algebra practice in semi ad-hoc reasoning and to build general arithmetic reasoning skills is explored.

Adding service engineering and management to a software engineering program

Gavin Finnie et al. — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:51:57 PDT

This paper describes the rationale and an incremental approach to introduce a new curriculum in the area of service management and engineering. This is done in the context of an existing software engineering and information system program. So the total cost of the new curriculum is not high. The approach, with relatively low start-up costs, is suitable for small departments. As with any new programme or degree there is a problem of getting the concepts known in the marketplace. The School of IT in initiating this programme is actively working with several organizations to promote the ideas to potential employees and students.

Energy balanced routing strategy in wireless sensor networks

Xiaoguang Zhang et al. — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:51:54 PDT

In order to tackle the energy hole problem of sensor networks, the non-uniform node deployment strategy was presented recently. For achieving the expected performance of this deployment method, nodes need to transmit data to the sink node through selecting a node in the adjacent inner-region decided by the deployment strategy. Since nodes near the outerboundary of a region will be covered by more nodes, the random selection method will cause the unbalanced energy consumption problem. In this paper, this issue is rigorously studied and a region constrained selection scheme is proposed based on the analytical result. Numerical and simulation results show that region constrained scheme can achieve acceptable performance improvements over random scheme.

Reframing interpretivism and positivism as understanding and explanation: Consequences for information systems research

Dirk S. Hovorka et al. — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:29:11 PDT

This research offers a new perspective by reframing the positivist-interpretive debate as a distinction between the functional outcomes of research: explanation and understanding. Based on an older and well-established literature in philosophy, this distinction can reinvigorate important differences in research outcomes that have been lost. Understanding or “subjective meaning” is connected to the intentionality, thoughts, and motivations of the human subjects under study. From this perspective, understanding is the type of knowledge gained from determining the meanings, categories, and symbols humans attach to actions, knowledge, and systems. In contrast, explanation is achieved by subsuming individual instantiations of the phenomenon under broad general laws, or identifying causal mechanisms that support antecedent-consequent pairs. Researchers can proactively use the understanding-explanation distinction as a heuristic to create new lines of research questions based on what has not been explained or understood rather than on which ontology or methodology has not been used.

Comparing model checking and static program analysis: A case study in error detection approaches

Kostyantyn Vorobyov et al. — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:29:09 PDT

Static program analysis and model checking are two different techniques in bug detection that perform error checking statically, without running the program. In general, static program analysis determines run-time properties of programs by examining the code structure while model checking needs to explore the relevant states of the computation.

This paper reports on a comparison of such approaches via an empirical evaluation of tools that implement these techniques: CBMC - a bounded model checker and Parfait - a static program analysis tool. These tools are run over code repositories with known, marked in the code bugs. We indicate the performance of these tools and report on statistics of found and missed bugs. Our results illustrate the relative strengths of each approach.

Pheromone pre-seeding for the construction of RFID antenna structures using ACO

Gerhard Weis et al. — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:29:06 PDT

Ant colony optimisation is often used to construct solutions to problems for which it has no a-priori knowledge. However, decision makers and designers often have insight and practical experience concerning what constitutes good and
acceptable solutions. In this paper we exploit this knowledge by applying a pre-seeding procedure to the initial pheromone structure. Using the real-world RFID antenna design problem, we show that very good solutions can be produced. Moreover, this technique allows fine tuning of the search procedure.

Strategic alignment and IT projects in public sector organization: Challenges and solutions

Abdullah Al-Hatmi et al. — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:28:46 PDT

Strategic alignment (SA) has become a challenging task for the public sector. The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of strategic alignment perspectives on government IT projects in Australian local government. The subject frames the general contribution of this paper. The methodology of this research is based on two approaches. Firstly, a review of archival records was examined. Secondly, participatory observation was completed in a pilot study. As a result, a rich history of the process involved in IT projects over time was obtained. These data provide us with an insight to enable us to understand and explain SA in the real context of a local government. The data was analyzed according to our research design and questions. One of the major findings of this study is that simply introducing formal standards and mechanisms into the process cannot guarantee the success of IT projects. It is important that SA perspectives be practically deployed to contribute to the success of IT projects. In this regard, we propose a reference model which will achieve better linkage between business and IT strategies and generate public value. The model is simple but effective, consisting of a maturity level of strategic alignment perspectives and implemented criteria called attributes for each of these perspectives. Since the success of IT projects depends on the existence of a high maturity level of SA perspectives, the findings reveal that attributes affecting SA need to be taken into account throughout the entire process of project implementation. This contribution advances an understanding of how government policy-makers can optimize the value of their IT projects.

Data generation in model-based testing

Padmanabhan Krishnan et al. — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:28:44 PDT

In this paper we show how context free grammars extended with limited state information can be used to enhance model-based testing. Abstract models can be made more specific using the values generated by these grammars. The approach allows the association of data to the model without changing the model itself. We present two examples to illustrate the applicability of the framework. We also show how this approach is implemented in a real model-based testing tool.