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1 – 10 of 263
Article
Publication date: 1 September 2005

Michael Riermeier and Tim Zimmermann

Pressure is on IT functions around the world to be driven by business rather than technology. But implementing new global career paths and competencies is no easy task. Michael…

Abstract

Pressure is on IT functions around the world to be driven by business rather than technology. But implementing new global career paths and competencies is no easy task. Michael Riermeier and Tim Zimmermann describe how their company realigned the competency model and introduced alternative career paths to a global pharmaceutical company’s IT function.

Details

Strategic HR Review, vol. 4 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1475-4398

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 August 2014

Michael Roland, Josef Langer and Rene Mayrhofer

The purpose of this paper is to address the design, implementation, performance and limitations of an environment that emulates a secure element for rapid prototyping and…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to address the design, implementation, performance and limitations of an environment that emulates a secure element for rapid prototyping and debugging. Today, it is difficult for developers to get access to a near field communication (NFC)-secure element in current smartphones. Moreover, the security constraints of smartcards make in-circuit emulation and debugging of applications impractical. Therefore, an environment that emulates a secure element brings significant advantages for developers.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors' approach to such an environment is the emulation of Java Card applets on top of non-Java Card virtual machines (e.g. Android Dalvik VM), as this would facilitate the use of existing debugging tools. As the operation principle of the Java Card VM is based on persistent memory technology, the VM and applications running on top of it have a significantly different life cycle compared to other Java VMs. The authors evaluate these differences and their impact on Java VM-based Java Card emulation. They compare possible strategies to overcome the problems caused by these differences, propose a possible solution and create a prototypical implementation to verify the practical feasibility of such an emulation environment.

Findings

While the authors found that the Java Card inbuilt persistent memory management is not available on other Java VMs, they present a strategy to model this persistence mechanism on other VMs to build a complete Java Card run-time environment on top of a non-Java Card VM. Their analysis of the performance degradation in a prototypical implementation caused by additional effort put into maintaining persistent application state revealed that the implementation of such an emulation environment is practically feasible.

Originality/value

This paper addresses the problem of emulating a complete Java Card run-time environment on top of non-Java Card virtual machines which could open and significantly ease the development of NFC secure element applications.

Details

International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, vol. 10 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1742-7371

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2015

Michael Hölzl, Endalkachew Asnake, Rene Mayrhofer and Michael Roland

The purpose of this paper is to design, implement and evaluate the usage of the password-authenticated secure channel protocol SRP to protect the communication of a mobile…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to design, implement and evaluate the usage of the password-authenticated secure channel protocol SRP to protect the communication of a mobile application to a Java Card applet. The usage of security and privacy sensitive systems on mobile devices, such as mobile banking, mobile credit cards, mobile ticketing or mobile digital identities has continuously risen in recent years. This development makes the protection of personal and security sensitive data on mobile devices more important than ever.

Design/methodology/approach

A common approach for the protection of sensitive data is to use additional hardware such as smart cards or secure elements. The communication between such dedicated hardware and back-end management systems uses strong cryptography. However, the data transfer between applications on the mobile device and so-called applets on the dedicated hardware is often either unencrypted (and interceptable by malicious software) or encrypted with static keys stored in applications.

Findings

To address this issue, this paper presents a solution for fine-grained secure application-to-applet communication based on Secure Remote Password (SRP-6a and SRP-5), an authenticated key agreement protocol, with a user-provided password at run-time.

Originality/value

By exploiting the Java Card cryptographic application programming interfaces (APIs) and minor adaptations to the protocol, which do not affect the security, the authors were able to implement this scheme on Java Cards with reasonable computation time.

Details

International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, vol. 11 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1742-7371

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 October 2009

Roland Atzmüller

The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of local institution building in active labour market policies (ALMP) in Vienna (Austria). The focus of the study is the WAFF…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of local institution building in active labour market policies (ALMP) in Vienna (Austria). The focus of the study is the WAFF (“Wiener ArbeitnehmerInnenförderungsfonds” – Vienna employee support fund) which was created in 1995.

Design/methodology/approach

This case study was conducted for the Capright‐project (Resources, rights and capabilities). It is based on a documentary analysis, interviews with experts, policy makers and managers of the WAFF and the Public Employment Service.

Findings

While the national system of labour market policy is increasingly moving towards workfare, the analysis shows that the WAFF aims to implement a more inclusive approach to secure social cohesion through programmes and measures to help people to cope with economic restructuring – in particular through training and skill development but also measures to fight social exclusion. A strong reliance on Social Partnership and cooperation pervades the self‐understanding of the WAFF even though institution building was not evolving without conflicts.

Research limitations/implications

The research sheds some light on social and economic developments in Vienna. Further research is needed to come to an in‐depth analysis of the effects of the WAFF's labour market policy activities, e.g. in relation to the national Public Employment Service.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the research about the evolution of labour market policies in cities in the context of recent economic, political and social changes.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 29 no. 11/12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1953

WE begin a new year, in which we wish good things for all who work in libraries and care for them, in circumstances which are not unpropitious. At times raven voices prophesy the…

Abstract

WE begin a new year, in which we wish good things for all who work in libraries and care for them, in circumstances which are not unpropitious. At times raven voices prophesy the doom of a profession glued to things so transitory as books are now imagined to be, by some. Indeed, so much is this a dominant fear that some librarians, to judge by their utterances, rest their hopes upon other recorded forms of knowledge‐transmission; forms which are not necessarily inimical to books but which they think in the increasing hurry of contemporary life may supersede them. These fears have not been harmful in any radical way so far, because they may have increased the librarian's interest in the ways of bringing books to people and people to books by any means which successful business firms use (for example) to advertise what they have to sell. The modern librarian becomes more and more the man of business; some feel he becomes less and less the scholar; but we suggest that this is theory with small basis in fact. Scholars are not necessarily, indeed they can rarely be, bookish recluses; nor need business men be uncultured. For men of plain commonsense there need be few ways of life that are so confined that they exclude their followers from other ways and other men's ideas and activities. And, as for the transitoriness of books and the decline of reading, we ourselves decline to acknowledge or believe in either process. Books do disappear, as individuals. It is well that they do for the primary purpose of any book is to serve this generation in which it is published; and, if there survive books that we, the posterity of our fathers, would not willingly let die, it is because the life they had when they were contemporary books is still in them. Nothing else can preserve a book as a readable influence. If this were not so every library would grow beyond the capacity of the individual or even towns to support; there would, in the world of readers, be no room for new writers and their books, and the tragedy that suggests is fantastically unimaginable. A careful study, recently made of scores of library reports for 1951–52, which it is part of our editorial duty to make, has produced the following deductions. Nearly every public library, and indeed other library, reports quite substantial increases in the use made of it; relatively few have yet installed the collections of records as alternatives to books of which so much is written; further still, where “readers” and other aids to the reading of records, films, etc., have been installed, the use of them is most modest; few librarians have a book‐fund that is adequate to present demands; fewer have staffs adequate to the demands made upon them for guidance by the advanced type of readers or for doing thoroughly the most ordinary form of book‐explanation. It is, in one sense a little depressing, but there is the challenging fact that these islands contain a greater reading population than they ever had. One has to reflect that of our fifty millions every one, including infants who have not cut their teeth, the inhabitants of asylums, the illiterate—and, alas, there are still thousands of these—and the drifters and those whose vain boast is that “they never have time to read a book”—every one of them reads six volumes a year. A further reflection is that public libraries may be the largest distributors, but there are many others and in the average town there may be a half‐dozen commercial, institutional and shop‐libraries, all distributing, for every public library. This fact is stressed by our public library spending on books last year at some two million pounds, a large sum, but only one‐tenth of the money the country spent on books. There are literally millions of book‐readers who may or may not use the public library, some of them who do not use any library but buy what they read. The real figure of the total reading of our people would probably be astronomical or, at anyrate, astonishing.

Details

New Library World, vol. 54 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1986

Willa J. Thomas

To gain a better understanding of the importance of the control of cancer, one must first know and understand certain basic facts about the disease. Cancer is the uncontrolled…

Abstract

To gain a better understanding of the importance of the control of cancer, one must first know and understand certain basic facts about the disease. Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of malignant cells. Cancer detection tests determine whether neoplasms (new, abnormal cells) are benign (non‐cancerous) units, or malignant, health‐threatening growths. Of the hundreds of known cancers, there are four types principally affecting humans: sarcoma, cancer of connective tissue and muscles; carcinoma, cancer of lining tissues; leukemia, cancer of blood‐forming tissue; and lymphoma, cancer of lymphatic tissue. Detailed scientific and medical information on cancer can be found in texts written by authorities such as Ruddon (1981).

Details

Reference Services Review, vol. 14 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Content available
Article
Publication date: 1 June 2004

236

Abstract

Details

Journal of Business Strategy, vol. 25 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0275-6668

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2004

John J. Ballow, Roland Burgman and Michael J. Molnar

When it comes to increasing shareholder value, the management team faces difficult issues in executing growth strategies. The authors explore the three most important shareholder…

3954

Abstract

When it comes to increasing shareholder value, the management team faces difficult issues in executing growth strategies. The authors explore the three most important shareholder value management factors: managing not only for current operations but for future growth; accounting for and managing intangible assets, one of the key drivers of value in today’s economy; and deciding where to invest resources given the inability of current tools to provide a reliable link between investments and the creation of shareholder value.

Details

Journal of Business Strategy, vol. 25 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0275-6668

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 August 2018

Michael Leyer, Alexander Richter and Melanie Steinhüser

The purpose of this paper is to reveal how information and communication technology (ICT) can empower shop floor workers in collaborative manufacturing environments.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to reveal how information and communication technology (ICT) can empower shop floor workers in collaborative manufacturing environments.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors gather data from a mobile maintenance department of a steel manufacturing company and apply the method of a scenario-based design. The authors use data from interviews, observations and company documents to create problem and activity scenarios. The authors also demonstrate the development of a worker-centric digital design in multiple demonstration and evaluation cycles.

Findings

The authors find that ICT can be used to ensure that empowerment is not only a concept, but can sustainably empower daily operations.

Research limitations/implications

The authors contribute to theory by showing how structural empowerment can be used as a guiding theoretical lens to design ICT for shop floor workers in collaborative manufacturing work environments. These implications are limited to findings from a single case study.

Practical implications

The results provide an overview of different empowerment dimensions, namely, the access to information, resources, support and opportunities, that can support employees in collaborative manufacturing environments.

Originality/value

This paper is first in suggesting a framework of how ICT designs can be used to empower shop floor workers in collaborative manufacturing environments.

Details

International Journal of Operations & Production Management, vol. 39 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3577

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 December 2014

A. Belhocine, M. Bouchetara, A. Bakar and M. Nouby

Safety aspect in automotive engineering has been considered as a number one priority in development of new vehicle. Each single system has been studied and developed in order to…

Abstract

Safety aspect in automotive engineering has been considered as a number one priority in development of new vehicle. Each single system has been studied and developed in order to meet safety requirement. Instead of having air bag, good suspension systems, good handling and safe cornering, there is one most critical system in the vehicle which is brake systems. The objective of this work is to investigate and analyze the temperature distribution of rotor disc during braking operation using ANSYS Multiphysics. The work uses the finite element analysis techniques to predict the temperature distribution on the full and ventilated brake disc and to identify the critical temperature of the rotor. The analysis also gives us, the heat flux distribution for the two discs.

Details

World Journal of Engineering, vol. 11 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1708-5284

Keywords

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