Managing readiness in enterprise systems-driven organizational change

The introduction of enterprise systems (ES) frequently leads to organizational change, as it involves multiple stakeholders and is associated with fundamental organizational improvements cutting across functional and organizational boundaries. Recognizing that ES implementations are overshadowed by a high failure rate because of resistance to change, this study focuses on the development of readiness for change as a way to ease an IT-driven organizational change, including ES implementations. We find that readiness for change can be enhanced by boosting the relevant individuals' attachment to the organization and their perceived personal competence regardless of the focal ES package and its technological characteristics. We also find that readiness for change positively impacts ES usage intention together with the technological characteristics of the focal ES package. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed along with its limitations.     

Effect of asymmetrical channel chirping on field intensity patterns of supermodes and modal discrimination in index guided laser arrays

The effect of channel-width chirping on near- and far-field intensity patterns of the six supermodes was investigated. The supermode discrimination was evaluated in various channel-chirped index guided laser arrays. The results show that the linearly channel-chirped laser array has very good supermode discrimination which is better than that of a uniform laser array, the V channel-chirped laser array has the smallest radiation angle of the fundamental supermode among the calculated arrays, and the asymmetrically V channel-chirped array has a very small radiation angle of the fundamental supermode, which is smaller than that of the uniform array and also allows for very good fundamental supermode discrimination against the higher-order supermodes, which is better than that of the V channel-chirped laser array.     

Statistically representative three-dimensional microstructures based on orthogonal observation sections

Techniques are described that have been used to create a statistically representative three-dimensional model microstructure for input into computer simulations using the geometric and crystallographic observations from two orthogonal sections through an aluminum polycrystal. Orientation maps collected on the observation planes are used to characterize the sizes, shapes, and orientations of grains. Using a voxel-based tessellation technique, a microstructure is generated with grains whose size and shape are constructed to conform to those measured experimentally. Orientations are then overlaid on the grain structure such that distribution of grain orientations and the nearest-neighbor relationships, specified by the distribution of relative misorientations across grain boundaries, match the experimentally measured distributions. The techniques are applicable to polycrystalline materials with sufficiently compact grain shapes and can also be used to controllably generate a wide variety of hypothetical microstructures for initial states in computer simulations. This article is based on a presentation made at the symposium “Characterization and Representation of Material Microstructures in 3-D” held October 8–10, 2002, in Columbus, OH, under the auspices of ASM International’s Phase Transformations committee.     

A methodology for evaluating the usability of audiovisual consumer electronic products

Usability evaluation is now considered an essential procedure in consumer product development. Many studies have been conducted to develop various techniques and methods of usability evaluation hoping to help the evaluators choose appropriate methods. However, planning and conducting usability evaluation requires considerations of a number of factors surrounding the evaluation process including the product, user, activity, and environmental characteristics. In this perspective, this study suggested a new methodology of usability evaluation through a simple, structured framework. The framework was outlined by three major components: the interface features of a product as design variables, the evaluation context consisting of user, product, activity, and environment as context variables, and the usability measures as dependent variables. Based on this framework, this study established methods to specify the product interface features, to define evaluation context, and to measure usability. The effectiveness of this methodology was demonstrated through case studies in which the usability of audiovisual products was evaluated by using the methods developed in this study. This study is expected to help the usability practitioners in consumer electronics industry in various ways. Most directly, it supports the evaluators' plan and conduct usability evaluation sessions in a systematic and structured manner. In addition, it can be applied to other categories of consumer products (such as appliances, automobiles, communication devices, etc.) with minor modifications as necessary.     

Reversible data hiding scheme with edge-direction predictor and modulo operation

Since the first histogram shifting technique was proposed by Ni et al., many histogram based data hiding methods were proposed to improve their scheme. One of the methods is using difference value between cover image and prediction image. Another method is using two point pairs and absolute value for improving Ni et al.’s scheme. In this paper, novel reversible data hiding scheme with edge-direction predictor and modulo operation was proposed for improving histogram shifting technique with 3 cases. We considered as much as possible around pixels by using edge-direction predictor with odd and even line embedding Also, we utilize two point pairs and absolute value at the same time by using modulo operation with wrap around. In the experimental results, the proposed scheme shown a good quality image result about 48dB as similar as other schemes and enhanced hiding capacity over 50 % than other schemes.     

Data hiding method using image interpolation

Data hiding is to conceal the existence of secret data. A reversible data hiding method can extract the cover image without any distortion from the stego-image after the hidden data have been extracted. This paper proposes a new interpolation and a data hiding method. The proposed scaling-up neighbor mean interpolation method has a low-time complexity and high-calculation speed. The proposed data hiding method is based on interpolation. Comparison on data hiding methods is divided into reversible or not. Our experimental results show the proposed method can embed a large amount of secret data while keeping a very high visual quality, the PSNR is guaranteed to be higher than 35 dB compared with other reversible data hiding methods. And also capacity is larger than any other reversible data hiding methods and comparable to other data hiding methods.     

Robust Deniable Authentication Protocol

Deniable authentication protocol is a new technique of modern cryptography. The protocol not only enables an intended receiver to identify the source of a received message, but also prevents a third party from identifying the source of the message. Recently, Shao et al. pointed out that Wang et al.’s deniable authentication protocol based on ElGamal cryptosystem is insecure to a person-in-the-middle attack; that is, in the whole process, the receiver cannot be aware of the existence of this adversary as well as the modification of the messages. Furthermore, they also presented a modification of Wang et al.’s protocol to overcome the security flaw. However, this paper demonstrates that Shao et al.’s improved protocol is still susceptible to a malicious receiver’s impersonation attack. To mitigate this security breach, we propose a robust deniable authentication protocol based on ElGamal cryptography.     

High-capacity index based data hiding method

Multimedia Tools and Applications - In this paper, a high-capacity data hiding method based on the index function is presented. The cover image is divided into non-overlapping sub-blocks, and the...     

Steganographic method based on interpolation and LSB substitution of digital images

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Steganography is the method of hiding secret data in other data, such as video or an image. A reversible data hiding method can extract the cover image from a...     

A real-time secret image sharing with fairness

When traditional secret image sharing techniques reconstructed the secret, they input the shares over t. While less than t shares can know nothing about the secret, the problem arises when there are more than t shares. The cheater can use this to put their share in the last. Therefore, fairness is a important objective of the secret image sharing. Tian et al. proposed the fairness secret sharing scheme in 2012. However, they generated v polynomials for one secret data and performed v-times to reconstruct the polynomial using Lagrange interpolation. Therefore, their scheme is unsuitableness in the real-time processing. The proposed scheme generates one polynomial for the one secret data based on the fairness concept of Tian et al.’s scheme. For the providing fairness, the proposed scheme hides the verification value at the random coefficient of the polynomial. During the secret image reconstruction procedure, each shadow image brought by a participant is verified for its fairness using XOR operation. Our scheme not only satisfies the fairness, but also is suitable for the real-time process. This helps to detect the participant from intentional provision of a false or cheating. In addition, our scheme uses the steganography technique for increasing the security protection purpose. The proposed scheme as a whole offers a high secure and effective mechanism for the secret image sharing that is not found in existing secret image sharing methods. In the experimental result, PSNR of the proposed scheme is average 44.67 dB. It is higher 4 dB than the previous schemes. The embedding capacity is also similar to the other schemes.