Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Cloud Computing:Strategies For Cloud Computing Adoption, Faith Shimba

Dissertations

The advent of cloud computing in recent years has sparked an interest from different organisations, institutions and users to take advantage of web applications. This is a result of the new economic model for the Information Technology (IT) department that cloud computing promises. The model promises a shift from an organisation required to invest heavily for limited IT resources that are internally managed, to a model where the organisation can buy or rent resources that are managed by a cloud provider, and pay per use. Cloud computing also promises scalability of resources and on-demand availability of resources.

Although, the adoption …

A Suggested Building Block Geometry Without Continuous Radial Joints Of Possible Relevance For Particle Detectors, Jim Mcgovern

Articles

A geometry for concentrc shells or tubes, built-up from a single rhombohedral block type, is described. Continuous radial joints are avoided.

A Life Cycle Cost Analysis Of Large-Scale Thermal Energy Storage Technologies For Buildings Using Combined Heat And Power, Kenneth Gaine, Aidan Duffy

Conference Papers

Buildings account for approximately 40% of energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in developed economies, of which approximately 55% of building energy is used for heating and cooling. The reduction of building-related GHG emissions is a high international policy priority. For this reason and because there are many technical solutions for this, these polices should involve significant improvements in the uptake of small-scale energy efficient (EE) systems. However the widespread deployment of many technologies, must overcome a number of barriers, one of which is a temporal (diurnal or seasonal) mismatch between supply and demand. Costeffective thermal storage solutions have …

The Generation Of Domestic Electricity Load Profiles Through Markov Chain Modelling, Aidan Duffy, Fintan Mcloughlin, Michael Conlon

Conference Papers

Micro-generation technologies such as photovoltaics and micro-wind power are becoming increasing popular among homeowners, mainly a result of policy support mechanisms helping to improve cost competiveness as compared to traditional fossil fuel generation. National government strategies to reduce electricity demand generated from fossil fuels and to meet European Union 20/20 targets is driving this change. However, the real performance of these technologies in a domestic setting is not often known as high time resolution models for domestic electricity load profiles are not readily available. As a result, projections in terms of reducing electricity demand and financial paybacks for these micro-generation …

Information Hiding Using Stochastic Diffusion For The Covert Transmission Of Encrypted Images, Jonathan Blackledge

Conference papers

A principal weakness of all encryption systems is that the output data can be `seen' to be encrypted. In other words, encrypted data provides a 'flag' on the potential value of the information that has been encrypted. In this paper, we provide a novel approach to `hiding' encrypted data in a digital image. We consider an approach in which a plaintext image is encrypted with a cipher using the processes of `stochastic diffusion' and the output quantized into a 1-bit array generating a binary image cipher-text. This output is then `embedded' in a host image which is undertaken either in …

Input-Output Analysis Of Irish Construction Sector Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Adolf Acquaye, Aidan Duffy

Articles

Ireland is committed to limiting its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 113% of 1990 levels over the period 2008-12 and to 84% of 2005 levels by 2020 under the Kyoto Agreement and the EU’s ’20 20’ by 2020 respectively. National policies have targeted many industry sectors but have failed to directly tackle GHG emissions associated with construction activity. This paper estimates energy and GHG emissions intensities of the Irish construction sector and subsectors and estimates its contribution to Irish national emissions. This information is used to identify and assess the impacts of policy measures which would result in a reduction …

Measuring Variations Of Mimicry By Means Of Prosodic Cues In Task-Based Scenarios And Conversational Speech, Brian Vaughan, Celine De Looze

Other resources

Here, we address the measurement of mimicry, that is when speakers’ speech variations look like parallel patterns.

As a definition of mimicry, we often read in the literature description such as mimicry is “The situation where the observed behaviours of two inter-actants although dissimilar at the start of the interaction are moving towards behavioral matching”. These types of descriptions imply that mimicry is a linear phenomenon and that speakers tend to imitate over time. However, it can be assumed, especially when studying spontaneous speech, that there are rather phases of mimicry and non-mimicry and that mimicry should be rather …

Applying Geographic Information Systems To Support Strategic Environmental Assessment: Opportunities And Limitations In The Context Of Irish Land-Use Plans, Ainhoa Gonzalez, Alan Gilmer, Ronan Foley, John Sweeney, John Fry

Articles

The strengthening of spatial database infrastructures, further promoted by the INSPIRE Directive adopted in 2007, has led to an increased use of spatial data in planning and decision-making. Given that land-use plans are intrinsically spatial, such evidence and approaches can significantly benefit plan-making. A spatial framework could especially support the specific Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) aspects of the plan-making process. Spatial tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are particularly well-placed to support the environmental integration sought in SEA by providing evidence through the spatial assessment of multiple environmental datasets. Moreover, GIS bring the opportunity to augment conventional assessment techniques …

A Computational Analysis Of Cognitive Effort, Luca Longo, Stephen Barrett

Books/Book Chapters

Cognitive effort is a concept of unquestionable utility in understanding human behaviour. However, cognitive effort has been defined in several ways in literature and in everyday life, suffering from a partial understanding. It is common to say “Pay more attention in studying that subject” or “How much effort did you spend in resolving that task?”, but what does it really mean? This contribution tries to clarify the concept of cognitive effort, by introducing its main influencing factors and by presenting a formalism which provides us with a tool for precise discussion. The formalism is implementable as a computational concept and …

Authentication Of Biometric Features Using Texture Coding For Id Cards, Jonathan Blackledge, Eugene Coyle

Conference papers

The use of image based information exchange has grown rapidly over the years in terms of both e-to-e image storage and transmission and in terms of maintaining paper documents in electronic form. Further, with the dramatic improvements in the quality of COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) printing and scanning devices, the ability to counterfeit electronic and printed documents has become a widespread problem. Consequently, there has been an increasing demand to develop digital watermarking techniques which can be applied to both electronic and printed images (and documents) that can be authenticated, prevent unauthorized copying of their content and, in the case of printed …

On The Applications Of Deterministic Chaos For Encrypting Data On The Cloud, Jonathan Blackledge, Nikolai Ptitsyn

Conference papers

Cloud computing is expected to grow considerably in the future because it has so many advantages with regard to sale and cost, change management, next generation architectures, choice and agility. However, one of the principal concerns for users of the Cloud is lack of control and above all, data security. This paper considers an approach to encrypting information before it is ‘place’ on the Cloud where each user has access to their own encryption algorithm, an algorithm that is based on a set of Iterative Function Systems that outputs a chaotic number stream, designed to produce a cryptographically secure cipher. …