The aim of this thesis project was to migrate an existing excel-based application, used to analyze energy use and carbon dioxide emission of companies, to a web-based application. Special development questions were put around which software development process, solution stack and user interface to be used according to the company needs. The spiral lifecycle model has been chosen because it provides a clear view of the process and has the concept of early prototypes. A solution stack based on Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL has been chosen because such approach has met the company requirements in terms of cost, security, support, and maintenance. As a result, the developed web-based system overcomes the problems normally found in excel-based applications, such as application deployment and maintenance, and provides a more usable and richer user interface.

The aim of this thesis project was to migrate an existing excel-based application, used to analyze energy use and carbon dioxide emission of companies, to a web-based application. Special development questions were put around which software development process, solution stack and user interface to be used according to the company needs. The spiral lifecycle model has been chosen because it provides a clear view of the process and has the concept of early prototypes. A solution stack based on Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL has been chosen because such approach has met the company requirements in terms of cost, security, support, and maintenance. As a result, the developed web-based system overcomes the problems normally found in excel-based applications, such as application deployment and maintenance, and provides a more usable and richer user interface.

Testing centers are a useful tool to help instructors deliver computer-based tests, but computers resources are expensive and therefore limited. This paper describes a method by which testing center(s) may use iNetTest, a web-based computer aided testing system, to house and administer exams. The algorithm discussed in this paper makes it possible for instructors to schedule tests for a given time frame while ensuring that enough computer resources will be available to all of the students. The algorithm prevents the testing center from getting overwhelmed with students while attempting to maximize the usage of the valuable computer resources.

Computer-aided Design (CAD) and Computer-aided Manufacturing (CAM) play an important role during the design and production phase of a product. CAD allows for generation of two and three-dimensional models of the product with the help of solid modelers and CAM allows for production planning of the product using tools such as a CAM package. Both CAD and CAM tools are highly specialized in nature and at the same time expensive to own. Large industries can afford to own such systems and experts to operate them but small and custom product industries cannot afford these benefits due to high design and manufacturing costs involved and complexity involved in using these systems. This has led to less popularity of CAD and CAM systems in custom product industries. A web based design tool can offer the functionality of a CAD system to custom product industries by allowing them to create and design three-dimensional models over the web. This method helps in simplifying the complexity involved in solid modeling by automating the commonly performed design operations using design algorithms. At the same time a web based manufacturing tool can allow for automatic generation of tool-paths for machining using a CNC machine. Although a web based design tool offers the required benefits to custom product industries, offering just the functionality of a CAD system may not be useful to the users of the web-based system who are usually carvers and artisans with minimal or no knowledge of CAD. An alternative method and its implementation are presented in this thesis. The method allows for creating user-defined parametric features using simple tools that can be offered in a web based application. The system takes advantage of the built-in API tools in a solid modeler and advanced web-based technologies to integrate them into a simple and easy to use web based design system. Identification of key elements in designing user-defined features and a framework for implementing them are discussed. Also different types of user-defined features that can be offered in a web application with examples of their implementation in a real world application for designing custom wooden signs are presented.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the satisfaction and the motivation on the web-based professional development for elementary school teachers. There are 514 Ping Tung elementary school teachers participated in this study. ¡§the instrument of the motivation on the web-based professional development for elementary school teachers¡¨ as well as ¡§the instrument of satisfaction of web-based professional development for elementary school teachers¡¨ are included. Descriptive analysis, T test, ANOVA and regression are utilized to data analysis. The results are as followings: 1.Of the motivation on web-based professional development, ¡§self development¡¨ gets the highest scores; ¡§social relationship¡¨ gets the lowest scores. 2.Of the satisfaction of the web-based professional development, ¡§economical benefits¡¨ gets the highest scores; 3.Six variables, which are gender, age, educational background, professional post and school district and school size significantly effected on the motivation of web-based professional development. 4.Six variables, which are gender, age, seniority, professional post and school district and school size significantly effected on the satisfaction of web-based professional development. 5.The satisfaction of web-based professional development is positively related to the motivation of web-based professional development. Results of this study would provide referable guidance to related teachers and educational departments when drawing up the future professional development.

This study aims to investigate existing sustainability-related curriculum of business schools within Greater China and take China and Taiwan these two nations as examples for further comparison. Based on a review of current literatures connected to sustainability relevant topics in the ¡§literatures review¡¨ section it gives an overview of existing related discussions and the present circumstances of sustainable development of academic studies. The ¡§research design and methodology¡¨ section describes the research issues in detail and explains practical implement procedures for studying sustainability-related curriculum of sampled business schools in Greater China countries by a web-based content analysis method. Furthermore, this study indicates the findings from the collection information and gives suggestions for future researches in this area. There are 206 business schools within Greater China investigated by this study. The significant findings of this study include (a) 82% of business schools in Greater China provide sustainability-related courses indicating that there is a trend in Greater China business schools toward building sustainability-related education into schools¡¦ curriculum, (b) there is difference between China and Taiwan¡¦s business schools in terms of sustainability-related course number per business and their course arrangement, (c) business schools in China and Taiwan have partially overlapping in course content and instruction method of sustainability-related curriculum, (d) but obviously China lacks of CSR related courses in business schools.

During the last decade, the Internet and Geographic Information System (GIS) have made changes in the relationship between governments and citizens in many developed countries. Citizens, in such countries, have been given more chances to participate in the decision making process of the spatial issues relevant to them. Such participation has helping to make urban planning more democratic and to make planners plan with the public rather than plan for the public. In Saudi Arabia (a developing country), participation of citizens in spatial decision making is very limited. Such limitation is more severe when considering women due to the circumstance of gender segregation in the Saudi society. While males may somehow muddle through ways to express their views about spatial issues to the planning authority, females have no ways unless they behave against the local norms. There is a persistent need for implementing distance participation for women in Saudi Arabia. This research examines whether developing and employing an Internet / GIS participatory approach can facilitate (without conflicting with the local conservative cultural norms) women’s participation in the municipal decision making process of the neighborhood’s outdoor recreational facilities. The goal was primarily to adapt the technology to serve the society instead of necessitating the society to change its inherited norms to be able to advance. The research involved an exploratory ethnographic case study carried out in a selected residential community in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The research was carried out in two phases where the current status of public participation in the Saudi community planning was investigated first, and then a prototype for an Internet/GIS system for female public participation was developed and evaluated. The research found that there is a legitimate enthusiasm amongst the public and officials of the research sample for adopting e-public participation. Such enthusiasm is supported by a number of political, economical, technological and religious reasons. However, the findings showed that adopting e-public participation is more promising in the near future than currently due to different reasons including the current relatively small number of Internet users in Saudi Arabia. Since such research is the first of its type to be conducted in the Saudi context, the findings can serve as a road map indicating that adopting e-public participation in Saudi Arabia is promising and worth researching.

Today the web has become a major conduit for information. As the World Wide Web?s popularity continues to increase, information security on the web has become an increasing concern. Web information security is related to availability, confidentiality, and data integrity. According to the reports from http://www.securityfocus.com in May 2006, operating systems account for 9% vulnerability, web-based software systems account for 61% vulnerability, and other applications account for 30% vulnerability. In this dissertation, I present a security analysis model using the Markov Process Model. Risk analysis is conducted using fuzzy logic method and information entropy theory. In a web-based application system, security risk is most related to the current states in software systems and hardware systems, and independent of web application system states in the past. Therefore, the web-based applications can be approximately modeled by the Markov Process Model. The web-based applications can be conceptually expressed in the discrete states of (web_client_good; web_server_good, web_server_vulnerable, web_server_attacked, web_server_security_failed; database_server_good, database_server_vulnerable, database_server_attacked, database_server_security_failed) as state space in the Markov Chain. The vulnerable behavior and system response in the web-based applications are analyzed in this dissertation. The analyses focus on functional availability-related aspects: the probability of reaching a particular security failed state and the mean time to the security failure of a system. Vulnerability risk index is classified in three levels as an indicator of the level of security (low level, high level, and failed level). An illustrative application example is provided. As the second objective of this dissertation, I propose a security improvement model for the web-based applications using the GeoIP services in the formal methods. In the security improvement model, web access is authenticated in role-based access control using user logins, remote IP addresses, and physical locations as subject credentials to combine with the requested objects and privilege modes. Access control algorithms are developed for subjects, objects, and access privileges. A secure implementation architecture is presented. In summary, the dissertation has developed security analysis and improvement model for the web-based application. Future work will address Markov Process Model validation when security data collection becomes easy. Security improvement model will be evaluated in performance aspect.

Information System (IS) effectiveness assessment is an important issue for the organizations as IS have become critical for their survival. With the incorporation of Internet technologies into the business environment, it is now more difficult to measure IS effectiveness, because Internet provides a borderless, non-stop, flexible communication medium. Assessing the effectiveness of web-based information systems (WIS) is vital for survival and competitive advantage which is a complicated subject since there are several interacting factors to consider. In the literature there are several methods proposed for IS assessment. However, those studies have been far from providing a broad, comprehensive evaluation framework for any type of web-based IS independent of its domain. In this study, a generic WIS effectiveness assessment framework is proposed. The framework is applied in case studies consisting of four organizations in e-commerce and e-banking domains.

ABSTRACT The main purpose of this study is to investigate the usage of web-based teachers' training in elementary and high school. This study adopts motivational orientations and TAM to explore the related factors that affect the usage of web-based teachers' training. The study depends on literature analysis and uses the questionnaire to collect data. A total of 658 subjects attending teachers' training courses are from K12 Digital School. The collected data is processed and analyzed with SPSS for Windows 10.0, and statistical methods adopted in this study are descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, regression analysis and so on. The main findings show that there are 8 motivational orientations for web-based teachers' training and motivational orientations are significant differences among subjects in different age, status, school level and teaching years. Furthermore, computer self-efficacy, social relationships and attitude toward using will significantly affect the usage of web-based teachers' training positively, and perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use toward web-based training system will significantly affect attitude. As for perceived ease of use toward web-based training system, it will significantly affect perceived usefulness toward web-based training system and be affected by computer self-efficacy positively. Finally, based on the research findings, this study proposes conclusions and suggestions for the related organizations and the follow-up research.