Bottomland hardwood forests are highly productive ecosystems which perform many important ecological services. Unfortunately, many bottomland hardwood forests have been degraded or lost. Accurate land cover mapping is crucial for management decisions affecting these disappearing systems. SPOT-5 imagery from 2005 was combined with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data from 2006 and several ancillary datasets to map a portion of the bottomland hardwood system found in the Sulphur River Basin of Northeast Texas. Pixel-based classification techniques, rulebased classification techniques, and object-based classification techniques were used to distinguish nine land cover types in the area. The rule-based classification (84.41% overall accuracy) outperformed the other classification methods because it more effectively incorporated the LiDAR and ancillary datasets when needed. This output was compared to previous classifications from 1974, 1984, 1991, and 1997 to determine abundance trends in the area’s bottomland hardwood forests. The classifications from 1974-1991 were conducted using identical class definitions and input imagery (Landsat MSS 60m), and the direct comparison demonstrates an overall declining trend in bottomland hardwood abundance. The trend levels off in 1997 when medium resolution imagery was first utilized (Landsat TM 30m) and the 2005 classification also shows an increase in bottomland hardwood from 1997 to 2005, when SPOT-5 10m imagery was used. However, when the classifications are re-sampled to the same resolution (60m), the percent area of bottomland hardwood consistently decreases from 1974-2005. Additional investigation of object-oriented classification proved useful. A major shortcoming of object-based classification is limited justification regarding the selection of segmentation parameters. Often, segmentation parameters are arbitrarily defined using general guidelines or are determined through a large number of parameter combinations. This research justifies the selection of segmentation parameters through a process that utilizes landscape metrics and statistical techniques to determine ideal segmentation parameters. The classification resulting from these parameters outperforms the classification resulting from arbitrary parameters by approximately three to six percent in terms of overall accuracy, demonstrating that landscape metrics can be successfully linked to segmentation parameters in order to create image objects that more closely resemble real-world objects and result in a more accurate final classification.

Component-based software is finally taking off in a big way and component-based application generators have been championed because they can be used to shorten a system¡¦s development cycle and therefore lower its development costs. Component-based application generators are standardardized building blocks that can be used to assemble, rather that develop, information systems (IS). This paper presents a component-based application generator in the restaurant food ordering setting and a requirement modeling methodology for IS construction based on the generator presented. A prototype was assembled using the generator and methodology presented to illustrate the concepts and application. With this approach, system developers or end users can more easily build, modify and maintain their applications.

The purpose of this study is to examine the opinions of elementary schools faculties and folks in Kaohsiung city and Kaohsiung county on the core school-based management balance mode in order to properly promote power and status of elementary schools faculties and folks and elementary education efficiency. This study was conducted by literature analysis and questionnaires survey. The subject of this study is the faculties and folks of the elementary schools located in Kaohsiung city and Kaohsiung county. The data was collected by the self-designed scale of the researcher, and analyzed by the statistic methods of frequency distribution, percentage, mean, standard deviation, independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, and chi-square test. The sampling subjects are 490 school faculties and 160 folks with valid samples of 557. The following conclusions are derived: First, our country has already had the authorized foundation to promote the core school-based management balance mode. Secondly, on the whole, the opinions of elementary schools faculties on the core school-based management balance mode are apparently different owing to the different educational background. Third, the opinions of elementary schools folks on the core school-based management balance mode are not apparently different owing to the different background and environment. Forth, the character of core school committee of balance mode is decision-making. The members should include the teacher with administration (including head of office and team leader), the teacher, principal, folks and scholars; in addition, the teacher will possess more seating and be the first one on the allocation of member seating arrangement. Lastly, the study results are analyzed and discussed to provide conclusions and suggestions for the reference of education governing authorities, school administrations and related studies.

We propose a novel call admission control which makes use of ratio-based traffic measurement to estimate the required bandwidth when a new call is issued. Existing approaches fail to estimate properly the required bandwidth. To alleviate the problem, we calculate the ratio between the measured mean rate and the mean rate declared by UPC parameters. The ratio and the target cell loss rate are used to estimate the required bandwidth to make decision if a new call is accepted or rejected. Because of more accurate estimation of required bandwidth, our method can provide a better control on quality of service.

Over the last few years, peer-to-peer (P2P) applications have relentlessly grown to represent a formidable component of Internet traffic. In contract to P2P networks witch used well-defined port number, current P2P applications have use of arbitrary ports. As P2P applications continue to evolve, robust and effective methods are methods are needed for P2P traffic identification. Many P2P applications are bandwidth-intensive. Understanding the Internet traffic profile is important for several reasons, including traffic engineering, network service pricing. In this Thesis, we integrated port-based method into original Classifier which is using content-based method only. Therefore, we can improve the recognition rate for Classifier and identify more applications. We also verified our Classifier recognition rate by using the results of Service Control Engine.

Abstract Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) is a relatively new encryption technology which is similar to multi-receiver encryption but the privacy of ciphertext receivers is protected by a set of attributes such that no one, even the encryptor, knows the identities of the receivers. Although the identities of those receivers remain unknown, the encryptor can ensure that all of the receivers cannot decrypt the ciphertext except for those who match the restrictions on predefined attribute values associated with the ciphertext. However, maintaining the correctness of users¡¦ attributes will take huge cost because the interactions between all users and the key generation center (KGC) are required to renew all of their private keys whenever a user joins, leaves the group, or updates the value of any of his attributes. Since user joining, leaving, and attribute updating may occur frequently in real situations, membership management will become a quite important issue in an ABE system but no existing scheme can perfectly cope with this problem. In this manuscript, we will present an ABE scheme which aims at the issue on dynamic membership management. Our work keeps high flexibility of the constrains on attributes and makes it possible for the procedures of user joining, leaving, and attribute updating to be dynamic, that is, it is not necessary for those users who do not update their attribute statuses to renew their private keys when some user changes his status. Finally, we also formally prove the security of the proposed scheme.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-205). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-205). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1980.

This thesis describes the application of a novel decision support process for machined part estimating in small and medium-sized engineering companies. Many SMEs tend to adopt manual estimating techniques, however this dependence on human expertise represents a risk to such organizations. Better information management in estimating can improve process performance and contribute to increased competitiveness. The research which is the subject of this thesis investigated whether a systems approach to machined part estimating would extend the capacity of an SME to manage knowledge more effectively. The research explored the workplace learning context, the provision of learning opportunities and the management of organizational knowledge; before determining that an intelligent information system offered the most beneficial solution to the situation-of-interest. The case study company produce low-volume, make-to-order, medium and large sized machined steel forgings; utilising conventional machine tool equipment. The application of the decision support system enabled novice estimators to produce viable cost estimates; reducing the risk from reliance on human expertise inherent in manual estimating. The hybrid feature-based costing / case-based reasoning estimating technique, which is the core of the novel METALmpe cost model, proved exceptionally well suited to the SME environment. Estimates produced using METALmpe were consistently more accurate than those of the human expert; with a level of accuracy that exceeds the initial research aim, i.e. a tolerance of -5% / +10%. Significantly, implementation of METALmpe (hardware, software and support for 5 users), can be provided at a cost which is within the typical information technology budget of many SMEs. With demands on organizations to process and disseminate ever increasing volumes of information, METALmpe can improve an SME’s information management capabilities and contribute to competitive advantage through strengthening strategic assets and core competencies.