Analysis of Success Factors of Introducing SAP System for ERP Implementation in Small and Midsize Enterprises in Taiwan

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has become the core of successful information management and is also the foundation of corporate information systems for treating with everything related to corporate processes. The ERP implementation has been considered a complicated process because introducing process is involved with different potential conditions and factors so that they may affect the ultimate performance of ERP systems. The aim of this study is to analyze success factors of introducing SAP system for ERP implementation in small and midsized firms. The authors first found out past critical factors affecting the ERP implementation by means of literature review in order to understand results of past studies. Next, the authors widely collected the critical success factors from previous studies and sifted out representative factors to make up a questionnaire. Through the pilot study and questionnaire revision, the authors identified the content of the questionnaire and started interviewing job. When interviewing activities were finished, they began to study and analyze the data. Survey results indicate that three of the most important factors affecting ERP implementation are “top management support and commitment”, “project manager’s competence” and “communication and coordination effectiveness”.

An Affinity Based Complex Artificial Immune System

This paper proposes an affinity based complex artificial immune system considering the fact that the different eptitopes located on the surface of antigen can be recognized by a set of different paratopes expressed on the surface of immune cells. A neighborhood set consisting of immune cells with different affinities to a certain input antigen is built to simulate the nature immune behavior. Furthermore, the complex numbers are adopted as the data representation, besides the weight between different layers. In the simulations, the recognition on transformation patterns is performed to illustrate that the proposed system is capable of recognizing the transformation patterns and it has obviously higher noise tolerance ability than the previous system models.

Traffic-Signs Recognition System Based on FCM and Content-Based Image Retrieval

Artificial intelligent (AI) driving is an emerging technology, freeing the driver from driving. Some techniques for automatically driving have been developed; however, most can only recognize the traffic signs in particular groups, such as triangle signs for warning, circle signs for prohibition, and so forth, but cannot tell the exact meaning of every sign. In this paper, a framework for a traffic system recognition system is proposed. This system consists of two phases. The segmentation method, fuzzy c-means (FCM), is used to detect the traffic sign, whereas the Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) method is used to match traffic signs to those in a database to find the exact meaning of every detected sign.

Attitudes of Librarians in Selected Nigerian Universities towards Digital Libraries in E-Learning

The attitude of librarians in Nigerian university libraries has the potential to encourage or discourage digital libraries in e-learning. This paper addresses and discusses the attitudes of librarians towards digital library in e-learning, the imperativeness of training and knowledge for effective functionality of digital libraries in Nigerian universities. The paper uses the descriptive survey method to explore the attitudes of librarians towards digital libraries, advantages of digital libraries, and the types of e-learning that can be supported by digital libraries. It was discovered that training and knowledge are sine qua non of a positive attitude towards digital libraries in e-learning. And there was a high interest in the use of online information by researchers and learners but lack of awareness and how best to integrate e-learning resources into digital libraries pose a great challenge to the librarians in Nigerian universities.

Analysis the Typhoon Eyes of Megi from MTSAT Satellite Cloud Images with 3-D Profile Reconstruction

In this paper, image reconstruction technique (IRT) is used to reconstruct a 3-D profile of typhoons from MTSAT satellite cloud image data and based on a 1691 MHz receiver and iDAP system. The satellite cloud image data gives a single line profile slicing from a surface cloud image which does match the typhoon distribution. The line profile is presented with the temperature of the cloud top. The 3-D profiles of typhoons are constructed with the surface cloud images and the temperatures. IRT is conducted using the data of the 2010 Megi event. The typhoon feature is studied and the various typhoon eyes in three time intervals are analyzed. An effective early-warning system may become feasible based on this work.

Hierarchical Correlation of Multi-Scale Spatial Pyramid for Similar Mammogram Retrieval

In hospitals and medical institutes, a large number of mammograms are produced in ever increasing quantities and used for diagnostics and therapy. The need for effective methods to manage and retrieve those image resources has been actively pursued in the medical community. This paper proposes a hierarchical correlation calculation approach to content-based mammogram retrieval. In this approach, images are represented as a Gaussian pyramid with several reduced-resolution levels. A global search is first conducted to identify the optimal matching position, where the correlation between the query image and the target images in the database is maximal. Local search is performed in the region comprising the four child pixels at a higher resolution level to locate the position with maximal correlation at greater resolution. Finally, this position with the maximal correlation found at the finest resolution level is used as the image similarity measure for retrieving images. Experimental results have shown that this approach achieves 59% in precision and 54% in recall when the threshold of correlation is0.5.

A Presentation-Preserved Compositional Approach for Integrating Heterogeneous Systems

In traditional SCW environments, related web services are integrated into business processes. Web service still brings less than expected benefits to small corporations and end-users for two reasons: 1) the web service only focuses on data level and is difficult to implement the presentation-centric business contexts. 2) The small corporations and end-users usually do not have enough IT competences to write a client or user interface to interact with web service(s). In order to solve these problems, the author proposes a presentation-preserved compositional approach for service-oriented architecture (PCSOA), which extends the existing data-oriented compositional approaches for web services to provide a more flexible methodology to orchestrate both data level and presentation level services during the workflow integration. A prototype is also built to validate the feasibility of the approach.

Perceptions and Attitude of Students in Relation to Vandalism in University Libraries in South-South Zone of Nigeria

This study was conducted in December 2010 to find out students perception and attitude toward vandalism in the library. To gather the required information, a questionnaire was distributed to 1400 randomly selected students of university libraries in the South-South zone of Nigeria out of which 718 responded. Results of their responses revealed that vandalism of library materials in the form of theft, mutilation and hiding of books and journals, is largely regarded as a form of academic survival, this makes student to put up “I Don’t care” attitude to library materials. The major causes of vandalism of library materials include limited library collections; restrictions in the use of some materials; number and duration of loans; insufficient number of copies of recommended textbooks; unaffordable cost of personal textbooks; high cost of photocopying as well as peer-influence. Amongst others, researchers recommend the following: training and retraining programme for users, extension of loan period; adequate funding; robust security measures and punishment of offenders.

A Survey of Digital Forensic Techniques for Digital Libraries

Today, many digital forensic techniques for digital images are developed to serve the purpose of the origin identification and integrity verification for security reasons. Generally speaking, these methods can be divided into two classes, the methods based on the extracted features, which are usually the high frequency noise inside the investigating images and the methods based on the contents of the images. Different techniques may be developed specially against different forging attacks, while be vulnerable to other malicious manipulations on the images. This paper reviews the most popular techniques in order to help the user to understand the techniques and find the most proper methods for variety forensic purpose in different situations.

Predicting Users’ Acceptance of E-Library from the Perspective of Technology Acceptance Model

Universities are investing heavily in electronic resources. As a way of embracing new developments, the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, has spent millions of dollars building a usable e-library. However, research indicates that potential users may still not use e-libraries. This study examines user acceptance of e-library from the perspective of technology acceptance mode (TAM). E-library system characteristics, organisational context, and individual characteristics are identified as variables that determine acceptance. Data was collected through self-designed questionnaire from 1,500 undergraduate users of the e-library. The findings revealed that the acceptance constructs, ease of use, perceived usefulness, actual use, satisfaction, relevance, awareness, computer/internet self-efficacy, and social influence, significantly correlate with e-library acceptance. The study suggests that all eight factors jointly pulled 69% prediction of the users’ acceptance of e-library. The study recommends that e-library users at the university increase their computer and internet self-efficacy, which significantly enhances their use of the e-library system. The university can assist in this matter by organising computer training for the students.