in the virtual extension
DOI: 10.1145/1629175.1629179
in the Virtual extension
Communications’ Virtual Extension brings more quality articles to ACM
members. These articles are now available in the ACM Digital Library.
Think Big for Reuse
Paul D. Witman and Terry Ryan
How can organizations successfully
reuse not just objects and components,
but rather very large-grained software
elements, that is, entire systems and
subsystems? this article examines
an entire Internet banking system
(applications and infrastructure) reused
in business units all over the world.
the authors explore the case of the
Bigfinancial technology Center, and
its parent company, which has created
a number of software systems that have
been reused in multiple businesses and in
multiple countries. the article focuses on
technology, process, and organizational
elements of the development process,
rather than on specific product features
and functions.
using the Thread-fabric
Perspective to Analyze
industry Dynamics
DongBack Seo and King-Tim Nak
to strive for competitive advantage, firms
in the wireless industry are forming and
dissolving partnerships and value chains
at a rapid pace. More broadly, the nature
of modern business competition appears
to be undergoing a fundamental change.
to explore the new industrial dynamics,
the authors use the intuitive ideas of
threads, fabric, and weaving to develop
a framework that promises to facilitate
the description and analysis of highly
competitive and dynamic industries
such as the wireless industry. the article
aims to enhance our understanding of
the changing value chain dynamics in
modern industries by examining the
wireless industry as a prototype.
security constructs for
Regulatory compliant storage
Randal Burns and Zachary Peterson
Legislators and the courts have begun
to recognize the importance of securing
and maintaining electronic records.
Sweeping pieces of electronic record
management legislation, including
Sarbanes-oxley and HIPAA, now require
storage systems to ensure the integrity
and authenticity of financial records,
protect consumer privacy, and guard
against the unauthorized disclosure of
a patient’s medical information. Many
storage vendors now provide “compliant”
versions of their storage products, but
often these platforms do not provide
cryptographically strong evidence of
compliance. the authors review three
security constructs pursuant to meeting
the requirements set forth by electronic
records legislation.
The future of Digital imaging
Wonchang Hur and Dongsoo Kim
the authors envision digital imaging
services in radiology, with emphasis
on the recent advancements in digital
imaging technology and its future
direction. they focus on the four major
issues prevailing in current imaging
business practices: specialization,
flexibility, reliability, and usability. In
addition, they investigate the kinds
of technologies pertaining to each
issue, as well as the ways in which such
technologies have enabled the invention
of innovative services in diagnostic
imaging practice.
mobile Web 2.0 with
multidisplay Buttons
Seongwoon Kim, Inseong Lee, Kiho Lee,
Seungki Jung, Joonah Park, Yuen Bae Kim,
Sang Ryong Kim, and Jinwoo Kim
User-generated content (UGC) has
become popular among Internet users
for creating and sharing new media
content. Mobile UGC services, with the
technological advantages they possess
and the convenience they offer in
capturing new media content and adding
tags, are likely to become the main driver
of the UGC paradigm. Conventional
mobile phone interfaces, however, do
not support the exploratory browsing
behavior typical of mobile UGC. In this
study, the authors designed a new user
interface specifically for exploratory
browsing with a tag-based structure and
a multidisplay button interface, and
empirically investigated user perceptions
of the new interface.
Designing Data Governance
Vijay Khatri and Carol V. Brown
As data is increasingly acknowledged as
an organizational asset, organization
leaders are realizing that data governance
is critical for deriving business value.
Building on an earlier It governance
model, the authors present a set of five
data decision domains: data principles,
data quality, metadata, data access, and
data life cycle. they also discuss why
they are important, and offer guidelines
for what governance is needed for each
decision domain. By operationalizing
the locus of accountability of decision
making (the “who”) for each decision
domain, the authors create a data
governance matrix that can be used by
practitioners to design a governance
model for their data assets.
Domotic Technologies
incompatibility Becomes
user Transparent
Vittorio Miori, Dario Russo,
and Massimo Aliberti
the authors propose a solution to
help overcome the obstacles currently
hindering the spread of domotics (or,
home automation). their idea will
enable consumers to freely choose
home automation devices and systems
based solely on considerations of
cost, function, aesthetics, and brand
preference, without any technical
constraints. Moreover, users will be
spared the frustrations of incompatible
manufacturing products based on
proprietary technologies. In short,
the open standards proposed promise
to bring about a spectacular surge in
domotic services and applications.
Technical opinion:
Random selection
from a stream of events
Zvi Drezner
Consider a stream of events received
during a limited period of time, such
as applications on the Internet. one
event needs to be randomly selected as a
“winner.” Due to physical limitations, the
list of all events cannot be stored. thus,
the winner cannot be selected at the end
of the period. It is not known how many
events will materialize. Each event should
be selected with the same probability.
the author ponders a simple way for
such a selection on the fly.