Journal of Systems and Information Technology

Kamran Munir

2014 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-01-2014-0004

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrated analysis base to facilitate computational neuroscience experiments, following a user‐led approach to provide access to the integrated neuroscience data and to enable the analyses demanded by the biomedical research community. Design/methodology/approach – The design and development of the N4U analysis base and related information services addresses the existing research and practical challenges by offering an integrated medical data analysis environment with the necessary building blocks for neuroscientists to optimally exploit neuroscience workflows, large image data sets and algorithms to conduct analyses. Findings – The provision of an integrated e‐science environment of computational neuroimaging can enhance the prospects, speed and utility of the data analysis process for neurodegenerative diseases. Originality/value – The N4U analysis base enables conducting biomedical data analyses by indexing and interlinking the neuroimaging and clinical study data sets stored on the grid infrastructure, algorithms and scientific workflow definitions along with their associated provenance information.

Angeliki Vos

2014 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-01-2014-0008

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate risk reduction strategies in online shopping through the perspective of buyer’s trust. Design/methodology/approach – An explanatory research approach is adopted to identify cause‐and‐effect relationships between e‐quality and customers’ loyalty, satisfaction and trust. This approach is accomplished through field research, which is based on a structured questionnaire that utilizes the E‐S‐QUAL tool, which is a multiple‐item general scale for measuring electronic service quality. The sample is consisted of 92 e‐buyers (consumers). Findings – The field research revealed that three e‐quality dimensions, namely, ease of use, customization and assurance, e‐scape and responsiveness, have significant positive effects on e‐loyalty and e‐satisfaction. Regarding e‐trust, only customization and assurance exerts a significant positive effect. Research limitations/implications – The field research provides in‐depth understanding of relationships among e‐loyalty, e‐satisfaction and e‐trust. The majority of the respondents are young people living in Athens, Greece, highly educated, with a relative low monthly income. Originality/value – This study investigates how trust is affecting the consumers’ engagement to e‐commerce, suggesting the appropriate security that should be taken to mitigate perceived risks. Reviewing security measures can help reduce risks of an e‐company and simultaneously enforce the level of trust and customers' intentions to buy.

Damianos Sakas

2014 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-01-2014-0005

Purpose – The purpose of this research work is to find a methodology for the strategic development of competitive advantage for information technology (IT) companies (Mezger and Violani, 2011). The ultimate aim of this project is to develop a methodological approach on this issue, based on dynamic simulation models (DSM) (Wirahadikusumah and Abraham, 2003). With the aid of DSM, senior managements of organizations will have the opportunity to make decisions of assured success. This success shall be guaranteed by the realization of entrepreneurial activity in a safe and inexpensive computing environment before actual investment. Design/methodology/approach – This paper highlights the advantages of the dynamic modelling of systems aiming at developing competitive advantage for IT companies (Ordóñez de Pablos, 2006). In this research, we have used the science of design and the research methodology for testing the concept of modelling as well as the process of modelling. The models have been completed through a series of alternations and iterations in the design, development, simulation, testing and evaluation. Findings – This paper examines the interface among several dimensions for the development of dynamic models. The validity and usefulness of those models in the process of decision‐making has been confirmed by the usage of dynamic models in various sectors. Originality/value – This paper applies the system and the concepts of dynamic modelling, which are pioneering elements as to their nature and evolution. Although the sector, where the modelling was applied, is an IT company, the concepts and principles investigated, developed and validated can be applied to most enterprises.

Efthymia Metalidou

2014 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-01-2014-0007

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association of lack of awareness and human factors and the association of lack of awareness and significant attacks that threat computer security in higher education. Design/methodology/approach – Five human factors and nine attacks are considered to investigate their relationship. A field research is conducted on Greek employees in higher education to identify the human factors that affect information security. The sample is consisted of 103 employees that use computers at work. Pearson correlation analysis between lack of awareness and nine (9) computer security risks is performed. Findings – Examining the association of lack of awareness with these attacks that threat the security of computers, all nine factors of important attacks exert significant and positive effect, apart from phishing. Considering the relationship of lack of awareness to human factors, all five human factors used are significantly and positively correlated with lack of awareness. Moreover, all nine important attacks, apart from one, exert a significant and positive effect. Research limitations/implications – The paper extends understanding of the relationship of the human factors, the lack of awareness and information security. The study has focused on employees of the Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Athens, namely, teachers, administrators and working post‐graduate students. Originality/value – The paper has used weighted factors based on data collection in higher education to calculate a global index for lack of awareness, as the result of the weighted aggregation of nine (9) risks, and extends the analysis performed in the literature to evaluate the effectiveness of security awareness in computer risk management.

Theodoros Anagnostopoulos

2014 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-01-2014-0009

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the emotional state of a human being by capturing the speech utterances that are used during common conversation. Human beings except of thinking creatures are also sentimental and emotional organisms. There are six universal basic emotions plus a neutral emotion: happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, disgust and neutral. Design/methodology/approach – It is proved that, given enough acoustic evidence, the emotional state of a person can be classified by an ensemble majority voting classifier. The proposed ensemble classifier is constructed over three base classifiers: k nearest neighbors, C4.5 and support vector machine (SVM) polynomial kernel. Findings – The proposed ensemble classifier achieves better performance than each base classifier. It is compared with two other ensemble classifiers: one‐against‐all (OAA) multiclass SVM with radial basis function kernels and OAA multiclass SVM with hybrid kernels. The proposed ensemble classifier achieves better performance than the other two ensemble classifiers. Originality/value – The current paper performs emotion classification with an ensemble majority voting classifier that combines three certain types of base classifiers which are of low computational complexity. The base classifiers stem from different theoretical background to avoid bias and redundancy. It gives to the proposed ensemble classifier the ability to be generalized in the emotion domain space.

Konstadinos Kutsikos

2014 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-02-2014-0015

Purpose – The need for modern enterprises to seamlessly interoperate poses significant challenges on their capabilities for engaging in multiple business networks. This paper considers a particular type of business network, namely, “service ecosystems”, and proposes architecture for enabling business firms to: control dissemination and usage of the resources they contribute to the ecosystem; and develop corresponding service offerings. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review informed our research work and contextualized the development of relevant research questions. The research questions were based on unstructured, creative techniques (e.g. brainstorming), combined with rigorous requirements specification for software tools developed as part of this research. Overall development was based on service science and enterprise interoperability research, distilled in four principles that provided the context and direction for this work. Findings – Three key components of the proposed architecture were developed: service map, which identifies the building blocks needed to construct a service ecosystem; interoperability model, as a decision‐making mechanism for dynamic (re‐) arrangement of a service map’s building blocks; and shared service infrastructure for the provision of support services to all ecosystem participants. Originality/value – This research has advanced current thinking in developing and managing service ecosystems. By adopting a service science viewpoint (service value co‐creation, value‐in‐use), a holistic approach for building collaboration capabilities is described: at the enterprise level, it pertains to decision‐making mechanisms for service provision; at the ecosystem level, it pertains to a software platform for managing common collaboration tasks.